Observations - A Park Or A Parking Lot?

It’s hard to think beyond today. Our lives are so busy, our challenges so numerous, our involvements and interests and concerns so fractionated that we hardly have time to think straight, let alone worry about tomorrow or 50 years from now.

I’m no different from most everyone else I know, in that I can easily rationalize that something I intended to do today can, after all, be put off until tomorrow. I do it all the time, which may explain the long list of good intentions and piles of “to do” notes gathering dust at the corner of my desk, awaiting my demise so that someone can come in and throw them in the wastebasket.

The experts keep harping that too few of us plan ahead for college tuition or for retirement or even for wills or health care directives. The good news is that most of these things affect only ourselves and our families, not the broader community.

I can think of exceptions, however! A prominent local citizen repeatedly promised to leave $800,000 to his favorite nonprofit organization when he died, but he never got around to putting it in his will. The organization asked his son if he would honor his late father’s stated intention. The answer was no. So in that case, the repercussions from one man’s failure to get around to implementing what he intended to do went far beyond his family. A large community resource and many thousands of citizens were affected in a significant way.

Still, you might ask, if our failure to plan ahead usually results in problems only for ourselves or our families, why is this a matter of concern for everyone else? There are two answers, the first being that if enough people fail to provide for their own retirement or health care or schooling, those inevitably become society’s problems, at which point they do indeed affect everyone. But the second answer is the one that keeps popping up on my radar screen: It is our responsibility, all of us, to discuss, envision, and start building the infrastructure that will enable our communities to grow, to prosper, and to deal with looming societal changes.

People who are paid to predict such things tell us that downtown Minneapolis will attract tens of thousands of additional residents and workers over the next 50 years, yet there was seemingly no plan to reserve property for public parks to continue the city’s great tradition of green space and leisure-time amenities. When the city decided to sell the five-acre property next to the new Guthrie, several developers offered to buy it and squeeze in more massive structures. Then Bill and Nadine McGuire donated millions to turn the riverfront space into a park, and people with vision stood up and cheered. They understood that 50 or 100 years from now, citizens would appreciate that park as we today appreciate the vision of decision makers 100 years ago who set aside all the park space we enjoy today. Sadly, some of today’s decision makers argued against the park because it wouldn’t bring in any tax dollars, as a nice, ugly, concrete apartment building would. Happily, the park prevailed.