Daniel Mears / The Detroit News New homes in South Lyon symbolize a surge in land development and construction in Metro Detroit. Planning experts, local officials and economists question whether the region can sustain an uncoordinated growth binge.

Increasing sprawl strains suburbs

Community costs surge as open space disappears

By John Bebow / The Detroit News

    MACOMB TOWNSHIP — Suburbia is very good to Realtor Mary Lee Roberts, yet she yearns to escape it.

    With an office smack in the middle of Macomb Township, the region’s fastest-growing community, she’s been a county “Realtor of the Year” and keeps a vintage Corvette, a travel trailer, new snowmobiles and a new Lincoln Navigator in her driveway just north of 32 Mile.

    She moved way out there 25 years ago, a pioneer along the now-worn path to Metro Detroit’s fringe. Like many who followed, she was a toddler in Detroit, a school kid in the “inner-ring” suburbs and then sought a big, rural lot when money allowed.

    “It’s all changing out here now,” said Roberts, 52. “I became a real estate agent in 1986. Back then, people said ‘Get me north of Eight Mile.’ Now, it’s ‘Get me north of M-59.’

    “I hate to see the rural disappear, but at the same time it puts a paycheck in my pocket and food on the table.”

    Suburbanites celebrated the prosperity of the past decade in the biggest new homes of any American generation — new houses in new communities with new streets and new schools.

    This expanded American Dream comes with a hefty price. Planning experts, local officials and economists question how long we can sustain an uncoordinated growth binge in which new, outer suburbs compete for residents and businesses while old communities crumble.

    Taxpayer-funded debt reached $8.9 billion in the four-county area last year — up 70 percent since 1993 when adjusted for inflation.

    With that, local government paid for a wide variety of services — many of them growth-related items such as schools, local streets, and recreation centers.

    But the figures don’t include some big-ticket items — like freeway maintenance and water and sewer improvements — usually paid by special taxes and user fees.

    The debt ranges from $1,800 for every man, woman, and child in Wayne County to $4,550 for each person in Livingston County.

    “The state’s big, future financial problems are already becoming clear in Flint, Highland Park and the impoverished big-city school districts,” said Craig Ruff, president of Public Sector Consultants, a Lansing public policy think tank.

    “It’s hurting our competitiveness. The reason is the waste in roads and utilities that could have gone to pay for other things. Michigan will never pay off the mortgage because we constantly remortgage without getting full benefit from what we had before.”

    Land use is rising faster than population. Since 1965, the increase in developed land has outpaced new households by a 2-to-1 margin in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, and Livingston counties.

    Housing costs now tap 30 percent of income for roughly one in five Metro homeowners, despite the lowest mortgage rates in several decades.

    New subdivisions add dozens of miles to the regional road network — some 200 miles just between 1999 and 2000. Commutes are about two hours longer a month than 20 years ago.

    Rural districts scramble to build new schools to accommodate new families while older districts struggle to maintain aging buildings for fewer students.

    The two-fronted infrastructure battle between old and new communities can’t help but result in even higher taxes or continually eroding services in the future, said Mark Wyckoff, president of the Planning and Zoning Center in Lansing.

    The Southeast Michigan Council of Governments projects a $17-billion gap between the region’s road system price tag and available transportation tax money through 2025.

    Even if a windfall is found for some $30 billion in key road improvements, SEMCOG projects congestion would still increase and more than 100 clogged areas would go unaddressed.

    And billions more are needed to repair aging sewers in old cities as new pipes feed the outer ring.

    “Our children and our children’s children will suffer enormously,” Wyckoff said.

Part II: Balkanized Region