Sometimes we just have to throw up our hands and shrug rather than try to figure things out. I mean, truthfully, all of us should recognize the utter absurdity of trying to affix a rational plan to a life or even, say, the future of a region.

Stay with me while I run through a circle of contradictory yet seemingly rational agendas. Here is just the sort of situation I am talking about.

The Census Bureau just released another of its population updates based on actual 2000 Census data and extrapolations from that data to project what has happened in the four years since that information was gathered. The real news, I suppose, for those of us in Western North Carolina is that the population of the Asheville Metro Area (Buncombe, Henderson, Haywood and Madison counties) has grown by 4.9 percent from 2000 to 2004, bringing the MSA’s (metropolitan statistical area) total to 387,248 people. Quite large, you might say. The state grew by 6.1 percent, and the nation by 4.3 percent, so we’re in between. I suspect the rest of WNC grew by a similar percentage.

What the author of a short report for the Asheville Chamber of Commerce found interesting, however, is that nearly all of the growth in Western North Carolina was from in-migration. Yep, as the proliferation of real estate agents proves, people are flocking to the mountains. Ninety-eight percent of the growth in our region over the last four years was from folks moving here.

Wilmington, at the coast, had the next highest in-migration numbers. At the beach, about 84 percent of the growth was from in-migration. After that, none of the metro areas in the state had anywhere near the in-migration percentage increases.

So, if you take away the in-migration, our births over deaths would have accounted for 2 percent of 4.9 percent growth rate. Do the math and you find that if folks were to quit moving here, our growth rate would be less than 0.1 percent for the four-year period. Translated, that means virtually no growth.

OK, so we’re growing cause folks like it here. But what do they like? Well, obviously it’s the scenic beauty and quality of life. How many Top 10 or Top 20 rankings of great places to live, work, retire or visit have towns like Asheville, Hendersonville and Waynesville made in the last 10 years. Just recently Asheville metro ranked 19 out of 213 metro areas as a “most secure city.” So along with everything else good about this place, we’re safe.

To keep it this way, we would have to stay small. But how can we do that if so many people believe that this is a great place to live. In fact, a report released this week at the Southern Growth Policies Board conference in Alabama revealed that people in the South are tired of the “more is better” mantra. According to the report — prepared by North Carolina-based Southern Growth Policies Board — a majority of people in the South wants to “enhance and preserve small-town character, not accumulate urban amenities.”

The report was prepared after researchers met with 2,200 rural people in focus groups, retreats and surveys. The researches found, according to SGPB Executive Director Jim Clinton, that Southerners “don’t really like it when people or organizations try to tie the success of a community to whether it’s getting big or not. They want it to get better, not necessarily a lot larger. They don’t want it to get urban.”

So taken together — the fact that many people, presumably from urban areas, are moving to our small towns in Western North Carolina, and the fact that most of us don’t want to grow quickly and become a lot larger — we have the perfect storm, so the speak, the perfect environment for a clash of values. Most of us want the same thing, but those damn neighbors building another new house in the neighborhood are crowding me.

But wait a minute, let’s throw some more fuel into this combustible stew of Southern sensibilities and the reality of in-migration.

Anyone attended an economic development conference in the past, oh, 30 years or so in the South? At some point someone will scratch their head, stick a finger in their ear to dig a little wax out, before stating the obvious: “If we don’t attract some good jobs, we won’t be able to keep our kids here. They’ll move to the city. How we gonna get those good jobs here?”

So we need to create at least some semblance of the urban — good-paying jobs for highly educated young people, perhaps some culture, i.e., nightlife — along with the small-town quality of life so that our best and brightest young people won’t move away. Nearly 100 years ago Teddy Roosevelt’s National Commission on Rural Life addressed what was then termed the “out-migration” of youth from farming communities. Seems this problem has been around awhile.

Are you beginning to see the dilemma? We’re growing pretty darn fast, but we don’t want to grow so fast we lose all the good qualities we’ve got here. Because we Southerners value our small-town living, so we’ve got to work to keep it feeling small while everyone and their cousins are moving here and we build more houses, stores and other things for all of them. But we can only keep it so small, cause we want to create good jobs so our young folks will come back. But if too many of them come back, that means even more people.

At this conference in Alabama, they talked about trying to grow smart, strong, vibrant, small communities. To do that we need to promote entrepreneurship, support community colleges, and eliminate barriers to regional cooperation.

“A community that is investing all its time and resources in competing against its neighbor is a community that doesn’t really know where the competition lies,” said Alabama Gov. Bob Riley.

So Haywood doesn’t want to compete against Jackson County, and Jackson shouldn’t try to measure itself against Macon. Regional cooperation can help each community focus on its strengths.

Small, strong, vibrant. Controlled growth. It sounds so sensible, but in truth figuring out a rational way to keep the best of the mountains while we cope with change just ain’t gonna be easy. All we can to is try.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com.)