Here's the Story of the Hurricane...

Being somewhat of a military kid coming from a small town in the Midwest, the issues of race relations and geopolitics are somewhat removed from my experience of life. I found this reading on these issues to be enlightening, much akin to the growth of perspective I found with the Mind of the South reading.

The author moves through both a local history of geopolitics and Jim Crow laws and the formation of the legal base ultimately chosen to fight the civil injustices. It was interesting to see how the author used the prevailing groves of the legal system to trace out the contradictions in that system. It was also interesting to see how the willing suspension of reality seen in the Mind of the South reading allowed such practices to exist (the happy black servant - Jim Crow, and the 'Separate but Equal' ideal).

Beyond these direct observations from the reading, I was interested in thinking through the current social implications of geopolitics. For instance, I notice the prevalence of income based housing arrangements, rich in one area and poor in another. What are the implications of this today? A difference in services, a change in crime rates, a separation of opportunity... This idea seems to have a connection with the move towards suburbs and gated communities and the middle class. -With a move towards a service based economy in America, combined with growing Internet based work environments, will this stratification increase (more suburbs and good/bad neighborhoods) or will it allow for a more heterogeneous village?

In all of this, I am struggling to understand how to parse limited resources. I am eager to see if supplying the opportunity for Bamberg will only lift a few or if it will affect surrounding towns. I think we will be heading in the right direction, but I don't have much of a basis for comparison. Perhaps this moves beyond the focus of the course, but I wonder about the social and economic principals we are aiming for. In this, I suppose I am curious about the end goal of this work. Not in an accusing way, I simply don't fully understand the implications. What are real world examples of removing geopolitics (i.e. where has it been successful)? Is it possible to remove them, or only to acknowledge and work around them? How much of this responsibility falls on planners?