Poll Results

Well, the results are in for my first blog poll: as it turns out, my friends are a bunch of mama's boys and daddy's girls, just as I suspected.
Seriously, thanks to all of you who took time to answer the poll. I thought that it was a good question because I couldn't answer it myself: each of the factors that I listed have played such a crucial part in the formulation of my own identity that I would be different person than I am if any one element was removed. Apparently, it was a pretty good question because your answers were pretty evenly distributed too (although I will say I'm a little disappointed in my fellow "surfers", if you even call yourselves that -- geeze).
I do find it very interesting that the one answer that got the most response was 'parents'. It makes me think long and hard about the significance of parenthood: not only do our children become our world, we become theirs. I think we often underestimate the degree to which parents create the environment that shapes young people. It makes me think of my parents and the environment that they created for me. Specifically, it makes me think about ways in which all of the other person-shaping pieces of my past grew out of that environment: my parents raised me in a very religious home; they read to me a lot and gave me lots of books; they brought me up on a Minnesota fishing resort and in LA; my dad taught me to body-surf. I absorbed all of these things. They germinated somewhere deep inside. As an adult, I took several of these things in different directions, different from where my mom and dad have taken them, but it was they who planted the seeds.
It makes one consider the significance of parenting. Thanks y'all.

How Many People is Too Many?

I just got back from my local election place. I'm wearing my American-flag "I Voted" sticker on my lapel, as every true patriot would do. In Charlotte, all of the local issues really revolve around a central issue: growth. We are a city that is growing rapidly. People are drawn here from all over the country because, as far as cities go, Charlotte is clean and green, safe, aesthetically pleasing, and enormously community oriented. Collectively, everyone seems very enthusiastic about our growth. We are looking forward to all of the benefits that growth brings -- increased crime; increased pollution; increased congestion; loss of local character; a break-down of community. In short, it's an exciting time, kind of like watching a healthy, beautiful athlete destroy themself with steroids and human growth hormones.
So all of this has me thinking about growth, and the size limitations of a healthy human community. (Also, I've been reading some interesting essays on this topic, written by Edward Abbey in the early eighties.) When does a community outgrow itself? At what point do we say, 'This is too much. There are too many people here.'? What are the markers of healthy parameters? What factors must we consider? Natural resources seems like an obvious place to start, but what other quality-of-life issues do we look at as indicators?
I'm really looking for feedback here. Is there a fixed number of people beyond which true community as we think of it becomes, if not impossible, severely handicapped? Or do the numbers vary based on the nature of different locations?