Dream needs to be adjusted to environment

Published in the Press And Journal

The American Dream means different things to different people. One person may see it as having the opportunity to vote. Another may believe having the right to practice any religion they choose to be the American Dream.

I think it is fair to say that most people see the American Dream as owning a piece of land and house they can call their own. But is it possible that the American Dream is actually destroying America?

What drives Americans to want their own piece of land to call their own?

Land ownership is a status symbol – perhaps the longest standing status symbol. During the Middle Ages the poor lived in cities and the rich lived in the country on vast estates. In the 1950s the middle and upper classes moved out of the cities and into the suburbs. If a family had enough money to move into the suburbs they had enough money to own a car so they could drive to their job in the city or to the grocery store. How could a dream like this be dangerous?

Well, if everyone in America – all 300-plus million of us – wants to have a house and piece of land to call his or her own, what would be left after everything was divvied up?

Take a drive in any direction and you will see development; whether it’s a new shopping center or a new housing development, one thing is certain, farmland is being consumed.

In Bethel Township, Lebanon County, 90 acres of farmland has one of two fates: rezoning to commercial so that a 1,000,000 square foot warehouse can be built or having 200 homes built on the land.

Citizens have turned out with support for both sides. One group argues the warehouse will create unnecessary traffic, pollution and cause harm to the citizens of the township. The other group argues the warehouse will generate enough money in school taxes to keep tax rates down for everyone else. That group also believes 200 more single-family homes will overburden the school district.

No matter what the board decides it appears the farmland will be lost.

Lower Susquehanna River Keeper Michael Helfrich explained to me that development has been one of the factors contributing to the high rates of nitrogen and phosphorous in the Chesapeake Bay, causing it to be polluted.

Helfrich explained how trees along the Susquehanna River are able to filter out some of the nitrogen and phosphorous naturally, but as development comes to sites along the river, the trees are cut down and never replaced.

Helfrich says farmland is also a place to dispose of waste from sewer treatment plants.

What can be done to stop the loss of farmland? Build up, not out, Helfrich says. It makes sense.

In Europe, many towns are self-sustaining communities. There are no Wal-Marts or other superstores. Stores that build in the towns do not take up massive amounts of land looking to serve thousands of people as shopping centers do in America. Instead, the stores located in a European town focus on servicing that town; it does not take up vast amounts of land to build a store.

If America keeps expanding at the rate it is, there will be nothing left for the American Dream.

Jeremy Long is a staff reporter for the Press and Journal. He graduated from Lebanon Valley College with a degree in historical communications.