Some time back in the 1990s there was a poor to middle class neighborhood off of Sherman boulevard, not too far from the hospital. Peppered with large trees and scrubby oaks, it was more or less on the outskirts of town, but a very old neighborhood of the Muskegon Area...
And then one day Walmart and Lowes made the decision to locate in the area.
They picked that very spot, that very neighborhood to locate their store on. Not near. On. And so they bought up most of the houses in the neighborhood, and for the people who opted not to sell, Muskegon Township condemned their homes and kicked them out with a pittance for their trouble.
People living in the poor neighborhood in Muskegon, MI, USA were intimidated and kicked out of their homes, which were then bulldozed and a new Walmart and Lowes was built on it.
And this, my good reader, is where we come to the subject of wind turbines 6 miles away in Lake Michigan.
Let me get you up to speed on what I'm talking about.
Developers proposed 1000 MW of offshore wind power off the coast of Lake Michigan and opposition has raised a firestorm over the proposal...mostly lake front property owners. The organization against it has raised over $400,000 and is asking housing associations to pony up $2000 per house...per HOUSE...to combat this. Note that $2000 is about a month and a half of the median income for a majority of coastal West Michigan citizens.
And though a majority of people support this proposal, it still hangs in the balance locally and in the capital in Lansing.
So think about it....For the good of the city and for the job and tax revenue from a large business, the city forced relocation on the poor, then demolished their homes. There was no regional conversation about whether or not it was fair or right, or federal and state grants to research why people might be averse to being told to hit the road to make way for a new business.
And with that as the background, one only has to wonder why now cities and townships are seriously listening to those whose homes aren't going to be demolished, who aren't going to be kicked out of their homes. Just turbines six miles away...they'll be small on the horizon. It's easy to know that, all you have to do is go to the beach at the Hoffmaster State Campground and look south to the coal power plant smokestack, which is incidentally about the same height as a wind turbine.
Why in one neighborhood was it perfectly acceptable to ignore the will of the poor to middle class who are against being booted from their homes as their homes are bulldozed...
...but in another neighborhood with lake front property a potential development six miles away has got the cities and township leaders spending months of time seriously entertaining demonstrably false claims against the value and reliability of wind power.
Why in one neighborhood where millions of dollars and hundreds of potential jobs are at stake we're so willing to bulldoze the homes of a hundred families...
...but in another neighborhood where BILLIONS of dollars and thousands of potential jobs are at stake we're willing to shut it down if people can see it...forget about knocking anybody's house down.
As you might guess, I have my theories. And the theories go like this:
The difference is, one group is poor and the other group is rich.
Recently Republican representative Geoff Hansen gave a telephone town hall, filled with the usual tea party type statements one might expect from a town hall, but when the question of offshore wind farms in Lake Michigan came up, the polling numbers were 62% in favor and 38% against.
Similar numbers were found by the Great Lakes Offshore Wind council at their various polls around the states.
The same numbers appear in informal newspaper polls, or a poll conducted by the city of Grand Haven on their website. A similar split can be found in the differences between the numbers of fans on the Facebook pages, 2088 people against, 6869 in favor.
A majority support offshore wind farms in West Michigan.
And yet...somehow the notion is still that people in West Michigan don't want these wind turbines. Though the polls show majority support the article headlines say things like "citizens express concerns about wind farm plans."
The "Why" here is pretty simple, I feel. It's because a minority of rich people trumps a majority of middle class to poor people in America.
One thing that has astonished me about this battle for offshore wind farms in West Michigan is that it seems to cross partisan lines, both for and against.
I can only speculate, but I'm starting to believe it's because this issue isn't a partisan issue...
...it's a class issue. It's an issue of the wealthy expressing their dominance over the poor and middle class at the expense of the poor and middle class.
By the way, we're trying to get yard signs...and our organization the West Michigan Jobs Group could always use donations to get yard signs to counter the massive amount of billboards the opposition has.