Chicken rebuttal

In his Letter to the Editor (Jan. 27), Dan Presson feels as though the Red Star District would be "damaged by the introduction of chickens to our city neighborhoods." The precise opposite is true.

Gentrification and revitalization requires sustained residents, young people 25-35 years old who are investing their lives in such neighborhoods. This is the exact demographic we expect with the new downtown tech industry. They want inexpensive property in safe neighborhoods (think: Soulard in St. Louis). What Cape district is better suited than Red Star to benefit from this effort? I hope they use this momentum to push for gardening centers, community food plots and expanded farmers markets.

One need to look no further than Jackson to see that the fears of "smells" and spontaneous human combustion are simply overblown. Jackson is a clean town where wonderful people live. They allow chickens and have as far as back as the older residents I've spoken to could remember.

Aside from all this, however, this is a property rights issue. Property owners should be able to use their land as they wish so long as they do not infringe on the rights of their neighbors. The fact that Red Star has problems restoring their neighborhood does not mean they should dictate policy to the rest of the city, especially with concerns of noise, cleanliness and disorderliness, all of which have failed to materialize anywhere in this country where municipalities have established sustainable urban agricultural practices as chickens.

Thank you,

Andrew Bard, Cape Girardeau