Town and gown have finally met to launch the initial making of Carolina North. The pas de deux is under way. A polite conversation is accompanying the dance, but the big questions have gone unspoken.

The behemoth of those is growth. It seems assumed by all that growth is desirable, and of course that growth is possible. I beg to differ.

The university is stuck in a research rut. It is losing ground to other institutions and sees its salvation in teaming up with corporate research and development, which is the principal rationale for Carolina North. It also wants to grow its student body and the main campus is literally built-out.

We're talking of an additional 20,000 people, plus their families -- in addition to the droves of additional people in the service sector to provide for these families. The area we live in will be mushrooming with sprawl, a la Cary and north Chatham.

This will not happen overnight, of course. This is a 50-year plan, after all. We might imagine that, with time, we will creatively counter the ill effects of growth. But that is just tempting the fates, isn't it? Research Triangle Park was a beautiful dream, too. But look at it now, gridlocked in an ever-increasing sprawl to the point where even one of its main partners (UNC) wants to go its own way.

It would be nice if we could feel confident that continued sprawl would not happen, but our use-based urban design and free-wheeling development traditions dash all hope of that. Livability will take in the punch. We will become ever more car-centric, ever more socially distanced suburbanites. That is the pattern we can expect. Gloomy, yes; realistic, yes.

And we haven't even mentioned yet the peril of water shortages or the congestion of traffic to deal with.

It's all for the sake of growth, for institutional and political aggrandizement. And for making a buck. No wonder all assume building Carolina North is good.

In so doing, we avoid thinking of how this will backfire. How our small-town charm will erode and with it the main attraction for research faculty to come here. Heck, if you want commuting and urban zest, there are much nicer places. UNC is unfortunately shooting itself in the foot. And so are the towns and counties for not considering growth.

Is there an optimal size, such is the core question, for a thriving university town? Or do we just continue getting fat, unmindful of the accompanying cholesterol? What are leaders for, if not to raise and answer such questions?

But must it be like this? Alas, yes. Aggrandizement and profit are difficult to stop. Oh, the university could curb its aspirations and help develop some of its sister institutions instead, but who's dreaming here? It could name someone other than a developer to head its board of trustees, but the dream continues.

So, alas, Carolina North will continue stumbling along, in the end degrading the entire area and defeating its very purpose. All for the sake of growth. This is not a winterish vision that I enjoy putting forth, nor is it willful on the part of UNC. Far from it.

And that, alas, is the very problem: Growth has become so insidious in our notion of progress that it remains for all intent and purpose unexamined.