Since I've already posted a socialist fantasy, I might as well post this one too
Freedom and community can — and should — coexist
By Ben Brown
FRANKLIN, N.C. — What we all need is a big idea that works.
We're up to our ears in the other kind, whether it's an attempt to purchase with blood and money stable democracy in the Middle East, or to grow an economy that ensures profits and meaningful employment at the same time.
In my rural county in the mountains of North Carolina, we're embroiled in one of those struggles that's a miniature version of a national debate. It's about an apparent clash between two good ideas: the idea of freedom and the idea of community. And I think the way to a workable solution has crucial implications for our mountains and for the larger culture.
The dilemma stems from the appeal of our remote area to an increasing number of second-home buyers and retirees. Rapid, unmanaged growth threatens the very quality of life that makes the region so attractive. Planning advocates want to channel growth and preserve what newcomers and natives love about the mountains and valleys. They talk a lot about community.
But the mere hint of a process that could lead to restrictions on development riles advocates of private-property rights. Their position: Nobody should tell a person what to do with his or her own land. For them, it's all about individual freedom.
If we can't cobble together a coalition for planning, growth will continue pretty much the way it has, both in our region and in most places throughout the country. We'll get more sprawl, a pattern of disconnected subdivisions and strip malls that clogs roads and turns unique landscapes into annexes of Anywhere, USA. It's the unintended, but inevitable, consequence of unlimited individual freedom.
The workable idea that counters this unworkable one is New Urbanism. New Urbanism holds that there is an appropriate human habitat, just as there is an appropriate habitat for all other life forms. And sprawl is not it.
