The Secret Cornell

The Town of Lansing Comprehensive Plan is a convergence of predators.

Lansing’s most recent Planning document uses the description “important” 57 times: and for 26 of those times; it’s about Agriculture – “Agriculture continues to remain important to the Town of Lansing” – “Agriculture is important to the Town” – “Agriculture is immensely important” – rolling on and on; a self-written ode to the rural ascendency of Cornell’s Cooperative Extension and College of Agriculture.

The existence of Lansing’s century-old “non-farming” rural community is expunged from the Comprehensive Plan.

The remaining 31 badges of “importance” are reserved for Cornell’s “Urban Node” resettlement – and they fully support the uses and aims [and resale property values] of a millennial grab-and-go bedroom community: schools are “important” – recreation is “important” – municipal water and sewers are “important” – mass transportation is “important” – and, of course: “The most important regional connections are those that lead to Ithaca.”

It’s a further corroboration; that when the Town of Lansing Comprehensive Plan “looks for the best strategies to strengthen local economic performance,” it urges: “it is important to focus on STEM (Science, Technology, and Engineering & Math) occupations because they are among the highest paying, fastest growing and most influential in driving economic growth and innovation.” It’s a cross-section of jobs that mirrors the skills of Cornell incomers — and excludes the much less educated rural residents that this comprehensive plan seeks to displace.

It’s blatant elitist policy making; driven by what is most “important” — themselves.