So, MoCo's been named a "Tree City USA" by the National Arbor Day Foundation. It gives me all kinds of warm fuzzy feelings, until I sober up and realize that pretty much everything the previous MoCo Council and "Developer" Doug Duncan did was facilitate the hasty uprooting of said trees, in deference to developers and their almighty dollars.I'm reminded of that old chestnut "Silent Running," where the earth's remaining trees are put aboard space ships and sailed around the galaxy, presumably because the earth itself was either too crowded or too polluted to sustain them. Yes, it was sort of a hokey plot - very reminiscent of the whole 70's Earth Day mentality - but it did make you pause to consider the course we're on (and no, I'm NOT referring to glo-bull warming). How long til we start visiting trees in the MoCo Tree Museum (Hat tip: Joni Mitchell)?
On the local level, exactly how many trees are we willing to do without in the interest of progress and development? How many trees (hundreds? thousands? tens of thousands?) will be turned into toothpicks to make way for the ICC? As I stated in a previous post; once that piece of open space is developed, it's gone for good.
Yes, some development is good, just like preservation of open space is good. Balance is the key. Developers and folks like Rich Parsons want us to believe that progress as a county can only be measured by the amount of development and "business friendly" paving and construction. I disagree.
Progress is how much quality of life we preserve, and in turn pass on to future generations.
2 comments:
Ahhh, I like a lot of what MontCo has had to offer, yet see it getting more crammed in, more crowded, as the decades march on. Balance is good. I have looked across the Potomac River at the city there in northern Virginia, and do not want that for us.
Thanks for writing this.
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