We’re all at the table, so let’s talk

Martha Farnsworth Riche, former director of the U.S. Census Bureau, spoke to more than 150 participants at “The Changing Faces of the Future” Fifty Forward forum, held Sept. 10 at the Morehouse Leadership Center.

Following Riche’s address, two local experts, Jane Smith, executive director of the Spelman College Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement, and Tisha Tallman, President and CEO of the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, joined Riche onstage for a Q&A session with members of the audience.

Most of the discussion centered around situations where the benefits of embracing diversity had not yet been realized.

When answering one audience member’s question about maximizing the benefits of diversity in the workforce, Riche said:

 “Atlanta is incredibly positioned to embrace diversity as a positive force, perhaps the leading city in the country in this regard. Anybody in the world can come to Atlanta and be at home. That is a strength that few cities have.”

We’ll have more updates on the forum later, but for now …

 Do you agree with Riche? Is metro Atlanta as welcoming as many of us think it is?

Becoming Gwinnett

The headline of Mary Lou Pickel’s article in today’s AJC says it all: “Gwinnett’s minorities surge toward majority. A revolution in diversity …”

A revolution indeed.

Gwinnett’s African American and Hispanic populations more than doubled between 2000 and 2007. The Asian community is booming, too. Gwinnett’s explosive growth and the availability of jobs and affordable housing, the article asserts, is attracting the newcomers.

But the numbers are just numbers. The real story, the reason the headline uses such dramatic words as “revolution,” and “surge,” lies with the cultural impact of a majority white county turning into a minority white county.

Is it that big a deal though? It’s happened before, in DeKalb, Fulton, Clayton and Rockdale counties.

But yes, to many people it is a big deal. The ripple effect of such a shift changes many things, from the political structure of the county to its civic and business sectors.

For example, perhaps a minority-led Gwinnett will be more accepting of mass transit links to Atlanta.

Another example, courtesy of the AJC article, is that state Sen. Curt Thompson (D-Norcross) “has said he has to campaign in Spanish, Korean, Hindi, Vietnamese and Mandarin to keep his seat.”

Many more such shifts are taking place across Gwinnett County, the rest of metro Atlanta and the entire state.

The big question is, is there anything we should do to help make this demographic shift easier for those who are about to become the majority and for those who are about to become the minority?

 Shouldn’t we at least get together and talk about it?

 It’s time to start the conversation. The next Fifty Forward event, “The Changing Faces of the Future,” will be Sept. 10 at the Morehouse College Leadership Center. Former director of the U.S. Census Bureau, Martha Farnsworth Riche will be the keynote speaker and she’ll be joined by a panel of local experts, followed by an open-house discussion.

 Until then, anyone  want to start talking about this issue now?

(Not) Living Together

In his book “The Big Sort,” journalist Bill Bishop takes a look at how Americans have sorted themselves out over the last 30 years. It’s not a red-state/blue-state division. The sorting that he’s looking at is taking place at the neighborhood level. Bishop’s thesis is that affluence and mobility have made it possible for us to live pretty much anywhere we want. Increasingly, he suggests, we are choosing to live in neighborhoods of like-minded people. “Given a choice,” he writes, “people will choose to read, be among, watch, live with, worship with, vote with, people who are like themselves.”

This sorting out is accelerated by the Internet. About eight million people log on to political blogs or partisan web journals every day, creating virtual communities of like-minded individuals who hear only from others who think like they do. Thus, we rarely find ourselves in spaces where we have conversations with people who don’t share our world view.

As we prepare for a much more culturally diverse metro region, what will we need to do to create those spaces where conversations among people of differing views can occur?

What new institutions and organizations we need to work across cultural boundaries to address regional challenges?

What Is The Tie That Binds?

In “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century“, Harvard’s Kennedy School Professor Robert Putnam contends that ethnic diversity is increasing in most advanced countries, driven mostly by sharp increases in immigration and that this has definite long-term and short-term consequences for society.

It is certainly the case for metro Atlanta that we are becoming a more diverse region. In our earlier post, One New City A Year For The Next 43 Years, we point out that if current trends persist by 2050, our demographic composition could be 38% White, 27% Hispanic, 26% Black, and 9% Other by 2050.

Putnam says that in the long run immigration and diversity are likely to have important cultural, economic, fiscal, and developmental benefits. But in the short run, increases in ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital.

He offers new evidence from the US that suggests that in ethnically diverse neighborhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’. Trust (even of one’s own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation is rarer, and friends are fewer.

The positive side of this though is that in the long run, successful immigrant societies have overcome such fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities.

This concept can be very instructive for us. In a recent Regional Snapshot, we can see that non-white populations have been concentrated in certain areas of the region but that between 2000 and 2007, almost every census tract in the region experienced an increase in non-white population.

So if Putnam is correct, we’ve got some work to do to make sure that we can stick together as a cohesive population, economic, and decision making unit over the next fifty years.

Could our quest for sustainability help us in this regard? If we all have a common goal, then maybe we can find some common ground. Hopefully Fifty Forward can help us find that common ground in the form of a long-term regional vision.

One New City a Year for the Next 43 Years

Up to now, this blog has rightfully focused to a large degree on the issue of sustainability. In some respects, sustainability is the only issue of any real consequence. It is about the economic, social, cultural, and environmental health of the region now and in the future.

How we as a region will survive and thrive over the next half century is of paramount importance. Sustainability is sort of the lens through which the other topics of the Fifty Forward program will be viewed. But there are other topics to be considered.

Another topic critical to our future is the size and composition of our population. If current trends persist, and this is a big if, the region’s population could reach almost 9.5 million people by 2050. That’s roughly 4.5 million more people than today for an average annual increase of just over 100,000 people a year. This roughly equates to the addition of two Alpharettas or five Stockbridges to the region every year for the next 43 years.

But there’s more to the story than just the sheer volume of people. The make up of those people will transform the face of Atlanta just as much. Again, if current trends persist, it is reasonable to expect that by 2020, there will be no single racial or ethnic majority in the region. And by 2050, we could see the population breakdown like this: 38% White, 27% Hispanic, 26% Black, and 9% Other, a significant departure from today.

Additionally, by the time we get to 2050, the shifting age profile could result in a relatively equal distribution of ages. And along the way we will see the Baby Boomers, a major portion of our population, age out of the workforce. This means that one-third of the region’s population could end up supporting the other two-thirds.

Obviously, there is a lot of time between now and the middle of the century, but each new year along the way will bring change to the region’s demographic profile and an increase in our diversity. Some like to say that demography is destiny. This may be partially true, but how we handle demographic change is completely up to us. We get to determine the vision for what we will become.

But to do so, we’re going to have to answer questions like:

Where the heck are we going to put all these people?
How can the region absorb this population growth in a sustainable way?
What will be the civic ramifications of the lack of a dominant paradigm provided by a majority racial/ethnic group?
How do we prepare an economy and its workforce to support two-thirds of our population?

Fifty Forward is looking for suggestions. Maybe you have some?

We’re getting older. Will we be wiser?

The Atlanta region is experiencing the most profound demographic shift we have ever faced. By 2030, one out of every five residents will be over the age of 60, up from one in 10 today. We are not prepared for this new world.

 

The region’s housing is not ready to the support the changing needs and preferences of a growing older adult population. By 2040 fewer than 30 percent of households will have children, down from nearly half in 1960. The flip side is that the percentage of single-person households will swell to 30 percent. Between 2000 and 2040, the number of households without children is expected to grow by 80 percent

 

Factor in the numbers of older people who will give up their car keys, willingly or not, and we have a recipe for failure if we don’t build smaller homes, closer to each other and closer to services, and if we don’t figure out how people can get to where they need to go without a car.

 

While almost no one disagrees that we need more housing for seniors, many homeowners associations balk when a developer wants to build homes for seniors nearby. “Density” is a dirty word, and few want it in their backyard.

 

Between 2000 and 2040, the nation will invest $24 trillion in new residential construction. We have an unprecedented opportunity to build the kind of housing we need in our communities, but only if we re-imagine the way we live together.

 

Don’t you think it’s time to get started?

 

Shall we put it to a vote?

This article, Don’t Railroad Taxpayers into Transit Subsidies, asserts that “…no rail line should be designed or constructed unless approved by majority vote at the ballot box.”

Good idea. After all, this is a democracy, right?

So the next logical step here is to make sure that a majority of the public is on board with any significant investment in new infrastructure. That would mean putting any new roads up to a vote, too. After all, it’s only fair.

Luckily, we do live in a democracy and we all do get to vote. But some people aren’t too keen on letting us vote on the issues that matter most to us.  In the last legislative session of the Georiga General Assembly, approval of a referendum on a consitutional amendment for a new transportation funding source failed.

A new survey by the Transit Planning Board indicates that there may be more interest in public transportation in the Atlanta region than many choose to believe.

Given the staggering growth projections for this region, given the aging of the population and their future transportation needs and given that we are, today, gridlocked, the least state leaders could do is allow citizens to choose whether or not they want to pay for transit services.

That’s just the bare minimum. That’s just a start.

Eventually, the folks who blocked the vote on the transportation sales tax may want to start thinking about how we’ll get around 50 years from now.

How do you envision the Atlanta region’s transport system 50 years from now?

Assumptions

As Louis Carroll stated: “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”

 

Are we considering how our state, region or communities may change as a result of trends that occur on the other side of the globe? And how do we incorporate and make adjustments for things like the aging baby boomers, increased runoff from impervious surfaces, continued growth combined with higher auto-ownership rates? 

 

Another example: much of the U.S. economy and certainly Atlanta’s transportation system is dependent on oil. 

 

The future price of oil is not only related to supply but also the costs of recovery and processing, transport, political stability and relationships with countries like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or Nigeria (three of our top 5 import countries). And what about a growing middle class buying cars in China and India.  How do we incorporate all that information into what we’re doing here in Atlanta?

 

We must be broad-minded when considering assumptions about the future.  We should seek out many diverse types of information.  We should absolutely consider the impact on our communities or state from growing world populations.  We should be very concerned with the possibility of shrinking sources of funds for infrastructure.

 

 

Hate to say it, but it takes thinking outside the box.