Is this really Minnesota?

Aren't we supposed to be able to handle snow here in Minnesota? Not anymore, apparently. Now, six inches of snow = a "snow emergency." The problem is that there simply isn't enough money in the budget to plow the streets properly. The sidewalks on my street are more clear than the street because people have at least shovelled their own sidewalks (I shovelled mine at 1:00 a.m. last night so I wouldn't have to get up early this morning). But, thanks to budget cuts, the city can't afford as many snow plows as in the past, so we get unplowed streets - even many of the major streets are still a mess this morning.

So thanks to Gov. Pawlenty's "no tax" pledge, to name just one culprit, we're going to have more car wrecks and corresponding injuries/deaths than if we had an adequate budget for a Minnesota winter. Perhaps the Republicans are just hoping that global warming will eventually take care of the problem.

As if I needed more reasons to be salty over this, I overheard a suburbanite friend discussing how their streets and driveways (I don't think they need sidewalks in suburbia) get plowed by their neighborhood association, paid for out of their $16 monthly fees. Now this person is a friend, and most of my family and myself have spent most of our lives living in suburbs, so I'm not trying to lash out at individual surburbanites, but this is just another example of what's wrong with the suburbs. Why do we not have sufficient public funds for winter snow removal? In no small part because of the conservative, "no new taxes" voting bloc that is suburbia. Do they care? No. They'll take care of themselves through neighborhood associations and things like that, leaving the rest of the public on their own to deal with the problem.

As I've written before, this is what suburbia is all about: building a nice white, middle class bubble to isolate suburbanites from the problems and responsibilities of larger society and to take care of Number One first, screw everyone else. Like I said, I'm a product of suburbia - lived there all of my life until very recently. This isn't necessarily a conscious thing at all - but it is the functional effect of suburbia.

It's also really freakin' windy out, so now I've got to go shovel again.