Can the North Country age gracefully?

There’s an interesting article in today’s edition of Slate about Japan’s aging and shrinking population, expected to drop from 128 million in 2004 to 90 million by mid-century.

Such a decline is cataclysmic for an indebted country that values infrastructure and personal service.

Sound familiar?

A recent report compiled by the Adirondack Association of Towns and Villages shows that much of the North Country is also graying.

And while our population has been stable the last few decades we could face a kind of demographic cliff.

Park residents average just under 43 years of age, older than any state for median age. By 2020, only the west coast of Florida will exceed the Adirondacks as the oldest region in America.

It’s worth pointing out that much of the developed world is following the same trajectory, but they’ve made up for their lack of baby-making zeal by importing millions of immigrants.

Japan hasn’t done this because they’re not big fans of immigrants; and the Adirondacks haven’t followed suit because immigrants aren’t huge fans of our cold, rural climes…

Which leaves us with the big question: What do we do?

Here’s my thought: The Adirondacks should begin modeling ways for large-scale communities to age gracefully.

Frankly, it’s good for the planet for there to be far fewer humans running around. And in an age of automation we just don’t need as many people to maintain our high standard of living.

But economists haven’t yet figured out a good way to shift communities from a growth dynamic, where every generation has to be a little bigger and a little more industrious.

A healthy, sustainable equilibrium seems desirable, but the numbers just don’t add up.

So maybe the biggest question facing human society — perhaps even bigger than climate change — goes something like this:

How do you establish a dynamic, prosperous and vibrant culture with zero population growth?

Since the North Country seems to be going down this road anyway — and has an established history of modeling environmental and social ideas — maybe we should think about trying to “answer” this question.

What’s certain is that whole nations — from Italy to Japan — are looking for new ideas. Here’s the nut of the Slate piece:

Chalk it up to age or to culture, but Japan strikes me as strangely passive about the huge changes it is facing. I heard plenty of bromides about the need for new policies toward both immigration and work-life issues but no real policies.

“The ongoing issues of the lower birthrate and the aging society have been going with such speed that the national design of how to respond to that has not caught up yet,” said Yuriko Koike, a TV reporter turned politician (Japan’s first female defense minister) and one of the most prominent women in public life.

The AATV report suggests that we in the North Country don’t have the luxury of being passive.

We either look for ways to do this well — and pretty quick, too — or we might just age our way out of existence…

Fortunately, we have some interesting entities that might just be capable of thinking in interesting ways about this problem, from the AATV itself to the Adirondack Park Agency and Paul Smiths College.

Your thoughts?