Status quo complacency trumps region's need for change

How many more reports must this region read warning that it's ruining the air with too much driving, ruining its water with too much pavement, ruining its rural areas with free-for-all development? Add another to the list.

Maybe the 2004 State of the Region Report, released today from the nonprofit Voices & Choices of the Central Carolinas, will be the one that finally knocks this region out of its complacent rut. We hope so.

Local political and civic leaders like to say that the problems the 15-county Charlotte region faces are problems of growth. That's true. But the problems result also from inertia, a sluggish reluctance to challenge the status quo or make people uncomfortable. As the State of the Region Report shows, the status quo will lead to destruction of the region's quality of life -- one of its vital assets.

The report looks at six topics: air quality, transportation, land use, water quality, municipal solid waste management and economic health. It presents solid factual material and a thorough listing of positive efforts around the region. But the cumulative message is grim. Among its findings:

Air Quality. Parts of the region, including Charlotte, are expected Thursday to be designated "nonattainment" by the Environmental Protection Agency. That means ozone pollution is so bad the area will lose federal transportation money unless it shows the EPA how it will improve its air.

Most air pollutants here come from tailpipes. And people are driving more, not less. From 1990 to 2000, the 15-county population grew 25 percent; the number of miles driven grew 38 percent.

The most important solution is for people to drive less often and less far. That means land development must change dramatically, so people can get places without driving so much. But in most of the region, land use decisions continue to repeat the patterns that cause the problem.

Land use. From 1982 to 1997 the rate of urban development was nearly four times faster than the rate of population growth; 95 percent of the urban-suburban residential land is low-density suburban development. "The price of this sprawling pattern of development is paid in longer commutes, poor air quality, loss of farmland and higher costs for schools and essential public services that push property taxes upwards," the report says. Yet most jurisdictions haven't changed those patterns, because so many developers and homebuyers prefer low-density suburban forms.

Water quality. Mecklenburg County's population grew 72 percent between 1980 and 2000. But for a similar time period -- 1984 to 2001 -- the amount of impervious cover (pavement, rooftops, etc.) grew 127 percent. Since runoff is the region's worst water pollutant, ever more development with no new protection for streams and groundwater puts the water supply at risk.

The report points to many ways to change the growth patterns that threaten our region's clean air, water and other resources. In many cases, it says, solutions already exist. "What doesn't already exist," it says, "is the implementation of those solutions."