About a year ago I returned to my hometown of Alma, MI, located about 50 miles north of Lansing just off US-27. It had been several years since I visited the old homestead and although my family is now scattered throughout the county and the place is long since sold, I figured one last drive by the old place would be kind of fun.
Armed with the perceptions of when I left for college 25 years earlier (never to return), I ignored my siblings? warning about the place that ?’it’s not the same.?
Still, I remained rather optimistic about the old place, fields where I pheasant hunted, special hide outs in the woods, and ‘big rock point? along the fence row’places where I spent my youth’places that can never change, so I thought.
Turning down our road perhaps the phrase ‘it’s not the same? or ‘it’s really changed? or ‘you’ll never recognize the place,? are rather mild descriptions of the neighborhood.?
Perhaps, ‘it’s gone? best describes the scene.
A Wal-Mart, a Chevrolet dealer and a factory, along with at least 50 new homes now dominate the fields and woods of my youth.
How could they? Why? It can’t be? Let me see that master plan.
What city planner would allow such a thing?
Well, the same planners that now must contend with 130 million more Americans since 1950. That equates to more than 50 million new homes which must be built somewhere. With these new homes planners must work into the equation more diversified businesses to support these new Americans; they must all eat, recreate and gather life’s necessities. The new Americans must be educated and find employment to sustain a decent life.
My old homestead is not unlike the Northwest sections of Oakland County where housing developments and businesses ‘encroaching? upon pristine farmland and wood lots seem the rule. These sections of land are often filled with those seeking that quality of life lost in the inner-city neighborhoods of Flint, Pontiac or Lansing. Check out sometime the number of students that desire School of Choice in either the Goodrich and Brandon School districts or families that want the 2.5 acre minimum over challenged city schools and postage-stamp sized lots.
Local planners must contend with decades of unbridled decay of these cities, and while planners in our nearby cities try to fix these problems’it’s Atlas, Brandon and Groveland townships that must field the pressure. These communities are among the top 500 communities in the state in growth, a factor that local government should and can manage.
Yet, planners must understand that it’s not wrong for folks, or industry to select the most practical and economical options available’it’s only natural.
So as I stood in the Wal-Mart parking lot eyeing our old house across the street, noting the depleted wood lot or trying to figure out where ‘big rock point? was in relation to the entrance of the new subdivision behind our house, I realized that I too have changed.
I’m glad that I left my hometown and moved to where the schools are better and my home’s on a bigger lot’a place where my kids can find ‘big rock point,? have a wood lot to play in and perhaps a field to hunt in.