We've all heard the line, "Times ain't like they used to be", and yet, so often we don't consider the philosophical significance of it. Of course, we indulge in delusional fantasies because we find the real world a tough place to inhabit. You see, wherever I look nowadays, there are changes. The other day I went into our nearest big town to visit old friends, and I hardly knew where I was. There used to be nice little streets in the downtown area. I loved them. Where are they now? The downtown streets were so dirty, strange, and ugly. I feel rather embarrassed to admit that the city was not a place where I wanted to be when I grew older.

Unfortunately, it seems there is little concern about how development could occur in the downtown area. The fact is, contemporary architecture has changed the landscape for the worst. The truly reasonable men and women who know where the solutions lie are finding it harder to get a hearing. They are despised and mistrusted by politicians. Are they aware of the problems they cause with all these changes?

There were some lovely old buildings near the market some years ago. Where are they now? Are they going to pull down the old cinema next? Are they going to tear down the town's library? To me, these are just examples of the changes which are made in our community every day. I'd never thought that my hometown would change in such a short amount of time. When I've lived there it was much more pleasant, undeveloped, and less populous. Today, everything seems to change in split seconds. When is the pace of change going to slow down? In fact, we have two problems: pace of change and bad choices. Again, I doubt that politicians will ever hear us about these matters.

I think you see what I am getting at. This connects directly to the "throw-away" society we live in today. There is a question that I ask every time I think about that. Is the increasing transformation of our cities the cause of some of our social problems and mental illnesses? I don't know. But what I know is that we should make changes with a little more thought for the effects on people. Maybe there's a connection between troubled lives and certain decadent neighborhoods. Perhaps, I thought, we need to find out new participatory roles for interested people in our fragile democracies.
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