|
||||||
|
Communities and Consequences
By Laura Knoy on Monday, March 24, 2008.
A new documentary and companion book called “Communities and Consequences” explores the human ecology of our state. The book is co-authored by demographer Peter Francese and now State Agriculture Commissioner, Lorraine Stuart Merrill. The documentary is produced by filmmaker Jay Childs and hosted by Francese. Both film and book send alarm that our ecology is very much out of balance. They suggest that we’ve become too old, that we’re driving younger families out of our state due to an irrational fear of higher taxes, that our thoughts on preservation have become skewed and that we’re in desperate need of workforce housing. And they both warn that unless this imbalance is corrected soon it may mean “economic suicide” for our state. We’ll look at the ideas of human ecology, ask if and why we may be growing older and what could be done to get our state back in balance.
Guests
- Peter Francese, demographer, coauthor of the book “Communities and Consequences: The Unbalancing of New Hampshire’s Human Ecology, and what we can do about it” and featured in the companion documentary by the same name
- Steve Norton , Executive Director of the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy
- Ken Kerber , Chairman of the Planning Board in Marlborough, NH for 18 years. Ken was also in the documentary “Communities and Consequences”.
- Andy Lucier , Fire Chief, Emergency Management Director and Ambulance Director for the town of Milton, NH. Andy has been involved with the Fire Department and Ambulance for Milton for 35 years and he’s also in the documentary, “Communities and Consequences”.
"Communities and Consequences" is playing at the following locations in New Hampshire:
3/27: at PSNH in Manchester, at 6:30 pm
4/14: on NHPTV, at 7:30 pm
4/16: on NHPTV, at 9 am
4/19: at Portsmouth Public Library, at 9:30 am
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Google
Yahoocomments
All comments are moderated before appearing on the site. Comments must adhere to the NHPR.org comment guidelines and terms of use.
As chairman of the Stratham School Board I have observed with increasing frustration and bewilderment that our school district's health care costs are well above the national average and increasing faster that the nation as a whole. After reading Communities and Consequences, the reasons for this are becoming more clear. As the book points out, medicare does not cover the full cost of healthcare for the patients it covers. Healthcare providers therefore must engage in cost shifting to those under 65 years of age to recover their costs. This in effect puts greater burden on private payers such as school districts and others. When one considers that the first of the baby boom generation is about to reach 65 years of age it gives increasing cause for concern. Our communities need to attract and retain more young people in order to keep these costs in balance.
Luke Breton
Stratham