Quote:
Originally Posted by honest2010
Good day everyone..
I would love to hear different opinions from you about the relationships between the urban and rural areas..
How the issues (relations) can be addressed in land policy and which principles have to be integrated..
Looking forward to hear from you all
Honset
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Our farms were rural but annexed by nearby cities in the mid 1960's. We had no choice really about it and received no services or benefits until the last 15 years or so. Actually that is one service: city trash pickup which is also mandatory. However, having someone else to help with trash is a pretty good thing as anyone would know who has had the problem of doing something with it.
There is city police and fire service available but it isn't terribly good. Before the city took over the county service was actually at least as responsive and definitely more personal as we were more likely to know our commissioners and county employees. But even then one needed to be able to handle whatever happened with little thought of receiving help. The fire service would benefit more if there were city water available but that awaits some developer's work in some future time.
It is considerably more time consuming to get permission for building something which is rather funny when compared to the junk that's actually been built in nearby areas.
The road work is definitely worse. The county actually seemed to care some about maintaining the road and keeping the dust down and so on. The city on the other hand is rather quick to tell us that we are not going to get much done because there just aren't very many of us that live out there. Which fact is definitely true.
There should be some kind of clue that something is a little wrong when a road grader is used on an asphalt road. You'd think it would embarrass someone in the City administration but then they've probably never been out this far.
Trash along the roads is a huge problem. City people seem to feel it is okay to come out here and dump stuff wherever they want. No one much picks it up except us and we have limited resources.
Same with people's dogs and cats which are thrown out rather regularly. You'd think that City people would use the pound. Never have understood the disrespect so many City people seem to have for animals.
Also City people seem to think that large areas of land must be some kind of public area and exercise no hesitation whatsoever to ignore posted and no trespassing signs and drive or walk right into corn or other crops. Or they ask to take pictures at the old barn and remark about how much character it has because of its disrepair. Always makes me wonder how they'd feel if I wanted to come in their backyards.
Hunting is a big problem both in and out of season. Recently spent about 4 or 5 hours waiting on the game warden to come give a guy a ticket for illegally hunting. The guy lost his rifle at least. Probably could have cost him his truck but that would have involved police and more waiting and it was already pretty cold. And of course if the thing goes to court we'll spend more time. And that does not prevent anyone from hunting or setting up blinds and so on. Last year a guy stopped along the road and shot a coyote right in front of me then got in and drove off. Left it for me to drag the coyote down in the pasture. It was a beautiful coyote, too.
It does worry me about confronting people with guns who are already doing something they know is illegal.
We are self developing one farm. It has been pretty interesting. Had a guy once drive up and say "they're just not going to rest until they cover every available inch are they?" I looked around and there was one building going up on the entire 160 acres. I thanked him for his concern and he drove off.
On the other side there are lots of people who tell us that we should get a so and so to build there like I can just call up Barnes and Noble or Olive Garden or someone and they'll drop right over.
Then if we do build something we get about as much criticism as praise regardless of what it is.
In a lot of ways it feels as though we are in a battle that we really can't win.
Not sure really what you want to know but feel free to ask.
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