My post in this topic was not intended to elicit angry responses, and all of the “all caps” in this reply to me suggests that I failed in that regard. I’m sorry that I failed.
Yes. I live in the city; I have only lived in urban context condos for the last 26 years. I’m not new to the game or the experience of city living and I am very much pro-growth within the urban context. I suspect that any resident of downtown that put their “money where their mouth is” by buying feels similarly.
However my experiences with urban living, being in HOAs, and even what I do for work daily tells me that picking a side without regard to the other is rarely a pleasant or fruitful strategy. IMO, better ideas come when thoughtful people who disagree come together to solve problems.
I also know that the idea of high density development and maintaining some sort of quality of life (even views) aren’t mutually exclusive ideas. You can have both. The reality is that views do matter to a lot of people, and it’s both a reason why we build high-rise living, and it’s the reason why people will pay more to live higher in such buildings. It’s personally not my motivator and I’ve never lived above the 5th floor anywhere, but it’s a big deal to a lot of people. It’s also important to the city because these high dollar residents pay $$$ in property taxes. They are way more valuable to a city’s bottom line than someone living in a McMansion on newly minted infrastructure.
Others care a lot about traffic as well, and it’s difficult for some people to understand that walkable density doesn’t create traffic like non-walkable suburbia. It’s clearly a go-to strategy to use fear of massive change to get others on your side when you are actually going mano a mano with another entity. This is why these nebulous and “scary” topics come up.
Change is very difficult for a lot of people, and fear is powerful tool to prevent change. We see this in our politics and knee-jerk reaction laws that are based in fear of “the other” or a perception that I better strike first before I get victimized, etc. How we get to acceptance of change starts with listening, and listening again, and listening some more. You really don’t get past something any other way.
Right now, and going on 3 years now, the voices being heard are almost exclusively the developers’ voices, and that is likely a backlash to many years of “council of no” decision making when the voices were nearly exclusively those who are fearful and those resisting change. If we don’t look for the balance and show that Raleigh can grow by being an example of people working together, we are just going to have that pendulum swing back to the council of no. That could very well happen in this year’s election. If that happens, we shouldn’t be surprised if potential projects like this one get caught up in administrative red tape and reviews intended to kill it. Now, if the residents and the developer came to council with a unified voice, that project is much more likely to survive and move forward under any administration.
It is such an awful thing to want to see these two sides come together and find a creative solution together?
