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 Growing Up without Growing Angry
by Tom Campbell
May 10, 2007
Water shortages, traffic congestion, and fights over inadequate school facilities occupy the headlines. Whether we want to admit it or not, they are all symptoms of the tremendous growth our state is experiencing, especially in urban areas. Face it. While we can celebrate growth and the economic boost it provides, we are clearly outrunning our ability to absorb and manage the demands this growth places on us.
This growth is producing some highly unattractive results. Parents yelling and pointing fingers of blame at each other, at school administrators, and elected officials won’t find suitable solutions to the lack of classrooms. Road rage, excessive speed, and insults won’t fix our transportation problems, just as mandatory water restrictions aren’t a long-term solution to our needs.
Selfishness and the desire to control dominate the debate. We want to drive when we want to drive, without all the congestion, but we don’t want to pay tolls or increased taxes. We want to have our summer vacations and for our children to attend neighborhood schools, but don’t ask us to pay increased taxes to build new schools. We want to turn on the tap and get pure, filtered water to drink or for taking luxuriously long showers, watering our always-green lawns and washing our SUV’s. But we don’t want to pay the true costs of providing this water. Even more selfishly, we believe we are entitled to these amenities. But why do we have to provide these services to all these newcomers? The poor want the rich to pay. The rich want the middle class to pay. The middle class gripe they always get stuck paying more than their proportionate share. No one wants to be responsible or inconvenienced in any way.
We have lost confidence in those elected or appointed to lead us. This lack of faith is sometimes deserved when leaders act out of their own selfish interests. Or, more often, they refuse to take stands on controversial issues for fear of how it might affect their re-elections. The current issue of Newsweek magazine says what many believe: “Wanted: A New Truman.” We want leaders who will stand up, speak out, and let the chips fall where they may. But we refuse to support them when they do so.
Our country and our state were built on the concept of providing for the common good, even when that meant personal sacrifice. Over the past decades we have seen few seeking the common good and even fewer who are willing to sacrifice to achieve it. We didn’t get where we are with these attitudes and we cannot resolve our current problems with them.
We need some honest and unemotional debate about growth that focuses on how much our current infrastructure can accommodate, how much we are willing to expand our infrastructure, and who is going to pay for this expansion. We will not find solutions by backing into ideological corners and taking hard stands, distorting issues, or seeking to place blame. Let us begin with the basic concept of what is in the common good and proceed from this point. Otherwise the cacophony will only get louder, more angry, and yield poor decisions. |
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