I would like to suggest the idea of discouraging commercial land use based on automotive traffic count. The whole suburban sprawl/economic/healthcare problem stems from this design failure. In our misguided efforts to relieve auto congestion, we have evolved into a situation where we are spending massive(county road commission budget) public money to subsidize private sector land development. The resulting consequence is great for the oil, auto, & road building industry & corporate franchise(big box, drive thru) interests but bad for local economic opportunity. We end up stuck in traffic on the way to low wage/no benefit jobs and the road rage we have should be directed towards the stewards of our local land use policy.
The Congress for the New Urbanism is a group of architects, planners, developers, & public administrators trying to address these design/policy issues. They have a charter & are guided by a much broader design criteria than our archaic templates now in place. We used to have cities with very useful city limits where our public investment stopped or we would annex the property into a city public over site process. As we stared allowing private interests to start designing the landscape we failed to adequately protect the public interest. As we gentrify Leelanau County we should consider the consequences of design and have more faith in the democratic process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoVXoB6x3vM
http://www.cnu.org
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGJt_YXIoJI
Thanks, Mark
Mark Nixon