Have We All Become NIMBY Anti-Growth Neo-Luddites?

Filed Under Illiana Expressway, NIMBY, Neo-Luddists, Northwest Indiana, South Shore Line

The Post-Tribune’s editorial page editor Rich James asks if Northwest Indiana’s residents are anti-growth because they oppose any effort to build and grow the area’s economy through infrastructure improvements.

The problem, I guess, is that there just aren’t enough people in Northwest Indiana with both oars in the water.

And if you keep rowing with one oar, the only place you’ll end up going is in circles.

That’s pretty much the direction Northwest Indiana has been headed since the mills figured out almost 30 years ago that they needed about a fourth as many people to produce the same amount of steel.

I’m not sure what it is about NWI people and progress. It’s kind of like mixing water and oil.

I wonder if it is a case of the NIMBY-people and anti-growth protesters getting more than their fair share of attention, rather than a case of Northwest Indiana’s residents being anti-growth.

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Technorati Tags: anti growth, neo-luddites, NIMBY, Northwest Indiana, Rich James

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Comments

2 Responses to “Have We All Become NIMBY Anti-Growth Neo-Luddites?”

Buzzcut on February 4th, 2008 10:48 am

That Iraq comment is a cheap shot.

We got something for our Iraq adventure. Sadaam is gone, we know the Iraqis don’t have WMDs, Libya has abandoned their WMD program, evidently the Iranians abandoned their program shortly after the invasion, and that Shah guy in Pakistan who developed their nukes and was the lynchpin is proliferation is now in jail.

And we now have Iran surrounded.

Was that worth ~4000 lives and literally trillions in treasure? Hard to say. But there WAS something gained by the war, to say otherwise is horribly insensitive to those who lost lovedones in the conflict.
Chris on February 4th, 2008 12:08 pm

Hi Buzz,

It’s interesting to note that defense spending has gone down over the years, unless the secret Pentagon budget is being routed through Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid which have been growing over the years.

The defense cutbacks by over half since the 1960s have allowed Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid to expand as a percentage of federal outlays. (Non defense discretionary spending has stayed about the same).

I wish that President Bush had done a better job of explaining what is at stake in Iraq. His communication failures have allowed the pacifists to gain the upper hand and blame every budget problem on the war.

Anyway, the war has happened.

If we pull out, we’re going to have to spend a whole more in the long run, especially if Saudia Arabia and Iran battle it out for Iraqi oil or some crazy lobs a nuke at Israel in a desire to bring back the 12th Imam.

We’re having funding issues because all of the growth in transfer programs, especially with the “me-generation” baby-boomers retiring and demanding their huge slice of the pie.