The Walt Disney Company pitches its sprawling Storyliving community as a boon for tiny Pittsboro, N.C., but it’s got some locals saying, “There goes the neighborhood.”

“The world is tough, it’s getting tougher, and therefore we need a sanctuary, a place where it doesn’t feel like you’re just getting by or surviving life, but really living.” So went Waystar RoyCo scion Kendall Roy’s pitch for luxe assisted living community Living+.

Like many of the vaguely dystopian ventures dreamed up by the “Succession” writing staff, Living+ took inspiration from reality: plans by the Walt Disney Company to expand its parks and resort experience to residential and retirement communities under the brand Storyliving. Imagine the best of Disney World mixed with the pleasing aesthetics and predictability of Seahaven Island in Jim Carrey’s “The Truman Show.” Doesn’t that sound magical?

It depends whom you ask. Disney chose the California desert for its first Storyliving community. Named Cotino, the project is currently in presales. The company will be heading east for the sequel, which it calls Asteria. When Disney announced its plan to break ground in Pittsboro, a quaint town in North Carolina’s Chatham County, local developers reacted with enthusiasm. Chatham County Board of Commissioners Chairman Mike Dasher’s statement is exemplary:

We are excited to learn that Storyliving by Disney selected Pittsboro, North Carolina, for its second residential community in the United States. Chatham County looks forward to working with the Town of Pittsboro, Disney, Chatham Park, and DMB Development as the Asteria community comes to life in the coming years,” Dasher continued, “This announcement is the latest major economic development project to choose Chatham County. We are thrilled about the innovative and unique lifestyle that this community will offer our residents as well as a variety of great jobs for our local and regional workforce.

Another win for the region

Dasher’s optimism makes sense. North Carolina has been notching a lot of wins lately in the nationwide race for jobs, economic development, and new residents (primarily disenchanted blue-state refugees seeking the southeast’s lower taxes and cost of living). The Raleigh-Durham area alone (Pittsboro is about 30 miles from Raleigh-Durham Airport) has attracted investment from Wolfspeed (semiconductors), VinFast (EV cars), Boom Supersonic (aviation), Toyota, and Apple. With Disney’s addition to the list, the future seems bright indeed.

Moreover, the pitch for Storyliving makes it sound like just the kind of development an up-and-coming area like Chatham county should encourage. Disney promises a blend of metropolitan amenities with a small-town atmosphere, complemented by ample parks and extensive trails for walking and biking. The development will feature over 4,000 units for single-family and multi-family homes, with designated neighborhoods for residents ages 55 and up. Sales for homes within this Disney utopia are expected to commence by 2027 and cover 1,500 acres in Pittsboro, Chatham County, forming part of the larger Chatham Park community.

Magic or tragic?

For the people who will actually live with Asteria, the story is more complicated. I grew up in Chatham County. Pittsboro, the county seat, has a population of just 4,537. This is an area where the town’s police department is supported by fewer than a dozen patrolmen and officers. Not much is going on there, and people there like it that way.

Take my high school friend Eileen, who lives in Pittsboro and is far more pessimistic about the Mouse House coming to town. “We [already] have a huge issue with water pollution, mostly from Greensboro, N.C. There are also several upscale housing developments here that are unpopulated – with a great need for affordable housing.”

Asteria is unlikely to fill that need. While residents of Pittsboro can expect ample opportunity to work within the community, owning a piece of it will be out of reach for most. The county’s median annual income sits around $50,000-$75,000; a house in a Asteria should go for 20 times that figure, if the $1-2 million price tags for Cotina living are anything to go by.

Nosy neighbor

Disney may also bring with it the same baggage it brought to Florida: contentious politics. The state’s solidly Republican legislature will have a skeptical eye on this utopian community so near the state’s capital, and government watchdogs should be tracking any efforts by the state to subsidize Disney’s new colony. North Carolina participated in the rat race for Amazon HQ2 by offering up $2.2 billion in subsidies for the corporation, but in the end, it did not outbid NYC and Northern Virginia.

These days, of course, Disney’s controversies extend well beyond matters of municipal tax policy. Will the same obsession with DEI and “woke” that tarnished Disney+ and Disney parks come to Asteria? Recent SEC filings show that the company knows all too well that it has been alienating its fan base: “Consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brands.”

But that doesn’t necessarily sound like the company has plans to change course. And including “fostering a culture of lifelong learning” in its goals for Asteria does sound an ominous note, given what passes for “learning” in 2023. At the very least, locals might want prepare themselves for some truly epic HOA-type battles.

Originally published here

Is it the job of the federal government to ensure that AM radio lives to see another century? According to Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), who introduced the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act back in May, the government must ensure auto manufacturers keep AM radio technology built into next-generation vehicles. 

Like the consumers who drive them, cars change with time. They change to keep up with the expectations and demonstrated preferences of consumers. That’s why Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has offered an amendmentto the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act that would remove the AM radio mandate and nix the electric vehicle tax credit within it that subsidizes EV purchases. He is right to do so.

You might recall, as I do, when every decent station wagon in America had a cigarette lighter, ashtray, and cassette player. My 1992 Ford Taurus station wagon certainly did. Of course, by this time in my life, CDs were the standard for listening to music in the car. Gas stations in the early 2000s sold portable CD players to tape cassette adapters that allowed drivers of older cars like me to plug their Discman into the car’s stereo system.

It leads me to wonder if the cassette tape industry had lobbyists fighting for their survival in Washington, D.C., like the radio broadcasters do with the National Association of Broadcasters backing Markey’s bill.

The AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act has amassed 43 co-sponsors, including Democrats such as Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI) and Bob Casey (D-PA), as well as Republicans such as Sens. John Hoeven (R-ND) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA). Democrats tend to support this measure in the name of public safety, citing AM radio’s importance for emergency notifications such as the kind that could have saved lives during the recentHawaii wildfires. 

Automakers say the AM frequencies create buzzing noises and faded signals within their newer EVs. The technologies aren’t mixing well.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) sought unanimous consent for the legislation, which would have the Department of Transportation mandate AM radio access in all new motor vehicles manufactured and sold in the U.S. Paul’s objection and amendment throws the bill back into standard Senate procedure, which allows for amendments and a final vote.

The subject is divisive for libertarian Republicans such as Paul and his more conservative colleagues such as Cruz who view preserving AM radio as a free speech cause. “I believe these automakers stood up to remove AM radio as part of a broader pattern we see of censoring views that are disfavored by Big Business,” Cruz remarked. “I think this is consistent with what Big Tech has done, silencing views they disagree with. And so this bill is all about preserving consumer choice — letting consumers decide.”

This makes little sense. Consumer choice is not about putting anything and everything in a car that consumers could want. Mandating the inclusion of a Red Bull cooler beneath the glove compartment isn’t suddenly a matter of consumer choice because the driver can choose whether or not they want a Red Bull to drink. Auto manufacturers are keenly aware of what drivers of new cars value, and it is not AM radio.

Cruz’s desire to make automobile design standards a part of the culture war is disingenuous and a betrayal of limited government principles.

Consumers can hear Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Buck Sexton anytime they want on smartphones using iHeartRadio apps, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and a long list of other options. The idea that a consumer buying a 2024 Tesla or Toyota won’t also have a smartphone armed with these capabilities is laughable.

For drivers who place traditional radio atop their list of concerns, there are used car lots for a reason.

However, Republican politicians understand that there are progressive forces in Washington that seek to limit access to older model gas vehicles and gradually regulate them out of the market. In such an event, regulators would force all consumers into new EV cars in the name of environmental metrics, while simultaneously quieting the noise of their likely critics on talk radio.

That’s why the Consumer Choice Center exists, and we’re in the fight for choice to ensure that kind of outcome isn’t possible. But Cruz is not helping by muddying the meaning of consumer choice with efforts to protect legacy industries such as AM radio on behalf of the broadcasters.

Originally published here