Guest View: Field by field, tree by tree a city shapes its
destiny and the cumulative weight of small choices is only
understood in hindsight it seems.
By Jennifer Van Gundy
The Gilroy City Council is facing a far more important decision than they may have realized with regards to the fate of the Deodora cedars. Humor me as I reference a few lines from one of my favorite pieces of children’s literature that are applicable to the situation:
I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues. And I’m asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs …
Do you realize that what we do with Deodora cedars says something incredibly important about the course we are on as a city?
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the story, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax tells the tale of the entrepreneurial Onceler who comes upon a land full of amazing Truffula trees where he sets to work making Thneeds out of the tufts of the trees. He ruthlessly expands his business even as an obnoxiously persistent creature, called the Lorax, keeps pestering him about the irreversible damage he is doing to the land and it’s creatures.
What is most striking about The Lorax isn’t its environmentalist parallels to the situation with the Deodora cedars; what is most striking about the story is that a series of seemingly insignificant, admirably enterprising decisions on the part of the Onceler create a desolate landscape that never could have imagined at the decision-making moment.
As the city council makes their decision regarding the fate of the Deodora cedars, they need to bear in mind that every decision they make is a bump to the rudder that will bring this ship home to a entirely different port of call. It’s time to feel the full, city-shaping weight of small decisions and take hold of a greater vision for Gilroy before we become one of many cities that sold their soul to make a buck.
Look Lorax, I said. There’s no cause for alarm. I chopped just one tree. I am doing no harm.
I lived near Los Angeles for four years while I went to college. Call it the land of the soulless suburbs or call it what you will, but LA and the surrounding communities have cemented and strip-malled themselves silly and the result is this non-descript blur of cities with no natural beauty or winsome character to call their own. My sister and I used to roam about all weekend trying to find somewhere, anywhere, that was restful. Very seldom did we find anything more than a token park and we would return to our apartment with this sick, restless feeling: No sense of peace anywhere and it was deeply, almost subconsciously, distressing. Starbucks was selling it, supposedly, but after your 53rd latte you figured out that it wasn’t at the bottom of the cup. The cities that brought any solace at all, the cities that were restful and beautiful, were (surprise, surprise) the cities that valued their trees and natural beauty.
I don’t believe for a minute that any of the cities that are now ugly and non-descript had the foresight to see the end result of the commercialistic scramble that has put them where they are today.
“So we lose a few trees, so we carve up a hillside, so we raze a field, we have plenty more” was probably the motivating logic. But field by field, tree by tree a city shapes its destiny and the cumulative weight of small choices is only understood in hindsight it seems. Many cities have made the mistake of disregarding the importance of their natural beauty and it has always ended up shooting them in the foot. Just as the Onceler is put out of business when the last Truffula tree falls; likewise, the commercialism that lifts up a city will quite often bring it down.
BUT… business is business! And business must grow … I meant no harm. I most truly did not. But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got. I biggered my factory. I biggered my roads. I biggered my wagons. I biggered the loads …
As they stand at this critical junction regarding the Deodora cedars, the city council might do well to evaluate the values they hold that have shaped the city Gilroy has become. So far there seems to have been an aim to expediency and rapid growth without much of an eye to preserving open space.
I believe I speak for a significant group of Gilroyans who are disturbed by the rapid pace of growth that has held Gilroy in its thrall. It’s not the growth itself that is disturbing, growth is inevitable. It’s the nature of the growth which is on a whole overwhelmingly residential and shamelessly commercial without a whole lot in between. “Cities are places where people live, work, and shop,” you say, “So, what’s the problem?”
The problem is that millions of houses and every store known to mankind do not a great city make. A wealthy city? Perhaps. But even that is not assured when every city on either side is scrambling to have its own set of all the same stores.
I’d wager that one of the defining features of all great cities is that they protect their trees and they jealousy guard the natural beauty of their land. They work around their natural beauty, integrating it into they development, and make it a part of the texture of the city rather than a mere platform to build over and upon.
Think about it: cities like Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Carmel all chose to make natural beauty a valued part of the city. They counted trees and open space as assets in more than just dollar signs and it has paid off in the long term – the cities are inviting and livable. By contrast, Gilroy’s growth has felt haphazard and hurried. It doesn’t feel contained or well planned. It’s sprawling, fast-moving, voracious, and drab. It’s as if every empty fields automatically indicates: “put a new housing development here.”
Now that you’re here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear. UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
It won’t be easy. Recognizing and preserving irreplaceable natural resources is a pain in the neck. Staving off land-hungry developers and shelling out the big bucks to work with and around the community’s natural beauty is a lot harder than giving the nod to the bulldozers. And in a lot of senses it is downright counter-cultural to do so. But reflect on this fact: every community that people speak fondly of, or enjoy vacationing in, or continue to live in generation after generation has this thing in common: they did the hard work to develop and maintain the city’s natural beauty.
What’s really on the chopping block isn’t the Deodora cedars, they are just part of a larger issue. What’s on the chopping block is whether the city will make a commitment to intentionally, sacrificially creating a city that goes against the spirit of the times that says “leave no tree standing, leave no field untouched.” I promise you, the end result of that type of developmental logic is not somewhere you would want to call home.
Guest columnist Jennifer Van Gundy has lived in Gilroy for as long as she can remember (22 years). She attended Gilroy High School and recently graduated from Azusa Pacific University in Los Angeles. She plans to attend grad school and pursue her dream of becoming a Renaissance woman.
