Seems like I wasn’t being clear. I totally agree with the sentiments of your last comment. Indeed, I think that, as Peorians, we all need to be working together to give attention to our common place. We share the same space and have to live together; therefore, we should get busy trying to learn how to live at peace with each other.

What I took away from the quote is that a city is an emergent entity overflowing with life, and therefore it is impossible for any one person to completely embrace and comprehend it all at once. It’s just too big.

I don’t see this as a discouragement from trying to be a part of your city. Actually, I thought that it was kinda nifty, and also a call to humility. Our city is filled with a broad variety of experiences, and we should be careful to avoid making sweeping claims about them all.

(Now, after all that, maybe I just read the quote wrong. )

This is one reason I think community blogging is important. It lets us communicate in a way that’s somewhat less “mass” than mass media, but still more than chatting with a neighbor over a fence.

Mistrust and misinformation keeps us from progressing. There’s no reason why, in a city like Peoria, we cannot find common ground.

It’s entirely possible that I’m reading into the quote. However, what I got from it (and what I was pondering when I posted it) is the idea that there is so much going on in the interactions of people in a city that it’s too much for a single person to take it all in and connect with all of it.

There’s probably a connection between this and planning commissions, too, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.