Editor: Baton Rouge needs to clean up its act

Published Aug 24, 2012 at 10:00 am (Updated Aug 24, 2012)

While on a family road-trip vacation to Maryland earlier this summer, Business Report Executive Editor JR Ball visited cities big and small, including our nation's capital, and checked out at least a dozen college campuses. "Two facts that could not escape notice during our eight-state-and-District-of-Columbia odyssey were: 1) the horrible condition of Louisiana's pothole-infused roads compared to every other state we traveled, and 2) Baton Rouge is the undisputed litter capital of the South," Ball writes in his latest column. "Even more aggravating—and sad—was the undeniable realization of just how little we in Baton Rouge care about our city and parish. Simply put, we live like pigs." It's not just the "water-stained fast-food bags, extinguished cigarette butts, broken bottles and crushed beer cans" that Ball noticed were absent in other cites. "A drive through suburbia in other states doesn't include a 500-yard cavalcade of signs along rights of way informing me that Toms shoes are in stock, or that a drive-thru pizza can be had for $4.99, or that I can pay off my house mortgage in 18 months," he writes. Read the full column here; and send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.