Interesting responses so far. The curious thing to me is that of the roughly half of the people who want development to grow unabated, no one has expressed any advantages for the growth. It appears the best rationale for the growth is that it is not likely to be done badly. That to me is damning with faint praise. Why would people actually want more growth if their only rationale is that in all liklihood it won't make things much worse? Am I alone in thinking that if there is a chance that things will get worse, don't do it unless there are concrete advantages that can be enumerated?
I agree with the sentiment that the distributed nature of the development does help spread the resources and the demand put upon the resources. However, I find in just the 5 years that I have been here, there is a negative trend in certain things, like traffic, tee times, crowds in town squares, etc.
Perhaps those who want growth either have no experience of living in an area of unrestained growth and hence don't know how that impacts lifestyle. When I first moved to Central New Jersey, it was a sleepy area of small towns and lots of farm land. Over time, the farms were sold off for housing developments and shopping/commercial districts. It became somewhat like the distributed nature of TV. The problem was that with all of the additional people, going anywhere became a stressful event with all of the traffic. Parks and events that used to be easily accessible became very crowded with people with short fuses. You used to be able to go over to the Garden State Arts Center (now PNC Arts Center) on the spur of the moment and get tickets. Now you have to line up at the beginning of the season and try to be lucky to get tickets.
There wasn't any single development that caused this to occur. It was more of death by a thousand cuts. That is what I fear for TV.
Some people may be looking at this from a financial perspective and somehow equate continued growth to ever-rising house values. I personally don't subscribe to this theory. Even if it were to be true for the short term, it won't be true for the long term. Right now, the baby boomers are making up much of the growth. However, this boom won't last forever. Right behind the boomers are the "bust" period where there won't be enough retirees to buy all of the houses that will be built. So, unless you plan on checking out in the next 15 years or so, you or your heirs may find yourself in a real buyer's market with thousands of other TV houses competing against yours.
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