NYT columnist David Brooks reports here on a Pew Research Center study that will cause Raleigh city planners fits. People don’t want to live in the cities that planners are building. The new Raleigh Comprehensive Plan, which is about to be approved by the city council, uses zoning to force Raleigh residents into seven high density transit oriented development (TOD) areas where they will live in high rise condos and skinny houses and travel by light rail, buses and bikes.
According to the Pew Research Center city dwellers are least happy with where they live. While young people think NYC is great, but only 14 percent of people over 35 would like to live there.
Only 52 percent of urbanites rate their communities ?excellent? or
?very good,? compared with 68 percent of suburbanites and 71 percent of
the people who live in rural America.
Most cities where people would like to live are in the West.
Seven of the top 10 were in the West: Denver, San Diego, Seattle, San
Francisco, Phoenix, Portland and Sacramento. The other three were in
the South: Orlando, Tampa and San Antonio. Eastern cities were down the list and Midwestern cities were at the bottom
Raleigh city planners, like planners all over NC, don’t care what people want. They are driven by planning ideology and peer pressure from the profession. Unfortunately, they have the political power to force their will on us. The new Raleigh Comprehensive Plan will be approved and the live-style restrictions will be enforced.
