The Puritan Reading Response Two/outside reading...Crystal Cyr

Upon reading The Puritan Reading, a chapter in Belden Lane's Landscapes of the Sacred, I now have a greater awareness for the center of town as compared to the outskirts of town. As a continuation of my first response to,"The Puritan Reading," I will examine the case of my in-laws. There has been a doughnut effect happening in the past century. Many people who live in the city are moving to suburban areas outside of town. What was once a bustling downtown area has now become a hole, void of human activity. The suburban areas are built on what was once mystical wilderness, and is also far from what was once the axis mundi of the town, or the church. My in-laws are a good case in this respect since they own twenty acres of land a couple miles outside town. They are not in a suburban area, but outside it. They bought what was once farm land, and are now attempting to return it to the wetland that it used to be. They did build a house on the land, however, they only maintain (mow and manicure) about two of the twenty acres. My father in-law plants over twenty indigenous trees on the land every year in an attempt to restore the area to its original state. I find what they are doing very interesting since in most cases people purchase land with the intention of developing and manicuring it. However, they are simply using a small portion of the land and preserving the rest. What a great concept! They are not portioning off the land and selling it to suburban developers, but they are preserving it and attempting to convert it back to its original wetland state. I find this to be a fantastic way to battle the suburban problem that American cities and towns are currently facing. I would recommend that there be more laws that give tax breaks to people who purchase large plots of land with the intent to preserve the area's natural state.