Rouse and Ruination

Welcome to another episode of Other Peoples’ Tweets. I’ve been hanging onto this one since August.

Rouse quietly, literally stole,valuable, beautiful farmland in Maryland for pennies on the dollar, decades ago to build planned 'city' of Columbia MD. Rouse ruined the countryside of Howard County MD. Farmers would never have sold their land had they known.

In case you’ve ever wondered how long some people can hold a grudge, well, now you know.

I’ve often lamented the rigidity of some of Columbia’s earliest residents when it comes to changes in the present day. But clearly there are at least some folks out there who are still mad that Columbia even exists at all.

We could have been beautiful farmland and stayed beautiful farmland. At least, I think that’s what that tweet suggests. Would that be better? I guess it depends on who you are. Did the planned city of Columbia bring gifts that were worth having? Or did it destroy something irreplaceable?

Essentially, someone from out of town - - with a whole lot of money - - came to build his concepts and ideals on a grand scale. Was it a beautiful, aspirational mission? Or a whole lot of playing around in someone else’s sandbox?

Even people who love living in Columbia have varying opinions on this. Some are filled with the innate goodness of Columbia ideals. Some think it’s quaint and almost halfway believable. Some like it but think it needs work. Some just like it here and don’t know any of the history at all.

Let’s use our imaginations for a moment. If Rouse had never planted his flag here, what would Howard County look like today? What do you think the “natural” evolution of this area would have looked like? (I put the word natural in quotation marks because there will always be human intervention in one way or another.)

I’d love to hear your ideas.

Village Green/Town² Comments

Comments

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents. When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday. Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018. 2018 . But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest. In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...

Separate and Unequal

Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not. It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...

Village Green/Town²

Search This Blog