Presentation Transcript

1. GEOG 346: Day 20

   Urban Green Space
2. Housekeeping Items Any comments from the couple of folks that went to the mapping talk? I mentioned last week about the Burlington Land Trust that is attempting to address that city’s housing crisis: Here’s a clip about it: https://marlin.viu.ca/malabin/door.pl/0/0/0/5?srchfield1=GENERAL%5e&SUBJECT%5e&GENERAL%5e&record%20id%5e&searchdata1=100032375. For information on smart growth policies in Cincinnati, see http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/2012/03/06/smart-growth-stories-a-mayors-perspective/. Today, we will discuss the field trip we did on Tuesday and debrief from the role play. After that we’ll start reviewing Chapter 7 in Condon.
3. FIELD TRIP There are a number of videos about Linley Valley, including ones showing the beavers. Just Google Linley Valley. Here’s a clip from CTV of their coverage of the press confer-ence? www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9MJ_9uQWVy4
4. Role Play Debrief Any thoughts about the role play? Did having to play someone from a different stakeholder group get you to see things differently, even if temporarily? Did the field trip challenge or reinforce your viewpoint? Any ideas about one brings different divergent groups together? Do you think the embryonic ideas we came up with have any merit?
5. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 How would you characterize the development process in cities from an ecological point of view? It is certainly not undertaken from an ecosystem perspective. Too often it’s a “death by a thousand cuts” approach – i.e. “Oh, well, we’ve got more forests and wetlands, it won’t hurt to pave over some more.” That may be the prevailing attitude in the Linley Valley. In one of the You Tube videos, Mayor John Ruttan and (former) planning director, Andrew Tucker, are shown pointing to the forms and checklists and saying: “The developers did everything required by law, they jumped through all the hoops.” But just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it is socially or ecologically optimal, or even ethically right.
6. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 To take an ecosystem approach, one would need to look at the big (regional) picture or, as Condon says, to see that “the site is to the region what the cell is to the body… the ecological function of the site have everything to do with the ecological health of the region.” You can’t make ecologically irresponsible decisions at the site level and expect them to add up to greater ecological health at a regional scale. He extends his analogy to the human body by saying that rivers and streams are the veins of the urban ecosystem, and that rooftops, driveways, lanes and streets are the capillaries. His critique of the way we currently do development is two-fold: • it undermines ecological health, and it • deprives children and others of direct nature experiences. It has been shown by numerous psychological studies that contact with nature greatly reduces stress and restores attention.
7. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 What does ecological health consist of in an urban context? For those of you who have taken 352, how does this relate to the notion of ecosystem services? What kinds of activities in nature can have a salutary effect on human health and well-being? How are these issues exemplified (or not) in Linley Valley? How do cities function optimally for both humans and non-human species? Is this even possible?
8. Source: Save Linley Valley West Face- book page
9. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 In this chapter, he discusses a bit of the history of landscape architecture, his discipline. It was founded, at least in North America, by Frederick Law Olmsted, and was influenced by the romantic strain of the transcendental movement of Emerson and Thoreau. Olmsted’s greatest achievements were the design of Central Park in New York and the Emerald Necklace in Boston, but he also designed Parc Mont Royal in Montreal. There are many things that his parks were supposed to accomplish: • spiritual uplift • bringing different social classes into contact with one another • facilitating passive and active recreation • enhancing real estate values • facilitating transportation (paths and trails) and • enhancing ecological function. His thinking is many ways was more holistic and integrative than most 20th century parks planners.
10. Frederick Law Olmsted
11. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 The Emerald Necklace exemplifies a critical feature of contemporary ecologically and alternative transportation-inspired parks planning: connectivity – creating linked corridors through the urban environment that can facilitate wildlife movement, walking and cycling and that match, in some cases, stream networks. Olmsted’s son and stepson carried on his work. His proto-ecological thinking was revived by Ian McHarg, author of Design With Nature, and John Lyle and others. McHarg anticipated GIS by developing sieve mapping, which involved the overlay of different types of data to see where development would be most advantageous (or least injuri-ous). He mapped habitat, areas of hydrological significance (e.g. recharge areas), unstable soils or those with agricultural value, etc. and steer development clear of those areas.
12. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 The largest application of McHarg’s ideas was the new community of Woodlands, Texas. While Condon has some criticisms of it, it was and is a huge advance on conventional greenfield planning and development. The short chapter by Randall Arendt I am asking you to read for Tuesday represents a modest application of some of the same principles. Low-impact development standards have also been developed in cities like Olympia, WA. These involve significant riparian buffer zones and emulation of natural processes in the treatment of stormwater. In terms of the latter, Dockside Green has imple-mented such a system into its structure. Ian McHarg
13. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 The work of limiting urban sprawl was greatly facilitated by Oregon’s passage, in 1973, of Senate Bill 100, which mandated that all cities establish land use goals and urban growth boundaries. Despite numerous court challenges, it has endured. In Ontario, as a result of agitation by the Save The Oak Ridges Moraine (STORM) Coalition and other groups, the province was forced to set up a large green belt to limit the sprawl of Metro Toronto and to protect important aquifer and habitat areas along the Oak Ridges Moraine and Niagara Escarpment.
14. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 In the rest of the chapter, Condon offers five principles for urban green space planning: put nature out front (where it is visible), not out back; use the seam between nature and the city for alternative transportation; integrate natural systems into more formal recreation areas and civic spaces; expand the green network indefinitely; provide an alternative movement system throughout the city (for cyclists and pedestrians, etc.). Apart from the example of Pringle Creek in Salem, OR – which Condon cites as an example of all of them – can you think of examples of each of these principles?
15. If Linley Valley Were to Be Developed… Source: Community Profile (Nanaimo), Economic Development Office of Nanaimo
16. If Linley Valley Were to Be Developed… Are there more innovative ways of doing development than is the norm in Nanaimo? (One exception is Hawthorne Corner by Insight Developments) An example from Boulder, Colorado is as follows: http://www.boulderhousing.org/content/recent-development-holiday-neighborhood. What are your ideas?