Construction Equals Progress

Have you ever talked to an elderly person who’s lived in one palace their entire life and asked them what the area, or city, or town was like when they were young? Their response usually begins with, “I’ve seen a lot of changes over the last X amount of years and not all for the better.” If they’re from a rural area they may point out an existing shopping center and wistfully describe an empty field where afternoon ball games were played. A city dweller might point to a high-rise office complex and talk about the apartment his family lived in before a developer bought the property and forced them to move.

Like it or not, we live in a transitory society where the next house, building, or town will surely be better than the one we’re leaving behind. People require bigger, better, and if not new, then like new to feel as though they’ve accomplished something in their lives. So, we build.

Drive through any town with more than 20,000 people and you’ll likely find bulldozers and construction crews erecting a new shopping center— even though just down the street one sits partially empty and could be renovated for half the cost. The unspoken rule seems to be, don’t fix what’s there when we can build something new.

It’s almost laughable when conservationists try to halt the construction of a new condominium complex because the location is the current home of an endangered frog or turtle. Those creatures will never generate a profit, but the condos will. Of course, once the condos are filled, another mini-mall will need to be built so the residents won’t have to travel five extra miles to shop. And the beat goes on.

 To some, this sounds like a treatise against progress in general and the construction industry in particular, but that’s not the case. Building, expanding, modifying our environment is what humans are driven to do, it’s who and what we are. What we need to be is more responsible. Why can’t we say this town is full, time to build a new one further down the road? Do we need gas stations on opposing intersection corners or a drug store on both sides of the same street? What I’m proposing is forward-looking land management and the courage to say no to developers and dark money. By planning a better future, our great-grandkids won’t have to listen to, “I remember when that was…”