ON THE AVENUES: We cannot let this window close.
A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.
When it comes to presumed birthrights, absolute freedom of mobility ranks somewhere near the top of the bucket list, at least to American eyes.
In theoretical terms, this can be a positive trait. Even a hardened cynic like me must take note of the possibilities for personal development and realization inherent in greater mobility, as compared to the limitations of hidebound social castes and conventions in other sectors of the globe.
However, in this sense we’re speaking more of social mobility than physical transportation, which moves us from one place to the other.
Arguably, the intrinsically American solution to the problem of social mobility has been to strive toward an untrammeled state of purely physical movement. The earliest settlers may well have come here in search of social, religious and economic freedoms, but once landed, the first imperative for many was to race toward wherever the land stopped and the ocean resumed.
From dirt trails to plank roads, and from Conestogas to Chryslers, we’ve concluded that freedom of movement is synonymous with economic freedom, and the freedom to accumulate wealth is the sole key to upward social mobility.
The problem: As decades pass, it becomes increasingly hard to avoid the certainty that future generations will look back on what we Americans have accomplished in the cause of unshackling humanity from its roots, and judge it to have been wasteful, unsustainable and perhaps even tragicomic.
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Here in New Albany and Southern Indiana, at least for the moment, posterity is of far less concern than posteriors, or those appendages resting atop car seats stuck in traffic, slated for transfer to office chairs once newly sticky rush hours are transcended, and ultimately destined for plopping down in sofas later that evening, when television, radio and Internet pundits comprise our Greek chorus: “Woe is to us, and how will we survive this disastrous catastrophe!”
Pfui!
Now that we’ve lost the Sherman Minton Bridge for an indefinite period of time, until its steel cracks are repaired or the entire structure replaced with Minor Moves bucks, there seems to be a prevailing temptation to parlay annoyance and self-pity into the sort of hyperbole that has become the modern world’s substitute for reasonable thought.
It’s too bad, because if we as a community conclude that the absence of immediate mobility gratification dooms us to irrelevance and impoverishment, we’ve lost the fight before the first bell is even rung.
Disaster? Hardly. Tsunamis, wars, earthquakes, plagues and famines are examples of genuine disaster, as is the collapse of a bridge carrying traffic, and in our local instance, potential disaster has been averted. This is to be celebrated, not unfairly characterized out of shapeless pique.
While it may be the first time in the lifetime of many readers that a functioning Sherman Minton Bridge has not been something to be blithely taken for granted, it also is the case that with the bridge’s sudden closure, a window has opened, and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities have arisen.
I may be guilty of over-simplification, but to me the concept of localism is, at root, the operational converse of sprawl, not in any sense of localism replacing all aspects of accepted civilization in the short term, but gradually swinging the pendulum back from the extreme unsustainability of the far-flung exurb to the greater utility of sacrificing a mere jot of absolute, unrestrained mobility to gain some of the economic and spiritual benefits of community rootedness.
We’ve not always been able to articulate the tenets of localism. Now, amid the inevitable snarl of transport in the opening stages of bridge deprivation, there is the chance to illustrate localism to Hoosiers by means of shared experience. Business owners in New Albany and environs will be grasping this brave new paradigm shift, and getting it fast, or else they’ll be swept away.
For a length of time yet to be determined, we’re no longer an afterthought. Rather, we’re the very best, most efficient option for Indiana residents accustomed to using the bridge(s) for purposes of discretionary spending. We may not be able to solve the perennial metropolitan Louisville employment quandary – yet. However, we can provide most of what one needs, and do so right here.
Think of it not as a captive market, but as a soon-to-be savvier market. The game board has been upended, and the pieces are scattered across the table. The beauty of this immense opportunity is that New Albany and Southern Indiana need not re-arrange the match under the rules previously handed us. We may now rewrite the rules, or play an entirely different game.
Perhaps, in the end, the greatest freedom of all stems from seemingly narrow options.
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One last thought.
New Albany’s municipal elections approach, and while Facebook is not the ultimate arbiter of such matters, a cursory review of the 24 candidates who have a Facebook campaign presence (roughly half of them) reveals that as this monumental paradigm shift explodes in all directions through their neighborhoods, they remain primarily concerned with endless recitations of yard sign plantings and fundraisers.
Really?
Democratic council candidates John Gonder and Doug England (our current mayor) stand out as major exceptions. Republican mayoral hopeful DM Bagshaw at least seems to have noticed. Of those candidates not on Facebook, Dan Coffey is displaying a deep interest in the situation (trust me). Readers and candidates, you may enlighten us as to anyone I’ve missed.
We’ve long lamented the absence of platform content on the part of mayoral and council aspirants, but it simply beggars belief that at this juncture, they’re still prattling on about 4-by-4 monster signs and golf scrambles.
I’m not suggesting candidates panic, or rush to conclusions that cannot yet be determined. At the same time, isn’t showing the slightest semblance of recognition that the Sherman Minton’s condition is (a) not a disaster, but (b) an enormous and probably unprecedented opportunity the barest of minimums we should expect from New Albany’s slate of leaders?
