The Aegis report, “5 minors arrested in auto thefts,” was alarming on many levels.
At one level I was astounded that children were up and about, unsupervised, stealing a vehicle that they are not allowed to drive and that is not theirs, yet doing it anyway because they either did not have knowledge of the consequences or they did not care about the consequences. At another level, I was angered that they were not supervised by their parents who are not taking that duty to heart, and they weren’t taught by the same parents to have a moral compass, emphasizing the difference between right and wrong.
In this context, I want to say the quality of life in Harford County is deteriorating and fast. This is because county leaders have been bought out by developers,, and they see expansion of housing as their biggest source of revenue. Every time I read about a new development in the county, new buildings, new apartments and condos, the excuse from our leaders is the demand for such development. Really? Who is demanding the growth of Harford County? Developers and people not yet here?
Developers are the best friends of our county leaders. We have an upcoming development where Harford Mall now stands. We have another on Bond Street in Bel Air. Then there is the 109-acre mixed-use development off Route 543 and Creswell Road in Bel Air called “The Valley at James Run.” More trees will be dashed down for a valley where the highlights will be a nearby gas station, a Chipotle, a Starbucks and a Tropical Smoothie Cafe plus a yoga studio.
Drink up at Starbucks, you don’t have to go far if you live at the Valley at James Run, or eat up at Chipotle, then pay up at the yoga studio as you see your middle expand. If that fails to reduce your middle, there’s always Ozempic or Mounjaro. Go to the University of Maryland Endocrine clinic at Upper Chesapeake Hospital to get those two drugs and beat the eating excess so easily available within the confines of your mixed-use community, brought to you via the kindness of Ryan Homes, Chipotle and Starbucks.
Is that the insane ethos?
Funny thing about all of this busy bee housing activity: I checked out the Havre de Grace low income housing website and read there that most apartments have waiting lists and most of those lists are closed out for years. You tell me who needs housing, the homeless and the poor or those with moola to spend, seeking a second living quarters or a high-end property to rent to their own ilk?
The expansion of high-end housing in cities like San Francisco, Miami and New York, have outpriced even the middle class and slowly emptied those cities of essential workers like teachers, police, construction and other blue collar workers, even garbage collectors, without whom no place can run smoothly.
These workers cannot afford to live where they work. They are in high demand and the rich folks who priced them out of decent and affordable housing cannot find them for emergency repairs. Also, in these cities the number of homeless have increased as have open air drug markets and crime.
The wait times are long to find a good plumber or a good repairman or roofer and the cost of hiring one is exorbitant in these premier American cities. The rich ultimately do pay the price in labor costs for pricing essential workers out of home and hearth, and they richly deserve that fate. That said, American counties, like Harford County, have misplaced values, when it comes to housing and development and the buzz words “mixed-use housing” is part of their misplaced values because it entails expansion of concrete at the expense of oxygen-producing trees and expansion of housing without any thought given to essential workers who are kept deliberately underpaid so that they cannot afford the expanded housing.
Coming back to the minors who stole cars in Edgewood and gave a chase to law enforcement, do the Bel Air Police and the sheriff’s department have the manpower to cope with the traffic infractions and the crimes that these mixed-use developments promise or does the county leadership think that high-end luxury apartments will inoculate against crime and degradation?
Criminal tendencies hide within luxury apartments, too, as do drug use and family dysfunctions that can lead to crimes, keeping our law enforcement officers overworked and underpaid.
Despite the increase in real estate revenue the county leaders drool over, I am sure year after year we’ll hear of budget shortfalls and not enough money for quality-of-life issues, like education, road repairs, traffic calming and pay increases for sheriff’s deputies and teachers.
I weep for the natural beauty of Harford County, gone to seed, lost to greed as I also weep for the single-income families and retirees living on a fixed income, who are increasingly out of luck when it comes to affordable housing, not just in cities, but in suburbs across America.
Usha Nellore, Bel Air
