DELAWARE - Everyone's got an opinion, and when it comes to growth in Sussex County, that seems doubly true.
In "The Price of Paradise: Growth on the Coast," my focus was on the population boom in southern Delaware. Some people we talked to, even people who are part of the more recent migration towards the coast, want to see that stop. They want to see a pause or a break to let the area catch up with the fast pace of change. Others do not think that's fair; they can't understand how someone can move to the coast to enjoy everything it has to offer while simultaneously closing the door to the next wave of people with the same idea.
No matter which side of that divide you fall on, the problems people are worried about all seem to be the same, and the answers seem to be few and far between. People say southern Delaware doesn't have enough doctors, it doesn't have enough childcare, it doesn't have enough affordable housing, and that's all because it has too many people, too much traffic, and too much growth.
That growth does not seem likely to stop. According to projections from the Delaware Population Consortium, Sussex County is expected to add 20,000 more residents in the next five years. The numbers balloon even further over the next ten to twenty years. If those numbers prove to be true, it will put a strain on everything from housing supply to infrastructure, and it will likely force state and local governments, as well as businesses and developers, to come up with new solutions to a growing problem.