Views on land development as exploitation, rather than utilization
Crawford discusses how OWASA intimidated his family into selling off a portion of their land for the Cane Creek Reservoir project. In describing the process, Crawford addresses the nature of land development and his opposition to the means by which it was being accomplished. At the heart of the matter for Crawford is the distinction between utilization and exploitation. Crawford and the interviewer are walking outside, surveying the land, during this portion of the interview.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Sam Crawford, October 26, 1985. Interview K-0006. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JUDITH WHEELER:
-
So, this area was bought from your family by OWASA?
- SAM CRAWFORD:
-
Oh … Well, it was intimidated out of …
- JUDITH WHEELER:
-
It was intimidated?
- SAM CRAWFORD:
-
I mean, when you spend nine years - and just … and my father
is right in the middle of the stuff with my mother all summer [dying of
cancer] … and is just losing it … and my
father just didn't want to deal with it
anymore.
- JUDITH WHEELER:
-
I can certainly understand.
- SAM CRAWFORD:
-
I can't exactly and I can. It has never been a totally
comfortable conclusion in terms of the family. It has always been
somewhat uncomfortable but that was the resolution.
This is also our property here - and the other side. They split our
property in two peices.
- JUDITH WHEELER:
-
How much land did they take from your family?
- SAM CRAWFORD:
-
Fifty acres.
- JUDITH WHEELER:
-
Fifty acres from your family.
- SAM CRAWFORD:
-
Fifty acres… This is a temporary endowment. This is what the
rates are going up 21% in Chapel Hill - and this is about one fourth of,
maybe a fifth of what the cost was. This is what cracks me up.
See that red marker. THat is where our property line starts and begins
back that way. [Sound quality poor- break in transcription. There is a
map up in Hillsboro in the Registrar of the Deeds Office a 1789 map that
calls this Crawford's mountain. [Discussion of family
history]
- SAM CRAWFORD:
-
It really pisses me off to come down here - this used to be a field. This
was our biggest field. It was smaller than this and there was all woods
in here. And, it is weird to talk about it. There was this georgous
little wild marsh land. Down in here were these great big beautiful
plants, big trees way up into here. The field, fifteen acres down there
with a big line of trees all the way across there, big sycamores. It was
this beautiful private secluded field. And you could come down
here and be by yourself. Now there are all these
people here that I don't know. And you can walk down here and
you can see houses. I have never in my life been able to see houses
here; never in any of my relatives' lives could they ever be
able to stand here and see houses. Suddenly, you can see houses, I just
find that…I don't know why it bothers me; but it
does. It does. It is just a change I don't welcome. Not that
there is anything intrinsically wrong with these people. Who owns that
house is Dr Mickey [sp?] But the reason he bought this house was so that
he could change the world, because he wanted to have it near the lake.
So in a sense, his concept of having this place was to make it
different, rather than to try and integrate himself here. His concept
was to make this place for his use. And I think that is what bothers me
about it, is that it is sorta rude. The whole issue is that there is no
sense of coming to know this place, and then saying, "What are
the needs of this place and how can we use it?" That is the
difference between exploitation and utilization. But the concept is how
can we change it to do exactly what we want it to do?
- JUDITH WHEELER:
-
The water does look impressively clean.
- SAM CRAWFORD:
-
Well, it is clean, there is no doubt about it, it is clean water. But, I
don't know that that is the reason to do any particular thing
here.
- JUDITH WHEELER:
-
I agree with you.
- SAM CRAWFORD:
-
And it is certainly no reason to do it this way. That argues nothing for
the fact that you should destroy it. What has made and kept this clean
water is the thing that may destroy it. which is
all these open fields and forest land.