A significant number of children born in 2014 are still going to be around to see the 22nd century.
In my last couple of City Talk columns, I discussed trends worth watching over the next year, but there are far larger trends that deserve occasional attention from columnists such as this one.
What will the Savannah metro area look like in 2100? What do we want it to look like?
More importantly, what will the people actually living here in 2100 want the city and its environs to look like?
Planners think about questions like this all the time, but the big questions don’t get as much public discussion as they should.
I’m not really into the prediction racket, especially when it comes to long-term trends.
Keep in mind that as recently as 2001, Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan and other government officials were predicting federal budget surpluses for at least the next decade.
Given predictions like that, we should be suspicious of all the so-called experts, politicians and pundits who look at current events and draw conclusions about 2020, 2030, 2040 and beyond.
Still, we can’t just ignore credible evidence, good data and reasonable arguments.
The big ifs
How much will the Savannah area be impacted by its coastal geography and by tropical weather between now and 2100?
Data show that sea levels have been rising for many decades and seem likely to continue rising.
But will that rise be just a foot or less by 2100? Or will it be much more?
Obviously, we won’t have to wait till 2100 for that question to be answered. The pace of sea level rise will obviously have many impacts on growth and development along the coast.
And then there’s the weather.
The state was obviously impacted by hurricanes in recent decades, but no major ones (category 3 or higher) made landfall on the Georgia coast in the 20th century.
However, according to the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, six major hurricanes (category 3 or higher) made landfall on the Georgia coast in the 19th century.
We would be improbably lucky if we made it through another century without a major hurricane.
Given the risks of sea level rise and of major storms, it would make sense if we were looking first to the high ground for residential development and for critical infrastructure.
How many of our existing buildings will be standing in 2100?
Buildings come and buildings go.
I would bet that Savannah will still have an active preservation movement in 2100, but how far will that extend?
How protective will we be of homes and other structures built in the 20th and even the 21st centuries?
As a practical matter, how many of those buildings will even be worth reinvestment as they age?
Many of the metro area’s newer neighborhoods were built over relatively short time spans. What will happen if a significant number of homes fall into disrepair more or less simultaneously?
Density, transportation and transit
In a worst-case scenario of rising seas and major hurricanes, the Savannah metro area population could stagnate or even decline.
Alternately, it’s also possible that we will continue to see fast growth along the coast for decades.
The Savannah metropolitan statistical area (Chatham, Effingham and Bryan counties) currently has a population of 360,000. If current growth trends continue, we could plausibly have a million residents in 2100.
Would there be room for that many more people?
Sure, we’d have the room, in theory. But the region would look far different than it does today.
We have lots of forested land that could be cleared, and many of our neighborhoods could support far greater residential density than they have now.
As I’ve noted here fairly often, numerous historic neighborhoods on high ground in the heart of Savannah once had much larger populations than they do today.
Even if we find room for more people to live, what happens when they want to move around?
We’ll build more roads in the coming decades, for sure. The construction and maintenance will be massive burdens on public spending.
Will we make a similar commitment to public transit improvements? Will we adequately develop spaces for bicycles and other alternate forms of transportation?
The Savannah area is lucky to have planners like those employed by local governments and by the Metropolitan Planning Commission, and we’re lucky to have urban designers and theorists who are contemplating some of these changes.
But are we listening enough to them?
City Talk appears every Tuesday and Sunday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net. Send mail to 10 East 32nd St., Savannah, Ga. 31401.