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YouTubeThe Boston Globe wroteAnti-zoning key to Palin's early record
By Sasha Issenberg
Globe Staff / October 12, 2008
WASILLA, Alaska - Days after Sarah Palin became Mayor John Stein's only serious challenger in 1996, the 32-year-old city councilwoman stood and cast a proud, dissenting vote against one of Stein's greatest achievements: the first zoning plan in Wasilla's history.
Over the next two months, Palin surprised and excited many in Wasilla by introducing social issues such as abortion and guns to the city's nonpartisan elections on the way to defeating the incumbent. But the centerpiece of her campaign was opposition to Stein's effort to bring zoning to the community.
Wasilla today reflects the results of her free-market approach to development. Running for a second mayoral term in 1999, Palin cited as one of her greatest successes luring a Fred Meyer mega-supermarket to Wasilla. The zoning plan, adopted over then-councilwoman Palin's opposition, proved no impediment for the store, which went up just a few feet from the banks of bucolic Lake Wasilla, with a parking lot that contains Kentucky Fried Chicken, Blockbuster Video, and Carl's Jr.
They are among the dominant landmarks in a city that councilwoman Dianne Woodruff says "looks like a big ugly strip mall from one end to the other."
As a vice presidential candidate, Palin has suggested that a similar attitude toward growth would prevail nationally if she were elected. "We will get out of the way of private-sector progress," Palin said last week at a Colorado rally. "It's the small business, the mom-and-pops, that are the cornerstone of America."
The municipality Palin repeatedly heralded as a classic "small town" in her convention speech has no discernible center and a Main Street in name only. To its critics, Wasilla has become a famously bad example of suburban growth even by the standards of Alaska, a place where city planners have long noted a dangerous combination of too much land and too few rules about how to build on it.
Columbus Underground Messageboard » General Columbus Discussion » Politics
Palin's Plan for Suburban Sprawl
[6 posts] [5 contributors]
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Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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Posted 3 years ago # -
Brewmaster
Portland, OR
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What a maverick! Who would've thunk that a strip mall could increase tax revenues in a sleepy suburb. Has this practice ever been tried anywhere else before? :roll:
Posted 3 years ago # -
Columbusite
Minneapolis
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And after about a decade it´ll empty out and instead have a wig shop, check cashing store, pawn shop, and the big'box can maybe be a mega church. At least there´ll be a brand new one another mile or so down the road.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Rockmastermike
CORNspiracy HQ
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Brewmaster wrote What a maverick! Who would've thunk that a strip mall could increase tax revenues in a sleepy suburb. Has this practice ever been tried anywhere else before? :roll:
that's not a "suburb", no matter what the press calls it. i've been on the rail line shown in the picture and saw that same view. That's the town. It's 50 miles away from anywhere. The nearest town is Palmer, 10 miles back along the highway to Anchorage then turn left on a spur. Palmer is kind of a slum. Then it's 40 miles of solid wilderness and beaver dams all the way back around to Anchorage.
The problem they are pointing to is that everything there is very widely spaced with absolutely no centrality. It's just a strip of stuff that goes all the way from Wasilla to Palmer with little to no organization.
BUT they are still ahead of us! It's spawled, but it's mostly a linear structure with access to the rail line for truly efficient transport.
As for the tax revenues, the primary industry there is farming. Interestingly enough, they're known for absolutely gigantic vegetables because of the 24 hour diffuse daylight in the growing season. Retail is a drop in the bucket.
There is a large dairy farming industry there too. Look up (on the Anchorage Daily News) the history of the collapse of the State Dairy Board's Mat Maid creamery operation in 2007 for a taste of just how the local government operates. The economic and tax revenue damage done by that dwarfs anything the strip mall gains.
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/matsu/mat_maid/
It's an interesting part of the world. Absolutely lovely farming country.
Posted 3 years ago #
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