Wednesday, June 4, 2003

As a relative newcomer to Fayette County, I would like to think that I can look forward to years of growth and development in what was once a promising and admirable county. But that is not so.

As the years have gone by, there is less and less land free in the county. Forests, here when the county was founded and here when Fayette began to become a real name in Georgia, are being ripped down at an alarming speed.

In the place of old growth and biological history that cannot be replaced, we have subdivisions such as Lakemont and the new areas by the dirty and paved high school.

Ugly and offensive reminders of man's encroachment on what was beautiful land. And are these really necessary? They were not 10 years ago, but are all too key now (due to undoubtedly poor planning and a blinded outlook into the future).

These beds of pavement are living testaments to the greed and corruption of not only Fayette County. The people of southern Atlanta were so gung-ho in their development and new-found money that they ripped into Fayette like hurricanes. So blinded by their new prosperity, they savagely developed virgin land. Their greed and need to expand and earn more money led to gaudy and repulsive subdivisions, proud, cheap palaces with which they could flaunt their supposed money while hiding the debilitating unhappiness, alcoholism and bankruptcy, their hypocrisy and shameful shallowness.

Now there is no place left for Fayette County to grow and those of us who are awakened enough to value what is left of the green space seek to protect it from the green-eyed and green-flanked monster. It is foolish to think that we should have to pay for nature, for the place to rest and admire the old growth without having to sit in the middle of a highway island or lie in the clay surrounding the developing areas. This is our county, too.

Just because we do not have a rabid and obsessive need to develop more and more land for people who will look and act just like we do in the pathetic attempt at homogeneity and a perfect (probably white depending on where you live) America does not mean that we do not have a say. As long as I pay taxes and live in this county, I have just as much a right to my life, liberty and therefore property.

I do not seek to correct the mistakes of the past, but I am hopeful for the future and the success of more green areas in Fayette County and indeed in Fayetteville herself. It is painful to see what was once a beautiful and historic county (at least until the older and more original buildings were ripped out to make room for places such as the jail and low-income apartments) drenched in her own blood, the infamous red Georgia clay.

As the greed of the early nineties and now the early aughts rampaged, Fayette lost entire pieces of her history to cheap, gaudy housing and highways. Important reminders of the Civil War, the endurance of her early leaders and settlers are now covered in cement.

Granted, the protection of green spaces would cost money, but would have an immense and protective benefit. In a state known for old growth and an almost Arthurian history, the green spaces will provide infinite reminders.

What is money compared to a noble and admirable history? Are the taxpayers of Fayette so miserly that they would deny the future its history? Its parks? Its open spaces in which to run free and escape the hectic nature of everyday life? I should hope not, but than again history dictates they are.

Dixie Eska-Thedra

Fayetteville