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I think one of the curious things about Oregon is, partly thanks to our land use laws, how isolated those rural timber communities are. If they aren't on the way to the beach or near an insanely popular trailhead, no one knows or cares about them. I'm not advocating a change in land use, by the way, but I do find it disturbing that for all the "progressive" noise coming from the well heeled elites moving into Portland, there is no talk in Salem of finding relief for rural residents. It's no wonder the folks outside of the Willamette valley hate us, we enact broad land use regulations and scream like dirty hippies if they even sniff at a tree, but then we lose interest in the human cost of our feel good policies as soon as we feel that the wilderness we have no interest in visiting is safe. Shame on us city folk for not reaching across the divide and working to preserve our valuable rural communities.

posted 5 years, 4 months ago
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