Letter to the Editor / Become tourists in our own town

By Rosalind Brackenbury

Dear Editor,

I like Erin Rust’s suggestion that we become tourists in our own town, support local businesses, take time to enjoy what the tourists enjoy when they come here.  But I’d like to suggest too that we take this time to consider how we want our town to be, and what level of tourism we can really welcome here.  Friends have been saying to me, “At last, we have our town back!” as we meet on quiet streets, on foot or on bicycles, and many of us remember just what it was that we used to love here.  Tourism in itself is fine, but I think we need to think about limits – as do other small destinations like Venice, Amsterdam and the Greek islands, as well as larger ones like Paris and Prague.  Residents in all of these places have been overwhelmed by the tide of mass tourism and the pollution and noise it engenders.  Many people who live in these places either move away or suffer the claustrophobia of huge crowds.  So – we have a moment to think about all this and come up with a kind of tourism that really suits this place – this very small island – on which we live and work.