Wave of growth, planning in US

PLANO, Texas -- In a matter of days, America's population will pass the 300 million threshold, marking a period where immigrants have arrived in numbers not seen for nearly a century and a time of explosive growth in suburbs such as this one north of Dallas.

Driving the expansion has been a steady birth rate, people living longer largely because of medical advances and, most influentially, a historic influx of foreigners that harks back to the country's melting pot roots.

At America's 100-million population mark, in 1915, about 14 percent of the residents were immigrants. At the 200-million mark in 1967, the number dropped to about 5 percent. Today, at nearly 300 million, it is back to 12 percent.

But as the US population continues to surge -- researchers predict another 100 million people will arrive within 37 years -- handling residential growth and conservation of resources could become a more pressing national priority, particularly as increasing energy consumption intersects with tighter supplies of fuel and water.

``I think we are at a real tender moment in our nation now, seeing this phenomenally rapid growth," said David Goldberg , communications director of Smart Growth America, a Washington-based advocacy group that promotes innovative planning practices in communities. ``With resources really constrained, the likelihood is that competition for extractive oil will become an increasingly pointed issue."

In north Texas, and in the American South and West generally, some communities have grown by nearly 50 percent in the last five years, evolving so fast and with so little planning that they have largely become indistinguishable from one another: large one-family lots extending for miles; six-lane roads connecting communities; and superstores fronted by fields of parking spaces near almost every traffic light.

But many environmentally conscious planners and conservationists believe these heavy energy-consuming scenarios can be altered. They point to such places as Plano, an affluent suburb 10 miles north of Dallas in one of the fastest-growing regions in the nation.

The booming city provides important lessons on how communities can handle such massive numbers of newcomers. It has combined planning and revitalization of existing areas with smart growth, a development strategy that promotes the use of public transportation and fuel conservation.

Plano has a population of 250,000, about 247,000 more people than were in the city in 1960. Conservationists applaud its new urban center, an ambitious citywide recycling program, multiple parks, long-term support of a transit system, and plans to revitalize the old downtown with high-rise apartments.

Around the nation, ``households take an average of 11 car trips per day, but only 20 percent are work-related," said Harriet Tregoning , executive director of the Governors' Institute on Community Design in Washington, which gives technical advice to local officials on planning issues. ``So if you live in the town center of Plano, that saves a lot of car trips, and a lot of greenhouse gas emissions."

Plano, she said, is one of an increasing number of places -- including areas around Boston; Seattle; Portland, Maine; and Portland, Ore. -- ``where it begins to be cool to get out of your car and walk."

In the 1950s, the area north of Dallas that extended to the Oklahoma line was almost unbroken cotton, wheat, and cornfields.

``The roads were streaked with mud. You came to town on a wagon pulled by a team, and if it rained while you were in town, you stayed in town," Edgar Davis , 72, who was born in Frisco , just north of Plano, said as he unloaded cut branches at Plano's recycling center.

The center will compost 58,000 tons of yard waste this year that would have gone into a dump, and give it away to residents.

In the 1970s and 1980s, community leaders in Plano, foreseeing a wave of growth, made two important decisions: They welcomed development, and they planned for it. They laid out the city in a grid pattern, easing traffic flows. Inside each grid, they bought land for schools and an adjacent park.

They joined with other communities to form a water district, ensuring a supply of water at a lower cost. They invested money in the nascent Dallas transit system, which built stations in the city in the mid-1990s. And they aggressively sought corporations so that the community would be a job center, not just a home for commuters.

City planners also worked with developers in creating a place called Legacy in the city's northwest corner. The planned community -- 45,000 people living on 2,665 acres -- mixes residential, business, and retail stores. Streets are narrow. People drink coffee in outdoor cafes.

``We wanted a new urbanism," said Phyllis M. Jarrell , Plano's director of planning, as she drove into Legacy one day last week, where people were out walking on sidewalks in front of townhouses, apartments, restaurants, stores, and a movie theater. ``This is now the place to be seen," she said. Townhouses go for $300,000, surprising even the developers.

The city now is concerned about development beyond its borders and the development's effects. City planners, who will meet tomorrow with an urban growth specialist from Washington, Robert Puentes of the Brookings Institution, hope to develop strategies for regional development.

Plano, blessed with a tax base that includes several national corporate headquarters, millions of square feet of retail space, and a healthy supply of homes valued near the half-million-dollar mark, has been able to use its wealth to build a top-notch public school system.

Superintendent Douglas W. Otto of the Plano Independent School District still faces challenges.

Because of growth and turnover, he hires about 650 new teachers each year. The student population, now at 53,000, has become more diverse and poorer in the last decade because the economy created thousands of low-paying service jobs.

``Not long ago, you would say we were mostly an Anglo student body that was college-bound, and wealthy," Otto said. ``No more."

Now, 25 percent of students receive free or reduced-price lunches, compared with 7 percent when he took the job 12 years ago. For foreign-born newcomers, he needs several bilingual programs, including one in Chinese.

The demographic change is even more pronounced in Plano than in the country, with 21 percent of Plano's population born in a foreign country, compared with 12 percent nationally. In Plano's schools, 56 percent of students are non-Hispanic white, and 44 percent are Asian, Hispanic, or black.

The growth comes from around the country and the world. An overwhelming number of the foreign-born students in Plano's schools -- more than 90 percent -- have legally entered the United States.

At the 427-bed Medical Center of Plano , which opened in 1975 with 10 general practitioners and now has 1,100 doctors, the babies keep coming. In 1975, the hospital registered 174 births. Now it has that many every two weeks.

Last Tuesday, Suzanne Hacker cradled her 6 -hour-old newborn, Morgan Reid Hacker , pink and puffy-eyed, who weighed 10 pounds at birth. ``We chose to live in this area because it's very family oriented," said the mother of three children. ``And it's a slower place than farther south down into Dallas. Sure it's growing fast, but you don't feel it so much."

But stresses on the environment remain great. The biggest problem is the Dallas area's air quality, which frequently has violated federal Environmental Protection Agency ozone standards.

``Most of the emissions are caused by automobiles," said Gayle Loeffler , chairwoman of the population committee at Sierra Club's Dallas chapter . ``And if you look around here, that's all there is. Cities that sprawl out, and more cars to drive farther and farther."

Plano, which encompasses 72 square miles, is now building to its outer edges, encroaching on one of the few remaining habitats for wildlife. Last year, the city trapped 60 coyotes that ran along the creek beds at night into town, frequently spooking residents and their pets.

One morning last week, animal control officer Sherry Smith , 43, handled calls to capture a squirrel loose in a pantry and to pick up two opossums and a trapped raccoon.

After Smith freed the animals into the woods of a city park, her dispatcher relayed word of a bobcat sighting. Twenty minutes later, she arrived at Fairway Villas, where sounds of construction filled the air. The resident who called in the report was not home. Two doors down, Smith told Jean Yu , 45, a Taiwanese-born architect, about the bobcat report.

``Really?" Yu said, excitedly. ``If you find them, do you have to catch them?"

Smith said her office would trap a bobcat only if many people complained.

``Why do we have to relocate any of them?" asked Yu, who moved into her new townhouse six weeks ago. ``This is their place. We're invading their territories."

John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com