Last week, I attended the Emerging Issues Forum in Raleigh, at their new, nice convention center. (It amazes me that communities still fork over cash for stuff like this - $225 million.)At any rate, the event was focused on the question(s) around how NC is doing to support the pending influx of new residents in the next 20 years. In effect, the entire state of SC will cross the border and join the north, which is hard to expect from SC. But NC, currently about 9 million residents, expects to add about 4 million more by 2030, causing NC to be the seventh largest state in the Union. With that influx comes resource needs and constraints. How can we possibly provide for and handle this phenomenal growth?
Some of the presenters were impressive, including both David Brooks (NYT) and Andres Duany (starchitect/planner). The power in their words was to point out how, at previous points in history, civilizations grappled with and addressed their version of this challenge. The irony to me was that so often we fail to realize, review and learn from our past so that we are better prepared for our present and - more importantly - for our future. The day and a half of conversation still has me swimming with how does all of this information trickle down to me, my work and my life?
And what can I do to positively impact the growth and the impact of said growth on our community, our region and our state?
That question, for me, was not answered last week.
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