Once again, the editorial in City skirts the real reason for the demise of the central city area and Midtown Plaza (Urban Journal, July 30). I know it's very PC to place the blame on those lazy shoppers who only seek convenience, but I would submit that that's not the major cause. As a young family we lived in the city right up to the school busing to affect social-change issues. All of a sudden, the neighborhood schools that we specifically purchased homes around were deemed to be no good. The elites running the area wanted all the kids shuffled around to achieve their social-engineering goal.

I remember the editorials of the day as they patted each other on the back, safe in the knowledge that their kids were in private school situations. Within a three-year period, our family and the families of all our friends moved to the burbs. It was a vote of no confidence that hollowed out the city in a few short years.

The unintended consequences of this action were many and immediate. Everyone with two nickels in his pocket fled the city instead of sacrificing their kids to achieve a goal based on someone else's idea of how things should be. Since then, the city schools have steadily deteriorated as people voted with their feet against the well-intentioned but stupid idea of imposing non-educational ratios on schools to achieve a goal not possible without coercion.

It didn't take long until the city lacked a viable middle class and the school system's ability to educate essentially sank beyond mediocrity and into collapse. Midtown Plaza became collateral damage when buses congregated in front of it every afternoon, allowing teens to do what teens do. It was great for business; shoppers love being hassled.

The slight growth of homes in the central city area will probably be mostly occupied by singles and not families that stabilize a neighborhood.

As for the snide remark about traffic on Ridge Road; it's probably true during the reconstruction, but my wife feels safe there. Traffic is heavy around the Henrietta and Eastview malls, also. I think that's a sign of success that Main Street struggles to achieve.

MURRAY STAHL, GREECE