Living in Paradise, but is it Sprawl?

The summer before my sophomore year, my family and I packed up our stuff from North Carolina and moved to Seabrook Island, SC. Seabrook is on the coast about 35 minutes outside of Charleston and next door to the more well-known Kiawah Island. About 50 years ago Seabrook Island was nothing but wide open land and uninhabited beach. Only a few locals lived near there and there was probably a private dirt road that led out to the beach. Today Seabrook and Kiawah Island are major vacation and popular retirement spots. Unlike the Denver community mentioned in Blueprint America, Kiawah and Seabrook are not examples of sprawl.

The homes are not packed into a small plot of land, but rather spread out across several miles of land. Kiawah is known for its huge houses and very comfortable condos, with most of those properties being second or maybe third homes. Seabrook is more of an upscale residential community, but is much cheaper to live on than Kiawah. Seabrook is very environmentally friendly because of its restrictions on street lighting and tree removal. Trees and wildlife are abundant and Seabrook has a nickname of "The Nature Preserve". There are very few homes that are modeled after each other on the Island and only condos look similar to one another. Most of the people who live there full-time are retirees, and only a few families live on the island. It is a community that is split between tight-knit and separated. Some people choose to be involved in the community and some choose to keep to themselves. There is no public transportation out where I live so driving is a must if you want to head into Charleston. There is an upscale shopping center with a grocery store 5 minutes from my house, some residents bike to it rather than drive thanks to bike paths around the island. There are only a few restaurants within a 10 mile radius of my house as well. Fortunately Seabrook is not a heavily populated area and accidents and heavy weather are the only causes of traffic and are rare. It is a beautiful area and not an example of sprawl. About 45 min northwest of Charleston is the City of Summerville. Once a small town, but now an infested area with many examples of sprawl in this now overcrowded area.

None of the areas talked about in the documentary Blueprint America, are similar to the area I live in. It would be Portland, if anything, because of the green and spread out space and the nice, not overpopulated community. I really like aspects of both the Portland and Denver communities. I like the environmentally friendly and easy public transportation systems Portland offers. It makes people less dependent on cars, which means less pollution. The Denver community is unique because I like the suburban feel of a community. I lived in a tight knit, middle class community when I lived in Davidson, NC. I loved having neighbors with children because there was always something going on. I never had to commute into Charlotte and deal with traffic, but my mom did. The Denver community probably would not be as appealing for her. The family that was interviewed from Denver, knew that their neighborhood was great for families even though it made the commute harder for the husband. It is a sacrifice that he was willing to make. I feel that sprawl is not a bad thing if it is controlled and green suburban communities are created.

-Chris P.