I share Steven Clift's embarrassment about the sheer amount of trash along our roadsides, from downtown Minneapolis to the residential city streets to our highways. Many of us in this state and especially in this city are ecologically minded and city-proud. So why do things need to be this bad?
My husband and I recently took a long road trip south, where we drove through many big cities poorer than ours--in Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee--and they all, every one, had cleaner, neater, more attractive roadsides than Minneapolis. And anyone who's been to Chicago or Manhattan in the last couple years will see that their store fronts and streets are cleaner and neater than ours by a long shot. One difference we noticed were many prominent signs posting large fines for littering or simply touting the virtue of keeping the city (or state) clean. Why don't we see these kinds of signs here? I did recently see a full page ad in a local newspaper advocating cleaner ways. But couldn't we do more? My husband recently expressed his concern about our litter problem to our city council representative and the response was that he would be welcome to help clean it up. While this is a fine idea, wouldn't it pay much higher dividends to mount a campaign to reduce the amount of litter in the first place? Yes, lets plant wild flowers and native grasses and whatever we can to make our roadsides more attractive--to us residents and to our many visitors. And lets conduct a keep Minneapolis clean campaign, while we're at it! Or the flowers may be smothered by "jelly fish." -- Rhonda Gilbraith Kingfield _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
