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me under the People Tree
Wilde Lake Park
Statue of the Rouse Brothers
By the lakea place to GROW PEOPLE
"TOTALLY PLANNED NEW CITY"
JAMES W. ROUSE had a fabulous vision and even lived to see it come true!
He quiety bought up the required farm land in the area so that prices would not skyrocket; but paid a fair price for the various tracts/farms.
He planned a place for people to live a good family life, without the necessity of more than one car, where they could work, go to school and shop and have entertainment all within a short distance of their homes. He included business parks, riding stables, shopping areas, schools, parks with lakes and forested areas; low/middle/higher-income housing intermingled so that people did not feel separated.
And he called it a place to 'grow People'; hence, the PEOPLE TREE.
I was fortunate to work at The Rouse Company when it all began and was at the ground-breaking ceremony, and therefore even got my name on the stone that was originally set at Wilde Lake (I think it may have been since moved), which included all names of employees at that time.
James Rouse always cared about people, whether they worked for him or passed by on the street. His many visions (Columbia, undercover shopping malls, Harborplace in Baltimore, etc.) were studied by developers around the world.
