2/22/06 - Note: The article below links to a previous post which I would urge you to read for background information. We can’t predict with certainty how much population growth MV will experience in the coming years, but we know it is well established that, up to a point, human populations tend to grow exponentially. If the rate of MV’s growth continues as it has, or increases (I’ve heard Mike Beimer and other city officials quote a historic rate of 1.5% per year — about right over the last 14 years, while the Mount Vernon Development Corporation anticipates about a 5% annual growth rate.) it will, in time, be markedly greater than most would expect without doing the proper math. No matter the growth rate though, we are still left with the fact that, for the sake of profit, the growth industry has flatly lied to us about the supposed benefits of growth. This is more than clear if you look at the articles here on growth myths. Given that, rather than appease such an industry, for no benefit to anyone other than the industry’s members, I would submit that MV should take a hard, perhaps painful look at the portion of its Comprehensive Plan which advocates population growth as though we “need” it. It may well be that even the bright, informed, and well meaning folks who created the plan, publishing it in 1995, were influenced (as nearly all of us were at the time) by the pervasive growth machine propaganda which tells us we “need” growth. Rest assured, that is the portion of the Plan the growth machine loves to see. Yet as I’ve shown here repeatedly, we are now in an age when, for a variety of reasons, what we need is an end to growth. Whatever the rate of growth, it is completely unnecessary, and is in fact harmful. It is equally unnecessary to let it continue just so a few members of the growth industry can make a great deal of money regardless of the effect on the town, its surrounding natural environment, and the world.

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I promise a “big picture” essay soon. In the meantime, I want to cover one or two prerequisite details and some random items. Let’s start with this:

Some city officials will tell you Mount Vernon’s population has been growing at about a 1.5% rate per year. That may be true. The figure is of course based, though, on past years. (Note that even at a 1.5% growth rate, the math of exponential growth tells us that Mount Vernon’s population would more than triple in 74 years, or about one lifetime.)

Obviously the successful sales of recent and planned developments such as the Wolfe and Stonebrook subdivisions suggest an increasing growth rate. If it goes as planned, Stonebrook alone will bring about 300 new homes, or about 1,000 new residents. The Mount Vernon Development Corporation also anticipates a faster growth rate:

In Mount Vernon, new home construction ensures an expansion of our current population base of 3,800 by nearly 1,050 people in fewer than five years. That estimated figure is over a 25% jump in population!

That jump represents about a 5% annual growth rate. That’s certainly a reasonable estimate considering Stonebrook’s 1,000 added residents as well as the likelihood that, without resistance, other developments will go up soon. But 5% doesn’t sound particularly remarkable, does it? Well, that’s only because we humans lack an intuitive sense of the exponential growth function. To put it in perspective, consider that at that 5% growth rate, assuming a current population of 4,000 (I’ve seen higher estimates, and surely the Chamber’s 3,800 is a bit low.), Mount Vernon’s population will more than quadruple in just 29 years. In the course of 75 years, about one lifetime, a 5% growth rate will create a Mount Vernon population of over 155,000!

We know that any residential growth here is unnecessary and makes no sense as a long term strategy for our towns. Now we know, as well, that projected growth rates, from the quoted 1.5% to the more plausible 5%, mean much more population growth than most of us would guess from the percentage figures alone. Populations tend to grow exponentially, and we have to do the math to see just how much growth that really means.