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Just some random bits:
In the St. Louis exurbs, NIMBY has two major motivations:
1. Parts of St. Louis County are very poor, and apartment complexes are a risk to adopt income-controlled policies (AFTER they are approved and built; see Ashwood in St. Charles County for an example). Many (most?) of the people in the exurbs moved explicitly to avoid that population (see the mass exodus from North County since the 1980's, it has to be amongst the largest in the nation).
2. The whole exurb area(s) was/were small town/farms just 30 years ago, so nearly the entire local highway system is 2-lane, with major throughfares having a single suicide lane. The roads have crowed commercial development adjacent, so widening the roads would be extremely costly in various ways.
Now that some of these cities have reached ~100,000, and everyone has to drive everywhere (there is no public transport in St. Charles County), the traffic is astoundingly bad. Bad enough that even development of "high-end" properties is generally opposed. They simply do not want anymore traffic, under any circumstances.
Those both written, when we do see new developments in pocket municipalities or unincorporated areas, it is exclusively "Luxury Apartments" or McMansions on postage stamp lots. The land and development process is just too expensive to build anything else. (Excepting small commercial lots sitting on major roads, those are all carwashes or restaurants).
The whole thing makes home prices deceiving in the area, as you can get a home for under $90k in North County, but a condo will cost you over $200k just across the Missouri river.
In the St. Louis exurbs, NIMBY has two major motivations:
1. Parts of St. Louis County are very poor, and apartment complexes are a risk to adopt income-controlled policies (AFTER they are approved and built; see Ashwood in St. Charles County for an example). Many (most?) of the people in the exurbs moved explicitly to avoid that population (see the mass exodus from North County since the 1980's, it has to be amongst the largest in the nation).
2. The whole exurb area(s) was/were small town/farms just 30 years ago, so nearly the entire local highway system is 2-lane, with major throughfares having a single suicide lane. The roads have crowed commercial development adjacent, so widening the roads would be extremely costly in various ways.
Now that some of these cities have reached ~100,000, and everyone has to drive everywhere (there is no public transport in St. Charles County), the traffic is astoundingly bad. Bad enough that even development of "high-end" properties is generally opposed. They simply do not want anymore traffic, under any circumstances.
Those both written, when we do see new developments in pocket municipalities or unincorporated areas, it is exclusively "Luxury Apartments" or McMansions on postage stamp lots. The land and development process is just too expensive to build anything else. (Excepting small commercial lots sitting on major roads, those are all carwashes or restaurants).
The whole thing makes home prices deceiving in the area, as you can get a home for under $90k in North County, but a condo will cost you over $200k just across the Missouri river.