Posted on 02/23/2005 3:23:06 PM PST by srm913
"The furious rate of sprawl only adds to the dislocation permeating exurbia."
No wonder I've been out of sorts; my exurbia is dislocated! *Slaps Forehead*
I just drove back to southern Wisconsin from Decorah, IA today. I was working on a freelance project there, and rest assured, there is enough room between here and there to set ya'll up with 40 acres and a mule, each.
Articles like this are just so bizzar. They have to be written by people that have never set foot outside of a city or even an office cubical! This country of ours is HUGE. (And series.)
"Plenty of room to swing a rope; plenty of heart and plenty of hope!" (That's from the musical "Oklahoma!")
Did you just channel Denis Leary?
Ping...plan to read later...good place to present one's vision of the pastoral world of the now.
We bring it in from England. We steal it from poor little street urchins -- like the ones in Oliver! -- one cup at a time forcibly wrenched from their little fingers, one cup at a time. It is accumulated in cisterns we keep underground, then flown in at late night by black tealth jets.
New to capitalism, college boy?
Reminded me of this classic Denis Leary quote from "Demolition Man":
"I'm the enemy because I like to think. I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech and freedom of choice. I'm the kind of guy that could sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecue ribs or the side order of gravy fries? I want high cholesterol. I would eat bacon and butter and buckets of cheese. Okay? I want to smoke Cuban cigars the size of Cincinnati in the nonsmoking section. I want to run through the streets naked with green Jell-O all over my body reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I might suddenly feel the need to. Okay, pal?"
http://www.theadvocates.org/celebrities/denis-leary.html
Or, cram it. Your choice.
HA-HA-HAAA! This guy's got some stand-up class humor...or should I say "humour"?
Sneer. It was happening decades ago there. The Havant Hypermart in no more or less than a pilot Wal-Mart. Milton Grove is a six-to-the acre cookie-cutter development that was frantically being built twenty years ago.
I love it when visitors decry things they see here, and ignore what's back home.
And I don't understand why anybody would live within sight of their next-door neighbor's house, or on a paved road.
"purposefully lacking the ingrained social fabric of class, race or clan."
So he thinks ingrained "class, race or clan" prejudices are a good thing eh?
It was kind of him to include this hopeful portent of a much better future for our country. If God's people keep having and home-schooling their kids, while the devil's dupes keep aborting or procrastinating away theirs, the trends are lookin' good.
If they don't allow their large cities to become cesspools of crime and disrepair, then people might stay in the large cities. But if my understanding of British politics is accurate, most of their large cities are even more liberal and more cesspool-like than American cities. No wonder people move.
Certainly, the sprawl around London (the real point of this article) has increased over the past 20 years. However, the trains are frequent and the motorways move traffic efficiently. If I were to have to live in that neck of the woods, I would locate out in their exurbs, very nice places indeed. This reporter's bias is clearly in favor of the "inside the ring" urban London, surprise surprise. So by harping on the most unflattering possible portrayal of American exurbs, he knows he can appeal to an emotional response. Once again, the lefty MSM, in this case, the UK version, trying to, instead of reporting the friggin' news, shape public policy.
I guess Mr. Hunt would have preferred that they rented.
I used to travel to Panama on a monthly basis. Along the main highway from the city to the airport, there are South Florida-style gated communities popping up everywhere, along with big box stores and super-supermarkets. If its happening in PANAMA of all places, its got to be happening elsewhere.
MOVE YOUR WHINY ASS BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM!
I wouldn't live in that frozen Minnesota wasteland if you paid me. Damn Yankees, you bitch up a storm about every place you move, then you pave them over into suburbias and turn them into the hellish places you came from. If I had a buck for every person bitching aboot the heat and how they can't get good bagels or bacon or whatever it is they do better up North when I was growing up, I'd have enough to hire an army to move your sorry, complaining butts back at gunpoint. The worst thing about the South and Southwest is we have to listen to y'all imports bitching about it when YOU CHOSE TO MOVE THERE. I don't recall a federal edict vacating the state of Minnesota any time recently. Sky Harbor is open, as is Greyhound. Do yourself a favor, buy a f'in ticket and get out!
/end tirade
Sure, there are lots of monotonous sprinkler city exurbs circling Phoenix. But the beautiful fact is, if you dont like them, dont move there. You dont need central planners restricting you to a certain district, housing type or locale. America trusts you to make up your own mind. Imagine that!
I have lived in Phoenix since I was six. We moved from Chicago to the northern edge of the Valley which was located at about 32nd St. and Cactus. My childhood home was leveled to make room for the Squaw Peak Pkwy, and the City now extends about 20 miles north of there (if you count Anthem).
Now that Im pushing 40, part of me misses the Valley of my youth. But theres no use living in America especially the West if you dont accept change. Now I live in Dobson Ranch, a 30-year-old planned community on the border of Tempe and Mesa. I liked the larger land lots, older trees and shorter commute, so I moved there. My sister likes to be closer to city center, so she lives in a beautiful ranch house near Bethany Home and Central. My in-laws wanted a new place, so they moved to the far exurbs of Trilogy (near Power Ranch). And believe it or not, were all very happy with our different choices.
Live where you like. Let others live where they like. Isn't that what conservatism is all about?
Yeah, but aside from a few crackers in North Florida, EVERYBODY IN FLORIDA IS EITHER A TRANSPLANT OR A CHILD OF A TRANSPLANT! There hasn't been a "southern accent" in Dade, Broward or Palm Beach counties since, like, EVER!
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