Considering River View

An editorial in today's Tribune (link here) endorsed the River View project for New Albany's financial salvation. It likens the decision we face to that faced several years back in giving thumbs up to the YMCA. The Tribune may be correct in its opinion.

But in the Courier-Journal we read these words from Wendell Berry addressing a different issue, but hitting some of the same points we must consider in deciding if River View is the best view...

"For humans, local adaptation is not work for a few financiers and a few intellectual and political hotshots. This is work for everybody, requiring everybody's intelligence. It is work inherently democratic.
What must we do?" (link to Berry's complete piece)

Berry's piece is, as usual and expected, instructive on many levels. The River View project is not likely to directly affect our agricultural vulnerabilities. Downtown property is not at a decision point of whether to go toward community gardens or toward commercial/residential use. That decision was made long ago.

But we face a monumental decision of how we forge ahead with the River View project. Our decision in 2011 or 2012 will deal the cards for many generations.

Private profit should not be the determining factor in a decision of this magnitude. When the fate of our downtown is on the line, it is time for a wider airing of the decisions we face as a community.

As Wendell Berry said, "This is work for everybody,...It is work inherently democratic."

Open the doors, and let the sun shine in.