We can do better than pave paradise

Re: Company using GM plant for parking lot promises to be a good neighbour, by Trevor Wilhelm, Aug. 28.

“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” The Joni Mitchell song, Big Yellow Taxi, could have been a song about Windsor, about the lost opportunity to transform an industrial wasteland into a new and vibrant residential enclave — a new neighbourhood full of life with shade trees and tidy yards.

A new community with more people to support the local businesses on Tecumseh Road, Walker Road, Ottawa Street and Seminole Street. A lush and green alternative to hot asphalt and glaring metal. But no, let’s not be creative or thoughtful. Let’s be short-sighted and turn this valuable real estate into a parking lot.

So, it’s OK to spend millions on Christmas decorations and statues and dilapidated street cars. It’s OK to spend millions on a new city hall and to streetscape Ouellette Avenue yet again, which, if you like concrete and blah, it’s an improvement. But to put the time and effort to transform — in many positive ways — a blight in this city, into an attractive residential neighbourhood, well, it can’t be done.

I don’t get it. I have always heard that our administrators and city officials are paid generous salaries because “if you want the best you have to pay the price.”

But when it comes to the vacant former General Motors land, the best they can do is a parking lot?