Re: Moscow-Pullman Corridor

[Ken Medlin <dev-plan@moscow.com>]

Dear Neighbors: As a Latah Co. - Moscow City resident, taxpayer and 
community advocate, I take no issue with you as individuals nor with the 
fact that Mr. Murray is a city planner. As a student and practitioner of 
community education and organization, including urban-rural planning in 
the US and abroad, for over 40 years, what I take issue with is the 
underlying assumptions attached to what has been for a long time called 
"urban planning". The true meaning of this term has little to do with 
generic criteria, grounded in a science and theory for sustainable, 
living communities on this earth.  The technical aspects, with their 
required economic resources, impinging on "urban planning" determine the 
very character of the subsequent development decisions and their 
implementation. They harbor extremely little of what one may designate as 
aprior conditions for quality of community life, other than "easy access" 
by 4-wheelers to food, gas, sundries, entertainment and certain govt. 
services. Other, more crucial components and amenities of quality of life 
do not enter the equations leading to resource commitments. The latter 
are made irrespective of the former, and citizenries are typically 
uninformed about the trade-offs that take place in procedures leading to 
the developer-syndrome which controls most of the decision-making and 
capital allocations for creating the development strips that now dot the 
entire nation (I grew up in California, but can no longer recognize the 
place, so far have the destructive forces of "development" gone in 
transforming the landscape and its resources.
   Data have accumulated over the past 30-40 years to indicate,without 
scientific contention, that the natural earth cannot sustain for long the 
kinds of "development" that have lead us to this point of dangerous 
imbalances in  our natural environments. An additional major indicator is 
found in the failure of our nature preserves, as they are now managed, to 
avoid natural degradation in many areas (flora, water, soil, etc.). In 
sum, for many of us the question is not how to "minimize" the negative 
impacts of such a corridor development, but rather how to present 
alternatives that do not depend on more physical growth outside our core 
municipal areas? "Western Civilization" is the fourth or fifth major 
cultural system to reign over the majority of humankind, and, like all 
the others, it has its seeds of inner decay which are rapidly destroying 
its capacity to survive. From this perspective, we do not need more 
growth corridors of the type that is being "planned".  That is the crux 
of our dilemma!   "Carry on".  I'll forward you an analysis by a Boise 
area planner who spells out how "developers" are ":planning" urban 
sprawl, Los Angeles style, in Idaho's beautifyl capital.  

------------------------
William K. Medlin
Dev-plan associates
930 Kenneth Street
Moscow ID 83843
208/892-0148
dev-plan@moscow.com