I can remember when my wife Francie and I were courting, we would have dinner on Friday nights with her parents, then go into downtown Cumberland. Plenty of open stores, coffee shops, movie theaters, people walking around, etc. A perfect Norman Rockwell small town setting on a Friday evening. Within a year from when this mall was built on the side of the mountain, stores in downtown Cumberland shut down, some closed at 5 or 6 p.m., and it looked like a ghost town. We decided that if government policies had inadvertently encouraged sprawl by making it cost-effective, then new government policies could encourage investment in existing communities and Smart Growth centers, and make it more expensive to further sprawl.
People make bottom-line decisions.
Therefore, it must be our goal to change the bottom line. First through State law in 1997, and then by Executive Order in 1998, we refocused the State's financial resources on our established communities and neighborhoods. If you building out there, and tearing up one more farm, then you pay for roads, water and sewage, schools, parks, and other development costs. In fact, we want economic growth in Maryland, and our economy is booming. We have the third highest family income in the nation, and stand at a 10-year low in unemployment.