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Here are a few of Brookings’ recent and highly instructive facts to ponder. First, the surprising facts:
Maine’s population is growing again—significantly. Maine’s growth spurt is mostly from a new wave of in-migration, after our state virtually stopped growing for most of the 1990s. Maine’s population growth rate, the report says, went from 46th in the nation in the 1990s to 26th since 2000—“by far the biggest acceleration among the 50 states.”
Maine is suburbanizing at an alarming rate. Since 1990, we have transformed 869,000 acres of rural land into suburban-style residential lots—second only to Virginia in the amount of rural land converted to suburban residential uses
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Maine’s identity or “brand” is based on the scenic beauty and sense of place associated with compact working towns and harbors surrounded by lightly developed rural landscapes and large acreages of forests and woodlots. This perception of Maine as a quality place is seriously threatened by our sprawling development patterns.
Maine’s economy is becoming more diverse with small clusters of high-tech financial and service businesses that are offsetting some of the declines in manufacturing and natural resource industries.
Here now are three Brookings facts that are not so surprising:
Maine’s tax rates are among the highest in the nation. Both our local property taxes and state income taxes are stifling much needed state investment in research and development to augment the emerging knowledge-based economy.
Maine state government’s delivery of services is inefficient, especially educational services. The cost of administering Maine’s 286 school administrative units is much higher than it needs to be and could be reduced, without necessarily building bigger schools.
Weak growth management and comprehensive planning goals have undermined traditional town character because they are rarely tethered to local ordinances. As land prices rapidly increase, affordable housing becomes an acute problem in many communities, particularly along the coast. As people leave high tax areas, sprawl happens. Instead of amending our zoning to accommodate young families, out-of-date zoning and building codes actually encourage families to spread further and further out on lots along highways, consuming land and our sense of place.
The solutions proposed by the Brookings Institution will certainly generate debate in the legislature, in town offices, and at school board meetings during the next few years. Here are some of the report proposals:
Maine’s first economic development need is to invest in our “brand”–that is, aspects of our quality of place that make us distinct: working waterfronts, open farmland, and traditional compact towns. The report’s authors propose a large “Maine Quality Places” bond program, totaling $190 million over the next 10 years, to start to acquire lands traditionally used for fishing (working waterfronts) and hunting, open space, as well as to help towns revitalize the core of their downtown areas and buildings.
Then, says the report, we must harness our “Yankee ingenuity” and invest in innovation, especially in those businesses where there are emerging clusters of successes, including geographic information systems (GIS), advanced composite materials (for example in boatbuilding), cold water aquaculture, marine sciences, toxicology, and organic agriculture. For this we will need another $200-million bond, over the next three years.
The Brookings report says we can pay for these investments by trimming state government an estimated $60 to $100 million through a “government efficiency commission.” Reorganizing K–12 administrative and school-construction costs would save additional tens of millions of dollars. We could raise upwards of $20 million a year by implementing their proposed lodging tax, shifting some of the burden of protecting the Maine brand to visitors and tourists who benefit. (We could and should also apply some of these potential savings to property tax reduction and reduce the top income tax rate from 8.5% [second highest in New England] to 8%.)
Like many reports, “Charting Maine’s Future” is full of bold ideas and in that sense may sound radical and idealistic. But as more and more of us realize that the way we are literally consuming our “sense of place” is utterly unsustainable and deeply threatening to our well-being, perhaps this kind of new thinking will take root.
Otherwise, we will fall victim to one of the most fundamental truths that has already run its course in much of America: Great places attract people until they are no longer great places to be.
Philip Conkling is founder and president of the Island Institute. More of his commentary can be found at islandinstitute.org.
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