There’s a new development going up in the small town of Hurley, New Hampshire, and the old time Hurley residents are not happy about it, so much so that they’ll engage in guerilla tactics to have it stopped. Joseph Freda’s 1995 book Suburban Guerrillas gives a comical look at our state’s conflicted feelings of growth, about those looking to find a home in small town New Hampshire and the old-timers who want to have the door shut behind them once they move in. We’ll explore the issue of growth with author Joseph Freda and through the pages of his book Suburban Guerillas on the next Granite State Stories. We'll once again broadcast live from the Political Library Reading Room at the State Library building in Concord. The event is free and open to the public. Laura's guests are Joseph Freda, Author of Suburban Guerrillas and Jeff Taylor, Former Director of the New Hampshire Office of State Planning from 1989 to 2003 and current President of Jeff Taylor & Associates, Inc., a community planning and economic development group in Concord, New Hampshire.
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Images Top to bottom Left to right - 1&2) Before the live broadcast, Laura talks with her guest Jeff Taylor, Former Director of the New Hampshire Office of State Planning from 1989 to 2003 and current President of Jeff Taylor & Associates, Inc., a community planning and economic development group in Concord, New Hampshire. 3) Chairs fill up quickly before the event. Left to right: Nancy Clark, Sandy Perfito, Mary Wiley, Mary Ellen Brookes and Natalie Hodgen, all from Wilton. 4) Adjusting the sound is NHPR's David Buren. 5)Steve Klein of Springfield. 6)Mary Ellen Brookes. 8) Joyce Eldring of Grantham. 9) Sandy Perfito claps at the end of the show. (Cheryl Senter, NHPR) |
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"Closing the door"; "Raising the drawbridge" – diction makes a difference: the choice of words in controversial matters is often loaded. Consider, for example, alternative expressions: "Limiting to reasonable growth"; "Preserving quality of life".
Expressions such as "close the door" are metaphors, of course, and as such they are intended to project significance or meaning from one domain onto another. Here's a different metaphor: when I go to a theater and discover that the performance is sold out, I don't insist on being sold a ticket anyway, and then squeeze myself into an already occupied seat; no – I either wait for another show, or find another theater. What's more, I don't think unkindly on the patrons who purchased tickets before I arrived. It's no sin to be first.
Or consider this: when I arrive home I do in fact close the door, and I would rather that you not follow me in and pitch a tent in my living room, a reasonable desire.
The "close the door" metaphor suggests that a "newcomer" is being unjust by denying to others the benefits that he or she now enjoys. But focus on the newcomer is a red herring – in spite of references to the "pressure of development", the fact is that no house is sold unless someone decides to sell it, and no land is subdivided unless a local owner desires a profit. The decisions that lead to more or less development occur right next door, and I suspect that those invoking the "close the door" mantra are concerned not so much with the plight of those seeking housing as they are with the profits that derive from land speculation, whether that profit be for an individual or a town.
Development is not inherently evil, of course, but neither is the debate over quality of life issues; we may differ as to what the appropriate population density of a town is, but we shouldn't have to feel guilty just for wanting to have the debate.