I have lived in Cupertino since 1981. Never once have I thought, "Gee, I wish we had a downtown." What I appreciate most is that it is a nice place to live. On my scale of things, a city should have good government, a safe environment, and the convenient location of nice places like Memorial Park, Quinlan Center and the senior center. There should be lots of places for kids to skate, skateboard, play basketball, kick a soccer ball, hit a baseball or just run around. There should be cultural places like De Anza College and Flint Center. There should be cultural places for kids to learn music, dance, art and more about their cultural heritage. There should be great schools (sometimes this is out of the control of the city), which we do have right now. And having wonderful weather doesn't hurt either.

If you really want to experience the "town of Cupertino" come to some of the summer concerts in Memorial Park. As you listen to the music and have every wonderful nationality/culture surrounding you and kids being kids all over the place, you feel like you are under the stars in an old-fashioned town park hundreds of miles away from Silicon Valley. Where does it say I need a downtown to make my life better? A creative real estate agent once put an amusing line in a neighbor's "for sale" listing: "Within walking distance of downtown Monta Vista." I guess for him a railroad crossing constitutes a downtown.

What if you took the money to build a downtown and devoted some of it to help the needy and the rest to make more places for the children and adults of Cupertino? What if we were stuck in the city with no downtown but one of the most wonderful places to live and raise kids in the country? Would that be so bad?

—Phil Lenihan, Almaden Avenue