Community Leaders Join Together to Build a Better Future

A diverse group of community leaders gathered Wednesday to announce the launch of Our Greater San Diego Vision, a council of more than 150 people that will work to create a shared vision for the future of San Diego County. The group intends to come up with solutions to problems that will inevitably arise as the population continues to grow.

The announcement was held on the San Diego State University campus, with many of the council’s “ambassadors” present behind a podium and around 50 children from the South Bay Family YMCA assembled in front. Five ambassadors spoke about the challenges the San Diego region faces in the future and how they plan to address them.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders told the gathering that since the region is one of the most beautiful and livable places on Earth, people will want to move here and stay here, and so will their children.

“Within the next four decades, we’re expected to add about 1.25 million people to our region, which is the population of the city of San Diego,” Sanders said. “That’s going to mean we need better transportation infrastructure, hundreds of thousands more jobs and housing for all of these families.”

Our Greater San Diego Vision started in 2010 with a series of regional workshops that concluded a plan for the future is needed to address quality-of-life issues, said Chairman Bill Geppert.

“We conducted extensive surveys from San Diegans to get a good baseline understanding of the aspirations and views and concerns that San Diegans had about our region,” Geppert said.

Over the summer, Our Greater San Diego Vision will have four task forces made up of 40 to 50 people developing options in four key areas: economic development, education, housing, transportation and cost of living. Geppert said a series of large public workshops will be held in October where people can review the options and provide input and present their own ideas.

After those workshops have finished refining the options, they will be presented to the general public, who can participate in the process on the group’s Facebook page and on Twitter (@OurSDVision). Geppert said the goal is to have tens of thousands of people become part of the process.

“This process will then produce a completed vision in the spring of 2012,” Geppert said.

The vision will be continually refreshed and implemented through the Center for Civic Engagement that The San Diego Foundation will open this fall. The foundation is a supporter of Our Greater Vision San Diego with underwriting from various sponsoring organizations—including Qualcomm, Cox Communications, the Leichtag Family Foundation and Bridgeport Education—and community leaders.

“The San Diego Foundation will establish a Center for Civic Engagement to be the organizational backbone of the vision, to ensure that it is implemented, continually updated and remains a true reflection of the public’s values and priorities for decades to come,” said Jennifer Adams-Brooks, incoming chairwoman of the San Diego Foundation.

According to Geppert, the region’s population growth will come largely from current residents, as six out of 10 people living here in 40 years will be our children and grandchildren.

“We are producing the majority of the growth in the region,” Geppert said. “The next generation will need 500,000 new jobs, 400,000 new homes. We will need a sufficient water supply, quality education, a transportation system that accommodates the 1.3 million more people, a protected environment, health care for an aging population.

“This growth will put a strain on our region’s future,” Geppert continued. “Therefore it’s clear we must work together on a regional plan that considers all of these factors together.”