Rising taxes. Eroding jobs. Decreasing salaries. Brain drain. This morning's presentation of the LI Index painted a bleak picture of Long Island's future if action isn't taken immediately to shift the market back to prosperity, according to presenters.
"The clock is ticking on Long Island," warned Nancy Rauch Douzinas, president of the Rauch Foundation.
Such gloom predictions came from the findings of research known as the LI Index. For the seventh year, the Rauch Foundation has presented its findings on the state of Long Island and its population. Held in the Performing Arts Center at Adelphi University, speakers pointed to an outdated suburban design that needs revamping.
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Galina Tahchieva, director of town planning for Duany Plater-Zyberk and Co. Architects and Town Planners, presented visions for a futuristic Long Island, which included ramping up "downtowns," re-using the bountiful gray asphalt that covers our area and building more multi-dwelling and multi-family housing.
Tahchieva cited "walkable urbanism" as a main trend in building today. This model, which she says could be applied here, would include fortifying the downtown hubs of Long Island's villages with more housing, more walkways and more greenery. The result? A more robust and earth-friendly downtown that would attract more residents and industry to the area while retaining jobs.
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"Long Island can be, again, the center of planning innovation," Tahchieva said, referring to William Levitt's building plan that formed Levittown in the late 1940s.
During the two-hour presentation, statistics about Long Island's high cost of living were shared. From 2000 through 2009, while wages in Long Island decreased 2.6 percent, the United States in general saw an almost 5 percent increase. And while 38 percent of Long Islanders are spending more than one-third of their income on housing, that U.S. figure is about 29 percent. Such high costs and lack of jobs is forcing both the young adult population and Baby Boomers, unwilling to retain their pricey homes, to flee the Island.
The organization commissioned a study that calculated nearly 8,300 acres on Long Island as potential parcels for development.
"This is a conversation we need to have across our region if we are going to compete," says Ann Golob, director of the LI Index.
For more information on the study, visit www.longislandindex.org.
