The final attitude of the night, even by those who didn't support current plans, was “to make the best of it,” implying that a majority believe the design could be tolerable with changes.
Psychological researchers once put puppies in a cage with one group having a way to get out and others that couldn't. They then added an electric shock to the dogs. The ones that knew they could get out, left. The others laid on the ground and whimpered. The researchers dubbed this behavior as "learned helplessness."
"We're going to widen roads with no purpose or no benefit no matter what you say or think against all evidence that the plan is faulty and misguided. End of story."
Will the citizens lay down and continue to whimper or will they stand up since nobody seems to get that road widenings only dig the hole deeper? Do we want a great city? A livable city? An economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable city?
Do we want to continue to see young talent/puppies leave DFW behind for Portland, Seattle, NYC or even Austin? Hell, we might even have to start worrying about OKC soon and we can be left with the kind of neanderthals who taze each other on video and post it to youtube.
Nah, let's just keep building wider and wider roads. Eventually, we just might pave every inch of the City. Mission Accomplished. The March of Folly continues.
Posts
