Residents need to consider what they want village to be

To the editor:Kudos to Citizens for a Better Ridgewood (CBR) for challenging real estate planner’s preposterous projections of limited school impact. In our globalized economy characterized by free information flows, it’s unrealistic to assume families willing to live in one-bedroom apartments won’t move here simply for the schools. Projections based on “similar” communities are utterly meaningless for the simple reason that there aren’t any.We should be grateful that CBR responded to higher density proposals before the Planning Board. Its calling for “vision” around the “bricks and mortar” part of our future is a necessary, but insufficient condition for going forward. Can we now hear from a community planner? Without arriving at consensus about the kind of community we want, quibbling over building heights, number of units and traffic is like re-arranging chairs on the Titanic.

What do you want us to be? The OED defines “village” as a “collection of dwelling houses and other buildings, larger than a hamlet and smaller than a town…” Ridgewood began as a railroad town centered around shipping farm goods to NYC and the settlement of north Bergen by those seeking homes in the most desirable physical environment on earth (at least for nine months of the year) while making money in what was then one of the least desirable. Suburbanization changed the definition of “villages” and “towns” by creating communities no longer organized around trade, and Ridgewood is currently a perfect example of a community now fully organized around the economy of growing families. The surplus created by families is not money, but people, and nobody does it better!

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