Business View Civil and Municipal | March 2021

146 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL MARCH 2021 maintain the density where the density is, build the density in the town where it’s able to be built, and leave everything else to be rural, which is the character that our residents prefer.” “The village center faces the same kinds of challenges that little old downtowns around New England all have – a lot of constrained property lines, criss-crossing boundaries, and lots of dense traffic,” says George Tyler, Vice President of the Essex Junction Board of Trustees. “The important thing would be for the town and the village to work more closely together in terms of economic development. Because the fact of the matter is, whether we like it or not, we’re in a very competitive environment in Chittenden County. We’re competing with Burlington, South Burlington, and Williston for investment dollars.” Tyler says he’s been committed to the merger since 2014, when IBM Microelectronics – Essex’s largest employer at the time, at around 4,000 employees – started shedding jobs at