I took a little walk over to the River Valley earlier and was looking down at the beautiful autumn foliage surrounding the river and it got me to thinking how developers must be salivating over that land and how they must want to build like crazy by the river.
That got me thinking about developers. For as long as I can remember, books, comics, television, and movies have always portrayed developers who want to build over parks or historic sites as evil and they're usually thwarted by a ragtag gang of plucky kids. In real life however, if they get enough politicians in their pockets, especially the "pro-business" types, they find a way to build over parks and historic sites and tear down old buildings in favour of glass and steel. There are historic neighbourhoods in Edmonton that are trying to stop or at least slow down condo developments to keep the integrity of their neighbourhoods intact, and I was reading in Archaeology magazine the other day about how American Civil War battlegrounds are being lost to new developments.
I could certainly find other examples in this great city, I'm sure you can easily find examples in your hometown. I'm starting to wonder if the problem is that most of the opposition to rampant, greedy developing comes from adults. Maybe we need more plucky kids getting involved, especially if they are in ragtag groups(I'll say "groups" now instead of "gangs", because kids today in any sort of gang, no matter how ragtag, are probably more interested in hot rods and rumbling than they are in standing up to evil developers (I'm assuming about the hot rods and rumbling, as most of my information on gangs comes from older movies)).
So come on, today's youth! Where is your pluck? We need your help to thwart greedy Old Man MacDonald or whatever his name is! The future of your history depends on you! Come on, think of it as a real-life video game.
Damned television and video games. They've sucked the pluck right out of our children. I wouldn't be surprised if Old Man MacDonald is involved in this dastardly deed. He'll get away with it too without those darned kids to foil him.
posted
by Tabby at 9/20/2004 01:17:00 p.m.
