Showing posts with label renewal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label renewal. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

What a difference three decades made

Looking north across Baton Rouge from atop the
Louisiana State Capitol, summer 1981.


Looking north across Baton Rouge from atop the
Louisiana State Capitol, autumn 2011.


P.S.:
The blight of 1981 was brought to you by the failure of private enterprise and a non-profit hospital's move to the suburbs.

The renewal in subsequent decades was brought to you by the expenditure of tax dollars by state government aiming for urban renewal and seeking to consolidate state offices into a revitalized capitol complex, away from rented space flung haphazardly across the capital city. Even in Louisiana -- freewheeling, Caribbean, politically corrupt Louisiana -- government ain't all bad. Or even predominantly bad.

America's right-wing, blow-it-all-up-for-liberty, anti-government crusaders would do well to remember that and allow a wee bit of perspective to reestablish itself amid all the hyper-ideological fulminating.