Table 1. Important Problems in Lee County
1. Too much water in the wet season, not enough
 in the dry season.
 2. Pollution of surface waters; saltwater intru-
 sion in groundwaters.
 3. Increasing unemployment.
 4. Increasing governmental costs and decreasing
 revenue.
 5. Decreasing quality of public school educa-
 tion, due to overcrowding.
 6. Increasing traffic congestion.
 7. Higher costs of living reflected in higher
 costs of commodities and energy.
 8. The deterioration of older parts of major
 cities.
 9. Urban sprawl and continued city strip develop-
 ment.
10. Loss of prime agricultural lands to urban
 development.


 Both types of growth add to our problems.
 Population growth taxes our city structure, road
 networks and the ability of governments to pro-
 vide quality services, and requires that more
 and more lands be converted from natural and
 agricultural lands to housing and commercial
 uses. The growth of our affluence requires more
 energy to be used to provide us with more goods


and services, causing more pollution as we try
to eliminate the increased wastes.

 A major question is how much growth, of what
kind and how fast...
 Theory of Maximum Power
 One important theory for considering the
future is the principle of maximum power. The
system that can attract and use more useful ener-
gy flow has more resources with which to over-
come limiting factors to growth and develop a
vital economy. The flow of energy per unit time
is called Power, and the plans and alternatives
that develop maximum power are the ones believed
to be successful. When there are new resources
to be developed, power is maximized by fast
growth; however, when resources are already be-
ing used as fast as they flow in, power is maxi-
mized by efficiency and no growth beyond these
resource limitations.
 Carrying Capacity and Energy Resources
 In considering resource limits we use the term
"carrying capacity," which refers to the capacity
of a particular environment to provide life sup-
port for its population. In the study of natural
ecological systems it is common to observe the
growth and leveling characteristics shown by the
graphs in Fig. 2.
 A population exhibits the familiar Malthusian
exponential population growth until the carrying
capacity (the resource limit) of the environment
is reached, at which point there is a leveling off
to a steady state and a resulting balance of pop-
ulation with environmental resources (Fig. 2a).
What is the carrying capacity of Lee County? Many


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