Trying to curb the growth

San Antonio is a growing city, and, according to Express-News columinst Carlos Guerra, it's growing too fast. In fact, he wants outsiders to stay away.

Fellow San Antonians, the time has come to move to curb San Antonio's explosive population growth. I'm not a native, mind you, but I love San Antonio as if I were, and it is a love born during my childhood, when my family's periodic trips here brought me close to the many magnificent trees this city once had, its architecture and the friendly people.

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Alarmed by the destruction now visited by the rapid migration to our city — almost all of from legal aliens from the United States — I am forming the Lesser San Antonio Chamber of Commerce to counter the mindless growth long advocated by another organization of vacuous boosters that I will not dignify by naming.

As the self-appointed executive vice president for communications of Lesser San Antonio, I am also asking that you send me true stories — or halfway believable lies — that we can spread about our city to discourage people from moving here.

Guerra's column sounds a bit tongue-in-cheek, but not by much. I think he truly wishes that not one more person would move to this city, one that he admits he is not a native of.

I disagree with him. Cities change over the years, whether they grow or shrink, and I would rather see more people wanting to move to my town than to see a wave of natives fleeing it. Monitoring and controlling the growth of the city is a good idea, but making outsiders hate it isn't. We don't need to be scaring anybody away from San Antonio.