Originally Posted by TimJ

I quoted your happy and free comment, and told you I don't care, because the message was the same- 'Hey, I get by and I don't let things get me down. Maybe ya'll just ain't livin' right. Come on down to the crik with me and lissen to th' bullfrogs.' Something like that, right? I don't care how happy you are, what does that have to do with anything?

And now this. I was waiting for this. 'Well if you're so smart, what's your idea, smart guy?' I just love this. Man, I can't even pretend to care about this line of inquiry. Call me a jerk or arrogant or whatever, but "Is government your answer?" is the sort of question I shake my head at just imagining the miles of assumptions packed into it. Plus I know it's not really a question but more of a setup on your part to bemusedly trot out stuff I've probably heard 1,000 times before. I suppose "is government you answer" makes sense as a question to you because you probably have a pat answer and a self-contained ideological explanation, again, probably stuff I've heard 1,000 times before. I don't have any answer to that question because I think it's a ridiculous question, it's a question only someone with a pat, ideological framework would care to answer.

You could narrow it down and ask me, say, what could the government do to change the situation for the people in the article in a way they couldn't do themselves?' To that I'd repeat what I've repeated several times here: communities are shaped by local government, local government is people. Where houses are built, where apartments are built, where x-type businesses go, where y-type businesses go, where and what public services are offered, etc., etc. From local zoning committees to federal guidelines, communities are shaped by government- and mostly on a local level.

I can't speak for someone I don't know or a place I don't know, nor can I assert that all problems can be addressed, obviously. The simple fact is the local government has most control over what can go where. More often than not, the local government simply cedes control to whomever promises them the highest tax receipts. In many cases this means a community ends up looking like it would if developers were calling the shots anyway because... developers are calling the shots. If a business park is 50 miles outside of town, if a Walmart 20 miles off the expressway has run out all the local businesses, and all the overcrowded apartment buildings are clustered in one part of town it's because that's what the wealthy interests wanted and that's what they were given. The local government could direct the growth of their city so it works best for the least among them, and I'm sure they do sometimes, some places, but for the most part most considerations are are made for the pursuit of profit.

The poor and powerless are subject to these decisions. They feel it the most when a community is allowed to be designed simply to maximize corporate profit (and therefore tax receipts). It's the local government who allows, or doesn't allow, this to happen.