Shaping Orange County's Future Final Full Report

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GOAL 1: Put Comm unity Building First Rationale To have a truly sustainable community we must foster multicultural involvement in the local traditions, history, heritage, and memories. We need to fully include all people within the community, minorities, seniors, children and youth, and people with disabilities. Thus, our community's diversity and inclusiveness is the foundation for creating and maintaining a vibrant, healthy community life. We need to strengthen relationships and understanding between Orange County's rural and urban residents, among residents of varying ethnic, racial, and economic backgrounds, and between the University of North Carolina and all of its Orange County neighbors. It is also important to understand that in order for our community to be truly diverse we need to ensure that people who work here can afford to live here. Thus, the availability of affordable housing for low and moderate income households is a critical requirement. To deepen the sense of community in Orange County, the community building principles listed in the previous section must be applied whenever we attempt to understand and make decisions about our area's problems and directions. In particular the local elected boards, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Orange Water and Sewer Authority each have a responsibility to advance and expand the building of community because of their obvious and determinative influence in so many of the issues facing Orange County. The pressing problems of each year, or five or ten years, may stay the same or they may change. Certainly, they will increase in number and complexity. What we need, then, as a basis for generating specific solutions to those problems, is a shared sense of community among all of our county's individuals and institutions. We do have much in common here in Orange County: our rich cultural life and history, and our dedication to the community's accomplished artists and artisans. The presence of UNC, as well as many other organizations and institutions provide the community with cultural opportunities, galleries, and performance space. Parks and recreational activities also provide opportunities for Orange County residents to build community through sports and outdoor activities. The county also celebrates its significant cultural history, both historic and prehistoric, and its abundance of historic resources. The county's cultural, recreational, and historic resources must be solidly supported and nurtured by the community, so that each Orange County resident has the opportunity to participate in and enjoy these remarkable assets which enrich all of our lives. Open space, farmland preservation, natural resource protection, and environmental quality are widely shared values in Orange County. All of these provide citizens with many opportunities for meaningful volunteer efforts in their support, for partnerships between the University and the community at- large, for unique identity- enhancing events, and for the highly participatory and effective interjurisdictional collaboration required for their safekeeping. WJ