Many of us have grown cynical about the vaugue notions of late of protecting open space, farmland, and forests. Protecting open space sounds so nice on paper, but are we succeeding? This whole idea of protecting open space and combating suburban sprawl seems rather impossible. We are using soÐcalled rational planning to protect the irrational nature of rural freedom? How can the west be protected by removing what makes up the wild west? We can pass regulations and laws with proposed purpose of doing just this. We've been doing this for hundreds of years now for protecting 'special' areas like unique forests.

If people want to live where they want to, why should we be stopping them? Sprawl can't be stopped, as where there is a will there is a way. We'll pass a regulation, and people will find a way around it. With large lot zoning will people react just by building houses on the minimum size lot. It becomes 3-acre sprawl. How about mandatory agricultural land? People will just rent part of that 3 acre parcel to some farmer and they'll plant corn and it still is suburban sprawl spread out a little bit more and with some corn fields.

Any solution to prevent sprawl will be inevitably fake. You can't capture rural freedom in an statue. Likewise, urban renewal is little more then just money to remove asbestos and lead from old buildings: you can't build culture like you can build buildings. Nobody really things that those cobblestone intersections have any purpose on Lark Street. All they really do is create more pollution by forcing cars to go slower, creating more toxic chemicals. Not to mention the damage to shocks and struts, effectively creating more junked cars and eventual solid waste. Society is becoming more planned and rational, and it's desirable thing to be able to move faster. It's a good thing that cars are moving faster all the time, as people are able to go farther, commerce is improved, people are more free, pollution is reduced, and at the same time accidents are greatly cut.

Can we keep the wild west wild? We can't. Progress will occur, no matter how much of a luddite you may be, you can't avoid progress. The world grow up, buildings will grow taller, population will increase, and there will be need for new houses. Regulation is not going to work as people do what they want, and the wealthy are creative and know how to get around such regulations. Such regulation might actually cause the opposite to preventing sprawl to happen. It will encourage new sprawl. Rural areas by their definition are those with great natural resources, giving freedom to people who reject mainstream society at some fundamental level. Rural people without nearby neighbors, have significant privacy rights that give them much freedom.

There is one simple solution to keeping the wild west as it is: keep it wild. People who like organized suburban society will shake off the hardships and the nuisance that a wild and free rural society creates. People who live in suburbs arenÕt going to embrace the smell of the neighboring manured fields nor the sound of gunfire during hunting season. TheyÕll run away scared. Only when we keep our society this way can we forever keep it rural and free. Limited government in the hands of the rural locals is the future: not in the hands of big suburbanites.

Many of us hope that the Heldebergs stay rural and free. It might be possible for a while to keep things the same by avoiding excessive governmental regulation, but over time the west will be lost to the suburbs of Albany. Tech Valley will inevitably take away our freedom.