To the editor:

Build a school, and they will come. Close a school, and they will leave.

If there’s anything I’ve learned in 29 years as an urban planner, that’s it. Schools are the lifeblood of many neighborhoods and perhaps the single-most important factor in a family’s choice of where to live. So much so that in Johnson County, where I work, many people identify more with their school district than the city in which they reside.

Closing schools in any neighborhood can start a self-perpetuating process of decline as these areas become less attractive to families with children, demand for housing declines, property values drop and the downward spiral continues.

On the other hand, building more new schools on the fringe feeds the demand for new housing, requiring new streets, sewers, etc., resulting in more sprawl and more busing of kids out of their older neighborhoods.

Does anyone think the growth in west Lawrence is not, in large part, attributable to the new schools built there?

Must this growth be at the expense of older neighborhoods? If we don’t maintain these older schools and their neighborhoods, we all lose.

We need balance, and the proposal before the school board does not achieve it.

Dean Palos,

Lawrence