Camp number one: the conservatives. These are the folks who want Mayberry. They want the place to stay the bucolic ideal that they have in their minds, the town they grew up in, and the town they think they want their kids to grow up in. "We moved out here to escape the City," they say. They want wide, tree-lined streets and good schools and are usually strong property-rights advocates (ironically - more on that later). They want things to "stay the same" meaning, they don't want what they think will be detrimental to their way of life. Of course, if a new, bigger grocery store were to come in, no one would object to that! Or restaurants.
Camp number two: the progressives. These are folks who are from "outside". They are new-comers to the area and therefore lack the same sense of heritage and desire for preservation. They have come for many different reasons - work, schools, quality of life, etc. Usually they find things here that are very good and desire to stay long-term. But they also bring with them ideas that are disruptive (to say the very least) to what others want or think they want.
Large cities do not seem to deal with these kinds of camps in exactly the same way. There, there exists historic preservation boards and good, solid ordinances that regulate everything and in which developers and land speculators and construction types and planners all know their roles and usually adhere to them. It's often efficient and structured such that things are done properly and can move through the process quickly.
Smaller cities are much more organic (not to say chaotic...) in the way things get handled. Everything gets done at a much slower pace. New development is analyzed by the camps noted above according to their own perceptions and desires and goals. Conservatism wants sleepy, low-key development, while the progressives want new and exciting things to help them stay there and interested.
Development, however, is as inevitable as the tide. And tide-like, there are ebbs and flows - everything is in a constant state of motion and flux. As a result, it is difficult to know what is going to happen from one moment to the next in the ever-changing tidal basin that is land-use development. Planners try to channel the flows into constructive and positive means, and the best planners try to adhere to a set of professional and ethical norms while taking into account the needs and desires of the communities they serve. But the people are not united in their aims, and the development is not predictable. So how does all of this get resolved?
Conservatives (as mentioned above) ironically tend to be strong property-rights advocates - not that progressives are not, just not as strong. So it is ironic when a property owner wants to develop something that is contrary to some other goal that the conservatives have. Conservatism would declare that people should be able to do whatever they want on their property. But at the same time, there are things that are offensive to the morals of the community and are therefore regulated. And rightfully so. But when something comes in that is offensive but a legal exercise of property rights - what then? The dilemma that is introduced becomes one of property rights vs. regulation. Strict property rights advocates claim that the government has no role in regulating the use of land with the result that one's rights are infringed. Among those rights that property owners enjoy is the right to develop - the right to gain financially from their ownership of the property.
So the tide rolls in. It crashes against the bulwarks carefully erected to control and govern such a tide. And what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?
