All Roads Lead to Cornithaca

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Nature abhors a vacuum — doesn’t everyone? There’s always the urge to fill in the blank space; even when you’re not requested to “insert image/comment/URL here.” But what constitutes a “blank space”? • Incomers define our rural fields and meadows as “vacant space” because they have not been defined and demarked as to usage. To them, these “blank spaces” are frightening; objects without labels —opportunities without a profit. • There is no neighborliness: instead, we’re now a “community,” and our community needs, running and bike trails, a dog park, sidewalks, a “town center,” a high-tax school system . . . a suburban pastiche of county club aspirations and sit-com sensibilities. Forcing on the original inhabitants things that they don’t want; at a price they can’t afford. • The natives either die off, are taxed out, or squeezed into low-level jobs and marginalized living. Pure Urban Colonialism.