Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Growing Pains

I live in a very rural area.  So rural that our County Councilmen have trouble reading tributes, perhaps written by others, at meetings honoring their citizens.  These Councilmen are educated, they just cannot read out loud...that includes at least three of the five officials.  Two of our Councilmen own liquor stores.  This is the path to political leadership in this county.   A few retired professionals from a more intellectual arena ran for office, but the big words they used frightened the voters, I guess.  This good-old boy majority leadership selection means our county struggles.

As I mentioned in a prior post, I lost my current doctor because she found working in this county too difficult.  They did not support medical service development and she had to send her patients out of county for specialized treatment.  She said five other doctors are thinking of following her.  We are limited in our selection already!

A recent meeting of various groups on "smart growth" for my state resulted in this news report:

"In the spring of 2006, a self-proclaimed “unholy alliance” of developers, environmentalists, civic and academic leaders staged a series of reality checks around the state during conferences designed to stare future growth in the face.  The leaders gave each table of eight to 10 participants piles of colored Legos representing their likely share of the 1.5 million new residents projected to swell the state’s population from 5.5 million to 7 million by 2030. It would mean adding more than half a million new homes.  On a map of their region, each table had to place all of that new growth...
The idea was not to discourage growth. This state, like most states, avidly courts economic expansion, more jobs, more people. The Reality Check conference organizers hoped to promote “smart growth,” or to place as many Legos as possible around places where growth was planned and roads and sewers already existed, thus protecting farms, forests and undeveloped Bay shorelines.
It was nonetheless a sobering exercise as Legos piled higher and existing towns began looking like little Manhattans. You could hear sighs and mutterings: “The traffic’s already hell there” or “my pile fell over…there goes the countryside.”  An Eastern Shore contingent built a paper boat and set their Legos sailing toward a coastal city, which has been losing population since the 1950s.  It was a good laugh — maybe a good idea — but the directive was firm: Growth is coming your way and you must accommodate it."

But at my County's table, a County commissioner, Ms. C, chose to differ. She swept a bunch of Legos off the map and into her purse. And it was not an exercise like barging people across the Bay to a coastal city.

This is what our County leaders do.  Respond with unrealistic solutions or ignore growth issues it seems.  Our County is long and thin and no more than 4 miles from tidewater in most directions.  Therefore our growth impacts the rivers and oceans.  Yet, if we have no growth, it means our county dies---well, goes into a coma.  And to give the good-old-boys their due, I realize what a difficult problem they have.

This week I was talking to my neighbor as we planned a dinner out with them before they leave for Florida for the winter.  We have lots of fried seafood places down here, but in the last few years several new and more delicious venues have emerged.   This County's population has double the median household income of the U.S. and one could hope that would support this growth.

The conversation went like this:

"How about The Basil Basket?"
"Nope, closing next week due to owners divorcing."
"OK....Lets go to the Lime Pie Tree."
"That place has had to close due to the foundation crumbling on the water side.  Don't know if it is a permanent close or not."
"Gee.  That leaves the Brasserie."
"Well, we better get in next week, because they are also closing for good very soon."
"Oh dear.  I heard yesterday that the Chinese restaurant is also closing."

I am well aware that the restaurant business is very difficult and most restaurants close within a few years...but all of our new ones are closing! 

And then, last month as we drove by the rock quarry on the other side of the river and just across the county line we saw this:


Some people say this other county is growing too fast and others wish our county was as progressive.  We got curious and drove down off the main road to see if we could find out what was going on with this new development:


Much closer and nicer than the old movie place we go to.  This even has reclining wide seats...I wonder if it will succeed?  I did notice that their ticket kiosks did not have the technology for chip cards, so someone wasn't paying attention.  I also noticed the impermeable surface of the largest parking lot I have seen in a while!


13 comments:

  1. Oregon long ago passed farmland protection legislation. It means where I live there sees very little change as development starts from the cities and moves out from there. No developments in the middle of nowhere, no restaurants, banks, doctors, dentists, etc. I drive 25 miles to get to pretty much anything. If, as I get older, I want to be closer to things (something I consider likely), I'll have to move. That's okay with me too as a trade-off for maintaining the open spaces and farmland.

    Whenever I come to Arizona, I am grateful for Oregon's legislation as down here developments can be anywhere, desert can be bulldozed and leveled for housing that maybe doesn't even get occupied. Malls go wherever the money wants. Fortunately, my own little piece of desert here stays the same as its development long ago was created in a way that housing went into the desert. It's a small development that had standards for heights of its small dwellings, all oriented to keeping the desert desert not just for the humans but also the wildlife. That's not how it's done today.

    While I admit I enjoy the convenience to restaurants, etc., I am happy in Oregon we have the laws in place that force development out from the cities. Actually there was more where I live when I got there (two country stores where now there is one) but there had been more commercial businesses years earlier when the mills provided jobs. There were, in the pioneer times, actually three small communities with names and some businesses (including even way back a dance hall). With the jobs went the communities and now most people out there commute to their work and everything else.

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  2. I guess a lot of places would like to have these problems. However, let's hope things get done right in the near future.

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  3. Growth is always a controversial subject it seems. It would be nice to think it was always carried out in a planned and thoughtful way, but I fear that is seldom the case.

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  4. Around here, they wait for the growth to happen, and then ask, "um, do you think we should maybe build some infrastructure out there?"

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  5. I guess I'm at that stage of life where I'm not a big fan of growth. I like things the way they are and don't want everything buried under concrete.

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  6. I wonder if the problem isn't so much growth, the economy, etc. as it is the lack of community. What's your local paper like? Ours is pretty crummy, but it does keep us informed about the basics of the place where we live and helps to hold things together.

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  7. I wonder if there is a causal relationship between the above average household income and the resistance to change? Conservatives like to hold on to what they have, even if it means they ignore the realities of the present day, and the needs that will arise in the future.
    Your county sounds like a frustrating place for a progressive to live.

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  8. We are fortunate to have a very progressive city manager and council, and they support the venues that bring tourists into our area. Our taxes are kept lower because of the tourist traffic, so tolerating a crowd on the weekends is to our advantage. Towns can die without community support.

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  9. I do know Nashville is booming, always loved to visit monthly and now
    traffic so bad, new construction everywhere. My small county growing
    but not rapidly, this is a farming community but a lot of land now being sold
    and cut up in lots. Land prices really escalating. Good for my children..

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  10. Mediocrity is the order of the day for rural councils - that and the "good ol' boys." An intellectual doesn't stand a chance.

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  11. Medical professionals are dropping like flies. My young, female doctors are opting out of their practices to stay home and raise a family. They have been the best of the best. My god-son who is a genius with a scientific brain and a PhD doctor must live overseas because, while USA wants his brain, they do not want to pay him for it. New restaurants are always the first to go. Surely people opening a new restaurant know the odds for succeeding are totally against them. What can we do???

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  12. We drive 150 miles to our doctors and surgery, and are lucky to have family there to help us when we need to stay the night. Rural areas are great for those young people who have a job/business that supports them, and need few services outside of their neighborhood. We've seen our share of business come and go, and doctors who started their career here for a few years, and then moved on. Add a stubborn resistance to change of any kind, and no business can survive under these circumstances.

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  13. I too had expected the elected to solve big economy problems for everyday folks, over n over with nothing for results but more hardships... Even thought smart Mr Obama would do that. But he just ran up more bills for our grandkids instead...
    I share you frustration!

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