What does our community and region need?

Government can only do what is on the municipal planning organization’s comprehensive plans for funding the five-year and two-year planning windows in an area.  This GoTo 2040 needs public as well as professional input.   In order to have a sustainable and flexible Chicagoland area, the public must focus and comment on the social, economic, and environmental strategies in the update draft.  While the comprehensive 2040 plan for the Chicagoland area currently exists, it is mandatory to update the plan for strategic planning purposes, a process that includes allocating new funding sources.

People should care about this because the demographics of the region are rapidly changing to a much older population with a higher percentage of people age 55 and older needing employment and having difficulty driving. Either significantly higher fuel costs or a change in funding will be necessary to compensate for fuel tax monies decreasing due to more fuel-efficient vehicles.

The driving force that necessitates these economic and taxation changes is climate change.  More extreme events (with possibly colder winters and hotter summers) will make roads, businesses and homes more susceptible to damage.  An influx of populations from devastated and unlivable areas of the country and world may also require population densities to increase in the collar counties. 

The Chicago Metropolitan Area Planning agency is interested in your feedback for the public input period this summer 2014. You can view the draft at ”draft GO TO 2040 plan update” on the CMAP website.  The CMAP Board and MPO Policy Committee will vote on adoption for the plan update that October.

It is crucial that our community prepares for the future with the services it will need to keep this area a thriving business and living center.

Mary Ann Kaufman

Glen Ellyn