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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Keep It Livable

For 25 years, residents of Five Mile Prairie fought to preserve the rural beauty of their windswept, big-skied plateau, which floats above the northern Spokane suburbs like a memory of the city’s agrarian past.

They lost.

The prairie’s fate is sealed. Its deep, rich fields, where meadowlarks sang and tractors plowed, will grow cul-de-sacs. Will sprout, row on row, with gable-roofed suburbia.

The only question now is how livable the prairie will be. And that is a serious question indeed.

The last big chunk of unplatted farmland will be sold, its owners say, to a developer. It would be wrong to criticize the owners, Willie and Ida Forsgreen. They argued for years to keep development on the prairie’s scenic rim, away from the fertile fields. But no one’s standing in line to take over the prairie’s farms. Indeed, the suburbanites gripe about the roosters, the tractors, the dust. And the economic returns from small farms can’t hold a candle to development.

But if the prairie is to become a suburb, shouldn’t it at least be a lovely one?

Alas, the prairie instead is testimony to fractured government and broken promises. For 25 years, city and county officials have talked about improving the prairie’s access roads and for 25 years they have failed to make the talk reality. The access roads are still steep, narrow and twisted; city buses can’t use them and for fire trucks they’re nearly impassable and dangerously slow.

There are no schools or businesses on the prairie. There is talk of a park. Only talk. There’s a severe flooding problem. But there are hundreds of homes, with thousands more approved.

This threatens to become a bedroom community in the most monotonous, isolated sense of the word.

During the last month, county and city officials have met with Five-Mile residents concerned about the area’s infrastructure problems. That’s a good first step. But after 25 years of empty talk about infrastructure and amenities, how about some real commitments and real investments, so that when homes finally do cover the prairie, the inhabitants will be glad they live there?

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board