[speedgibson] Speed Gibson: Rural Reality

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Posted by Speed Gibson:
Rural Reality
http://speedgibson.powerblogs.com/posts/1221879588.shtml


   With a son playing football for the University of Minnesota Morris
   Cougars, we've seen a lot of the smiley-faced Freeport water tower
   along Interstate 94 lately. It's the inspiration for Garrison
   Keillor's Lake Wobegon. A section of an abandoned railroad line is now
   the Lake Wobegon Trail.
   The story of how [1]Freeport is now billing the State of Minnesota for
   repaving Main Street is making the blog rounds, including [2]Minnesota
   2020. Once again, they got much of it wrong, as the [3]Lady Logician
   found. (And a hat tip to the [4]Minnesota Free Market Institute for
   noting this in their newsletter.) Still, you should read the Minnesota
   2020 article as prologue for the following. Also, Minnesota 2020 has
   just started a [5]five part series on Minnesota's small towns,
   including hundreds of ghost towns.
   At what point does a city stop being a city, i.e., needing a city
   government? Beyond its history, however rich, however interesting,
   however noble it might have been, what is its raison d'être now? Is
   it so wrong to relocate to Melrose, about 7 miles west, a town of
   3,000? Or Albany, 7 miles east, population 1,800?
   Conversely, does Minnesota need a small city of 500 on the prairie
   between Melrose and Albany, 14 miles apart? If not, what is the point
   of continuing to send Local Government Aid to Freeport? I respect the
   right of the current property owners to live in Freeport, but not any
   claim such as they've sent to the State for the rest of us to sustain
   what once was, and apparently will never be again.
   The times, they are a-changin'. Life isn't fair. You can't go home
   again.

References

   1. http://www.sd35dfl.org/?p=1201
   2. http://www.mn2020.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={88985095-7310-4CB5-937F-56862217BC70}&DE=
   3. http://www.ladieslogic.com/2008/09/telling-one-third-of-story.html
   4. http://www.mnfmi.org/
   5. http://www.mn2020.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={B34A10DC-8C41-44B9-91E4-F416AB67A6A2}&DE=