Here in greater Minnesota, late-coming warm temperatures finally have unleashed an army of wood ticks. Can the state's air force be far behind, singing the woods and prairies in the key of summer?
Not only that, but the legislature's adjourned for now as well, and the likes of Drazkowski and Parry haunt the scenic byways of Southern Minnesota as well. Break out the garlic and citronella candles.
One thing they probably aren't talking too much about are the value of small cities--a notion that the Mankato Free press correctly identifies as conservative in Sunday's editorial, Our View: Don’t ignore importance of cities.
The editors conclude that legislators ought to conduct a discussion of the value versus the cost of cities, rather than merely promote the notion that small towns are simply parasites sucking the blood of the body politic:
There’s plenty to think about. Minnesota has always been a small-town state. There are hundreds of small towns that are viable. There are only a few big cities. States like South Dakota have let their small towns go away. States like Wisconsin have several large cities that dominate.
The discussion on local government should include debates about just what kind of a state we want to be: One dominated by big cities with the naturally occurring urban problems, or one that has a good mix of clean metropolitan areas not overly crowded and a good number of small towns that offer the value of communitarianism.
That’s the simple idea that small businesses can serve home-grown markets. It’s the idea that the community, not just official institutions, have a role in educating children, keeping them safe and policing the problems.
It’s the reason crime rates are much lower in small towns and smaller communities. If the populations of small towns in Minnesota were added to the urban populations, you’d likely see all the costs of urban centers increase, thereby leading to increased costs for the state as a whole and its taxpayers.
So, it’s unfortunate the Legislature was not able to have a debate about local government aid in the context of value versus cost.
The editors in Mankato probably didn't read some of the recommendations provided by conservative bloggers, the advance teams in Senate Majority leader Michael Brodkorb's messaging empire, which suggested that Minnesota's small town heritage should go the way of the VHS player and cassette tape. Take this post, for instance.
I'm being to wonder if small towns serve their greatest value for the Republican Party of the Minnesota suburbs as a rhetorical device for "nice" anti-gay and anti-brown bigotry. The real towns themselves? Not so much.
Stir together this tendency with the anti-big city rhetoric and what do we have? Perhaps a future as caustic as that other summer hazard: poison ivy. A whole field of it.
Photo: Poison ivy.
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