Leaps of faith drive ever-expanding 'burbs

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-adv.bdog.acmain1nov25,0,5631708.story?page=3&coll=chi_tab01_layout

Standing in front of their new home, Alysia and Ryan Schramka and their 2-year-old daughter, Madison, look out across 600 acres of what recently were corn and soybean fields. At the moment, their view is of a barren landscape. The streets have been put into the naked ground but curve along lots where only weeds reside.

"We're ready," Alysia said. "We're excited."

In early December, the Schramkas will become pioneers on the outer edge of the suburbs as one of the very first families in Ingham Park, 46 miles from the Loop on the far western border of Aurora.

They will move from northwest suburban McHenry County into the Ultima II—a four-bedroom, 21/2-bath, two-story home with a three-car garage—on Ayres Drive. The development is being built in the midst of a still-working farm with crops to the south and barns and silos to the north.

If Alysia and Ryan look farther out and into the future, they can see new subdivisions springing up to surround them. Shopping malls and office buildings also will rise. Roads will be built and congestion will follow.

Whose inflated values were meant to put money back into them; and not be bulldozed for fancy looking outhouses.

The city residents move out to the burbs. Millions enter our area from the world to the city (Chicago sanctuary city) but move into the burbs for cheaper housing. If they want them, they can have them.

I see more and more in my town since they built cheaper apartments, etc. They said, they were for the seniors. Ya seniors from Japan, China, Mexico, etc. The stores are full of non-English speaking new comers.

Seems jobs, water, land, clean air, crime, over crowded jails, hosptial debt, etc. isn't of concern to them if it's not in their "upscale community" where the politicans live. The rest of us be "d".

Farms are only profitable if a corporation ownes it because they get tax breaks and cheap immigrant slave labor. The rest of us pay for it.

:argh:

Nothing pisses me off more than seeing productive farmland, especially pitch-black prarie soil, being graded and paved over so a suburbanite can have a 3 acre grass lawn and a house twice as big as he needs.

The desire to "live in the country" is DESTROYING THE COUNTRYSIDE! Buy a farm or live in the city. Dont bulldoze my surroundings because you want fresh air and a view.

</rant>

The desire to move into the exurbs is just the result of brainwashing. This "drive till you qualify" nonsense is based on two misconceptions:

1) That everyone needs a big house. I've seen childless couples who intend never to have children buy four-BR houses, but even if you have children, it won't kill them to share a room.

2) That the extra driving you have to do won't cost much. That was a silly idea even before gas prices went up, especially in terms of non-monetary costs: lack of time and lack of exercise.

That automatically means that expansion is going to take out the best farmland in the area.

once they simply can't afford to fill up their SUVs they use to drive 50 miles to work.

$50 a day on gas. $250 a week. $1000 a month. $12,000 a year. And that's just for commuting. Figure double that when all is said and done. That will chew a nice hole in the old AMEX card...