WHEN I WALK AROUND THE VILLAGE of Chatham I notice a couple of things that have changed over the last few years. I can’t speak with certainty about the other three villages or the City of Hudson or any of the hamlets, like Copake, New Lebanon, Hillsdale and Germantown, for instance. Just Chatham. My observation suggests: there there are a lot more dogs.
This could be investigated through public records. Some of the trend might be traced to the pandemic or to the sense of security that comes with owning a dog, assuming the dog is big enough and menacing enough but not too aggressive.
Observation number two: I see a lot more babies. Clusters of strollers of them hang out with moms, dads and siblings. I won’t attempt to correlate dogs and infants. Maybe it’s an illusion. Have I misread the data? Yes, it seems I did. Not so serious. But what happens when it is? Here is an example of what it takes to document social and economic change. It’s a report called “The Great People Shortage and its Effects on the Hudson Valley” published by Pattern for Progress in April of this year.
The non-profit business group has published similar analyses in the past, including a look at dropping school enrollments in a region with nine counties, starting with Columbia and Greene on the north. This latest report sees the difficulty of finding workers to hire here. The lack of workers is part of a global shortage of workers to fill open positions. And if we don’t have an adequate workforce, our economy suffers and with it our quality of life.
How about all those kids on my street? Statistically they don’t tell you anything about population. But the United Nations Population Division does: “Higher living standards, rising costs, and other factors have pushed global birth rates below the threshold that is necessary to keep populations stable.” In other words, we have too few babies to sustain our standard of living.
Columbia County is listed as having among the fewest live births in the survey area. The report doesn’t make clear whether the data attributed to Columbia Memorial Health factored in the hospital’s decision to cease providing obstetric services. But it doesn’t matter. It’s the trends identified in “The Great People Shortage” report that will most likely shape this region’s story.
There is much to consider in this news from the future. Not all of it will turn out as the data suggest. For instance, the report takes issue with some questionable “Facts” including the assertion, “People just don’t want to work anymore.” It found that except for the pandemic, “The percentage of people working in New York today is actually higher than much of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2010s. People want to work.”
So we know what the obstacles are, what do we do about it? Here’s a finding from the Pattern for Progress report: “Every person interviewed for this report mentioned immigration as a feasible solution.”
The report comes from business executives and academics. How serious are we about maintaining our quality of life? How much are we willing to share?
To learn more call Pattern for Progress: (845) 565-4900 email Robin DeGroat, VP of Operations, rdegroat@pfprogress.org or log in at www.pattern-for-progress.org/be-part-of-the-pattern or mail to P.O. Box 425, Newburgh, NY 12551.
