My Neighborhood
Aug. 1st, 2013 04:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutI used to live in Mayberry (<-- not its real name), NH, where we had exciting things happen like a guy dying surrounded by a bunch of drugs, and a woman who accused someone of rape but then it turns out maybe there was some paid for intimacy, or, as the case may be _not_ paid for intimacy, but you know. Whatever.
Now I live in Massachusetts. While my house is on the town sewer (was a criteria for buying), most of the big block I walk around many times a week is not. It is a candidate to be on the sewer, and many of the people on this long block expressed a desire to get in on this deal when it was being built in the early 2000s. But when the time came to then do it, many _other_ people on this long blocked expressed an absolute, unchangeable aversion to that sewer (combination of concerns about cost with a really strong aversion to any possibility of future development occurring. Preserving our something-or-other character. That type of thing.).
I believe I have good friends on both sides of this divide and I've discussed it with both sides civilly, but it is, to be blunt, a really huge social challenge. I had not realized just how huge a challenge until someone pointed me at video of a May 2013 Selectmen's meeting, in which Janet Adachi (who I quite like, based on seeing her in this video -- she asked great questions and seemed personable and detail oriented, which I really like in a Selectmen, and more generally) referred to this dispute as "It's like the Hatfields and the McCoys at some of those meetings".
http://view.vzaar.com/1250659/player
1:46:20ish
Local politics are the _best_.
Now I live in Massachusetts. While my house is on the town sewer (was a criteria for buying), most of the big block I walk around many times a week is not. It is a candidate to be on the sewer, and many of the people on this long block expressed a desire to get in on this deal when it was being built in the early 2000s. But when the time came to then do it, many _other_ people on this long blocked expressed an absolute, unchangeable aversion to that sewer (combination of concerns about cost with a really strong aversion to any possibility of future development occurring. Preserving our something-or-other character. That type of thing.).
I believe I have good friends on both sides of this divide and I've discussed it with both sides civilly, but it is, to be blunt, a really huge social challenge. I had not realized just how huge a challenge until someone pointed me at video of a May 2013 Selectmen's meeting, in which Janet Adachi (who I quite like, based on seeing her in this video -- she asked great questions and seemed personable and detail oriented, which I really like in a Selectmen, and more generally) referred to this dispute as "It's like the Hatfields and the McCoys at some of those meetings".
http://view.vzaar.com/1250659/player
1:46:20ish
Local politics are the _best_.