Editorial
State Senate leader Phil Berger wants to reign in North Carolina cities and their almost constant "need" to expand their borders. And with the help of the rest of the NC Senate, he's doing just that. The Senate even went so far as to overturn a number of annexations across the state taking land away from cities and making cities smaller.
As a self avowed liberal I find myself strangely in agreement with the conservative majority currently tooting their horns in Raleigh. Power hungry local politicians on the left and right have long used forced annexation as a means to make up for irresponsible spending. Rather than solve the problems created by urban sprawl and runaway development, they choose instead to increase urban sprawl and runaway development as bandaids for the problems they helped create.
The argument that cities provide the right environment for business won't wash. All one needs do is look at how Greensboro's Uptown has long been ignored and left to die while Greensboro's political elite expand our city's borders far into the county, stretching ever thinner the budget and resources the Uptown and much of the rest of the City of Greensboro, never gets enough of.
City leaders apparently needed to be reminded to tend to their own business rather than looking to spend Greensboro's money beyond our current borders in an effort to tend to someone else's business. Increased sprawl is simply unsustainable and it's time Greensboro-- a city that nears the top of the list when it comes to urban sprawl-- needs to come to grips with reality. We cannot afford to keep improving infrastructures beyond our borders.
If communities outside of our incorporated cities want to go it on their own then have at it. Let them hire their own police, build their own infrastructure and collect their own taxes. Why should Greensboro taxpayers subsidize the burbs and make it less expensive for people who work in the city to live outside the city? Let them take care of themselves so cities like Greensboro will be forced to look inward and concentrate on what needs to be taken care of so that the inner cities aren't laid to waste while the suburbs grow. Lot of cities around the world are landlocked and yet many of those cities continue to thrive. Why? Because it's the best thing that could happen.
Let's hope these new bills become law very soon.
