vision2020
Growth for Moscow
Dear friends,
I would have to agree with many points of this post I, however, think that
uncontrolled and unwise expansion is the problem. if a city like Moscow
Idaho grew to the size of Houston we would have a problem; both ecological
and social problems would plague our town. this does not, however, mean that
we should not try to grow at all. I see an advantage to grow the
infrastructure of the city so that it attracts high tech business. this will
allow us to take advantage of the two universities in our area and grow the
tax base so we can afford the "nice" things like the restoration of the 1912
building for a community center with a science center and other things that
make cities great places to live. we do not want to grow too big and deal
with sprawl but we need to diversify our dependencies and find the
equilibrium point for growth and quality of life.
when I finished at the U of I, I had many job offers with six digit pay
offers and generous bennefit packages. my experience and education makes me
attractive to many of the larger corporations. unfortunately most of the
jobs required me to live within large urban areas. I chose to make half the
money but stay in the inland northwest. the point is that we have to
increase the quality of life in Moscow. this does not necessarily mean that
we need high paying jobs... it does mean that the quality of life / pay
ratio has to be attractive.
the city has taken many steps to bring this about. we are getting an
aquatic center which even though smaller than most of us wanted, is a major
improvement. I have been intimate with the design of it due to my
involvement with the technology side of things and have to tell you all that
it will be a lot of fun. the problem with it is that we did not have the
money to build bigger pools. had we had a stronger tax base and/or more
donations we could have built larger pools.
this is the catch 22... we need to attract the right business and the right
people but we need the resources (money) to build the infrastructure that
attracts them. this may be politically incorrect but I think most of us want
a specific range of businesses and individuals to come to our town.
hopefully race, religion, and other such things are not the deciding factor
but there are many other serious considerations. for example we really do
not want large industrial business to be here. this type of business often
has a major negative impact on the environmental and social conditions of
the area.
if we wanted this type of city we would move to Lewiston.
the purpose behind my ramblings is simply to try to focus on how we can make
our town and community a better place to live for all of us. we have needs
and preferences and you can not please everybody all the time but we can
develop solutions by coming together and cooperating instead of tugging at
the corners to try to get something that you want. most often people with
opposing opinion, gathered in the spirit of unity and cooperation, can come
up with solutions that are better that each of them had individually.
your brother in arms,
shahab...
----- Original Message -----
From: Dena Marchant <denam@fsr.com>
To: <vision2020@moscow.com>
Sent: Friday, August 13, 1999 9:33 AM
Subject: Growth/Texas Transportation Conference
> This is from someone in Texas who's involved in
> transportation issues in Houston. I thought it might be
> of interest to this list.
>
> Dena
>
> >It's interesting that at the [Texas] transportation conference, someone
> said that
> >no one much benefits from a city growing except perhaps the land
> >speculators. The stores do get more patrons, but also they get more
> >competition. The city incurs debt to pay for increased infrastructure.
> >The Mayberry hometown coziness is diminished. Getting from here to there
> >gets more difficult as there becomes further away. Parents are scared to
> >let their kids bike to school any more as the traffic gets awful and the
> >drivers tired and aggressive. Mothers get another burden by having to
> >cart them around.
> >
> >It would be hard to measure the effect on crime, but I suspect losing
some
> >of the social fabric, the community ties, would cause it to rise. They
> >say stress increases as a function the differences in income of the
> >community.
> >
> >People came to Houston like mad over the last generation or so to make
> >money. To find someone born here is a rarety. So they are not very
> >community oriented. I feel we don't know what we are missing.
> >
> >My mother has had long bouts with serious old age illness. In those long
> >quiet years I guess she has done much soul searching. She said she
> >wondered if they did the right thing to leave the old home town and go
> >chasing back and forth across the country for pay raises. It was her
> choice.
> >
> ><snip> But it might also deprive us of
> >>the opportunity to learn from and teach others who see life differently
> than
> >>we do. And it might be kind of boring.
> >
> >>From my vantage as an environmentalist among environmentalists, it seems
> >the real work is searching our souls about the values of the traditional
> >modern worldview of economic progress and growth. Has it fulfilled its
> >promise of a better life? Or has all that striving and hard work for
> >material wealth just led us to take for granted and lose the intangible
> >wealth we once had?
> >
> >
> >
> >Nan
> >Houston
> >
> >According to Paul Ray's survey, there are three competing worldviews or
> >paradigms in America. Nearly half hold the modernist worldview of the
> >last century. They believe in material progress and assume that the
> >current system only needs adjustment. A fourth, but declining rapidly,
> >doggedly hang their hopes on a return to old time religious and moral
> values.
> >
> >Another fourth, growing fast, are creating a new culture and hope for a
> >transformation of society. They are the learners, not the knowers.
Their
> >core values are "ecological sustainability; civil rights for women and
> >communities of color; self-actualization and spirituality; and social
> >conscience and optimism." To show people how society could be
transformed,
> >they strive to build non-hierarchical, deeply democratic civic and
business
> >organizations. They don't realize they are so many nor have a common
> >vision or language.
> >
> >http://www.coopamerica.org/Business/B44million.htm
> >http://www.lightparty.com/Spirituality/Culture.html
> >
> >
> >
>
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