Abhorring the vacuum

Once again, architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff has jabbed a finger into a very sore spot in urban planning with his trenchant criticism of the Grand Avenue Committee process (“Grand Plans, Flawed Process,” April 4). Is anybody out there listening to his lonely voice? Must we once again have our souls sold for a mess of pottage in this post-Prop. 13 world by turning over downtown development yet again to myopic commercial interests?

The irony is that, if the values and process Mr. Ouroussoff espouses were to be followed, the project’s commercial success would be greatly enhanced, not endangered. Why hasn’t Mr. Ouroussoff been named to the committee? Obviously, the powers that be are afraid of him. As well they should be. He gives voice to the silent majority, at least if that majority stopped to think as deeply about what real urban planning could mean to this screwed-up city.

I am left feeling only anger and frustration at his powerlessness, and ours.

Curtis Horton

Pasadena