How to stop urban sprawl

Another 'not in my back yard' version. There is a very simple solution to urban spawl, just put a '1' in front of the prime rate. As a side benifit we would be Kyoto compliant in 9 month.

I'm assuming hyperbole.

Bubbles "solution" would slow down sprawl, but the other efects would be nasty. Homelessness would go through the roof. Basically this is the implementation of the Cons assertion that the economy would have to be shut down to meet Kyoto.

I would certainly work with the First Nations to reduce sprawl. We really need a multi pronged approach and that prong is particularly sharp.

My addition to the quiver would be to make property taxes depend on the cost of services rather than the value of the property. Sprawl is expensive. High effiency is cheap.

quote:Originally posted by Bubbles:
First we have to figure out why we have urban sprawl. And put in corrective measures.

[snip]

Most people that move out to rural areas, where I live, seem to do so because they are unhappy with their urban existance. Lets do something about that.

From Michael Barone's op/ed piece earlier this week in the WSJ: "In 1950, when I was in kindergarten in Detroit, the city had a population of (rounded off) 1,850,000. Today the latest census estimate for Detroit is 886,000, less than half as many. In 1950, the population of the U.S. was 150 million. Today the latest census estimate for the nation is 301 million, more than twice as many."

Most cities are not seeing that level of decline but the population for most large, established cities (excluding their suburbs) has been largely flat.

I lived in Minneapolis for many years. I now live in a suburb of its neighbor, St. Paul. The taxes are lower (and the services are better) and it's only a 15 minute drive into the city whenever I want to go there. We have a large yard that we have primarily converted to gardens. And, when we want to go up to our lake cottage up north, we save at least 30 minutes by not having to fight through the congestion of the inner city on Friday afternoons.

I can think of fewer less appealing things than living in a box (apartment or condo) stacked around many other boxes...looking out at steel and concrete.

And the only reason he can afford to live like that is because sprawl is heavily subsidized, at the expense of his urban neighbours - as jrootham previously pointed out.

In most cases, rural people don't do much subsidizing, but they don't get much, either. Depends on the region and the resources, though.

I envy you all that; and I meant, don't get much subsidy, particularly in comparison to the 'burbs.

The southern Ontario land grab (Part 2) is underway as we speak. The FN people are leading the charge against it. Unfortunately, the non-FN rural side are mostly freaky right wingers and libertarian-right crosses. And once again, politically, the rural ridings are being served by only the Conservative parties.

The issue is land, real estate. Politics is used to disguise the land grab and keep the public at each other's throats, turning potential allies into enemies.

How to stop urban sprawl? Kick the car habit!

quote:Originally posted by 500_Apples:
What are these subsidies you refer to?

Suburbanites probably also have higher incomes and then pay higher taxes. It's not clear to me they suck more than they put in.

No shit. I probably pay five times the taxes of the average urbanite.

quote:Originally posted by Lard Tunderin' Jeezus:
~ yawn ~

Well, you were saying that I'm getting a subsidy from the urbanites. It's just not the case.

On my condo I pay as much property tax on 850 square feet as those I know who sprawl outside TO do on a large home, sometimes I pay more. They pile us on top of each other and can rake in property tax at a rate of what 100 units to 4 suburban houses? I can see whose taking care of whom. It's more costly to clean your roads, pick up your trash, we have to build you new schools and then you clog up our highways so you can make the big bucks in the city and yet not have to live in a concrete jungle, you want to be close to nature. I think it's insane that I will cough up much more money to buy a small old house in this city than if I sprawled. For the same money I can get about 3000 square feet of new luxury if I wished to sprawl. I think it should be the other way around. I can't wait till property taxes in the burbs rise to were they should be. And I hope they make our highways toll roads for suburbanites.

quote:Originally posted by Sven:

I'm actually all for toll-roads. Those who use them, pay for them.

Aren't property taxes based on property value and consistent between a dollar of value in the city versus a dollar of value in the suburbs?

Now, folks in the city tend to use public services at a much higher rate than suburbanites (what services do I use regularly? I have a hard time identifying them--but I pay a hell of a lot of taxes). And, in that arena, I heavily subsidize the urbanites. I would gladly pay equal taxes on my suburban property, and pay toll-road rates if my income taxes were cut substantially.

ETA: With regard to schools, in the States, the local cities pay for the schools (my property taxes basically fund the schools here). So, property taxes in the central city do not pay for the schools out here (which I don't use--no kids--but support cuz education is THE key to economic success).

[ 11 May 2007: Message edited by: Sven ]

Roads, water, sewage, police, fire, ambulance.
You don't think those are services?
The TTC routes in the centre of the city pay for themselves, they are subsidized out in the burbs.
I'd have to look carefully at the school situation, but at recently they were pooled so that Toronto taxpayers did pay for 905 schools. That may only be true for commercial taxpayers now.

You are being a classic example of the self delusion I was referring to.

Strange, I thought the debate was about how the First Nations were fighting urban sprawl. I think they're doing it the only way possible right now.

quote:Originally posted by jrootham:
Phrillie, if you are genuinely rural (ie, a farm) then you are not sprawl.[/qb/]

I disagree. Well, okay, I agree that we're not sprawl but I disagree that we're not partially culpable. We are indeed a truly rural community but most of us live here because we like the peace and quiet, not to farm. I don't see any moral distinction between rural and suburb.

quote:[qb]As an aside to drift, tax rates are set by municipalities on different classes of property, so it's unlikely you are paying the same rate as an urbanite.

I'm paying $300 on $40,000 worth of land. If memory serves, I used to pay about $1,100 or so on $150,000 in the city so I think I'm being taxed at the same rate.

I just wanted to add here that I loathe the suburbs, with their pink McMansions and their two SUV families and their hour-long (or worse) commutes into the city to make a buck. I believe they've opted for the worst of all possible worlds. What I don't believe is that they're ripping us off (except as to the loss of available farmland, which is really the developers not the buyers).

quote:Originally posted by saga:
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy of Six Nations sent a media release informing people up and down the Grand River that they are reclaiming the Haldimand Tract. Development came to a virtual standstill, and developers now come to the Confederacy for approval. Sprawl developments are not being approved. Developers know that the Confederacy will enforce its rulings by stopping their work(as they did in Caledonia), so compliance is pretty good.

restate their title to ancestral lands?The Haldimand Tract skirts the outside of the greenbelt. Development was leapfrogging the greenbelt and beginning to pave the greenfields of the Haldimand. Stopping that is a major accomplishment that could never have been achieved without benefit of aboriginal land rights and the persistence, intelligence and determination of the Six Nations Confederacy people.

We need a lot more aboriginal communities asserting their aboriginal rights in this simple way: Send out a media release identifying aboriginal lands. The developers won't touch it.

Maybe the developers will get the message and actually start doing the infill and brownfield development they are supposed to be doing!!

If you are an environmentalist, aboriginal rights and treaties are your best ally for real action.
Politicians who want to get re-elected will NEVER act strongly and quickly enough to make a significant environmental difference.

Wonderful. perhaps the Mohawk Confederation can help my people

Our ancestral lands begin in MacDonald Park and continue to north of Fort MacKay.Legal title is clouded similar to the Haldimand disputes and furthur obfuscated by intermarriage.

Any help is appreciated and we promise that a successful resolution to this dispute will engender the goodwill to not allow First Nations eastern bastards to freeze in the dark.

Should a person refrain from flying to Europe to go on a tour (flying on a Boeing 737, assuming full passenger capacity, will burn about 86 gallons of jet fuel for the round trip per passenger) when it would be the rough equivalent of a half a year's commuting by a suburbanite (at 35mpg) from my suburb to St. Paul (11 miles)?

[ 13 May 2007: Message edited by: Sven ]

quote:Originally posted by jester:
The question is rendered moot if the tourist consumes an amount of food and beverage equal to the amount necessary to burn 86 gallons of fuel transporting the product to one's point of departure.

The question is one of lifestyle choice. When is one person's (optional) consumption of energy "bad" when another person's (optional) consumption of an equal amount of energy "okay"?

quote:Originally posted by Phrillie:
As far as I can tell, the rule seems to be "if I do it, it's okay." I really mean that.

Having 10 little neighborhood grocery stores is likely less energy efficient than have a single "big box" grocery store in the same vicinity.

Building, heating, and lighting hundreds of "independent" bookstores is certainly less efficient than having amazon.com.

I wonder if reading a book on a computer is more efficient than "building" a paper book.

Although train travel is more efficient that automobile travel, should anyone travel by train "just for fun"? If no one traveled by train for fun, there would be less rail traffic and less fuel burned. Or, is that okay?

Should the tens of thousands of small family farms, each with their own tractors, barns and other implements for farming, not be replace with more efficient (energy-wise) large farms?

quote:Originally posted by Bubbles:
Are a thousand gardens not more more bio friendly then one Loblaws 10 miles down the road? To go to Loblaws you have to earn loot, to earn loot you have to go to school, have a road, have some means of transport, have a fridge, have a garbage can, which needs to be emptied, trucks, schips and planes and to supply loblaws. Energy companies to power all these and the factories that process the food sothat it has a shelf life, offices, papermills for the ads and promose, etc,etc. How does that compare to the needs to have food supplied by your garden?

Are you essentially arguing for a 1850s economy?

Sven: "Should the tens of thousands of small family farms, each with their own tractors, barns and other implements for farming, not be replace with more efficient (energy-wise) large farms?"

There are fewer "small" farms in NA every year. They're being replaced with the large efficient farms you mention. And if you think modern large scale agriculture is either energy efficient, or beneficial to the environment, not to mention the consumers, then you need to do some serious reading.

Do you work for the ministry of agriculture? Do you have any clue what you're talking about?

The issue is one of scale, and of personal creature comforts trumping common sense. I have no problem with peoply flying all over the globe, burning fuel in a incredibly wasteful fashion - if they pay for it. Currently, the real price of air travel is not reflected in the cost of the ticket, all factors being taken into account. Very few of us must fly in airplanes. Quite a lot of NAers need to drive vehicles.

A similar argument could be made for food. The real cost of getting food from large efficient farms in Cali or overseas, for example, is not calculated into the price.

quote:Originally posted by Farmpunk:
There are fewer "small" farms in NA every year. They're being replaced with the large efficient farms you mention. And if you think modern large scale agriculture is either energy efficient, or beneficial to the environment, not to mention the consumers, then you need to do some serious reading.

Well, larger farms are clearly more efficient, otherwise there would be no trend away from smaller farms. That aspect of the question is a no brainer.

With regard to the environment, a larger farm need not be any more demanding on the environment than a smaller farm. Why, for example, would one 640 acre farm be less environmentally friendly than four quarter section farms?

Finally, with regard to consumers, we have the cheapest food in the world and a huge variety of choices.

quote: How do you figure that? Airplane tickets in Canada are incredibly overpriced. Typically, we'll pay 2 or 3 times what an American would pay for the same distance. As for californian food, how is "not" calculated into the price? Californian agriculture is more efficient due to better weather, that much is evident. Analogously, why do you think florida oranges taste better? Because they spend more time in a truck? No.

Well maybe 50% more. California has varied climates, and weather is more than just temperature. Neither the social nor environmental impact of air travel nor industrial agriculture is included in prices, and of course the Americans subsidise their agriculture more than we do.

quote: The 1850s economy would be a lot worse. Keep in mind at the turn of the century infant mortality was at around 20%, and life expectancy around 40.

DIfferences in life expectancy and infant mortality between now and the 1800s in industrialized countries (I assume you meant that turn of the century) are due mainly to water treatment and better hygiene. Life expectancy in Canada in 1900 at birth was actually closer to 60, and if you survived until 40, life expectancy wasn't much different from today.

quote: Well, larger farms are clearly more efficient, otherwise there would be no trend away from smaller farms. That aspect of the question is a no brainer.

You're making an assumption that has been shown to be invalid.

small farms

quote: Whatmost people associate with Kyoto, incorrectly, is that we could reduce our emmissions by 40% over five years without too much damage. Say, by having greater emmission standards on cars, using better lightbulbs and having better ventillation on new buildings. The fact is it would be a lot more painful. We would likely move to a society where air conditioning, air travel, large families, imported food, and such are only available to the rich. Super drastic and improvised transformative change is usually painful.

So is unmitigated and unplanned for change. The Kyoto targets may be unreachable, but stabilizing equivalent carbon dioxide concentrations sooner rather than later will be necessary to reuduce the possibility of the worst inpacts of climate change. That means making deep cuts as soon as possible, through as many "wedges" as technologically feasible. The conservation measures you have suggested are small potatoes to what is feasible and required.

Sven: "Well, larger farms are clearly more efficient, otherwise there would be no trend away from smaller farms. That aspect of the question is a no brainer."

Whoa, you do work for the Ministry of Agriculture. Got a nice ag degree and sit in an office all day, no doubt. You know better than I, clearly.

quote: Except for fresh air, being close to nature, and living where my kids are safe walking to and from school, yeah, it sucks, all right.
What utter bullshit. There is only one atmosphere. The vehicles and coal plants that enable sprawl poison the air for everyone. Sprawl kills nature. It plows it under, coats with with a toxic paint, and fills the rivers, streams, and ground water with the poisons, oils, and chemical cast-offs of modern industrial society. It destroys habitats and contributes to the extinction rate. When your kids are in their 40s and 50s and being diagnosed with cancers, or raising kids of their own born with genetic defects, remind them how safe you kept them.

[ 14 May 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

Maybe ask how many babblers have gone to those places via other means.

I read these threads and I get so, so ... well, frustrated. This whole site depresses me. The same arguments go round and round and round like some sort of morbid, depressing, carnival ride.

Here is the thing: Urban sprawl decimates nature. Humans are patch animals. We move in and clear every other thing out. We destroy the habitats and food supplies of all other species. Either we pave everything over or we replace the native flora and fauna with the ugliest non-native species we can find.

We demand the deer be culled and wetlands be filled because the nature we wanted to live near is so bothersome. The fact is we don't want nature. Suburban nature is the equivalent of a black velvet Elvis paintings to art. It is fake, contrived, mass marketed, cheap, and as enduring as the smile of a WAL-MART greeter.

We know sprawl is inherently bad and without any redeeming value beyond what "we want". And so it always goes. The argument will always eventually come to "what people want" and therefore it is ok.

Because what people want trumps every other consideration. The immediate, unlimited, and insatiable wants of a people with inflated senses of entitlement and privilege take precedence over all other life, even human life, and all other demands for the collective raw resources and wealth of the global commons.

Sprawl is not the problem. Sprawl is symptomatic of the problem which is a culture that raises avarice, waste, and ceaseless want to a blessed virtue complete with an ideological dogma and religious doctrine that serves to provide an intellectual framework, a rationalization, and even a moral imperative.

Environmentalism is not bad for the economy. It is bad for a global, industrial economy so appropriately epitomized by a cheap bumper sticker available at any rotting suburban stripmall: He Who Dies With The Most Toys Wins.

quote:Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
What utter bullshit. There is only one atmosphere.

Wrong. I can breathe here. I certainly can't breathe comfortably in Vancouver.

quote:When your kids are in their 40s and 50s ... remind them how safe you kept them.

Oh, I intend to. Looking forward to it, actually.

But would you start with a realistic diet plan, or would you start with laxatives, vomiting, and ephedra which would have faster results in the short-term?

quote:Originally posted by Policywonk:

You missed the point, that your analogy didn't work in the first place.

It works well.

If you debilitate the economy by trying to cut 45% in four and a half years (say by criminilizing the car and shutting down all the oil sands, or criminilizing home heating and shutting off all the farms), there would be an economic backlash and an economic collapse, following which emmissions would probably rise again, sort of like yoyo dieting.

On the other hand, over 25 years, it could be made to work fine.

[ 16 May 2007: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

Good discussion, and some pretty sad things being reported from around the country.

Here in BC, we are desperately fighting to save the Agricultural Land Reserve, brought in by the NDP government in 1972, from the BC Liar regime's efforts to slowly sabotage it by putting financial pressures on municipalities to buckle to corporate developer demands to convert farmland in commercial/residential development zones.

But there seems to be a bit of a misinterpretation here about urban/development reform and the Kyoto protocols involving the tar sands.

First, simply shutting down the tar sands all at once would not only cause unjustified hardship for local economies and working people in Alberta--it would also do not much to reduce GHG emissions and nothing to stop urban sprawl.

The total contribution to GHG emissions from the tar sands is about one seventh of the nation's total.

First, while that's significant, it's hardly the silver bullet in reducing the nation's GHG emissions to meet the Kyoto protocols (which likely won't be met now, since the Conservatives are doing NOTHING to reduce GHG emission anywhere in any way).

Second, it's nuts to assume that reducing tar sands oil extraction will automatically reduce GHG emissions, since if the rest of the economy remains so oil-dependent, it will simply put pressure to import more oil from elsewhere (and if you think gas prices are high now, wait until that happens. Can anyone say $5 a liter?).

The fact is urban sprawl is a lot more related to GHG emissions and air and water pollution than it is given credit for.

It seems easier to criticize resource industries (logging, mining, etc.) for contributing to global warming than it is to be concerned about bad urbanization, which is a much bigger factor.

Numerous studies have shown that the human contribution to global warming is, for the most part, an urban-related issue.

The constant highly concentrated emissions of not only GHGs but all kinds of pollutants, toxins and corrosives that you mostly find coming from urban centers does far more damage to the atmosphere than what comes from rural and resource sectors.

Cutting oil production over a planned period of time is fine. But unless that is accompanied by huge social investments in development and application of new clean energy and motor technology, more sustainable ecologically complimentary urban development that is more conducive for public transit and bicycle use (as well as good ol fashioned walking), as well as better designed highways for the remaining auto traffic to avoid traffic jams and tie-ups, which are key factors in smog, it won't change much at all.

There are a few groups in our local area here in the Lower Mainland doing some good work on these matters. Sadly, the BC Liar regime is not listening to any of them, including ignoring the GVRD's Livable Regions Strategic Plans, and instead going around promising hugely expensive knee-jerk mega-projects (like Gateway) with no plan and no assurance they will improve anything.

None the less, some of these groups, for folks who might be interested, are:

SmartGrowth BC

BC International Institute for Sustainable Development

Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability

BC Social Planning and Research Council

SFPIRG

Labour Environmental Alliance Society

Community Futures Cooperative Association

quote:Originally posted by TemporalHominid:
good luck with stopping urban sprawl

urban spawl has been going on for 7,000 years.

You know, people like their privacy and space. Living in a large building complex with 1,000 other people and looking out at concrete, steel, and glass isn't the most inviting kind of place to live...for most people. It's exactly why we go up to our lake cottage. It's on a quiet lake, has no neighbors, has trees and plants all around it, has the loons calling in the evening and a nice breeze running through the house at night.

But, maybe the future of humankind is urban living ala Hong Kong or "Blade Runner". Chicago had less than 30,000 people in 1850 and, in the city proper, now has 2.8 million or about 12,000 people packed into every square mile (and almost 8 million in its metropolitan area).

Ugh.

quote:Originally posted by Farmpunk:
My issue, obviously, is that in Canada the best farm land (and there isn't a lot of truly arable land in Canada) is consistently paved over for subdivisions. That land is effectively un-reclaimable in the forseeable future.

You know, I really hadn't thought about that. I suppose it is true that most of the best Canadian farm land is south towards or along the USA border (and not up in Churchill, MB!!), and that is exactly where the population centers are.

Would it be possible to reclaim it(the land) if it became necissary to do so?

Reclaiming the GTA: move all the people out, or compress them, bust up the pavement, remove the houses and buildings... for farmland. Think about that scenario for a moment and ask if it's practical or possible.

Add in the fact that the first thing a construction site does is bulldoze the ground flat, removing the mushy top layers of good soil, replacing it with sand and gravel, for a safe and stable base on which to build. I don't know where Milton's top soil went. Likely most of it is in the Seven Mile Creek system, or loaded up and sold somewhere.

Soil can be built. This nonsense about topsoil disappearing, never to return, is scare tactics and stupid media. Takes time, and good management however. Where is our ag ministry in all this, hmmm?

It's all about land. Ask the FN people on babble. Southern Ontario will be a battlefield
(for more than just FN people), maybe literally, within a decade. All these boomers retiring, they've got some cash saved up, they want to move somewhere warm and country. Where is the warmest, rural area left in Canada's most populous province? Certainly isn't northwards. The FN battle for the Grand River (it's beautiful, strange developers covet it) is a litmus test for all our values.

The issue here isn't cost, it's survival. Sooner rather then later, the industrial age will end. When that happens, we will need farmland, lots of it. We will eventually have to reclaim the GTA from its corporate masters and turn it into an agricultural area again.

[ 18 May 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 18 May 2007: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

quote:Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
The issue here isn't cost, it's survival. Sooner rather then later, the industrial age will end. When that happens, we will need farmland, lots of it. We will eventually have to reclaim the GTA and turn it into an agricultural area again.

You think the industrial age will end and that humans will return to an agrarian economy?

Never.

As discussed here, too many people don't want to work just to pay for college tuition. They sure as hell won't want to return to an agrarian economy were people really have to work!! The rural people from my pa's generation (WWII/Depression-era) and earlier who lived and worked on farms worked from sun up to sun down. Vacations? For get about it. Those folks were working all of the time. Work was life.

Modern North Americans would rather die first.

It's true that so far, as far as I can tell, the re-zoning of agricultural land to urban or sub-urban development is pretty much a one-way street.

I have never heard of anyone relocating a city or suburb to re-develop the area as a park or farmland.

It could happen at some point. But I don't see it happening anywhere for now.

The question that's more relevant, I think, is how we develop urban areas without compromising on farmland and allowing for greater coexistence between residential/light industrial development and rural agricultural activity.

It's a challenge, and some of the groups I listed above are working on this now. There has been some interesting developments around this in parts of Europe (where the pressure on land use is way higher than here).

Farmpunk is right, though, that re-creating healthy arable soil, although difficult and time-consuming, is possible. The know-how and tech to convert currently non-arable land into good growing terrain has been done in lots of places.

The question there is how to do that in a way that provides proper natural and human supports withour overly compromising the existing eco-system in the area.

quote:Originally posted by mr-trudo:
"Urban Sprawl" is just an conspiracy by wealthy inner city armchair socialists to create a shortage of housing and office space and raise their property values. The environment is as false of a pre-text as WoD in Iraq. [img]rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img]

Sure, paving the best farmland in the country is a fabulous idea. Then we can import even more pesticide-laden monocrops from unregulated states thousands of miles away.

Yeah, I have a hard time believing that the clapboard houses they're putting up now can compare to the old brick townhomes in downtown Toronto when it comes to sturdiness and long wear. These houses here have been here forever!

The problem with these old homes is not sturdiness, though - it's that they're not energy-efficient. But there are lots of more "surface" things you can do to really improve that, and then as you go along, you can take on some of the longer-term projects like the ones Jack and Olivia have done to their old Toronto brick home. Not that most people can afford what they've done. But we can work on the windows and doors and light fixtures at least, even if we can't afford huge solar panels and stuff. And last I heard, most of the suburban sprawl 905 clapboard houses aren't being made with solar panels and grass roofs either.

[ 06 June 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]

I'm not sure. Something to do with keeping cool in the summer, I think. Insulation.

quote: "Urban Sprawl" is just an conspiracy by wealthy inner city armchair socialists to create a shortage of housing and office space and raise their property values.

Hey, looks like we got ourselves another goose-stepping democracy-hating corporate apologist in our midst.

Another one for the loony bin. [img]rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img]

I think it's natural that Mr Trudo would dislike urban socialists (I doubt I even rate a zero on his scale). Does his\her first initial start with a "P"? I bet he\she would be in favour of doobie filled roofs, however, just not legalization.

[ 06 June 2007: Message edited by: Farmpunk ]

Interesting that the Caledonia land grab is looked at as a urban sprawl mother nature love fest.......... Unfortunately the media hasn't picked up on the fact that the only reason the Occupiers on DCE were not removed is because the violence that was wrathed on this town after the initial police raid was way way out of control.

OPP & gov't won't deal with the criminals & the town is left to fend for it's self........Don't kid yourself this will be happening all over & has nothing to do with mother nature, urban sprawl only love of money.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SietBVG8XKo&mode=rel

Really? Yeah those damn residents standing around with timmies in hand while hydro station burning, van thrown over bypass bridge that was open to traffic oh & wait major highway shut down.

Who says crime doesn't pay! [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

quote:Originally posted by Chick66:
Really? Yeah those damn residents standing around with timmies in hand while hydro station burning, van thrown over bypass bridge that was open to traffic oh & wait major highway shut down.

Who says crime doesn't pay! [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

Can if your a redneck squatting on stolen land. Is funny though, I saw quite a few whites heading out there all the time for no apparent reason other than getting into confrontations, even when the roads were open...oh ya, they always were. But hey, if blatant distortions are the best you can do youre not worth the bother.

Cry me a river my heart bleeds for you .... distort it any way you want ....... support is fleeting. Love the racist remark about rednecks......... must be the word of the day.

[ 30 July 2007: Message edited by: Chick66 ]

Stargazer,
is that : Dont feed the troll, people
or : dont feed the troll people

[img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

[ 30 July 2007: Message edited by: Bacchus ]