Hoovervilles on Purpose

God I don't even know why I write these things. But I do. And I probably still will. I want there to be shanty towns.

So here is my thinking: Gov't puts up a little area to the side of a town of some measure, just a little open field or something, a little bit like a park. They outfit it with a couple of restrooms and showers, some drinking water plumbing and what not.

And once the infrastructure is up they could sort of leave it be. I mean, probably some police should still patrol the area and what not.

But I real idea is that there are a lot of discontents in society. From bums to run-away gutter punk kids. And me. And everyone who goes to burning man every year. And all these people want to be somewhere that is different than your average society. And really an open field at the edge of town might be all these people really need to be totally happy with their lives.

Now obviously these little places could become horrible cesspools of violence and evil. So maybe we need some foresight in coping with that. I imagine you could set up a sort of charter for each of these places and get a couple of people to be the sort of caretakers of the plot of land, with a sort of agreement with the local police agency.

Any of course stuff could and probably will go wrong. But you have to try. Instead of squeezing everyone into the middle, how about opening up a little space for the steam to escape every now and again? Or just wait for the revolution.