I read the front-page story “Anxiety in city’s core area” in the Oct. 13 Sun Journal and was appalled at what seems to me to be the callous and careless attitude of some relatively powerful people when assessing the human cost of their “urban renewal” decisions.

The fact that at least one elderly woman has already been rendered virtually homeless seems to have somehow escaped their perception and conscience.

Does it not seem more moral that a project like the so-called “Heritage Initiative,” with such enormous human impact and cost, should be governed by the needs of those most affected rather than by the ambition of elected officials who tend to think in terms of numbers rather than people?

And does it not seem that the term “collateral damage” has acquired a new, equally insidious but more local meaning?

Bruce T. Mitchell, Wilton