Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Dogs or People? Are They Alike?

Progress or should it be “Lack” of progress?

Consider this. Schaumburg Illinois was a quiet, small, nice, basically crime free town a few years back. Today it is a highly desired, heavy office building and corporate headquarter area where the houses have shot out of site in price, the land values are beyond belief and the taxes have all but devoured the common man.
Then of course, there is the more local industrialized urban dwelling called Tampa Bay which is a group of several cities making up one metropolis. Not long ago the "City of Green Benches", as St. Petersburg was known, was just that. You could stroll downtown and enjoy the beautiful old hotels that had been there for many years, the streets with the green benches, or wander through the park downtown. There was adequate parking, friendly folks and even a nice department store with a tea room. Today, all of that is gone. The old hotels (except for the Vinoy) have been destroyed and replaced with modem high rise buildings which have obliterated the view of the beautiful bay that once was a landmark worth seeing. Sidewalk cafes, boutique shops, and all the wanders of New York style living now have taken over the quaint downtown, parking is all but impossible, the view is gone and the once uncluttered sidewalks are now shoulder to shoulder people.
Preferring to move south, many folks from those little towns like Boston, North Andover, Buffalo and others have found a paradise called Citrus County. Seeking out the quiet countryside took some doing but they have accomplished it and have taken the beckoned call of "Come on down".
Now the northerners have come south, the southerners have come north and the twain has met, right here in our once quiet little area. Are they all happy? Or course not. Everyone knows that living here is cheaper than up north or down south, right?
Let's see how the complaint factory has grown.
1. "I think we need more restaurants like we had before, but I don't want to see any more taxes and I certainly don't want to pay more for a place to live."
2. "I want to have green grass all year long and have the showplace I never had up north but I don't understand why I can't have all the water I need or think I need." 3. "I don't know why the roads here can't be four or six lanes wide so I can get to the restaurant for breakfast when I want to without any traffic."
4. "If these young folks weren't going to work all the time we would have more space on the roads and in the parking lots."
5. "There are more protective vehicles, planes and so forth here than the bigger place that I came from. Why do we need them, we don't seem to have that much crime here?"
6. "I can't understand why we are getting tax increases, with so many more people you would think the taxes being evenly distributed would go down."
Gosh, it just dawned on me, maybe we would not have all of these questions if people would just quit moving here, stay where they were happy and leave us alone!.

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