Opponents to the Cisco campus claim that the campus should not be built because it will destroy open space, bring traffic and raise housing costs.

These are all true, but so what? Yes, housing will go up, because the Cisco employees will want to live close to their place of work, so the surrounding area will become more desirable. That's how a free market economy works, folks.

Increased traffic, probably. But again, so what? The immediate area handles a lot of commute traffic, but there's no way to accurately predict exactly how traffic in the region will be affected. The fear is not a good reason to prevent the construction of the campus.

As for open space, and farmland, don't look now, but we don't _need_ the farmland. Agriculture in the United States is the most efficient and sophisticated in the world. We produce far more food than we can ever consume; we export huge amounts of it to other nations even as the government pays farmers _not_ to grow crops. As for the local small farmers being put out of business, well, the invention of the car put a lot of horse and buggy merchants out of business, too. If they can't see it coming, then they're poor businessmen.

Open space is nice. I like parks. But one of the reasons housing costs so much around here is that activist groups make it as difficult as possible for us to develop the land we have (then they complain that houses and apartments cost too much). Besides, I used to live in a rural area in Tennessee, and open space has its own annoyances. You have to drive forever to do even modest shopping, you're isolated, and the ticks, chiggers, field mice, mosquitoes and other assorted wild creatures are not as pleasant as they look in nature films.

No, I am not rich. My husband and I are middle class and we work hard for our income. If the day comes we can't afford to live here, we'll move, but we won't try to make the government fix it for us.

We need the Cisco campus. It will bring jobs and wealth to the area. Cisco is rich because it is successful, and successful because it is better at making its product than its competitors. Why do we punish this? It's the very foundation of our civilization. We should celebrate and reward it!