TOWER CROPPING. Build it anywhere you like, but not in my back yard!
Have you ever been involved in one of those neighborhood wars about building anything new or different in the area?
The most recent series of such community clashes has been about the building of communications towers which are popping up everywhere to help extend the practical range of our cell phones and making them more efficient,hence more valuable. As the telephones have become smaller, the towers they engender have gotten larger and a goodly crop of simulated, add-on Christmas-tree decorations have been appended up and down their cloud-tickling lengths.
Just because a property owner oppose the construction a particular tower seldom means he or she is opposed to all raising of towers. They want to see even that tower built but not here - somewhere else - anywhere else - except "in their own back yard!" One single tower, stripped, is not too bad in too bad in appearance, but I can understand how some people might not like what so many of such towers have become. Many have sprouted add-ons in the form of simulated Christmas-like decorations tagged up and down their slender lengths pointing cloud-ward.
Economically landowners have accepted "towering" as a practical, worthwhile "crop" They have come upon a new way to make the farm far pay and a new way to stay on the family farm for not another generation or two. A firm agreement for rental fees of a thousand or so for the main site - possibly fifty feet square at the most - plus several hundred hundred additional rent money as add-ons are appended. It can quickly become a good thing for the companies who need the towers to keep their businesses growing and any framer can use a bit of extra income.
I wonder what we would find if we studied property sales for farms around our cities. I would like to know how many forward-looking urban persons bought hilly land in rural areas with tower cropping plans in mind.
A.L.M. April 8,2006 [c353wds]
