Re: Stephen Lyons' essay

[Greg Brown <gregb@alaskapacific.edu>]

Visionaries:

   I read, with great interest, Stephen Lyon's essay.
I have followed Stephen's writing for a number of years
and I greatly respect his intellect and writing ability.

   In this essay, however, he greatly misses the
mark.  He portrays those who question development
as "no-growthers" and implies these individuals are
responsible for the lack of economic opportunity
for youth in the rural communities of the West.
This is the same message spouted by the captains of
industry in the West (i.e., today's "wise-use"
movement) who stand ready to exploit the
landscape for profit (and who have historically done
so since settlement of the West).

   His perspective ignores the historical reality
of the West where economic opportunities have
never been stable, but rather constitute a shifting
from one "get rich" scheme to the next.  The
fact that the boom and bust scheme has evolved from
furs to gold to timber to today's (relatively) clean air and
water (i.e., tourism) does not make it any less a boom
and bust scheme.

     But in this case of human development of the West, there
is an important distinction from other schemes of the past. Animal
populations rebound, mining scars lessen over time, grass and
trees grow back.  The most profound impact on the landscape
is not from resource utilization, but from human habitation.
The most permanent mark on the landscape is ironically, an
invisible line--a platt line.  These lines never go away.

  Those who question the next boom cycle of the West--and
the West is experiencing another boom based on quality of life
--are not NIMBYs, are not misguided, and are not
purveyors of economic doom for the next generation.  They are
simply asking the basic question that all societies have sought to
answer--what kind of community do we want to be and who will
determine that outcome?  This is a question that has seldom
been asked in the West because the West has never been in
control of its destiny.  The fact that some individuals now choose
to question the well worn path to exploitation in the West, to my
of thinking, is healthy and refreshing.  Individuals like Stephen,
who would ask that we all bow before the God of "economic
opportunity" for the youth appear to worship a false
diety.  The mantra of "jobs for youth", no matter how often
repeated, does not make it a reality for a community.

   Real economic opportunity is vested in the people of the
community.  The social capital in a community provides the
engine to drive economic prosperity.  Stephen would like to
blame the naysayers of community growth for the lack of
employment opportunities for youth but there are larger
economic forces (e.g., globalization) that clearly overshadow
local community actions.

  The empirical evidence indicates that community
growth, beyond a certain point, detracts from
community quality of life.  Those of us who have not
found the religion of growth to be spiritually satisfying,
put our faith in the people of a community.  Perhaps this
is misguided.  But the fact that we fail to genuflect
before some undefined diety of economic opportunity and
growth does make us the potential source of derision.
So be it.  Personally, I see nothing wrong with resisting
the movement toward the mass, uniform, and sterile
culture that characterizes corporate America.

--
Greg Brown (gregb@alaskapacific.edu)
Associate Professor
Environmental Science Department
Alaska Pacific University
(907) 564-8267
http://polar.alaskapacific.edu/gregb