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California
Santa Cruz Resident Addresses NIMBY Concerns in Editorial Praising Smart Growth
'''Smart growth' is the environmental and humanist choice,'' writes Santa Cruz resident Amelia Timbers in a Santa Cruz Sentinel guest opinion, calling high-density mixed-use redevelopment the best option not only for ''preserving the environment and creating enough housing stock to keep prices remotely affordable,'' but also for ''making efficient public transit feasible.''
Unlike suburban sprawl, which ''makes cars indispensable,'' density ''makes cars a liability,'' she observes, refuting claims that change would threaten neighborhoods' integrity or quality of life.
''These things are actually diminished in calculable ways by pollution, traffic, isolation and car dependency, which are the real qualities of suburban life,'' she notes.
''Sometimes, wealthy neighborhoods kill good smart-growth projects in the name of aesthetics or other feelings that mask a range of true motives: fear of change, fear of who might move in next to them, fear of diversity or fear of dissatisfaction with the upgrade,'' she continues. ''We must act despite our fears for what we know is right; that is called courage. Our community is one of courage.''
She is confident that dense mixed-use projects near older homes don't destroy local integrity.
''That is because community integrity is not structural, like a house,'' she writes. ''Community integrity is not concentrated in our things, our walls, our leashes, our fences. Communities have integrity because of the people in them, because of who we are and how we live together. Community integrity resides in us, not around us.'' -- Santa Cruz Sentinel 5/6/2007
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