Lehigh Valley in Danger of Losing Character:
A radio address from WDIY
Sprawl is a major concern for Lehigh Valley residents. In a recent Lehigh
Valley Planning Commission survey of voters, over half the respondents
indicated that they desired slower growth in the Valley. The survey indicates
a change in attitude regarding the issue and is somewhat surprising according
to Mike Kaiser of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission. He credits the
rising interest in land use to a growing awareness of and discontent with
traffic congestion, diminishing open spaces, and lack of convenience the
sprawl pattern presents. Kaiser said these problems have been years in
the making.
"A lot of people after World War II fled to the suburbs, and the
interesting thing was that they went to the suburbs and you would think
they didn't think anybody else was interested in going to the suburbs.
So when you have had a lot of people going to the suburbs, you no longer
have a rural pastoral environment that people thought they were getting.
What you end up with is a subdivided environment and what you really have
is a new type of city."
While the Lehigh Valley is not growing as fast as such national hotspots
as Atlanta and Houston, it is not far behind Pennsylvania's three fastest
growing counties of Chester, Bucks, and Montgomery, which surround Philadelphia.
Northampton and Lehigh counties rank 11th and 13th in population. Although
the region only grew about 5-6% in the 90's, it is consuming land at a
rate that is faster than its population growth. The Valley is swallowing
up roughly 3 square miles of open space each year. Some areas, like Lower
Saucon Township, are experiencing even more rapid growth. Tom Mackfield
of the Citizen's Coalition of Lower Saucon says there is a need to slow
this fast pace growth.
"Our township engineer used building permit applications as a judge
for this whole thing. He said that the population is growing at twice
what would be considered a reasonable rate for the township. Now even
at that reasonable rate, we could progress for a while, but then it would
have to level off even from that, because we just don't have the land."
Ironically, the growth and sprawl the Valley is experiencing is what brought
many residents to the region's open spaces during the 80's. Now that open
spaces are being depleted, many fear they are witnessing what some have
called the "Jersification of the Valley." State Representative,
Bob Freeman, of Northampton County has been a leading opponent of sprawl
and has sponsored planning and zoning reform legislation in Harrisburg
over the past ten years. He believes sprawl needs to be contained or the
consequences may not be kind to the Valley.
"If however, we continue down the path we've chosen, with the suburban
sprawl model, I anticipate within the next 10 to 20 years we will lose
some of the desirability as a location. Because of the traffic congestion,
because of the scarring of the landscape, we'll cease to have anything
that is really unique or appealing, and just become another stretch of
suburban sprawl, like much of Northern New Jersey."
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