To the editor:

After the inevitable end of cheap oil, I wonder how important it will seem to the citizens of North Lawrence that they have another tanning salon, fried chicken shack, manicure business and compound of storage units built over 141 acres of some of the richest topsoil in North America and where, presumably, desperately needed local food could have been grown.

Strip market retail is just the kind of project the proposed airport “industrial park” developer Jes Santaularia and his Diversified Concepts LLC specialize in. As yet, we have no reason to think that this new development will differ in any significant way.

The future is just one more thing for city commissioners to consider as they make their decision about this proposal.

Kelly Barth,

Lawrence