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Thread 9627

Thread ID: 9627 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2003-09-08

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Brooke [OP]

2003-09-08 11:56 | User Profile

[url=http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,96679,00.html]Study: Immigration Biggest Contributor to Sprawl[/url]

Monday , September 08, 2003 By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

WASHINGTON — A new study suggests the only way to put a stop to rampant suburban sprawl is not better planning and zoning, or even encouraging people to move back into the cities, but by curbing immigration.

In August, the Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA Education and Research Foundation released a new study that already has drawn criticism from anti-sprawl activists.

“Outsmarting Smart Growth: Population Growth, Immigration, and the Problem of Sprawl” says new immigrants and children born to immigrants after they arrive in the United States account for [u]87 percent of the nation's population increase each year[/u].

On average, according to the report, each 10,000-person increase in state population from 1982 to 1997 has resulted in the loss of 1,600 acres of rural land lost to development.

“There is this kind of common sense,” Steve Camerota, president of CIS, told Foxnews.com. “You have 1.5 million immigrants coming into the United States each year; unless they all move into abandoned buildings, you are going to have to build them new housing.

“All of the environmentalists focused on limiting sprawl have not considered this. They have been unwilling to delve into immigration and population growth,” Camerota said.

Since World War II ended, families have earnestly and steadily migrated out of the nation’s cities and into newly created suburbs. Since 1990, “sprawl” has become a watchword for the rapidly, but often haphazardly, developing communities lying outside of the country’s metropolitan centers.

Experts say suburban migration illustrates an improved quality of life for many Americans as well as immigrants. But sprawl, characterized by the loss of rural land to housing developments, office parks, new schools, cookie-cutter strip malls and the long distances between them, has been blamed for everything from air pollution to ruining the aesthetic landscape of the nation.

And everyone agrees there is not one root cause or a silver-bullet solution.

“The problems we are having with increased traffic and air pollution is really the result of the way we have led development, not the result of more people,” said Barbara McCann, a spokeswoman for Smart Growth America (search), which recently released a study, “Measuring the Health Effects of Sprawl.”

The study found that communities that force people to drive everywhere, and don't offer sidewalks or bike paths, discourage physical activity and have contributed to the nation's obesity crisis. Sprawling communities also put pedestrians and drivers in more peril than communities that offer ample public transportation and a safe environment in which residents and workers can walk reasonable distances to their destinations.

Like many in the anti-sprawl movement, McCann says local and state governments did not plan well enough through creative zoning and road systems for the surge in development, and have not made cities attractive enough to encourage people to work and live there.

“Putting it all on immigration, that’s really a case of a group taking something they were already interested in, and twisting it to their advantage,” McCann said.

Camerota and co-author Roy Beck of NumbersUSA acknowledge that population growth isn’t the key factor for sprawl in every one of the 10 states that are experiencing massive spread, but it is a major factor in more than half of them.

And contrary to popular perception, they say about half of the country’s immigrants live in the suburbs.

“As soon as they get money and a family and need more space, they move to the suburbs,” said Beck, who pointed out that is a desire of many Americans. “They don’t want to live in the city, they want to live out in the suburbs where it is cheaper.”

Laura Olsen, spokeswoman for the Coalition for Smarter Growth, said immigrants can't be used as scapegoats everywhere. In many areas throughout the country — especially in the Midwest and Northeast regions — sprawl is caused by massive flight from the cities rather than new population growth.

Olsen and McCann both support “smart growth” strategies for communities — redesigning the layout of high-growth areas so that they are not only more aesthetically pleasing, but encourage walking, less traffic and a “Main Street” feel.

“Let’s make sure communities are walkable, people have access to schools, recreation and stores,” Olsen said.

Fairfax County, Va., is already pursuing that path. Despite an influx of immigrants to the area, massive growth in the Washington suburb has also been fueled by a surge of jobs and a constant spillover of commuters, said Jim Zook, director of planning and zoning for the county.

Zook said officials in the county, which increased by 150,000 residents through the 1990s, have developed a comprehensive plan that “shores up the edges” of the most densely populated areas and avoids development in open spaces.

Fairfax, like other communities in similar circumstances, is also planning to develop new mass transit rail lines and increased office and residential units around existing public transit.

“The question is how can growth be accommodated effectively and gracefully,” he said.

But given the present trends in population growth, planners cannot ignore immigration entirely when addressing the problem associated with sprawl, Beck said.

“The only way for any urban area to substantially tame its sprawl is for two things to happen — adopt a fairly rigorous smart growth policy, and two, reduce immigrant levels to what they used to be — a quarter of what they are now,” said Beck.

All Old Right

2003-09-08 16:52 | User Profile

Yep, all the mex's and brown people, and the raping of the rural land came at the same time. I don't even feel honest calling them anything but invaders anymore.

weisbrot

2003-09-08 17:35 | User Profile

*Originally posted by Brooke@Sep 8 2003, 07:56 * ** And contrary to popular perception, they say about half of the country’s immigrants live in the suburbs.

“As soon as they get money and a family and need more space, they move to the suburbs,” said Beck, who pointed out that is a desire of many Americans. “They don’t want to live in the city, they want to live out in the suburbs where it is cheaper.”

**

I can confirm this for the Atlanta area. And the flood of immigrants isn't confined just to the suburbs, although that is where the largest amount of immigrant-fueled growth is occurring in this area.

Fourteen years ago the city had one area- along Buford Highway, and into Chamblee just over the city line- that could be called "multicultural". That is, besides the public housing and all areas named after MLK which were in 'hoods no intelligent person would risk their lives- much less inhabit. As Atlanta prepared for the Olympics, there were grumbles that the city was far less "international" than it needed to be to present a sophisticated face to the world. Of course, the black syndicate running the city government handled that issue- the 1996 Olympics were an embarassment due to the ineptitude and corruption of the city government and assorted metro area interest groups. But the racial composition of Atlanta had already started to change.

Now huge chunks of the metro area are not only black but are nut-brown; Smyrna, Roswell and south Gwinnett county may as well be called Mexico. A few years back a Smyrna mayor was demonized for trying to pass a bill that would require signage to be in English; now in most of the suburb it is hard to find a single sign not in Spanish.

We have friends who have been hit several times by Mexicans driving without insurance or licenses. I was totaled by a Korean woman who couldn't even pronounce "insurance". Murders and gang attacks are increasingly common in the Hispanic areas. Vietnamese gangs have been implicated in several slayings, and drug trafficking by Haitians and Mexicans is exploding.

Yesterday we meandered around North Georgia with the kids, stopping at this waterfall and that trailhead. Eventually we made it over towards Helen and Gainesville, which is the area where Chester Doles lives. Without exaggeration, over fifty percent of the people we saw while driving through Helen (a somewhat obnoxious mountain tourist town to begin with) were Mexicans. When we stopped at the river to let the kids play, we were gone within a few minutes after watching carload after carload of Meztizos arrive, lugging cheap beer and babies in pendulous diapers. It is absolutely astounding to see the transformation of an area that we hiked and loved; this slice of North Georgia has lost forever the proud Appalachian traditions it once had in abundance to the abject greed of politicians in league with the textile and poultry industries.

We had discussed moving farther north, out of the close-in suburbs, in order to escape the coming flood of browns and blacks. The teeming hordes of Meztizos we saw yesterday made us begin to reconsider. Maybe there's another state where we can raise our kids in peace and harmony.

What's the average temperature in Reykjavik, anyway?