Kia ora — Jamie Cleine, Mayor of Buller, explores why official projections paint the West Coast as declining while recent data shows modest population growth driven by international migration and lifestyle relocations. The episode explains that projections are conditional scenarios, not certainties, and outlines practical strategies to make growth stick: targeted attraction of workers, multi-year job pipelines and training, better housing and services, and new ways to reinvest resource revenues into lasting community infrastructure.