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Jack a member of an online forum I belong to asked me: Just curious, "DeRanger" Steve, what is your beef with folks who live in the city? You know, quite a few of us have advanced degrees in science, live in cities, and are actually fairly intelligent. Please do enlighten me as to the animal-related health scams that I might be ignorant enough to fall for.
I don't have a beef with people who live in the city. I have a beef with city-zens, a particular type of people who live in the city. Degrees, intelligence, whether you belong to Mensa or the bowling team have nothing to do with being a City-zen. Neither does being artsy-fartsy or biscuits and beer. Simply put a city-zen is someone who moves to the desert and brings with them all of those things we ask them not to. The list is long and starts with 'A' for attitude and goes to 'Z' for zoology. City-zens bring uncontrolled growth and major changes to the environment and ecology in an area with limited resources (water) and a very delicate ecology. They build unwanted gated developments then complain that the desert is disappearing. It is disappearing because you are building gated developments. Buying a new home here they see xerescape (desert landscaping) not grass and missing suburbia's vast green lawns they plant grass not realizing that they are wasting our most precious resource, water, and creating allergies in a place where that was once known as a health resort because of it's clean air. City-zens bring driving habits compatible and acceptable where they live but not here and they refuse to change. e.g. We have surface street speed limits of 60mph. That is no place to be doing 40mph. Left turns are made from the left lane, not the right, there is a thing called a turn signal and pedestrians have the right of way. City-zens have taken what was once a laid back and relaxed environment with a very close knit community and turned it into Los Angeles. That is not something natives of the desert and long time residents want. We ask people who move to the desert to adapt, to teach their children a more relaxed lifestyle. All they do is bring that lifestyle with them and create more stress and rage. It's seen on our streets everyday.
Right now a developer wants to build 2500 homes at the entrance of a national park. He says he is doing it for "Our community" including himself in "Our community". He lives in Philadelphia what the hell does he know about "Our community" or the desert? We aren't resisting change and growth here. We are resisting the way the city-zens are doing it.
Worst city-zen we ever had here was Sonny Bono - Mayor of Palm Springs. He killed spring break, drove the tourists away and made a nice place for city-zens to live while killing the economy. "I got you babe".
We encourage people to move here. Just leave your city behind. This is the feeling of many desert communities including mine. I live in a an area that was surrounded by open desert and I could walk into the mountains. Now I have lots of neighbors and there's a fence to keep me out of the mountains. Locals didn't do that.
So you see Jack, it's not the people who live in the city. It's what they do when they move here.
A visit to the American Desert Southwest with our Chief DeRanger.
Creator of the Desert Bandanna
Who Me?
- "DeRanger" Steve
- Palm Springs, California
- If it's not a Border Collie it's just another dog.
3 comments:
Sounds a lot like what my ex said about the area where her grandparents retired to, out of town and on the lake. They didn't want to drive into town to pick up their mail, so they paved over the dirt road and built a neighborhood mailbox. They built fancy houses, that when Hurricane Rita blew thru, the trees and limbs knocked down the power lines, taking with them all the conveniences of an all-electric household, like the AC, fridge, stove and over, and water well pump! (And no mechanical backup/replacements, except for a cooler with ice for the fridge, and a wood grill for the stove.)
What a pompous bore. Don't you get tired of hearing yourself talk? I know the rest of us do.
Loved reading your thoughts and although I have no idea what it is like to live where you do and completely support what you are saying. Creeping urbanisation should be stopped now.
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