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#1 cberen1

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Posted 06 April 2014 - 08:52 AM

http://www.star-tele...-sprawling.html

Working from my phone. I'll correct the link when I get to my PC.

Interesting look at it on a national basis. Same conclusion. Need more density, better infrastructure particularly around transportation.

#2 John T Roberts

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Posted 06 April 2014 - 09:52 AM

I agree, cberen1.



#3 RenaissanceMan

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Posted 06 April 2014 - 09:56 AM

As interesting in that article is the response from local officials.

One thing that I think would be helpful in the local discussion would be to stop talking about "increasing density" per se (which unnecessarily and irrationally frightens people who "don't want to live in Manhattan" and automatically turn it into an all or nothing false choice). Instead, I would propose advocating in favor of adding "gradual density," which is less alarming and more accurate (it also feeds into a discussion about the urban transect, etc.).

#4 dfwerdoc

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Posted 06 April 2014 - 12:49 PM

im not sure if "gradual density" vs "increasing density" will make people more receptive to it. it's not the pace of density of density or even manhattan that people are averse to, it's renters. people in sprawl think their A5 lots are more valuable with more A5 lots around them ,,,, and the developers are just following people's wishes and the money. 



#5 RenaissanceMan

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Posted 06 April 2014 - 01:11 PM

im not sure if "gradual density" vs "increasing density" will make people more receptive to it. it's not the pace of density of density or even manhattan that people are averse to, it's renters. people in sprawl think their A5 lots are more valuable with more A5 lots around them ,,,, and the developers are just following people's wishes and the money. 


I should have been clearer. I didn't mean gradual in terms of over time, but in terms of degree, so that it's a conversation not about either large lot single family homes vs. high rise condos, but an acknowledgement that there's a lot of stuff in between that can/should extend gradually from the city center permitting a variety of home/lifestyle choices and densities.

#6 Dylan

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Posted 06 April 2014 - 06:29 PM

Less urban metro areas are more expensive than more urban metro areas? I call BS on that.

 

I love DT Fort Worth and support more urban growth, but the anti-suburbia crap gets old sometimes. I live in the suburbs, and it is not bad/evil.


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#7 renamerusk

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Posted 06 April 2014 - 10:24 PM

I have said it before - Fort Worth and Arlington are joined at the hip; and that is, in the big picture, a good thing.



#8 cberen1

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Posted 07 April 2014 - 07:30 AM

Less urban metro areas are more expensive than more urban metro areas? I call BS on that.

 

I love DT Fort Worth and support more urban growth, but the anti-suburbia crap gets old sometimes. I live in the suburbs, and it is not bad/evil.

 

I don't think the suburbs are evil, but having everything increasingly spread out does create a lot of problems.  One of my real concerns is about how inefficient it is to provide city services over a very large area.  It's more garbage trucks traveling further, more yards sucking up water, police and firemen spread further out, a LOT more roads to maintain, public transportation is increasingly difficult to provide and so on.  Which is not to suggest a completely urban environment is some utopian solution either.  Packing all the rats in together has its own set of challenges.  The goal should be balance, and this study suggests that we're farther to one end of the spectrum than most of our counterparts, i.e. not balanced.

 

Now, what I do find evil about the suburbs is the impact it has on the overall education system.  Well, that and the amount of garbage housing being built on the periphery, slums of the future.



#9 Fort Worthology

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Posted 07 April 2014 - 09:40 AM

I may spend more on housing living in the central city (though I'm not spending as much as you might imagine), but I spend *significantly* less on transportation than I would out in the "cheaper" suburbs - not only in fuel, and in maintenance, but also on the fact that we only have to have a single, small, efficient car, and not even counting the health benefits and cost savings from the increased walking and biking.  And that's just transportation.  So yeah, the price thing is absolutely not as clear cut as the commonly held "suburbs are cheaper" belief that exists in D/FW and elsewhere.


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#10 RenaissanceMan

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Posted 07 April 2014 - 09:49 AM

So yeah, the price thing is absolutely not as clear cut as the commonly held "suburbs are cheaper" belief that exists in D/FW and elsewhere.


Which in itself is somewhat ironic considered that the other commonly held (if unspoken) perception is that the the suburbs are some form of a status symbol by comparison to life in "inner-city neighborhoods."

#11 Dylan

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Posted 07 April 2014 - 09:40 PM

 

Less urban metro areas are more expensive than more urban metro areas? I call BS on that.

 

I love DT Fort Worth and support more urban growth, but the anti-suburbia crap gets old sometimes. I live in the suburbs, and it is not bad/evil.

 

I don't think the suburbs are evil, but having everything increasingly spread out does create a lot of problems.  One of my real concerns is about how inefficient it is to provide city services over a very large area.  It's more garbage trucks traveling further, more yards sucking up water, police and firemen spread further out, a LOT more roads to maintain, public transportation is increasingly difficult to provide and so on.  Which is not to suggest a completely urban environment is some utopian solution either.  Packing all the rats in together has its own set of challenges.  The goal should be balance, and this study suggests that we're farther to one end of the spectrum than most of our counterparts, i.e. not balanced.

 

Now, what I do find evil about the suburbs is the impact it has on the overall education system.  Well, that and the amount of garbage housing being built on the periphery, slums of the future.

 

 

The way I see it, suburbs are average density, and urban areas are above average density. As suburbia grows larger, so does the number of people who pay taxes and maintain it. As far as water goes, I do agree that wasting water on grass is dumb. Rain should be the only water grass needs.

 

Could you elaborate on the education system comment?


-Dylan


#12 Austin55

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Posted 07 April 2014 - 10:39 PM

I don't think there is a single street in Arlington (outside the UTA campus) where I would rather walk than drive. FW has several. Hell, even a lot of suburbs do. Grapevine has a great Main street. Mansfield, Burleson, Grand Prairie, several others have old commercial strips which are decently preserved and are walkable. 



#13 cberen1

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Posted 08 April 2014 - 08:06 AM

Could you elaborate on the education system comment?

 

One of the impacts of suburban growth that it isolates people and funding from the education system as a whole.  You wind up with pockets of very good education and pockets of very poor education.  When wealthy people move to the suburbs they take their funding with them.  It leaves the schools in the urban core at a disadvantage in a lot of ways.

 

Embedded within this is the notion that education on the whole would be better if there was greater diversity within our school system.  That notion may well be false.  Maybe you need an Eastern Hills H.S. for every Southlake H.S.  I don't know.  I'm not an educator.  But my gut tells me that the situation hurts the low end more than it helps the upper end, that on the whole we'd be better off with less segmentation.

 

Of course, people don't decide where to live in order to make the whole system better off.  They decide where to live to make their own families better off, which is totally rational and exactly why I live where I do (Tanglewood).  But as young upper middle class families decide to leave the city for the burbs because of the schools it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.



#14 hannerhan

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Posted 08 April 2014 - 08:33 AM

 

Could you elaborate on the education system comment?

 

One of the impacts of suburban growth that it isolates people and funding from the education system as a whole.  You wind up with pockets of very good education and pockets of very poor education.  When wealthy people move to the suburbs they take their funding with them.  It leaves the schools in the urban core at a disadvantage in a lot of ways.

 

Embedded within this is the notion that education on the whole would be better if there was greater diversity within our school system.  That notion may well be false.  Maybe you need an Eastern Hills H.S. for every Southlake H.S.  I don't know.  I'm not an educator.  But my gut tells me that the situation hurts the low end more than it helps the upper end, that on the whole we'd be better off with less segmentation.

 

Of course, people don't decide where to live in order to make the whole system better off.  They decide where to live to make their own families better off, which is totally rational and exactly why I live where I do (Tanglewood).  But as young upper middle class families decide to leave the city for the burbs because of the schools it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

 

 

True, and interestingly we are now seeing a reversal of this effect in healthy cities.  Money is coming back into down and formerly run-down areas of the inner city (Fairmount for example) are coming back.  The flip side is that Crowley schools are no longer considered to be attractive like they might have been 20 years ago, and those effects will continue.  The land-locked exclusive enclaves like Colleyville will be fine but schools from HEB, EMISD, Crowley, Burleson, Northwest, etc. will eventually see more problems as poorer residents are pushed to the perimeter.  Tanglewood is already a high-performing elementary school within FWISD, and within 15-20 years it appears as though North High Mount, Lilly B Clayton, and several others will be joining the list.

 

In response to RenaissanceMan's post above, I think the notion of suburbs being perceived as more exclusive is long gone.  I can't tell you how many friends of ours have said over the past decade "we would love to be in town if we could only afford it" when referring to neighborhoods like Tanglewood, Monticello, etc.



#15 Volare

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Posted 08 April 2014 - 08:41 AM

... So yeah, the price thing is absolutely not as clear cut as the commonly held "suburbs are cheaper" belief that exists in D/FW and elsewhere.

 

I don't know if I can agree with that statement. Perhaps I would say - your money goes a lot further in the suburbs, especially if you have a growing family.

 

To examine this issue a bit closer I looked for home in Ft. Worth between 295,000 and 325,000. I found a home in Mistletoe Heights that is under option. Now we don't know the selling price, but let's assume it is somewhere near the lisiting price $299k. This is a 3 br 2 bath home, with 1600 square feet.

 

Now for about the same money, you can move "up north" and get:

one of these (4/3.5 with 3500 sq ft)

or one of these (5/4.5 with 4300 sq ft)

or one of these (4/4 with ~4000 sq ft)

 

That's a pretty huge disparity. I don't know what to think about it, but it's something I ponder quite a bit these days as I look forward to my family expanding by one, and wondering where we next call home.



#16 hannerhan

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Posted 08 April 2014 - 08:53 AM

There is no doubt that suburbs are cheaper when you compare apples to apples, even when you add in the added fuel cost, utilities differences, HOA, etc.  But the question becomes, how much is your time worth and how much do you value that extra hour per day that you might be spending in the car.

 

I have done both, and moving out of North FW into town (back in 2007) was the best move we ever made.  There is no monetary substitute for the added time with my family.



#17 RenaissanceMan

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Posted 08 April 2014 - 09:39 AM

You've also got to factor in the cost to the city and other public agencies to expand infrastructure and spread public services further and further outward. It's a whole lot more cost effective for a mixed use building with apartments or a group of row houses or a single-family home to tap into an existing water main and to have residents drive or walk alongside existing roads and attend existing schools than it is to bring all of that out to meet a new McMansion thrown together far from the city center. For all of the interest lately in fiscal responsibility, where are the calls to encourage development where there is already public infrastructure in place? Why is the installation of a streetcar system - a reinvestment in an area where the local government already has a fiscal and financial interest - wasteful, but nobody blinks at spending considerably more money just to get the most basic infrastructure out to the furthest reaches of the public pocketbook?

#18 Keller Pirate

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Posted 08 April 2014 - 12:10 PM

 

Could you elaborate on the education system comment?

 

One of the impacts of suburban growth that it isolates people and funding from the education system as a whole.  You wind up with pockets of very good education and pockets of very poor education.  When wealthy people move to the suburbs they take their funding with them.  It leaves the schools in the urban core at a disadvantage in a lot of ways.

 

Embedded within this is the notion that education on the whole would be better if there was greater diversity within our school system.  That notion may well be false.  Maybe you need an Eastern Hills H.S. for every Southlake H.S.  I don't know.  I'm not an educator.  But my gut tells me that the situation hurts the low end more than it helps the upper end, that on the whole we'd be better off with less segmentation.

 

Of course, people don't decide where to live in order to make the whole system better off.  They decide where to live to make their own families better off, which is totally rational and exactly why I live where I do (Tanglewood).  But as young upper middle class families decide to leave the city for the burbs because of the schools it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

Wealth and quality of schools is something I have been interested in for a while.  I'm certain we have a public education crisis, but I or anybody else doesn't seem to have an answer.

 

Out where I live I check the ratings on the High Schools from time to time.  Southlake Carroll is always number 1 by a good distance over the four high schools in the Keller ISD.  Within Keller ISD, Keller is number 1 consistently.  the other 3 schools are in Fort Worth and they change positions from time to time but never catch up to Keller HS.  In theory all four schools in the Keller ISD should be more or less equally funded so you would think the scores would be pretty close together, but they aren't.  The same is true for Fort Worth ISD, some very highly rated high schools and some horrible ones.  The unfortunate conclusion is that family circumstances do play into school success.  

 

I can think of off the top of my head 3 people that have moved from Southlake to Keller after their kids graduated and at least five families that moved from Keller to Granbury after their kids graduated.  Parents do make choices based on the benefit for their children.

 

I would like to see schools treated equally across the state.  The only way I can see doing that is pooling all the money in one place (state) and dolling it out under some formula to make every student have an equal shot at a good education.  The only problem with that is I think the government would turn it into a boondoggle and pull down the better schools.



#19 Fort Worthology

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Posted 08 April 2014 - 01:41 PM

 

... So yeah, the price thing is absolutely not as clear cut as the commonly held "suburbs are cheaper" belief that exists in D/FW and elsewhere.

 

I don't know if I can agree with that statement. Perhaps I would say - your money goes a lot further in the suburbs, especially if you have a growing family.

 

To examine this issue a bit closer I looked for home in Ft. Worth between 295,000 and 325,000. I found a home in Mistletoe Heights that is under option. Now we don't know the selling price, but let's assume it is somewhere near the lisiting price $299k. This is a 3 br 2 bath home, with 1600 square feet.

 

Now for about the same money, you can move "up north" and get:

one of these (4/3.5 with 3500 sq ft)

or one of these (5/4.5 with 4300 sq ft)

or one of these (4/4 with ~4000 sq ft)

 

That's a pretty huge disparity. I don't know what to think about it, but it's something I ponder quite a bit these days as I look forward to my family expanding by one, and wondering where we next call home.

 

 

How many people - even families - actually need a 4,300 square foot home with *five* bedrooms and 4.5 (!) baths?  Somehow, I see families around here doing quite well in our neighborhood's more modest homes.  I am surrounded by families with kids who seem thrilled to forego having nine bathrooms to be able to walk their children up the street to get a drink or see a show.

 

This is part of the problem - sure, you can get a monstrously large house out in the fringe for comparatively little, but you'll be paying for it in HVAC, paying for it in transportation, paying for it in health, paying for it in denying children a sense of autonomy, paying for it in time spent sitting in traffic or just driving 30 miles a day to do basic services, etc.  And the city's paying for it - spending ungodly sums of money to build infrastructure, provide fire & police coverage, etc. while we have to beg, borrow, and steal to get anything done in the central city.


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#20 hannerhan

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Posted 08 April 2014 - 02:57 PM

 paying for it in denying children a sense of autonomy, 

 

 

Let's not get crazy.  Giving children a sense of autonomy is not a function of where someone lives.



#21 RenaissanceMan

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Posted 08 April 2014 - 03:07 PM


 paying for it in denying children a sense of autonomy, 
 

 
Let's not get crazy.  Giving children a sense of autonomy is not a function of where someone lives.

He's right.... They have PLENTY of choice in the matter of which video game to play and which direction on their driveway they want to ride their bike and what other kids they want to play with on their play date. And besides, why take away all of that anticipation for the age of 16 when they get to have a car of their own and the freedom to go wherever they wish?

#22 hannerhan

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Posted 08 April 2014 - 03:48 PM

He's right.... They have PLENTY of choice in the matter of which video game to play and which direction on their driveway they want to ride their bike and what other kids they want to play with on their play date. 

 

 

But those issues aren't a function of whether one lives in the inner city or the suburbs...the same problems exist in both areas whether one lives in Keller or Fairmount.  Giving your kids a sense of autonomy involves conscious decisions and sacrifices on the part of the parent.  It's easy to sit back while they watch TV (as you watch a different TV).  It's not always easy to... Take the kids to a large park and let them run around.  Teach them to fish.  Teach them to handle knives and tools properly.  Take them camping in state and national parks.  Have them help with home improvement projects.  Generally, force responsibility on them and see how they respond.

 

These things have nothing to do with the location of one's house.



#23 Volare

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Posted 08 April 2014 - 09:49 PM

 
How many people - even families - actually need a 4,300 square foot home with *five* bedrooms and 4.5 (!) baths? 

 

I don't know- ask the folks who built the mansions on Elizabeth Ave. Huge houses are hardly a new invention in Fort Worth. Having those huge houses available to more than just the top 1%, now that's something new.

 

By the way, if you want a house "up north" more like the size of that one in Mistletoe Heights, there are plenty for sale- at half the price.



#24 Russ Graham

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Posted 09 April 2014 - 08:19 AM

By the way, if you want a house "up north" more like the size of that one in Mistletoe Heights, there are plenty for sale- at half the price.

 

Really this is the key - people are going to start realizing that houses "up north" (or "down south" or whatever) will not hold their value like the ones closer in to town.   Buying a house for "the good school district" is in the long run a relatively fleeting and unpredictable thing.  Ask they people who bought into Crowley ISD ten years ago.  The fact that you got twice the house for the same money will not matter when the houses in the suburbs keep declining in value and the ones in town keep appreciating.  It doesn't take much of a difference to make up for the additional tax and mortgage interest.



#25 cberen1

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Posted 09 April 2014 - 08:22 AM

Generally, force responsibility on them and see how they respond.

 

These things have nothing to do with the location of one's house.

 

 

I don't if I would say "nothing" to do with the location of the house.  There are some places where it works better than others.  We tend to paint these things with a pretty broad brush.  The suburbs are one way and the "inner city" is another.  Not all suburbs are created equal and neither are all areas of the city.  The reality is I'd rather live in Southlake than Haslet.  I'd rather live in Tanglewood than Poly.  I'd be more inclined to let my kids run around unaccompanied in Berkely than in Crowley.

 

Back to the question of sprawl, as a tax payer paying many different kinds of taxes, I see urban density as a more efficient environment for deploying tax dollars in almost every way.  As a consumer, I see great benefits to increased population density in terms of the products and services that will be available.  As a Fort Worthian, I am greatly excited by the development going on in the city's core.  I'd like to see more owner occupied vs. renters, but one has to come first.



#26 mmmdan

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Posted 09 April 2014 - 10:09 AM

But those issues aren't a function of whether one lives in the inner city or the suburbs...the same problems exist in both areas whether one lives in Keller or Fairmount.  Giving your kids a sense of autonomy involves conscious decisions and sacrifices on the part of the parent.  It's easy to sit back while they watch TV (as you watch a different TV).  It's not always easy to... Take the kids to a large park and let them run around.  Teach them to fish.  Teach them to handle knives and tools properly.  Take them camping in state and national parks.  Have them help with home improvement projects.  Generally, force responsibility on them and see how they respond.

 

These things have nothing to do with the location of one's house.

 

 

On the issue of autonomy I think he's talking about actually letting the kids go and do things in the neighborhood on their own. 

 

As a kid in the suburbs, if you want to go to the corner store to buy yourself a drink, you basically can't.  Because of the zoning, there is no little corner store.  You have to drive out of your neighborhood onto the 6 lane mini highway to get to the giant gas station on the major intersection.  Most parents aren't going to let their kid walk or ride their bike there.  In a more urban neighboorhood, with a mix of uses, there's a better chance that there's a little store just a few blocks away that you would feel safe letting your kid walk/bike to.

 

Driving your kids to the park, or driving them to camping, or driving them to fishing is not really letting the child be autonomous.



#27 hannerhan

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Posted 09 April 2014 - 10:31 AM

 

But those issues aren't a function of whether one lives in the inner city or the suburbs...the same problems exist in both areas whether one lives in Keller or Fairmount.  Giving your kids a sense of autonomy involves conscious decisions and sacrifices on the part of the parent.  It's easy to sit back while they watch TV (as you watch a different TV).  It's not always easy to... Take the kids to a large park and let them run around.  Teach them to fish.  Teach them to handle knives and tools properly.  Take them camping in state and national parks.  Have them help with home improvement projects.  Generally, force responsibility on them and see how they respond.

 

These things have nothing to do with the location of one's house.

 

 

On the issue of autonomy I think he's talking about actually letting the kids go and do things in the neighborhood on their own. 

 

As a kid in the suburbs, if you want to go to the corner store to buy yourself a drink, you basically can't.  Because of the zoning, there is no little corner store.  You have to drive out of your neighborhood onto the 6 lane mini highway to get to the giant gas station on the major intersection.  Most parents aren't going to let their kid walk or ride their bike there.  In a more urban neighboorhood, with a mix of uses, there's a better chance that there's a little store just a few blocks away that you would feel safe letting your kid walk/bike to.

 

Driving your kids to the park, or driving them to camping, or driving them to fishing is not really letting the child be autonomous.

 

 

So when it comes to encouraging autonomy, I guess my trips to Big Bend with the kids aren't as good as letting them ride 3 blocks to the neighborhood gas station?

 

For every example you list, like riding a bike to the local convenience store, there is a suburban example...kids being able to play in the street more easily, ride bikes to the neighborhood park, etc.  I'm just making the point that there is no real difference between suburbs and the inner city in terms of kids being able to be more autonomous (assume we're talking apples to apples as far as reasonably safe neighborhoods, etc.).  I don't think Kevin realizes that most suburban neighborhoods are crawling with kids that are outside constantly.  The cul-de-sac might be poor design in terms of planning and transportation, but it sure does lend itself to street hockey, basketball and other kid-friendly activities.  

 

Also, I have lived in several "inner city" neighborhoods in Fort Worth and haven't been within a mile of a gas station/convenience store in most cases.  And the ones I have been close to have been on busy streets (W. 7th, Camp Bowie, etc.) where I'd think twice about letting a kid ride around there.  Let's face it...the world isn't what it was 60 years ago when it comes to letting kids run around without their parents (as we saw recently in the horrific case of the little Saginaw girl).  Parents just have to be a lot more careful regardless of where they live.  



#28 cberen1

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Posted 09 April 2014 - 11:55 AM

Bringing the topic back around...

 

I have two questions:

 

1. Would the citizens of Fort Worth, generally, be bettered served with greater population density (perhaps inclusters as indicated in the article)?

 

2. Is the projected pace of urban development fast enough to outpace the rate of projected suburban growth proportionally?






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