[markbarbera]

I must giive credit to RePinion for the amount of time and effort he put in his earlier post. His vocabulary and verbose prosaic style is enough to make even the venerable Conrad Black blush. It is unfortunate that so much energy went into arguing an inarguable point.

RePinion betrays his own personal bias throughout his flowery diatribe. By using the third person narrative, he attempts to place himself above the forum participants he is critiquing. He is careful when selecting forumer's comments as examples of what he calls a prejudice of 'us/them dichotomy' to single out those who speak in defence of the inner city. Yet he chooses to ignore compelling examples of those who argue with equally fanatical bias towards the suburban lifestyle. For example, labelling the criticism of the proposal to rezone industrial land for big-box development as "Walmart-bashing" is at least as powerful an example of "lifestyle identity allegiance". RePinion's pointed selectiveness in example citation hobbles his arguement and diminishes the credibility of his thesis. Indeed, it exposes his own bias and lack of objectivity on the subject.

I will quite easily admit my pride and support for my neighbourhood without any shame or guilt. Nor will I veil it in heavily worded prose. When my neighbourhood is being unfairly represented in this forum, I will not let that misrepresentation go unchallenged.