fear & loathing in central swingstate

Did you ever ask yourself, "What the %#&@* am I doing here?"

There is a blight on the landscape outside my window, right where I had gotten used to seeing a patch of trees between the steel and glass buildings and parking lots. A couple of months ago, the machines came and cut down all the trees, cut them up very efficiently into transportable pieces, and hauled them away, leaving a buildable strip of bare ground between the two adjacent parking lots with their steel and glass buildings. Around here they call that 'development'.

Most of the trees and fields in and around the formerly quiet village of Methodistville are being 'developed', that is, clear-cut, paved, cunningly designed to simulate little pre-fab cookie-cutter towns, and surrounded by acres of convenient parking. You know the scene: retail stores, chain restaurants, offices, and residential subdivisions, all tastefully landscaped and emblematic of economic growth, and everybody likes growth, right?

This is good, of course, or at least better than the alternative. Would I prefer the ghost-town architecture in large portions of Detroit and Cleveland? Or perhaps the transitional look so common in formerly thriving urban malls that are now empty, boarded-up, and looking for new uses. What am I complaining about? People around here have jobs, spend money, consume goods and services, and there are more people moving here who actually want to spend their money at those strip malls.

A few years ago, Jessi Golly turned me onto a book by Derek Jensen called Strangely Like War about the technological assault on forests in particular and a general industrial-era campaign for the conquest of everything wild.

In an economically privileged society like ours, this developmental frenzy is coupled with a kind of fortress mentality. If we just close off our borders, build a wall from San Diego to Brownsville, prohibit the speaking of non-English languages, and increase domestic surveillance, all our problems will be solved. While we're at it, let's incarcerate more law-breakers, increase the armed forces stationed abroad, command and control entire populations, and regulate social behavior. Why? To protect our freedom, of course.

I wonder whether there is a better place - hipper, more environmentally conscious, more architecturally interesting, more bike friendly - where the prime directive of civic improvement is something other than to pave paradise and put up a parking lot.

But where else is there to go? And would I really want to? After all, there are reasons behind my being here. I have a job, a family that is connected to Methodistville and Central Swingstate, and even I - peaceful warrior for all that is simple, sustainable, and free (or at least cheap) - yes, even I have attachments here (GASP!).

Lots of cool places there are, Grasshopper. They say Mt. Olympus is kind of special. I understand Crete is fabulous. Norway has a very high standard of living, and Traverse City isn't bad. Everyone says Portland is great, and Asheville is very nice. I hear good things about Taos, the East Village, and New Zealand. Peninsula, Ohio, is very picturesque, and I've always wanted to see Nova Scotia.

Jessi really likes the Big Apple. I have a friend who moved to Seattle a couple of years ago and loves it. Another friend moved to Santa Fe this spring, and a third is plotting his next chess move for Prescott, Arizona. A friend at church is spending the summer preparing for a visiting professorship in Berkeley. Although we will miss her, I think it's mostly envy we're feeling. While writing this, I got an email from a couple of friends who just started new jobs in Chicago. So I know it can be done.

The trouble is, I would bring my own baggage to Shangri-La. You know, "wherever you go, there you are." There might even be a couple of irritating things about Portland or Halifax. If so, I'm just the guy to find them.