Urban strip mine

The 21c Museum Hotel is known to attract a celebrity jet set. Should one reluctant member, Bob Dylan, of that uptown class find himself at Lexington’s 21c, he may recall his old lyrics, “power and greed and corruptible seed seem to be all that there is,” as he gazes out the hotel window at Lexington’s own strip-mine operation.

The Rosenberg-Webb calamity has ripped the original Western frontier from our collective experience, and this hole in our heritage is seen as the foil to the high-end commercial development at the junction of U.S. 27 and Man o’ War Boulevard; it is the nadir to the Summit.

Yet as the Feb. 21 article, “Tax relief intended to save Kentucky farms helps pave them instead,” illustrates, Lexingtonians are losing out on both ends of the spectrum, both in their tax base and in how they experience a world-class destination city.

Could this be something that could unite a sense of fairness in conservative and liberal sensibilities, or as expressed in more contemporary lyrics: Is “uptown funk gon’ give it to you?”

This story was originally published March 4, 2016 at 7:44 PM with the headline "Urban strip mine."