Mocha is a BLAST intern.

On June 28 2006, Raleigh and I were able to attend a conference at Northeastern University hosted by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. We were there for a MetroFuture project. During this project we talked about what the future will hold in the year 2030 in the region. We discussed trends in Massachusetts that will change over time till the year 2030. In these discussions we talked about houses, jobs, land, and populations between moderate suburbs, developing suburbs, and the inner city. Most of our discussions made were based on our group’s votes. We were given ten questions based on these topics and they were broken down into another six to eight questions multiple choice or percentages. We used keypads to answer questions that were multiple choice. These questions were not based on right or wrong answers but on your opinion on how you feel towards situations in Massachusetts that will most likely change in the upcoming years.

My group was table 15 we had many disagreements on certain ideas based on the year 2030. For example, we had a question based on land use and what types of land should be sacrificed for buildings and housing. These types of land included wildlife refuges, recreation land, agricultural land, etc. The people in my group wanted to sacrifice many different types of land for many different reasons and really could not come up with a group discussion for everyone to agree upon. I wanted to keep the agricultural land due to the fact that there is not much of it anyway so, therefore we can’t loses any of it. I think that we should conserve the agricultural land because it would benefit our community and would help improve our local eating habits. I feel that agricultural land is losing business due to the many companies wanting to build homes, and other companies on them. I also feel that many people chose to target farmland oppose to any other types of land. If we use up all of our farmland on housing and companies where would we get our food? There were also some people at my table that did not want to participate and that also affected our groups votes.

If you want to learn more or see more information on the Metropolitan Area Planning Council you can visit their website at http://www.mapc.org, and visit the Metro Future website at http://www.metrofuture.org. You can also see a bunch of information and results taken from this event on this page.