“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”—Edward Abbey
The lambing barn prior to the start of the season.
It shouldn’t be a surprise, this mania for growth and building, and it isn’t. It is, nonetheless, sad and appalling. A Saturday drive on a country road finds our landscape being filled in like a jigsaw puzzle on family game night, pieces slapped on the table in a frenzy to be done. Unfortunately, when you step back from the table, you discover that the finished product is more Dorian Gray than Currier and Ives, hideous and repulsive, with all sins exposed.
Why object? Growth, after all, is progress, right? Odd, though, how that word “progress” is often used simply to stop a discussion, prevent closer examination. As in “can’t stand in the way of….” To question the endless destruction, the paving over, the gluttony of the spreading belly of the city into the surrounding countryside, is as effective as the man who stands at the edge of an eight-lane highway holding a sign that warns the end is near. (He just might, as it turns out, speak the truth.)
For 22 years I have taken the drive from the farm through the mountains and down into North Georgia. The beauty and isolation of that area was always something to behold. Small, narrow valleys defined by creeks and rich bottom land, low ridges rising a few hundred feet on either side. Old farms and barns dotting the tidy and loved landscape. Yes, there were some newer homes, but they were modest, a mobile home or rancher. Not beautiful, but not pretentious. Structures that fit the economy of an ancient landscape.
The changes were slow in those early years, a few new houses constructed, usually built on the heights, tacky and out-of-place McMansions looking down on the pastoral landscape. But then the pace quickened. The ridges filled in with outsized monstrosities for undersized households. Even then the farm valleys remained somehow inviolate, left in a hopeful time. Until inevitably, with land prices, property taxes, or death, and no ridges left to colonize, the valleys filled in with clusters of behemoths to accommodate the malignancy that is Atlanta.
And now this new economy that allows many to do their job remotely has opened the last protective floodgate. What took decades in those North Georgia counties is taking less than 24 months in East Tennessee. This economy at rising tide doesn’t lift communities; it washes over them, destroying countryside and culture in its wake. And when it ebbs, what remains is a fractured landscape instead of topsoil. A debris field of trash and eroded gullies where once flourished fields, crops, and a rural people.
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Reading this weekend: South (E. Shackleton)
100% agree, Brian. A blight on the countryside. It’s not just a problem in your area.
Well, there is some cold comfort. 🙂
That Abbey quote is a good one! 8^).
Where I grew up in western Washington, all the creeks, fields and forests where I once played have become tract housing and strip malls. The creeks that had 20lb king salmon are now just a trickle as they’ve all been diverted to storm drains. Visiting my old house a number of years afterwards, I found myself hyperventilating with rage, and feeling a distinct desire for Caterpillar’s largest bulldozer to rectify the situation.
Moving to Michigan (which was *losing* population) was quite refreshing. There’s still development happening here, but the rate is much lower. I suspect we’re on the cusp of a major population decline now (vax being a major factor). Perhaps I should be careful of what I’ve wished for.
David,
Yep, who would have thought Tennessee would be the new sexy. There is always the hope that $4 a gallon gas just causes it all to crash and burn. Then again, be careful what you wish for.
Cheers,
Brian
PS Old E. A. had some good ideas on how to deal with this mess.
Yeah, I’ve often wished for more expensive gas to solve such issues… and now find myself commuting 50 miles rt. in my 15mpg farm truck… ugh..
It is painful. Still, we are probably getting close to paying what we should.
I’m sorry to hear this Brian. Our area has never been very populous, and now many farmsteads and rural homes in our area sit empty much of the time, owned by non-residents for hunting or warm-season living. The pandemic land rush brought a lot of new absentee owners. Steel sheds—often serving as a cabin—seem to be the main type of new construction. Better than McMansions, I guess. (We’re not near a major-metro area with that kind of wealth, though there is an occasional gate by the road with a paved driveway heading up or back into the woods and the house out of sight. The paved driveway is a dead giveaway.) There are a lot more hunting stands dotting the field edges and forest lands too. It can feel odd sometimes, walking the road past empty houses. No houses at all would feel less lonely.
Our small township (36 sq. miles) has already been impacted by rural depopulation and loss of family farms over the years. More absentee owners means less of a community, and less tax revenue (to help maintain 43 miles of roads, among other things).