Irrational fear of big cities.

[Cambridgite]

The following is an article published today in my local newspaper. It was outrageous to read and I plan on writing in and tearing her arguments to shreds. It's a perfect example on stereotypes people hold on big cities and why NIMBYism is so prevalent in my own city. Thoughts on this?

http://www.cambridgetimes.ca/cam/viewpoint/viewpoint_856171.html

Urbanizing city not the way to go
(Aug 16, 2007)
As soon as I read Looking into the future of Cambridge by Jordan Ngo, I had to reply.

He stated how he would enjoy seeing our city urbanized with skyscrapers, tourist attractions and maybe even the privilege to host celebrities. This sounds great, for now.

I apologize for being a pessimist, but I absolutely disagree. With the urbanization of Cambridge, it will only bring trouble and problems. Wait, it already has. With more people moving into the city, we might not have enough jobs or homes and a lot of those people won't have a place to live or work.

What else comes with being a big city - crime and murder, of course. At the moment, I believe that Cambridge is a peaceful city and staying small will keep it that way.

There are countless ways that remaining a small city can be beneficial to the citizens. I don't want to leave my house and just see gigantic buildings blocking the sun, homeless people begging for change or factories polluting our sky.

I like opening my door to see the beautiful sun and nice neighbours smiling. I want children to be able to play outside without fear. I hope that Cambridge will stay the way it is now, a safe and beautiful city that I enjoy growing up in.

Erica Dao

Cambridge

[Stephenapolis]

Sounds like the motto of the city council of Minneapolis. Their vision is of something between Metropolis and Mayberry.

[dlbritnot]

Clearly, urban growth leads directly to urban decay. Urban decay actually only occurs when people make close-minded statements like this.

[Austinlee]

It is such a huge Nimby myth that more people means there won't be enough jobs and housing.... Like there is some LIMIT on those things?!?! More people means more jobs and more buildings and thus greater opportunities for everyone!!

Citizens who think their city or the world in general is "just right" are completely selfish. Why? Because just because their particular life is sunny and comfortable they want the rest of the world to stop spinning so nothing messes up their comfort level. Well what about everyobdy else? Other people need a chance to reach comfort and happiness too.

So screw that woman. She is a very small minded thinker.

[Steely Dan]

i have an irrational fear of present day auto-centric exurbia.

irrational fears are fun. everybody should have at least one.

[SHiRO]

You could try to tear her arguments to shreds, but I don't see any to begin with really...

One of the biggest joys in my life was to reply to a letter in our local newspaper from a guy tirading against a planned residential tower and how it was going to block the sun and the view for his residential commieblock tower and then seeing the 140m thing build!

[totheskies]

"Not In My Back Cubicle"

[Buckeye Native 001]

The following is an article published today in my local newspaper. It was outrageous to read and I plan on writing in and tearing her arguments to shreds. It's a perfect example on stereotypes people hold on big cities and why NIMBYism is so prevalent in my own city. Thoughts on this?

http://www.cambridgetimes.ca/cam/viewpoint/viewpoint_856171.html

Urbanizing city not the way to go
(Aug 16, 2007)
As soon as I read Looking into the future of Cambridge by Jordan Ngo, I had to reply.

He stated how he would enjoy seeing our city urbanized with skyscrapers, tourist attractions and maybe even the privilege to host celebrities. This sounds great, for now.

I apologize for being a pessimist, but I absolutely disagree. With the urbanization of Cambridge, it will only bring trouble and problems. Wait, it already has. With more people moving into the city, we might not have enough jobs or homes and a lot of those people won't have a place to live or work.

What else comes with being a big city - crime and murder, of course. At the moment, I believe that Cambridge is a peaceful city and staying small will keep it that way.

There are countless ways that remaining a small city can be beneficial to the citizens. I don't want to leave my house and just see gigantic buildings blocking the sun, homeless people begging for change or factories polluting our sky.

I like opening my door to see the beautiful sun and nice neighbours smiling. I want children to be able to play outside without fear. I hope that Cambridge will stay the way it is now, a safe and beautiful city that I enjoy growing up in.

Erica Dao

Cambridge

Welcome to the mindset of modern day North America :rolleyes:

[relnahe]

Sounds like the motto of the city council of Minneapolis. Their vision is of something between Metropolis and Mayberry.

Stephenapolis, is this a new kind of mind frame for City Council in MLPS? How would you discribe such a vision. The reason I ask is I haven't been there since 2003 and will be popping in for a short visit next month so I'm kind of interested.;)

[Chicago Shawn]

Factories polluting the sky? :haha: :haha: :haha:

Wow this dumb bitch is so damn clueless she doesn't even realize the majority of these factories in America have closed and moved off to China or some other third world country. In the rare case of new heavy industry opening up in this country, it is usually on the outskirts of a metro with a huge plot of land, and never in established older communities.

"Oh my think of the children", as if they are not prone to child preditors or drugs today in her current pastoral community of "smiling neighbors".

I hate this mentality becuase it spreads like a disease, and far too many Americans are already infected with it.

[Tom In Chicago]

I have an irrational fear of white people. . .

[brickell]

I like opening my door to see the beautiful sun and nice neighbours smiling. I want children to be able to play outside without fear. I hope that Cambridge will stay the way it is now, a safe and beautiful city that I enjoy growing up in.



Does she live here?

http://www.greenash.net.au/sites/default/files/images/teletubbies-sun.png

Are these her happy neighbors?
http://www.greenash.net.au/sites/default/files/images/teletubbies-happy.preview.png

From the funny http://www.greenash.net.au/posts/thoughts/freaky-teletubby-hypnosis

[Buckeye Native 001]

I'm pretty sure that purple one's a homosexual...

[NewYorkYankee]

I have an irrational fear of white people. . .

Sadly, that probably the dynamic at play....:rolleyes:

[Trojan in NYC]

I used to think like that until I came onto this site. :)

If you write a polite response to her maybe she will change her opinions...but I don't expect everybody to be as open minded as I was. That last bit sounded extremely pretentious, but its the truth.

[WilliamTheArtist]

OMG I thought Tulsa had cornered the market on those types of people. But that takes the cake on the stupid comments front. I don't even think those types of comments would fly here!

[Untitled]

I love the fact that there are people such as the letter writer, because when they ruin their own hometowns with NIMBYism it makes Chicago look that much better.

(and I'll be sending resumés to Chicago this week)

[Attrill]

There are countless ways that remaining a small city can be beneficial to the citizens. I don't want to leave my house and just see gigantic buildings blocking the sun, homeless people begging for change or factories polluting our sky.

She missed the real problem with big cities - chimney sweeps and newspaper salesboys run amok! EXTRA! EXTRA!

Nevermind the crazed fishmongers and washerwomen...

[Stephenapolis]

Stephenapolis, is this a new kind of mind frame for City Council in MLPS? How would you discribe such a vision. The reason I ask is I haven't been there since 2003 and will be popping in for a short visit next month so I'm kind of interested.;)

I won't get too much into detail. But, the council seems to be afraid of anything over 6 stories outside the CBD. The NIMBY's are the major push behind this, and the council listens to them over anything else. Many NIMBY's do not seem to realize they live in a major metropolitan area. They want the city to have the safe, clean, anti-septic feel of Mayberry. Whith the small police force, and everybody likes everybody. Too bad that is a large fanatasy.
But anytime people feel like Minneapolis is being slighted, they bellow out how it is a major city in a major metropolitan area. They will talk endlessly about the corporate HQ's we have dt. They will leave out how many others we could still have if they would have allowed the other corporations some incentive to build dt.
I love my city but it is frustrating to listen to its politics. Part of it is the Council actually runs the city. The Mayor has little real power and seems more to be the political whipping person, than a decider. The mayors are allowed to get some of their proposals through, but that is to placate the mayor from making a stink, and they usually are decent proposals so the council looks good in approving them.

[Cambridgite]

She missed the real problem with big cities - chimney sweeps and newspaper salesboys run amok! EXTRA! EXTRA!

Nevermind the crazed fishmongers and washerwomen...

Yeah, her problems with big cities do seem similar in nature to the 19th century industrial town. Especially factories polluting our sky. Funny, because there isn't any growth of heavy industry in Cambridge. It's basically light industry, office, retail, warehouse, and high-tech. If anything is causing a rise in pollution, it's definitely our overdependence on cars for transportation.

[Cambridgite]

Does she live here?

http://www.greenash.net.au/sites/default/files/images/teletubbies-sun.png

Are these her happy neighbors?
http://www.greenash.net.au/sites/default/files/images/teletubbies-happy.preview.png

From the funny http://www.greenash.net.au/posts/thoughts/freaky-teletubby-hypnosis

:haha: :tup:

Nah, I doubt it. It's probably something more like this.
http://www.lib.uwo.ca/weldon/news/hottopics/images/sprawl.jpg

Same thing though, right?

[Cambridgite]

Well, I guess I should give a little context of my hometown and what's happening here and it might provide a little more insight to why this attitude is so common.

Cambridge is an amalgamation of 3 small towns in 1973. The "city" population is about 125,000 and it's part of the Kitchener metropolitan area of about 500,000. On a metropolitan scale, it's not THAT small, is it? Traditionally, the area's economy was very manufacturing base, but it has recently evolved into one of the major technology hubs of Canada and a major university area. However, none of the towns that make up the area are particularly large and the majority of our growth has been sprawl (the 3 towns of Cambridge, plus Kitchener are now glued together). It's about 50km (30 miles) west of the Greater Toronto Area's western fringe, along a major highway. When you see ads in Toronto newspapers for new subdivisions here, one thing that is mentioned over and over again is "small town charm". However, the more you mention small town charm, the more Torontonians want to move here. When more and more people move here, it grows and loses its small town charm. We now have major problems trying to keep our infrastructure at pace with our growth and traffic is becoming at times intolerable. Since growth isn't going to stop, we need to plan for smart growth. However, people seem to think that a sprawling low-density arrangement is more condusive to "small town" life than more urban forms of development. People who live here look at Toronto news on TV and they're scared to death of the place because of all the recent gun violence (despite that it's one of the safest big cities in North America). My guess is that they feel Toronto's problems arise from it's urban nature and that new suburbs and "small towns" are the remedy. So I think many of the anti-growth people are either established residents who don't like change, or new residents who came here with certain expectations that the developer gave them, such as small town charm and a pastoral environment. It's just frustrating that in all of this, encouraging the building a great city doesn't seem to be a feasible option with many people. Don't get me wrong, we have been seeing more "urban development" in the past few years than ever before, it just seems that while there's a market for it, there's also way more people who want to destroy such plans.

Does anyone have a similar story?

[Chicago103]

i have an irrational fear of present day auto-centric exurbia.

You and I share that irrational fear, however my rants at its worst are no worse than what much of these suburban minded idiots say in print on a daily basis. The difference being that I am half joking much of the time but they are serious and yet I would be considered the nut case by mainstream society and they are often considered the guardians of freedom and the American dream or some other cliche.