Take a moment to ponder this astonishing statistic: Columbia County’s population has not even doubled since 1800. 221 years ago, there were 35,000 people here. Today, there are about 63,000.
This one statistic explains 95% of why our area is now viewed as so “desirable.” Sure, we have a National Heritage River, great scenery, ruggedly beautiful terrain, plenty of agriculture, and lots of historic buildings. But it would be hard to notice any of those things if local population had kept pace with the rest of the nation. We would have hundreds of thousands, or even millions of residents (proportionally speaking). It would take an hour to drive from Hudson to Hillsdale.
How long can that last?
There is a population glacier to our south, and it is creeping northward. Has been for decades.
Events like 9/11 and COVID cause The Glacier to leap ahead, then settle down and resume its slow creep. Longtime residents get alarmed by the big leaps, then go back to sleep and take less notice of the steady glacial deposits.
With more climate, economic and other disasters (recently, the subway and apartment floods in NYC), that constant northward flow will just keep coming, and accelerating.
Frankly, it’s futile to try to stop it. Yell on Facebook about “citiots,” reminisce about the (not so) Good Old Days, pray for them to go back to Brooklyn all you like. It ain’t happening. The culture wars between old and new (and newer) may rage; but the changes will proceed without a pause. Glaciers can’t be stopped.
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It will not be surprising if mid-Hudson populations explode over the next 25 years. As New York City, Long Island and Westchester become less and less livable, the Taconic and I-87 will be the paths of least resistance for urban refugees (already are). Destinations within a three-hour drive north of the metroplex will keep filling up. It only takes a small percentage of residents from those areas to head north to abruptly transform low-density counties like ours.
For now, population has remained steady, in large part because the increase in households has been accompanied by a decrease in household size: There are more homes, but smaller families. Don’t expect that to continue.
The average family size will stay smaller than it was a few generations ago, but the number of families will keep growing. In Columbia County, 65,000 could easily become 125,000. People will wake up and lament, “What happened to the place I once knew?” as if they never saw it coming. And then look around for scapegoats to blame, other than ourselves.
Across the River, you’re already hearing a lot of grousing about developments like the “massive” Winston Farm project, which would cover some 800 acres. According to published reports, this would include not just standalone homes, but also multi-family units... along with “an indoor waterpark resort,” plus “job incubators, an amphitheater, event space, camping spaces and an old mansion on-site that would be turned into a boutique hospitality space.
Oh, and an “agrihood concept,” whatever that is.
All that sounds pretty undesirable, at least at this moment. Honestly, this observer doesn’t like it one bit. Nor should anyone buy the developer’s carefully-massaged sales pitch, cribbing buzzwords and concepts from “smart growth” advocates as selling points.
Still, Winston Farm may look tame or even enlightened in retrospect, compared to what else may be coming. The pressure to slam in half-acre cookiecutter developments is going to be immense in the coming years, as realtors run out of existing housing stock to sell.
Then distressed farms and other larger properties owners, unable to foot their tax bills, will be glad to cash out to developers. They’ll retire to the Carolinas or Florida… only to get their comeuppance from heat and hurricanes. But that’s another story.
City buyers who 20 years ago would not “settle” for less than a handsome falling-down farmhouse on 20+ acres may in another 20 years come to feel fortunate to find a condo within sight (and earshot) of the Parkway or Thruway. Beats living with an elevated train 10 feet outside your apartment window, not to mention floodwaters up to your knees. And empty grocery shelves. They’re not going to feed millions from bespoke rooftop gardens.
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Many fantasize that land trusts will save us from this quandary. Their project is to raise money from ultrarich residents to put farmland and forests out of the reach of developers. Problem is, most if not all of these trusts have highly corporate-friendly boards, who are as terrified of controversy as they are inclined to “compromise” with (read: reap major donations from) developers. Often, these boards are populated by developers themselves.
Covenants meant to protect open space forever will get modified or even abandoned as the land rush accelerates, greatly augmenting these trusts’ coffers. Release 200 acres here to development, then sprinkle a little of the developer’s donation on one corner of the land for a small public park or farmer’s market, to appease any pesky critics. As once said by Ned Sullivan of Scenic Hudson—who placidly made a deal with a fossil fuel power plant behind the backs of activists, in exchange for a multi-million donation to his organization: Development is something they only seek to manage, not oppose.
Such all-but-ineveitable sellouts will be justified as necessary triage. We’ll come to accept the “curation” of growth, and try to make the best of things. In reality, we would be relegated to selecting the least worst option.
So what can we do to prepare for the inevitable? For starters, certainly support local agriculture to lessen their temptation to sell to developers. Get as many of your groceries and other essentials from local sources.
While we’re at it, tell your neighbors hyperventilating about solar farms to knock it off. We are headed for not just global warming, but global catastrophe. Every inch of solar generation—whether it is located here, or in Nebraska, or Siberia—benefits everyone to the extent that solar replaces fossil fuels and the carbon emissions which result from them. It also helps keep space relatively unspoiled. Solar can always be pulled up, and the soil will still be there.
Also, tell your newly-minted neighbors—whether longtime locals, or new arrivals from Manhattan—to not just register to vote, but to vote in more than just national elections. As reported here, turnout from the 2020 Trump-Biden tilt dropped precipitously in 2021, dropping off 43% just a year later. This demonstrates that many voters have yet to understand that local elections actually affect their quality of life (and pocketbook) more than Federal ones.
If you want to be able to recognize this place in 20 years, get involved. Support better zoning and more sensible local officials. Oppose boneheaded ideas that would truly destroy the health and character of the area; don’t oppose trivialities. Rather than railing at out-of-place newcomers, or mocking the supposed backwardness of old-timers, focus on solutions that will meaningfully lessen the dramatic changes heading our way.
That should include relatively low-impact and contextual new housing stock, built while we still have time, not in a hurry... before the pressure reaches crisis levels, and every pasture gets turned into Levittown.