Back in the mid-seventies, my older brother came to Greenville, his just-conferred master’s degree in hand, as a teaching candidate at ECU. Today, brother John remembers 1970s Greenville as a “one-horse town.”

Not exactly a good fit for a big-city boy with big-city dreams. He declined the position and quickly forgot all about eastern North Carolina.

A few years back, he returned to visit his transplanted brother. I’d moved here from the Philadelphia area, enamored of eastern North Carolina’s beautiful beaches and wide open spaces.

John toured ECU’s campus, stunned. It had grown up, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether he thought he’d missed a golden (and purple) opportunity.

Greenville’s growth, like ECU’s, has been nothing short of astounding. But if both our town and our university are to thrive, the human infrastructure ECU requires — faculty, staff and students — must value what Greenville has to offer beyond campus.

Town planners are meeting tonight to discuss possible changes to our city’s land use plan. If such a meeting sounds boring, remember that the next time you’re sitting in traffic on Greenville Boulevard, fearful of crossing 10th Street near Copper Beech or concerned for your safety in the parking lot at Walmart.

“Boring” meetings like this one are where reasonable, workable planning initiatives first begin to be abandoned to suit developers’ demands for cheap land.

But our city government’s first responsibility is not to developers. It is to those who live, work and play here.

It’s time for Greenville to grow not just fast, but smart; to stop the sprawl that threatens to make our town less liveable, and instead focus on ways to make it more so. Sticking to the city’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan would be a good start.

Tonight’s meeting begins at 6 p.m. at City Hall.

ANTHONY NOEL

Greenville