On a personal assignment steeped in sentiment and curiosity, the Chester County Press reporter went looking for the remaining open spaces in Kennett Square last week, and as he approached them, he wondered to himself, How much more time exists in the life of this field, this pasture, this undisturbed patch of earth?

Horses grazed near wooden rail fences, their tails flapping lazily as the morning sun turned their dark hides into shimmering shades of white. Deer scampered and leaped like young ballerinas at a recital. Rows of corn stood firm like soldiers and the canopies of tall green grass resembled emerald blankets tousled by the invisible hands of divine intervention. 

Is there nothing more pristine than these untarnished sights, touched only on the periphery by humans? the reporter thought. As he drove, his mind began to imagine these acres pulverized into towering heaps of dirt by bulldozers, as developers with rolled-up blueprints stand at the edge in hard hats, dreaming of the day when their swirling DNA tails of housing concepts open to new residents and the day arrives when they get to sign the other sides of checks.

He drove all through the Borough to affirm that his nightmare has already come true – that the once available spaces are going away, and Kennett Square is being swallowed up in a tsunami of development that has permanently and irreparably altered its entire character. The truth of it has been burnished into its crevices: Kennett Square Apartments. The Flats at Kennett. Kennett Pointe. Magnolia Court. While these are all up and running, the plans to transform the former NVF plant along West Mulberry Street and the new development that will be called Copperleaf Ridge on Bancroft Road exist like telltale proof that residential construction in the name of progress has reached the point of full saturation. 

There is no more remaining space.

This commentary – this cold but defining statement - has been heard in every corner of Kennett Square Borough, and it continues to echo throughout Kennett Township and West Marlborough Township and New Garden Township and in Toughkenamon, and at civic meetings and over backyard fences and at Sunday morning service fellowship gatherings. 

In spite of the efforts of many to preserve and protect it – the true visionaries, not the ones with bulldozers and the blueprints - Kennett Square is being sold off, chunk by chunk and available space by available space to the highest bidders, and the collective weight of its bloated reinvention shows no signs of stopping.  

Sustainability and sound urban planning have no place in the architecture of its future. The actions of those with the bulldozers and the blueprints, in their rush to cash in on the popularity of a small town, have stripped Kennett Square of its intimacy.

The reporter’s personal assignment was nearly complete. He turned onto Walnut Road, and just to the south of Route 1, saw the progress being made to the 16.5-acre Parkside development, which will include seven single-family dwelling units, 76 multi-family attached dwelling units, 100 apartment units, 11 detached garages and two parcels that will be developed for retail and commercial use. 

The reporter then left Kennett Square, drove home and waited for the newest storm to arrive.