What If
The Challenge
As California stands at the threshold of the 21st century, some
alarming statistics are creating concerns about the future quality
of life for its citizens. By the year 2020, the state's population
of 33 million is projected to reach 45.3 million, an increase
of 37 percent. At the current rate, the state is adding nearly
4 million people, or the equivalent of the population of Los Angeles,
every seven years.
This surge in population growth is already creating complications
in a number of areas. One of the most impacted is the field of
education. Coupled with state mandated reforms in educational
practices that include bold measures like class size reduction,
pressure has come to bear on the need for more and better educational
facilities and an adequate supply of teachers to address these
and other critical issues. "Smart" planning is required
to determine where and how these needs can be met.
Pressures of growth are also taxing the physical infrastructure
in other areas. Urban centers, rural main streets and residential
neighborhoods are deteriorating. Poor planning decisions are stretching
public infrastructure to the limit and draining economic vitality
from cities and towns. Instead of supporting the improvement of
urban infrastructure, a long-standing trend towards suburban development
is competing with the renewal of the urban environment. Thousands
of acres of farmland and greenfields are being consumed and problems
with transportation, public finance and environmental sustainability
are escalating.
What is needed is a means by which current programs, procedures
and policies developed at every level of state, regional and local
governance can coalesce to address these challenges and offer
solutions to meet them. Two current movements in the state of
California offer insights into some of the opportunities that
are available. The first movement focuses on issues related to
education reform, including the development of educational infrastructure.
The second movement involves the concept of "smart growth"
as an antidote to suburban sprawl and a means for creating more
livable communities. While each of these movements presents possibilities
for bettering California's current crisis of expansion, an alliance
of these two concepts will provide even greater opportunities
and insights.
|