In a Sunday Washington Post hit piece on Sarah Palin, “As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin Cut Own Duties, Left Trail of Bad Blood,” reporter Alec MacGillis took this inadvertently humorous shot at the growth of Wasilla during her years as Mayor, an observation that could be made just as well about many booming suburban and ex-urban areas of the lower 48: The light hand of government is evident in the town's commercial core, essentially a haphazard succession of big-box stores, fast-food restaurants and shopping plazas.Sounds like most of Northern Virginia outside of Washington, DC, or many other areas of the country, most with a pretty heavy hand of government-ruled zoning.
MacGillis, in the September 14 front page article, saw too little government (“the frontier philosophy”) as causing Wasilla to be uglier -- with buildings made of “corrugated metal,” hardly unusual anywhere in Alaska -- than the surrounding natural beauty:
Further constraining City Hall's role is the frontier philosophy that has prevailed in Wasilla, a town that was founded in 1917 as a stop along the new railroad from Anchorage to the gold mines further north. The light hand of government is evident in the town's commercial core, essentially a haphazard succession of big-box stores, fast-food restaurants and shopping plazas.
The only semblance of an original downtown is a small collection of historic cabins that have been gathered for display in a grassy area beside a shopping center. Most residents live in ranch houses scattered through the woods. Churches, offices, stores and most other buildings are made of corrugated metal or composite materials. Standing in contrast to the utilitarian architecture are the lakes and majestic peaks.
