Aerial Photo: 1958

(Click on image to enlarge)
Photograph courtesy of the Indiana State Archives, Indiana Commission on Public Records.

My first impulse was to write, "Nothing to see here, folks. Move along," but then I took a better look.

Houses have popped up in the countryside like zits on a high-school junior's face the week before prom. Comparing this photo with the three 1939 aerial photos, we see several new houses in the vicinity of Ainsworth School (at the center of the photo) and a whole enclave along Old Lincoln Highway west of Dekalb Street; the land along Clay Street and Route 30 has grown neighborhoods where in 1939 it grew only scattered farmhouses.

If the observer effect and the critical-mass phenomenon had a love child, they might call it People Moving Out to the Country. "I've had it with the city," you might say, "with the crowding and the traffic and the crime. I'm moving out to the country." But by moving to the country, you change the country. Perhaps you move into an existing house, so your impact is softened. Still, you bring your citified ways with you, for example, putting up a chain-link fence to contain your dogs, and asking rabbit-hunters to stay out of your field. Or perhaps you buy part of a field or a forest, bulldoze it barren and build a new house. "Ah, the country life!" you might say as you walk out in the summer sunshine to spray herbicide on the wildflowers marring your perfect lawn. And then comes another bulldozer, a new neighbor, another three cars, another perfect lawn. And another. And another. And another. And then a big box store goes up down the street, and then another, and you find yourself sitting behind the wheel of your car, complaining about the traffic and wondering how many more people can move out to the country before it becomes suburbia.

But the analogy to critical mass is probably inapt. You don't see or feel a bomb going off. The country ceasing to be the country is more like a person ceasing to be young. When did it happen? How do you know if it's happened yet? And, really, is it so bad? Being old has its good points, even when your knees ache and you have to take your glasses off to read.

… I can't believe I wrote all this nonsense based on one 1958 aerial photo. I am going to go do something productive, like cut down trees.