My Mother's Advice Haunts Me

I am sure that my parent's were giving me certain phrases as advice over and over again, but one tidbit from my mother keeps recurring to me now. It is not that the others were not memorable, but I have a tendency to remember actions more than words, but in this case, the phrase comes back. “ It is easy to go to an extreme, but moderation is the way to go.”

Vague enough to apply to a host of topics, but concrete enough for me to recall. I remember when President Bush took office with the claim that the parties will work together. That claim has not come to fruition. I am sure that all of the candidates will be promising the same, particularly since the polls show that is what the public wants. Honest reasoning has gone out of our political thinking, in favor of pleasing a special interest or two. Personally, I believe in the capacity of the American people to do the right thing once a valid argument is presented to them.

I started to look at my local government. Yesterday I read an article that detailed Houston's growth, and why it would continue, whereas other cities have been stagnating. One point was the fact that Houston lightly limits planning and development of our communities. In a way, this fact was reinforced by our mayor yesterday in a comment about a new ordinance permitting electric fences. He did not express an opinion for or against it, but he did say that the city is loath to prohibit the homeowner from doing with his property what he desires.

I think of David Macauly's book Underground. It was an elegant argument in pictures of what happens beneath our cities due to the lack of planning. I wonder if the same principle could be applied to the edifices above ground. Some of the city's step lightly approach has left some uneasy neighbors. Loud clubs keep some residents awake at night. It turns out that they could use a regulation about permits to serve alcoholic beverages near schools to shut down these establishments, but the process takes over a year to accomplish. In one subdivision, as the residents combated one club, they found another opening. How did the club go around the law about being so close to a school? Simple, the told the state that they were not breaking any local ordinances, so the state issued the license to serve alcohol.

Although I want to see the rights of homeowners upheld, as well as business owners, I imagine that there must be a better balance between our desires and needs as a community. I have seen some home businesses, which truly disrupt a neighborhood. However, I know of others that have benefited their neighbors.

One of the more interesting discussion that I took part in recently was about urban farming. I wanted to see a more reasoned approach by the city to providing groceries to poorer neighborhoods, along with better land use. A gentleman stood up to shout that we environmentalists were ruining life for all. It had not occurred to me that anyone participating in the discussion was proposing an ardent environmental agenda or that we were prohibiting him or others from using their land as they wished. However, I offer this as an example of how we have gone to extremes in our discussions of what they community could be. Any talk of environmental concern illicits a harsh response, but this should be part of our discussion too.

Moderation is the key.