“If I lived in Iowa I would live in Des Moines, and probably in West Des Moines or maybe the far South side where the new developments are. East side and North side are the most run down.”
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This is a quote I took from a response to a website where someone was asking what it was like to live in Iowa, because I happen to be seriously considering it as a future state of residence.
…and I automatically wanted to yell out about this. This is called suburban sprawl! This is bad! Stop doing it!
You know what’s going to happen? Those run down areas are going to get more run down because people are too busy fleeing from it, instead of going back, facing it, and trying to figure out how to fix it. You know what happens then? Those who can’t leave the area watch it get more and more run down. Entire generations grow up in a depressing setting, with a degrading economy, and the knowledge that no one from the outside is going to help them because where they live is dangerous. Well, better become dangerous myself so that I can survive.
People become how they are treated. Run away from these areas, and people will grow up hating parts of themselves, the place they live, and the rest of the world for not helping them. We are making our own recipes for violence and drug abuse.
I’m not even touching on the environmental issues of suburban sprawl, basically all this fleeing is creating less possible farm land/forest area and using up more fossil fuels which is bad.
And in the meantime, the cities we already have established are breaking down because everyone is busy fleeing these areas like the damned plague, and not helping.
I brought this up with a friend, and he brought up a very good point. People aren’t helping because they feel like going there in the first place might be almost certain death. That’s fine, that’s our own making. I have a solution for it. Start at the edges. At the very edge of the more dangerous areas is safer than just diving in, and by working from the edges inwards, it’ll give the people on the inside time to figure out what’s going on and maybe embrace the helping hand and want to participate.
I have a question. How much change would it make if we were to tear down some really bad apartments (while offering residents an alternate temp place to live) building a better apartment building with a garden in front, plus a couple dwarf fruit trees, plant some trees along the streets, till up one of those useless empty lots, and make a publicly accessible vegetable and fruit tree garden? What if we were to put in a bench? What if we were to then plant a bunch of posts all around this garden, explaining what each tree is growing, and how it can be cooked up or preserved? How much change do you think this would inspire? Against the scale of degrading areas of cities and the violence that we’re creating by avoiding the issues, this is really just a small change. But it can inspire participation, make people feel useful, teach future generations about hard work and food, become a hang out spot to stave off depression, and most importantly… it can empower people. They won’t feel useless or helpless, they will know the power of small actions…of looking at an issue, and actually figuring out ways to solve that issue, instead of how to just leave it and work around it.
IF A DIAPER STINKS, CHANGE IT!
IF OUR CITIES ARE CRUMBLING, FIX THEM!
AND IF YOU FEAR FOR THE FUTURE GENERATIONS, TEACH THEM!
…
*takes deep breath*
Problems, the ones that actually matter, have never been solved by ignoring them or running away. More and more people can’t run away, and they have become too big for us as citizens to continue ignoring them. There are still soldiers that go off to dangerous areas for us. They believe in their country – in freedom and equality. But we aren’t free, and we aren’t equal.
All other social issues and social politics aside, this is a truth that we have to face. The fact that we are afraid to go into certain parts of our own country, means that we are being dictated by some force, we are not free to feel safe in our own country. We tiptoe to the safest parts, set down our roots, and hope that the infectious spread of violence doesn’t spread to our neighborhood. That’s those of us who aren’t already there. For those that are, they aren’t free to leave. Maybe it’s because they don’t have the finances to go to other places to look for a good paying job, maybe they have family that they need to look out for. These people are less free than those outside of the danger zones. They don’t even get the chance to partake in the illusion- blissful ignorance that everything is ok where they live; therefore, there is inequality.
I think it is disrespectful of us as a whole to make the men and women in the military believe that we are the top dogs in terms of freedom and equality, to make them fight outside for us (or in some cases, for others), when we can’t even take care of ourselves within our own borders. We need to stop doing what we’re doing, think about our own problems, figure out how we can be useful to our own people, and then work together to make this land actually worth fighting for.
The Garden of Inspiration 