Milan J. Michalec, president of the Hill Country Alliance, welcomes the crowd at Thursday’s summit. Michalec’s parents are Fredericksburg residents.
By Ken Esten Cooke and Robert Deming —
Everything from urban development to dance hall preservation was on the agenda at the Hill Country Alliance 2014 Leadership Summit, held Thursday at the Nimitz Hotel Ballroom.
“HCA was created 10 years ago to raise questions, to say things that aren’t being said, and to create a common threat between us,” said HCA Executive Director Christy Muse. “The HCA isn’t here to save the Hill Country. That is a work in progress which depends on educating and providing information for citizens.”
Keynote speaker Chuck Marohn, president of Strong Towns, made a case for changes in the way cities grow and develop. Marohn, an engineer and city planner, said financial burdens await cities who pour large sums of money into projects they hope will lure business and jobs.
“We built cities for thousands of years around foot traffic,” he said. “And that made for dense, livable communities. But now we build around the automobile. And this is one of the greatest experiments ever done. We’re starting to realize some things that we assumed (shared prosperity from development) would happen, and that’s not the case. There are huge financial implications to the way we develop.”
Marohn likened the post-World War II expansion to a “growth Ponzi scheme.”
“We’re living on borrowed money,” he said. “Both large public debts, but also huge private debts. And we will be forced to absorb the costs of our current development pattern.”
Marohn suggested slow, reasonable development and shedding a “build it and they will come” mind set. He found conflict between an engineer’s approach to building roads where they rank speed of traffic, followed by volume, safety and, lastly, cost. (See column on page D2 for more.)
Water issues
Ken Kramer, water resource and policy expert for the Sierra Club, said there is a disconnect between reality and the state’s legislative water approach.
For more on this story, read this week’s print and online editions of the Fredericksburg Standard-Radio Post. If you are a print subscriber, your full online subscription is free. All you need to do is call 830-997-2155 to get a password. If you are not a subscriber, call 997-2155 or click on the ‘Subscribe’ button on the left side of the home page and sign up today!