To the Editor:

I just defended my Ph.D.! Before I was a graduate student, I was an undergrad (PU ‘15). I have lived here for over 10 years. I remember when there was a hospital downtown, when consolidation came up for election, when Hurricane Sandy paralyzed regional transportation (I got stranded), and when the “Dinky” was not a bar.

I have been involved. I served on the municipal Public Transit Advisory Committee, the only member without a car at the time. Together with Tineke Thio and others, I launched the 2021 Princeton Mobility Survey. We surveyed residents, making a concerted effort to hear from everyone. I authored two op-eds about issues near and dear to Princeton. I presented the results from the Mobility Survey at a Princeton Council Meeting. I ran the half marathon twice.

Princeton offers so much! Walkability. Street trees. Excellent coffee shops and interesting rainy morning conversations. Surprisingly social ice cream lines. Classes at the Arts Council. People watching at Hinds Plaza and Palmer Square. Battlefield reenactments. A vibrant faith scene. Slate roofs with mossy patina. Little yards with exuberant flowers and lush green ferns.

Sadly, however, now that I am no longer ensconced in the arms of a rich university that shelters its students from an extraordinarily distorted housing market, I cannot imagine a future here. Renting a one-bedroom apartment costs at least $2,500 per month. Low-cost units are almost always full. A single postdoc or young professional could hunt down a room in a shared house. That house (probably from 1861) will invariably have worn stairs that resemble a slide, mold in the basement, a hole in the living room floor, and window AC units that drone on deep into the night. A single postdoc could live there. But a young married couple?

Every time the topic of new housing comes up, there is a maelstrom of opposition for one reason or another, but people need more places to live. A friend who moved to Windrows in Plainsboro lamented that she must now pay an annual fee to use the Princeton Public Library. It was her library for fifty years! Where are the apartments seniors could move into, allowing them to stay here and allowing their large houses to filter down to younger generations?

I dog-sat for friends in the Riverside neighborhood for several summers. Every time a house was torn down in the neighborhood, it was replaced by a generic McMansion that probably only houses 1.5 people and a small dog. The best way to preserve a community and its character is to expand it yourself. Is there a room you could renovate? Could you use a little rental income and help shoveling snow? Could you build a backyard cottage? Could the lot on your street host a duplex when the ramshackle house that is there now is torn down? Could you welcome new construction that more than replaces aging housing stock? I hope —- for all of us — that the answer is yes.

Jessica Wilson
Formerly of Lawrence Drive,
Hibben Magie Road, and College Road West