therapeutically On my way back to New York, I had reason to stop in Youngstown, another place I had long wanted to see. I knew it only from the Bruce Springsteen song (a live version here; it is different from the studio version, which is far more desolate; I would link to the album version but Springsteen’s or his company’s people regularly scrub the internet of album tracks). I had imagined a place abandoned, terrible, and depressed. I was pleasantly surprised to find a functioning Main Street, and on the hill overlooking town a university thronged with young people. The main problem with the Main Street appeared to be a lack of parking; there were full lots all around it. This was an acceptable problem to have: it means the jobs are still downtown. It also means, of course, that people don’t actually live near Main Street, which is inherently wasteful, but is a problem which can be solved, by bringing in housing and a few key businesses such as a supermarket.
http://crochet247.com/ocean-kiss-summer-shawl-crochet-pattern/ocean-kiss-summer-shawl/ Seeing so many destroyed or decayed downtown areas – especially along the Mississippi south of Cairo – brought to mind the claim, which I believe is true, that our government policies favor suburban living over urban living. For all I know this may have seemed like a rational response to fears of nuclear annihilation – low-density is one mode of defending against the bomb – and if energy consumption is no matter, hell, why not drive on an empty highway five miles to your home five minutes away from the center of town? Obviously, none of these rationales are really applicable anymore, though the policies derived from them are in place. This seems like a problem worth tackling. Many of these cities can be saved – with their fine old architecture and homes – if we do it soon. And apparently this would be yet another benefit of switching from a taxation system which disincentivizes employment (in the form of income and payroll taxes) to one which disincentivizes nonrenewable resource consumption (in the form of a carbon tax). More on this topic here.
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