Here’s what the Midlands look like now, translated into ULI’s Lego language.
That’s where I am this morning, so excuse me if I’m not keeping up with y’all for a few hours.
It’s a worthwhile exercise, I believe — 300 community leaders from across eight counties gathering to talk about growing by choice, not by chance.
I’ll catch up with y’all when the exercise is over. If you’re interested in the meantime, follow @BradWarthen on Twitter…
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I’ve had the privilege of meeting Bryan Caskey’s wife, Mary, this morning — she’s one of the coordinators…
She’s the brains of the Caskey outfit here in Columbia. Also, she’s better looking than me.
But who’s a better marksman? So you got that going for you…
Actually, she’s pretty good at breaking clays.
She doesn’t like to be bad at things, so she took a few lessons. I’ve been shooting for years, so I’m still ahead of her, but she’s a much better shot than lots of guys I gone shooting with.
Please, just tell me there isn’t more talk of “public-private partnerships” until we pay off the enormous obligations, with no identified funding source, that taxpayers already face for Bull Street. We already are obligated beyond our ability to pay without taking the money from other pressing needs. Taxpayers paying/ businesses profiting is a very attractive model for those who will profit, but the results are seldom as advertised for the rest of us.
Lynn, I can’t testify as to what was being said at all the tables, as I was moving around too much. I’m more aware of the visual impression of the way the groups chose to place their Legos — which represented residential concentrations and other forms of development.
Some stacked their residential development high in the city center; others scattered it across the area. Some (such as the table with Ryan Nevius of Sustainable Midlands) had laid down generous amounts of green yarn denoting greenspaces.
There was a lot of energetic talk about guiding principles and smart growth.
As I see it, just having this meeting with people from business, politics and nonprofits from across the Midlands, talking about a shared future, is an accomplishment in itself. Nothing that happened is binding on anyone, but at least a broader conversation has begun.
Sorry I missed it, but your pictures from Twitter were great.
Thanks, Bryan! But I didn’t do so well getting a picture onto this post. I haven’t gotten the hang of doing that on my iPad app. I’ll go back and fix that now.
Here, by the way, is a picture of your bride at her group’s table…
The reality check reminds me of this question: How long is the Emporer of China’s nose?
http://imaginatorium.org/stuff/nose.htm