An expansion of Twelve Oaks Mall confirms that the city of Novi will remain a growth magnet in southeast Michigan. However, some critics say the city's success in drawing new development while older communities stagnate underscores a lack of regional planning. Kurt Metzger, research director in the Center for Urban Studies at Wayne State, pointed out that the region often functions "as 250 individual communities, all competing against one another for business and new residential development. And I think it\'s just so counterproductive. . . . We don\'t need to be using up all this land," he said. "We don\'t need to be creating new communities on and on and on.\"