What Happened....

[Fading Fast]

About the first time a seagull piles into the reflective glass, they'll start reconsidering their artistic vision, I suspect. To say nothing of the cost keeping said glass clean of Maine's primary agricultural product, seagull deposits.

Years back, I worked in the 1200 foot tall Bank of America Tower in NYC - three-quarters glass and an army of window washers worked everyday keeping it clean (that can't be cheap). It was jarring and fun as you'd be in a meeting with the shades up and a very high-tech looking scaffold with two guys on its would glide into view and they'd start cleaning the windows - oddly, with very traditional buckets and squeegees (no high-tech, custom cleaning apparatus) - and then glide out of view.

One thing I will say for it, the views were incredible and on the open floorpan floors (no furniture or partitions higher than five feet, offices had all glass walls), when it snowed, you felt like you were in side a snow globe.

 

[BlueTrain]

My hometown, which I often mention, had neighborhoods of very nice brick houses, mostly on small lots and close together, though. They look to have mostly been built around the same time, style-wise. Some were bungalow style, others I don't know what but they were really nice houses and they don't build them like that anymore.

I live outside Washington, DC, now and the city is surrounded by neighborhoods of, again, very nice houses also probably built around the same time, judging from the styles. They would be called the inner suburbs. Mostly of brick with stone trim, they are all very attractive and undoubtedly well-built houses. Mostly the lots are small, though. Attractive as all those houses are, the first thing that comes to mind, though, is that they are first of all, old houses. Few are large by today's standards. The neighborhoods vary in regard to condition, too. They are all incredibly expensive, too, because they're close in. Beyond those neighborhoods are more rings of similar houses all around town and further out, the same thing is repeated. Then eventually, the development reaches towns fifty miles away and they, too, go through the mill. In a sense, though, when the first street was laid out in the smallest town anywhere, that was development. I guess it's been a while since paved streets were a source of civic pride. But I do remember when the street where we lived was paved with asphalt. Before that, it was cobblestone.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The in-town street I grew up on was dirt -- not gravel, not cobblestones, dirt -- whem my mother was growing up there in the 1940s. It got paved when I was very young, but the gutters were still dirt well into the 1970s. We enjoyed playing in those gutters until they paved them, which took away our mud-pie franchise. There was a street branching off it that was still dirt, and my sister still has a rock embedded under the skin of her face where she fell off her bike while riding on that street.

I live now just a short throw from a little connecting road that's still dirt. And that's right in town, just a few steps off Route One. Just about all the road development and maintenance money here goes to the Art District downtown, so I expect it'll never be paved in my lifetime.

 

[2jakes]

I’ve mentioned before that when I was 4, I was raised by my grandma.
The house was grand compared to most in the area.
It had “indoor” plumbing.
The streets comprised of dirt & loose stones.

About two blocks away lived one of my aunts.
The house was equipped with an “outhouse”.

Old & smelly, I dreaded going there for fear of falling in.
When I went to visit, I usually did my business by a nearby arroyo.
Although too young to read, the newspapers came in very handy .

 

[Fading Fast]

The street I grew up on was gravel with little cobblestone rain gutters on the sides that looked to me like they had been there a long, long time.

We were on septic tanks at the time. Then the city upgraded to sewers, which sounds great - and is - except that each homeowner has to foot the bill to connect to the sewer line in the street - and is required by law to do so. That was not a happy day or time in our household as it was quite expensive and there was much grumbling from and walking on eggshells around my dad for a long time (in truth, grumbling from and walking on egg shells around my dad was normal, it just ramped up for that period).

That said, once we hooked up, the basement flooding stopped (awesome, as mopping that up - my job - was no joy) and our back yard wasn't mucky anymore nor did we have to have the septic guy come and pump out the tank periodically. All good in the end, but not cheap getting there.

 

[Fading Fast]

The in-town street I grew up on was dirt -- not gravel, not cobblestones, dirt -- whem my mother was growing up there in the 1940s. It got paved when I was very young, but the gutters were still dirt well into the 1970s. We enjoyed playing in those gutters until they paved them, which took away our mud-pie franchise. There was a street branching off it that was still dirt, and my sister still has a rock embedded under the skin of her face where she fell off her bike while riding on that street.

I live now just a short throw from a little connecting road that's still dirt. And that's right in town, just a few steps off Route One. Just about all the road development and maintenance money here goes to the Art District downtown, so I expect it'll never be paved in my lifetime.

Clearly your city council (or whatever it is) is not liberal like NYC where a certain percentage of tax dollars are taken from the wealthy areas and redistributed to the not-wealthy ones by law or regulation or some rule as it come up periodically and the amount is fought over. But the big picture is clear: NYC's wealthy areas subsidize the not wealthy ones for roads, services, policing, fire, etc. As a friend of mine who, like me, lived in one of the not super wealthy / not poor areas said - "if all the tax dollars collected from Park and Fifth Avenue went back into those two streets, they literally - truly - would be paved in gold."

 

[LizzieMaine]

Our city council is basically a platform for the tourism/art/gentrification crowd, and everybody else can pretty much go hang. Money makes the world go round.

 

[Fading Fast]

Our city council is basically a platform for the tourism/art/gentrification crowd, and everybody else can pretty much go hang. Money makes the world go round.

Agreed, but as in NYC, some cities manage it seemingly better than others. Money is the power to control stuff - money is nothing but a proxy or symbol, power is what makes the world go round. The Soviet Union had no real money to speak of - but plenty of power that it used to run everything.

 

[Paisley]

About the first time a seagull piles into the reflective glass, they'll start reconsidering their artistic vision, I suspect. To say nothing of the cost keeping said glass clean of Maine's primary agricultural product, seagull deposits.

There's a gold reflective glass building on Colorado Boulevard in Denver that blinds motorists when it reflects the dazzling Colorado sunshine. And occasionally, in downtown Denver, a big window in a steel and glass building breaks from the wind that gusts along the Front Range of the Rockies.

When they first built the 54-story cash register building in the early 80s, snow and ice at the top melted and came crashing down on the street.

Someone mentioned airports. The roof of Denver International Airport reminds me of a meringue topping on a pie.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Agreed, but as in NYC, some cities manage it seemingly better than others. Money is the power to control stuff - money is nothing but a proxy or symbol, power is what makes the world go round. The Soviet Union had no real money to speak of - but plenty of power that it used to run everything.

The most fun, of course, is that our town is quite likely the most corrupt town in a remarkably corrupt state, and that corruption is facilitated largely by (1) the beaten-down nature of the people, and (2) the susceptibility of many of our leading citizens to any traveling con man who blows into town promising pelf. One of the regional alternative papers has a big cover story this week entitled "The Long Con of Rocklandia," which is pretty much the size of things. From that article:

"Like many small towns throughout America, Rockland is staggering under the burdens of high taxes, underfunded schools, poverty, civic apathy, and drug addiction. Globalization undermined the industries that built the city's economic foundation, leaving us with a so-called 'service economy,' which is a polite way of saying the poor work as servants for the rich.

Tourism is a financial boon to Rockland, but it's no cure for the community's economic malaise. It's seasonal -- not the sort of industry that sustains many full time year round jobs. And census data indicates Rockland's popularity has not created prosperity. The median household income in the city, measured in 2014 dollars, is $41,095, well below the state median of $48,804.

Wonderful as it is to have the Farnsworth Art Museum and the CMCA in Rockland, both are nonprofits that pay no property tax. Rents in newly-trendy Rocklandia have been on the rise, exacerbated by the recent Airbnb craze. It's estimated that upwards of 100 rental units are now being reserved for those visitors further squeezing an already strained housing stock. So, though Rockland can play its tourism card, that card ain't an ace. It's more like a jack, maybe even a 10.

Because Maine's tax system makes municipalities overly reliant on property taxes to fund local government, our communities are ripe for exploitation by unscrupulous developers and shady pitchmen, like the kid that came to town in April of last year, whose talk of building a $200 million gas fired power plant turned out to be a lot of hot air..."

The case referred to there was the most egregious example of local corruption here. The since-resigned City Manager and the economic development director -- who somehow became the Assistant City Manager along the way -- were in bed with this 24-year-old shyster who showed up trying to swindle the city into supporting a project that had no chance of actually being built because, for one thing, we don't even have a gas pipeline anywhere near here unless -- ah -- We The People paid to have it built. All this because the City Council is too busy presiding at art gallery openings and proposing ordinances to support their own B&B businesses to pay attention to what's going on.

Maine, "The Way Life Should Be."

 

[Paisley]

Clearly your city council (or whatever it is) is not liberal like NYC where a certain percentage of tax dollars are taken from the wealthy areas and redistributed to the not-wealthy ones by law or regulation or some rule as it come up periodically and the amount is fought over. But the big picture is clear: NYC's wealthy areas subsidize the not wealthy ones for roads, services, policing, fire, etc. As a friend of mine who, like me, lived in one of the not super wealthy / not poor areas said - "if all the tax dollars collected from Park and Fifth Avenue went back into those two streets, they literally - truly - would be paved in gold."

Besides tax dollars--taxes are low here--Indianapolis has gotten federal grants and a lot of money from Eli Lilly, which is based here. The city offers a deal where you can homestead an abandoned house in certain areas for $10,000 purchase price, plus loans to fix up the exterior, which are forgiven if you live there for a certain number of years. The city actually recruits people to move here. There are also plans for a neighborhood of tiny, Amish-built houses for homeless people, with a community kitchen and showers. (They're already building one in Muncie.) Last week during the heat wave, public swimming pools and some state parks offered free admission (the forests are noticeably cooler than the city). New construction in the historical areas I'm familiar with has to meet with the approval of a local board--I don't think many people here want whimsical or cookie-cutter architecture in their neighborhoods.

I like the fact that the city is not only revitalizing, but is trying to get it right. There seems to be housing at many price points, appreciation for good architecture, and as far as I can tell, except for a policing-for-profit issue, the little guy isn't being railroaded here.

 

[ChiTownScion]

The most fun, of course, is that our town is quite likely the most corrupt town in a remarkably corrupt state, and that corruption is facilitated largely by (1) the beaten-down nature of the people, and (2) the susceptibility of many of our leading citizens to any traveling con man who blows into town promising pelf. One of the regional alternative papers has a big cover story this week entitled "The Long Con of Rocklandia," which is pretty much the size of things. From that article:

"Like many small towns throughout America, Rockland is staggering under the burdens of high taxes, underfunded schools, poverty, civic apathy, and drug addiction. Globalization undermined the industries that built the city's economic foundation, leaving us with a so-called 'service economy,' which is a polite way of saying the poor work as servants for the rich.

Tourism is a financial boon to Rockland, but it's no cure for the community's economic malaise. It's seasonal -- not the sort of industry that sustains many full time year round jobs. And census data indicates Rockland's popularity has not created prosperity. The median household income in the city, measured in 2014 dollars, is $41,095, well below the state median of $48,804.

Wonderful as it is to have the Farnsworth Art Museum and the CMCA in Rockland, both are nonprofits that pay no property tax. Rents in newly-trendy Rocklandia have been on the rise, exacerbated by the recent Airbnb craze. It's estimated that upwards of 100 rental units are now being reserved for those visitors further squeezing an already strained housing stock. So, though Rockland can play its tourism card, that card ain't an ace. It's more like a jack, maybe even a 10.

Because Maine's tax system makes municipalities overly reliant on property taxes to fund local government, our communities are ripe for exploitation by unscrupulous developers and shady pitchmen, like the kid that came to town in April of last year, whose talk of building a $200 million gas fired power plant turned out to be a lot of hot air..."

The case referred to there was the most egregious example of local corruption here. The since-resigned City Manager and the economic development director -- who somehow became the Assistant City Manager along the way -- were in bed with this 24-year-old shyster who showed up trying to swindle the city into supporting a project that had no chance of actually being built because, for one thing, we don't even have a gas pipeline anywhere near here unless -- ah -- We The People paid to have it built. All this because the City Council is too busy presiding at art gallery openings and proposing ordinances to support their own B&B businesses to pay attention to what's going on.

Maine, "The Way Life Should Be."

Simple question: Were it submitted to referendum, would the locals have enough votes to change the form of government to a town meeting/ selectmen government?

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's hard to say. It would have to be done thru amending the city charter, which would require 20 percent of the registered voters on the rolls to sign a petition to get it on the ballot, and I don't honestly know if enough people here would have the courage to do that. There was a petition to dump the city manager, which I signed in the middle of Main Street in broad daylight, but an awful lot of other people refused to sign it because they were afraid of political retribution. That's the kind of environment all this nonsense has created.

Here's another discussion of the situation as it stood in February of this year, focusing on the city manager's various chicaneries.

 

[Fading Fast]

Based on Lizzie's and Paisley's above posts, I think Lizzie should consider moving to Indianapolis - as she is too good for Maine.

 

[LizzieMaine]

When you give up, the helots win. Besides, I'd go nuts that far from the ocean. Even though I can't swim, I like the smell.

 

[Paisley]

My boss at Adidas moved here from Massachusetts for the lower cost of living--a decent house was out of his reach in Cape Cod and there was a lot of seasonal unemployment. I think his family had been there since they came over on the Mayflower.

Me, I'm more my father's child. Before I came along, my parents lived all over the West, moving from one construction site to another, before settling in Denver in the 50s--and then my dad had no compunction about leaving one employer for another that paid better. It's not that I've moved around a lot, but that I don't get very sentimental about where I live or work.

I did leave my elderly mother to my sister (who stole a bunch of stuff from her) and my sister-in-law (who accused me of elder abuse, which charges the county found were groundless). But my mother is free to tell them to bugger off any time she wants, and I've told her I'll move her out here if she packs up her stuff and wants to come. Truthfully, though, I'm very happy to have washed my hands of the whole mess and don't have plans to see any of them.

 

[BlueTrain]

I'm very sentimental about places I've lived, all of them, even to include the shabby little room on the top floor of an old house when I was in college. But most of them have changed so much one way or another that they are no longer much like they were when I lived there. That much is sad but the saddest part is that the people, relatives, neighbors and friends who lived around there are all gone. That was the part that made those places a home to me, if only for a few years. I've lived in this house longer than I've lived anywhere else, nearly 30 years. It's funny, though. The neighborhood where I lived in Morgantown, West Virginia, called Sunnyside, has been virtually demolished and rebuilt for university uses, mostly housing I think. But the old building on the corner is still there and the rooms where I lived for almost four years is probably still the same.

I think I've told this story before but it fits in here, too. I tell people that where I'm from, people either build a house directly behind their parents house or move to Texas, either literally or figuratively. I moved. But neither my mother nor my father were born in my hometown. Well, I moved to Northern Virginia and after a decent interval, met and married someone whose parents had built a house behind their grandparent's house. And to top it off, we were married within a block in Washington, D.C., just up the street from the White House, of where both my wife and her father were born, as well as one sister (different hospital, though). We tend to think of D.C. in small town terms but it's really been gentrified.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My grandfather died two houses down the street from the house he was born in 75 years earlier. My mother has lived on that same street for all but a couple of years of her entire 77 year life.

I left that street for good when I was 25, and I don't like to go back for visits, because it's unrecognizable now. The last straw came a couple years back when somebody put a repulsive hulking McMansion on the vacant lot kids had used as an ad-hoc playground since the 19th Century, and took down a grove of pine trees that were older than the town itself. My mother wrote an enraged letter to the paper denouncing the owners of the lot, but it didn't help. Made her feel better, but otherwise it didn't help.

 

[Fading Fast]

My Dad was born, lived his life and died all in a 5 mile radius and three places (a house lost in the depression, a tenement apt, and a small house when he got married). He was born and died in the same hospital (where I was also born). His father had lived in the town since coming there as a young man in the early 1900s.

My options were earning a decent living / having a career or staying in that town. I've lived in three states and twelve different apartment buildings in the last 30+ years and every move, barring one, has been pretty much driven by forces beyond my control - company went out of business, company moved, no job openings in my field, rent increased dramatically when lease was up or the building converted to condos.

It has been really hard to have the same experience and consistency in job and home that our parent's did. I needed to earn a living and would rather move to earn more (of course, to a degree) and have some career opportunities. To be blunt, at least twice, I had to move just to stay employed / find a job when unemployed.

It all kind of undermines your attachment to a community and sense of belonging. As to my comment about Lizzie moving to Indianapolis, besides the reason she notes, I don't think any of could adjust to her posting under the name "LizzieIndiana."

 

[BlueTrain]

LizzieIndiana? True, it doesn't have that same homey sound as Muncie, Indiana, but if she could get used to it, so could we.

In my case, the old places lack familiar faces. That's the biggest thing. Sometimes you start to resent some of the changes that new inhabitants have made, like changes in the windows or an addition. In fact, it is more amazing when something hasn't changed. Most of the changes, the bad ones, were up and down the main street in town, which was not called Main Street but another one was.

Although I've lived here since about 1973, my attachment here isn't that deep, not as deep as my wife's. She still has relatives here. Outside of work, I don't have friends here but I don't have friends anywhere else, either. That is a kind of freedom, the freedom of not being too attached to people or places. Of course, I'm married and that settles that.