If you are one of the declining number who, like me, believe that government has a role to play in such areas as managing growth, you might be led by these numbers into some rather provocative speculation. After all, look at how high the urban expansion rate is in the rest of Virginia's part of the basin, where the population growth rate is less than Northern Virginia's. Draw you own conclusions. There is a lot to argue about in these numbers. But that should lead to the kind of healthy debate we need to keep these issues on the front burner where they belong.
More analysis is needed.
More complete data and better explanations are needed. It should be an interesting couple of days in Reston. Notes from Bayside is written monthly by Bill Matuszeski, director of the EPA's Chesapeake Bay Program Office.