If you’re over the age of 40 and you lived in the Puget Sound region in the early 1970s, you probably remember billboards posted along Highway 99 that read, “Will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights?”
That was back in the dark times of the Great Boeing Bust, when the health of the region’s economy depended almost exclusively on the airplane manufacturer’s fortunes — or lack thereof, at that time.
Who could have predicted at that time that our regional fortunes would shift so dramatically?
Today our regional economy is a bit more diverse and has generally been able to weather a dip in Boeing’s stock prices. The current trend of growth in our regional economy is just one of the reasons why an additional two million people are projected to be living in this state by the year 2030.
And who can really blame people for wanting to move here? We live in what is undeniably one of the most beautiful regions in the country, if not the world. For the most part we enjoy mild temperatures year round and, with the exception of this winter, the severity and frequency of our natural disasters is generally less than other parts of the country.
But here we are eight years into the 21st century and we’re still acting as though it’s the turn of the 20th century — we’re still broadcasting the message that here in Washington Territory, there’s still enough room for every homesteader that wants to stake a claim here.
Yes, we’ve been programmed very well to believe that greed — er, excuse me, growth — is good. That it’s inevitable and there’s nothing we can do about it.
But is it?
First of all, the term growth is misleading. The concept of “growth” as it applies to our region today is more a vicious cycle than upward movement. In order to pay for new roads and schools, we need residential development. In order for people to be able to afford to live in that residential development, we need to create new jobs. In order for people to be qualified for and get to those jobs, we need to build new schools and roads.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
None of this really adds up to growth in my estimation. If anything, it might be better described as a pyramid scheme: in order to generate financial returns for an initial group of investors, a second generation of investors has to be recruited. Eventually that generation wants to see a return on their cash outlay, but they in turn must find new blood to realize a profit, and so on.
Unfortunately, all pyramid schemes inevitably collapse, because they can’t keep up with the exponential increases in participation that are required.
Which is why pyramid schemes are illegal.
Now is the time to be asking ourselves how we can possibly justify bringing more people to this region when we’ve done such an abysmal job of preparing for their arrival.
Our transportation infrastructure is an embarrassment, yet development is allowed to continue virtually unabated.
State government touts unprecedented job growth, yet a large portion of the new jobs opening up in this region are service industry jobs — hardly the kind of jobs that provide workers a living wage and the means to own their own homes.
As for those jobs that do pay a living wage, the irony shouldn’t be lost on us that local companies are finding they must hire workers from out of state —and even outside the country — because our schools aren’t providing the kind of education needed for those kinds of jobs.
A growth apologist recently told me that it’s not fair to shut the door behind us, because we’ve allowed this much of it already. The apologist said that it’s not fair that those of us already here would get to enjoy a certain quality of life while closing off that opportunity to potential newcomers.
I say what is unfair is to force the people who are already here to lower their standard of living.
Deny it or not, there is a time coming when we will have to make some very hard choices about how much growth is enough. I think it will be arriving sooner rather than later, because we are already well on our way to sacrificing our quality of life.
Which is why my not-so-secret wish is to someday to see a billboard along Highway 99 that says “Will the last person arriving in the Puget Sound region please close and lock the door behind them.”
Andrea Miller is features editor at The Enterprise.
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