Wherever she's from, she will join the third largest country in the world - one of the few industrialized nations whose population is growing. However we may feel about birth control or immigration, each new arrival puts pressure on our land. She changes our country. She becomes part of our culture, accepting unbridled sprawl and extravagant personal space.
Research by experts from Utah State University's College of Natural Resources gives insight into problems facing Utah. Dr. Rob Lilieholm, an economist, and Dr. Richard Toth, a landscape architect and regional planner, did separate studies on the future of Cache Valley.
Both predicted our valley's population will double in the next quarter century. Using readily available statistics, satellite maps, GPS data and computer models, each showed that with business as usual, our valley will be chock full of houses by the year 2030.
Similar problems exist throughout the West where our natural beauty and rural settings attract a disproportionate number of the 300 million Americans. And they soon turn the amenities they seek into more sprawl.
When economics drives growth, as in Lilieholm's study, houses are built on land most easily developed, providing the greatest profit to builders. Development spreads from existing roads and utilities like spilled milk on a kitchen floor. Builders move to the next easiest place to develop until all sites that can support a house are filled..
Toth and his students developed "what-if" models that allow planners to choose from several different scenarios for evaluating growth. Their "business as usual" scenario ends with a land-use mess similar to the economic model.
Surprisingly, when new growth is restricted to existing town or city limits, no new land is needed for the next 30 years. There is no immediate need to encroach on prime farmland or rural open space. The catch is, to Utah politicians, land restrictions are as distasteful as taxes.
It is highly unlikely Utah lawmakers will enact strict zoning requirements that limit residential growth to existing towns. Or that towns themselves will cease annexing land to increase their tax base. With economic models giving undesirable outcomes and development restrictions unacceptable to current legislators, incentives are needed. But without regime change, the Legislature may block them.
Most Utah towns act selfishly because they depend too heavily on sales tax. The state distributes a portion of the sales tax to the town where the store is located rather than where the buyer lives. The Republican caucus rejected a Cache legislator's bill to allow revenue sharing among towns. Utah towns continue to compete to get high-volume retail outlets in their jurisdiction. Sprawl continues.
Much easily developed land is now in farms. Any restriction on land quickly becomes a property rights issue. Development potential is seen by many as part of their stored wealth. Incentives used elsewhere could allow landowners to capture the land's development value and continue to use the farm for agricultural purposes. But, the Republican Legislature thrice rejected Cache Valley bills to allow communities to tax themselves and buy conservation easements or development rights.
Apparently the ruling party feels no responsibility to provide future opportunities for the 300 millionth American, our children and their children.
Whether she is newborn Lucybeth Olsen or 40-year-old Guadalupe Hernandez, we owe her, and our own grandchildren, a system that assures sustainability options for whatever America is like when they reach old age. We can't afford leaders satisfied with business as usual.
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Thad Box is former dean of the College of Natural Resources at Utah State University.
