I’ve been reading the land use plan the Buncombe County Commissioners will approve in a few hours. It is over 100 pages long, but if one extracts the text to save printing costs, one can fit it all on thirteen pages. The problem with that is that experts in psychology claim various, precise fractions of communication is verbal. I would probably be a rabid advocate of government profligacy if only I could understand the various elements that went into the graphic design.
On to the point of this post, a big thing seems to be gentrification. It isn’t that the county is afraid it is excluding poor people from a natural right to just be; they need to make sure people can’t live in trailers. If that is all somebody can afford, they should by no means bring down the tone, and property values, of a neighborhood. It is much better that the middle class, who cannot afford attorneys to beg a variance or tax exemption, be stuck paying subsidies to make sure nobody lives simply.
Another standout feature of the plan is the way it talks about the declining construction industry and economic uncertainty. Shouldn’t government be like the rest of us, instructed to build it and it will come? Maybe it is time for another visioning session in which the public is asked to dream big and let somebody else worry about the funding later.
As you surely knew before even reading the plan, it was needed to address imperfections in previous plans. Interests that can organize enough to have their voices heard have been inconvenienced.
