A billion dollar trash day

This morning, Julie Bass asked Oak Park is Rotting- Do You Think Anyone Will Plant Gardens?  She recounted her husband's visit to Oak Park (Julie and her family now live in Seattle) where he saw mountains of trash sitting on the curb after the flood.  I read that right after I hauled out the trash for what is supposed to be the first normal day of trash collecting after the flood two weeks ago.  Both of those reminded me that I had remarked on the aftermath of the flood in Heading Toward The Sidewalk at The Archdruid Report last week.

[W]hen I read the title, I thought of all of the ruined personal belongings headed to the curb and then the dump this week and last because of Detroit's latest experience with climate weirding, the record one-day rainfall that flooded out much of the metro area and made national headlines.  The mayor of Warren, Detroit's largest suburb, claimed that the city's residents had lost more than one billion dollars (Dr. Evil impression optional) in ruined personal property because of the backed up sewage.  I was lucky to have only experienced inconvenience, a tripling of my commute home to avoid the flooding and a delay of five days in my trash being picked up.  The image of ruined investors and brokers jumping out of windows didn't even occur to me until the end of the essay.  Oops!

That billion dollar figure came from the following WXYZ report: Damage estimate in Warren tops more than $1 billion.


I have an answer for the man asking what has changed over the past four years--the climate.  As I wrote in This was my drive home tonight:

I talked about climate change in both my lectures today, and pointed out how it's expressing itself as increased precipitation, including 2013 being the wettest year in Michigan history, 2013-2014 being the snowiest year in Detroit's history, or 2011 being the rainiest year in Ann Arbor, Detroit, and Toledo.

In addition, this month's flood resulted from the second highest single-day rainfall in Detroit history.  Welcome to four precipitation records in four years.

The WXYZ video was from two weeks ago.  Follow over the jump for updates on the total losses from MLive.

Second Year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News: Detroit meme

The fourth most read entry of the second full year of the blog is Detroit "what people think" meme, posted on March 22, 2012, with 706 views according to the secondary counter.  That was a complete throwaway post based on a meme Julie Bass posted I put up just so that I wouldn't miss a day during March 2012, as I wasn't up to composing my retrospectives about either the City of Troy's problems or Julie Bass's fight with Oak Park.  It ended up being very popular because 209 people found it using the search term "detroit meme."  In that way, it's a lot like Dungeons and Dragons alignments for Game of Thrones characters, a meme that became popular because of Google search.  Both of them are good examples of how one can never tell what will become popular.

Previous entries in this series:

• Happy birthday to the blog and Happy Nowruz to all of you
• Second Year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News: Statistics
• Second Year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News: Top post of 2012
• Second Year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News: Eastwooding
• Second Year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News: Examiner.com
• Second Year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News: Kunstler's Tea Party

The first year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News: Part 2 of several

In Part 1 of the retrospective of the first year of this blog, I promised to "continue with the second most popular of the top twelve posts tomorrow." True to form, tomorrow stretched out for several days. In fact, I took so long that the subject of the next post showed up in comments.

kudos to you on all the hard work of posting- i thought i'd raise your comment stats by saying hello and checking in! sad to see that the city of troy beat the city of oak park on your blog, but glad to see you have such a strong (and well-deserved) following! -julie

I responded enthusiastically.

Julie! Thanks for stopping by and commenting. It turns out that Oak Park is number two on the list when it comes to most popular posts. My retrospective on blogging about you and your problems with Oak Park will be the next in the series.

As I promised Julie, here is Part 2.

Last night's election results

Time for a follow-up to yesterday's entry about austerity being on the ballot. Take it away WXYZ!




2011 Election results

In general, the electorate voted against austerity measures last night. That makes me happy.

There are more election results in the scroll across the bottom of this next video, which is a repackaged version of the second one I featured in Republican debate at Oakland University tonight. I didn't include in my follow-up about the debate because it added very little that was new to that particular subject.




GOP Debate at Oakland University

Most of the results displayed are for candidates, not issues, but they're still revealing. Most would be considered votes for the status quo and against austerity, but two stand out. Marian Meisner McClellan beat out Naftaly for Mayor of Oak Park. She came out in support of Julie Bass and her garden. For all I know, that might have been a deciding factor. That was a vote that was both against the status quo and for sustainability. On the other hand, Daniels won the mayor's race in Troy. That's a vote for austerity, as she's a founder of the Troy Tea Party.

Julie Bass has moved, but the fight continues

As of last week, Julie's front yard garden has been removed. This week, she has moved to Seattle. Just the same, her struggle for other's freedom to raise food continues.

From the Washington Post: Adam Guerrero’s Memphis garden deemed ‘a nuisance’ (UPDATE)

Adam Guerrero keeps a garden in his Memphis yard, where the math teacher’s students come over to help tend the eggplant, tomato and pepper plants. Around back, there are worm bins, rainwater barrels and beehives. The students make biodiesel and soap in the garage.

This tiny ecosystem has been ordered destroyed.

Guerrero’s garden was found in violation of two city ordinances, the Memphis Flyer reports, and has been deemed a “nuisance.” It must be dismantled by Friday.
...
Guerrero will appear in court Friday to show that he has removed the garden. In the meantime, his supporters will keep pushing for his garden to stay firmly planted.

Julie Bass even makes a cameo in the article.

If the odd idea of an illegal garden sounds familiar, it is. Julie Bass faced jail time in July for refusing to remove her Michigan garden, which was found not “suitable.” The charges were later dropped.

Fortunately, Guerrero's day in court brought good news.

Update: Judge Larry Potter told Adam Guerrero that he may keep his Memphis garden if he makes a few changes, including keeping the front yard trimmed and reducing the number of worm bins on his property.

Julie Bass made an unnamed cameo in another news story I read earlier today. This one happens to be good news.

From Take Part: Front Yard Farmer's Markets Coming to L.A.?

While some cities have decided they would rather arrest people who show off their home vegetable gardens in their front yards, Los Angeles appears to be moving in the opposite direction.

By way of the fine folks at Curbed, we learned that planning officials in L.A. are debating a proposal to allow Angelenos who grow their own food to set up farmer's markets in residential areas.

Here's what Curbed reported.

The City Planning Commission will hear a proposed ordinance tomorrow that will allow farmers' markets in residential zones (with a permit) and streamline the approval of farmers' markets in other zones (i.e., agricultural, commercial, manufacturing, and parking zones). Farmers' markets are currently banned in residential neighborhoods, but, in keeping with the trend for retro-agrarian chic, the new ordinance would allow homeowners to grow and sell food at their homes. This follows the 2010 ordinance that allows people to grow fruits, nuts, and flowers at their houses with the intent to sell.

As an expatriate Angelino, I approve.

More on damage from Saturday's storm

Yesterday, a friend responded to the Facebook link to my previous post on the Saturday's storm with a comment that the power was still out in her neighborhood and that it had suffered damage like she'd never seen before. She was surprised that there was no tornado reported.* That made me look again at WXYZ-TV's YouTube Channel to see what they had reported.

Her day in court

Yesterday, July 26th, was the key day in court for two women whose sustainability-related legal plights I've been following, Julie Bass and Raquel Nelson. Both of them received about the best legal outcomes that one could reasonably expect given how things looked the day before; all charges against Julie Bass were dismissed and Raquel Nelson will not serve any jail time and may get a new trial. All of us should consider these small victories for sustainability.

Each of these women deserve their own posts, which I promise to do later. Right now, I'll just salute both of these women for swimming against the stream of government using the criminal justice system to enforce anti-sustainability standards of behavior.

Weekly Roundup for July 10th through 16th, 2011

This past week was the busiest so far at Crazy Eddie's Motie News, whether one measured it in terms of posts (14), page views (1577), or comments (13). This topped last week, where the comparable stats were eleven posts, 832 page views, and only five comments, itself a very good week. For comparison, this blog averaged 560 views/week during all of May and June, 486 views/week for April, May, and June, its first three full months, and 488 views/week the week before last. As I mentioned in Boosting the signal about Oak Park's "War on Veggies", I thank the readers of Oak Park Hates Veggies for making this possible, with 369 referrals last month, at least 216 of which came last week alone. This puts Julie Bass's blog in third place as the source of views for this blog throughout its history so far, behind only Kunstler's blog, where I have been promoting my blog every week since my first post here, and Google, which just happens to own Blogspot. Again, thank you, and keep reading!




This past week also saw another milestone--my first spam comments. I know a blog hasn't arrived until it gets enough traffic to make it a worthwhile target for spammers.That's the good news. The bad news is that I should be careful what I wish for.

Honestly, I'd like more comments. I could even deal with a couple of trolls, as I'm not above trolling my own comments sections.

Trolls I don't mind, as I can hold my own against them. Spammers are another matter. From July 13th:

This blog achieved a milestone today. It received its first spam comment. However, it's not such a milestone that it was worth saving. The spam was canned.

Now, July 16th:

This blog has arrived. I've gone from no spam comments to not one, but two spam comments in one week. I have advice for you. If you want to promote your blog or a relevant news story, fine. If you want to advertise for a commercial enterprise not germane to the topic of this blog (and education isn't really it), your comment will be hidden. Bye!

I don't make any money off this blog, so no one else gets to, either!

Enough of my swimming against the stream of spam--on to the week's posts in review.

Oak Park's "War on Veggies" is now an election issue and other news

There have been more, mostly good, developments since my last update. For starters, I was wondering when this would happen.

Candidate for Oak Park Mayor Marian Meisner McClellan's campaign website.

"Oak Park is going through a very difficult time with record numbers of foreclosures, property values sinking, and crime an all too often occurrence and threat. Devoting scarce public safety resources to prosecuting a vegetable gardener does not reflect our needs.

Sadly, when Oak Park residents hear crime, they think of theft, arson, hate crimes, and burglary - not vegetable gardens. We need city leadership to focus on jobs, fighting crime, and building strong and safe neighborhoods."

--Marian Meisner McClellan, July 12, 2011

Three days later, she met with Julie Bass and her husband. I'll let Julie describe the meeting.

my husband and i met this afternoon with a woman who will be running for mayor (against incumbent gerald naftaly) in oak park, michigan.

she is sooooooooooo sweet, but she’s also smart and down-to-earth and personable and easy to talk to.
...
even the police officers in oak park are on the side of this woman, so i decided to check her out.

we emailed her and asked her if we could sit down and talk to her and hear some of her ideas. and she emailed us back!

unlike the current oak park officials, who won’t even return phone calls, she got right back to us. now i know she is not mayor yet, and maybe if she had a city to run she would have less time for her constituents, but i don’t get that feeling from her. she seemed, via email and then in person, like a very genuine person.
...
i think more people should contact her and hear what she has to say. i’m not saying you should like her because i like her; i’m saying that if you meet her, i think you will like her all on your own

I'm really liking this development; it's good for both Julie and Marian M. McClellan and bad for the current Mayor, who is ultimately responsible for this mess.

Julie had more good news to report.

thanks to you, we currently have enough money to cover litigation costs. if things get more ugly and it looks like we will have to do more, i will post again to let you know. but for now, please don’t send any more donations. we don’t want you to be sending too much money ;)

thank you all really seriously for the tremendous outpouring of encouragement and support- you are what is getting us through this difficult time.

W00t!

Finally, Julie has her own summary of the situation so far. Please read.

That's it for this week in Oak Park's "War on Veggies."

Boosting the signal about Oak Park's "War on Veggies"

In addition to my posts about the travails of Julie Bass here on Crazy Eddie's Motie News, I've been blogging about it elsewhere, beginning with posts to my Dreamwidth and my LiveJournal. I've also posted it to ontd_political on Dreamwidth, unfunnybusiness on JournalFen, and peakoil_prep and ontd_political twice on LiveJournal. The results have been very satisfying.

For starters, those posts have received lots of comments. The winner so far has been the first post on ontd_political on LJ, Michigan Woman could go to jail for planting vegetable garden, which prompted 126 comments. Next is the unfunnybusiness post, Woman in Oak Park, Michigan, could go to jail up to 93 days for planting a garden, with 39 comments. The followup to ontd_political, Update: Michigan woman no longer going to jail for her garden but now in trouble for her dogs, has 21 comments and counting. The mirrored posts on my LJ currently have nine comments and their counterparts on Dreamwidth have six. In contrast, I have a grand total of eight comments on the same posts so far here on Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

This mirrors the situation with the rest of the Swim posts here on Crazy Eddie's Motie News, which have a grand total of three comments on the non-Julie Bass posts, two on the five posts about Kunstler and one on the post about Elaine Meinel Supkis, two once I respond. In contrast, the LiveJournal mirror of James Howard Kunstler swims against the stream on gender role equality, too alone received 13 comments, which I pointed out in Follow up to women in Kunstler's fiction. Honestly, I'd like more comments. I could even deal with a couple of trolls, as I'm not above trolling my own comments sections.

On the other hand, I have been getting readers from the signal boosting posts, with 108 views from JournalFen and 69 from ontd_political on LJ during the past week, handily beating out what I'm getting from Facebook, just 16 referrals. Even the hits coming from my own LJ, nine so far this week, are beating out what came in from Twitter, which is not even in the top ten sources. Facebook and Twitter may be the big boys on the blog, but they aren't the traffic drivers people think they are. Google, on the other hand, is my friend, with 176 hits. The big winner turns out to be Julie's own blog, which referred 296 readers in one week. Thank you, all of you coming here from Oak Park Hates Veggies!

Just the same, I've had nine days in a row and 11 days out of the last 12 with more than 100 hits, so I have no room to complain. On that note, welcome new readers, and keep the page views coming!

Good, bad, and ugly news in Oak Park's "War on Veggies"

In the previous installment, I described how Oak Park's "War on Veggies" went viral. The resulting brouhaha had the effect it intended--the prosecution against Julie Bass for her raised garden beds in her front yard--but Oak Park has found another way to continue waging war against her for daring to fight city hall. Watch.

Oak Park Drops Charges Against Julie Bass and Her Vegetable Garden: MyFoxDETROIT.com

So the good news is that Julie Bass is no longer facing charges. All of you who raised a stink by reporting and blogging on the issue, commenting on blog and news posts, signing the petition, and sending in letters and emails to the city of Oak Park can pat yourselves on the back. Your efforts succeeded.

The bad news is that the way the story is being reported, not only in the Fox 2 Detroit clip above, but also in the Detroit News article and on Julie's own blog, indicates that the city dropped the charge by asking for it to be dismissed without prejudice. That means that that the city could reinstate the charge any time before the statute of limitations ran out. Note the coda of the report was that the city prosecutor was going to re-examine the language of the statute. If he figures out a defensible reading of the statute that allows him to go after Julie, he can file those charges again. As Julie herself describes it, it feels like her own Sword of Damocles hanging over her.

The ugly news is the city resuming their prosecution of Julie for her dogs. The sequence of events makes it look like the city is being, as Julie wrote in her most recent post, "malicious." Julie's lawyer Solomon Radner elaborated in this quote from the Detroit News, "This is really nothing other than a personal vendetta against the Basses either because somebody doesn't like them, or because they had the nerve to fight this unjust prosecution." I think the answer is mostly the latter.

Since I believe in closing circles, I think the good news is that Julie and her lawyer will appear in court on July 26th, present the proof that the dogs are licensed, and those charges will be dismissed. Even so, this entire affair has made the city of Oak Park look even worse in my eyes than it already did.

When my wife and I were looking for places to live in Oakland County, my co-workers who lived in Oak Park tried to convince me to move there. Unfortunately, when my wife and I looked at houses in the city, we were less than impressed. We got a very conformist, unfriendly, and not-at-all fun vibe from the place, so we decided to look in Ferndale and Royal Oak, which were more to our liking.

When I played the Fox 2 Detroit clip to my wife, she said that we were never going to live in Oak Park. She didn't care if we found the ideal house there at a perfect price in a great neighborhood, we won't move there. I completely agree.

Finally, stay tuned. This isn't over yet.

The Oak Park Outlaw by The Bard of Murdock

Today, you get a two for one special: The Bard of Murdock on Julie Bass--two bloggers swimming against the stream.

With the permission of the author.

RE: The Oak Park Outlaw Poem

If you'd like to post my verse
At Crazy Eddie's News,
I say, "Why Not? Go Ahead."
For how could I refuse?

I ask for attribution
And with the poem a link:
thebardofmurdock.com
A fair exchange, I think.

Thank you, and done.

The Oak Park Outlaw

The scofflaw, Julie Bass,
Rejected trees and grass,
And took to life of crime
With parsley, sage and thyme.

Her crime is avant garde:
The beds in her front yard
Contain illegal greens,
Like peppers, peas and beans.

Thank God the planner saw
Within the public law,
A means to prosecute
Before she planted fruit.

The plaintiff, Kevin R.,
The Oak Park planning czar,
Will see the line is toed
By pointing to the code.

But folks can misconstrue
What’s ‘suitable’ to do,
So Kevin has deferred
To ‘common’ as his word.

And what is more unique
Than cucumber or leek,
When planted in a bed
Where grass should grow instead.

Uncommon as they are
Outside a mason jar,
She’ll need to clear her yard
Of broccoli and chard.

Then justice will prevail,
And Oak Park can exhale,
Devoid of squash and kale,
With Julie safe in jail.

Oak Park's "War on Veggies" goes viral

This morning, I added the following update to Oak Park Woman plants vegetable garden; city objects.

Welcome all of you coming over here from Oak Park Hates Veggies! You've made this entry the most popular post of the week for two weeks running as well as making it the fourth most popular of all time with a bullet. Thank you!

That was only a few hours ago. The post is now the third most viewed in the history of this blog, in addition to being the most popular of the current day, week, and month. I wasn' t kidding when I said it was "fourth...with a bullet." How did this happen?

Simple, Drudge happened. A couple of days ago, Matt Drudge placed a link to The Agitator's post on his front page with the headline "Woman faces 93 days in jail for planting garden in front yard..." Since then, the story has spread like wildfire. Here is a list of the media sources I've found covering this story with links to their articles (Hat/tip to April Alexander at Urban Homestead Diaries for compiling most of these).

Grist: Michigan woman could face jail time for growing a garden

Treehugger: Michigan Woman Faces 93 Days in Jail for Planting a Vegetable Garden

Huffington Post: Woman Could Be Jailed For Vegetable Garden

Washington Post: Julie Bass may face jail time for planting vegetables

Look at that progression. Not only are the environmental publications and the avowedly liberal Huffington Post on board, one of the two national papers of record, The Washington Post, is now covering this story. The issue has even attracted attention from overseas.

The Daily Mail (UK): Woman faces jail for growing vegetables in her front yard

A check of Google News shows 66 results for "Juile Bass", all of which are about this story and are all from July 8th or later. Behold the power of Drudge.

The most recent of those 66 stories right now is from The Detroit News. As far as I can tell, this is the first time this story has made the local papers, even though two of the local TV stations covered the story a week and a half ago. It figures that it would take the story going international before it got the local attention it deserved.

On the subject of local coverage, the Washington Post embedded this video from Fox 2 Detroit's segment on this story. Since I used the Channel 7 embed in my first post on the topic, I should now be "fair and balanced" (after all, this is Fox).

Oak Park Woman Faces 93-Days in Jail For Planting Vegetable Garden: MyFoxDETROIT.com

Speaking of going viral, remember the petition I posted yesterday? Julie Alexander updated her readers on its status Friday.

The petition for Julie is now up to 4,400 signatures in just a few days, and the urban homesteading activists have only just begun.

Brief update on Oak Park's war on veggies for week ending July 9th

It's been a full week since I last updated on Oak Park's "War on Veggies", so it's time to recap this week's developments.

First, I stopped by Julie Bass's house on Thursday just to see for myself what all the fuss was about.* I didn't have a camera, but Julie herself posted a photo of her front yard earlier that day, saving me the trouble. Surf over to the entry to see for yourself.

Here's what the beds look like from the sidewalk (posted last Saturday).






Thanks, Julie, for posting those photos. I hope you don't mind my hotlinking borrowing them to illustrate this post!

Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with her front yard. In fact, I think it looks better than her neighbor's lawns, which the July sun has turned dry and yellow. While I think I know what the city of Oak Park's problem is, if I didn't have any preconceived notions, I wouldn't understand why they are objecting.

In other news, Sue Ann Reed from Care2 commented on my first post on the issue with the following.

Hello,

I saw your blog post about Julie Bass and the ridiculous idea that she is facing criminal charges and potential jail time for growing a garden in her own yard.

The folks from the Urban Homesteading Facebook page have set up a petition on Care2 and we would love your help spreading the word.

Here's the link to the petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/oak-park-hates-veggies/

I promised to post that link the next time I updated on the issue, so, to quote the Emperor of Austria-Hungary from "Amadeus," there it is. Of course I signed, and I urge all of you reading to do so, too.

Other people besides Julie and I have started blogging about this issue. Julie herself published a guest post from Sundari Kraft of Eat Where U Live. Sundari had earlier published an entry to her own blog, Front Yard Gardens vs. a Lack of Common Sense the same day I first posted about Oak Park's "War on Veggies". Sundari agrees with me about the esthetics of the garden.

The vegetable are not unruly or untended — in fact, it’s one of the tidiest raised-bed gardens I’ve seen in a long time.

It's a great post, and you should read it.

Finally, the same day Julie published Sundari's guest post, Urban Homestead Diaries posted In Oak Park Michigan it is Illegal to Grow Veggies in your Front Yard, Seriously. As you read, they were the ones who set up the petition mentioned above. As of the day of the post, 500 people had signed the petition.

As for the rest of the story, read Julie Bass's blog. She has more to say on the matter than I could possibly summarize in a "brief update!"

*My commute takes me through Oak Park, so I didn't have to go far out of my way to do this.

Woman in Oak Park swims against the stream, plus Nablopomo for July

Over on my Dreamwidth and my LiveJournal, I posted the following yesterday.

The following arrived in my email last night.

Hi bloggers,

July's theme for daily blogging: SWIM. Hopefully the Southern Hemisphere will forgive the Northern Hemisphere for having swimming on the brain. But it's more than just pools -- when things are going well, we say they're going swimmingly. We can sink or swim. And of course there are always bloggers swimming against the stream. I think it's a theme everyone can dive into.

As always, bloggers planning on posting every day in July who would like to be on the blogroll can go here and follow the directions at the top of the page. The "official" July badge is here, but please feel free to create your own and add it to the comments there for others to share.

Of course I'm participating. The only question is which blog to submit to the blogroll. I don't have to decide right away. As the instructions at the top of the July blogroll state, "The July blogroll is open until July 4th." I'll probably post to both my Dreamwidth/LiveJournal and Crazy Eddie's Motie News on Blogspot and see how I feel about each on the 4th. Either would work, but I never get worn out from blogging on LJ. I do get burned out knowing I have to blog daily on my Blogspot. Based on that alone, I should probably use my LJ. Since I'm a procrastinator, I'm still waiting until the 4th to decide.

I followed through today by posting "Woman in Oak Park, Michigan, swims against the tide by planting vegetables in her front yard" on Dreamwidth and LiveJournal.

For today's example of "bloggers swimming against the stream," I present Julie Bass of Oak Park, Michigan, who blogs as OakParkHateVeggies on Wordpress. I wrote about her on Crazy Eddie's News on Tuesday in Oak Park Woman plants vegetable garden; city objects, which is the most read post on the blog this week. I guess rebels for sustainability are popular.
...
She now has a Facebook page up, Oak Park Hates Veggies.

If you're on Facebook, please "Like" her page.

Oak Park Woman plants vegetable garden; city objects

What did I tell you?

If you're interested in sustainability on the local and personal levels, your biggest obstacles will be homeowners associations, zoning boards, and city councils. Those people will be wedded to business as usual long after it becomes apparent to early adopters that BAU just isn't working any more. Watch those local governing entities hang onto the past like adherents of a cargo cult.

Case in point.




To sum up the situation, the Bass family of Oak Park lost their lawn when the sewer line running under their front yard was replaced. Instead of replacing it with a lawn, they replaced it with a vegetable garden. Their neighbors complained to the city and the city has cited them with a criminal violation of city ordinances. The Basses and the city have a court date on July 26th. Mrs. Bass has started a blog, OakParkHateVeggies on Wordpress, to record her experience.

I'm not surprised this controversy is taking place in Oak Park.  When it comes to enforcing business as usual (BAU) norms of middle-class respectability as a way of maintaining property values, Oak Park does not play. Oak Park is so afraid of catching what they think Detroit has, which is blight, that they restrict what property owners can do more than neighboring cities and enforce their will with a vengeance. Put your trash cans out too early or leave them out too long and the police will ticket you. Let your grass grow too high and the city will mow your lawn for you and then bill you. You can only hold two yard sales per year and you have to inform the city in advance. If you want to drink wine while dining in the city, you're out of luck; there are no restaurants with liquor licences. The list goes on and on.

Of course, the people who live there and like it make a point of saying that the police will arrive before you hang up your call to 911, but all the above is the flip side of what the locals praise as "great city services." I hope their property values and middle-class sensibilities are worth it.

Personal aside: When my wife and I were looking for places to live in Oakland County, my co-workers who lived in Oak Park tried to convince me to move there. Unfortunately, when my wife and I looked at houses in the city, we were less than impressed. We got a very conformist, unfriendly, and not-at-all fun vibe from the place, so we decided to look in Ferndale and Royal Oak, which were more to our liking--not that those towns are immune from sustainability-related issues involving zoning. Ferndale has chickens and Royal Oak has Kroger. I'd rather have those controversies, thank you very much.


UPDATE:  Mrs. Bass posted a more complete summary after I wrote (and she read) the above.  Please read it.

UPDATE #2: Welcome all of you coming over here from Oak Park Hates Veggies!  You've made this entry the most popular post of the week for two weeks running as well as making it the fourth most popular of all time with a bullet.  Thank you!

While you're here, I have other posts on the subject that you should read.

Woman in Oak Park swims against the stream, plus Nablopomo for July

Brief update on Oak Park's war on veggies for week ending July 9th

Oak Park's "War on Veggies" goes viral

The Oak Park Outlaw by The Bard of Murdock

Good, bad, and ugly news in Oak Park's "War on Veggies"

Boosting the signal about Oak Park's "War on Veggies"

Oak Park's "War on Veggies" is now an election issue and other news

Her day in court

The first year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News: Part 2 of several

As I post more, I'll add them to the list.

Finally, stick around. I have much more on urban agriculture and other sustainability issues on this blog.