Comments on: Cure For Growthophobia

By: Porcupine

Porcupine — Thu, 18 May 2006 21:38:29 +0000

Guardian:
I’m sure that if you talk to the City of Boise that they would buy you a one way ticket back to your roots…. bet the Mayor would buy it himself!

By: Bikeboy Steve

Bikeboy Steve — Thu, 18 May 2006 13:01:08 +0000

Hey, Guardian… it’s not Grandpa Norm Alverson’s farm where the FBI is currently digging to find Jimmy Hoffa, is it?
(-;

By: Slim Jim

Slim Jim — Wed, 17 May 2006 14:46:37 +0000

Makes me miss the old Boise I was raised in. The one before “Urban Renewal” when the “city fathers” tore down most of downtown’s historic buildings (back then they were called eyesores). My grandparents had owned a hotel down there and my mother and uncles were raised there. It had been out of their hands for years…however, the memory is still there for the family.

The land that the hotel was on has never been built upon, it remains a parking lot.
I still have a dresser that mom was allowed to take before the hotel’s destruction.

By: john c.

john c. — Tue, 16 May 2006 00:22:59 +0000

Dave — Nice that you could visit your great-grandfather Alverson’s farm in Michigan. Nampa has changed so much that I can never “go home” and visit favorite childhood haunts They’re all housing tracts today. Oregon used to have a land-use planning system that protected farms and forests. But a couple of years ago, the short-sighted voters passed Measure 37, and it has since been upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court.

The measure provides that counties must either waive land-use regulations or pay compensation if the land-use rules reduce the market value of a given piece of property. Of course, it’s easy to see that the market value would be lower for a working farm than if that property were subdivided.

The measure was pushed by developers and realtors, and the stupid voters went along. So I guess Oregon’s landscape will eventually look like that of Southern California. It already does in some parts of the Portland area.

By: Bikeboy Steve

Bikeboy Steve — Mon, 15 May 2006 14:19:20 +0000

Guardian, as I read your reminiscences, a flood of my own came back. My Grandpa and Grandma lived in Manti, Utah, rather than Michigan, but I remember the plain but immaculate house, the raspberry bushes (yum!), the old washer on the back porch, the barn full of hay, the loft, the swinging-rope… (If I could somehow capture a moment of my life, and “lock in” for the rest of eternity, that one would be a good choice.)

It’s unlikely that Lenawee County is suffering similar growing pains to Ada and Canyon counties, despite its proximity to Detroit. (Detroit is probably losing population, no?) Manti still looks almost exactly like I remember it from 40+ years ago. Perhaps even the Vandevenders would bend, if the local authorities were applying relentless pressure – in the form of spiraling property taxes, urban encroachment, development of adjacent properties, etc.

As a libertarian-leaning type, I generally feel people have the right to do with their property whatever they want to. But there’s no denying that my choices can have an impact on my neighbor’s quality of life. A thousand new people just down the road can have a HUGE impact on my quality of life. And for that reason, I can support some responsible comprehensive planning, and government leaders with the means and the will to adhere to those plans.

(The most pathetic thing of all… the folks who buy a third-acre and slap-em-up cracker-box in a subdivision that was formerly in “the country,” believing they can somehow achieve the idyllic rural lifestyle in such a setting.)

By: T.J.

T.J. — Mon, 15 May 2006 02:35:20 +0000

What a wonderful story, Dave. It makes me feel better about the world and also makes me long for the days when a trip from Boise to my cousin’s house in Meridian involved going through lots of farm land with very few homes. Guess I’d better go see my cousin again before the farm she lives on now, south of Meridan, is also swallowed up by the unrelenting appetite of developers and builders. As my late mother-in-law used to say “I’m glad I won’t be around to see that.” In this case “that” would be the total coverage of all ground with asphalt and concrete.