Pastures
I hate it when they call bulldozing lovely pristine land “progress.” I hardly call constructioning a shopping center on such land on an already busy highway corridor progress. Remember that commercial in the 70’s of the American Indian crying at the site of dumped garbage in the wilderness? I picture Steinbeck crying at the site of orange netting on his beloved Pastures of Heaven.
You should have seen it 50 years ago. I would hate to still be around in another 50 to see the “progress”. But, people have to live, and eat, and shop, etc.,etc., etc.
Nature is beautiful but it has little defense to urban creep and sprawl.
People multiply and need more places to work, shop, eat and sleep.
Economies dip and need projects to generate income.
Farmers need to farm. Builders need to build. If they can’t…
What with Squid Row on temporary Sunday print exile, its nice to not have a title impinge on the art.
Remember “Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, where we all laughed at the aliens building a bypass through Earth because ‘bypasses have got to be built’? Yeah. Sometimes they don’t. The man who bought that property bought it, many years ago, on a gamble…he gambled there’d be traffic, he gambled the powers that be would go along with him. I don’t think we had any obligation to make his gamble pay off, and I wish the Supes hadn’t approved it . That’s my two cents.
Errr. Is anyone else experiencing deja vu? This comic looks so familiar.
Maybe a Best of Brig? Maybe a Squid Row Classic?
It’s the sad truth. Money rules everything. But then there’s the flip side, it creates jobs for people to work to build it. ‘Progress’ will create stores, create jobs, it shows a stronger economy. Geez, talk about a snake eating it’s tail. Bottom line, I’d rather see improvements on what already exists rather than cutting down trees.
I’m surprised Randie and her secret militia didn’t cover it with quilts or chalk drawings!
I empathized with Ryan and Randie. Why do people build new when old is left to stand vacant and unused? That’s what happens all around the area where I live. We create urban blight as we destroy pristine pastures in the name of progress.
DrFuse… Bandaids are cheaper than rebuilds. When buildings are built, the people who own them are responsible for their upkeep. And, when the need for homes, apartments, stores, restaurants, theaters, jails is many-times their designed capacity, forward-thinking new folks build new buildings that exceed the demand so that they can be grown into. Oh, sure, they can rebuild the old places but the old owners usually won’t sell for a reasonable amount and pick-up the price of demolition.
Oops, ment to say… allow for the price of demolition.
Yup, housing, industry, commerce, culture, politics, behavioral economics…no simple answers.
brig… I wish Harold best of luck sleeping off three nights of boozing and carousing, er, sipping and socializing in a hotel full of crazy cartoonists. That convention should have been held before Lent started, but, as they say, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Sssh, don’t tell Santa. Did anyone realize he snuck in without paying? Hope you catch some Oscar moments either tonight or later (on demand?).
GAH! Yarn bombing the nets and trees! Great idea!
stick… Harold enjoyed himself in Vegas for sure! … I don’t believe he’s Catholic… so nothing given up is nothing violated.
Jack… Urban Renewal makes me happy. It’s creative, it keeps historic-ness if done right…. but it all comes down to money. Nobody wants to pay the money to remodel, reuse or redo. Sigh.