To the editor:

Hello! My name is Sean McCaslin and I am emailing you for the

communications merit badge from boy scouts. My topic is about the

transition from town to city. it seems very clear Vienna would like to

stay the way it is. Tons of small businesses now thrive and make a

friendly community. Schools do well and there are beautiful parks and

sights. This amazing place sounds so good that more people would like to

live here.

The dilemma is more people might mean fewer small businesses and a less

connected community. I believe there is a better way to handle this

change. As we have more people moving in we would have to expand but

keep it simple, for instance, we might have to get higher production

rate stores as long as they serve community needs. We must trust the

small businesses if we're serious about expanding. We could give certain

small businesses grants to help them to be more successful and expand

our economy. As these “Medium businesses” start growing, we could have

enjoyable cafes and restaurants with more capacity for the growing

population.

Regarding housing, we could start working on slightly larger

improvements, similar to the recent Church Street proposal to the Vienna

Town Council. If there were more of these sorts of buildings, with

hopefully more capacity for resident apartment renting, the increase of

people wouldn't be so harsh. This plan is not perfect and takes a lot of

work, but I truly believe we could be doing more with this town.

Sean McCaslin, age 12

Thoreau Middle School, 7th grade

Vienna