Thursday, May 08, 2008

Watered down ...

... Decline and the Falls. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)


In Ms. Strand's account, even the preservationist Free Niagara movement of the Gilded Age, which was dedicated to effacing "repulsive scenery" from the landscape, was tainted. Many of its partisans were intimately connected with the monopoly that received a state charter permitting it to harness Niagara's water for power generation. The mom-and-pop entrepreneurs whose tackiness had disgusted James and Free Niagara leader Frederick Law Olmsted were pushed aside as government-protected industries came to dominate Niagara Falls: The "small shop owners, cabdrivers and con men who had made money off the place were chased out of town and replaced by Morgans, Astors and Vanderbilts."

This reminds me of a study done by the Urban Land Institute of Teton County, Wyoming. The study said the county's demographics "could soon resemble [those] of the Third World - the very rich, the heavily subsidized poor, and the transient including both visitors and workers. The middle class, the young families, and the community service personnel who want ownership housing or who desire single-family homes will be gone, and the community will be permanently changed because of it. "

It would be sad if the wilderness became simply a preserve for the very rich.

No comments:

Post a Comment