RestonWeb

[TheShadow]

http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/article/20111014/OPINION/710149745/1065/metro-area-plan-is-an-assault-on-town-of-herndon-s-character&template=fairfaxTimes

[Bob Bruhns]

I have long felt that the concentration of population, as practiced in modern America, has not been a good thing. It does not seem to produce any economy of scale, and it seems to breed and develop the worst social behaviors that are known in our culture. All it seems to do is cram people into a cramped, expensive, corruption-prone system, and drive them crazy.

This region is looking at a rail line that costs way, WAY too much, and we are trying to make the best of it. We are trying to hold on to our town, and place business down around the Dulles Toll Road, and the probable future rail station. The kind of corruption that has forced the overpriced rail line upon us is exactly what seems to come from the well-funded drive for overpopulation that we are seeing. And somehow, only massively expensive rail transit was considered, and bus transit was ignored. That choice forces us to cram development into a small area. And as usual we are told that hey, nobody will bother to build unless it is maximum size, because there is no money in it for them otherwise. So their claimed profit is the only motive that seems to matter, and their demanded floor area versus land footprint means big tall buildings. This is so ingrained in the thinking and process that nobody even questions it.

People bought the story that hey, "sprawl" is bad, so we need to concentrate - and this is the result: a bankruptingly overpriced, slow little local rail line, big city buildings, and well-funded campaigns pushing for more and more of this. The monied interests control the media, so the media doesn't even bother to report that the cost of the rail stations is massively excessive. The established fact that the Rt 28 rail station, for example, will cost $83 million (before cost overruns), while a Metro station in Fairfield Connecticut costs $42.7 million AFTER cost overruns, is ignored. So, you can expect more inflation of the costs for the future development as well. You fall for it every time, you know. You don't care about it, even now. You only argue about whether it should be paid with tolls or taxes. And somebody is laughing all the way to the bank. But you won't see it.

So the only answer is big tall buildings. Anything else will waste the money that Herndon could have made, and needs to make, to pay the ripoff costs that the overpriced rail and other interesting government-business robberies will bring to us.

At the risk of being called an environmental wacko, maybe you should all consider this when you move away from here in disgust, and start over somewhere that is less citified. Maybe you could oppose the corruption and overpopulating citification there, when the same interests try to destroy that area too. But probably you will let it go on again, until it is too late to stop it, and then make a little noise again, and then just sell and move again, when things get too bad there. And of course, that was what was expected here, and indeed it is happening.
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