Working Class Neighborhoods

This is an open letter written to the Wausau City Council where they want to once again change the zoning back to industrial in a working class neighborhood.

Working class neighborhoods are constantly at risk. Historically they always face higher pollution levels which lead to less access to opportunities for a better quality of life. We are so quick to develop and create an aesthetic appearance in our city, but what about under the surface? How do most of our residents live? Most of our citizens are working class. There is pride in being working class, it is what our city was built on. The citizens in the Cleveland Avenue area are working class, and they deserve better than the city trying to further pollute their neighborhood by you, trying to change residential zoning back to industrial.  They do not want more industrial. They deserve to have something to enhance the quality of life in their neighborhood. You wouldn’t get away with this in a more affluent part of town. Average neighborhoods have fewer financial resources, and they are expected to bear the brunt of evil. Developers and policy creators make quality of life a commodity for those with money You develop for the elite hoping to attract new people to town but what do you do for the ones who have lived here all their lives? So much for those folks, there is a lack of investment for the ones who call Wausau home. Are you telling them they don’t matter, that they should just suck it up and continue to shell out tax money for you? You’re leaving them behind. This is discrimination and it is in the hands of you who develop policy to listen to the needs and desires of residents to make Wausau sustainable for all its residents.

There is unity and strength in helping one another, and that goes a long way. Do the right thing, vote to leave this as residential zoning.

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