From the Editor
Legacy or More Division
By
Jul 9, 2008 - 10:33:28 AM

As communities grow, it’s easy to lose a sense of place. That is, having a distinct hometown identity. If you’re vacationing in Florida, you would tell those you meet, “I’m from Virginia” or “I’m from Richmond.” If you met someone in Richmond, you might say you’re from Chesterfield, Chester, or Matoaca. Or while shopping at Chesterfield Meadows, you may get more specific, saying, “I’m from Chester village,”  “I live at River’s Bend,” or “My home is off Hopkins Rd.”

The description of where you live is relative to where you are when you describe it. Virginia, Richmond, Chester, Stoney Glen West, Lippingham Dr., or right next door to the Bishops, locate you in relation to where you are currently and to whom you are talking.

But as our population expands and communities bump up against one another, it becomes more difficult to describe where you live; to establish that sense of place. And we all have a need to belong somewhere: a family, a community, or even a company. We have a tendency, as humans, to want organization; everything has a place and everything in its place – including ourselves.

That’s why, I think, that as our county’s growth engulfs us with more houses, shopping centers, office complexes, and convenience stores, it’s more important than ever to maintain a sense of place. Where do I live? What is this place? Does it have a name?

As the first mapmaker wrote a name for a dot on his parchment, places began to have official names. More than just the place where the big mountain casts a shadow or where farmers trade wool for fatback, people needed to identify their place in the world.

Think of the five Chesterfield villages. Midlothian is struggling to maintain any sort of identity as businesses flank Midlothian Turnpike from the village east practically to the city and now explode outward to Powhatan County. Bon Air village made a definitive choice not to widen Buford Rd. to help maintain its sense of place. Ettrick village is at risk as Virginia State University continues an expansion program that mirrors, to a lesser extent, that of VCU in Richmond. Matoaca village continues to remain insulated due to its rural location.

Meanwhile, Chester is at a tipping point. The village area remains distinct, and the new Chester Village Green enhances the village core. But if Rt. 10 is allowed to be stripped with businesses west toward the Courthouse or the new Branner Station takes development and robs the village core of its businesses and charm, then Chester will become just another unidentifiable crossroads.

And if we’re not careful, that crossroads will be two five-lane speedways disguised as thoroughfares intersecting in the county’s largest mixing bowl. Rt. 10 already cuts the Chester community in half. A new north/south road designed just like it will quarter the community and tear apart any semblance of a community that we  hang on to dearly.

According to the Institute of Transportation Engineers magazine, ITE Journal, road designers need to think outside the box. Highway engineers should think beyond the pavement, considering livable communities and complete streets. Road building tenets “should emphasize the need to design thoroughfares that respond to a full range of community values while providing mobility and safety for all users.”

An article in the most recent ITE Journal applauds localities that have adopted sustainable development “that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Suburban development has succumbed to overstandardization, and suburbs everywhere have begun to look the same. Tony Druett of Canada Lands Corp. points to the negative results, including over-designed roadways, lack of attention to aesthetics, and a lack of creative solutions.

Druett says that the answer is to “ignore suburban standards, and to customize the design of all the elements… to meet the requirements of each individual situation.”

The ITE article points out that community values are essential to roadway design. Traffic movement, ecology, and especially community including social, economic, public health, cultural, and aesthetic considerations should all be included in roadway planning.

In other words, the road should fit us, work for us, and be part of us rather than be another distraction, divider, or hindrance. While roads should be designed to move traffic, people should always be the primary design focus.

Chester is virtually at a crossroads. Do we become just another major intersection on the way to a bigger, brighter, and newer development, or do we take a chance to create a legacy? The new north/south parkway is being designed as we speak. Plans will be made public soon. It’s up to all of us to decide what the community becomes; a walkable, bikable, safe place for our children and grandchildren to walk to school and cross streets safely, or do we fade into suburban obscurity, losing identity and our sense of place?

Get involved and save our community. Go to www.chesterconnections.org for information about efforts to gain control of our future.

mfausz@villagepublishing.com | 751-0421

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