The plan to develop the Gibbard property has been welcomed by almost everyone, including by me.
I wonder, though, if the residents of the area immediately north and west of the new development are likely to rejoice at the likely prospect of evictions or higher rents. Is this project to be another case of gentrification where the poor and marginalized get squeezed from neighbourhoods and the ‘devil takes the hindmost’?
In our enthusiasm and haste for improvement we should not forget that there are those who stand to suffer rather than to gain.
What can be done to make sure they benefit? How can we be both a prosperous community and a just one, solicitous of – and neighbourly toward — not only the well-to-do and successful but ‘the least among us’ as well?
F. Garth McNaughton
Napanee