But as time passed, it's become clear that an isolated place of ~900 souls is ruled in a wacky way; wacky relative to large, diverse, urban culture, that is. The 'Block Island Times', innterTubes edition, lets one keep up, in precis form, with the goings on there.
The defining aspect of the island is that it's getting close to a terminal case of Nantucketitis (the subtitle tells all): a playground for the summer rich, residents be damned. But, there always seems to be a shortage of funds to maintain the infrastructure of the island, both for the islanders and the summer folk. It seems like the islanders, more or less, are subsidizing the summer folk. The latest example is the continuing saga of innterTubes provision. Here's the 'Times' current reporting on the situation. Near as I recall, the process has been on-going for more than a year, and when I first noticed the story, either when we were there or later, I immediately wondered how to pay for fiber(!) to cover that much ground, that far from the mainland grid, for so few domiciles mostly nicely separated from each other?
One answer was this, from an earlier 'Times' report:
"If you think of this as something you need to move forward in your life, it's just something you'll pay for," said committee member Kristine Monje.
Take that sheeple; shut up, we make the rules! And, you should really read through this report as well, to see how small town governance really works. In a nutshell, rubes are just fresh meat to mainlanders who know the score. Having been involved with 'consultants' who, titularly, were to protect our interests, it often happened that the real client was one or more of the RFP crowd.
Well, this week's report on a pricing/cost protocol, shown first, appears headed where it had to: the rich summer folk will "socialize" (yes those crusty don't-tread-on-me New Englanders will use the word when it benefits them directly) the cost. The only question that remains is, to what degree? Interestingly, the town fathers hold out the possibility of fractional payment; if you open your summer house just in July and August you might only be dinged for two months of charge. Now, that will defray the total sum for the islanders, but the only true remedy is to make hook up mandatory for all domiciles, no matter the months inhabited, and pay up that fixed cost of service. The mansions way up Corn Neck Road, for instance, set back half a mile will pay more than the affordables on Cherry Lane. That's how economics is supposed to work. Whether to charge all hook ups twelve out of twelve for service, even when there's no one on the innterTubes in January, is another matter. Most of the cost is amortization of the infrastructure build out (direct cost of service for as small an area as Block Island is basically the power to push the little photons down the glass), so mandatory hook up would go a long way to protect the islanders from catastrophe.
I think one of the things people don't realize [relates to] the question of capital intensity and having to keep spending to keep up with capacity. Those days are basically over, and you are seeing significant free cash flow generated from the cable operators as our capital expenditures continue to come down.
Here's a tale that might curl your hair.
It remains, to my mind, an open question whether useful innterTube service at a Gb/sec is really necessary. Download a movie in a minute or so? Does that really matter? We get Xfinity copper/wifi at 54Mb/sec/computer and no complaints; when it runs, that is.
So, on to the next stage of enamoredness. Small town governance is nothing to which one should aspire. It's not someplace to call home. Just look at Iowa, a collection of small towns run by rubes, scalped by con artists. That was Jefferson's model. Progress and invention and all the good things that make your next generation better off than you are happen in cities. Full stop.
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