Bright and early Wednesday morning, I will have the honor of joining my father for an Urban Land Institute (ULI) Reality Check involving thousands of legos, lots of yarn, and a regional challenge requiring creativity and cooperation not only across county lines, but also between a diverse set of interests.

The Reality Check exercise brings together a diverse set of leaders from a nine county region of Eastern North Carolina to address critical growth issues. Participants represent various viewpoints including business and commerce, agriculture, conservation and environmental interests, city and county managers, leaders from education, healthcare, transportation and utilities, as well as residents who “like it just the way it is”.

The EnvisionEast 2050 program summarizes it best.

“Growth is coming to our nine-county eastern North Carolina region.  Projections show as many as a million more people here by 2050.  Where will all of us live, work and play then?  How can we maintain our quality of life and build a sustainable future for ourselves, our children and grandchildren in the face of record growth.

On October 24th, 300 regional business, development, community, government, environmental, academic and military leaders will gather for EnvisionEAST-2050, a ULI Reality Check collaborative regional visioning process of the Urban Land Institute,   Working on maps without county lines participants will suggest alternative scenarios to accommodate growth through the year 2050.

Reality Check is not a new concept. Since 2005, twelve regions including Tampa Bay, Washington DC, the Uplands Region of South Carolina, Charleston, Raleigh-Durham, Jacksonville Florida, Hampton Roads and the state of Maryland, have staged Reality Checks.”

YouTube details a similar event from the Hampton Roads area of Virginia in the video below:

Jim Oliver’s quote captures the essence of the event;

“We are so overwhelmed with thinking little, all of our structures are built about being small, but if the global economy is really about regions, we have to figure out ways to make regional decisions as well as good local, even neighborhood decisions.”

Participants will be working to develop and test different sets of guiding principles throughout the day. I look forward to sharing the best of those soon after this event!