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Future density not so bad

Editor: Re: We’re densely building our future, March 18 letters. I’d be happy to enlighten you, Dee. It’s called progress. I know that’s a bad word. You can also blame WAC Bennett. He built the Deas Island tunnel and suddenly everyone wanted to live here.

Editor:

Re: We’re densely building our future, March 18 letters.

I’d be happy to enlighten you, Dee. It’s called progress. I know that’s a bad word. You can also blame WAC Bennett. He built the Deas Island tunnel and suddenly everyone wanted to live here.

You certainly paint a pretty picture of the ’50s, but let’s think about it. People didn’t have to rape the land for large lots because all the lots were large. Large enough to have fallout shelters. Remember those? We were in the middle of the Cold War. Vegetables were cheap in the summer and impossible to get in the winter.

Do you remember the cars? Two-ton death traps. Party lines on the telephone. Canada with only 15 million people instead of the 34 million that live here now.

Don’t blame immigration. I arrived in Canada as an immigrant with my parents and four siblings in the ’50s. My parents loved it so much they had another four kids, after they bought a house, something they never could have done in Holland.

And that lot you lived on with your wee cottage – probably worth around $2,000. Aren’t you glad that it’s worth $500,000 now? Your retirement money.

And talk about pollution. People were burning wood then. A plume over every house. And when you went to the hospital there was a user fee. That’s why it wasn’t as crowded.

There are still places like what you are dreaming about, Dee. They are in the Interior or back east. You could move there with your retirement money.

Sorry, Dee. I like it here the way it is. I took a walk on the promenade and the pier today. I love seeing the families with kids; lovers, old and young holding hands.

Maybe you should get out of your wee cottage more often.

John Bootsma, White Rock