SOS - Save Our Suburbs!

I came across this website over the weekend and wanted to share it.  The fact that it comes all the way from Australia tells you that New Urbanism, like a communicable disease, has spread to countries all over the globe.  Europe, Asia, Russia, the Middle East....  all with the promise that life will be better, more sustainable and vibrant if only we followed the Smart Growth PLAN.   This would be understandable if we were talking about pop culture, but a plan for a wholesale transformation of the physical and functional fabric of one's culture all over the world?

I am sure that some elements of Smart Growth are suitable for some locations, but the package is being sold as the cure-all for obesity, sprawl, energy conservation, carbon usage, sense of community, food access (really!), transportation, housingand so on.  It covers just about every facet of one's life.  It seems like a new cause is invented every week to market and reinforce the PLAN on an unsuspecting, or at perhaps powerless population.

People are starting to see what Smart Growth means close up and personal with the Wizer Block development (Evergreen LLC).  Pack 'em and stack 'em.  That may be OK in some parts of Portland, but it doesn't fit the character of our small town.

Take a look at the SOS website, and come to the Evergreen Neighborhood Association Meeting tonight at the Parish Hall (downstairs - entry on the North side of the building) of Our Lady of the Lake church at 7:00 pm.  The developers will be there, and there will be discussion about their plans for the Wizer Block site.  Only members of Evergreen NA may vote in their elections.  Imagine how this development, and those to follow, fit into the larger Metro plan for Lake Oswego.  From the other side of the world, we are not alone!

From the SOS website:
It is harmful to continue forcing these policies on the Australian people. Urban consolidation is an imposed cancer growing unchecked throughout our suburbs.

It is a cancer of increasing high-rise monotony, minimal variety, paved surfaces, worsening mental and physical health and a drain on the resource and well-being of our people and of our environment.