Print
Share page with AddThis

2023/08/07 - Mayor's Column: Keeping Up With a Growing Community

“AN OPEN DOOR TO O’FALLON”
A WEEKLY NOTE FROM MAYOR HERB ROACH
­­­

During the 2020 Census, St. Clair and Madison Counties, combined, had five cities with a population over 20,000 in the 2010 census lose population.  The only two communities that saw growth were Edwardsville which gained about 2,600 and O’Fallon that gained over 4,000.

Here in O’Fallon, we have also seen growth in commercial development as well.  This growth has made O’Fallon the fastest growing city in Southern Illinois, the second largest city in Southern Illinois, and among the top 50 largest cities in the State.

Both growth and decrease in population bring challenges to cities. A decrease in population many times means higher taxes, less community services, and less infrastructure improvements, as well as empty properties, impact on business community, higher crime rates, lower property values and an impact on schools. 

On the other hand, growth has challenges, as well. Such as keeping up infrastructure and city services to meet the growth and to weed out the bad developments from the good developments that come to the city.

Among the benefits of good managed growth are more jobs, improved property values, additional revenue for our schools and stability or lowering of city real-estate taxes.

Are there other challenges to handling growth?  YES, and as our citizens and neighboring cities have seen, you need to adjust and account for every new residential or commercial development in all that we do.

The growth of our city and how we deal with that growth was acknowledge recently by the cities from across the state when representatives from O’Fallon were asked to head up two key topic sessions at the Illinois Municipal League’s Annual Conference in Chicago in September. 

  • Our City Administrator and Community Development Director will be addressing Land Use Planning and the 15-minute City.
  • And I have been asked to head a Roundtable on Economic Development.

As residents of O’Fallon, you should always be able to reach out to your elected officials and ask questions about what is happening in O’Fallon. Having open communications is important to me and something I care very deeply about. Thank you for reading, and please remember, my door is always open.