Belmont: More cars! More pollution!

Belmont (the Utica to our Manhattan, if we may make such a daring analogy) is an on-the-go suburb, in love with its cars and asphalt, and with no time for such frivolities as parks and people and conserving water. Mayor Coralin Feierbach is one of the only Bay Area mayors to refuse to sign the Sierra Club's Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement, objecting to the pledge to "reduce sprawl, preserve open space, and create compact, walkable urban communities." Those crazy Al Gore environmentalists want us to WALK? What next!

The idea behind the Climate Protection Agreement is that dense housing (that's multi-unit buildings, like a duplex) near transit will reduce car usage and oil dependence and air pollution, transforming miserable freeways to pleasant pedestrian corridors. But Mayor Feierback must LOVE misery -- because she's moved to preserve asphalt over environment.

"How are we going to take care of our water supply?" She throws up her hands. Well, easy, says mayor of Redwood City Barbara Pierce: we already know how to conserve water with reclamation and bioremediation, we just have to do it. And do it she has: since signing the agreement, she says that young folks from SF have been moving to the dense, livable areas of Redwood City. "Suburb" doesn't have to be synonymous with "sprawl."