Concerned About Local Growth

As a recent peninsula arrival and 70-year-old Seattle-area native, I took note of the statement in the Dec. “Shop Local” feature that shopping locally would “drive property values up” and “bolster the growth of our community.”

Having observed what has happened in Seattle (loss of middle class affordability and transportation paralysis), it has always perplexed me why towns/cities/regions so consistently worship the god of “growth.”

Does the Key Peninsula really want to become an area where people can’t afford to live and getting around becomes a headache? Despite growth boosters’ arguments to the contrary, that is what happens when growth for the sake of growth (and profit) becomes the objective.  People might say it could never happen here, but they would have said the same thing about Seattle in 1960. Seattle developers already have their sights set on Bremerton as the next growth center. The growth beast is insatiable and extends its tentacles in all directions if it is not resisted.

Richard Schwartz, Longbranch