Anonymous wrote:I work in Bethesda, live in DC. DW works downtown.

We often don't use our car at all during the week and aside from a$$hole aggressive drivers (almost all of whom are from MD) cutting through our neighborhood could care less about the congestion and the growth has improved our property values while giving us many more things we can easily reach from where we live.

But we'd be miserable too if we needed to drive everywhere but we made different choices.

First your sentence is a run on and didn't make much sense.

And second sorry pp but, the roads are for everyone. Just because more people in Bethesda are lawyers and got the special signs that limit others from driving through doesn't make it right. People in Montgomery county pay for your road just as you pay for the roads in Silver Spring ( where I live) Stop thinking of them as "your" roads.

This is insane. The population of all counties surrounding DC are growing. Do you want them closer in or driving an hour? It’s naive to think your “large mature trees” are environmentally valuable compared to plowing under forests up county.

Anonymous wrote:

That is propaganda. Japan, for example, is not headed for fiscal disaster.

Tell that to the Japanese government. They're very worried.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's so much simpler than any of you have stated.

Municipalities want growth because it means more taxpayers - both corporate and individual. It's all about revenue.

Oh, I thought it was because bureaucrats enjoy kickbacks from developers? Please advise.

Except that it is a Ponzi scheme. New residents cost more in infrastructure than they provide in tax revenue. Businesses maybe, but here in MoCo, we don't do business.

Your point is a bit muddled but it costs Montgomery County much less to accommodate new growth down county than up county where you need new roads, utilities, services etc. Yes you need to increase school capacity in both places but everything else is much less expensive to do in existing transit anchored communities - even fire and EMS services are less expensive in denser neighborhoods because those services are largely a function of geographic coverage and not population density.

And there are local and global benefits to preserving open space up county and not much downside to converting surface parking lots to higher density uses.

Unless you are a zero population zealot you need to have a feasible plan for accommodating population growth - and most countries with shrinking populations are headed for demographic and fiscal disasters.

That is propaganda. Japan, for example, is not headed for fiscal disaster.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's so much simpler than any of you have stated.

Municipalities want growth because it means more taxpayers - both corporate and individual. It's all about revenue.

Oh, I thought it was because bureaucrats enjoy kickbacks from developers? Please advise.

Except that it is a Ponzi scheme. New residents cost more in infrastructure than they provide in tax revenue. Businesses maybe, but here in MoCo, we don't do business.

Your point is a bit muddled but it costs Montgomery County much less to accommodate new growth down county than up county where you need new roads, utilities, services etc. Yes you need to increase school capacity in both places but everything else is much less expensive to do in existing transit anchored communities - even fire and EMS services are less expensive in denser neighborhoods because those services are largely a function of geographic coverage and not population density.

And there are local and global benefits to preserving open space up county and not much downside to converting surface parking lots to higher density uses.

Unless you are a zero population zealot you need to have a feasible plan for accommodating population growth - and most countries with shrinking populations are headed for demographic and fiscal disasters.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's so much simpler than any of you have stated.

Municipalities want growth because it means more taxpayers - both corporate and individual. It's all about revenue.

Oh, I thought it was because bureaucrats enjoy kickbacks from developers? Please advise.

Except that it is a Ponzi scheme. New residents cost more in infrastructure than they provide in tax revenue. Businesses maybe, but here in MoCo, we don't do business.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Growth is coming, because the US population is growing, while many areas of the country are in terminal decline. This region is relatively wealthy/dynamic.

So the only question is whether we have smart growth - investing in public transport, cycling infrastructure, preserving green space etc - or chaotic growth- with more congestion, overcrowding etc.

Because certain policymakers, who work just down the road, decided that their corporate donors needed more customers and cheaper labor. Immigrants and their children account for the growth, not births to the native population. It would be pretty easy to stop or reduce "growth", but that wouldn't meet the economic needs of our overseers.

Countries with shrinking populations are in economic death spirals because there are not enough workers to support retirees or economic growth.

In any case internal migration and the economic growth of prosperous regions in the US would likely still cause population growth in this region regardless of immigration and the fading states of the midwest would be in even more severe trouble without cheap immigrant labor to prop up their food industries.

As measured by GDP growth. Which by the way can't keep growing forever because eventually our country will be full. How about using GDP per capita as a measure of our success.

People are going to keep having kids. They're going to need somewhere to live.

Either dense up the urban areas or destroy more natural areas with continued sprawl. Tree killing NIMBYs in the inner core have destroyed thousands of acres of countryside by refusing to build atop of metro stations and enhance more urban options for living. Sprawl stretches farther and farther adding to a lifestyle dependent on cars and traffic, which makes everything worse.

Downtown Bethesda needs to look more like Roslyn than it does Potomac.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Endless growth isn't good, it's a scam; it's overpopulation, traffic, crime, litter, disease, stress, unhappiness. Growth = good is banker propaganda, period.

+ pollution*

+1 million

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Growth is coming, because the US population is growing, while many areas of the country are in terminal decline[b]. This region is relatively wealthy/dynamic.

So the only question is whether we have smart growth - investing in public transport, cycling infrastructure, preserving green space etc - or chaotic growth- with more congestion, overcrowding etc.

Which makes no sense.

Maybe the government can implement some programs to incentivize people to move to more depressed area. Even out the population a bit.

SO many people in the DC area could easily telework and do their jobs from anywhere in the country. Let them. Lots of Fed jobs can be done from elsewhere. Government would save money on facilities. People could move elsewhere. Win-win.

So many people work in all the major cities. They should just nuke New York and Dallas and force everyone to move to "the cuontry" right?

?? You sound unhinged.

Often times, the government steps in and provides incentives for people to move to an economically depressed area. It's not unheard of.

Often times, but that is not how the Trump Administration is doing it, so we will just have more giant single family homes taking over farmland.

Anonymous wrote:Endless growth isn't good, it's a scam; it's overpopulation, traffic, crime, litter, disease, stress, unhappiness. Growth = good is banker propaganda, period.

+ pollution*

Endless growth isn't good, it's a scam; it's overpopulation, traffic, crime, litter, disease, stress, unhappiness. Growth = good is banker propaganda, period.

Someone convince my wife that living in an exurban SFH (that we can afford) with two vehicles is not a requirement for happiness, then. I’ll be waiting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Growth is coming, because the US population is growing, while many areas of the country are in terminal decline[b]. This region is relatively wealthy/dynamic.

So the only question is whether we have smart growth - investing in public transport, cycling infrastructure, preserving green space etc - or chaotic growth- with more congestion, overcrowding etc.

Which makes no sense.

Maybe the government can implement some programs to incentivize people to move to more depressed area. Even out the population a bit.

SO many people in the DC area could easily telework and do their jobs from anywhere in the country. Let them. Lots of Fed jobs can be done from elsewhere. Government would save money on facilities. People could move elsewhere. Win-win.

So many people work in all the major cities. They should just nuke New York and Dallas and force everyone to move to "the cuontry" right?

?? You sound unhinged.

Often times, the government steps in and provides incentives for people to move to an economically depressed area. It's not unheard of.

Not unhinged. Yes it was over the top but the point is, you are focusing on the government when many more people do not work for the government and all cities are growing at the expense of the countryside.

Anonymous wrote:Speaking for DC, would really appreciate it not getting dramatically more dense, higher etc. If there are areas that were already concrete and they want to build a moderate apt. Building ok, but not knocking down rowhouses etc. This is politicians making deals with their developer donors . Neither of whom are urban planners - the former wants power and the latter wants $.

No, it's people responding to people's desires for places to live.

It's not the urban planners who oppose smart growth and more housing.