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We Need More Prophetic Voices
by Tom Campbell

March 22, 2007

Tell someone you had a prophetic vision and they are likely to look at you in strange ways. I had such a vision of March 2017 that frightened me much more than the old man who stared back at me in the mirror.

The vision of North Carolina ten years hence was horrifying. Our burgeoning population growth and lack of attention to our infrastructure needs had created a nightmare at every turn. Highways were crumbling and so congested as to make ordinary travel, especially on major arteries, both time-consuming and frustrating. Bridges were almost dangerous. Crisis conditions were found in inadequate and unavailable public school facilities. School systems were double-shifting students and year-round schedules were the norm for urban systems. Major overcrowding was evident in our community colleges and public universities. Water and sewer systems were consistently overloaded and inadequate to meet the needs.

This was a North Carolina in crisis. People so were incensed that jobs and residents were leaving for other states. I remembered the time back in the nineties when our state was cited as the model for others. Whatever had happened to the “Dixie Dynamo,” as we once were known? How did we go from favored to faltering?

There was no dramatic storm or crisis or scandal that robbed North Carolina of its pride and progress. There was a lack of planning, more specifically a lack of decisive action that saw our state devolve and crumble. If you get to the root cause of the problem you would find a lack of progressive leadership that was unable and unwilling to look to the future, determine the needs of our people, and put bold plans in motion to meet those needs.

This prophetic vision came to me after two recent reports. The first was a presentation by UNC President Erskine Bowles concerning the demands soon to face our public universities. The second was a report from UNC Charlotte’s Dr. David Hartgen on both current and future traffic congestion problems in our state. Both point to the painfully obvious lack of vision necessary to face and meet the challenges of our future. These are only two examples; others could be raised.

Through the decades North Carolina has been blessed to have had progressive leaders. Kerr Scott demonstrated this leadership when he convinced a much poorer North Carolina to go 200 million dollars into debt to build farm-to-market roads in the 1940’s. Jim Martin did the same in the 1980’s in establishing the Highway Trust Fund. Jim Hunt led the fight for new public school, community college, and university facilities. Three examples of bold and visionary leadership, much like the 80 year old who plants the oak sapling knowing generations to come will see the benefits.

It has been estimated that our infrastructure needs would require 30 billion dollars in expenditures before 2017. Where are those who should be informing us of these needs? Where are the leaders willing to get out in front of these issues with solutions? When are we going to begin to realistically address both present and future needs? We need more prophetic voices.