Motor vehicles prosper when Government (builder of roads) is addicted to growth

Addicted to Growth

Cobb County lies on the suburban fringes of Atlanta, and it’s the result of a development pattern that has spilled further and further outward as more people moved into the area and wanted their own single-family homes and yards. Despite the fact that municipal budgets were overstretched, Cobb County suburbs kept constructing new roads and pipes and electric lines to service the new homes — all the while building in a style with very low return on public investment (i.e. a bad tax value per acre ratio).

Like an addict whose use is spiraling out of control, these communities kept reaching for “just a little more growth” and “just a few more development projects” to get them through the next budgeting period, begging other sources (particularly at the state and federal level) for money to feed their habit. And all the while, these municipalities were promising that that last hit of growth was just what they needed to get through the day. Everything else would work itself out later.

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/8/3/cobb-county-addicted-to-growth

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