Hope is where you find it ...

Spent yesterday with some of the best folks in the world, a group of municipal officials from around Arkansas. We were there to teach them something about urban planning. I think I learned more from them. Here are some of the most interesting topics discussed during breaks and lunch.

A council member from LA told me the most interesting story. She was in a group interviewing a young lady for a job. It was a typical interview except for one thing. The girl had her cell phone in between her hands and was busy texting during the entire interview. Yes, texting. She listened and answered questions but only stopped texting to look up at the interviewers once. That was when they told her the hours were from eight to five.

She stopped texting. Looked up, and said with surprise. “Eight to five?”

Yes.

“I can’t possibly be here before ten.” Back to texting.

Friends. It’s a new world in which we live. No, she didn’t get the job. Her parents probably blame affirmative action, or immigrants.

Another person told me about a modern problem in her city. Seems teenagers (and maybe older) males are flying drones, with cameras, over back yards and filming girls sunbathing. One lad was caught and offered the excuse that he had sought after the young lady as a girlfriend and had been rebuffed. Thought maybe some videos might produce leverage. Or whatever.

I heard about the “developer” that offered to fix a city’s affordable housing problem with some container crates, probably from Home Depot’s dumpster site, fitted onto a flat-bet trailer and parked on a site. He assured the Mayor that "tiny homes" were all the rage now in urban planning.

The most common topic was about a phase that seems to be sweeping the cities in our state. I call it the “Pirate’s Code Problem,” from the film Pirates of the Caribbean. Remember the response when the heroine invoked the “Pirate’s Code?  “… you must be a pirate for the pirate's code to apply and you're not. And …, the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules.”

Yes, our cities are facing an increase of conflicts with builders and developers, mostly the local ones, who consider a city’s adopted regulations more as guidelines than actual rules, and act accordingly. They are hoping, it seems, for a return to the government of yesteryear, what I called “regulation by last name.”

I’ve thought about his and have two hypotheses, one negative and one positive. On the negative end, we are living in a time when those at the very top of the “governmental food chain” never miss an opportunity to show their disdain for the rule of law, good government, the general welfare of the population, or—really—the social stability that comes from common decency. It would be no wonder that this attitude would trickle down into local government.

I have a more positive hypothesis, borne out by the attitude of the folks I talked with yesterday. I think we have one of the most educated and attentive brood of elected officials at the local level in this state that I have seen in almost a half-century of dealing with municipalities. And they care deeply about their cities, hence the conflicts with the “dab a little gravel and run” developers.

If I’m right, look out you demons of darkness. Attitudes and actions can trickle up as well as down.

Out with the smell of sulfur.
Make America smell good again.