BY ERNESTO ESTRADA

Speak to the elders and ghosts of generations past and they will reminisce on their earliest memories: there existed an America where children could walk to school or bike to the mom-and-pop store down the block for candy. Remnants of the past are found everywhere. Look at the black-and-white photos that hang in Lake Mountain Coffee Shop showing crowds of pedestrians making their way through a lively downtown of locally-owned businesses and streets.

That time is no longer. As Statesville has spread out over the past century, it has lost its beating core, even if it has not forgotten what made it great. Floors above shops on Main Street, and the once-iconic Vance Hotel remain vacant. Demolished streets are remembered only through photographs.

While the City Council and developers have and continue to invest in revitalizing the heart of the city, a question has been laid — one that is prevalent throughout the entire country: Why have we spread out instead of building a strong, vibrant core?

Statesville’s 2025 municipal elections addressed this issue in many ways. National polarization is at its highest levels in recent years, but smart urban design has, luckily, not yet been condemned to one side. What I observed in Statesville last November was remarkable. Candidates for mayor and City Council alike recognized an issue, sprawl, and settled on a solution, smart growth, which is an urban planning approach that looks to build sustainable, compact neighborhoods.

The problems associated with sprawl, and which smart growth looks to mitigate, are many. For one, sprawl takes up significant space, destroying natural areas like farmland and forests, and forcing growth from cities into surrounding towns. For example, the Charlotte metro area’s rising population can live within dense, compact neighborhoods, but the city’s zoning laws restrict higher density, causing growth to spill out and gobble up nearby cities and towns, like Huntersville and Mooresville. Stretched-out developments also isolate residents and force them into cars just to leave their neighborhood. A city’s urban fabric is divided into dozens of inaccessible neighborhoods. Many of them, like mine, lack sidewalks, which makes it inconvenient and even dangerous to go for a simple walk.

These same developments often require building new infrastructure, such as roads and water and sewer pipelines to support their inhabitants and connect them to the grid. In addition, they put strain on rural roads that were not built for the increased traffic. Developers build the initial infrastructure, but residents are left to deal with future upkeep. Lower density means that they do not generate the tax revenue to keep their roads and pipelines in good condition, which can quickly create a money pit for the local government; and at worst, when money cannot be allocated, causes infrastructure to simply deteriorate.

Still, “smart growth” is a vague term. While its proponents understand that sprawl is inefficient, it may prove difficult for the city council to agree on which exact policies to implement. Trey Robertson, an engineer and conservative who won an at-large seat on Statesville City Council last year laid out his plan: end further annexation of the county so that the city is not stuck with more costly maintenance bills; and invest in existing neighborhoods by prioritizing infill and loosening zoning restrictions to make housing easier to build. Robertson’s proposals are championed by people across the ideological spectrum, like me. They understand that we must work together to prevent partisan gridlock.

I have seen Statesville transform from the sleepy exurb of my childhood. Its location on the outskirts of the Charlotte metro area give us the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of Charlotte and surrounding suburbs. I hope to see city leaders responsibly nurture future growth, not through spreading our resources, but by concentrating them.

Growth is slowly creeping upwards because sprawl has won in most of the metro area. I would like to believe Statesville can be different regardless of however miniscule its deviation from the mean is. Instead of littering green pastures and forests with grey, cookie-cutter homes, I hope that the ability to create a charming, human-scaled area like Statesville’s Historic Downtown is not something left forgotten in the past.

Ernesto Estrada is a student at Mitchell Community College.