Merits of immigration, explained simply

From our town mailing list:

Sort of Off Topic since this forum is not ‘Wayland Talk’ but I noticed that some of those ‘Stop the Wayland Monster’ signs now cropping up in [Happy Valley] so I figured it has something become more relevant here. Does someone want to give a somewhat unbiased overview of the pros and cons of this development

Wayland is a suburb where a typical house sits on at least one acre of land (1/2 acre is the zoning minimum; Happy Valley has a 2-acre zoning minimum). A developer is trying to build a four-story apartment complex characterized by opponents as “89-bedroom” (about 45 apartments if they average two bedrooms each).

I know a passionate Bernie/Hillary supporter who lives near the site and summarized his point of view in my response to the list:

My understanding, from a Wayland resident who lives near one of these proposed buildings:

1) immigration into a nation of 325 million is good and needs to be supported with passionate political effort

2) immigration into a town of 13,444 is bad and needs to be fought with passionate political effort

This yielded a firestorm of responses. Example 1:

People who are living there locally are probably objecting to a huge development in their neighborhood that is going to overload the roads and services, add noise and will change the peaceful enjoyment of the area.

American-style auto-centric development is brutal. It makes sense to develop in either in areas with adequate public transportation and services or in small cities trying to reach a critical mass where transportation services other than cars become viable.

So we should grow the U.S. population, but make sure that our own “peaceful enjoyment” is not affected? There are other areas of the U.S. with uncongested roads and underutilized services where the next 100 million Americans will be happy to settle?

The hot-button word “immigration” sparked righteous thoughts, despite the fact that the “immigration” I was talking about was from Sudbury or Framingham to Wayland (i.e., most likely a native-born American moving from one suburb to another):

I missed something: How did this turn into an immigration debate?
Where should immigrants live if not in our cities and towns? Immigration works well if integration is possible, and that is best achieved for small numbers of immigrants in small communities.

The mandate of having 10% affordable housing is very reasonable and needs to be enforced in some way, otherwise it is not going to happen. Wayland proved that point. I am grateful to those in our town who have worked hard to make sure we have 10% of affordable housing, not just because it protects us from unwanted developments, but because diversity is good for all of us.

I.e., diversity is good, but maybe 89 new people (average of 1 per bedroom) is too many for a town of 13,444? A pro-immigration sentiment from another anti-development fellow citizen:

Thank you! And, we should remember that all of us were immigrants at one time, unless you are Native American.

Some of us are first generation, and some of us 5th or more, but, immigrants all.

[To my knowledge there aren’t any Native Americans who have chosen to purchase 2-acre lots in our town so we didn’t hear from them regarding how immigration has worked out from their perspective.]

The simplest response to my note:

Well said. I personally find the Wayland persons comment bigoted and ignorant.

Related:

• How was the immigration of Akayed Ullah supposed to benefit native-born Americans?
• How was the immigration of Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov supposed to benefit native-born Americans?
• How much would an immigrant have to earn to defray the cost of added infrastructure?