Letters

Editor,

I have lived in San Miguel for many years and have witnessed its remarkably rapid growth. At times, I mourn the loss of its small town atmosphere and, at other times, I appreciate the conveniences (i.e., not having to wait five years for a telephone) and improvements. I reside in a “newer” colonia (the city took responsibility for it eighteen years ago) and wrote an article about it for Atención about a year and a half ago. At that time the majority of the streets in Lindavista were unpaved, some impassable. The neighbors on my block organized, and after four months of hard work we received one of the first streets paved there in many years. Interestingly, I noticed an increase in optimism and pride among the residents. The local corner tienda modernized, repainted and planted bushes. The street was kept cleaner and I didn´t notice any more graffiti on walls. Now, much to my great surprise, four more cobblestone streets are going in and the neighborhood has been transformed from a garbage-littered place many preferred not to visit into a very nice looking place to live.

My main reason for writing is to say thank you on behalf of myself and neighbors to the city government for these improvements (finally) to the quality of our lives. We hope that they will continue, specifically in regards to the regularization (one-way or no parking) of the main streets. Calle Ignacio Allende travels through four large colonias: San Rafael, Santa Julia, Lindavista and Olimpo. The buses use it. It is a two- way street (for most of its length) and allows parking. It is a standard San Miguel-width street. Driving its length can be a stressful, sometimes infuriating experience. Personally, I have seen a radio patrol police truck unable to pass and have to back up a block to take a different route. The people watching the situation thought it funny and laughed. At that moment I wondered how the Bomberos or Cruz Roja would get down this street in a real emergency. Other streets like this one (i.e, in San Antonio) are not regularized and require a state of metabolic overdrive to successfully navigate them. They worked years ago only because there weren’t that many cars. Now they don’t.

I am not an expert on social behaviour, but because I have witnessed the positive change in my own small neighborhood, I can’t help but wonder whether putting order to the streets might help impart more orderly behavior, optimism and pride among the residents living on them. My wish is that the paving and regularizing of streets continue so that it isn’t only luck or an “act of god” that one gets down them.


Sharon Conklin