Eldridge Village, A Complete Community
A powerful, coherent vision can help elevate the goals of the project above niche interests. Funders, progressive developers, and community volunteers are often attracted to sites that have a compelling vision. This compelling vision can help bring significant resources to the project and help it avoid potentially divisive local politics.
Sites of significant acreage without a central, coherent vision are often parceled off to various, unrelated users. At best, this new development misses an opportunity to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. At worst, a divided strategy can result in lengthy negotiations over boundaries and resources, slowing or sometimes halting a project entirely.
— “SDC Transformation Study,” Potrero Group
In this critical time of intense global pressure of rapidly growing population, shrinking land and resources, and dramatic earth changes due to climate change, the sudden availability of the beautiful Eldridge property can be seen as an opportunity to do something wonderful, a gift to the community and a fulfillment of some of our most cherished dreams. But due to its rarity and beauty, it can also become an object of our personal ambition and subject to exploitation for personal and/or corporate profit.
Purchased with taxpayer money in 1890 for $53,000, the property…
