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Part Two of Three: What the Roy/Brewer Run-Off Teaches Us About Alexandria Both Delores Brewer and Jacques Roy spoke frequently about a concept known as "smart growth." Mrs. Brewer stated that the city had already been engaging in smart growth for years, but that's not quite accurate. Smart growth is an umbrella term that encompasses many aspects of the ways in which a City develops and expands, and it relies on forward-thinking, research-based analysis of growth patterns and demographic trends. During the past decade, Alexandria has been steadily expanding, but the ways in which our city has grown may present problems for the future. Although the expansion of Versailles and the developments occurring down Highway 28-West are exciting, this growth must be tempered with appropriate agreements with developers in order to ensure that the growth isn't an isolated off-shoot, but a vibrant part of our community, one in which all Alexandrians can enjoy and utilize. Mr. Roy often mentioned the fact that during the past forty years, Alexandria has nearly tripled in size, but its population has remained stagnant. This is due, in part, to the reigning paradigm of suburban sprawl, but it's also due to the fact that Alexandria has enabled developers to build subdivisions right on the fringes of our city limits, without making the case for annexation. In other words, developers have been able to avoid paying city taxes (and have used this as a selling point for their clients) while, on some occasions, they have used certain city services (i.e. sewage). This hardly seems fair for the average taxpayer. And it is one of the reasons Alexandria's population painfully hovers at 48,000- 49,000 people. If Alexandria finds creative ways to bolster its population by making the case for annexation to residents who live in subdivisions right in the middle of the city (yet somehow outside of the city limits), we may be able to boost our population to 50,000 people overnight, and once that occurs, Alexandria becomes eligible for all sorts of federal entitlement grants-- grants that can transform our city in a number of positive ways. When urban planners speak about in-fill, particularly in a city as disjointed as Alexandria, they're not just talking about building new construction in already-developed areas, they are also talking about using the powers of annexation (which are unfortunately limited in Louisiana) to effectively control and manage our city's growth. But again, smart growth isn't just about in-full; it's about making a community more livable. It's about finding solutions to traffic problems, public transportation, garbage pick-up, sewage, utilities, fire and police coverage, and access to resources. Smart growth was always the foundation of Mr. Roy's campaign, and during the next four years, he will be faced with the challenge of articulating and executing his message, stewarding a paradigm shift on how Alexandria understands itself.