Mailbag: A Soulless Village?

This came in from a reader last week. The reader had some comments on the Village Expansion experience. We'd meant to post this sooner, but it kept getting pushed back:

Hello! Just like to say I like your blog. Just recently started reading it. The other day I went down to the Village West. I wrote a few comments about my experience. If you did want to use my letter on your website I don't want my name involved though. That's because I just don't know anything about Claremont's political atmosphere and until I understand more I don't want to publicly comment on things. I'm a twenty-something who has grown up in Claremont and still lives here. These are just my comments. I'm thinking about also sending a copy to the Courier but not sure. Thanks.

Recently, on a Friday night I went to downtown Claremont-the new part. What I felt was different than usual. Wealth and money were in the air around the Packing House and 425 lounge. My father and I stopped in to see what the new lounge looked like. The UCLA-USC game was on and I was a little interested because I am an alumni.

Well, in that lounge I felt business people who are doing "well" and a poshy vibe. I noticed a few people taking in my father-a retiree who prefers wearing golfer-style relaxed clothes and a hat and they were kind of not approving. The girl at the desk had a kind of smirk. Now I understand how some places are like this-like Hollywood, LA, NY, but Claremont? This is a working class area. The people here are smart, hard working, respectable-but we're not posh. And I like it that way. But the people there on that night were and so are a lot of the boutiques and restaurants.

Which leads me to ask myself the questions others have posed-just who was this complex built for? Who were the planners thinking of when they built and planned this? Certainly not my family and friends who are all modest in their consumption, and with good reason. The world's materialistic greed is starting to poison us-literally. More does not always equal better. What message are we giving to our young kids by putting this place with its fancy clothes and corporate business like American Apparel? Buy more, accept the status quo, conform to the latest fashion---and fashion these days has lost most of the soul that dressing ourselves should have.

I just don't like the taste of the materialism, consumerism, and classism down in that new part. The places are nice-don't get me wrong-they're just not us or not the values I consider Claremont to stand for. More is not always better, let me repeat, and you already see the problems like with parking, etc. I saw recently an article for people to come together and help plan Claremont's marketing strategy. At the end of the article the author said, "Let's give Victoria Gardens a run for their money!!" Firstly, I don't like Victoria Gardens-it's so tasteless and artificial, but that's beside the point.

Secondly- Why? Why do people need to be enticed to come shopping here? I know it's part of economic growth, more taxes for the city, etc. but in this time of environmental worry and damage should we really be urging people to buy more, to consume more and to drive their cars further (thereby polluting more of the terribly overburdened environment)?

As someone who lives just blocks from the constant noise and pollution of the 210 and someone who cares about the earth I would say a far better idea is to put our efforts into getting our community involved and together. What if people took more time from driving and spending and started to focus on the community? What if instead of trying desperately to get people to come and visit Claremont we worry about the people who are already here? We're not all driving expensive cars and wearing expensive clothes and drinking expensive wine.

The class division is so in your face down there it stinks and it's endemic of what's going on right now in society but I don't want to get too far off topic. All I know (is there's something not quite relaxing about the new part of the village, something a bit soulless. I don't know if they wanted to create a new Pasadena for people who don't want to drive to Pasadena-kind of like Pasadena is the place for people in that area who don't want to drive to LA, but one thing seems certain, the clothes don't quite fit [metaphorically speaking] and I don't think they ever will and I think we'll all see the difference as time goes by and I have to say I'll most likely stick to the "old" part. It's just a better fit.

Well, there's always the danger that all the changes to the Village will change Claremont in ways not anticipated by the people who've planned it. It's awful hard to not commit to the sort of expansion Claremont has without also committing to the sort of chain stores that are coming in. Just look at Pasadena's Old Town where fewer and fewer Mom-and-Pop type operations are surviving.

Claremont's population of 35,000 simply isn't enough to keep all of the new and old businesses going. Consequently, the town will have to look to attract visitors to spend money. The town, however, is still stuck between committing to that change and retaining the small town feel of the Village, even though it's a little late in the game to go back. The time for the town elders to consider all that was 15 years ago.

And then there was the letter last week to the Claremont Courier from reader Judy Wineberg, who didn't get a very warm welcome at the Village Expansion's Le Pain Quotidien.