Good News!

Good news! U2 guitarist, and environmental criminal, The Edge, has got bad news. The California Coastal Commission has recommended against his mountain top housing development in the environmentally sensitive Santa Monica Mountains.
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Make no mistake. The Edge argues that because he only wants to build five mega mansions and that he intends to use green technology that somehow or another it's not like building 500 suburban tract houses in the valley. Actually, it's a lot worse. While much of Los Angeles is short on parkland, open space, and recreational areas, it's also true that the majority of L.A. is already developed, and the damage is already done. Too, we do need housing and and the mega developments in already inhabited areas provide homes for large numbers of middle class people who can't afford the sort of luxury that The Edge and his future tenants can. (I'm always open to class based arguments.) Greater benefit can justify some environmental compromises. Benefit for the chosen and wealthy few, can not.
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What Edgy wants to do is to build an exclusive community, which bars those not rolling in cash, by destroying a mountain ridge with sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean. He wants to continue the slicing and dicing of the only Mediterranean type eco-zone in the United States. He fools himself; makes himself feel self righteous, in that he would include green building methods for his development, and that somehow that makes things alright. But, what he can't get around is the building of roads through sensitive, relatively undisturbed land, destroying something that can't only be restored through massive and expensive effort.
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Of course, the fight against The Edge's desecration of the Santa Monica Mountains is far from over. Like most developers, he'll try and change plans just enough to get a go ahead on this unjustified project. Only a Santa Monica Mountains National Park, and the purchase of The Edge's land for this new park, can save it from alteration.
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Also, Tejon Ranch National Park, an idea whose time has come.