bradipo (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} bradipo) wrote,@ 2008-02-03 14:42:00 |
|
Clever name sought
Champaign-Urbana, alone among snowy places I've lived, has no culture of shoveling sidewalks clear of snow. Many people do, but it is a rare block that is cleared from corner to corner. Many businesses not only leave their sidewalks uncleared, they actually pile up parking-lot snow in the sidewalks, making them completely impassible.
There have been moves locally to mandate sidewalk clearing, but the efforts have bogged down from public resistance--nobody wants the government to tell them they need to shovel their sidewalks, and there's concern about people who simply don't have the physical capacity to do so.
Keeping a sidewalk shoveled for a winter is less work than keeping a lawn mowed for a summer, and there are laws about letting your lawn go. The fact that people in the political argument kept saying, "What about seniors and handicapped people who can't shovel their sidewalk?" while seeming to have no concern for seniors and handicapped people who can't walk three blocks to the pharmacy to get their prescriptions, convinced me that step one needs to be to change public attitudes.
As recently as the 1960s, drunk driving was considered an appropriate topic of humor. You can see movies of the day where you're clearly supposed to laugh as some alcoholic gets poured into his car and sets of weaving down the road. They don't seem funny now, and the reason is that MADD and other groups changed pubic attitudes.
So, I want to change public attitudes locally. I want people to stop shrugging when they see an unshoveled sidewalk. I want people to look at an unshoveled sidewalk and say, "Look at those guys--so lazy that they'd rather see children and seniors and handicapped people out on the road with cars than go to a bit of effort or expense to clear their sidewalks."
To that end, I'm going to create a Flickr group with photos of local businesses that have managed to get their parking lots clear, but left their sidewalks impassible.
And finally to the point of my post: any clever suggestions for the name of the group? I was thinking something like "blocked sidewalks," but I think a clever name might make a big difference in the group getting traction.
Champaign-Urbana, alone among snowy places I've lived, has no culture of shoveling sidewalks clear of snow. Many people do, but it is a rare block that is cleared from corner to corner. Many businesses not only leave their sidewalks uncleared, they actually pile up parking-lot snow in the sidewalks, making them completely impassible.
There have been moves locally to mandate sidewalk clearing, but the efforts have bogged down from public resistance--nobody wants the government to tell them they need to shovel their sidewalks, and there's concern about people who simply don't have the physical capacity to do so.
Keeping a sidewalk shoveled for a winter is less work than keeping a lawn mowed for a summer, and there are laws about letting your lawn go. The fact that people in the political argument kept saying, "What about seniors and handicapped people who can't shovel their sidewalk?" while seeming to have no concern for seniors and handicapped people who can't walk three blocks to the pharmacy to get their prescriptions, convinced me that step one needs to be to change public attitudes.
As recently as the 1960s, drunk driving was considered an appropriate topic of humor. You can see movies of the day where you're clearly supposed to laugh as some alcoholic gets poured into his car and sets of weaving down the road. They don't seem funny now, and the reason is that MADD and other groups changed pubic attitudes.
So, I want to change public attitudes locally. I want people to stop shrugging when they see an unshoveled sidewalk. I want people to look at an unshoveled sidewalk and say, "Look at those guys--so lazy that they'd rather see children and seniors and handicapped people out on the road with cars than go to a bit of effort or expense to clear their sidewalks."
To that end, I'm going to create a Flickr group with photos of local businesses that have managed to get their parking lots clear, but left their sidewalks impassible.
And finally to the point of my post: any clever suggestions for the name of the group? I was thinking something like "blocked sidewalks," but I think a clever name might make a big difference in the group getting traction.
