Be Small To Be Smart

29 October 2007 - 1:00pm

Smart Growth projects are having trouble gathering support in Long Island, New York, mainly because of their large scales.

"If, as a recent Stony Brook University poll reports, 43 percent of Long Islanders express a preference for living in places where they can walk, rather than drive, to shops, services and schools, why do many major projects designed to provide such 'smart growth' face strong opposition on the Island?"

"The answer may be that for Long Islanders, “smart growth” is missing one important adjective: small."

“The smaller smart-growth projects are at this stage more acceptable and easier for public officials to approve,' said Richard V. Guardino, executive dean of the Breslin Center for Real Estate Studies at Hofstra University. 'The scale is not overwhelming. You’re not transforming an entire area.'”

Source: The New York Times, October 28, 2007
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Even if the report overestimates the costs by a factor of two and underestimates the tax-benefit by a similar amount, the conclusion would be pretty much the same: destination resorts cost local government and taxpayers money.