Gazette: "As food, other costs rise, more stake hopes on home gardens"
The lead story in today's Gazette reports on surging interest in home gardens:
...to this Bixby Court development, with little or no greenspace between units and lots of hardtop...
See also:
Mayor's Email Update (5/30/08)
Please mark your calendars for June [14]th, the date of the wildly popular Friends of Forbes Garden Tour. More information is available at www.forbeslibrary.org
Condo Monotony: The Future of Ward 3?
Pictures of Northampton Streets at Various Densities
The New Draft Sustainable Northampton Plan: Balancing Compact Growth Against Taxes, Urban Greenspace, Homeowner Preferences
An objective of the Plan is to "implement ideas for maximizing density on small lots". (p.16) It calls for the City to "consider amending zero lot line single family home to eliminate 30' side yard setback". (p.69)
Randal O'Toole: "The Folly of 'Smart Growth'"
..Open space in valuable locations such as people’s backyards, urban parks, and golf courses will be transferred to less valuable locations such as private rural farms that are unavailable for recreation.
Scrape-Off Redevelopments Provoke Backlash in Denver Neighborhoods
Supporters [of lower-density zoning] said the increased density from the multiple-unit structures was ruining the character of the two neighborhoods, which are comprised of predominately single-family detached homes.
The outcropping of multifamily structures has cast shadows on gardens, increased traffic and created parking wars, among other quality of life issues, they said...
LA Weekly: "City Hall's 'Density Hawks' Are Changing L.A.'s DNA
The shift is pushing L.A. from its suburban model of single-family homes with gardens or pools -- the reason many come here -- toward an urban template of shrinking green patches and multistory buildings of mostly renters...
"...The deal [says Yaroslavsky] is that there are a number of developers who see an opportunity here to make a killing."
Vancouver Sun: "Call it EcoDensity or EcoCity --either way it's a hard sell"
Despite Yaletown, almost 70 per cent of the city is single-family housing. Vancouver, essentially, remains an urban suburb. And there is a reason for this.
People love it.
They love the city's garden-like nature. They love the stability and social cohesion of a single-family neighbourhood. They like having neighbours they know...
Our Column in Today's Gazette: The Hidden Risks of 'Smart Growth'
The Portland, Ore., metro region is considered a smart growth pioneer, going back to the early 1970s. Portland adopted urban growth boundary restrictions to preserve open space outside the boundary. Transportation initiatives have emphasized public transit over road-building...
Many homebuyers, especially those with children, began to avoid Portland in their quest for affordable, conventional homes with yards. This ironically fostered sprawl (PDF) and traffic as people migrated to cities outside the region's authority, such as Vancouver, Wash.
Greening Smart Growth: The Sustainable Sites Initiative
Physiological functions, the core processes of our bodies, are positively affected by experiences with nature. For example, hospital patients who have a view of natural landscapes (as opposed to built structures) recover faster from surgery and require less pain medication.[40] In addition, heart rate, blood pressure, and other measures return to normal levels more quickly when people view natural rather than urban landscapes after a stressful experience.[41] Site design can also provide opportunities for outdoor physical activity and healthy food production. Daily moderate activity by individuals decreases the incidence of such chronic diseases as heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Community gardens in healthy environments provide fresh, local produce, and promote greater stewardship of land by site users. Improved health reduces health care costs...[42]
Rutherford Platt, "Regreening the Metropolis: Pathways to More Ecological Cities"
...cities and metropolitan areas, now too large to conveniently escape, must themselves be viewed as incorporating both built and unbuilt environments... And into the bargain, the urban environment will prove to be more habitable, more sustainable, more "ecological"...
The Ecological Cities Project: Greenspace in "The Humane Metropolis"
A metropolis (i.e., metro region or citistate) is considered green if it fosters humans' connections to the natural world -- an idea Anne Whiston Spirn promoted in her seminal 1984 book The Granite Garden. Spirn rejected the idea -- easily absorbed if one watches too many "concrete jungle'' films, or even televised nature documentaries -- that the natural world begins beyond the urban fringe. "Nature in the city,'' she wrote, "must be cultivated, like a garden, rather than ignored or subdued.''
...The "humane metropolis'' advocates, bent on shared streets and spaces, have no single solution. Their idea is simply to protect and create all possible natural areas -- parks, greenways, forest tracts -- fostering a shared sense of "ecological stewardship.'' They're strongly for promotion of urban gardening and farm markets. They support efforts toward environmental justice, so that low-income areas are not burdened with undue, damaging pollution.
Photo Essay: 10 Reasons People Like Trees Around Them; Will the Sustainable Northampton Plan Put Urban Trees at Risk?
If you walk down North Street, imagine most trees between houses gone and replaced with a near-solid wall of housing. See the articles below, and decide if that's growth that's smart, or growth that smarts...
Our urban centers need to become more attractive to help counter the continuation of a sprawl pattern of development. If the appeal of low density, widely scattered development is derived from the need to be closer to nature, then making trees an integral part of the urban habitat will help make our town and city centers more desirable places to live and work. It is profoundly important to see this linkage between making cities and towns more "liveable" and stemming the continued spread of scattered development across the countryside...
Just as communities need to upgrade and expand their gray infrastructure (i.e. roads, sewers, utilities), so too, they need to upgrade and expand their "green" infrastructure--the network of open space, woodlands, wildlife habitat, parks and other natural areas, which sustain clean air, water, and natural resources and enrich their citizens' quality of life...
The concept of green infrastructure represents a dramatic shift in the way local and state governments think about green space. In the past, many communities assumed that open space was land that had simply not been developed yet, because no one had filed a subdivision plan for it...
Smart Growth with Balance: The American Planning Association [emphasis added]
Green infrastructure is an interconnected network of greenways and natural lands that includes wild life habitat, waterways, native species and preservation or protection of ecological processes. All development -- including redevelopment, infill development, and new construction in urbanizing areas -- should plan for biodiversity and incorporate green infrastructure. Green infrastructure helps to maintain natural ecosystems, including clean air and water; reduces wildlife habitat fragmentation, pollution, and other threats to biodiversity. It also improves the quality of life for people.
UMass Press: "Natural Land: Preserving and Funding Open Space"
The benefits of preserving open space include protecting environmental quality and biodiversity, nurturing human health and well-being, preserving and enhancing community character and sense of place, and creating economic opportunities...
Veggie-mania: As food, other costs rise, more stake hopes on home gardensUrban home gardens require space to grow. We are concerned that these spaces could be infilled away if the Sustainable Northampton Plan does not respect their value. Compare this Northern Avenue home, with its surrounding gardens...
...Locally, garden centers are seeing a spike in sales of garden supplies...
According to the Associated Press, W. Atlee Burpee & Co., the nation's largest seed company, has sold twice as many seeds this year compared to last year...
For [home gardner Sigalit] Tornovish of Leverett, reducing her family's food and gas expenses is a serious goal. 'I had to drive often to the food stores, so by growing my own things I save money on gas and I don't waste,' Tornovish said...
Among those trying to be more resourceful and experiment with backyard gardening is Karen Bellavance-Grace of Northampton and her neighbors. [Eds: Bellavance-Grace is an aide to Mayor Clare Higgins.]
The group of six families, 20 people in all, is tending a new plot in Bellavance-Grace's backyard at 19 Church St., a small street that runs west from King Street above downtown...
...group members are strengthening their street's sense of community and producing food...
...to this Bixby Court development, with little or no greenspace between units and lots of hardtop...
See also:
Mayor's Email Update (5/30/08)
Please mark your calendars for June [14]th, the date of the wildly popular Friends of Forbes Garden Tour. More information is available at www.forbeslibrary.org
Condo Monotony: The Future of Ward 3?
Pictures of Northampton Streets at Various Densities
The New Draft Sustainable Northampton Plan: Balancing Compact Growth Against Taxes, Urban Greenspace, Homeowner Preferences
An objective of the Plan is to "implement ideas for maximizing density on small lots". (p.16) It calls for the City to "consider amending zero lot line single family home to eliminate 30' side yard setback". (p.69)
Randal O'Toole: "The Folly of 'Smart Growth'"
..Open space in valuable locations such as people’s backyards, urban parks, and golf courses will be transferred to less valuable locations such as private rural farms that are unavailable for recreation.
Scrape-Off Redevelopments Provoke Backlash in Denver Neighborhoods
Supporters [of lower-density zoning] said the increased density from the multiple-unit structures was ruining the character of the two neighborhoods, which are comprised of predominately single-family detached homes.
The outcropping of multifamily structures has cast shadows on gardens, increased traffic and created parking wars, among other quality of life issues, they said...
LA Weekly: "City Hall's 'Density Hawks' Are Changing L.A.'s DNA
The shift is pushing L.A. from its suburban model of single-family homes with gardens or pools -- the reason many come here -- toward an urban template of shrinking green patches and multistory buildings of mostly renters...
"...The deal [says Yaroslavsky] is that there are a number of developers who see an opportunity here to make a killing."
Vancouver Sun: "Call it EcoDensity or EcoCity --either way it's a hard sell"
Despite Yaletown, almost 70 per cent of the city is single-family housing. Vancouver, essentially, remains an urban suburb. And there is a reason for this.
People love it.
They love the city's garden-like nature. They love the stability and social cohesion of a single-family neighbourhood. They like having neighbours they know...
Our Column in Today's Gazette: The Hidden Risks of 'Smart Growth'
The Portland, Ore., metro region is considered a smart growth pioneer, going back to the early 1970s. Portland adopted urban growth boundary restrictions to preserve open space outside the boundary. Transportation initiatives have emphasized public transit over road-building...
Many homebuyers, especially those with children, began to avoid Portland in their quest for affordable, conventional homes with yards. This ironically fostered sprawl (PDF) and traffic as people migrated to cities outside the region's authority, such as Vancouver, Wash.
Greening Smart Growth: The Sustainable Sites Initiative
Physiological functions, the core processes of our bodies, are positively affected by experiences with nature. For example, hospital patients who have a view of natural landscapes (as opposed to built structures) recover faster from surgery and require less pain medication.[40] In addition, heart rate, blood pressure, and other measures return to normal levels more quickly when people view natural rather than urban landscapes after a stressful experience.[41] Site design can also provide opportunities for outdoor physical activity and healthy food production. Daily moderate activity by individuals decreases the incidence of such chronic diseases as heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Community gardens in healthy environments provide fresh, local produce, and promote greater stewardship of land by site users. Improved health reduces health care costs...[42]
Rutherford Platt, "Regreening the Metropolis: Pathways to More Ecological Cities"
...cities and metropolitan areas, now too large to conveniently escape, must themselves be viewed as incorporating both built and unbuilt environments... And into the bargain, the urban environment will prove to be more habitable, more sustainable, more "ecological"...
The Ecological Cities Project: Greenspace in "The Humane Metropolis"
A metropolis (i.e., metro region or citistate) is considered green if it fosters humans' connections to the natural world -- an idea Anne Whiston Spirn promoted in her seminal 1984 book The Granite Garden. Spirn rejected the idea -- easily absorbed if one watches too many "concrete jungle'' films, or even televised nature documentaries -- that the natural world begins beyond the urban fringe. "Nature in the city,'' she wrote, "must be cultivated, like a garden, rather than ignored or subdued.''
...The "humane metropolis'' advocates, bent on shared streets and spaces, have no single solution. Their idea is simply to protect and create all possible natural areas -- parks, greenways, forest tracts -- fostering a shared sense of "ecological stewardship.'' They're strongly for promotion of urban gardening and farm markets. They support efforts toward environmental justice, so that low-income areas are not burdened with undue, damaging pollution.
Photo Essay: 10 Reasons People Like Trees Around Them; Will the Sustainable Northampton Plan Put Urban Trees at Risk?
If you walk down North Street, imagine most trees between houses gone and replaced with a near-solid wall of housing. See the articles below, and decide if that's growth that's smart, or growth that smarts...
Our urban centers need to become more attractive to help counter the continuation of a sprawl pattern of development. If the appeal of low density, widely scattered development is derived from the need to be closer to nature, then making trees an integral part of the urban habitat will help make our town and city centers more desirable places to live and work. It is profoundly important to see this linkage between making cities and towns more "liveable" and stemming the continued spread of scattered development across the countryside...
Just as communities need to upgrade and expand their gray infrastructure (i.e. roads, sewers, utilities), so too, they need to upgrade and expand their "green" infrastructure--the network of open space, woodlands, wildlife habitat, parks and other natural areas, which sustain clean air, water, and natural resources and enrich their citizens' quality of life...
The concept of green infrastructure represents a dramatic shift in the way local and state governments think about green space. In the past, many communities assumed that open space was land that had simply not been developed yet, because no one had filed a subdivision plan for it...
Smart Growth with Balance: The American Planning Association [emphasis added]
Green infrastructure is an interconnected network of greenways and natural lands that includes wild life habitat, waterways, native species and preservation or protection of ecological processes. All development -- including redevelopment, infill development, and new construction in urbanizing areas -- should plan for biodiversity and incorporate green infrastructure. Green infrastructure helps to maintain natural ecosystems, including clean air and water; reduces wildlife habitat fragmentation, pollution, and other threats to biodiversity. It also improves the quality of life for people.
UMass Press: "Natural Land: Preserving and Funding Open Space"
The benefits of preserving open space include protecting environmental quality and biodiversity, nurturing human health and well-being, preserving and enhancing community character and sense of place, and creating economic opportunities...
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