The plan is based on job “needs” in the area, translated into housing “needs”. However, these are based mostly on projections of previous growth rates, with insufficient challenge as to whether similar continued growth is either “needed” by the citizens of Cambridge, or indeed feasible without very significant worsening of the following factors that are already acknowledged to be key problems for Cambridge:
* transport infrastructure
* housing affordability
* water scarcity
* social and economic inequality
* access to shared civic spaces
* access to green spaces
* ecosystem pollution and the generation of waste products
Endless growth is of course not theoretically possible in a physical world of limited resources. There are always factors which increasingly make further growth more unattractive, costly, and dangerous to the entities living in the growth system. What models does the Planning Service have to determine likely limits to growth of the Cambridge economy?