What would your dream neighborhood look like?

[ebacon]

Land use is probably the thing that I have ranted about the most.

Last weekend I joined my parents as they shopped for a vacation trailer. They are looking at private trailer home communities in rural areas -- i.e. summer only.

As we walked through such a community I noticed that it was essentially "my people." They were pickup truck drivers, hunters, frugal, public servants (the park prefers police/fire/EMS) etc. We stopped and talked to a couple as they were closing their trailer for the season. They said that they liked their park because they could ride their bikes, walk, and generally escape from urban congestion. They may have said rat race, I dunno.

In any event my mind raced as they spoke and I looked around for bumper stickers. They were typical pickup truck bumper stickers related to hunting, POWs, etc. I guessed the park as generally Republican voters.

Of course I wondered what possesses these people to buy more stuff, such as trailers, pickup trucks, tools, etc, and move further into the country, just to want peace, quiet, walking, and riding bikes? Why can't they simply, collectively, own less and have peace, quiet, walking, and bike riding at home?

I have also experienced this mental short-circuiting with an American co-worker when he experienced Germany for the first time. He told me that yes, it is pretty, and quiet, and peaceful. But he said that he could not live like that and could not articulate why.

Here is where my mind gets stuck. For those of us that have more, what can we do to sell people on the idea that it is OK to slow down and stay put. We can figure out how to go dirt biking, and snowmobiling and horseback riding, and fishing, without paving over more land and making it more difficult to dirt bike, snowmobile, horseback ride, fish, etc.

Whatever divides us is as narrow as the debate between living to work and working to live. That is where music lives and it seems that we want quieter music but are afraid to admit it.