emergencyops's Blog

Having grown up in rural Kennedale all my life, I've come to enjoy the finer things in life. Great neighbors, livestock, peace and quiet, and a sense of patience and non-urgency.

However, there have recently been several subdivisions being built in my small city. Only a few words can describe them: tacky, oversized, and environmentally-destructive. Needless to say, you can assume that I dislike them. I don't understand how people can buy cookie-cutter 2-story homes that look so out of place in a development that's only 1/4 finished. The natural soil has been replaced with fill-dirt, natural water drainage altered, and measily little saplings planted on every other lot.

As the old addage goes: "The only thing permanent is change." I just wish it wasn't my hometown changing. The beautiful nighttime sky with thousands of stars has been reduced to an urban back-lit sky with only a few dozen stars visible; the dull roar of highway traffic in the background leaves a restless feeling inside me. The urban is invading the rural. Cookie-cutter houses are replacing pastures, with houses so close to each other you could almost shake your neighbors hand by both of you sticking your arms out of your respective kitchen windows. Acres and acres of full-size Oaks and Elms are plowed over. Developers "try" to validate the upland forest destruction by replacing those trees with saplings (which will take decades to reach full maturity). Whatever happened to the kind of development that occurred in the early-to-mid 19th century with one house per acre or two?

But somehow, through all that construction and nonsense, I am still able to find some peace and respite from the aweful concrete contraption known as urban sprawl. At least in Kennedale, the number of cars with country music blaring still outnumbers the cars with rap thumping.