It takes a village

During a recent trip up North, we were able to experience wellplanned cities. It’s incredible the difference this makes. It was wonderful, pleasant and gratifying. These cities are mixed use (residents and businesses), walkable, friendly town centers dense with social, retail and community activity, complete with tree-line streets. They’re places that you want to go to spend an afternoon or evening. These are the places that you tell a friend about.

We hope the new Agoura Village can be a place that’s memorable, that invites people to return and to spend their time, not a place you drive by because it is more of the same and has no personality of its own. When we create these town centers that are dense with business, residential, retail, civic and social outlets that are surrounded by open space, we embrace the small-town feeling that many of us in Agoura Hills enjoy. We need to avoid the sprawl that has become too commonplace, such as the shopping centers that Vons and Ralphs occupy, business parks and the up-and-coming Agoura Design center.

Many of us want a place that you can walk or ride a bike to, which makes Westlake’s retail centers a poor option. Also, it’s in the best interest of a city to keep its people from leaving the city. David and Jennifer Lebowitz Agoura Hills