I saw the headline to this story, and my jaw kinda sorta hit the floor.
It's one thing to be proud of your town's "independent" streak. It's another altogether to be so completely clueless to the world around you as to actually be proud of NOT recycling. Does Houston watch television? Read the newspaper? Green is the zeitgeist! Irregardless of whether you're an environmentalist or a global-warming denier, as a Houstonian, do you really want to be from the city that DOESN'T recycle?
The Times piece clued me in to the amazing fact that Houston is the only major city in the country without zoning laws. (Here's some very brief background.) To which I respond: wtf, mate? "The separation of land uses is impelled by economic forces rather than mandatory zoning"? "Widespread private convenants"? What sort of Ayn Rand nonsense is that? Sure, pure free market principles work in the boom-town days of expansion and sprawl when any cowpoke could stake a claim and put up a neo-brutalist townhouse next door to a pet shop, but they fail miserably when your town becomes so big that garbage trucks can't make it from one end to the other on a tank of gas. Here's a message to Houston, from the rest of the world: this isn't the wild, wild west. Start recycling.
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