Saturday, October 29, 2011

Cactus revealed: Cell phone relay tower

This photo shows conclusively that this is not a cactus. Cacti don't have bolts and round screens. This is a cell phone tower. Rather than ugly cell phones, in Scottsdale and Paradise Valley they hide them in fake cacti and fake palm trees. They were installed by a contractor for AT & T, but other cell phone networks are trying to negotiate use of the towers aso.

I think this is a good idea. I drive by this cactus twice a day on my way to and from work. Why should people look at ugly mechanical and telecommunications equipment when a little decoration can make them attractive. Most people who drive by probably do not even realize that this is not a real cactus.

The Paradise Valley Town Council is now having to deal with the problem of these cacti needing electrical meters. Some residents who live near the cacti complain that they don't want to have electrical meters visible on the cacti. I think they should just use solar panels to reduce the electricity usage to a point where they don't need to have meters. I don't think people would object to the sight of a little solar panel.

This week we are showing photos of the the Atacama Desert of northern Chiles on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site. The colors and landscape are spectacular.

5 comments:

Dave-CostaRicaDailyPhoto.com said...

The Town of Paradise Valley is indeed a quiet suburb if a major issue for the Town Council is what to do about the aesthetics of 42 electrical meters on fake cacti.

It reminds me of the time that the town engineer sent out letters and made phone calls to us and other residents to ask if we favored speed bumps or speed humps when they repaved a street a few blocks away.

Most towns are confronting weightier issues.

Jack said...

I think Dave has it right. It reminds me of a parent-teacher conference when my daughter was little. We raised some inconsequential issue about our child with the teacher, who paused and said "Mr. Jack, why don't you save the worrying for the parents who need it?"

Thérèse said...

Nice to see and bother about smaller details... it makes the world more human instead of less.

Sharon said...

I wouldn't have guessed cell phone tower because I thought those had to have those wide panels on them. I've seen the palm tree ones and even pine tree ones but, never cacti.

Teresa said...

Yes, this is news to me, I've seen the palm trees but not the cacti...interesting. AZ needs to start really thinking about more solar energy, heck, I can't think of another place where the sun shines more!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...