[thechat] Knife-man found in BusinessWeek

Jeremy Weiss eccentric.one at gmail.com
Fri Nov 7 09:52:56 CST 2008


Roger Austin wrote:
> When I read the article, it reminded me of exactly the same
> argument that people here in the Research Triangle area of North
> Carolina have made in the past. The influx of yankees had destroyed
> the quality of life, driven up housing prices, and changed the
> tone of civil conversation. Of course, the loudest of the mob were
> people who had moved in only slightly earlier from "up North".

The same thing happened in Bentonville, Arkansas when companies worldwide started moving executives into the small town just to manage company's relationship with Wal-Mart. The county went from small houses on really big parcels of land to really big houses on small parcels of land. Within a few years the property values went through the roof which caused the property taxes to increase and there was story after story in the papers about families losing their farms that had been in their family for X generations because they couldn't afford to pay the property taxes on it any longer. And in typical small, Arkansas town fashion, it split into two clicks. Those where were from there, and the outsiders.

It's always a balancing act. You want to grow and advance, but you don't want to lose your identity or heritage. Local governments need to pay more attention to this and work to keep things balanced.

-jeremy






More information about the thechat mailing list