America's 1st suburb needs to rethink housing
Moving vans and residents descend on the streets of Long Island's newly built Levittown (Oct. 1, 1947). Credit: Newsday File /Edna Murray
Really?
Do we really have to make this argument again?
It's irrefutable by now that if local governments on Long Island keep being so hostile to anything but 1950s-style, up-from-Bill-Levitt, single-family homes, America's first suburb will end up with a vastly shrunken future - or even no future at all.
Is that too bold a pronouncement? Not according to the Regional Plan Association. The highly respected, nonpartisan group did the grunt work behind the latest data-rich Long Island Index, which came out on Thursday.
The key point: Stubborn local planning and zoning boards, stuck in an earlier generation somewhere, are way too hostile to town houses, condos, apartments, in-town retail and anything else that doesn't have grass in the front, back and side.
The result?
Smart young people keep moving away. They can't afford to live in the houses they grew up in.
Oversized homes are being occupied by one or two people while growing families can't find anywhere to live.
At the same time, companies have a terrible time finding suitable workers even as unemployment rates stay painfully high.
A new wave of downtown condo building won't break that cycle alone. But combined with some other open-mindedness and some well-planned near-the-train-station retail strips, Long Island really could have a vibrant economy again with great housing that people can afford.
The latest evidence has a dull, bureaucratic-sounded title: "Getting It Done: Aligning Long Island's Development Processes with Sustainable Economic Growth."
What that means in English in case there is any doubt:
Long Island's future hangs in the balance! Enough obstruction already!
ASKED AND UNANSWERED: In this age of high-tech crime, isn't it oddly comforting that $100-bill counterfeiting still lives? Throwback bad guy bought a vacuum cleaner at the Riverhead Wal-Mart with five bogus C-notes . . . Those anti-concert Amagansetters who packed East Hampton Town Hall - weren't they young once? . . . Oh, come on, does that really look like a Confederate flag in the Elmont Fire Department logo? Are die-hard Confederates really known for displaying their flag so subtly? If MTV does a Long Island spinoff of "Jersey Shore," will Snooki and JWoww demand their names in the title? Neither star is known for her bashfulness.
E-mail ellis@henican.com.
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Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
