From the book SUBURBAN NATION:
One such municipality, the city of Franklin, a Milwaukee suburb of 25,000, conducted a careful cost analysis in 1992. it found that a new single family home pays less than $5000 in property taxes but costs more than $10,000 to service.
Thus, the inefficiency of unchecked sprawling development was covered by a tax hike for all, including those who live in older, better planned neighborhoods. New subdivisions continue to be built all over the place without regard to any manner of street grid or master plan; the lesson did not sink in. The estimated population of Franklin in 2004 was 32,405.
This is not to say that the planning commission in Franklin is inept or evil in some way. They are having to cope with a variety of pressures and input from residents - - most times very self-involved input - - while attempting to please as many people as possible.
A couple hundred yards away from my house, a developer was allowed to build a dead-end street with houses. It contains no connection to my neighborhood, the nearby school, or the senior housing complex 100 yards to its north. The street has no chance of continuing west to 27th street, so it can only exit east onto a collector street; the west end of the street ends in an actual bulb-like turnaround, a physical admission that this collection of houses was built for pure profit with minimal input from the Franklin city planners. It's simply a 200 yard-or-so road with ten houses and a run-off pond built on it. As of now, they haven't even bothered to plant trees.
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