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Last Updated: Nov 14, 2008 - 12:49:26 PM |
Last week, finished with my stint at the Virginia Shakespeare Festival, I found time to catch up on other things.
I got back into my garden – none too soon, for the weeds were getting a trifle overconfident.
I cooked and refrigerated two messes of homegrown squash. Read up on how to sun-dry Roma tomatoes. Fixed a batch of sugar-and-grease patties for my beehives. Turned my compost heap.
Cut a lot of grass.
And, when the days got too hot, I caught two big midsummer movies: The Dark Knight – the new Batman movie – and Momma Mia!, a screen version of the Broadway hit based on the music of ABBA.
Indeed, this piece almost became a comparison of these two movies – as a metaphor for the presidential campaign.
Here’s how it might have gone. A short review of The Dark Knight – an overly ballyhooed flick which is dominating media attention and drawing hordes of youth to the cineplex. I found it emotionally shallow and, basically, dumb.
Next, a sunnier mini-review of Mamma Mia!, a delightful, heartwarming, and surprisingly meaningful film about the universality of passion, regardless of age, physical beauty or body-mass index.
Then the metaphor – I’m sure you can see it coming: Barack Obama – followed by the media elite – making a campaign swing through Europe and apparently upgrading his candidacy to running for President of the World. While good old John McCain – who’s been around longer than ABBA – struggles for courtesy coverage.
Ultimately, I decided not to run with that idea. It would have made a nice, light summertime piece – with just a hint of seriousness. But that’s the trouble with summer. It’s easy to take your eye off serious things and deal with the fluff.
And this week, Chesterfield County is addressing very serious issues.
Wednesday evening, our Board of Supervisors will take up proposed new water-quality standards for the Swift Creek Reservoir. Adoption of these standards would, apparently, severely limit future development around the reservoir.
It might even kill Roseland, a 5,440-unit project which is the type of walkable, mixed-use development – modeled on the New Urbanism – that Chesterfield wishes to encourage.
It’s a knotty issue, deserving the thoughtful attention of every serious County citizen.
And, not surprisingly, it’s being brought up in the middle of the summer – when most of us can be expected to be otherwise distracted.
In normal times, I’d be all for a development like Roseland. Like it or not, the Richmond area continues to grow – and Chesterfield will inevitably grow with it. Well-planned, New Urbanist developments are vastly preferable to old-style, automobile-dependent subdivisions.
But there’s a time unto every purpose – and this summer is no time to be approving any big new developments.
Now is the time to reflect upon where we are. To look at the factors which have changed us, in five or six decades, from a sleepy rural county of 40,000 to a sprawling bedroom county of 300,000.
And to consider the changes – some sudden, some long in the making – which so clearly mark an end to the development trends of the late 20th century.
Despite the recent – and very welcome – retreat in gasoline prices, we must ask ourselves what the long-term trend will be. China and India – with, between them, eight times America’s population – are becoming automotive societies. We can drill every drop out of ANWR, the coastal shelf, and Jed Clampett’s backyard – and supply will continue falling behind that level of demand.
Gasoline prices – which have doubled in a few years – could well double again in the next decade.
And if they do, what happens to the market for large, energy-inefficient homes located far from centers of work?
We’re also in the midst of a housing crisis. Of course, it’s possible that the whole problem will just go away. But it’s equally possible that Congress – in correcting the mess at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – will significantly reduce the tax and lending subsidies which have supported America’s long real estate booam.
Finally, after three decades of Republican government – and Democratic wimpiness – America today has the widest income disparity since before the Great Depression.
And, as in the ‘20s, when the working poor and lower middle classes can’t afford to participate – as purchasers of homes or consumer goods – that signals economic trouble, big-time.
These three factors – rising costs of commuting, the mortgage crisis and its aftermath, and widening income disparities – all threaten the long-term health of the housing market.
And the whole structure of Chesterfield’s finances.
Which is why Chesterfield’s leaders should take a serious pause before resuming the march of large-scale residential growth.
Tough water-quality standards for Swift Creek Reservoir seem an excellent way to buy the county a little time to see which way the long-term trends are headed.
The Board of Supervisors should approve the new water-quality standards and postpone the approval of new developments for the rest of 2008.
Perhaps they could even adjourn in time to catch the late showing of Mamma Mia!.
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