Slow-Growth Controversy

The article “Slow-Growth Initiatives Ignore the Larger Problem” (Aug. 3) seems to ignore the fact that Southern California is dying of arteriosclerosis of the freeways and that we are afflicted with sewage cancer. If we don’t limit our intake of new residents, our bloated cities will explode from uncontrolled cirrhosis of the population!

Like Proposition 13, the people are taking the situation to the ballot box, since our lawmakers are incapable of doing their job of planning for the future. Nearly all cases of growth-control problems cited in the article were a result of inaction on the part of elected officials.

Our situation is similar to the lifeboat that can hold only so many people before it will sink. There is a limit to the population Southern California can support and still maintain the quality of life that attracted people here in the first place. Growth control is more than housing caps and building restrictions. It is an attitude on the part of elected officials, industrial and commercial interests and the public as a whole.

We must decide whether we are going to let the ship sink into the morass of gridlocked freeways, backed-up sewers, filthy air and lack of water to sustain life, or sacrifice some degree of growth to save our life style for the present inhabitants and their offsprings.

BYRON SLATER

San Diego