The morning newspaper contained an editorial lauding the concept of government control of economic development along a 30 year old highway newly annexed into the city limits. It's Texas State Highway 191 an 18 mile road used by commuters to travel between Midland and Odessa, Texas.
The other road connecting the two cities is former U.S. 80, now Business 20, and it's teaming with vibrant businesses. Some of those businesses may not be deemed as aesthetically pleasing to the style conscious critic as the open empty desert spaces one currently sees while transiting 191. And that's probably what has the government wanting to exercise power over development.
"Ugliness is so grim," Lady Bird Johnson said as her Highway Beautification project performed a facelift along the U.S. roadways a half century ago, and together with her husband, Lyndon Johnson, they built the Great Society we live in today.
"Lady Bird doesn't want you to see what's behind this wall," teased some junk yard owners on the walls they were forced to put up to hide their businesses from sensitive passersby.
So maybe that's what our central planning committee can do -- allow owners to do with their property as they wish, and thereby satisfy those owners who like to think they, not the government, own their land. But then require those owners to put up facades painted to mimic the parched desert landscape commuters now see. Of course, in the interest of free speech, they could also put up signs poking fun at the central planners, and that's when a boring commute would get interesting.
[Image is from Illustrated Road to Serfdom.]
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