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by Rosemary Rowe Remember those little postcards? Last Sepâ€" tember we downtown residents mailed them in to indicate to the planners what our immediâ€" ate and long term goals were for our properties. We are now much closer to the time when the political decision will be reached on the future of our neighbourhoods. During the summer Counâ€" cil has received a detailed report on the study. Next week the planning consultants and the city‘s Administrative Committee will meet to consider it further. Council will soon weigh the recomâ€" mendations of the city planner, Administrative Committee, city solicitor, downtown businessâ€" men, residents and the developers, and accept, modify or reject the central residential district secondary plan. The plan is an attempt to balance the prioriâ€" ties of the Region and the municipality (‘"*expanâ€" sion of the commercial core and concentration of residential densities around the downtown"") with those of the homeowners ("‘stability and limited change"‘). It recommends intense use of land near the main traffic corridors of King, Erb, Bridgeport and Union. For land on the outer border of the district it supports single family zoning. Another controversial recommendation will be that of removing multiple dwellings from the zoning for these conversion areas. Under the proposed plan no new buildings with more than four units could be built, although existing houses *could be converted into apartments. Here Counâ€" cil will have to resolve the confrontation beâ€" tween ratepayers and developers. Published every Wednesday by Fairway Press, a division of Kitchenerâ€"Waterloo Record Ltd. 225 Fairway Rd., Kitâ€" chener, Ontario. Address corréspondence to Waterloo Square, Waterloo. Ont. Telephone 744â€"6364. Unfortunately many of us live in the contenâ€" tious inâ€"between ‘""‘conversion‘‘ areas. Euclidâ€" Menno, Georgeâ€"Allenâ€"John and Albertâ€"Centralâ€" Dorset show both stability and change. With a mixture of single family and multiple use, these areas take the pressure from the growth of the central downtown. The proposed plan shows possible sites for 1500 units (mainly elevator apartments), enough for perhaps 10 years at our present growth rate. But whether these sites are developed remains theoretical. The pressures will be great on these inâ€"between areas, and the plan recommends some assistance in preserving their stability. Thei recommendations are politically controverâ€" sial. Page 4 â€" Waterioo Chronicie, Wednesday, September 10, 1975 What recommendations are being made? A Maintenance and Occupancy Byâ€"Law for one. This would give some teeth to homeâ€"owners anâ€" xious to preserve the stability of their nieghbourâ€" hood. Also, provincial funds for maintaining homes are available with such a byâ€"law. It would, however, necessitate an increase in the bureaucracy of city hall and hence higher taxes. One more point of controversy is the proposed fate of the Municipal Works Yard on Peppler St. The study recommends the site for highâ€"rise development. This would relieve some of the presâ€" sure in the "conversion‘‘ areas. Those who feel that concentrating the residential density downâ€" town increases the need for more green space would prefer to see the works yard put to another use . We suggest you call or write members of Counâ€" cil and express your support of the planners‘ reâ€" commendations, or your concerns about them. Speak out when political decisions are to be made. Downtown perspective In Canada: one year $8; in United States and Foreign countries: one year $10 waterioo chronicle SUBSCRIPTION RATES ESTABLISHED 1854 Humility has become a rather ambiguous virtue. When a person seems noticeably humâ€" ble we wonder what he or she is really up to. And when we are not suspicious of humility we tend to dismiss it as something soft and doormattish, as something not quite wholesome and normal. There is the man who ostentatiously exudes modesty like cheap perfume as be belittles his achievements. But he smiles becomingly when anyone mentions them. Oliver Hereford defined modesty as "the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be awar‘ of it." Then there is the person â€" Qicken‘s Uriah Heep is the classic instance â€" who wears a camouflage of humility over his ruthless desire to rule any roost on which he finds himself. The chap was pretty sure it was Mr. Trudeau he heard and he was fairly sure the message had something to do with you and I and other citizens curbing what comes naturally, such as spending too much money or using too much oil. It was, then, a sort of reminder that in order to make participatory democracy work, citizens must acâ€" cept some responsibility and governments ought to point out particular areas where it should be exercised. A few days, or it may have been a bit before that, Prime Minister Trudeau made yet another appeal to the public to use selfâ€"restraint . I am not sure exactly when it was, for I got it secondâ€"hand from a chap who seems to spend his waking hours watching television while twiddling the dials of a radio at his side. Well, no, Mr. Turner has not had much visible success. Not as yet. But that set me thinking about some other idealistic endeavors that started out getting nowhere and ended up getting accepted. An example of fairly recent vintage was business saying it could not possibly take on social responsibilities and a little later helping to write laws to make sure it did exercise them. That , however, was not the way my informant regarded the message. He scoffed at the idea anyone would heed Mr. Trudeau‘s plea. "Did Finance Minister John Turner get anywhere with his talk about selfâ€"control instead of mandatory controls", he jibed. Business maybe got a bit of help in changing its mind. It may have been reminded that it derives its right to exist from governments and that governments here, if not in places like Russia, are responsible to the people. But as I Viewing the News â€" WE‘RE LIVING WAY BEYOND OUR MEANS! Selfâ€"depreciation if often simply a subtle form Humility and arrogance I Exercising Social Responsibility a business column by Fraser Robertson of selfâ€"assertion and selfâ€"aggrandizement. This common ploy was demonstrated by the man who, when asked by a psychiatrist if he had dayâ€"dreams of selfâ€"importance, replied "Oh no! I think much less of myself than I really am." In both traditional moral philosophy and traditional theology humility is not in the osâ€" tentatious puttingâ€"down of the self but the selfâ€" forgetfulness which sustains the compassionate service of the needs of others, not in grovelling before other persons but in serving their real good. You are not humble when you are concerned about whether or not you appear to be humble: that kind of thing is, in the final analysis, a subtle form of arrogance. It is a certain sign of arrogance to say, "How very good of me to be so humble®"‘ . As for me, I do not agree with him. I keep thinking of those businessmenewho first said no, then thought maybe yes, and who now are well on the way to exercisinlg social responsibilities. I keep thinking of all those labor leaders, and union members, who have learned to exercise restraint and social responsibility. Away from their jobs, all of them are plain Canadians and as a plain Canadian I do not bold that clobbering really teaches responsibility. What about you? There is another big group of people in Canada which also owes its right to corporate existence to government and so, ultimately, to the public. That is organized labor. Mostly, labor leaders are responsible people, but labor, like management has some throwâ€"backs to an era when leaders were ruthless and preached the doctrine that ‘‘what‘s good for us is good for the people."‘ You may still hear some of them say social responsibilities cannot be mixed with union business. Some even have been heard to say, to hell with the public. That chap who sits all day watching and listening to the prophets of doom assured me that there is only one thing to be done to straighten out our troubles. The government, he declared, should clobber business, should clobber trade unions, and clobber the public. He has no use at all for those who, like Mr. Trudeau or Mt. Turner, hope that there is something to be gained by appealing to the better element to set a good example. Anyway, he just cannot wait for results. For a good many years, I have moved considerably among bysinessmen and I have seen quite a change in them. In contrast to the storied tycoons, who only asked what was good for them and for their pals, executives now, for the most part, think a lot about what is good for the Canadian economy, for the public and for their emâ€" ployees. That is a lot harder, you khnow, than just looking after yourself. So the business have learned quite a bit and they are still learning and also are spending quite a lot of time and effort, as well as a lot of money exercising social responsibility . Some even have learned enough to be able to tell governments a bit about exercising social responsibility when party interests are involved. recall it, and I was rather close tothat one, there were a good many senior executives who said that if businessmen did not know how to provide dividends for society as well as for investors, they just would have to learn, and quickly at that.