Town Planning |
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Town planning is needed as more and more people move out from larger cities into the outer-lying suburbs, small and medium size towns are trying to cope with the explosive growth in population and the increased demands on services. That is why planning is so important for the short and long term needs of the community. Councils are taking on the hard challenges of urban sprawl in their once “small towns” with rapid housing construction and development. On one hand, such expansion is good for the community: it increases the overall tax base and increases revenue to the community by developers having to pay for building permits and other various costs to build new housing. That creates new jobs, which in turn increases local spending of disposable dollars, and then when the new occupants of the housing move in, they start paying property and community taxes as well as investing in their property and spending disposable income locally. However, on the other hand, town planning small communities are challenged by this growth by traffic congestion; too many people using too few roads that were originally designed for significantly less traffic. Demand for utilities and government services increase exponentially as new residents require power, water, sewage treatment, road improvements, and more. Then the community itself needs to address the overall market changes and try to deliver goods and services like grocery, fuel, hardware, and schooling to the ever-increasing population. There will also be those who want to keep their small town a “small town” but they also have to recognize if a small town is going to grow successfully to meet the needs of new residents, planning is a crucial part of that success. Community leaders need to address immediate problems and challenges as well as think about the long-term effects of an ever-increasing population and plan how these new measures will be paid for. |