It seems we aren’t the only ones with an eye to the coming decade. Our county government has undertaken an initiative of its own. Dubbed “Westchester 2025,” the initiative outlines the biggest challenges facing Westchester in the future, the county’s policies on how to tackle them, and a set of interactive tools and data, made available online for the county’s 45 municipalities and their residents (westchestergov.com/w2025.htm). “Every ten years, we revise our master plan for the county and the towns, villages, and cities either look at it or put it on a shelf,” says County Executive Andy Spano with a laugh. “It’s pretty comprehensive but not a living document; it’s only done once a decade. So I wanted something that could incorporate shifts and things that we couldn’t anticipate on an ongoing basis. Since we’re exceptionally good at using the web, we thought that would be the way to go.”
Says Spano: “We’ll eventually be able to capture ‘what-if’ scenarios in 3-D,” so that a municipality can utilize the site to see how their town will look in the future in three-dimensions. And if you think that’s cutting edge, Spano quips, “just wait until we start the holograms so I can jump onto everybody’s Main Street.”
