Beauty Scar
I hate seeing gorgeous land and lovely trees plowed under because someone who bought property in a rural area suddenly realizes that they are too far away from Starbuck’s… or a supermarket… and then there’s that whole greedy developer thing.
Too, let’s redevelop areas that we’ve already bulldozed and mucked up. Why keep sprawling when we’ve already sprawled and have just plain given up on blighted neighborhoods? Re-imagination is a good thing.
I will get off my soap box now.
If you think that’s bad…
In Minnesota’s Mall of America, on the East side first floor, there is a Barns and Ignoble book store with a Warbucks cafe inside. On the opposite side of the rotunda is a full Warbucks cafe with wi-fi. There are 8 of these cafes within a 6 mile radius of my house.
Back in the early 2000s, for the heck of it I counted up the Starbucks locations listed in London and compared it to New York as a whole. London actually had more at the time.
And though I realise this is a totally idiotic suggestion, maybe America could be rebuilt so that all the towns and cities are underground, leaving the beautiful landscape up top. With convenient elevators to take you from your breathtaking vista to the nearest retail location.
I call it Spendbucks (or $pendbuck$).
I agree. Where I live we have a lot of land around us and are the biggest city for very far distances but we have a declining population and new housing developments. This makes no sense to me and is just damaging the assets of the city by far. There are clearly enough areas that could be fixed up or renovated but everyone wants to live in new homes in homogenous areas where you have to drive to the park, because that’s where the new houses are.
When I lived in San Diego in the early/mid-nineties… there was a popular neighborhood (Hillcrest) where little Mom & Pop coffee places were everywhere… then a Starbucks moved in… and then moved in again ON THE SAME SIDE OF THE STREET but down the block. It put many little places out of business… I have trouble with some of their business practices… I don’t mean to dump on Starbucks… obviously people like them… I visit them every-so-often… but I prefer my locally owned coffee shops!
But please… don’t bulldoze pretty areas to put in a Starbucks, McDonald’s, Best Buy or any other corporate and very-non-local business! There I go again… soapbox.
Doesn’t drink coffee?! He’s gotta get with the program!
http://www.nicky510.com/comic/and-the-beans-were-how-old/
I love Starbucks as much as the next coffee-codependant, but they have WAY too many locations in some places…and keep putting up more unnecessary ones!…and then too few or none at all in other places that could desperately use one. (Small-town SC, I’m talking to you!)
Before we condemn them, or McDonald’s, let’s blow raspberries of righteousness at the stripmalls. Good God how many more places to shop do we need? Especially in the days of the internet?
I totally agree with you Brig. I’m big on preserving natural landscapes, they can’t defend themselves. We thankfully don’t have a Starbucks here. Go local!
A favourite author of mine, Anthony Weston, was on a comittee that was trying to prevent a highway being built through a wildlife preserve. The chariman of the developers wouldn’t budge until he was taken on a walk through it. After that, he declared “It’s too pretty to put a road here.”
I just call is Starshmucks. Thanks to Foamy the Squirrel.
The problem with urban renewal, of course, is the fact that there are *people* living in those blighted areas. They live there because they can’t afford to live anywhere else. The same developers who destroy beautiful wild areas also buy up inner city property, force people out of their homes, and turn it into trendy boho lofts and studios for all those ‘avant garde’ folk who want to feel like they’re living on the edge because they live in a ‘dangerous’ neighborhood, but without the inconvenience of having actual poor people and crime around, or upscale housing for the next wave of hippies who decide they don’t want to commute from the suburbs. And many of the people who *used* to live there end up homeless, or shuffled to the next blighted area, until the next urban renewal push.
Ha! Foamy the Squirrel!
NO WAY, CROW!!!! All I can say is… that great ‘toonists think alike, yah? Wow…. AND Great cartoon!
Dani… I think that the problem is homelessness, not so much urban renewal. If those neighborhoods were to be cleaned up, and the low-income folks had programs to help them attain a better life, it’d be excellent for all involved. Believe me, I am not against the homeless or poor… having been under the poverty line for many years… but low-income housing doesn’t have to LOOK awful and BE in an awful neighborhood. I think it actually contributes to the problem.