8 mile road construction

[JonWylie]

I have yet to hear a politican speak about one of the biggest issues when it comes to road funding. Probably because it cost them votes. One of the biggest problems is the continued sprawl of the suburbs exapanding farther out, specifically in Oakland and Macomb county. We have developers who develop cheap homes on big lots in far off suburbs and promise the city an increase in tax revenue. The tax revenue comes, the city makes improvements, and then the developer goes out to a new suburb, poaches half the people from the first suburb with promises of cheaper land and bigger lots, and then the new suburb grows its tax base and begins to build bigger roads and more infrastructure. All while the city and the first suburb lose their tax base and revenue and can't keep up with their infrastructure anymore.

We're then left with cities with bad infrastructure, then counties, then eventually the whole state because the sprawl has spread to state highways and deteriorated them faster than ever before.

I'm not going to sit here and say people can't move wherever they want, but the developers who build these new sub-divisions and build up in rural areas shouldn't leave the city, county, and state on the hook after they sell all of their plots.

I'm not trying to hop up on my soap box and say everyone should live in big dense cities, but continuing to spread out and build more and more subdivisions, larger roads, and infrastructure will and has bleed us dry. You have people who live in cities that sacrifice not having a big house or yard but their money goes to city infrastructure, and then you have people who live in rural areas who get a big cheap house and plot but have to pay for services like propane, well digging, and accept they likely won't get things that are common in the city like sidewalks everywhere. And then you have these people who seem to continue to want both by moving to a big house in the suburbs, but then also want the accommodations of living in a city/urban area.

It just isn't sustainable.

[JBMcB]

Probably because it cost them votes. One of the biggest problems is the continued sprawl of the suburbs exapanding farther out, specifically in Oakland and Macomb county.

Then scale back zoning requirements and allow developers to build high density housing wherever they want. This is playing out in California, where housing prices are skyrocketing, but various zoning restrictions are preventing developers from building apartment buildings in established communities.

There's even a supporting "movement."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YIMBY

[JonWylie]

Then scale back zoning requirements and allow developers to build high density housing wherever they want.

Agree, I think the move away from use base to form base coding will help as well.