Opinion: Building a Fairfield County where everyone wins

by Mendi Blue Paca, Clayton Fowler and Harlan Stone

Originally published by CT Post – August 20, 2025

A new study offers the blueprint for a promising and prosperous future for all of Fairfield County’s residents.

And if we come together with a shared purpose, we can move from blueprint to action. The study’s data-driven findings are straightforward: We’ll all benefit economically by creating new opportunities for many in our community who have been left behind as our region has grown to one of the wealthiest in America.

Commissioned by Fairfield County’s Community Foundation, “The Upside: Growth Potential and the Future of Fairfield County,” details the cascading benefits of narrowing a glaring wealth gap that has created the second highest income inequality among all U.S. metro areas.

The researchers concluded that executing on the study’s recommendations related to closing gaps in income, educational attainment, homeownership, and housing values could lead to a $15.6 billion increase in Fairfield County’s GDP (based on 2021-2022 data).

The downstream effect of this could fatten just about every wallet in our community and improve quality of life for all. Home values would increase by $36.6 billion; we’d generate $603 million more in local revenue from property taxes and $1.2 billion more in state revenue from income taxes.

That newfound revenue could hire additional teachers and support tax cuts, infrastructure projects, housing assistance for essential workers, and enhanced mass transit.

This effort would be life-changing for those on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder, a disproportionate number of whom are Black or Latino. Our neighbors who play essential roles in making our community run — teachers, firefighters, police officers, service and healthcare workers — could move beyond paycheck-to-paycheck existence and play a more dynamic role in civic life.

The ripple effect of this change would boost quality of life for everyone through better schools, reduced crime, improved access to healthcare, more efficient public transit, and less traffic congestion as more local workers could afford to live closer to their jobs, as opposed to enduring the long commute from bordering communities today.

Over the past several years, we’ve had a front-row seat to one of the most persistent barriers to our shared prosperity — the lack of affordable housing. For many, this housing crisis limits their options to living outside of our region, living here in substandard conditions, or settling for situations in which rent, or housing payments devour huge chunks of their income.

Further, we’re witnessing a growing economically driven brain drain in which those who grew up here and went away to college, the military, or a job now can’t afford to move back to their hometowns because of soaring home prices combined with the high cost of living. Meanwhile, older residents on fixed income find it increasingly difficult to make ends meet and maintain homes they have lived in for decades.

In short, challenges that some have chosen to dismiss as “other people’s problems” are fast becoming everyone’s problem. And if we don’t take bold and decisive action now, it’s only going to get worse.

The good news is we have the power to rewrite our future. And to do so in ways that create a more competitive, resilient and inclusive regional economy — one where every person in Fairfield County has a fair opportunity to reach their full potential.

The Upside study also delves into the process of helping us get there. Recommendations cover issues such as housing, education, and workforce development. And there are specific actions suggested for different groups within our community.

For instance, local residents can push for changes to restrictive local zoning regulations. Philanthropic organizations can pool resources to make more grant funding available for small businesses. Business leaders can implement or improve apprenticeship programs.

For any of these efforts to gain real traction, we’ll need teamwork, tenacity, and innovation. It will also require embracing a mindset that success for some doesn’t have to come at the expense of others.

It’s not about scrambling for the last pieces of pie. It’s about baking a bigger one that can assure plenty for everyone.

In recent months, it has become increasingly clear that the flurry of policy changes occurring at the federal level severely limits what we can control outside of Fairfield County’s borders.

Yet working with local and state governments, we do have a lot of power to control what happens here in our own backyard.

The future of our county rests in our hands. Now we have a plan to get there in a way that benefits all of us.

Let’s get to work.

Originally published by CT Post.com.