Thank you for this excellent article. Thurston County has an important role to play here. The county is supposed to build up, not out, and put new development in cities, not in rural lands. In my personal experience, the county isn’t always doing this. Allowing improper development of rural lands happens when developers lobby the county and promise things like a lot of housing, despite there being plenty of land for housing inside the urban growth areas. Developers have unlimited resources to spend on lobbying efforts, in contrast to citizens who seek to encourage smart growth. In this way, the system is not favorable to those trying to keep elected officials from ignoring smart growth policies. Electing people with a track record of pursuing smart growth policies will be critical to the future of our communities.
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