Density — the word itself brings to mind large high rises in the middle of a large bustling city. But I want to convince you that density does not just apply to large metropolitan areas, but can be extremely beneficial, useful, and even bring more life to our city.

I was recently reading the Urban Land magazine when I came across an article entitled, “Density is Critical for Cities to Realize Advantages and Avoid Decline.” The article summarized a report recently released talking about the importance density plays in the success or failure of a city or community. The article gave me four takeaways that we can apply to Elizabethton.

First is finding the right locations for mixed-used development. Often this terms confuses people. Mixed-use development is development that accommodates multiple uses such as residential and commercial. Downtown is a great example of mixed-use development. We need to identify areas in our community that can viably utilize mixed-use development and create regulations to accommodate and encourage this type of development.

Next, we must have a plan to accommodate higher density levels in our community and share those plans with developers. We must develop a plan for higher density and work to improve infrastructure create more accommodating land-uses. We also must share this information with developers which will help encourage them to create higher density development in areas of the community that can accommodate it.

We must also look at density on a regional scale. We must not confine our planning and views to only the city limits, but look beyond those limits to observe the type of development that is occurring there. We must work with our county officials and neighboring cities to ensure that our development can be compatible with other development within the region.

Lastly, we must reimagine our community. Elizabethton is a great small city with many benefits that our surrounding communities do not have, but we must step back to look to the future of our community. One where higher density and midsize building developments occur. This doesn’t mean we lose our identity as a small city, it means that we look for ways to increase our sustainability as a city and ways to grow and become more attractive for others to move here.

Higher density provides many benefits to our city. Promoting more businesses and residences already within our city limits mean property taxes are shared between more property owners, utility expenses are shared between more customers, and more houses means more retail and shopping opportunities will be attracted to Elizabethton. We are already starting to see the effects of low density development in our community. How should we proceed in creating higher density locally? Let’s talk about it!

(Jon Hartman is Director of Planning & Economic Development for the City of Elizabethton. He can be contacted at (543) 542-1503 or by e-mail at jhartman@cityofelizabethton.org)