Over the next 25 years Northeastern Illinois will experience major growth—1.2 million new jobs will be created and as many as two million new residents will join the 8 million people already living here. Anyone currently living in the area knows that our shared resources are already under strain: we spend some 253 million hours and 151 million gallons of fuel just sitting in traffic jams. Our public transit system is the nation’s second largest but has faced funding shortfalls and an increasingly decrepit infrastructure for decades. If current projections are accurate as many as 23 townships may suffer water deficits of varying severity by the year 2030. Meanwhile the region’s buildings are the source of the largest portion of greenhouse gas emissions to our atmosphere.

Chicago Matters: Growing Forward will explore the fundamental ways we are connected through our region’s shared resources—the land we live on and the way we travel, the air we breathe and the water we drink, the food we eat and the waste we generate. We’ll take a critical look at emerging strategies for resource use and management at multiple levels - public, private and personal. As the region grows who can best manage these resources—the city or state government? Private industry? Community organizations? How do we propose to maintain access to shared resources? What does going green mean to our region? How is it linked—in terms of our technologies, industries and day to day lives – to sustaining the current rate of growth in the region? The series will explore these issues and examine what we are doing to tackle the growing environmental problems facing the region.

Tune in for the latest Chicago Matters: Growing Forward feature every other Tuesday.