In layman's terms, plankton is just some small organisms that are found in the sea that the average community could care less about. In reality, plankton provides a crucial link in the biodiversity of the oceans of the world. Without plankton an ocean will not be able to survive. If you could for a moment, imagine all the oceans of the world separated by a glass enclosure. The Demarcation lines between each ocean would be the glass enclosure that prevents marine life from changing oceans, in this example.

In such a scenario, nothing would change as far as aquatic life is concerned. Each ocean would be able to sustain aquatic life as we know it. Now take one of the oceans; let's use the Atlantic for this little experiment. Remove all plankton from the Atlantic. At first, the impact of such a move would be hardly noticeable. After all, plankton is so small and insignificant until it shouldn't matter. However, within a few short years the impact of such a move will start to have an impact on sea life of biblical proportions. The Atlantic will be labeled as a dying ocean. Marine life on one side of our glass enclosure would be thriving, while life on the Atlantic side would be struggling to survive.

Even if it were possible to restock the Atlantic with marine life, the ocean would not be able to sustain it because of the absence of that often thought of as insignificant little organism called plankton. There is no other aquatic life form that can have such an impactful effect on an ocean's ecosystem and sustainability if it is removed.

To complete our little experiment with our beloved Atlantic ocean, we will drill penny-size holes throughout our glass enclosure. Now within a few short years, the Atlantic will be alive and thriving again! The holes we drilled allowed plankton to penetrate our glass enclosure from neighboring oceans, which quickly set in motion the healing process by stabilizing the food chain.

Today we have an ongoing debate about why the westside of Alachua County seems to thrive while the eastside remains stunted. Mayor Harvey Ward attributes the eastside disparities to the fact Interstate 75 runs through the westside. City Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut thinks a sports complex on the eastside would solve the disparity issue. Alachua County Growth Management blames eastside disparities on the Floridan aquifer.
There has been an exhaustive amount of expensive studies done on this mystery that have yet to reveal anything close to the truth. Trying to list all the promises, pledges and commitments that have been offered up by a long line of local leaders as well as NGOs (non-government orgs) down through the years is the stuff carpal tunnel syndrome is made out of. Every new crop of leaders who devote themselves to addressing the problem not only gravitates toward the same errant conclusions; they also try to repackage and push the same old failed solutions.
Referring back to our dying Atlantic Ocean experiment, you can bet the expert class (scientist and environmentalist) who believes in starting with a conclusion and then working in the evidence totally dropped the ball on why the Atlantic is dying. Their hubris would not allow them to accept how plankton could have such an impact on an ocean. A lack of plankton as the answer just isn't sexy enough for the experts. They know they can control the narrative by chalking the dying ocean up as a victim of climate change or putting forth a killed-by-plastic theory.

The eastside-westside paradigm is not very difficult to understand. The westside thrives because of an overabundance of plankton, and the eastside suffers from plankton deficiency. Government infrastructure spending serves as the plankton in the food chain of a thriving community. Infrastructures spending works like magic in that it is equivalent to the first domino to fall, which subsequently creates a chain reaction. Abundant government infrastructure spending sets off a positive multiplier effect; while a lack of government infrastructure spending sets off a negative multiplier effect. It becomes laughable when the experts say there should be no money wasted on infrastructure until community life improves on the eastside.

Infrastructure spending on the eastside seems like a waste of money to those who are enjoying the fruits of infrastructure spending. When the government invests in large capital projects that bring new and improved infrastructure to your neighborhood, you benefit immensely. Those property taxes you paid actually returned some benefit to you. This is a common theme on the westside. The government pumps in a bountiful supply of plankton and the big home equity fish thrive and become even bigger. Contrast that to the eastside, where property taxes are paid but the plankton never gets pumped in, so the home equity fish just don't grow very large. Fish tend to migrate to where the feeding is good, and the 2020 Alachua County sensus data reaffirms that.

The best way to fully comprehend this article is to go on a little tour of a plankton-deficient neighborhood. A very good place to start (if you are interested) is SE 20th or 21st Ave starting in the 2700 block (off Kincaid Rd, near Alachua County Sheriff's Office) and heading east. I use these two streets because they are classic textbook cases of what plankton deficiency looks like. As you drive up either street, the first thing that jumps out at you is how well maintained the homes are. However, the purpose of your tour should not be to observe the homes but the infrastructure (plankton) surrounding those homes. After driving through several blocks of homes you will be hard pressed to point to anything that looks like any recent government spending. No sidewalks to speak of, decrepit asphalt-paved streets, no bike lanes, no ADA (American Disability Act) community infrastructure, no storm water infrastructure, and nothing that indicates the government knows or cares that this place exists.

The amount of property taxes collected from the stunted unincorporated eastern half of the county is eye-popping in that it is shockingly close to the amount collected from the thriving western half. One of the most troubling aspects of the eastside-westside paradigm is that eastside homeowners get to pay the same rate of taxation as their westside counterparts. It is not possible to have an intelligent discussion on eastside-westside disparities without objectively touring a plankton-deficient neighborhood to see the causal nexus parsimonious government infrastructure spending is fueling.

Communities that are not privy to infrastructure spending policy decisions are clearly placed at a disadvantage in numerous. Sparse infrastructure spending in a community means that community shifts from fungible to non-fungible. In other words, standard community assets become almost impossible to place a true value on; things like home appraisals get reduced to the appraiser's discretion rather than being based on true values arrived at through gathering comparable (comps) values. in to the owner. They provide a roof over your head, but we know homes today can be a very good asset to help you achieve financial freedom. Big healthy communities become big healthy communities because of what government plankton does for them. Big healthy home equity values become big healthy home equity values because of what government infrastructure spending does to a community.

When identical homes within a few miles of each other appraise at wildly different values, it speaks to how little the dimensions of social engineering is perceived to be understood by the experts. The big question is why do social justice advocates ignore this and look the other way? This should be the first topic of discussion in any eastside-westside fact-finding endeavor. Most, if not all, of our community's social ills stem from issues related to money. The divide between the haves and the have-nots is real, and getting wider. Westside homeowners, because of their proximity to the plankton spigot, tend to grow bigger net worths than their eastside counterparts who are woefully deficient in plankton. You can propose stocking the eastside with event centers, hotels, grocery stores and anything else that would be indicators of a healthy community but without the plankton, these things will not survive very long.

Again, referring back to our Atlantic Ocean experiment, when we drilled holes in our glass divider plankton was able to come in and soon the Atlantic began to thrive organically on its own. Before long, big fish could be found there that were not put there as the result of some man-made process. The same will happen to the eastside if the government imposed sanctions on infrastructure spending are removed. New development will sprang up and an influx of new market-driven priced homes will attract the next generation of bargain hunting home buyers. Then comes the stores, shops, and eateries, along with everything found in a healthy community. Free market enterprise, when allowed to work naturally, is a powerful force, even on the eastside. Lincoln Estates and Duval Heights, two large eastside housing developments, were born out of free market enterprise before social engineering was adopted by local government.
The role government malfeasance plays in preventing community life on the eastside from evolving at a healthier level shouldn't be downplayed.

In a perfect world the amount of government infrastructure spending between east and west would be equal dollar-for-dollar. For every dollar spent on infrastructure on the westside, you must match that amount in infrastructure spending on the eastside. Since we are not living in the time of perfect worlds we have to settle for next best. The goal should be to revive the eastside by bringing back community services organically; a 2-to-1 split in infrastructure spending would be sufficient to accomplish this.
Groups like Friendship 7 and Gnv4All can haggle and harp over eastside kid-westside kid test scores from now to perpetuity and never have a clue, because comparative test test score data is meaningless if the data doesn't take into account mitigating factors like exact conditions. Plankton-deficiency qualifies as a extenuating circumstance and can have widespread implications.

The takeaway from this article should be sanctions matter, so the next time a group or organization present the results of their findings on why the eastside lags behind the westside, check their material to see if there is any mention of the current 97% to 3% imbalance in infrastructure spending. Remember, an ocean with only 3% of its normal amount of plankton will barely be able to maintain marine life as we know it.