<- Click hereIt’s my experience here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania that physical change of the city seems to be heavily obstructed at one end. While its physical properties can regress as they deteriorate, they cannot progress as a result of a lack of significant resources on the one hand and on the other a lack of useful consensus on how or where to apply the resources which exist…
Innovation is blocked by noisy political honkers who create such din over anything new that supporters flee and the general population drive their moving vans to the suburbs. I got a similar feeling in Gandolpho when I recently visited that Italian town. Vast hunks of former glory lie rotting in the way of improvements which could make the day-to-day lives of people at the least less irksome.
I wonder when the obstructionists gain the most weight on the see-saw of history? Leaving optimists at best with few opportunities to seize and instead with only dreams of change slowly. A thing worth remembering: Rot is change.
3 comments:
Ted, you've hit on one of the reasons my wife and I moved away from our home of over 50 years - Rochester, NY. The town, in my opinion, is in many respects falling apart, and no one seems to have any answers. It has become dull, dreary, and depressing. Much of this has to do with the demise of photographic film (Kodak) - jobs are not exactly plentiful in western NY.
Our new home - Las Vegas - is about as different from Rochester as you can get. If you can walk and chew gum at the same time, you can find work here. And Las Vegas is, of course, anything but dreary. It ain't for everybody, but it's working really well for us (photographically, too).
Ted - change is everything isn't it!! Regardless if it is good or bad it has its purpose. I think our town is changing too fast for it's own good mind YOU I live in a town with one stop light!!!!
Happy New Year to you and yours may it be a safe and fun one!!!
(Paul) Ah the Vegas weather Paul... Yeah it has its attractions. Yet while I'm discouraged that the oomph has gone out of Lancaster's engine, it's still a lovely town. It's not that I don't love it, I just wish better for it. Funny thing about this place, no matter where I seem to go in America or even the world, people know where it is and have a longing to visit it. It's an historic city with a special charm. I guess in thinking it over, it's not so much Lancaster that has me frustrated as it is the loss of optimism that I sense about the country just now. There's a malaise - and the noisiest people seem to be able to shout everyone else down.
Ah well, Im a city person, I grumble but only the din of the nightime trash collectors could chase us away just now.
(pnf) ONE STOPLIGHT!!!! Yipes. On the other hand, the majority of the towns in Lancaster County have about the same number. I'd miss the pulse beat of the city. And we need a regular injection of New York, Washington, and Philly. In fact we try to get to Boston at least once a year.
But... you know what? I don't think we've ever visited really rural place in our lives. Maybe it's a charm we need to try. I shall think on that.
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