It has been a month since we had our local elections. In many counties in central Virginia new boards of supervisors were elected on the slow growth platform.
I have often wondered how a governing body can slow growth. Population growth is a natural factor and imigrants are coming here legally or illegually by the millions. So, people have to live somewhere.
Localities need to have better land use policies that plan for future growth. Land use plans should allow for higher densities which will reduce sprawl and infrastructure costs.
I find it ironic that these "slow growth" boards are most always elected immediately after a real estate boom and take office during a slowdown or recession in the economy when no one is interested in buying any land for development, in particular,residential development. Chesterfield County,Virgina comes to mind. The recent election and the one in 1991 have been compared as being similar in that the candidates ran on a slow or stop growth platform.1991 was in the middle of the S&L Crisis and a recession and today we have the "subprime mortgage housing crunch". So for the immediate future , the economy is what will slow growth not the government
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