TMT:
EMR read that WaPo story about “commuters” from Page County too. It was painful.
Steve and Ricky made location decision that they THOUGHT were in their best interest.
But it turns out they were not in their best interest.
What they believed to be good decisions turned out to be bad decisions because many other equally uninformed citizens believed the same things.
They watched the same evening news and the same sit coms, they consumed based on the same advertising… They all made mistakes and the collective impact is dysfunctional human settlement patterns.
If Steve and Ricky had only known something about the collective impact of least-common-denominator settlement pattern and consumption decisions …
But then Steve smokes so his decisions about human settlement patterns (and other forms of consumption) might have been just as bad as his decision about human health…
If location-variable costs had been fairly allocated Steve and Ricky (and their “wifey’s” and all the others who made similar decisions) would never have been tempted to make those bad decisions.
The Steves and Rickys of the world are why if markets are to work they must be informed. The playing fields need to be leveled, not tipped in favor of the Masters of the Universe.
The Steves and the Rickys are why there needs to be an end to the Business-As-Usual political duopoly. Both parties try to dupe citizens into NOT looking out for their own REAL self interest. (Want a current example? Try the McDonnell / Bolling “More Energy, More Jobs” Program. Or the programs of the candidates from the other clan.)
The Steves and Rickys are the reason there must be an end to what now passes for ‘journalism,’ The current pap fails to get to the root causes of most citizen concerns about the future – and makes those who are caught in reality seem like victims rather than coconspirators. See THE ESTATES MATRIX
Steve and Ricky might have learned about the how to make smarter decisions. Books and journals written since the 1920s lay the issue out in detail.. The 1920s was when the impact of today’s settlement patterns first started to draw attention and criticism.
More when we get to Larry’s observations.
Accurate:
Good to learn the details of your relocation decision.
You will find a lot more folks in the Houston NUR that agree with your outlook on life than you did in the Portland NUR. Tom DeLay is a local hero. Many seem to hold Bob Barr, Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee in high regard.
EMR knows something about Houston – an A & E firm for whom he was a Sr. VP planned and engineered large projects in the Region, SPI had an office there for a few years and EMR visits from time to time.
Let us know how you like the weather in July, August, September and October. Some really like it. Some, not so much.
Where did you decide to buy your $100k home? Is it near your new work and great places to get Services / Recreation / Amenity?
Have you been riding the new Light Rail system? Let us know what is happening around the stations? Does it look anything like what is happening around the Light Rail stations in the Portland NUR?
Has TexDOT figured out a way to pay for more circumferential expressways?
After you have been there a year and add up ALL your costs, let us know what you think about the total cost of living. One reason house prices are so low in the Region is that the property taxes are so high.
Depending on what you choose to do, living CAN BE cheaper in Texas and in the Houston NUR than many other places. That is because Households, Agencies, Enterprises and Institutions have been subsidized by the consumption of Natural Capital, not just in Texas but world-wide.
Look forward to getting your report.
Groveton:
You have a point about Mosquitoes and Alligators.
In the context that Larry presented, however, EMR still goes with the reverse roles. It is human settlement patterns that have citizens and their Organizations in their jaws – folks like Steve and Ricky. They think it is ‘the economy’ but it is the distribution of human activity at and near the surface of the planet.
In the long term and with respect to collective impact, mosquitoes HAVE BEEN far more deadly – like dysfunctional human settlement patterns.
No one pays much attention to the settlement pattern until it bites them – like it did to Steve and Ricky in Page County.
Mosquitos and alligators or alligators and mosquitos, either way, human settlement patterns control the economic, social and physical trajectory of society.
Larry:
You did not bother to read Deep Economy before you started asking questions about the small Urban enclaves in Georgia.
EMR could provide you with insights based on small towns in where he has lived, worked and visited in Georgia, Montana or in the Heart Land (See Column of 3 Oct 2005) or on jobs (24 May 2004) but then you would not believe EMR if he took off a month a spelled it all out for you again. You would dive into the pepper silo looking for flyspecks.
If you are serious about finding some answers to your questions, here are some places to start:
You could read Mike Shuman’s Going Local: Creating self-Reliant Communities in a Global Age. Many specifics are compatible with McKibben’s perspectives in Deep Economy.
You could look in on Rosseta, PA to get some clues – or at least read about it in Chapter 1 of Gladwell’s Outliers.
It you do not want to go that far, check out Abingdon to see why it is different than Luray (in Page County).
Or if you want to do your research in Georgia check out why Tifton, Dahlonega, Madison and St. Marys make ‘best small towns’ and ‘most charming towns and villages’ lists and the places you describe do not.
You could become a leader in one of these places and attract other ‘Lone Eagles’ to build Balance. Or you could help them evolve a Water Buffalo Commons when everyone moves to the Atlanta NUR, one of the smaller MSAs or one of the 12 Micropolitan Areas in the state.
Bet there are a lot of Steves and Rickys in the Georgia towns you describe. Hope they make good decisions about where to go next.
Some time ago EMR suggested that if a nation-state sets out to create a consumer driven economy, they must have a comprehensive strategy to educate the citizens in something beside Mass OverConsumption.
Bad information and Myths about the way the world works wastes a lot of lives.
EMR