Dear HCN,
Maxine Keesling lamented
land-use restrictions in King County, Wash., in a letter (HCN,
1/19/98), but on a recent trip to the area I was hard pressed to
see any lack of construction or land development. In fact, sprawl
and congestion in the Seattle area strongly resemble that of
Southern California. If we are to accept her argument for reduced
government interference in land-use management, we must first agree
that strip malls and fast-food restaurants are endangered
commodities and that wetlands and open space are a hindrance to be
dealt with accordingly.
It’s too bad that certain
areas of the country like Southern California could not somehow be
designated as “freedom zones,” where all the Ms. Keeslings of the
nation could live without the burden of environmental and land-use
regulations. A place in which all the resulting pollution could be
restricted to county boundaries and the United Nations is just a
bad memory.
The only catch would be that all the
Ms. Keeslings of the nation would have to live
there.
Mike
Benefield
Prineville,
Oregon
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Welcome to the “Freedom Zone’.
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