EDITOR’S VIEWPOINT/Johnny and Billy and the toy truck fight
Johnny and Billy were neighbors. Billy lived in a big house with swing sets and sand boxes and tree houses. Johnny’s house was not as big, and it didn’t have all that stuff, but it was right on a big pond where Johnny could find very cool tadpoles.
One Christmas, Johnny and Billy both got toy trucks. Billy’s was really neat with all kinds of bells and whistles and parts that moved. The only problem was, the truck itself wouldn’t move unless Billy pushed it.
Johnny’s truck, on the other hand, had no bells and whistles, but it did have a remote control. Whenever Johnny pressed a button, the truck would go and go until it bumped into the sofa or the dog.
One day while they were playing together, Johnny made a crack about Billy’s stationary truck. Billy retorted with an oh-so-clever jab at Johnny’s truck, which had no moving parts.
And now you are up to date on the situation between Jacksonville, Fla., Mayor John Delaney and Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell.
No doubt, Delaney didn’t mean to start a fight. He just wanted local voters to approve a sales tax referendum that would go toward road improvements. But what he said was, “There’s a word for cities that don’t plan for the future. Atlanta.” Then he showed video of a traffic jam.
Well, that just frosted Campbell’s cereal. Like the mature adult he is, he jabbed back with an observation about Jacksonville being a “lovely place to pass through on the way to Miami.”
The battle extended to the Atlanta newspaper where one columnist, known for his endless complaints about crime and noise and overdevelopment in Atlanta, felt it necessary to hop the first plane to Jacksonville so he could come back and write about how awful it is. He was determined not to let the world in on our little secret.
Which is: Delaney was right. And he wasn’t the first to say it. At one time or another, the mayors of Char-lotte, N.C.; Nashville Tenn; Chatta-nooga, Tenn.; and virtually every city in the southeastern United States have treated Atlanta like the cocktail party guest with dog poop on his shoe. No one wants to stand next to him, and, certainly, no one wants to admit that they want to be like him.
Atlanta has allowed conscienceless developers, weak-kneed politicians and an apathetic population to turn it into the poster child for poor urban planning. It is the definition of sprawl. No amount of self-righteous blustering can change that.
I’ll give Delaney that. I’ll also give him this: Jacksonville is boring.
