Workplace Calisthenics: Great community can be lost without proper planning

Cal LeMon, of Executive Enrichment Inc., solves organizational problems with customized training and consulting.

Have you ever thought there were just too many people here in the Queen City?

Is there anyone out there who can remember driving to work in Springfield without waiting through three changes of intersection lights?

Does the memory of parking on the Square and running into Heer's to meet a friend for lunch (sandwiches sans crust) on the mezzanine ever drift into anyone's long-term memory?

Remember when there was no waiting to get a table at Fisher's Big Boy, Casper's or Lytle's?

Am I hallucinating, or was it really better back in the 50s and 60s?

Does time scrub our memories clean of the severe back pain from actually lifting a garage door, lying in front of a fan on a 95 degree summer night scrounging to find sleep, or how about driving to St. Louis on a two-lane, death-defying highway?

One of the qualities that attracted me and my family to Springfield was there were fewer people here. Life was slower, and there seemed to be plenty of space between the bodies.

I grew up in New Jersey (yes, I know all the jokes about the Garden State and no, I don't talk like them) and I knew "urban sprawl" up front and personal. There were more people on my street in New Jersey than the entire population of Ozark when I moved here in 1964.

The problem today is I'm having flashbacks to New Jersey when I'm on South Campbell at 7:45 a.m.!

If you have ever tried to find a parking space within a mile of Battlefield Mall during the holidays or waited for an hour in line to dine out with your family, I'll bet you asked between your ears, "Where did all these people come from?"

Well, they are here, they are not leaving, and there are more on the way.

I am not advocating slowing or ending the growth of this incredible community, but I do want to make sure I still live in a community, not an address.

Since most of you who are reading this column make major bucks when moving vans screech to a halt in Springfield, the last sign you want to see around here is, "Sorry, This City Is Full."

We still have time to build this community with another sign, "You can make a living and a life in Springfield."

First, in order to make a life, there has to be a plan.

Life changes, communities change and what gets built on the other side of your home, school or church may change as well. The only antidote for creating an urban wasteland is to have a plan.

Springfield's Vision 20/20 was a wonderful, enlightened beginning, but it is not the end.

I personally know city and county employees who are deeply committed to building a quality community. It is not us against them.

All of us have to agree that our best plans will never be subverted for financial or political gain.

This master plan is a covenant we make with each other to maintain a community, not another forest paved with concrete and accented with strip malls and microwave towers.

Second, in order to make a life in this community, there has to be space. Good, valuable, commercially advantageous land has to be off limits in order for us to walk, run, skip, think, scream, hold hands, listen to a tree grow and breathe.

This continuous scraping-clean of the earth to replace its grimy bouquet with a nicely-ordered landscape of pinstriped asphalt is an obscene gesture we give ourselves.

Third, in order to make a life in this community, we have to decide that sometimes enough is enough.

Since I travel all the time, I have become a dilettante of great, livable communities. In my opinion, they are becoming harder to find with each passing day.

I have driven down strange streets (I was warned not to walk!) where greed gobbled up every speck of gravel. Profit screamed, "Bring them on." There were no limits. Every inch of terra firma was claimed for another "venture."

When I asked about the hordes of people who wander through these neon wastelands, the response was, "Hey, everyone is here looking for the good life."

Nothing looked very good to me. The people looked as empty as the hollow hallways and vacant lots.

I know what a great community looks like, because I live in one.

I'm thinking a lot about this great community on South Campbell at 7:45 a.m.