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Page 3 of 4 make informed, collaborative and equitable planning decisions in the face of rapid change. As livable as our neighborhood is today, we've increasingly found ourselves, like many Minneapolis neighborhoods, hemmed in on the edges by voraciously expanding commercial development. Nearby Southdale, with the dubious distinction of having been America's first climate-controlled indoor shopping center, now appears almost quaint alongside the super-sized strip malls, big-box retail stores and prairie's length parking lots that form a wall of sprawl around our city. Cookie-cutter subdivisions, with lofty names meant to evoke the very natural features they've replaced, seem to spring up overnight where cornfields and working farms once graced the horizon, often providing residents little more than convenient access to on-ramps and Olive Gardens. According to Minnesota Planning, by 2020 more than 75 percent of Minnesota's population will live in a 25-county growth corridor stretching from St. Cloud to the Twin Cities to Rochester. Despite this trend, of Minnesota's 87 counties only the seven metro counties are currently required to have regularly updated plans to manage this explosion of growth. The resulting lack of planning and control has led to increased pollution in lakes and watersheds, diminished air quality and other serious environmental and health concerns. Meanwhile, we city dwellers are forced to run an ever-widening gantlet of traffic and sprawl just to connect with nature in any meaningful way. Even here in the perfect neighborhood signs of change are hard to ignore. Skyrocketing property values pose a serious threat to the solidly middle-class roots of the community. We just sold our home -- the first we've owned -- for more than twice what we paid for it, far more than most first-home buyers could ever hope to afford. More disturbing still is a recent trend of perfectly decent older homes being bulldozed and replaced by soulless, oversized structures that loom over and clash visually with surrounding homes. Attached garages, a recent and unfortunate import from the suburbs, limit opportunities for the kind of random, over-the-fence encounters with neighbors that form the social backbone of a healthy urban community like ours. While none of these forces of change is beyond our control, they do require that we join with our neighbors and fellow citizens to be vigilant, proactive and engaged in long-term planning and grass-roots action. Despite considerable cause for concern, I leave Minneapolis with optimism and faith in the formidable will of my neighbors to fight hard for what we all cherish about living here. This community means too much to too many people to easily fall prey to unplanned or unwanted development. I know I'll keep fighting for the neighborhood and for thousands of others like it, even if from a distance. And I'll remain cautiously hopeful that this urban village we've been fortunate enough to call home will sustain families like ours for years to come and will live on in more than just our memories. John Fox is the incoming director of communications for the Orton Family Foundation (www.orfion.org~, based in Rutland, Vt. 8/9/2004