To all the folks bent out of shape because I suggested that NC DOT might have fared better if it had pushed for stimulus money for the commuter rail line in Mecklenburg instead of to repair the Yadkin River bridge, please read what I wrote, both Thursday and Wednesday.
I never said the Yadkin bridge shouldn't be fixed. Indeed, I called it "sorely needed." I never said commuter rail was more important. I wrote that it might be possible the state would have gotten money for commuter rail had they pushed it instead of the bridge project - a strategic decision in the realm of competing for stimulus money.
In yesterday's piece I called the bridge project "sorely needed" and also said: "In any case, now that the state has learned the bridge repair project gets only $10 million in stimulus money, it's moving to start the repairs in a few months."
It's one thing to be mad about a rickety bridge. I completely agree. But how about reading the facts BEFORE you start with the insults?
I've been contemplating shutting down comments completely, because so many people are such jerks that it seems to just bring out the hostility all around. Thoughts?
Posts
89 comments:
I love your blog.
People need to understand that being pro-transit doesn't mean anti-road. It means pro-options.
Perhaps it's not a lot of jerks... Just a few hiding in their anonymities.
Please ... We know exactly what you meant.
Dont try to back track.
We arent dumb ok? The damage is done. Lets move on ...
I almost always agree with where Mary is coming from and do enjoy reading most the comments. I have driven the Yadkin River bridge many times and agree with everyone else that it sorely needs replacement. Even though the bridge replacement is a good project, there is nothing wrong IMO in looking at other stimulus projects awarded and making observations as Mary did. As a matter of fact, I probably would not have seen the list of projects had it not been posted to the Naked City blog.
Thanks Mary, some of us out here do appreciate what you do. :-)
Anonymous 11:37, your "comment" is typical of the hostility (with no relevant factual argument) which pervades comments sections nowadays. I wouldn't blame Mary one bit if she shuts down the comments. At least give a civil, polite response, and please use some calm, sober reasoning. Otherwise, please don't bother. Comments sections should be rational discussions, not juvenile screaming sessions. And Mary: I for one have always thought that your forward-thinking column is critically necessary in our current climate that seems to think that any idea of "community" equates to...what, socialism? That seems to be the current favored epithet spat out by those who are so angry about not being able to live their lives in an atomized vacuum.
Education leads to knowledge. Many people on this blog seem to not have an education.
Mary, I enjoy your blogs and as someone who followed the TIGER grants and the proposals very closely, I would agree that NC would have fared MUCH better if we had supported the north commuter rail.
If the state had looked into the qualifications of the projects (not a two county bridge) but a two county and five town rail line that will connect up a city and provide an alternative to sitting in traffic, we would have gotten a lot more money.
Only one project seemed to shock me when it did not receive funding, and that was the Atlanta streetcar bid. However, it was just in Atlanta. Dallas got funding for its portion, Fort Worth did not. There were a lot of things at play here, but NC could have gotten away with much more than $10 million dollars.
In addition, they are going to build that bridge with NCDOT money. Why not let the cities up north get a share of the pie since we are not funding anything for I-77 for another two decades.
Mary when are you and I going to do a story on CAT sponsored fleets of helicopters and how they will give us more choices here in Charlotte Mecklenburg?
After all if we are not concerned about costs then the new wave of transportation is in the air.
Imagine the impact as we dig up unused rail and unused roads and let the birds and trees take over as people fly from heliport to heliport.
And the cost is not that much more than rail and both rail and my idea cost more than they provide but unless we want to get rid of those buses which rich people never ride then we have to come up with something for them like rail or my idea of helicopters.
Call me today Larry 704-573-3363 www.CharlotteLightRail.com
Anonymous 12:05: do you know the meaning of that term? If so, then how does Mary fit the definition? Or have you just been listening to many media-shouters who spout "fascist" and "socialist" and "communist" all in one breath, counting on their audience not to know what those terms mean, and the distinctions between them? Don't just hurl (misinformed) insults: provide a sober, reasoned argument. Is that too much to ask? And try to act as a civil, dignified individual, please.
Mary,
I like your blog, even though I do not agree with most of what you say. It does make me look both sides of the issues you write about. My biggest problem with comment sections here and most other papers is that there is no middle ground. The pro transit supporters do seem to be against building any new or maintaining existing roads. The anti-transit people do the same with transit and think only roads are the answer. The answer is a complete transit plan and development system that includes both. If Charlotte grows anywhere near projections over the next few decades, the current mass transit plans on the drawing board will not even come close to handling the ridership levels and new projects, including roads, will be needed. Just as a commentor on one of the other posts said, cars will not go away anytime soon. Someone will come up with a new power source, fossil fuel or not. Americans love the freedom and independemce they provide. Maybe I am as "consultant" says just self absorbed and selfish. I have served this country, gave people employment, paid my taxes, given to charities until I went without and left half my left leg rotting in the jungles of Vietnam. If wanting to live on a little plot of land of my own is selfish, so be it.
How about not allowing Anonymous comments? Of course cowards that are afraid to connect their names to their ideas will still find away around this.
I like the comments.
They tell more about what goes on in the minds of people (GP) than anything else.
Besides the way you allow
the comments that bash you personally, is rather enlightening and shows greater character than some of the other "bloggers" who cherry pick through them like liberal librarians at am all you can eat and drink Ronald Regan Roast.
Mary,
There are a lot of jerks out here. Myself included (sometimes).
If we make good points, accept them. If we make stupid points, ignore them. If people start cussin', delete the post.
Before you shut down entirely, change your settings so people have to get a Google Identity. That will cut down on a lot of the "drive by" postings.
Most of the people against these initiatives are clueless. COMPLETELY CLUELESS. You can't reason with them because rational thinking is not what they do. It's not how their brains operate. They only know what exists and can't imagine anything different. They respond to challenges by doing the same old thing, even when it doesn't work (i.e. build more roads to reduce traffic congestion). They have an impossible time with counter-intuitive problems (they get a funny look on their face). See George W. Bush and Sarah Palin as good examples.
When you write a blog and are "attacked" by posters, keep in mind your audience. It includes a good range of humanity. The proud and the profane, the smart and the stupid, emotionally mature and the emotionally crippled.
So keep firing away. And yeah, I'm 100% percent behind mass transit, sidewalks, safe bicycling and greater "smart growth".
consultant is soo smart - your arrogance is only surpassed by Mary's. Build more ROADS! How we can even talk about mass transit and bike lanes when are roads are woefully underfunded?
Just got to love those people who say those concerned about the rail costs are against rail.
We know that in the far off FUTURE we will need mass transit. But why not buy the land for transit corridors and use them as bus ways until the necessary density is achieved. But what they will not tell you is that rich people will not ride the bus. And the government will only fund any ridership which are NOT handled by the current buses.
Oh and while we are the subject why build valleys full of houses connected to the rails when studies show only a small percentage will ride the rail, and keep the dangerous twisty two lane roads to these houses for the benefit of those few rail riders?
Hey I was on the Citizens Transit Committee and told them even then that this scheme would not work even if the economy had not tanked.
Are you aware that the projections depended on us getting at least three more corporate headquarters the size of BOA downtown to provide the ridership? A lot more of these little tidbits are not told to you.
You beeter be on your best behavior CamFinch is the blog police. They apparently have nothing better to do.
You beeter be on your best behavior CamFinch is the blog police. They apparently have nothing better to do.
Mary, I like your blog. I hope you will not turn off the comments. I am in favor of rail transit.
Here, the state made a decision that the YRB was more important than commuter rail to Davidson. I agree with that decision, even though I am in favor of commuter rail to Davidson.
But I think you protest too much. This is the third day you've blogged about this. Might a nerve have been struck? Maybe it's not just this series of blogs but all of them. Maybe your own views on transit, passionately held, come off as inflexible and even arrogant. I know that I am very opinionated and have been told more than once to see myself as others see me. Consider that for you, too.
Please keep blogging and please don't turn off the comments section.
Mary,
One thing you HAVE exposed are the amount of cowards that hide behind the word anonymous. Most of these sub humans never read an entire article.
Shut the comments down!
People don't like your views nor your arrogance. That's why your blog gets so much hate replies. You are a liberal propagandist. There should be no stimulus to begin with, and if you don't like blog feedback then DON'T BLOG! If you are going to be a left wing kook all the time, then take the heat. Not everyone wants to live like the Danish along a rail line in an apartment.
"Blog police"? No, I just like civility. But too often it's like observing a classroom full of out-of-control children; many of us naturally feel a tendency to calm the children down. I just don't understand the point of hurling insults rather than having civil discussion. However, go ahead and rant, if that's what makes your life happy.
Mary, as I've emailed to the Observer countless times before, don't allow anonymous comments! When a real identity is attached to a comment posted, the writer tends to be a little less stupid and mean-spirited/rude.
Jon Middleton
the only reason i go to observer.com is to read the anonymous posts. if these are turned off, i will be totally done with the observer. Turning them off could be the fateful end of the observer.
it's my guilty pleasure. the naked city would become the partially clothed city if you started policing user comments.
peace and love
Please cut off comments and show what a bastion of free speech the Observer really is, or just continue what you normally do and delete the ones that disagree with you.
No issue here with fact based, logical projects that make sense.
Unfortunately, when we have a new Mayor who wants to put in a trolley system with cars going to a declining area where CATS buses already go, many of us have no tolerance for waste, which is what this is.
Many of us are also sick of the "progressives" or maybe you called them and yourselves "forward thinkers" in Raleigh who are often corrupt and keep funds from projects throughout the state; primarily the west and for the eastern elite.
We also have such inept NCDOT engineers who designed the God awful interchange at I-485 and I-85 that cost hindreds of millions and it's useless, just like the south leg that was opened first - out of date before the first car ever drove on it.
Why don't you rail FOR us on those issues, otherwise, I'll keep my tax dollars away from pie in the sky feel good rail projects that right now don't amount to a hill of beans.
The replies so far just back up the earlier comments I have made. It is an either or situation with people on both sides. Sticking to just one option or the other, instead of a well planned system will leave us 30 years down the road with a mass transit system that in no way can handle the population growth and a bunch of further decaying roads or a bunch of roads that still will not be able to handle the population growth and little to no effective mass transit to take up the slack.
Then we have people calling anyone who doesn't believe as they do "stupid, selfish, etc., etc., etc."
Please turn off the comments and push for the Observer to turn off ALL comments. Comments are being used to spread ignorant opinions and personal slanders more then an open respectful debate.
It was a good experiment, but sorely failed. One way for the O to make money might be making people pay to post comments. As addicted as some posters seem to be it could be a real moneymaker!
1:08pm,
Spell check, spell check, spell check.
Posting is easier if you use a Mac.
Why are you so curious about who I am, when you and others seems not to want to know about transportation options?
Open your mind. I'm glad you can afford a car. What about the people who can't (a growing number today)? What about the people who can no longer drive? What about young people starting out who are already saddled with debt?
One would think having transportation options would be something all of us could agree on.
Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing until someone says something you don't like.
I bet you believe in diversity too, right? Not the true definition but the "progressive's" view, right?
Thanks to the previous comment by consultant, it has now been brought to our attention that the buses are not an option for those he mentions.
So paying 36 dollars each way for light rail in tax subsidies are better than paying 3.75 each way in tax subsidized dollars on the Cats Buses?
And Raleigh can transport citizens for only 1.75 each way in tax subsidized dollars, just as an interesting tidbit.
It wasn't so long ago GovCo was commited to "rubber" buying state of the art buses, building roads, highways and interstates with HOV lanes.
The buses worked fine for one segment of the community so now what?
Looks like everyone is climbing onboard the train to nowhere.
And Mary Newsome takes offense.... hummmm.
It's a blog, it is nothing personal and by the way you are wrong.
Because by the time Charlotte gets around to building anything it will be well past time, and the demographics will be so vastly different it won't matter.
Perhaps the last comment in your blog shows the despise from people in their responses. You think maybe it's that arrogance?
Turn off the comments... turn off the blog. What's the point of a blog with no dialog to go with it? It's not a blog anymore, it's just another radical, left-wing propagandist piece.
The fact that you mention turning off comments... maybe it gets you off, you get a rise out of stirring people up and stroking your ego by giving us all your views, but when someone else mentions their differing view you cower away in the corner?
Come on now.
I never understood why the Observer requires name, rank and serial number to publish a letter to the editor in the printed edition. Yet, any yahoo with a computer can spew any manner of ignorance and hate online for the world to see, without having to answer for it.
You would never print most of this stuff in the paper. Why do you allow it here?
I sent an email to Mr. Thames some time ago, asking the same question and why the comments sections can't be hidden unless you want to enable them (Ã la , the New York Times). I was promptly ignored, but my thoughts remain the same. For me, the comments section does nothing to advance a story. More often, it seriously detracts from it.
Mary, for years, you have stood on your high pedestal and made hateful, condescending comments about developers, suburbanites, wealthy in McMansions and SUV, and the fact that people like new buildings and chain restaurants. You seem almost shocked, and hurt, every time some disagrees with you, and are arrogantly inclined to delete their opinions if they are not in line with yours. You are more than welcome to continue stating your opinions if you like, but if you don't want feedback, don't blog! Whereas you have a newspaper with a still decent circulation to state your opinions to the masses, it is a major cop out that you are not willing to take the heat when people read you comments and think you're wrong. perhaps you should find a new line of work less in the public eye if you can't take the criticism.
As someone who has a liberal bent and prefers an urban lifestyle, I am a strong supporter for light rail, expanded bus service, more sidewalks and bike lanes, dense housing options, walkable and connected communities, and a variety of retail, entertainment, culture, etc. both uptown and in town and living options for all walks of life in the same area.
That said, I am also a huge supporter of completing I-485, making Independence a true bonifide freeway (not the half baked 'expressway' it is now) and shopping malls and big box chain stores serving areas where people live, and destroying trees or old buildings if a new building makes more sense for a tract of land. Though it's not my preferred choice of location or lifestyle, I have no problem with others choosing to live on a cul-de-sac in a big house 20 miles out of the center city going to their favorite Olive Garden that evening.
It's all about giving the people of Charlotte, and the surrounding areas, choices.
The only thing I will fully support without compromise is Charlotte becoming a more diverse metropolitan center. The days of us being just another small southern municipality where old 'town fathers' called the shots are over. Other smaller communities around us chose not to change and that's fine, but Charlotte chose to choose the destiny of a major city like Atlanta, Dallas or Phoenix. We should continue this route.
Mary, if you want to continue doing this blog, fine, but don't try to censor whose who call you out. When you make absurd, provocative comments, take the licks that people throw back at you. Otherwise, shut down this blog and stay in the comfort of your other editorials where feedback is more constrained.
Danimal
Any wonder why your news paper is losing so much money? You guys will probably get bailed out by the taxpayer in the end, however.
At least you won't have to adapt your message for them, as you are already there.
Have you guys figured out why people are fleeing the city and state yet? Just look at the examples up north and California for what your future holds.
Some of you are ridiculous. If you actually read her blog and looked at the comments, Mary does not delete comments she doesn't agree with. She deletes ones that are offensive, use inappropriate language, and offer absolutely nothing to the conversation other than to bash Mary and others for their views.
If you don't agree with something, nstead of calling people names and spewing misinformation, you can have a meaningful, intelligent debate.
Suburban = low yield
Urban = interesting
conservative = con
liberal = naive
PC = dumb
Mac = bliss
Now that we agree on that, why is it so hard to agree on having transit OPTIONS?
Some of you lack reading comprehension. She is thinking about shutting off comments because most of the comments bash Mary and "liberals" for their views.
Basically, the comments are made by a bunch of angry conservatives that have nothing better to do but spread lies and offer nothing meaningful and valuable to the conversation.
If you disagree, that's FINE, but don't spread your hatred, intolerance, and childish nonsense. Instead, speak like an ADULT and offer some meaningful insight!
muwahaha! I love the supposed itellectuals and their postings followed by the ever more comical brown nosing comments, Oh any_32234 grow up and I have always agreed with Mary....This is to comical.
Thanks for the laugh Mary, Your audience has made my day.
2:58pm,
But are you for transit OPTIONS?
Mary, I enjoy your blog and I also enjoy reading the comments(with a mixture of shock, horror and amusement). After the sales tax referendum and the success of the blue line this is the last refuge of the anti-transit zelots.
3:02 : The last refuge for anti transit folks is to take their money and leave the city/county/state. Have you noticed that everywhere these big spending policies have been implemented are now going bankrupt? Have fun paying for your train set when your tax base is fleeing to areas of smaller government.
Where did anyone say you were a "road hater"?
Oh. Must have been one of the comments you arbitrarily censored.
Gotta love that freedom of the press, huh? Your opinion is precious but everyone else's is subject to your imperious whims.
Mary - I totally agree there are far to many who post on here who are very simply just awful and hateful people. There are a number of us who appreciate you posts and read them regularly. Anyone who read the piece understood your position, there are just a lot of ill-mannered and hateful people who post both here and on the observer site. Don't even get me started on the political group who hate everything and everyone who does not agree with them. Make no mistake though, we may not always write comments, but we do read and enjoy some civil discourse on the always salient points you bring up.
I often put on my thick glasses and drive my Model T onto the roller-coaster tracks and yell, "Road hog!!"
So why are you removing negative comments? Take the heat or get out of the fire.
I see who has read Saul Alinsky.
Please let us know why taxpayers wouldn't flee from big government and give some examples.
Oh for Pete's sake! I am clearly not removing negative comments. Read them for yourselves,above.
I am removing comments that use obscenity and that are insulting. Some of them insult other commenters. Some of them insult me. Don't insult people or use bad language, and your comment stays.
I turned off the comments on the Observer's main website long ago, and I haven't looked back since. If you turned off comments here, I would probably just e-mail you directly with any relevant thoughts about the piece. And I wouldn't blame you one bit. The anonymous internet brings out the ignorant cowards.
"Oh for Pete's sake! I am clearly not removing negative comments. Read them for yourselves,above.
I am removing comments that use obscenity and that are insulting. Some of them insult other commenters. Some of them insult me. Don't insult people or use bad language, and your comment stays."
and yet we still get......
"Most of the people against these initiatives are clueless. COMPLETELY CLUELESS. You can't reason with them because rational thinking is not what they do. It's not how their brains operate. They only know what exists and can't imagine anything different. They respond to challenges by doing the same old thing, even when it doesn't work (i.e. build more roads to reduce traffic congestion). They have an impossible time with counter-intuitive problems (they get a funny look on their face). See George W. Bush and Sarah Palin as good examples."
Anonymous 3:25,
Why don't you first provide some examples of this piece incoporates elements of Alinsky's writings?
I believe the Alinsky reference is to some of the posts, as they isolate and ridicule rather than argue factually.
Please move to the Peoples Republic of Davidson Mary. You'd fit right in. They like nothing new or anything with a motor.
Just like you.
I work in a financial istitution. The meetings we have been having recently would make the hair on your neck stand on end. Those that have been referring to fiscal bankruptcy are being conservative. Do yourselves a favor a research Weimar Republic.
Communications 101.
Responsibility of communicator to communicate in a manner that the receiver understands the message. Mary failed to do that if so many people misunderstood her points in her recent posts.....
Dale Johnson
Charlotte, NC
What is up with all the deleted comments? I say let it ride or don't have the option of comments at all.
So far Mary you've deleted about 20 percent of the comments and rather than deleting them you let them sit like an empty chair in a class room.
What kind of ego trip are you on anyway?
If you are going to delete then really delete them don't just leave them hanging so you can count the comments.
Typical liberal rigabull.
It's all about intentions...how you pay for you're shinny new thing is of little consequence...
Mary, please retire and let someone younger have a chance.
Anon 3:14 said: "Have you noticed that everywhere these big spending policies have been implemented are now going bankrupt?"
Can you name one place where this is actually happening?
Look closely at the social history of our country and you'll find all this shoutin' and difference of opinion runs deep. Shoutin' is us. The only difference between, say 100 years ago and today, is the internet makes it all close, dispersed, personal and yet highly impersonal. Anyone with access to the internet is now free to write and reach an audience unimaginable just 20 years ago.
This is a new experience for all of us. I can imagine it's probably very jarring for most veteran journalists. They grew up in an environment where most of the communication with the public was in one direction.
What I see emerging here and there are attempts to use these new web 2.0 apps to create new forms of communication within and outside traditional journalism.
Looking in the rear view mirror, traditional journalism is crumbling before our eyes. Parts of it will remain. Some of it must remain (investigative reports). But coming out the other side,...none of us really knows what it will look like.
Like much of American life and all the actions that later built this country, this too is a grand experiment in mostly unfettered communication.
Maybe all of this is taking us back to the days (not so long ago), before the great media concentration help destroy our newspapers.
4:42: Exactly.
If Mary can't handle criticism, then she needs to quit and go find something else to do. Now.
So where does the almighty consultant live?
Mary,
I've decided your a cop out for deleating so many comments. Clearly you are not cut out for critical thought. Time for you to go - I'll hold the door.
Mary, its time for the comments to go. So few people devote any kind of thought to them (see everyones paranoia above about deleted messages) they will not be missed.
Just read this research study. People who cannot see their feet when standing, hate sidewalks.
really, 4:39, are you completely oblivious to what is going on in the US and Europe? The northeastern states, California, and soon to be NC BANKRUPT. Greece, Ireland, England, Portugal, Spain, going bankrupt as we speak. Civil unrest in Greece now, please read the European news, they are the only ones reporting this.
I'm waiting for Miss Consultant to tell us where she lives?
Civil Unrest and inflation. People need to prepare because the nanny state will not be there to protect you.
Once again, President Obama completely missed the mark on the causes of and solutions to the financial crisis. He claims the financial crisis was caused by reckless speculation by greedy bankers in search of quick profits. What he fails to acknowledge is that this behavior was the direct result of the cheap credit supplied by the Federal Reserve and the moral hazard supplied by government regulations and subsidies.
In his efforts to prevent the next financial crisis, the President is focused on the symptoms rather than the disease. Therefore, his attempt to prevent future financial crises is doomed to failure, as the misguided policies that led to the last crisis are preserved while even more damaging policies are added. Current Fed policy is more reckless than before; continued subsidies to the mortgage market and the bailouts for banks are creating even bigger moral hazards; and, as a result, the economy is even more leveraged and more vulnerable to rising interest rates than ever.
The only way to prevent another financial crisis would be to reverse the fiscal and monetary policies that lead to the last crisis, and which now threaten to bring on an ever larger one. However, this Administration seems to lack the brains or the guts to do it.
Anon 5:56 "The northeastern states, California, and soon to be NC BANKRUPT. Greece, Ireland, England, Portugal, Spain, going bankrupt as we speak. "
Because of transit? That was your original assertion.
I think not.
Time to return to your rehabilitation, people. I have conducted an honest and searching evaluation of your behavior and all of you need to make amends to your blog readers, your fellow citizens and your elementary school teachers.
The study I referred to earlier says that individuals who have stomachs in excess of 40 inches are correlated with people who hate:
"public support for all forms of transportation that might limit their ability to get to all you can eat buffets scattered around town."
This might explain some of the opposition to creating mass transit options.
The full report will be published in June in the New England Journal of Irrational Behavior.
OK folks, Mary isn't deleting comments that disagree with her. She's deleting the ones with vulgar language or otherwise engaging strictly in insults and name-calling, which add nothing to civil debate. Some examples include Tim Collie calling her a "left wing kook" and "Anonymous 2/19/2010 02:56:00 PM" saying "the comments are made by a bunch of angry conservatives that have nothing better to do but spread lies and offer nothing meaningful and valuable to the conversation" (highly insulting to me, I am a conservative, and just because my opinions differ from yours doesn't make them lies).
I applaud her for this. We should be able to discuss the issues, offer competing views and feel like we are among reasonable people who engage in adult-like behavior.
I disagree with Mary, often strenuously. But I can be civil about it.
Mary, I agree with the suggestion to disable the ability to post anonymously. Only allow those who are man or woman enough to be identified to make comments.
People need to be very much in favor of repairing that bridge.
Without a decent bridge there, how will the daily tons of trucked-in food and booze reach all of the yuppie urbanites in center city?
Or do they propose to WALK all the way to the nearest farm for dinner from their downtown apartments?
Let me clarify about my above comment -- even though I am a radical traditionalist, I am all in favor of many so called 'liberal' things, things which are not 'liberal' at all but actually very traditional: local walkable communities, more mass-transit options, bike lanes, sidewalks, New Urbanism, Agriburbia, better sustainable communities of all kinds, and so on.
But in this case, the crucial I-85 bridge is clearly MUCH more important than a tram line for yuppies.
As I wrote in my previous comment, food and other necessities is constantly transported up and down major freeways like I-85...and transporting those necessities is clearly more important than a tram line for overly spoiled urban yuppies to go cafe hopping from one town to another.
Do you choose cafe hopping and 'gallery crawls' after hopping off your yuppie trolley, or having enough food and other necessities supplied to the region through the major regional transport artery of I-85?
If you have any sense about you, the latter ought to be your choice. You can live without your daily latte, but you'll have a hard time surviving without the necessary food which is driven in to our region via the vital I-85 corridor.
One final thought - we can all now agree that increasing numbers of Americans are very alienated by the built environment around us, even scared by the immensity, complexity, and sprawling nature of it. Thus we should indeed seek to return to more localized and traditional ways of life, but not in the cities...because you cannot grow or raise food in cities, or dig wells (ones that aren't contaminated), gather basic energy needs from natural sources, and so on -- it must all be shipped in, and all of your sewage and trash then shipped out. How do you plan on scratching a living out of the cities when they have been entirely paved over and denuded of all things necessary for basic survival? You cannot. And the far-leftist politics and extreme diversity of cities are toxic and highly decadent too, not at all conducive to a strong country and civilization. In many ways the cities will prove more unsustainable than suburbs in the long term. Social, civil, and racial unrest will rock the cities long before they reach the more homogeneous and traditional suburbs.
Earlier today on the blog for the Charlotte Talks radio program I wrote a few comments about this under the names Eman and THSP; check it out @ http://charlotteblogs.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/tuesday-february-23-2010-urban-vs-suburban-charlotte/
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