The Oil Drum

Aniya: The political control which has to be exercised is due to the fact that "Big Business" is increasingly shirking its sociaal responsibilities by looking only for income when creating problems. A good example comes in the form of trying to circumvent planning and zoning ordinances through special exceptions - get a small one and then go back and say, gee that 100 foot deep strip wasn't enough to build a mall on, let me make that 3000'. That then eliminates all of the parks, green areas, and natural watersheds which should have been envisioned in the original planning process. If the political control is not exercised, the result can be something like a suburb inside an urban area. If you think about it, there are reasonable examples like that in almost every area of our lives. Gated communities, oil and gas development in urban areas, highways cutting up neighborhoods and allowing one severed part to thrive and the other to wither, and so on.

If necessary, the imposition of other social responsibilities on business, and thus on the economy may be necessary, and exist already. At one time, all business was local and the owners could be relied on to take care of their community - it was a matter of personal pride. And, yes, there are examples of that today, and it regenerates itself even when that business "moves on." e.g., Bartlesville, OK, the former home of Phillips Petroleum and today, still the cleanest place I have ever been. Frank Phillips insisted that "the Company" take care of the city and felt it was part of his responsibility to do so. After the merger with Conoco, formerly based 70 miles or so away and the move of the merged operation to Houston, the spirit of keeping it a great place to be, much less to live, continues. ConocoPhillips still has a large workforce there, but it is not a "company town" anymore. I know that meat processing companies do not always treat the communities they move into (in on?) do the same from personaal experience. Communities want the employment but end up with a lot more in terms of problems.