The purpose of building roads and promoting commerce is to improve our quality of life. Some roads and some commerce have been good for us in the past. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that continually building more roads, and more roads, and more roads makes our communities a better place to live.

The town of Holden is being asked by the Maine Department of Transportation to accept a highway that will blast through our town at some point, accommodating tens of thousands of cars and trucks from Canada and New York. Regardless of where this road is built, there is near universal agreement in Holden that this road will destroy the quality of life in our community, both the business community and our homes. In short, it will destroy the very thing in Holden for which we are building this road in the first place.

So we are left to ask. If the quality of life in our town is sacrificed so that other people somewhere else will gain in the quality of life in their community, then at the very least, we should be told who these people are and in what manner their welfare is being improved at our expense. Our sacrifice might be more bearable if we knew who stood to profit. But this part of the story always seems to get a bit vague and foggy. We understand that “commerce” with Canada will grow and trucks can get their products to the south much faster. But beyond this illusive information, there seems to be very little substance to the argument that we really need this road. Somebody needs it, obviously, but do we need it?

The quality of life that we have in Holden was not an accident. For many years, people made a series of choices to preserve and protect our rural character. Many people and much thoughtful debate contributed to our town plan. Holden made a very different set of choices than Brewer, and that is why we are very different from Brewer today. We were willing to forgo the fiscal advantages of promoting businesses like Wal-Mart, because we were building a community whose people had a very different vision of how they wanted their town to grow. I am not saying that one town is “better” than another town. But I am saying that we are different, and that difference should be respected.

NIMBY (not in my back yard) is a word that is used to shame and intimidate people who are fighting to preserve a good life in a small town. NIMBIES are almost always small people in small towns. The big and the powerful simply lobby Congress to write the game plan in their own interest, call it a “national” or “regional” plan, and then move to gated communities when the quality of life deteriorates in their town. The big and powerful have no need to commit to any particular community. But the only option for small people is to stay and fight, and become a NIMBY.

A lot of “regional economic planning” is grossly simple-minded: make more stuff and move it around faster. But this is no way to plan for the long- term well-being of communities. If people think Holden is “stopping progress,” then think again. Holden is progress. More towns like Holden is what we should be promoting for the future, not more traffic through our state. Ultimately, we are in a battle of competing visions for the future. And those who think that NAFTA was good for Maine will love this road. But those of us who love what is small and rural are hearing another drummer.

I don’t know when I have been so proud of my town as I was last Tuesday night when I heard citizen after citizen get up and speak about this road and their love for Holden. And it isn’t always so easy to speak in front of a large group. I hope our town council will be mindful of their responsibility to us, the people who elected them. It is not their responsibility to consider the “larger picture” or to be “fair” and weigh the interest of other communities, or the “regional economic interest.” That job belongs to the state. Their job is to represent the town of Holden.

Our people have spoken in unison, and with unmistakable clarity. We want the “no build” option. And we don’t want traffic running through small, rural, peaceful communities – not for us, and not for anyone else.

Jonette Christian lives in Holden.