Growth doesn’t have to be inevitable
On December 2nd, I attended the community meeting about a potential of a new development at RR12 and 1492. Mr. Connely and the developer made several arguments that I believe are lazy arguments intended to scare the community into allowing them to profit off something that belongs to all of us. They said things like, development is inevitable, this is not nearly as bad as it could be, someone is going to come in and clear cut this area - at least we aren’t going to do that, and my least favorite - if you don’t do this, rich developers will take over the city council and get what they want, we are the good guys. If we put these boogyman arguments into a bit of historical context, we see can see that developers who intend to profit off of things that belong to the collective have long employed these types of bullying scare tactics. In the 1950s and 1960s, damming of the Grand Canyon seemed inevitable. The wheels of the government had already started moving and massive political and financial interest were riding on the damming project. Indeed, many suggested that it was unstoppable. David Brower, Martin Litton, and a band of other people who did not buy the inevitability argument, and were not scared by powerful bullies, launched an assault on the plans of the powerful Floyd Dominy and his branch of the federal government. Today, 60 years later the inevitable dam has still not been built. We can stand at the rim of Marble Canyon and enjoy the untarnished views of the Grand Canyon. We owe that opportunity to people who refused to believe that development was inevitable. Why should we think that our town is any less saveable from strip malls and housing developments?
The developer said that he will move to this new community, but there is a difference between moving someplace new and belonging to the place. He does not belong to this place, if he did, he would not be sacrificing it for profit. I belong to the Wimberley valley, to the river, and to the aquifer below our land. My children drink the water, they breathe the air in our valley, and we swim in the Blanco River most days in the summer. I am not leaving. My fate and the fate of my children are tied to the fate of the Blanco River, Cypress Creek, the aquifer, and this place. Developers belong only to profit.
This development will cost our community some things that don’t belong to any one person, they belong to all of us - water, beautiful natural views, displaced native plants and animals, the watershed, and aquifer recharge. The community, with the exception of its members who have been paid to convince the rest of us, bears all of the costs of this development and gains none of the benefits. This is a bad idea and this type of development is not inevitable. I say we stop it now and if the boogyman comes, we stop him too.
“We are destroying our country - I mean our country itself, our land. This is a terrible thing to know, but it is not a reason for despair unless we decide to continue the destruction. If we decide to continue the destruction, that will not be because we have no other choice. This destruction is not necessary. It is not inevitable, except that by our submissiveness we make it so.” — Wendell Berry, “Compromise, Hell!” (2004)
Anthony Deringer