Htown Harry
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- May 13, 2007
- Messages
- 1,525
Several have commented on busy streets near the school.
One phenomenon we have here in the land of minimal land use planning is that the developers of large subdivisions seem to intentionally avoid planning for a school in the interior of the "master planned" property. Instead, they leave plenty of vacant tracts around the busy perimeter for commercial or multi-family development.
When the school district comes around looking for new school sites, the developer is usually quite happy to give him a "good deal" on a piece of the commercial frontage. The developer comes out ahead in two ways. He gets twice the dollars by selling premium land to the school district (vs. an interior tract, though he might gets a bit less than he might have for commercial development.) More important, he gets to use the presence of the new school at the front door of the subdivision as a marketing advantage over the next neighborhood down the road.
Later, when the attendance boundaries are drawn, the typical result is that the parents of a bunch of kids who live close to the school don't judge it to be accessible via a safe walking route. So they drive Junior three blocks, cross the busy street in the car and join the carpool line.
Some school districts are truly myopic when it comes to providing options for walkers. At the extreme, one local district pulled all of their crossing guards a few years ago. Their rationale was that since they offer free bus service available to every child (no matter the distance from the school), they couldn't afford the "double" expense of providing for walkers, too.
One phenomenon we have here in the land of minimal land use planning is that the developers of large subdivisions seem to intentionally avoid planning for a school in the interior of the "master planned" property. Instead, they leave plenty of vacant tracts around the busy perimeter for commercial or multi-family development.
When the school district comes around looking for new school sites, the developer is usually quite happy to give him a "good deal" on a piece of the commercial frontage. The developer comes out ahead in two ways. He gets twice the dollars by selling premium land to the school district (vs. an interior tract, though he might gets a bit less than he might have for commercial development.) More important, he gets to use the presence of the new school at the front door of the subdivision as a marketing advantage over the next neighborhood down the road.
Later, when the attendance boundaries are drawn, the typical result is that the parents of a bunch of kids who live close to the school don't judge it to be accessible via a safe walking route. So they drive Junior three blocks, cross the busy street in the car and join the carpool line.
Some school districts are truly myopic when it comes to providing options for walkers. At the extreme, one local district pulled all of their crossing guards a few years ago. Their rationale was that since they offer free bus service available to every child (no matter the distance from the school), they couldn't afford the "double" expense of providing for walkers, too.