Thread: Not one mention of illegal aliens...

Our liberal news media is at it again. Not one mention of getting rid of the problem, just how WE should take care of them. Two very important measures would fix our future issues- DEPORTATIONS AND SPAY/NUETER PROGRAM FOR A CERTAIN GROUP.

Our new flood danger -- population growth
Valley must prepare now for a rapid rise in numbers.
07/15/07 05:49:06

The Valley is already growing rapidly, and now comes word we can expect the population to more than double by 2050. That may seem like a long way off, but if we don't start getting ready for that boom now, we're going to face perhaps insurmountable problems when it hits.

By the numbers, according to the state Department of Finance:

Nearly 2 million people will call Fresno County home and Tulare County is projected to pass the 1 million mark.

Overall, the region's population will grow from 3.9 million to 9.4 million by 2050, which is almost as many people as live in Los Angeles County today.

Five of the Valley's eight counties will pass the 1 million mark, led by Kern County with 2.1 million people and Fresno County with 1.9 million.

The growth in the Valley, as in the state, will be fueled largely by immigration and a high birth rate among immigrants. It will create some daunting challenges. Here's a short agenda:

Health care

By 2020, the Valley will be short by as many as 20,000 nurses, and we already have a shortage of hospital beds.

The Valley also has the lowest ratio of doctors of any region in the state: 173 per 100,000 residents. Statewide, there are 302 doctors per 100,000 people. It's even worse for medical specialists. The Valley has just 43 specialists per 100,000 people, according to a Central Valley Health Policy Institute study. The statewide rate is 87 specialists per 100,000 population.

That means the effort to create a medical school at the University of California's Merced campus isn't just a good idea -- it's absolutely imperative.

Transportation

The state's voters approved $1 billion for improvements to Highway 99, the Valley's main artery, back in November. That was good news -- but it's only about one-fourth of the money needed just to make Highway 99 adequate for today's traffic. It will be much worse if traffic in the Valley doubles -- or more -- with the rising population.

That puts even more pressure on the states' leaders to build the proposed high-speed rail system and begin funding other alternative transportation means right now.

Air quality

The Valley's air is getting better, but more people moving in means we could lose all the ground we've gained in recent years -- and then some -- if we don't prepare now. We must plan and build our urban centers in a much denser fashion, to reduce the need for vehicle traffic. Cities such as Fresno that have committed to reining in sprawl and growing up rather than out must keep to those commitments. They can't allow hodge-podge and leap-frog developments to remain the order of the day.

And the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District must be much more aggressive about cleaning the air, and much less devoted to the interests of those who profit from the status quo.

Water supplies and quality

We must build new surface storage capacity, take advantage of underground water banking opportunities and embrace aggressive new conservation techniques. Fresno and other cities without water meters must move more rapidly to install and use them.

Housing

How will we build housing that an increasingly young and often poor population can afford? The continued sprawl of single-family residences into the fertile fields of the Valley isn't the answer -- less than half of households can afford that version of the American Dream today, and it's likely that will only get worse.

For the first quarter of 2007, the affordability index for the Valley stood at 41% -- the percentage of median-income households that can afford a median-priced home in the region. That's up from 38% in the same quarter in 2006, but a population boom is likely to drive prices even higher, pushing more and more prospective homeowners out of the market.

Jobs

Unemployment rates in the central San Joaquin Valley hover between 8% and 9%, well above the state rate of 5.2% (measured in May). Efforts such as the Regional Jobs Initiative, which aims to create as many as 30,000 jobs over five years, are essential -- but are not enough by themselves. Diversification is necessary in any ag-based economy, since such economies tend to be characterized by low wages and high unemployment, and are also subject to vagaries of weather and markets.

Schools

Our schools are already being battered by thousands of children who don't speak English and come from homes that offer them little support in their school work. Add to that the skewed curriculum forced on students and teachers alike by standardized testing, and you have a recipe for today's underwhelming performance.

The population boom that lies in our near future will only exacerbate those problems, since it will be a very young group in the aggregate. We must find ways to get past the politics of education and get back to doing a better job of learning. These young people will be especially important as baby boomers age and leave the working population.

Recreation

As urban densities inevitably increase, so do all manner of pressures. That makes open space and recreational opportunities even more important -- and we're already way behind the curve. Fresno needs at least one more major regional park, along the lines of Woodward and Roeding, and many more smaller, neighborhood parks. Green, tree-lined open spaces are one of the principal amenities in cities that offer a high quality of life to residents, and we don't have enough now. It will only get worse as our population grows.

None of this will be easy, but getting a start on these crucial needs now will save us a great deal of grief as the Valley continues to fill with newcomers in the years ahead.
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http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/story/86128.html

That part of the country will be predominately hispanic. A big barrio. They will have to import hispanic doctors.

Originally Posted by NCByrd

That part of the country will be predominately hispanic. A big barrio. They will have to import hispanic doctors.

They probably are - and they will also probably give full scholarships - courtesy of American taxpayers - to illegals or their children to become doctors.