Let us read:
The face of change in Baton Rouge looks a lot like Dan Kahn—a 26-year-old, Harvard-educated public school teacher in a sharp business suit with a goal of improving the community through hands-on involvement. He is not a native. He does not bleed purple and gold. And he doesn’t live in the suburbs. Instead, he works for systemic change, lives in an eclectic downtown community and believes the monumental change will take more than just fixing the city’s traffic problems.
Kahn is just the type of person that city/parish leaders have talked about since the brain drain began in the 1980s. He is a committed and optimistic young professional with the ingenuity, humility and drive to extract the best from a city desperately trying to catch up with the rest of the country. But he’s one of the few Baton Rouge has.
In 20 years, the city will have the chance to reflect on how its decisions have impacted economic growth. What it will undoubtedly have to consider is whether or not it lost the Dan Kahns of Baton Rouge. “I believe in this city,” he says. “I believe in the people here. On a personal level, for myself, this is exactly where I want to be.”
If it chooses not to fight to keep him, it could lose a generation to the faltering job market, the battle for the “center” of the parish, stagnation in downtown growth and a community fiercely opposed to individuals who are different from the norm. But if it chooses to fight to keep Kahn and others like him, the city could emerge stronger, more united and with a better chance of sustaining economic viability in a fiercely competitive global market.
First, this term "young professional." So nice sounding, so pleasant. "Why, of course we want young professionals around, whoever they are." Do you? Do you really?
Why do we need "young professionals" so badly? What's wrong with older professionals, or non-professionals for that matter? Do the labor contributions of the working classes not count anymore? This is typical dickhead thought - only those people with advanced education, "good" jobs, and fat salaries count in the world. (Especially 'young professionals' like our friend above with, wait for it, a Harvard diploma [insert revered sighs here].)
And why do these dickheads wish to change things? What is it about this city that makes it so offensive to these people? Might we not have enough fern bars for their liking?
This city is an overall pleasant place to live. Boring, perhaps, but pleasant. Take that from a former resident of Chocolate City, murder capital of the universe, where thugs wielding AK's in the street are a daily sight, not to mention the cities of the homeless and the breadlines everywhere. People here have no idea how good they have it.
To reach that point, Baton Rouge must understand that actions speak louder than words. It must follow through on developing and sustaining a higher quality of life, it must accept the challenge of diversifying the job market so the city can offer high-tech, exciting careers to graduates. And it must realize that constantly suppressing the hopes of progress through parishwide feuds over libraries and capital improvement packages is chasing away the very individuals who hold the key to the future of Baton Rouge. Lose this generation, let them move to other cities and never come back, and Baton Rouge could slip farther behind the rest of the country.
And how, pray tell, are we supposed to 'catch up' to all those other 'young, hip' cities? The implication that (as usual) State action is needed is quite dripping from the above passage. Oh yes, let's turn to the State as always, to make life better for everyone! That always works wonders!
I would also like to know exactly what makes "high-tech" careers more redeeming and of higher social utliity than "low-tech" careers. Oh, my bad, we're exploring dickhead mentality here. Higher salaries means more tax revenue for the dickheads in charge. Serves to explain it.
Cities like Birmingham, Ala., Chattanooga, Tenn., Nashville, Tenn., and Richmond, Va., received the memo long ago. They grasped that change must happen swiftly so that when they are left to account for their actions, they will still have a place in the economic future and continue to be culturally relevant. Baton Rouge needs to learn from the successes and failures of those metropolitan areas that have risen above stagnation and intolerance.
Apples and oranges. BR is a small city and comparing it to Birmingham or Nashville is ridiculous on the surface. A small city means a distinctly different economy - a better economy, mind you, than the fiat money funded paper pushing racket that comprises the economies of most of these 'young, hip' cities to-day. (Can't you just hear the metrosexual "ohs" and "uhs" every time I write those words??)
What makes people so drawn to the 'young, hip' bullshit, I have no idea. Gotta be led by the nose and be trendy, I suppose. Didn't get NBC very far, though.
“I live in a world that is tolerant and inclusive of all people,” Kahn says. “I will love my students the same; I will respect all society members the same. Like Patrick Henry said, I may hate what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. We need a more inclusive community, and we’re going to get there.”
Don't make me laugh. The intolerance of boobus dickheadus is legendary. If you're so tolerant, dawlin', then come spend some more time on my side of town. Maybe it will open your spoiled little eyes.
And with that high level of education, young professionals bring progressive qualities to the table. The Wall Street Journal and International Business Times describe them as highly educated, highly energetic and highly demanding. They are more politically liberal and often take for granted the modern advances with which they have grown up. At the same time, they are team-spirited, diligent workers, eager to take on challenges and far more demanding of social and workplace equality.
When you see the word "progressive", immediately think "State worshipping."
If these people are the future, to quote an old song, "Future's so bright, I gotta wear shades."
Gotta love how the media likes to lump entire demographic cohorts into lockstep patterns of thinking and doing, as if all people of a certain generation thought alike, ate the same foods, enjoyed the same music, etc. Maybe true to an extent, given the slavish conformity of our age. But guess what, assholes? You have not even begun to consider outliers like me!!
Matt Dawson is another example of why highly educated young people are leaving Baton Rouge. A lifelong resident, Dawson moved last spring to Houston for work. Though he was employed at Joseph Furr Design Studios even before graduating from LSU’s landscape architecture program, he began searching for a more challenging work environment.
“After working there for a year,” Dawson says, “I realized pretty quickly I had no career growth opportunity. Plus, I wasn’t making any money.”
But Dawson didn’t want to leave Baton Rouge. “I was really looking to stay there,” he says. “I was dating someone, I have a single mom and I just like Baton Rouge.”
Ultimately, it wasn’t enough to keep him here. Nor will it be enough to bring him back.
Folks, witness the dickhead mind at work - career first, quality of life second. Follow the money. It's all about "career growth opportunities" now, not investing time in your community and waiting your turn for your time at the bat to come. (Just gotta love the corporate dickhead doublespeak.) And no, a year ain't enough time for that to happen. Patience, patience, please.
The creed of nihilism, folks, has reached a logical crescendo in this particular situation.
Finding jobs that fit the needs and desires of young professionals won’t completely alter the pattern of outmigration. It will take a little something called entertainment. Baton Rouge has already worked diligently to improve commercial availabilities like Perkins Rowe and Towne Center at Cedar Lodge, but young professionals often look for the heart of the city—downtown.
The never-ending need, of course, for dickhead "entertainment" facilities is as always paramount and drives much public discourse in this city. Shit, if I were Joe the Plumber, I'd be asking my elected officials why we cater so much to this singular, rather tiny cohort of people on a public level. Certainly they won't be inviting Joe the Plumber to their private cocktail parties.
Of course the answer is that no politician wants to appear to be standing in the way of "progress", especially if said "progress" translates into an increased role for the State. So when a benighted set of jackanapes proclaim themselves in all their hubristic glory to be "progressive," the powers that be will move heaven and earth to accommodate them. Wish the almightly solons could do the same for those who support laissez-faire capitalism and free markets.
"The question we have had to ask is: If there are vibrant downtowns all across the United States, why isn’t there one in Baton Rouge?” says Michael Trufant, the spokesman for A6, a group a group that says its sole purpose is to improve the Baton Rouge area.
Because the State owns about half of it, maybe????
“It all seems quite haphazard, doesn’t it? An empty building next to places where I have to follow a dress code, next to a somewhat vacant office space,” he says. “It doesn’t all seem to fit in a city that has so much potential.
“I really hope to see a much more coordinated effort in taking a long-term strategic outlook about where this city needs to be, because if we don’t start building for the future, we’re only going to be facing these same problems again.”
While most community and city leaders would agree with him, there is little done to set Baton Rouge’s downtown development on a cohesive, energetic path to change. Unfortunately, it will take that change to become an exciting city for the young professionals Baton Rouge claims to want.
Gotta love the adherence to failed statist models. Never is it questioned that State action is the key to strangulating our struggling central business district.
And what the hell is a "long-term strategic outlook", besides more dickhead bluster and blarney, a deliberate use of words that the "little people" could never understand?
At the end of the day, while jobs and entertainment are priorities, quality of life is an even bigger issue. One of the other attributes of the desired young professionals is tolerance and social acceptance. Millennials and Generation Y are far more progressive as a demographic—regardless of whether they are gay, straight, conservative Christian or atheist—and tend to be far more open. And they expect that from their leadership and their communities.
And why exactly is this a good thing, besides pushing the petty political agendas of the 'enlightened' class? Tolerance means also permitting moral shenanigans that would never have been allowed in a more intelligent age. Y'know, like ghetto parasitism and all that.
(OMG URBAN PRAIRIE SCHOONER IS A RACIST!!!)
Suck my ass, naysayers. I speak the hard truths on these pages. If you interpret that as racism, that's your misfortune.
Tell you what, when you dickheads start treating working folks and people who don't exactly mix in nicely at your wine tasting parties with respect and dignity, and stop denigrating their opinions and way of life, then I will listen to your spiel about tolerance. But until then, SHUT THE HELL UP.
That expectation makes the debate over One Baton Rouge even more relevant. The nonbinding resolution that would have welcomed all residents despite age, race, gender, religion and sexual orientation was a failure of the community to understand that economic growth with young professionals behind the wheel needs equality.
C.D. Wright, EA Sports’ project manager for the company’s LSU location, says, “That’s a huge factor for me. The city needs to be open. They need to be able to accept.”
Ooookkaaayyy....See my earlier post on this topic.Yes, some merely symbolic and quite ridiculous State action was going to make or break my attitude toward this place!! I believe so firmly in making a hollow gesture toward inclusion! It's the thought that counts!!
Ultimately, Baton Rouge is left with incoherent messages to young professionals. It says Baton Rouge doesn’t want to modernize libraries and make them community centers if it means it has to give up a title or a little convenience. It says Baton Rouge will try to improve downtown, but not so much to rock the boat. It says Baton Rouge will give you jobs, but not the ones that you want. It will accept and love anyone like family, unless you are different—because that’s scary and unfamiliar. And when the city is faced with making tough decisions about how to shape its economic future, it will back down and let opportunity pass it by without stepping up to the plate with a valid alternative.
So basically, you've decided here in the above paragraph to essentially trash the will of the majority, to state plainly that the preferred way of life of the working majority doesn't count, that the working man's thoughts and desires don't matter, that we should remove our healthy suspicions toward people and entities (including the State) which threaten our quality of life, place our trust in the arbiters of everything that is "young professional" due to their 'progressive' nature and allow our natural 'betters' the power to control things.
A bald faced, naked grab for power could not be any less concealed here.
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