TJ Ray

By TJ Ray

Columnist

 

Nine years have passed since this was written, perhaps making some of it a bit confusing.  Nevertheless, the concerns of the piece still persist.

When I was in graduate school in Oregon in the 60’s, that state began erecting a kind of Keep Out sign on its borders.  The words welcomed visitors to the beautiful Northwest but urged them to go home after their visit was over.  Perhaps it is time for the City of Oxford to do what Oregon did.

I fully realize that it is unpopular to see clouds over the Nirvana we live in, especially with fond memories of Double Decker joy echoing in recent memory, particularly as it is far too late to salvage the beauty that was once Princess Hoka’s hunting grounds.

In recent weeks the process of envisioning our future has been operating, with many folks from all over the community offering their thoughts as to how Oxford should grow. 

One of the topics that I heard nothing about in the sessions I attended was those chunks of the County that will be bitten off by the City.  

No, there was little talk of the lack of planning that produced the  Old Taylor Road nightmare — and is rapidly infecting the South Lamar area.  Nor was there much conversation regarding the traffic nightmare that blights the town early in the morning and by mid-afternoon.  

If there were sessions dealing with rezoning areas to prevent more big-box developments, I missed them. An inescapable conclusion of the conference was that the voices heard most represented commercial interests in the community, one way or the other.  No voice was raised to represent folks who abandon the town on game weekends and such.

Have you ever seen a poster announcing that Bigger is Better?  Would I be in error by suggesting that such a sentiment isn’t always true?  For instance, is a university better by overgrowing its resources?  Is a town better in proportion to the increased population numbers it shows each year?  Is Nirvana the result of overgrowth? 

The University takes in a jillion new bodies.  Many of those bodies, faculty and students alike, have kids that require more public school space.  Most of those bodies have one or two cars that require more street and parking space.  And all of this produces a glorious opportunity for making more money.    

Builders get more projects than they can handle.  Land owners suddenly see the pot at the end of the rainbow—though some see the old family place condemned to make way for a new road for all those new cars.  And caught smack dab in the center of all this are the folks who manage the community.  

They are beset by people who want the “old way” of life here at the same time developers are suing them to rezone such and such a piece of land to erect 800 more bedrooms.

And somewhere in all this turmoil are the folks driving those early morning and late afternoon cars into and out of Paradise, going and coming from Water Valley, Calhoun City, Batesville, Pontotoc, and Holly Springs and all the rural area around.  

Those are the citizens who simply can’t afford to live in the city.  At every session I attended at the Vision 2037 planning, someone inevitably remarked that a most significant need of the town is affordable housing.  

Twice I heard the suggestion that neighborhood developers set aside a portion of their land for low-rent houses.  Fat chance that would ever happen!  My memory of the donation of the old faculty houses by the University was to provide low-rent housing.  If you believe that came about, let me interest you in my Ponzi plan.   

It’s well and good that well-to-do alums and retirees want to come play in the home of the Rebels, but it has created somewhat of a dual population:  those who can afford to live here (which doesn’t even include all new faculty, who may not be able to do so) and those who work here (and who take their paychecks to be deposited in banks in those other communities).

It won’t happen, but I’d like to experience one day in Oxford when folks wore a ribbon to indicate whether they live in the City or outside.  My bet is the outsiders would outnumber the locals.   And with that we turn our attention to the County, which in many ways is at the starting point with having to absorb an invasion of new residents.  

Meanwhile, perhaps someone should rethink the wording of those very nice welcome signs at the County line.