Creativity needed

"Don't it always seem to go / That you don't know what you've got / Till it's gone /

They paved paradise / And put up a parking lot"

I've been singing Joni Mitchell's lyrics to Big Yellow Taxi since 1970. The message was clear then and it's even clearer now five decades later. Progress, especially to advance a profit, is often detrimental to the future.

The Wheaton Park District owns land on the east side of Gary Avenue across from Cosley Zoo. They want to replace the 85-space parking lot on the west side of Gary Avenue at the entrance of the zoo with a parking lot for 150 cars on the land that is currently green space.

It is abundantly clear that taking any action that diminishes landscape and replaces it with hardscape will be detrimental to our already threatened environment, maybe not immediately but eventually.

The Wheaton Park District should reconsider such a permanent solution to perceived parking problems and find creative alternatives that don't involve paving paradise and putting up a parking lot.

Diane Niesman

Wheaton