Population Growth

Inland Empire Must Get Ready for Massive Growth

According to The Press-Enterprise, May 26, 2017, if the Inland Empire is going to grow by nearly 2.7 million people over the next three decades, we’re going to need a lot more housing and jobs. Not to mention more and better maintained roads and freeways, transit options, water infrastructure, medical facilities, parks and other recreational venues.

That population growth prediction came from the U.S. Conference of Mayors in the report “Metro Economies — Past and Future Employment.” The Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area will swell from today’s 4.5 million people to just under 7.2 million by 2046 — a 58 percent increase that will make it the 10th-largest metropolitan area in the nation, according to the mayors’ report. “Mayors maintain that infrastructure investment in roads, rails, bridges and other forms of transportation will help relieve the bottlenecks impeding economic expansion, said a press release about the report.

Perhaps even more important to reducing congestion than more roads that would help inland residents commute to Orange and L.A. counties will be growing the job base in the Inland Empire. With the burgeoning population, the region will offer a formidable workforce — so long as our workers are well prepared. To that end, we have to support our schools and colleges, which need to be able to get their students ready to take on mid-21st-century jobs.

 

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