IT’S NOT clear why Phil Redo thinks we need a plan to keep people from leaving Massachusetts, or why our lagging population growth relative to the nation as a whole is a “predicament’’ (op-ed, Aug. 18). He goes on to say that population loss per se is not the problem - although how 2.3 percent population growth can be described as population loss is also unclear. Rather, population “loss’’ is a symptom of deeper problems, e.g., housing issues, lack of jobs, anti-business policies, etc., which we need a plan to solve.

Whether immigration is a problem for Massachusetts depends on who is leaving the state. If we are losing our young, well-educated, or highly trained people, that would be a cause for concern. But a shrinking, or slower growing, population is not in and of itself bad.

In a survey conducted several years ago by MassINC, the number one reason cited by people who would leave Massachusetts if they could is the weather. With the planet heating up and the Southwest doomed to become a vast, waterless desert, all we have to do is bide our time. Migration patterns will turn around and the Northeast will have a different kind of population problem.

DAVID TEBALDI

Northampton

The writer is executive director of Mass Humanities.

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