A word from a wild-eyed free market zealot.
You know - the one your referred to in "People have emotional and logical reasons for tapping into community sustainability themes that are basic to human group survival, whether Harry declares them as without merit or not."
I must say that when I occasionally get together with the neighbors, I never hear about the importance of "community sustainability themes that are basic to human group survival".
We actually talk about the need for a speed bump or two to slow down residential SUVs, or a "No Stopping" sign where the Canyon opens into Day St. Parking at the corners makes nosing out into Day St. a risk venture. (It's done - it's now safer.)
I'm sure that if I stand up and talk about "sustainability themes" they would listen politely - except for those who make a quick escape for suddenly remembered business.
Human group survival is less important than individual survival in the canyon. When the floods and worse, the oceans of mud swept down the canyon, we fought to stay whole. A less affected neighbor would help a more unfortunate neighbor as we watched our cars disappearing beneath the mud.
We stayed and saved our houses and helped each other, not because of "community sustainability" but because the houses were ours - our most important assets.
When both sides of the canyon were ablaze and we were surrounded, we kept the roof watered down - even though wind-blown flaming embers hurt. It was every man - or family - for himself. We cared nothing for "human group survival". (It would have been exciting, were it not so frightening. We made lots of tea.)
There are a many Americans in the canyon - not a structure was lost - though firemen were caught in the narrow road and had to flee from their fire-engines.
Actually, Arthur would be happy to know a "regulation" was passed forbidding people to stay with their at-risk homes. Couple of miles along the foothills eight houses were in serious danger and the families were evacuated.
Soon, there was only one house left.
This belonged to the homeowner who took no notice of the regulation, stayed and kept his roof wet - and saved it.
I think they rescinded that regulation.
But, I suppose this is about Walmart where you don't want me to stop.
What is interesting is that I don't care whether people want to shop locally or not. I also don't care whether they want to shop at Walmart or not.
In my zealotry, I believe in free people. I know it's old fashioned. After all there is a "right" way for people to shop and if they don't know it, they should be made to shop the right way.
You say the political process is an unfair mess, yet you prefer it to be used to force people to do things (of which you approve) rather than letting the free market show what they really want.
I read on this list all the time how the "neo-cons" are forcing us to do what they want us to do. Are not the "neo-libs" engaged in the same process. Of course it is for good reasons, but that's what I'm sure the neo-cons would say.
I say a pox on both of you. Leave me alone to do the wrong thing. At least, it's my wrong thing.
I know, I know. I have to be protected from myself.
I'll be in England next month, if all goes well. I simply love walking around small villages, exploring the tiny streets, patronizing the neighborhood shops. But, I'm old and nostalgic.
I may not see many village adolescents. I bet as soon as they are old enough they rush off to the big cities to McDonalds and Kentucky Colonels - or perhaps Wimpy's.
Perhaps they don't know any better (or perhaps they do).
I live in the City of Los Angeles (Ray thinks I live in the countryside. Actually I do - about 25 minutes from city center - if you can call it that.)
Foothill Blvd runs the length of the San Gabriels - 40-50 miles. On our little bit of it, there are small shops by the hundreds.
I'll repeat that - small shops by the hundreds
Most of them speciality shops. There are chains - OSH, DO-IT, ACE (franchise), along with a couple of locals - all of them hardware stores. There's an Office Depot (chain) and several other local stores supplying similar equipment. Most of the shops serve a niche market, providing people with exactly what they want, whether it be a pre-school, or a videotape.
My Toyota service is some 3-4 miles away along the Boulevard.
I walked down to Foothill, then perhaps a mile and a half along the sidewalk. I counted 5 "nail" shops in that short distance. Why so many shops advertising that they 'do' nails. Are there really so many people who want manicures?
It's too many. I think 2 are enough. I'll get a regulation passed limiting Nail Shop numbers. The two allowed to stay open contributed to my campaign so they have shown themselves to be good manicurists.
Karen, do you not think that this is what goes on?
How clean and efficient is the market, which does no more than record the actual desires of people (whether anyone else approves or not).
Harry
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Karen wrote:
Darryl, what began simply enough as offering more, cheaper one-stop shopping with a promise of added jobs and revenue from national brands became an avalanche. Data shows now that the economic benefits were not as good as promised. The problem is that this avalanche has not been restricted to middle sized or larger communities, and has proliferated to the point that Big Box retail consumes the local merchants and then can pull out of the community for whatever reasons, not just market share or labor issues, leaving the community with nothing but vacant retail space and added blight.
The fact that poor planning happens at the local level is an understatement, but not a fair categorization of all planning agencies there really are some good guys out there doing what they can to put into place reasonable and improvising new enterprises that have a viable chance of surviving and contributing to the local and state economic health. Unlike evidence of WMD in Iraq, the evidence of rampant big is betterand growth at all costsis sitting there in front of us, showing up as lost jobs and revenue in state tax coffers, and the for lease signs on vacant property everywhere.
From my perspective, what I can contribute is challenging the notion that this is the price of progressand what the consumer votes with its dollarstherefore must be sacrosanct. It is not. People are seeing what has happened in their own and other communities and taking a second look at the notion of unfettered monopolization of choices and consumer culture. A case for balance and moderation can always be made, even with wild-eyed free market zealots. People have emotional and logical reasons for tapping into community sustainability themes that are basic to human group survival, whether Harry declares them as without meritor not. The human spirit will not subject itself to tyranny forever, and this manifests itself in a variety of new and evolving ways as we swim our way upstream through modern society.
Thanks for your comments. - KWC
A couple of inserted comments.Darryl
All true, Arthur. Its just that in more cities and even small towns, people are beginning to question what became a runaway avalanche. There is no reason in my mind why we cant strike a balance. Note the number of towns passing caps on formula retail growth and the current debate and counter debate about smart growth.
Maybe the dot.com collapse and the ongoing recession have helped people to look at their communities in a different light. If the economy were still going gangbusters and there had not been several political and culturally significant events (i.e.. Florida election, 9/11, USA Patriot Act, Enron WorldCom scandals affecting innocent pension holders, and now a public deeply divided over US foreign policy) the economic viability of their own communities might never have caught the attention of many of the comatose, sleep-walking, non-questioning public.
Public policy has its rightful place in the civic domain. Why shouldnt local and state governments endow local entrepreneurs with the same go-for-broke attitude (some say unquestioning desperation) that they do recruiting and underwriting (some say submitting to economic blackmail) (why blackmail, when you can bribe through campaign financing or gifts of "Board Positions" when leaving public office?) large corporations? Shouldnt we look at the long term goals and consequences of our actions, not just individually but collectively?
Yes, I agree with your following email that some (especially small) centres can block this intrusion (or, is the centre too small for the se mega-corps. to even consider). This is especially true of "tourist towns". But the main problem is still the federal and state/provincial legislatures that cater to these international giants for reasons only THEY will actually know. Here in Canada we have no "personal liability" for someone in public office or for the owners of businesses. Either the office is sued or the business; but you cannot go after the "individual" for "damages to the community, the environment or any of the structures therein.
BAD GOVERNMENTS CREATE BAD COMMUNITIES. CORRUPT INDIVIDUALS CORRUPT THE BEST OF GOVERNMENTS.
Maybe we could take our cue from Keiths musings about Novelty. Local living economies could be marketed as a new novel way to solve the fiscal sand trap we are in, then the politicians can take up sides for and against and the media can generate case studies and dig into current data by researches and opinion of academics (ahem) CBC radio here in Canada has had MANY excellent shows done on many topics, some on just these items, but they do not have a mass appeal and so relate to a very low % of population. The rest would rather watch sports, drink beer, and bitch about how hard their lives are (and this still occurs when they are OUT of work). and the public might be surprised to find out just how resourceful the little guy can be. - KWC
**************************************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 -- Fax: (818) 353-2242 http://home.attbi.com/~haledward ****************************************************
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