I’ve written about the lack of affordable of housing in CT before. Add to this a few of my other pet peeves, suburban sprawl (yes, I know it is counter-intuitive for a REALTOR to dislike sprawl) and youth drain, and we’ve got the potential for long term economic hardship not only in CT, but all of New England.
Clearly, on a town by town basis, we can start business development and real estate development projects that encourage working here rather than migrating to the more affordable Southern states and reusing land for better economic use. Blue Back Square in West Hartford center is a good example of redeveloping existing land for increased economic benefit, rather than contributing to sprawl. CT’s Department of Economic and Community Development promotes an aggressive agenda of economic and community development initiatives throughout the state.
But what about our sister New England states? Are they facing the same issues? What can we do to work together to fight “youth brain drain” and the growing housing affordability crisis? Well, as New England Futures sees it, all of New England needs to band together and work on these issues as a region, rather than individual communities and states. No more of the “I, I, I” attitude and more of the “Us, Us, Us” attitude.
This initiative seems like a good idea, however is it too many cooks in the kitchen? And if you take the bureaucracy of one state and add five more states to it, does it just become an unmanageable, ineffective distraction that dilutes our individual efforts?