Everything starts at home. America’s division is perfectly displayed in my local reporting. I’ve been following a story in a neighboring municipality that displays just how our suburbs are being urbanized by aging politicians who want to do what everyone else is doing.

I have plenty to say on the subject. Maybe you’re a person who loves cities. Maybe you want to share walls with your neighbors and not have to worry about doing things for yourself, but that’s not how all of us wish to live.

There is a reason that people flee suburbs when they become urbanized. People who like the city life flock to dense cities. People who buy a home in the suburbs don’t want a bunch of giant buildings being developed in their area. It blocks the sun and just smells awful (I say this as a person who doesn’t mind the smell of manure haha).

Some of us still want to have a backyard for our children to run around in. Some of us support local businesses and simple down-to-earth lifestyles instead of generic lives spent in giant grey boxes that look like luxury prisons.

The more I talk to people the more I realize that a lot of us still want that, but I am watching our suburbs be destroyed. The mayor of one of these areas sought me out to try and sway my writing, but I don’t play lapdog to anyone. So instead (like a good journalist), I wrote a piece presenting both sides: One city, two directions: https://www.midriversnewsmagazine.com/one-city-two-directions-understanding-the-political-divides-in-dardenne-prairie/article_c437b526-caa9-11ee-85d9-e347ee17d105.html

Most often, people are just doing what they think is best. There isn’t usually some mustache-twirling bad-guy sitting in the corner plotting how to destroy everything, but it’s hard to gauge intentions when so many politicians play games with our lives and our neighborhoods.

The more I learn the less I know, or something like that…