I have lived a long life and I intend to keep living it, but I want to take a walk back briefly through the communities I once called home and explain why my current hometown is so different.

I was born in Portland, Ore., a city that seemed stuck on a certain population of about 375,000 people through the 1950s and 1960s. The Army called me into active duty in 1968 and I returned to Portland, where the population stayed more or less the same through the 1970s and much of the 1980s. My career then summoned my family and me to Beaumont, Texas, a nice city to be sure, but one trapped in the era of “white flight” of residents to the suburbs. The population of Beaumont declined during our nearly 11 years on the Gulf Coast, falling from about 120,000 residents to around 115,000. Opportunity knocked again in 1995 and my wife and I moved to Amarillo, way up yonder in the Panhandle. The city enjoyed slow, but steady growth during our 23 years there. The city grew from about 180,000 residents to just less than 200,000. In 2019, I was retired from daily journalism and Kathy Anne and I moved to Princeton, Texas, a Dallas suburb about 25 miles northeast of Dallas. Then it came, a population explosion the likes of which I never had experienced. We bought our home at the right time, securing a loan for a ridiculously low interest rate. New residents came pouring into our city. The population exploded from 6,800 residents in 2010 to 17,027 in 2020. Today the city estimates the city is home to 40,000 residents. Forty thousand people now call Princeton home! That number is continuing to explode. The city council has invoked a ban on residential construction permits, but it must honor the permits already granted and the housing construction already underway. I am filled with anxious anticipation as Princeton grapples with this growth. Texas highway planners have big projects set for U.S. 380. City public works crews have to install new water and sewer lines. Police and fire departments need to hire more personnel. The school system is building campuses as quickly as it can but they are being overwhelmed by new students pouring into the district. The city desperately needs more commercial development to serve the thousands of new residents who are moving here. Those of us who already are here must watch as the city grapples with solutions to the “problem” officials face. How to cope with the tide of people who realize what many of us knew all along, that Princeton is a nice place to call home. City Hall’s challenge is to maintain Princeton’s desirability.