Note: This is a ‘workshop‘ post. Translation: I’m writing for other websites and I wanted to ‘work it out‘ here. If an idea abruptly stops, well, that means I haven’t finished what I’m doing. Mostly because I’ve been busy – so stay tuned.
The headline is a little deceiving. For starters, Lake Elmo isn’t that small and it certainly isn’t shrinking. The population is around 8,000, but geographically it’s about the size of Woodbury. Nevertheless, this is what the Pioneer Press titled a recent article about Lake Elmo’s apparent development woes ["Lake Elmo: Small, and shrinking"].
The city is shrinking as landowners yank their property out in favor of neighboring areas. Landowners say they are fleeing a bias against business that prevents them from building stores, offices or malls along busy highways. [Pioneer Press, Jan. 29, 2012].
This is certainly true. A few landowners have petitioned to be annexed by adjacent municipalities; some have had success doing this, while others have not.
The former Mayor, Susan Dunn, sheds some light on the issue at hand:
City officials say they favor growth – as long as they can preserve the city’s image as a slow-paced rural enclave.
“I love Lake Elmo. It is a jewel. But it can be so easily changed, and if you mess it up, you can’t return it,” said former Mayor Susan Dunn. “We don’t need places with a million lights and flashing neon.”
It seems to be that Lake Elmo isn’t so much ‘anti-growth‘ – but more so ‘carefully planning to preserve a worthwhile local culture.‘ Well, what do the critics have to say about it?
Critics say Lake Elmo’s anti-growth bias is obvious when you look at what’s happened in neighboring cities. Those neighbors have eagerly welcomed malls, factories, offices. Businesses pay a higher property tax rate, employ people and draw people into a community.
[...] Lake Elmo is roughly the geographic size of Woodbury, with similar access to freeways. But it has one-eighth the population, and one- fifteenth the retail sales. That is the result of the city’s long history of avoiding, discouraging or fighting growth.
First of all, when they say “growth” they are referring to what Strong Towns calls “The Growth Ponzi Scheme”. In other words, that our current financial problems at the local level are not, as some suggest, a lack of growth. Instead, our problem is 60 years of unproductive growth — “growth that has buried us in financial liabilities.” Lake Elmo has few of these liabilities whereas places lake Woodbury many!
It doesn’t appear if stopping sprawl is one of Lake Elmo’s primary goals – the town merely wants to maintain rural character and charm [It should be noted that Lake Elmo has some sub-divisions, just not very many]. On one hand, Lake Elmo has created an unfortunate zoning code that favors one home per 2 acres, which can be classified as ‘rural sprawl’. Yet, sprawl never really happened because of the municipality’s unwillingness to extend sewerage lines and more difficult and rigorous approval process.
The Pioneer Press article continues:
Lake Elmo officials have often vowed that their small town would never become “another Woodbury” – saying that the fast-growing city is too commercial and too densely developed. But landowner Nass thinks otherwise.
“I wish we were like another Woodbury,” Nass said. “Woodbury is successful, to my way of thinking.”
He wishes it were like another Woodbury? Interesting. Recently I was having a discussion with a fellow urbanist on the subject of “least environmentally and economically unsustainable Twin Cities suburbs” – we both immediately and unanimously narrowed it down to two: Maple Grove and Woodbury.
When someone mentions Woodbury, I think of this:
Epic sprawl. Large roads. Malls. Big boxes. Underwater mortgages [On a side note: I can't help but think the Arcade Fire was specifically singing about Woodbury]. Lake Elmo on the other hand is pastoral, pleasant, scenic, appropriately-scaled to a rural economy and has a walkable small-town downtown residential neighborhood. It has interesting buildings and working farms.
THIS CONCLUDES WORKSHOP #2 … I’VE GOT A TON MORE TO WRITE ABOUT THIS TOPIC! If you’ve got something you’d like to share – please do so!
