Our colleagues in New Jersey have launched a new site, Quiet Montclair, which you can see here. It has a vision statement attuned to pandemic-era realities of more people spending their days in their homes, rather than in downtown workplaces, as well as the pre-pandemic qualities that drew residents to a community.

A sample:

Why do people choose to live in Montclair? Ask a resident and you’ll hear any number of reasons — excellent public schools, vibrant commercial life, diverse and interesting people, six train stops, and more. A place that invigorates while still offering a sense of calm and quiet retreat. Our tree-lined streets, our historic architecture, our yards and parks bursting with green — all help to create an aura of peace and well-being….
And then comes the grinding roar of lawn maintenance equipment, especially the backpack-mounted, gas-powered leaf blowers that generate air speeds of 200 miles an hour or more. The whine is deafening and unmistakable, invading entire neighborhoods with grating, disruptive noise and pollutants. Just one of these machines, inefficiently burning a toxic mix of gasoline and oil, spews more smog-forming emissions into the air in a single hour than an average-sized car driving halfway across the United States.
Quiet Montclair is a movement of citizens from every ward in town who want to recover the ideal that “home” is supposed to represent. This website is the beginning of that effort.

Best wishes to our colleagues in New Jersey. This is becoming a nationwide and worldwide movement. A few years from now, the idea of hyper-polluting, nuisance-generating equipment operating near households and schools will be likened to the days of widespread cigarette smoking or mass applications of DDT.