Nick Arnett wrote: > If I'm hearing you right, you're saying that it is > okay for the top 20 percent income-makers to gain > all the benefit of the wealth created in this area, > even as much of the rest of the community is seeing > their standard of living decrease? I see something > terribly wrong when teachers are compelled to leave > the area because they can't afford to live here on > their salary, or have to commute four to six hours > a day from affordable housing.
I hope your progam is helping with that, because even if things work themselves out in the long run, there will be a lot of short-run ugliness until things work themselves out. > Yes, people don't have to live here. But for many, > their families are here, their roots are here and > anyone who is at the 20th percentile here has a job > here, too. How cruel and elitist it seems to > suggest that they should just leave. Why? I wouldn't be asking them to do anything I haven't done. My mother and father had (and still have) most of their family in Arkansas. My dad couldn't find a decent civil engineering job in that state, so we moved to Dallas when I was 3. A few times a year, for every year since then, we drove back to Arkansas to visit our grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. After a while, my parents decided they didn't like the schools and living conditions in Dallas, so we moved to Midlothian, a small town about 35 miles away, and my Dad commuted. He lost that Dallas job several years later, but he had a choice of several jobs in various cities throughout the Southeast, since he'd kept up his engineering certification in several states. My Mom and Dad did some research, and decided that the Huntsville, Alabama area had the best living conditions and schools of the cities where he had job offers, so we moved to Hartselle, a small town about 35 miles from Huntsville, and my Dad commuted again. Through all of that time, we've been driving to visit Arkansas a few times a year. It can be inconvenient, but we are still in touch with our family and roots. The same holds true for the people in California. A lot of California's inhabitants were driven there by the Dust Bowl in the Midwest and South, who moved to California looking for a better economy and a chance at a better life. The same is true for the people who left Mexico to move to California. ______________________________________________________________________ Steve Sloan ......... Huntsville, Alabama =========> [EMAIL PROTECTED] Startide: Steve Sloan's Pages ================> http://www.sloan3d.com Brin-L list pages ........................... Chmeee's POV-Ray Objects 3D and Drawing Galleries ....................... Science fiction scans Science Fiction, Science, and Computer Links ................ Software
