The End of Excess

I don't want this to come out the wrong way, but there's a part of me that's glad that we're going through these tough economic times. I know how that sounds and believe me I'm not trying to be insensitive towards anyone whose out of work or has been adversely affected by what's going on. I know first hand what it's like having recently been laid off myself.


But with that having been said there's some good that can come out of this. I mean did we really need a Starbuck on literally every street corner? Did we really need 27 newsstands in Penn Station? If the long term affect of this economic crisis is that we downsize our supersized culture into something more reasonable is that so bad?


In my home town of Oceanside there are 13 pizzerias and 6 pharmacies!!! Think about that for a second. We have 6 places where you can go out in the middle of the night and buy nose drops if you have a stuffed nose. Would it really be so bad if there were only 2 or 3 places that sold nose drops? Sure that would really suck for the employees of those other 3 stores but I'm sure they could find something else to do in time.


Instead of fretting about how bad the economy is we should be using this as an opportunity to reevaluate the way our society is set up. We've wasted so much time building unnecessary things that we've lost sight of what's really important. Real life isn't the Sims. You can't just build something and then hit the undo button. There are real consequences to what you do out here. And we need to do a better job of maximizing our resources and building things that we actually need.


Some cities have started to get that message turning abandoned stripped malls into community centers. But there's a lot more work than needs to occur. And it's about time that we did something about it. That new shopping center can wait.