No one said it was unique to CE. Falmouth restricts access to Mackworth Island and refuses to build any housing at all. Scarborough residents fight against what is a pretty good development at the old race track. Freeport thinks adding a few hundred homes will kill their town character. Brunswick put a moratorium on all big development. It's everywhere and it's ruining southern Maine. The smartest thing any non-home owner could do right now is move away, and that's sad.

>But it’s ok, you can keep thinking the town is just made up of all wealthy jerks who don’t want anything near anyone ever.

It's not. Just a majority.

>I wonder how a low income proposal in the middle of the gentrified Portland west end would fly.

They already have plenty of that, drive down Danforth Street and see for yourself.

No one is making generalizations. Your town voted against affordable housing. It voted against building new schools. You think you have a "vibrant town center" that needs saving, when really you have a strip mall and nothing more. You restrict public access to public spaces like beaches at every opportunity. You want to remain rural, but also enjoy all of the economic and cultural benefits that downtown Portland offer 10 minutes away.

People are going easy on Cape in this thread.

How would a few dozen or maybe a few hundred backyard cottages make Cape Elizabeth less nice? Please be specific.

There's absolutely nothing they can do to stop ADUs, it's the law of the land as of July 1.

I'd love to look the idiots quoted in this article in the eye and ask them how they think a handful of ADUs is going to ruin their community.

You genuinely have no idea what you're talking about. And why would you? Being 2,000 miles away from here...

Maine has been underbuilding for a long time. We were short thousands of units already in 2019. Now of course it's much worse in the remote work/airbnb world we live in. And no, Portland was not that affordable before Covid. While it looks like the population hasn't been growing fast, what your little analysis doesn't include is that's because many people, particularly smart young people, simply leave the state for better opportunities. If there were jobs and reasonably priced homes here, they might stay. Not to mention people delaying having children because of the cost of living, which keeps the population low.

Even now, with a tremendous amount of demand for housing, there is very little construction taking place. If you were actually from here you could drive around and see for yourself. Portland is building some units; great. But pretty much every other town kills every project in sight for no reason at all. Let me know if you want me to send you the articles, there are dozens.

>While under-building over the last decade+ did contribute to the quick jump in housing prices, it is just one of the contributing factors.

Last decade? Try 75+ years. Even before the covid boom housing had been outpacing incomes for decades. Of course everything is multifactorial but you can't dismiss zoning's role in that. It stands to reason that mandating a house be built on 2 acres is going to make it more expensive than a house on 1/10 acre.

And you can't tell me that a majority of towns in Greater Portland not allowing housing to be built doesn't have an effect on prices. It's common sense that it does. If there were 1,000 new apartments online tomorrow current landlords couldn't charge what they are charging (unless you buy into the idea that there is virtually unlimited demand for housing in Portland, which some here seem to think).

Yeah you're right let's Just get rid of that pesky freedom of movement between states thing.

Did you and do you strain the system? Did you go to school and use the roads and sewers? What a disgusting attitude, all too common on this sub honestly.

And LOL saying there are too many people here. This is the most rural state in the nation bub, move to Saskatchewan if you think there are too many people here.

Low population density and access to nature have nothing to do with each other. Portland could be 10,000 people per sq. mile instead of 3,000, but the conserved areas within 15 min drive would still be there. If anything, building compact communities allows us to preserve more nature. What we have right now is a lot of privately owned woods, not public land that anyone can use.

Having a low population density in parts of a state, even a majority of a state, is fine and desirable. Having it everywhere is awful though. The nature argument doesn't hold up; Massachusetts has more conserved land than Maine. It completely hamstrings our economy because companies know they'll have a hard time finding workers. It guarantees that Southern Maine will remain unaffordable (high demand meeting rural zoning=high prices). It means we spend a fortune on cars. It means when a storm hits, 40% of us have no power because we're all in the woods. It means zero usable public transit.

I really don't see a strong argument for mandating rural density everywhere but that's what people here seem to want.

Funny thing is, rural towns don't even have to be so spread out. There are a lot of rural towns in New England with vibrant Main Streets where most people live in walking distance. A place like Brattleboro, VT for instance. But many people in Maine are obsessed with the idea of living in the woods and if you suggest that our state would be better if every town looked like Bath instead of Standish you get downvoted to oblivion.

We are just trying to stay above water here. Population decline is really bad; it leads to decaying towns, overburdened healthcare systems, bankrupt social security, etc.

Maybe if our governor A) acknowledged the cost of living problem and B) did anything at all to try to alleviate it (like idk, forcing selfish towns to allow houses to be built?), people would feel like they could actually stay here.

"A fairly good idea" lmao. I think if we had solved the question of the origin of life I would have heard about it in the news. Link me the science.

They don't teach anything about how life began in schools because it's a scientific mystery at the moment. They teach evolution because is explains how species change over time. Here is a good read: https://time.com/77676/why-science-does-not-disprove-god/

"Science is an amazing, wonderful undertaking: it teaches us about life, the world and the universe. But it has not revealed to us why the universe came into existence nor what preceded its birth in the Big Bang. Biological evolution has not brought us the slightest understanding of how the first living organisms emerged from inanimate matter on this planet and how the advanced eukaryotic cells—the highly structured building blocks of advanced life forms—ever emerged from simpler organisms. Neither does it explain one of the greatest mysteries of science: how did consciousness arise in living things?"

Sparhawk Mill with the river in the background could be a good option. Just google image searched it and there's a really pretty snowy picture you could work off of.

Maine has top a 10 cost of living in the country while also having a bottom 10 economy. It's truly puzzling.

Crab cakes and football, that's what Maryland does! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqVFLuD25DA

But maybe not in the future if we start running the crab game.

I'm pretty sure it'd be included as part of the PSO's Magic of Christmas. Even though it's an Easter song.

Don't forget the scourge of new children moving to town!

Seems demonstrably false given the property tax freeze for seniors coming next year. That does sound like an incredibly expensive school though, not sure I'd be voting in favor of that one...