Is long term liability worth short term growth?

Well now - my latest obsession (that which occupies my mind 24/7 when not thinking about other obsessions) has been how city's grow and city finances.  Not a new obsession at all, more of a life long one but perhaps a rebooting since I was assigned to the Columbus CDA.  I've skimmed a majority of 6 or 7 books on the subject of city planning (all from the middle 2000's and up, no need for books written in 1967 or anything) and all of them talk about NOT industry growth as the future, but making a town people friendly.  This seems like a no brainer but I guess it's not.      

But the eye opener comes from a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization called Strong Towns.  I listened to one of the presentations and I swear he was talking about Columbus.   For instance, at one point the guy asks the crowd.  How many of you have a highway that is suppose to be fixed by the DOT but they keep pushing the date back.    BINGO!!

Now I don't 100% fall into their ideas but I do agree with many many of their comments and visions.  While "city hall" in and Columbus boasts about The Gateway (I actually like The Gateway) and the Commerce Center (not so fond of that one) Columbus seems to ignore the downtown, what I call the true heart of Columbus.

The crux is that America is in a big experiment which started after WWII.  The idea was to take out big loans and attract industry for growth.  Seemed like a good idea.  But it's not working. Generation after generation keep taking out loans for business parks but there are hidden costs which don't show up for 20 years.  All of the new infrastructure is now 20+ years old and city's need to take out more loans OR leave city streets with pot holes to fix the business park infrastructures.

To cover the cost the idea is to buy MORE land (long term liability) to attract MORE business (short term growth).   

People will say growth is good but is it growth just for the sake of growth? At any cost?  When my stomach grows is that good?  Is Columbus getting fat?  We need GOOD growth, SMART growth.
There are hidden costs to growth that no one seems to talk about.  Hometown ShopKo is growth, is everybody ecstatic about that growth?  Will that ShopKo, in 20 years be MORE wonderful?   I think it is as good as it gets right now!   

I know there are some on the CC that agree with me, not so sure about CDA yet. While we build brand new roads on the edges of Columbus the roads IN Columbus are ignored.

Fix what you have, don't build new urban sprawl which will cost you money in the long run.

And BTW - Curt Hanson and The Gateway. While I might not 100% agree on The Gateway if you are going to do it, I applaud him.  Have you seen all the trees?  And the nice light poles (not the cheap wooden ones) or the extra wide sidewalks.  If you are going to have a business park, do it right, make it people friendly.

There is good growth and bad growth.

ANYWAY - that is my mindset at the moment.
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In other news - my football system which is still hitting 60% ATS after 22 years starts this week.  The big game is take the Eagles and the points over Denver, in Denver.

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Still working on my new  website (RodMelotte.com) and going through Terra bytes of photos.  One that surprised me this year was this one called Three Kows.  getting a lot of attention.  

 A fractizilation of this image.

You just never know what will capture peoples imagination.  Funny thing was while I was setting up this shot the cows were perfect and just as I start snapping the steer (to be correct) on the left starts peeing.  Gallons and gallons and gallons, I swear it took 5 minutes.

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Enough ! 

Rod