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BOOM TOWN

New homes, new jobs-a whole new mega-city is spring-ing up 20 minutes west of Dallas. If you’ve wondered where the Metroplex is headed, this is it.
By NINA FLOURNOY |

AS YOU DRIVE WEST FROM Dallas on Interstate 635, the scenery changes. Land spreads out in a wide expanse on either side of the highway. Off to the south are the slick high-rises of Las Colinas. Looking back you get a hazy view of downtown Dallas. Moving past D/FW International Airport, you pick up Highway 114 West. You have entered the last frontier in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

The land flanking Highway 114, bounded on the east by D/FW Airport and on the west by Alliance Airport, is one of the last major undeveloped areas in the Metroplex. But not for long. It is being eyed by developers and investment strategists from all over the world. Major players, like H. Ross Perot Jr., have a large stake in seeing the area boom. Rolling farmland is being measured off in lot sizes. High-dollar subdivisions are being built at a dizzying pace. Cartographers are drawing boundaries around newly acquired parcels of land.

Already development is having an impact. The mostly rural towns and bedroom communities of Southlake, Westlake, Trophy Club, Colleyville, Grapevine, Keller, Haslet and Roanoke are choked with traffic. Residents who moved to the region to get away from the city are watching pile drivers and bulldozers clear the land where horses and cows grazed only a year ago.

At first residents of the towns resisted any development. The prospects were overwhelming. They don’t want to see their peaceful place in the country become another Addison, Piano, Irving or Las Colinas.

Now, resigned to the inevitable encroachment of big development, this cluster of small cities is banding together in an attempt to create a common vision, a master plan. They insist their growth will be different from that of other Dallas suburbs. They say they won’t lie down and let developers run over them. Like Lilliputians struggling to restrain Gulliver, most residents believe that together they can tame the giant.

“What is unique about this area, versus the development of areas like Piano or Addison or Las Colinas, is we are in control, not the developers. Everyone, I mean everyone, has jumped into the decision-making process, from wealthy homeowners to gas station attendants,” says Rick Wilhelm of the Southlake Economic Development Council. “This is a rare opportunity for residents to shape their own vision of what they want their town to be, not some outside investor.”

Others are not so optimistic.

“I don’t think these people have any sense of what they are allowing to happen. They are not strong enough to restrict the developers. It [Highway 114] will just be like LBJ or Stemmons running through their town. It is a shame,” says Paul Geisel, a leading urban expert and professor of urban studies at the University of Texas at Arlington. “Not a single lesson has been learned in this whole region. We’ve heard this all before. Piano said it. Addison said it. Arlington said it. It has been going on for 50 years. I don’t see anything new now, except that this is much bigger.”

This is not just another battle between residents and developers. What’s at stake is no less than the future of the Dallas/Fort Worth area. And the stakes are enormous.

For the thousands of current residents in northeast Tarrant County, the incoming development could mean the end of their way of life. For the developers, stung by the long downturn in the area’s economy, it’s a multibillion-dollar gamble with the potential for thousands of jobs. For Dallas and Fort Worth, it stands to siphon off residents and pull companies and much-needed jobs out of already ailing central business districts.

What is certain is this: The towns of northeast Tarrant County, sandwiched between two thriving airports and situated along a two-lane highway on the verge of becoming a freeway, are slowly evolving into a mega-community.

“Not many people in Dallas are even aware all this is going on. They haven’t even heard of Solana [IBM’s new regional headquarters] or Southlake, but this is where our future is stressed. This is the hottest real estate area of the ’90s,” says Geisel. “While it’s in Tarrant County, I consider it a Dallas suburb, because [Highway] 114 is a very strong link to Dallas and Las Colinas, even more so than to Fort Worth. I’d say it is the first major Dallas suburb in Tarrant County.”

With the airports serving as magnets, the region between them has become a force field. Highway 114, now considered the biggest growth corridor in North Texas, is being extended to link Alliance Airport with D/FW Airport. Land on either side of the once poky length of highway, dotted with cows and horses, farms and ranches, has been snatched up by huge companies, including IBM, The Perot Group and Mobil Land Development.

Until the late 1960s and early ’70s, this land remained mostly rural. Then, in 1974, D/FW Airport was completed. This, along with the construction of Airport Freeway, stimulated a surge in suburban growth west of the airport. But it was lukewarm compared to the hot real estate boom north of Dallas at that time.

The land flanking Dallas Parkway north of LBJ Freeway became known as a golden corridor, where, seemingly in a flash, malls, hotels and huge office complexes pushed up out of the farmland like urban crops. The booming commercial development stretching from far North Dallas into Addison drove real estate prices up. With prices so high there, land speculators began quietly setting their sights on the area just beyond D/FW Airport.



THE PEROT FACTOR

IN 1986 ONE COMPANY spent at least $100 million-cash-to buy 16,000 acres north of Fort Worth. That company was The Perot Group, headed by H. Ross Perot Jr.

The only son of Dallas billionaire H. Ross Perot, he was previously known for his acumen as a military fighter pilot. Now, intent on making his own fortune, Perot Jr. placed his bets on northeast Tarrant County.

But just after the initial investment, the younger Perot’s gamble appeared to be a major mistake. Real estate prices fell in North Texas, paralyzing any plans The Perot Group had for development in the area.

Everything changed in 1987. The Federal Aviation Administration approached The Perot Group to donate land for an airport that would move corporate and private air traffic out of D/FW Airport. After consulting with several area industries, such as Bell Helicopter, Perot Jr. came up with the concept of an industrial airport.

The idea was to design an airport strictly for business use by manufacturing and distribution companies. With a railroad line on one side, the new airport in the middle and a major highway on the other side, the companies could fly in parts, assemble them on site and ship completed products anywhere in the world. There was nothing else like it.

“Alliance Airport is the beginning of a new generation of airports-a group of specialized airports that not only provides economic benefits to the communities it serves, but provides much needed relief at major commercial airports,” says Jack Sas-ser, FAA deputy regional administrator. He called the airport a “prototype for the future.”

The Perots donated the land to Fort Worth to build the airport, on the condition that The Perot Group would operate it.

In 1988 The Perot Group broke ground on the $50 million airport. A year and a half later it officially opened, far outpacing the FAA’s planned eight-to-10-year timetable. The Perot Group is simultaneously developing 4,800 acres surrounding the airport for use as a business, aviation and trade complex-The Alliance Center. Plans also include two master-planned residential developments and retail centers.

Perot’s project prompted the city of Fort Worth to underwrite more than $75 million in bonds for road repair, highway projects and the Eagle Mountain Water Treatment Plant. Perot also managed to get the Texas State Department of Highways and Public Transportation to agree to the construction of State Highway 170, connecting Interstate 35W to Highway 114, thus linking Alliance Airport to two major freeways.

Some observers question the way Perot secured some of his biggest coups at Alliance. For example. American Airlines announced it would build its $400 million maintenance facility at Alliance after Perot aggressively lobbied state legislators to eliminate American’s property taxes in the area. This would save the airline an estimated $50 million over a 15-year period, but area residents resented the loss of tax revenue for schools. The tax plan passed when Perot gave the school district $500,000.

In addition to American Airlines, the transportation hub has attracted the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Santa Fe Railway, the Japanese Ishida Aerospace Research company. Texaco and Food Lion. All are planning major facilities.

National Service Research, a Fort Worth-based independent economic research consulting company, estimates Alliance Airport will create approximately 163,000 direct and indirect jobs in the area over the next 25 years. An economic report recently compiled by Dr. M. Ray Perryman, an economist and financial strategist, concludes that Alliance Airport is the “single most important growth factor for the Dallas/Fort Worth area over the next 20 years.”

Some observers say the highway connecting D/FW and Alliance is the most dynamic growth corridor in the country. Not surprisingly, H. Ross Perot Jr. calls it “the spine of the Metroplex.”

Perot sees the entire area from a different perspective than most-from 500 feet up. From the cockpit of his private helicopter. Perot looks out over his land like a monarch viewing the kingdom from the turret of his castle. Below, construction workers are hammering shingles on the roofs in a nearly completed subdivision on Perot property. He points out the path the new highway extension will take. Further west he surveys the new runways at Alliance and observes the highway crews clearing land for the freeway exchanges.

“People think we’re out here building a town. This is not a new town. We are developing a whole region,” says Perot. To make his point he maneuvers the helicopter in the direction of Las Colinas, then back over the Alliance Center property. “The area we’re developing is 18,000 acres,” he says, comparing it to Las Colinas’ 12,000 acres. “This is a huge new crescent of master-planned development.”

His vision for the region is another Las Colinas in terms of modern office buildings and upscale retail centers. The difference, he says, is that this development will be more spread out and will include more single-family residential subdivisions. Corporations will have the space to design campus-style office centers where corporate meets country, such as Solana, an experimental office/retail development in Southlake.

“I see companies following Solana’s example out here,” Perot says, pointing down at the sprawling, low-rise buildings where IBM has regional headquarters.

“All this development going on at once in one region couldn’t happen just anywhere,” Perot adds. “This is unique to any place else in the United States. It is rare to find all the ingredients to make something like this happen.”

Among the ingredients fueling the growth is D/FW Airport, the world’s second largest aviation center. A proposal to double the available capacity of D/FW points out the direction in which Dallas is moving.



WHAT ABOUT DALLAS?

THIS SHIFT AWAY FROM THE TRADITIONAL CENTER of Dallas could have devastating consequences for the city, according to one of the leading economists in the South.

“D/FW [Airport] is going to be the center of Dal-las, if you look at where the growth is headed. Growth tends to feed on growth,” says Bernard Wein-stein, director of the Center for Economic Development and Research at The University of North Texas in Denton. “Billions of dollars in public and private investments are pouring into the area west of D/FW along 114-highway construction, residential developments, commercial and industrial projects. Big players like The Perot Group. Mobil and the Bass brothers now own the land and they want to see their property developed.”

Weinstein notes that the potential for growth along the Highway 114 corridor is far bigger than along the LBJ golden corridor, as 114 is driven less by speculation than by employment and residential projects. As a result, the area has a greater potential for drawing population and companies away from Dallas.

Dallas grew by only 10 percent during the 1980s, while the surrounding area grew by 20 percent, Weinstein observes. “The net migration into the Metroplex has slowed to a trickle. This year about 5,000 new residents will move here. Ten years go we had 50,000 people moving in.”

Dallas is feeling the effect of the “edge city” phenomenon. Edge cities, or satellite cities, are more than suburbs or bedroom communities. They are concentrated around their own business centers and provide their own goods, services, housing, jobs and lifestyles. As the population shifts outward, major metropolitan cities lose people, jobs and taxes.

“This is going to be very problematic to the entire city of Dallas, and particularly to the central business district,” said Weinstein. Nor will downtown be the only area to suffer. “I expect to see a number of relocations from Love Field to Alliance. What do you think is going to happen to Love Field?”

Perot concurs that Alliance “will have a huge impact on Dallas,” but his is not a negative scenario. “With Alliance, Dallas can now compete for major aviation industrial companies,” he says. Perot feels Alliance and the development west of Dallas will help the Metroplex as a whole. “You cannot break up Fort Worth and Dallas anymore. I am a citizen of the Metroplex.”

Weinstein disagrees. “Alliance is potentially damaging to the Dallas economy,” he says. “The new administration in Dallas is trying to keep business here, trying to make it a contender, but it’s a tough sell. With the problems of crime, poor schools and such, it is getting harder to compete with the suburbs. And when you have an area like this where the pace of development is more orderly, more planned around being attractive to the residents, the competition gets even tougher.”

Perot agrees that one of the drawing cards for the area between Alliance and D/FW airports is the semirural atmosphere.

“I’ve had many people tell me they are concerned about losing the feeling of being out in the country. They’ve made it clear. They want looser development, more open spaces. And they have taken the necessary steps to keep those things in check.”



TRYING TO KEEP THAT COUNTRY FEELING

BUT MANY SAY THEY ARE WATCHING THE ATMOS-phere disappear piece by piece. They throw up their hands and suggest calling the area “Perotville.”

“Perot’s going to do what Perot wants to do.” says Anne Kendrick, who has lived in Keller for 11 years. “The whole reason we moved out here was to have a country life.”

She and her husband bought 1.5 acres surrounded by 222 acres of raw land. They also bought 10 acres with a barn and a place for their nine horses on the other side of town. They paid $5,000 an acre. “Now you can’t touch it,” she says.

Although the Kendricks still look out at rolling hills and grazing horses, they see development closing in on all sides. “The city is coming. It looks like we’ll be finding someplace else to live,” says Kendrick.

On the other side are those who welcome the changes, citing improved roads, better schools, sewage systems and a reduced tax base.

“I came out here in 1984, when homes were all on one-acre lots or more. Now that some subdivisions are on half-acres, it hasn’t destroyed the atmosphere, mainly because we’ve made it a requirement that developers put in green belts. We’re watching each development very closely,” says Rick Wilhelm, an attorney and member of the Southlake City Council. “We want the best of both-the city and the country. We aren’t letting our city boom. We’re allowing ourselves the time to plan. Everybody wants to keep it open and rural, so there is no way we’re going to let that slip away.”

Mobil Land Development Corp., a division of the giant oil company, bought 1,650 acres in Southlake and Colleyville two years ago. The company believes the country setting will be a significant selling point for its master-planned residential development.

“The feel will be very open, lots of land. We want to keep the rural character. That’s what the cities here want,” says Susan Evans, vice president for Mobil Land Development. Their development will be primarily residential, with lots ranging from $200,000 to $500,000. They also plan to use several acres for retail development.

“We are designing our residential properties to capture the relocation companies. The homes are high-end, with amenities like tennis and swimming. Also, the Carrollton Independent School District is another plus. It is one of the best in the Metroplex,” says Evans, a resident of Grapevine.

Among the other upscale developments in the region is SouthRidge Lakes, a 267-acre residential area in Southlake, completed last year by the Arvida company of Florida. Known nationally for their top-notch, almost fantasy-land communities, Arvida is putting the finishing touches on the homes priced from $200,000 to $360,000.

The fact that most all the residential property in these towns is targeted at the affluent homeowner, has, as yet, prompted very little debate about the question of who lives there-and who doesn’t.

The demographics of the area, according to data compiled by the North Central Texas Council of Governments, show a population that is more than 90 percent white, where the average age is 32 and the median price of a home is around $175,000.

“The fact is, the market controls what growth is taking place,” says John Pitstick, director of development for the city of Hurst. “Each city can pass an ordinance to determine their lot size and the density of an area. If a developer wants to spend the money to challenge it, as in the case of Sunnyvale, he can. But it hasn’t come up.”

Last fall a developer challenged the zoning restriction in Sunnyvale, just east of Dallas, on the basis that the lot minimums did not allow for the construction of low-income housing. The issue has not yet been settled. So far, notes Pitstick, there hasn’t been any pressure to develop higher-density residential projects in the Alliance boom area.

As for commercial development, Mobil is still in the early stages of planning retail and office projects. Says Mobil’s Evans: “We envision the [Highway] 114 and 170 corridor to mirror the growth along LBJ Freeway and Dallas Parkway. That area is currently so developed and congested, companies relocating to the area will be looking for alternatives in the next five to 10 years. They’ll locate on 114.”

Evans noted that there is still a lot of land yet to be spoken for, making it hard to predict what the area will become. “The big question mark for all of us is Circle T.”

Located in the town of Westlake, the 2,000-acre Circle T Ranch is the former weekend retreat of bankrupt oilman Nelson Bunker Hunt. It sits awaiting a high-stakes real estate investor to make just the right deal. Developers want to chop it into small subdivision lots. Although Westlake vowed to stick to its zoning restrictions of 150-acre lot minimums, it whittled the minimums to 10 acres last year when Perot Jr. made a bid to buy the property. Last November that deal fell through, leaving residents on the edge of their seats waiting to learn the fate of the ranch.

The town currently is wrestling with whether to allow mixed-use development in Westlake-apartments, office parks, retail complexes.

“Times have changed,” says Westlake Mayor Dale White. “We’re changing, too, and hopefully we can have the right kind of progress. The key is control. I don’t know how to do it, but we’re going to try.”

Leaning on the steering wheel to view the sprawling Circle T Ranch land encircled by a peeling white wood fence, Betty Springer shakes her head.

“Take a good look at it. It won’t be long before some developer turns it into a subdivision with shopping centers and parking lots.” An active community leader in Southlake, Springer says, “I wish they’d turn it into a resort or something. But they won’t. Not enough money in that.” She drives on, and someone else pulls over to take a long look.

Change is coming fast to this once sleepy area, suddenly alive with activity, as if someone stuck a stick in an ant bed. Residents of the cities between the two airports are flocking to city council and zoning meetings to air their concerns.

“The thing everybody is most concerned with is maintaining the sense of openness out here. We want to maintain the rural character,” says Southlake City Manager Curtis Hawk. “Yes, we are going to lose some of that as development takes shape, but we will also be losing a nightmare,” he adds, referring to the poor road conditions and bumper-to-bumper commuter traffic.

“We’re hardly rural anymore-that is going fast. Because of where we are (in the Metroplex), if we didn’t do anything we would become North Dallas,” says Hawk. “This is where people and jobs are moving. We don’t want to be like North Dallas. It is fine, but it is not what we want. We want an open, rural feel, and we’re trying our darndest to keep it.”



SOUTHLAKE: GROWTH TlMES 10 THE CITY OF SOUTHLAKE EPITOMIZES THE META-morphosis taking place. Known for its horse farms and gently rolling cow pastures, it now has 13 new subdivisions either being laid out or just nearing completion. Since 1990 more than 300 building permits have been issued, with the average home valued at $173,000.

The city’s main road, Highway 114, is about to become another LBJ Freeway. While residents tout the new high school, in the same breath they cuss when their cars hit the potholes.

Driving through tree-lined, narrow roads with ranch-style homes and horses roaming in the yard, Springer turns a corner into a new subdivision with stately brick homes and manicured lawns. “I remember when this was all just fields and barbed-wire fences.” Though sentimental about the disappearing landscape, Springer is confident Southlake will not turn into a parking lot. “We saw the growth coming and we were able to catch it early. A lot of cities don’t know what’s going on until it is too late.”

One Southlake resident who is paying attention is Keith Letsinger. He and his wife moved from Miami three years ago with the idea of settling someplace semirural. When the boom arrived at his back door, he showed up at City Hall with a list of complaints.

“I didn’t move out here thinking things would not change. But I’ve been dissatisfied with the approach the city is taking, particularly on commercial development.” Lets-inger says. He is worried about the new Crossroads Square shopping center going up across the street from his house at Highway 1709 and White Chapel Road. “We can’t stop the growth. Besides, we need the tax base. But we could set higher standards for blending commercial into the residential landscape.”

Letsinger was part of the standing-room-only crowd at a Southlake City Council meeting last spring, when residents and city officials turned out en masse to discuss the construction of the city’s first shopping center.

The initiation of commercial development into a city with a tax base that is more than 80 percent residential is one of the hardest transitions Southlake has ever faced. But Mayor Gary Fickes says, like it or not, it is necessary to balance the tax base. “Growth is on its way. We can’t stop it. The key now is to make it work for us, not let it take us over.”

One of the most dramatic developments in Southlake also spills over into adjacent Westlake. Solana, which means “a place in the sun,” is the largest new commercial building complex in the Metroplex, with IBM currently its largest tenant. Its 900 acres will contain 7 million square feet of mixed use space by the time the project is completed in the next 10 years. Solana is expected to become the corporate headquarters for several electronics and communications companies.

As an experiment in planning and design, Solana is signaled by tall magenta and cadmium-yellow obelisks sticking up out of the prairie on either side of state Highway 114. From a distance, the complex’s low, wheat-colored buildings seem to blend into the landscape. For now, plans call for developing only a fraction of Solana’s acreage, leaving the rest in its natural state.

Mayor Fickes embodies old Southlake values. He has a dog, a cat, a rabbit, a goat and a potbellied pig. “You can’t have that in a big city,” he says. He moved to Southlake from Grapevine nine years ago to get away from subdivisions. “I wanted a place in the country, where I didn’t have to rake the leaves, where I could let my dog out.”

When he arrived he bought land at $15,000 per acre. The population was less than 4,000. Then neighboring Colleyville went from septic tanks to sewer lines, from farm land to top-dollar subdivisions.

“It was obvious back then that Southlake was a jewel just waiting to be found.” Fickes said.

Since then, the value of his land has doubled, and a developed subdivision in Southlake would now sell for between $45,000 and $90,000 per half-acre. The city’s population increased 151 percent from 1980 to 1990, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures. Currently Southlake has 7,865 residents and the figure is estimated to reach 25,000 by 2010.

Despite the growth, Fickes says he is not being forced to give up his lifestyle. “Yes, there are subdivisions, really nice ones, but there is still acreage, too.”

Southlake is large enough to grow in both directions. The city has 23 square miles, making it geographically the third-largest city in Tarrant County, just behind Fort Worth and Arlington. Only one-third of the land has been developed. In the last few years, zoning restrictions have changed from one-acre to half-acre minimum residential lots.

With the widening of Highway 114, the construction of Highway 170 linking Alliance Center to 114 and the widening of FM 1709 from a two-lane road to a six-lane highway, Southlake is about to boom. In the meantime, it is suffering from a lack of infrastructure. Roads and thoroughfares desperately need repair, only the southern side of the city is on sewer lines and the water system needs to be improved.

“Up until about a year ago, 90 percent of the existing homes in Southlake were on septic tanks,” says Mayor Fickes. Now that the Trinity River Authority is finishing up the massive sewer lines in Southlake, the dirt is flying.



COLLEYVILLE: “LITTLE HIGHLAND PARK”

ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE CITIES to emerge out of the pastures is Colleyville. Called “Little Highland Park,” Colleyville is a city of pricey new houses, estates and mansions occupied by people with one of the highest average annual household incomes in the Metroplex (about $73,000). As word circulates about the number of affluent residents here, the local newspaper is getting calls from Saks Fifth Avenue, Stanley Kor-shak and Dillard Department Stores, all wanting to buy advertising space.

“Everybody is reaching for this market all of a sudden,” said Dian Thompson Chandler, an advertising account executive with the Colleyville News and Times. “Our paper has tripled in size in one year. Last year it was 12 pages. Now we are 36 pages. We have so much new business we can’t get to our customers.”

This past October the Colleyville News and Times launched a full-color women’s section patterned after the “High Profile” section in The Dallas Morning News. That same month they went from tabloid to a full- size newspaper.

The schools are also bursting at the seams.

“When I took over [in 1987], enrollment was 4,300. This year it was 9,600. We are talking about monumental changes,” says Dr. E.A. Sigler Jr., superintendent of the Grape-vine-Colleyville Independent School District, academically one of the best in the state.

Sigler left Dallas after 31 years in the Highland Park School District, having served nine of those years as a principal. He says Colleyville hired consultants to search for a superintendent, and when they brought him out, he was hooked.

“The kids here don’t have a lot of the problems kids have to deal with in the big city. This is a tight-knit, thriving community,” says Sigler. “The economy may be suffering elsewhere, but not here. Everywhere there are rooftops going up. You don’t find this going on anywhere else in Texas.”

Even with its bulging puree, Colleyville has its own growing pains. With 79 percent of the tax base made up of housing and only a fraction commercial, the city is struggling to lower the tax rate.

“No one wants to give up the rural appeal, but everyone wants lower taxes. It’s an age-old battle between the old guard and the new guard,” says Carolyn Tarwater, executive vice president of the Colleyville Chamber of Commerce.

Almost everybody in northeast Tarrant County says the main reason they moved there was to get away from the crime, crowds and hassles of city life. Many were attracted to the schools. Others wanted to enjoy the slower pace of the country, while maintaining easy access to big-city advantages in nearby Dallas and Fort Worth. These common threads have helped residents rally throughout the area in an effort to put controls in place.

“We are all in this together, not just one or two cities. What happens to Southlake, hap-pens to Grapevine and so on, says Brad Bradley, a municipal judge in Southlake and chairman of the Northeast Leadership Forum

This group of 75 to 80 local leaders gathers for bimonthly meetings to discuss such issues as zoning, schools, traffic and sewage systems. While dealing with the physical change in their area, they have seenthe politics shift, too.

“Up until about five to 10 years ago, this was a farm community and the farmers were Democrats.” says Bradley. “People have moved here from all over the country. They are affluent, upwardly mobile, college educated and somewhat transient. They are connected to IBM and GTE, so they are subject to transfer in a few years or so. The Republicans have supplanted the Democrat farmers out here,” says Bradley.

As they wrestle with the boom, the leaders inevitably encounter “turfism,” says Tarwater, of the Colleyville Chamber of Com-merce “We are dealing with 14 cities and towns and 14 sets of views. When we sit down to talk about cooperative projects, like zoning, streets, parks or drainage, each city has its own ideas.”

Tarwater adds: “We have got to work together before we lose our grip. I don’t think the cities out here are thinking far enough down the road.”

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