There's good news and bad news concerning growth in the Washington area.
The good news: This is one of America's strongest and most stable regions economically, a globally important metropolis of nearly 6 million people blessed with high-quality jobs, an educated citizenry, diverse communities, great universities and fabulous cultural and natural amenities.
Predictions are that people will continue to want to live and work here. According to forecasts, the region's population is expected to increase by 2 million between now and 2030, generating a need for more than 830,000 new housing units. During that same time, 1.6 million more jobs will be generated.
But this all could be bad news, too.
Where will 2 million more people, hundreds of thousands of new dwellings and 1.6 million new jobs be located?
In 2020, will people struggle to drive to work, to school, to shopping and to recreation? Will infrastructure and public services be adequate? Will the environment get trashed?
To consider the implications of growth, more than 300 people were invited early this month to spend the better part of a day inside the Ronald Reagan Building to play a game called "Reality Check."
Sponsored by the Urban Land Institute, the Smart Growth Alliance and Fannie Mae, with support from numerous other organizations and individuals, Reality Check was billed as "a one-day participatory exercise that will kick off a long-range planning process designed to help leaders envision alternative growth scenarios."
Sponsors identified four Reality Check objectives: promote region-wide awareness of anticipated growth; recognize points of view of different stakeholders; allocate projected housing and employment growth in the region based on consensus values and principles, and on economic, demographic and environmental realities; and lay the foundation for steps aimed at assuring "high-quality" growth.
Players were asked to think big, keep an open mind, be bold, examine alternatives, make trade-offs and accept compromise.
