U.S. Cities; Living Proof that "Growth is Not Good:"

How did Americans become big city dwellers? The vast majority of our citizens live in “Metropolitan America.” In my home state of Colorado, our total population is 4,861,515. Out of that number, 4,175,239 live along the eastern slope of the Rockies in a somewhat narrow band known as the “Front Range Urban Corridor.” Also known as, “the place where Western Slope Coloradoan’s don’t go.”

Narrowing things down a bit further, the metro area known as the “Denver-Aurora-Boulder Combined Statistical Area,” is home to about 3,000,000 of our mile high population.

My state is comprised of some 104,100 square miles, yet the vast majority of the population lives in the confines of 8400 square miles! Why?

I have asked many people why they choose to live in the big cities, and the most common answer that I get is, “We have everything here.” On that account, I couldn’t agree more. They have congestion, crime, congestion, corruption, congestion, pollution, congestion, and whole lot of folks who are aspiring NASCAR drivers; yep, everything.

I just can’t get into the big city groove and it’s not because I haven’t been there. Back when I was a director for a large power and transmission company, I drove to Denver each and every month for several years to attend a two day board meeting.

On the afternoons that I would descend out of the mountains into the famous “brown cloud” of pollution, I would get a sick uneasy feeling that refused to go away. On the afternoon that I was returning home, I felt like I was escaping from a sort of imprisonment; similar to the feeling I had the day I was discharged from the Navy.

I would gas up the night before, pack my bags, position my car for a quick getaway and when the adjournment gavel hit the table, I was halfway out the door pulling off my tie and suit coat. Once I arrived at the Eisenhower Tunnel, whose exit would deposit me on the western side of the Continental Divide, I could breathe easy again and a sort of euphoria would come over me.

So why do I feel imprisoned by the city? Am I just whacky or is there some validity to my fears? And what critical issues do I see coming for city dwellers?

In recent times there has been a fair amount of ink devoted to the concept that living in dense populations, using public transportation, and having every imaginable sector of goods and services at ones proximate disposal, should be a model that we aspire to. In other words, the “Calcutta Model”. It is touted as a concept that would preserve open space and farm land. “Walking Communities,” are put up as tomorrow’s model for sustainability. I don’t buy it.

I suggest that going the other direction is the wise thing to do at this point and time for those who can. For many years I called the Alaska Village of Talkeetna home and made critical observations of the benefits of living in a small town.

To begin with, we had no government presence. I know, we should have all died within a week, but we didn’t. We had no police force. “Oh my, who protected you?” Let me just say that mugging in Talkeetna would have been a poor career choice.

We had a volunteer “unpaid” fire department. Sure, the motto for the Talkeetna Volunteer Fire Department was, “We haven’t lost a foundation yet,” but it served us well.

If you can possibly get your mind around it, consider the cost savings to the citizens of Talkeetna by not employing government and a police force! And if you really want to allow your thinking to go buck wild, imagine the freedoms that we enjoyed from this self ruling arrangement.

When we wanted a park in Talkeetna, we built one. And no, we didn’t apply for a dang grant. It was our park, why should someone else be asked to pay for it? When a neighbor had a fire, we helped them rebuild. When someone was stalled along the road, we stopped to give assistance. In other words, we had a community that functioned properly.

I know what many are thinking, “We couldn’t possibly get along without large government and an immediate police presence.” And, certainly those living in large cities can’t; which is my point.

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