When I was a baby, my parents and I moved to Lexington, Kentucky. My mom had left behind debilitating rural poverty in eastern Kentucky. My dad had left behind a then-fairly stagnant Louisville. Before I could talk, we bounced around the southeast from apartment to house to apartment as my dad served in the military and started looking for a job in the automotive industry. We might have left Kentucky altogether at this point. But eventually, he found a good job at the Toyota plant in Georgetown.

My parents bought our home shortly thereafter, a house off of Todds Road that was built thanks to a recent expansion of Lexington’s urban growth boundary. Later that year, we celebrated my sister’s first birthday there. A lot has changed, but my parents still live in that house. Whenever I think about the course my life has taken, I think about how different things would have been if we hadn't found a place like Lexington.

Between now and 2025, Lexington is projected to add 40,000 new residents. I start off by sharing personal history because, when we talk about migration and development in Lexington, it’s easy to forget the human reality of these issues. Each of these 40,000 abstractions is a human being with hopes, fears, and needs. Many of them are Kentuckians who, like my mom, come from places where there is no opportunity. For them, Lexington is a beacon of hope — a place where they can find a great job, reach their fullest potential, raise a family or start a business.

When we talk about how Lexington needs to change in the years to come, we can frame it as something like: “How do we add 40,000 new residents without crossing X housing cost threshold?” But I prefer to think of it this way: How do we keep Lexington (and cities like it) a place that is livable and affordable for people like my young parents? It’s a massive undertaking and now is the time to start taking this question seriously. This vital question is something cities across the country should be considering too.

We essentially have three options:

Option 1: Do nothing.

First, we could do nothing. We could keep our existing zoning ordinance and allow a trickle of new development through our complicated and costly rezoning processes. And why not? We already have some nice communities and beautiful buildings. Lots of new development would mean some communities lose their character and some new building may be torn down, and who wants that?

Of course, the inevitable result of this option is stagnation, killing the very community we seek to preserve. As demand booms and supply stays flat, poor Lexingtonians would be the first to be forced out. The change that is underway in once-working class communities in North Limestone and Kenwick would kick into overdrive. Children in Lexington would grow up, find a lack of affordable housing, and leave the city. Retiring parents in Lexington would get a big payout from selling their homes and retire outside of the city. Both trends would, in the long term, steadily kill off Lexington’s unique culture.

New migrants from the hills of eastern Kentucky and the industrial husks of the Midwest would find themselves having to live in neighboring cities like Nicholasville and Georgetown. They would be forced to take hour-long automobile commutes into the city, worsening congestion and air quality. A once special city — a place of hope for young and ambitious Kentuckians — would gradually devolve into an exclusive country club. I don’t consider this a viable option and you shouldn’t either.