Crossing the Void

I live in Avondale Estates. It's a nice neighborhood, but between us and Decatur, also a nice neighborhood, lies this void, this no-man's land that is unincorporated DeKalb County.

You've driven by it; that strip of College Avenue that seems to consist mainly of used car dealers, liquor stores, auto repair or detailing shops, and cheapo discount stores. What an embarrassing eyesore.

The Avondale MARTA Station lies at one end of that strip, and to get to it a pedestrian has to cross an obstacle course of parking lots, weedy fields, and broken pavement. Sidewalks? Hah! Dream on. This is unincorporated DeKalb, pal!

Both communities are attempting to take control of this wilderness, but there's resistance from the landlords who own property along the street, who use the language of Libertarianism to justify their lack of maintenance. You've seen the sign: "Annexation - Legalized Stealing!"

Last year I called that landlord because when I'd walk with my wife to the Marta station, we'd pass by his (for sale, good luck with that...) lot, and the sidewalk was choked with Kudzu overflowing from his property. I left a polite message asking him to trim his weeds, and received a curse-filled screed back from him, telling me that the county should cut the weeds (hmmm.... not very Libertarian there...), and a suggestion that I should have intercourse with myself. Even worse,  he called me a "liberal." How could he know?

I guess it is we liberals who do things like maintain our property and keep a civil tongue in our heads.

What we see on College Avenue is the ultimate result of free-market, laisez-faire, libertarian policies - total anarchy, lack of social responsibility, and worst of all - rudeness to a total stranger. I say, yeah... let's incorporate this void into either community (I couldn't care which...), and require these property owners to at least maintain their property to some minimum standards.

And maybe in the future we could even get sidewalks to cross that vast expanse of commercial wilderness. Hope springs eternal.