Keeping up with the fish in the bigger pond

"What we are seeing right now is that many new projects require a certain level of interest rates to make them financially feasible,'' said Reid, a former Ann Arbor City Council member. "They are subject to some credit risk. Buyers are being very cautious about stepping into new securities that are not deemed essential services.''

This is the circumstance of the proposed $71 million library in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Libraries, museums, recreational complexes.....not essential.  The Ann Arbor City Council voted 7-0 to table the project.

Cities are like adolescents in the locker room. They are always comparing "theirs" to the biggest. Perhaps because of its proximity to Detroit, Ann Arbor understands that just because you are older and "bigger" doesn't mean that you are better. Maybe the better city is one without a former mayor doing time (Detroit), or a record number of gang shootings over the last 12 months (Chicago).

Peoria, Illinois on the other hand is always looking down at itself and then looking over at Chicago. It says a lot about envious elite fish in a Peoria sized pond. What they value is not being looked down on as small fish by the fish in the Chicago, Springfield or Naperville ponds, even while they themselves look down on Pekin, Morton and Chillicothee fish as "small ponders". And their answer to their inferiority impusles always seems to be, "...what sort of larger, grander phallic symbol can we build...so as to qualify Peoria as a larger pond..." , without regard to the many residents whom they must Shanghai to their tax payer chain gang.

But like the slaves of the South, those tax payers with the inclination and ability will make their escape North to the smaller, but growing ever larger ponds of Dunalp, Medina Township and Stark County.