Cities - Perspective of a Country Boy

So here I sit in my skivvies in my northwoods cabin on the edge of the wilderness, and like the proverbial frog from the early 70s, croaking a popular catchy tune in my head. I hope this vagueness avoids some sleazy copywright attorney from trying to squeeze money out of me, which by the way, I don’t have. But, in secret, the name of the frog was Jeremiah.

It’s reasonable to ask what this essay prelude about a frog has to do with the topic at hand, prejudice and city planning. I’ll get to that sooner or later.

Let me say that I believe I was “called” to attend a conference entitled, “Hope for the City” in March of 2024. I didn’t go, mostly due to my aversion to snarling traffic and high-speed maniacs. I suppose this act of defiance on my part to deny my “calling” was a normal response, “Hell God ain’t gonna tell me what to do!”

The way I see it, after God slapped me in the face several years ago when I was a rabid atheist, that I should probably learn to listen better.

The rural north is my home, mostly has been my whole life. Not surprisingly, I have a prejudice against cities and city folk. That’s the truth, and like the old saying goes, no matter how much lipstick you put on a pig, it’s still a pig.

When I was a young kid, I truly believed that we should erect a chainlink fence across the whole state near the city of Clare. For those of you not familiar with the Great State of Michigan, this city is about midway up the mitten, we refer to as the lower peninsula. Clare, ironically, is called the “Gateway to the North.” In my young, naive, and might I add stupid view of the world I thought this would keep out all the riff-raff of “those folks”. Does this sound familiar? If so, I bet you own a red power tie.

I didn’t realize until I was much older that this sentiment was really just “subconscious racism”. I had absorbed an unreasonable fear of people of color. Unfortunately, racism, and xenophobia was not only my personal sin but it exists throughout our culture as well as our geography. While the southern border states seem to be the focus of this particular problem, it is just as rabid here in the north.

As a child, the fence was steel and razor wire, but as I aged, the fence became a metaphor for my own subconscious intolerance, poignantly well hidden, even to myself.

Expanding the metaphor, the fence is now more than allegorical, as miles upon miles of cement and razor wire reify what was once just hidden hatred.

Of course hatred has its own rewards. At the ballot box it garners votes that reinforce its putrid existence. Hate and prejudice become justifiable as a way of curbing “those people” from becoming one of “us”. One could argue about why “they” want to become one of “us” but only a cursory review of the history of US policies in Central and South America will enlighten even the dullest lamps if they truly wish to be lit by those wearing dirty red baseball caps.

I digress. Back to the cities and urban planning. There is no longer just a canary in the cavern, but a bullfrog in a stinking stagnant pond. Whether rural folks, in both the south and the north, will gracefully accept the influx of immigrants, or continues to resist the inevitable is yet to be seen and will play out in policies and politics.

Will the influx remain in squalid conditions in burgeoning cities with reduced resources, i.e. housing, pollution, climate change, infrastructure, water, increasing poverty, low wages, and the list goes on, or will many despite racism and intolerance flee to the country? That course remains to be seen.

Where does city planning play into this polluted pond? If humans do not provide a hospitable and pleasant existence for marginalized folks there is likely to be chaos. This scenario is not only inevitable but as time goes on without addressing fundamental needs, a dystopic future becomes more likely.

Planning around the edges of the pond is not sufficient any longer. As a nation we need to not only make the pond more hospitable to all but clean up the damn mess we are in, not in the future, but now, before Jeremiah croaks.

Peace

Hilton