A Gated Community

Many people pay big money to move to "gated" communities where they are told that their investment and expectations as to the community will remain fixed; usually by deed restrictions and an enforceable community plan. The environment, the adjacent dwellings and the general tenure of things are all controlled to some extent. Snowshoe and the Greenbrier are a little bit like this concept. Levittowns and Columbia, Maryland are examples of even larger planned and controlled cities. Some smaller land developers and realtors here try this approach too in order to entice sales from those leery of a lack of control. These smaller ventures often fail because there is no supervising authority to carry enforcement forward when all the lots are sold. Pocahontas County is not a gated community or a planned city. It is a living and dynamic collection of many people trying to live together for their individual and common good. I think some people expected, in their subconsciousness minds, that Pocahontas County was like a gated community since it has remained largely unspoiled for so many many decades. And so they are shocked that change might come here. There is no over reaching arm to keep things as they are; not here and not in life unfortunately. Myriad dangers and unpleasant changes can befall us as a community and individually. Interstate power transmission lines, major highways, collapse of the world economy, drug addition, personal health calamities, barking dogs, unsightly structures, robbery, water pollution from highway deicing and weed spraying, your neighbor blasting for a new septic tank and fracturing nearby rock causing loss of your water....the list of harms and complaints is endless. Life is not a gated community.