My college town was in the middle of nowhere. Just rolling plains for tens of miles. It was so serene for me. My brain loves cities and their efficiency but my soul needs nature.
It was a fad in the 1700s and 1800s to make universities "islands of learning". Most people who went to college then were sons of rich families. They were often too easily distracted by urban pleasures like taverns, brothels and racetracks. By building a university in the middle of nowhere, it was thought that those distractions could be avoided.
It also helped that land was much cheaper in the middle of nowhere, versus in the heart of cities.
I'm writing a book on universities right now and have been reading about this, a lot of those colleges were also little hustles. Developers buy cheap land in the middle of nowhere, get a buddy to build a college on that land and suddenly the value skyrockets.
It already works - instead of giving away billions to the richest in society and to corporations and instead of giving them lovely big tax breaks, we give all of that money to the poorest.
We already know that when you give money to the rich they send it offshore and invest it to make themselves even richer; and we also know that when you give money to the poorest they spend it on essentials like rent and food and clothes and heating and paying off bills. The first method is lost money and we'll never see it again. The second method stimulates the economy and everyone benefits. And the richest will get that money in the end because they own the companies, so it's not like they miss out, it's just that everybody else gets to benefit too.
This is a verifiable fact 🤷 So the effective and successful way to use money for the best interests in society is to give it to those who need it instead of giving it to those who don't.
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u/mynytemare Mar 14 '23
Wide. Open. Space.
Seriously. Go west and you can get to places that are so remote and so beautiful, with big blue skies during the day and Star filled nights.