Dover Doins: Residents need to engage with city officials
Ron Cole
Growing pains. That is a phrase often used to describe what is occurring physically in a child as a young body stretches and expands, getting bigger. It can also be used to describe the struggles of a business as it strives toward bettering itself. Athletically, growing pains manifests itself in new ways for a team to move in a positive direction (see Tom Brady’s move to Tampa).
Municipalities are a great subject for growth. They experience risk, challenges and with those, come great opportunity.
Let’s look at Dover. Settled in 1623, the city advanced slowly as did the country. For all intents and purposes, things went well through the 19th century and a portion of the 20th as the supporting mills flourished and then gradually disappeared, leaving Dover vacant and lifeless with a blue-collar population and veritably no growth until 1980. With 22,377 residents infrastructure changes began to take place and population growth increased to approximately 32,000 by 2020. This growth of course was not from 10,000 babies, but an influx of new residents.