Population Poof

Since the publication of Paul Erlich's Population Bomb in 1968, wherein he wrongly predicted all sorts of disasters from population growth, too many have come to view such growth as a negative. This has evolved into a distinctly anti-child attitude in many communities as residents have decried the supposed impacts on schools and taxes. The real story, however, is one of falling school-age population that is already resulting in school enrollment collapses. Moreover, it is the lack of population growth that is likely to produce tax increases as communities struggle to support existing school infrastructure.

Consider what's happening in one of the fastest growing counties in the U.S. over the last two decades. Part of the Pocono Mountain region, Pike County, Pennsylvania was the nation's 36th fastest growing county in the 1990s, expanding its population by 65% over the decade. It had previously been described by American Demographics as a "suburb of the suburbs" based on its growth during the 1980's. Based on these growth patterns, the Census Bureau has now made it part of the New York City - Northern New Jersey Metropolitan Area. The Bureau's annual population estimates suggest population continued to grow through the 2000's and reached 58,600 persons as of 2007.

During the last three decades, as population growth seemed to overwhelm this small county, the impacts on schools were tremendous. All three school districts had to engage in major building programs as enrollments swelled. School taxes went up to pay the bills. School officials and the general public both became very fearful of growth and, as is customary in human nature, assumed what happened one day would also happen the next. They continue to proceed on that assumption today. The PoconoNews.Net reports "it is likely that school taxes will increase to accommodate new residential development." The new Pike County Comprehensive Plan documents school district enrollment increases of 25% to 41% between 1996 and 2006 for the County's three districts. The Plan also notes the Pennsylvania Department of Education projected average annual enrollment increases for these districts of 2.1% to 3.7% between 2005-2006 and 2014-2015. Everyone, in short, expects school enrollments to continue to shoot up, albeit at somewhat slower rates than previously.

The one certainty, however, is that no trend goes on forever. Indeed, it appears even rapidly growing Pike County may well be more threatened by school enrollment declines than explosions. The Census Bureau annual population estimates tell the story. The estimated Pike County population of persons aged 5-17 years has declined every year since 2000, dropping by 972 persons or 11% since 2000, an average of 1.6% per year. School enrollments have begun to reflect this reality. The Delaware Valley School District enrollment has declined by 196 children or an average 1.1% per year over the last three years. The other two districts have also experienced declines ranging from 0.1% to 0.8% per year average.

The facts are catching up with the myth. Pike County is not exposed to rampant school expansions if residential growth continues. Indeed, it is precisely the opposite – school enrollments will collapse without growth. The trends in slower growing counties are even more apparent. Enrollments are in free fall in many rural areas. Adjoining Sullivan County, New York, school districts are facing severe financial crises as a result of enrollment declines. A November, 2008 article in the River Reporter newspaper noted the following:

“We’re going to be faced with closing this school or Jeff in 10 years time if this trend keeps up.” Those were the words of Shaun Sensiba, a member of the board of the Sullivan West Central School District ... Over the past five years, Sullivan West has had a decline of 16.3 percent in student enrollment, but the district is not alone in shrinking student populations. All school districts in Sullivan County experienced declines of one degree or another, with the Liberty Central School District losing the most at 16.5 percent and Fallsburg Central School District losing the least at 2.9 percent. Eldred was near the middle with a loss of 6.7 percent.

Another article in the Middletown Times-Herald-Record reported the following:

Sullivan West has dropping enrollment and a glut of buildings that are going to cost taxpayers millions in the coming years, district officials told residents Wednesday night. Declining enrollment is "accelerating" and the district could lose hundreds of students in the next decade if trends continue, Superintendent Kenneth Hilton said during a community forum. Meanwhile, the district is spending nearly $400,000 annually to mothball the Delaware Valley and Narrowsburg buildings, which were renovated for millions and then closed in a financial crisis, all of which has left the district $60 million in debt, and paying $4 million annually in debt service ... Enrollment has dropped by 232 students since 2002, and by 11.2 percent in the five years since 2003. The district now has 1,385 students. By contrast, Sullivan West has space in four buildings for 3,244 students ... If trends continue, Sullivan West will have 1,190 students in 2012 ... Hilton said he will urge the board to form a new facilities-needs committee to begin planning ... "The community has to come to grips with these realities."

Sullivan West is hardly alone. The Pennsylvania Department of Education, which has overstated projected enrollment growth in the Poconos, nonetheless projects the number of students attending Pennsylvania public schools in 2012 will be 7% below 2002 levels. Rural school districts are expected to decline by 11%. The Center for Rural Pennsylvania notes the reason:

In both 1990 and 2000, the total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has during her lifetime, was 1.75 in rural Pennsylvania. This is below the replacement level of 2.11 births. Rural Pennsylvania, however, is not alone. Four New England states, Vermont, Rhode Island, Maine, and Massachusetts, each had total fertility rates in 2000 below the rural Pennsylvania rate. The Pennsylvania statewide rate went from 1.87 in 1990 to 1.82 in 2000. In the United States, however, the total fertility rate increased from 2.01 in 1990 to 2.13 in 2000.

We can make two major conclusions from this data. First, it is clear we are not having enough children. Pennsylvania and most of the Northeast will slowly disappear without more children or, alternatively, in-migration of new households. Even the U.S. as a whole is just barely sustaining itself, but in the Northeast we can expect what we now see in Western New York and Western Pennsylvania – dying communities without the resources to support their infrastructure and services – to spread east. Residential growth is absolutely essential, despite the contrary message of so many community costs-of-services studies. Residences may not pay their way theoretically but that's only because non-residential uses are available to help pay the bills. If those agricultural, commercial and industrial enterprises who supposedly subsidize residences have no one to whom to sell their products or no one to hire as employees, they will lead the evacuation of these communities, leaving residents as the only ones available to pay the bills.

Secondly, it's not any residential growth that's necessary, but families with children who are essential. This again cuts against that conventional wisdom which suggests seniors and childless couples are best because they don't generate school children. Nevertheless, consider this - who will pay the bills in a community composed increasingly of seniors? Pike County, even while losing almost 1,000 school-aged children over the last seven years, gained almost 1,600 seniors of age 65 years or older. This is a distinctly unhealthy trend that will burden the schools by a lack of students and social service providers by an increased demand for aging services, all the while relying upon a relatively smaller pool of working taxpayers. The experience of Sullivan West illustrates what awaits if we don't start attracting younger in-migrants or having more children.

Overall, Paul Erlich had it exactly backwards. Communities depend first and foremost upon the availability of human capital, which is why economic opportunities are generally greater in more heavily populated areas. More people means more opportunities for division of labor. This, in turn, creates the wealth to improve the quality of life. His population bomb was little more than a poof. What we face is, in reality, a much more serious threat of aging and shrinking communities with no one to pay for the infrastructure and services, including schools, that we take for granted. We need growth and we need children.

Warming to Change

States are mindlessly jumping onto the global warming bandwagon, creating climate change offices and policies in a rush to be politically correct. Pennsylvania, for example, has enacted a Pennsylvania Climate Change Act and a special Climate Change Advisory Committee with responsibilities "including but not limited to, the development of a climate change action plan, annual greenhouse gas inventories, impacts assessment report, voluntary greenhouse gas emissions registry and such other climate change related activities that the DEP might request." Meanwhile the supposed science behind the global warming scare is crumbling, raising an obvious question; if the failure to warm forces us to call global warming by another name, shouldn't we be reexamining our hypothesis? A December 10, 2008 Washington Times article by geophysicist David Deming notes the following:

The last two years of global cooling have nearly erased 30 years of temperature increases. To the extent that global warming ever existed, it is now officially over.

This year began with a severe spell of winter weather in China. Observers characterized it as the largest natural disaster to hit China in decades. By the end of January, blizzards and cold temperatures had killed 60 people and caused millions to lose electric service. Nearly a million buildings were damaged and airports had to close. Hong Kong had the second-longest cold spell since 1885. A temperature of 33.6 degrees Fahrenheit was barely higher than the record low of 32 degrees F set in 1893.

Other countries in Asia also experienced record cold. In February, cold in the northern half of Vietnam wiped out 40 percent of the rice crop and killed 33,000 head of livestock. In India, the city of Mumbai recorded the lowest temperatures of the last 40 years. Across India, there was more frost damage to crops than at any other time in the last 30 years.

In the United States, the weather also was frigid. The city of International Falls, Minn,, whose official nickname is the "icebox of the nation," set a new record low temperature of minus 40 degrees F, breaking the old record of minus 37 F established in 1967.

Alaska experienced an unusually cold and wet summer. For the first time since the 18th century, Alaskan glaciers grew instead of retreating. In Fairbanks, October was the fourth coldest in 104 years of record. Last month in Reading, Pa., the temperature stayed below 40 degrees F for six consecutive days - the longest November cold spell there since 1903.

These cold weather events were not abnormal or isolated incidents. Global measures of climatic conditions indicate significant cooling.

A preliminary estimate by the British Met Office says 2008 will be the coldest year of the last 10. The extent of global sea ice is at the same level it was in 1980. The mean planetary temperature, as monitored by satellite, also is the same as in 1980.

Last March, NASA reported the oceans have been cooling for the last five years. Sea level has stopped rising, and Northern Hemisphere cyclone and hurricane activity is at a 24-year low.

Read the full article at:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/10/global-warming-freeze/

These attempts by states to regulate the sun might better be spent making it easier to pursue energy development of all types, from geothermal, solar and wind to natural gas. The failure to do what is possible and necessary while attempting the impossible and the unnecessary is an unforgivable politicization of planning and science.