GREENFIELD, MASS. — I also appreciated the article by Joyce Marcel on housing supply and homelessness. In 2022, for family reasons, I tried to find an apartment in Brattleboro with zero responses to inquiries. Now, I've been there enough to know you are not rude. Inundated?
Call this a casual data point on your supply constraints. I can only imagine how hard it is at lower incomes.
Another angle on housing is transportation. My sense of Vermont is that, despite the concern to preserve the environment, you are more car people than the city dwellers where I used to live. The impact of more housing is as much the impact of more cars and the asphalt holding them as it is the building, yes? And so with total costs to provide it.
Can people spread across small towns live car-free (or car-left-home)? Can there be more than one train a day or inter-town bus networks?
With fewer cars, could some of your asphalt fields be sites for apartment buildings or even town parks?
If we would live at lower energy and land intensity levels, would you fear less the hordes who would overrun and ruin your place? Or might improvements be sopped up by us and not get to those in need?
Perhaps it's just as well no one returned my emails if nothing can be built.
This Voices Letters from readers was submitted to The Commons.