Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Very Disturbing Information

The information below is disturbing to me because it shows development is outpacing growth in population. But maybe it always has.

“Poor planning has consequences:
Poorly planned strip malls, big box stores, and other developments are replacing our natural areas almost twice as fast as our population grows. In fact, Environment North Carolina research shows that every day, we lose another 383 acres—an area the size of 20 Wal-Marts—to development.”

www.landfortomorrow.org

2 comments:

KeepDurhamDifferent! said...

Why exactly is this a bad thing in the long run? I am as against sprawl as the next guy (and I mean it -- I moved here from Harlem, I live near downtown Durham, I bike to work and drive a Prius), but it seems to me that if public transportation is ever to work in this area we have got to stop subsidizing the car culture. Since there doesn't seem to be the political will to do this, I predict that increasing sprawl, traffic, and fuel costs will eventually work itself out through the magic of the markets. By "work itself out" I mean that we will eventually get dedicated bus lanes / toll roads / light rail that will appeal to the middle class. It won't be pretty in the short run, but eventually sprawl will curb itself.

Reyn said...

Good point. The part that was disturbing was not only that we're chewing up land at a faster rate than market forces, e.g. population growth but that we haven't set aside the land crucial to maintaining good air and water quality along with the State's scenic sense of place. For me its not about stemming growth or pointing the finger at development as it is about preserving quality of life and freeing up developers by setting aside the lands that need to be conserved.