"Drive-Through" Country
 
If you watch the national news it is hard to miss that for many people who live in New York City and Los Angeles and other large urban areas, the center or heartland of our nation is simply regarded as "fly over county".  They have little respect or regard for the people or the land.  Often, "country folk" are portrayed in the media as uneducated, uninformed and ignorant simply because they do not reflect the life-styles and cultural preferences of the "urbanized" population.  Little do these urbanites, media types and government officials understand is that it is the rural land owners who typify those who built this country as freedom loving, self-sufficient pioneers and settlers.

People who live in the Unincorporated "Drive-Through" areas of the county are now finding that some of the same "Fly-Over" urban attitudes exist in some local city residents and county government officials when it comes to the property rights of citizens living in unincorporated areas.

The cause of many conflicts between the rural and the urban population is that rural cultures and people are often seen not as historical stewards of the land but as  obstacles to "land development".  The Home Rule ordinances are just the tip of the iceberg.  It is a desire to control and engineer the rural culture which will result in the limiting of our rights and freedom.  These changes and control will benefit land developers, and quasi-government organizations who seek control of the land for industrial and sub-urban development.  Changes that are designed to simply increase the "tax base" - more money for developers  and government - are not morally responsible changes.

A vanishing culture? While some "drive-through" visitors to our rural area may see this vacant house as an eye-sore or a hazard, it is scenes  like this that serve as a reminder of and memorial to those people of the past who, through their own hard manual labor, raised families and  created the independent and  self-sufficient rural culture and communities. 

How it's done

As an example of the rural land grab techniques, lets look at a typical case.  A city, seeking more land, annexes a rural area.  Behind the scenes, land developers see that they can use some of the land and create densely packed tract house developments.  Of course they need to buy the land first and generally it is from people who do not want to sell.  Well, since the area has now been annexed by the city, we see tactics such as extending sewer and water lines into the once country side.  Residents are not given a choice, they must pay a much higher tax to support the sewer lines and are forced by "ordinances" to pay between $6000 to $10,000 to get hooked into the system.  This is how it works:  elderly and poor land owners can't afford the expense, so they are forced to sell their land at a cheep price to land developers who are backed by local politicians who understand that they can get much more taxes from those living in a sub-development than from the poor and elderly living on the same "un-improved" land.

Another Case

A well-off city resident buys some land in the rural area to erect a large house for his "county estate".  After moving in, this well-connected person looks down the road and sees a piece of property he considers "junked-up".  To him it is an eye-sore that offends him.  Using his connections with local politicians, he has the "junk ordinance" applied to his neighbor, who is less well off, to force him to clean off the land he owns.  Having succeeded at this the new "lord of the land" looks around and sees other things he does not like such as the noise of 4-wheelers on the weekends, groups of locals on horseback using the roads, slow moving farm vehicles, odors from agricultural land use and weeds on other peoples property.  All the things that annoy him and others like him simply because it is not part of their culture.  These annoyances are soon controlled by local ordinances that are enacted by politicians who need the support and money of this new "rural resident" to get re-elected. Little does the new land baron know that he has sown the seeds of his own rights being infringed in the future.  After sharks go after the wounded, the weak and the old they start eating the big fish.

Understanding of Culture

History is littered with well-meaning attempts by government and outside organizations to "help" the obviously "less fortunate".  Entire cultures have been wiped out by intrusive government efforts to change the life and culture of a group of people who had, up to that point, done quite well without interference. Consider the native Americans who, through the history of our country, have had their culture and lifestyles "cleansed" of their "backward" ways, independence, choices and lifestyles.  History shows us that it is those with the upper hand -governments and well connected people - who insist that others change to become like them and to meet some artificial standard  that reflects their personal preferences.

While people in the nations heartland reject the attitude of the "fly-over" mentality, they are becoming more and more affected by the restrictive actions of the rich and powerful as well as by special interest groups. If we are not careful, the effects of the local "drive-though" mentality may spell the end of the historically independent land owner in the unincorporated areas of the county though ordinance driven control and resulting land grabs.