Oak Park is essentially becoming a gated community without gates [OP trustees hire firm to create economic vitality plan, News, July 31]. Retailers have been migrating to the borders — or out of town. The interior has caught the fancy of folks who are willing and able to outbid others for homes and to bear the costs of government without the support of a significant industrial and commercial tax base. Put in a high-end golf course, move the few remaining gas stations to the borders, and Oak Park could be Geneva National with cross-traffic. Or, with a few more senior living facilities, The Villages.
It’s surely a useful exercise to envision a different future, but massive redevelopment and business corridors are a pipe dream. The footprint of the village is 125 years old and the land is fully built out.
It would be much more efficient to start with an empty swath of land and design it from the ground up as a planned community than to attempt a radical retrofit of what is here. We can’t even figure out how to enable people to bike and/or walk safely from Point A to Point B.
Bob Stigger
Oak Park