To the editor: The May 8 mayoral debate hosted by the Alexandria Democratic Committee highlighted the big differences between Allison Silberberg and Justin Wilson. My three biggest takeaways from the evening were their different approaches to density, the environment and civic engagement. Silberberg is clearly the right choice if you care about these issues. She believes in smart growth – an approach that takes into account how a development will impact the city’s infrastructure, flooding, school capacity, affordable housing and the surrounding neighborhoods. As she said at the debate, she believes that when we consider a new building, it shouldn’t be super-sized to the max in an out-of-scale, overbuilding kind of way. Wilson’s approach is to develop everything to the max. He has never met a development he didn’t like and accepts donations from developers. Silberberg doesn’t take funding from developers.