Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Not Quite Yet
Even though I'm very tired, there's nothing like a bit of HTML Coding to perk me right up. I'm such a fun guy, right?
Well, while most people have left for the day and the week, I stayed and applied some of my newly learned webpage building skills: Check It Out! My previously ugly webpage is now a very, very ugly webpage but it does reflect my learning how to use "frames" as well as my very first personally-created .gif. Warning: Since it's a free web page hosting service, it gets a lot of pop-up ads. Sorry.
Off to Cleveland. Happy Thanksgiving!
Well, while most people have left for the day and the week, I stayed and applied some of my newly learned webpage building skills: Check It Out! My previously ugly webpage is now a very, very ugly webpage but it does reflect my learning how to use "frames" as well as my very first personally-created .gif. Warning: Since it's a free web page hosting service, it gets a lot of pop-up ads. Sorry.
Off to Cleveland. Happy Thanksgiving!
Plastic: When Wal-Mart Comes To Town
Well Bloggies, you may be surprised to learn that I have two graduate degrees I don't use. One is a law degree; the other is a Masters' degree in Historic Preservation -- the study of restoring and maintaining historic buildings. In order to graduate, you must complete a thesis.
My thesis involved a revitalization plan for downtown Rushville, Indiana; a few square blocks of Victorian commerical buildings surrounding an imposing turn-of-the-century courthouse with a clocktower you could see from miles around. Like so many with decimated downtowns, we can thank, at least in part, Wal-Mart for setting up in a new shopping plaza just north of the historic town border. If you're not familiar with the PBS special "When Wal-Mart Comes To Town", Rushville could easily have served as an example -- a new plaza built on cheap land, dumping scads of cheap merchandize that forces the mom & pop stores out of business.
In the special, one of the impacts was a general lowering of the standard of living. Employees, including some of the former store-owners, work for Wal-Mart at minimum wage. Aggressive employment practices show they break labor laws and hire part-time workers to avoid paying health care benefits.
While the purpose of that documentary was to highlight the human cost, one secondary impact is the abandonment of a formerly vibrant town center. For older, smaller towns -- the locales Wal-Mart likes to focus on -- the result means that as business dries up and closes down, buildings, then entire blocks, fall into disrepair and are abandoned. In my five years' work with Rushville, many of these buildings eventually were torn down. I haven't been to Rushville since 1995 -- I wonder if I would get too depressed by what's not left there today.
My thesis struggled with a way to use the historic buildings and it was the most difficult section. Although there are successful programs such as the Main Street program administered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and National Heritage initiatives, some of the privately-funded options were becoming tired even before I could suggest them for Rushville: I mean, how many more Antique Malls do we need? And are these types of businesses really economically viable?
I feel my strongest point was using census figures to illustrate an aging rural population, and suggesting the rehabilitation of the historic commercial buildings as low-income or handicapped residences serve the elderly. *sigh* It costs money to do this, but grants and tax abatements were available to reduce these costs. (At least, pre-Bush they were.)
Although I believe many Americans define themselves as suburban and live that lifestyle, surveys show that Americans yearn for nostalgia. The nostalgia plays itself in the popularity of things like Main Street at Walt Disney. But, sitting right in our own back yards is the real thing. On my list of books to read are "The Geography of Nowhere", which would do a better job to explain the monotony that's becoming North America.
Our current culture's values, one that encourages stupendous consumerist growth for consumerist's sake, has been accelerated by our current administration's support under the guise of capitalism. But this aggressive and unregulated business climate only serves to polarize wealth, and adversely impacting the majority of us: We are becoming a nation of cheap, new plastic in every sense of that word. For more of us able to survive, our economic choices dwindle, until we are forced to shop at Wal-Mart.
Only 34 more shopping days til Christmas.
My thesis involved a revitalization plan for downtown Rushville, Indiana; a few square blocks of Victorian commerical buildings surrounding an imposing turn-of-the-century courthouse with a clocktower you could see from miles around. Like so many with decimated downtowns, we can thank, at least in part, Wal-Mart for setting up in a new shopping plaza just north of the historic town border. If you're not familiar with the PBS special "When Wal-Mart Comes To Town", Rushville could easily have served as an example -- a new plaza built on cheap land, dumping scads of cheap merchandize that forces the mom & pop stores out of business.
In the special, one of the impacts was a general lowering of the standard of living. Employees, including some of the former store-owners, work for Wal-Mart at minimum wage. Aggressive employment practices show they break labor laws and hire part-time workers to avoid paying health care benefits.
While the purpose of that documentary was to highlight the human cost, one secondary impact is the abandonment of a formerly vibrant town center. For older, smaller towns -- the locales Wal-Mart likes to focus on -- the result means that as business dries up and closes down, buildings, then entire blocks, fall into disrepair and are abandoned. In my five years' work with Rushville, many of these buildings eventually were torn down. I haven't been to Rushville since 1995 -- I wonder if I would get too depressed by what's not left there today.
My thesis struggled with a way to use the historic buildings and it was the most difficult section. Although there are successful programs such as the Main Street program administered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and National Heritage initiatives, some of the privately-funded options were becoming tired even before I could suggest them for Rushville: I mean, how many more Antique Malls do we need? And are these types of businesses really economically viable?
I feel my strongest point was using census figures to illustrate an aging rural population, and suggesting the rehabilitation of the historic commercial buildings as low-income or handicapped residences serve the elderly. *sigh* It costs money to do this, but grants and tax abatements were available to reduce these costs. (At least, pre-Bush they were.)
Although I believe many Americans define themselves as suburban and live that lifestyle, surveys show that Americans yearn for nostalgia. The nostalgia plays itself in the popularity of things like Main Street at Walt Disney. But, sitting right in our own back yards is the real thing. On my list of books to read are "The Geography of Nowhere", which would do a better job to explain the monotony that's becoming North America.
Our current culture's values, one that encourages stupendous consumerist growth for consumerist's sake, has been accelerated by our current administration's support under the guise of capitalism. But this aggressive and unregulated business climate only serves to polarize wealth, and adversely impacting the majority of us: We are becoming a nation of cheap, new plastic in every sense of that word. For more of us able to survive, our economic choices dwindle, until we are forced to shop at Wal-Mart.
Only 34 more shopping days til Christmas.