The man in charge of trying to keep Raleigh growing in a way that makes sense, economically and environmentally - that would be the city's planning director, Mitchell Silver - has been even busier than usual.
Silver is serving a year-long stint as president of the American Planning Association, the professional group for more than 16,000 certified planners. That makes him a leading voice for best practices in municipal planning and a prophet, if you will, of trends that could have enormous consequences for the vitality and attractiveness of communities around the country.
The fate of many prophets has been to be without honor among the home folks. But Silver was given a suitable place in the limelight last Monday evening when a group that has emerged at the forefront of smart-growth advocacy in these parts held its annual conclave.
WakeUP Wake County pushes for better transit options and more careful stewardship of drinking water supplies. Although it didn't endorse candidates, it held forums during last fall's school board elections (in conjunction with the League of Women Voters). The premise: Better informed voters make choices more likely to strengthen the schools, and the community, for everyone.
With Silver the featured speaker, a couple of hundred people turned out for the event at Temple Beth Or on Creedmoor Road. The audience was sprinkled with elected officials - the mayors of Raleigh, Garner, Wake Forest and Holly Springs were among those recognized. Silver's top line: The population boom that made the Raleigh-Cary metro area the fifth-fastest growing in the nation during the last decade has nowhere near run its course.
At the same time, the characteristics of our population will change in ways mirroring national trends. Implications are profound, in terms of the kinds of housing people will need, demands on the transportation network, education opportunities that must be available, pressure on other public services, especially those that support the elderly.
Silver sketched mega-patterns showing not only that the share of Americans in upper age brackets is increasing as the post-World War II generation begins to move past 65, but also that households are shrinking in size across the board.
He could have titled one of his slides "Goodbye, Nuclear Family." By 2025, he said, projections are that there will be as many single-person households nationally as family households. That reflects a dramatic drop in marriage rates - which in turn helps explain what can only be called a shocking increase in the share of children born to unwed mothers. Silver pegged those "unwed births" at 23.2 percent in 2000, soaring to 41.0 percent in 2009.
Numbers like that spell trouble for any community. Single-parent households typically are up against it in terms of earning capacity and wealth creation. Parents face an even harder struggle to give their kids the attention and support they need to succeed in school.
It's no secret that the pattern of unwed births is especially pronounced among African-Americans. Waggle scolding fingers all you want, but the fact is that public schools must help overcome the disadvantages many black kids face or their communities will suffer the consequences in enduring poverty, crime and hopelessness.
As families become smaller (with all those households of one), the demand for different housing types will shift. Younger, unmarried people often will prefer a lifestyle that has them living in places that are smaller and closer to urban cores. Seniors may want to go the same route.
Both groups, Silver emphasized, are good candidates to make use of public transit. For the elderly, transit may be vital for them to carry on day-to-day routines. And according to Silver's presentation, the Triangle - despite recent efforts to ramp up bus service - remains a national laggard in terms of transit access for the aging.
Yes, Silver is a strong proponent of the regional transit plan that must win acceptance from skeptical Wake commissioners, then from voters willing to raise sales taxes, before it could be put in place.
His analysis suggests that Wake, as the Triangle's largest county, is where bus and rail improvements are most critically needed. After all, Wake will end up with the lion's share of Triangle-region growth projected at a jaw-dropping 1.2 million people over the next 20 years.
The way Silver sees it, the traditional suburbs that so many of us have known and loved are heading for an eclipse of sorts as smaller family units shrink demand. So it's imperative that communities realign their planning philosophies to allow other neighborhood configurations to flourish. Public transit will - must - play a key role.
North Carolina and the Triangle are being swept along by national demographic currents that, by mid-century, will see racial and ethnic minorities making up more than half of the labor force.
"It's crucial that black and Hispanic kids be well-educated for us to be competitive," Silver told his listeners. "We will depend on them." Even though the WakeUPpers were a friendly bunch, he could have added: Don't blame the messenger.
