Developers claim that the land west of town is ripe to be turned into a combined retail/residential area. They say that the extension of highway 85 would give shoppers access to a greater variety of stores. In truth, though, we already have a great variety of stores downtown—over 200 of them. Many of these businesses have been hurting for several years due to the neglect of the exit 10 overpass, which has made driving difficult. Extending highway 85 would give shoppers a reason to avoid downtown altogether—likely dooming many small businesses and leaving buildings vacant. However, the overpass could be repaired at a fraction of the cost of the highway extension. This small investment in city infrastructure would be good for businesses and shoppers alike.
In one to two sentences, identify the author's point of view and the author's purpose.
The author loves his city and is not happy with greedy developers who want to destroy local businesses by building huge shopping mall facilities on a highway extension. He is just pointing out that it would be less expensive to just fix the highway (I suspect the exits and entrances , not an overpass) and that would keep his neighbors in business.
( Can you tell which side I am on ? :)