
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 12, 1994                   TAG: 9404140015
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MIAMI PRICE

ONCE UPON a time there was a lovely little city blessed with a salubrious climate and set in a luxurious forest on the edge of a crystal-clear bay. Beyond the bay were lovely islands which bordered a vast ocean with beautiful beaches of golden sand. And the people who lived in these surroundings marveled at the beauty of the place and were most certainly pleased with this quality of life.

Now a great war engulfed the land and many warriors passed through the little city and many were struck with its beauty and vowed to return. And, after the conflict ended, many did. The lovely setting that the little city so enjoyed was shared by several other political entities, some old and some new, who intensely patrolled their boundaries and would not cooperate one with the other and there was no overall plan for peace.

Hence it came to pass that many men of ignorance, called politicians, and many men of greed, called developers, came forth to proclaim the doctrine of growth. And the people said that they did not oppose growth but that they had no plans by which to grow. The politicians, in their ignorance, said that plans were not needed and the developers, with cunning, said that plans were only needless regulation. And the people, falling under the spell cast by the media, clamored to sell their birthright and would not heed those among them who cried out for preservation of their quality of life.

And, after it was finished, chaos prevailed, and the lovely city became unreasonably congested, and uncontrolled commercialism ran rampant as problems begat problems. The lovely bay darkened with pollution, the golden beaches were no longer accessible to the people and, in the end, only the sun remained, continuing to rise each day to survey the havoc that the unthinking people had brought upon themselves.

A visitor viewed the confusion, heard the cries of the people, and shrank from the crime that prevailed in the streets about him. ``Who has caused this?'' he asked. ``Ah, sir, they no longer live here for they have amassed their riches and left.''

The visitor wrung his hands and considered how different it might have been if there had been insight and friendliness and cooperation between the people of the little city and those around it. If only they had ignored the shallow words of the elected pundits! If only they had gone about logically planning for the future coordination of the physical and aesthetic needs of the people! With such a planned preservation of the once-pleasing quality of life, growth would have been a happy and healthy product rather than a mindless metaphor for urban success.

|JOHN MARFLEET |ROANOKE

Editor's note: John Marfleet is a native Miamian.

by CNB