RALEIGH – Rapid population growth presents North Carolina with a host of daunting challenges that will require bold, principled, and courageous leadership.

That was the central message of a special forum held Wednesday morning in Raleigh by “N.C. Spin,” the television program in which I have been proud to participate for nearly a decade. The event, “Growth Is Everybody’s Business,” featured a series of presentations by former public officials, lobbyists, and trade-association executives, followed by a 90-minute panel discussion.

I won’t give you a blow-by-blow account of what happened. You can watch the forum yourself. Raleigh’s WRAL-TV will broadcast the first part of the event, the speeches, on its digital-cable news channel and its popular web site. “N.C. Spin” will broadcast two shows on the third and fourth weekends in November based on excerpts of the panel discussion. You can look here for local television and radio affiliates or other ways to enjoy the programs.

I will take the opportunity today to provide some context to the growth debate in North Carolina. Joe Coletti, intrepid fiscal analyst for the John Locke Foundation, has just updated his tracking of several key economic trends for North Carolina and surrounding states. The results are informative and intriguing.

First, no shock here, North Carolina’s population is burgeoning. From 2001 to 2006, the state’s population grew by an annual average increase of 1.6 percent, ranking us 10th in the country on that measure. Within our region, Georgia and Florida grew faster while South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia grew slower.

Some may be surprised to learn, however, that North Carolina’s growth rate is actually down a bit from what it was in the 1990s. Many thousands of people still arrive in the state every week, of course, but as Appalachian State University economist Harry Davis pointed out at the Spin growth forum, that’s growth on top of a proportionately larger population base.

Some suggest that because so many people continue to move to North Carolina, that’s an endorsement of the performance of state and local government. Unfortunately, the best evidence demonstrates that it is in spite of, not because of, the cost and quality of public services that North Carolina continues to attract new residents. By national standards, North Carolina isn’t a high-tax state. As a percentage of income, state and local taxes in N.C. are now about the national average. But we used to be a low-tax state. The cost of government has risen steadily in recent years without commensurate improvements in public-service delivery. Other factors – climate, land availability, low unionization, competitive energy prices, and natural resources among them – continue to make North Carolina a great place to live. The public sector ought to row with this current, not against it.

According to standard measures, our state doesn’t really stack up well against our neighbors in recent economic performance:

• From 2001 to 2006, per-capita income grew in North Carolina by an average of 3.3 percent a year, slower than for the nation as a whole and slower than in all of our neighbors except Georgia.

• During the same period, North Carolina posted slower growth rates in total employment and private-sector employment than did any of our neighbors. There was okay job growth in the past couple of years, but it has only barely offset the jobs lost during the earlier recession.

I’m optimistic. Barring foolish policies at the national level, such as a lurch back towards protectionism and higher taxes or another attempt by a Clinton administration to socialize health insurance, the prospects for growth remain good. North Carolina will grow along with the rest of the country. But if we truly want to lead, and not just follow along, North Carolina will have to get its fiscal house in order and meet the critical infrastructure needs of the coming decades at a reasonable cost to taxpayers.

Which brings us back to the issue of leadership.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.