Tag: thanksgiving

Trying for a Healthier Holiday

  • Linda Barberic's partner Keith helps her prepare a healthy meal, using olive oil instead of butter. (Photo by Julie Grant)

With so many Americans facing diabetes,
heart disease, and other health problems,
the Thanksgiving meal has become a battleground
in some families. Some family members want
to make it a healthy meal, others want to
stick with their traditional family dishes.
Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

With so many Americans facing diabetes,
heart disease, and other health problems,
the Thanksgiving meal has become a battleground
in some families. Some family members want
to make it a healthy meal, others want to
stick with their traditional family dishes.
Julie Grant reports:

Four years ago, Linda Barberic gave her left kidney to her sister. The surgery went well. But since then, there have been a lot of other health problems in the family.

“We’ve had a few strokes in the family, we’ve got diabetes, we’ve got high blood pressure, we’ve got some other heart conditions, a few heart attacks.”

That’s some serious stuff. Linda thinks a lot of it has to do with the way her family eats: lots of salt, fat and sweets. She is hosting everyone for Thanksgiving dinner. And thought this might be a good time to get them all on board with healthier eating.

So she sent out a mass email to the family.

“So I thought this year, why not give everyone a challenge and make it a healthy Thanksgiving. Really – no fats, no butters, no salts, no heavy creams.”

Linda even suggested some recipes: steamed green beans with lemon zest, fingerling potatoes roasted with fresh garlic and thyme.

The resounding response: No salt, no fat, no fun.

Someone even said they wouldn’t come. They wanted the turkey with gravy, green bean casserole with crispy onions on top, and Mom’s dumplings with lots of butter.

Her brother-in-law Matt Previte is one of those with a heart condition. He and Linda’s sister, Sandy Previte, appreciate Linda’s thought, but…

Matt: “For one meal, for one day, one special occasion – it’s not worth it.”

Sandy: “How often do we eat gravy? Twice a year. So I’m like, let’s do the traditional. Why not? Let’s just stick with what it’s about – people getting together to have good food.”

So Sandy says why not have the gravy, have the butter?
But her sister Linda says it’s not one or two days a year. Her family, like many, eats fatty, salty foods all the time.
That’s one big reason why two-thirds of American adults are considered overweight or obese. And diabetes has become an epidemic.

So, why do we keep going back for more – when we know it’s making us sick?
Linda Spurlock is director of human health at the Museum of Natural History in Cleveland.
She says we’re hard-wired to crave sugar, fat and salt.

“If you did not have the inherited yearning for fat or for sugar and grab it anytime you could get your hands on it, you probably would not live to reproduce back 2- or 3- million years ago.”

But while our ancestors had to smash open bones to get to the marrow – so they could get the fat they needed – we can just pull up to the drive through and order whatever we want to eat.

Spurlock says the original Thanksgiving meal was probably a small, lean turkey, squirrel, raccoon, and roasted root vegetables.

“And how it got bigger and bigger and bigger –
I have a feeling that it wasn’t until quite recently that people had the expectation of several kinds of pie for dessert and yes giblet gravy and mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes.”

Spurlock says Americans can start eating healthier by training themselves to enjoy the simple taste of vegetables. But she says Thanksgiving probably isn’t the time for it.

Linda Barberic has come to the same conclusion.

“ I kind of just backed off on it. And said, ‘do what you’re going to do.’ Thanksgiving is about family. I’m grateful that everyone is healthy this year and everyone is here. So, I’m just grateful to have Thanksgiving. But, I have a feeling there will be some fat. (laughs)”

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Getting More Out of Thanksgiving Dinner

  • A study by the University of Arizona estimates that the average household wastes about 14% of the food that’s bought (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

Thanksgiving is just around the
corner. A consumer expert says you can
avoid wasting a lot of food with just a
little planning. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Thanksgiving is just around the
corner. A consumer expert says you can
avoid wasting a lot of food with just a
little planning. Lester Graham reports:

A study by the University of Arizona estimates that the average household wastes about
14% of the food that’s bought. Some of it spoils. Some of it becomes leftovers that
never get eaten.

Bob Lilienfeld is the author of the Use Less Stuff Report. He says you can keep a
couple of things in mind. If food is left on the serving platter, it can be re-used. If it
makes it to your plate and it’s not eaten, it’s wasted.

He also says, on Thanksgiving, plan for leftovers.

“Think, when you buy turkey, ‘What else does my family like turkey. Oh, they like soup.
They like chili.’ Buy the ingredients for the next round when you buy the turkey so that
everything is sitting in your home the day after Thanksgiving, and you’re wondering,
‘Alright, what am I going to do with this bird?’”

And, Lilienfeld says, label and date your leftovers. You’re more likely to use them
before they go bad.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Cranberries Burst Into New Markets

  • Cranberry harvest in New Jersey (Photo by Keith Weller, courtesy of the USDA)

One thing we can be thankful for
this Thanksgiving is cranberry relish.
After a sour decade of collapsing prices,
the industry has rebounded with a record
season. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

One thing we can be thankful for
this Thanksgiving is cranberry relish.
After a sour decade of collapsing prices,
the industry has rebounded with a record
season. Julie Grant reports:


In the late 1990s, the market for cranberries started drying up. Americans didn’t
seem to crave the pucker of our native berry. Some years growers were getting as
little as 8 dollars a barrel and they didn’t know if they could stay in business much
longer.

Today, they’re getting as much as 150 dollars per barrel.

Dawn Gates-Allen is fourth generation cranberry grower on Cape Cod.

“It’s been ten years of suppressed grower return for the price per barrel.”

Prices are rebounding because cranberries have gained popularity as a healthful
fruit overseas. Europe and Japan have started importing a third of America’s
cranberry crop.

But even with that new demand, you shouldn’t see a big jump in prices at the
supermarket this year: the weather has been great for cranberries and there’s a
bumper crop.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

The 100 Mile Meal: A Homegrown Thanksgiving

  • Reporter Dustin Dwyer found all the ingredients for his Thanksgiving dinner within 100 miles of his house, including the turkey (poor thing). (Photo by Dustin Dwyer)

Thanksgiving is about family, friends, and ridiculous amounts of food. But the food we buy can have a big impact on the environment. And a lot more people are starting to look for local ingredients to put in their meals. One movement encourages people to get all their food from within 100 miles of their home. Dustin Dwyer tried to find out how practical that could be for his Thanksgiving feast:

Transcript

Thanksgiving is about family, friends, and ridiculous amounts of food. But the food we buy can have a big impact on the environment. And a lot more people are starting to look for local ingredients to put in their meals. One movement encourages people to get all their food from within 100 miles of their home. Dustin Dwyer tried to find out how practical that could be for his Thanksgiving feast:


I like to look at labels on my food. I don’t care so much about the nutritional info, I just want to know where it came from.


But there’s a problem with that. Even if I know where something is packaged, I still have no idea where the actual ingredients come from. I mean, where the heck do they make partially hydrogenated soybean oil?


I have no idea. And so, for one meal, for the most important meal of the year, I decided to try to get all my food, and all the ingredients in my food, from within 100 miles of my apartment in Southeast Michigan.


If you’re impressed by my ingenious and creative idea, don’t be. I stole it from someone else. Alisa Smith and her partner James MacKinnon were on a 100 mile diet for a year, and they’re writing a book about it. I called up Alisa for some help.


Dwyer: “So my wife and I are going to do the 100 mile Thanksgiving, and I want to ask some advice.”


Smith: “Oh, great! For doing a single meal you picked a very good time to do it because it’s the harvest bounty, so that makes life a lot easier.”


I’m thinking, excellent, this could be a piece of cake. But I’m worried about a few tough ingredients, such as salt. Alisa says salt is a problem for a lot of people.


“I think in the end, you probably will find that salt isn’t available. And not being able t o make it yourself you might just say ‘okay salt is going to be an exception for us.'”


Ok, fine, but I still wanted to make as few exceptions as possible. I’ve got to have a challenge here, somehow.


That said, our menu would be simple: just turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and pumpkin pie. Turkey turned out to be easy.


“Roperti’s Turkey Farm.”


Christine Roperti has been living on her family’s turkey farm in suburban Detroit all her life. Farms like this one are getting crowded out more and more by suburban sprawl. There’s even a brand new subdivision next door to Christine’s place. There have been offers for her land too.


“Yeah, but I don’t want to go anywhere. I like the farm, and like raising my turkeys.”


I liked knowing that Christine actually enjoys this, and cares about it. It made me feel good. And that’s important, because I was also paying a lot more for her turkey than the store-bought stuff.


Anyway, I was flying high, and things were going really well. My list of exceptions was firming up, and it was mostly spices: salt plus all the spices for the pumpkin pie.


Then, while I was bragging at work about how I’d be able to get almost everything but salt for my local dinner, someone reminded me that there are actually salt mines under the city of Detroit.


Like a good journalist I looked into it, and ended up on the most absurd shopping trip of my life.


“Okay I’m headed over the Ambassador Bridge, going from Detroit to Windsor, Ontario. They do have salt mines in Detroit, but they don’t sell that salt as food salt in the US, they only sell road salt. So in order to get food salt that’s made within a hundred miles of my house, I have to go to Canada.”


Because of some trade regulation I don’t understand, table salt from this mine can’t be commercially shipped into the US. So I ended up in a city I barely know, looking for a grocery store. I went into the first, and then the second without finding the right brand of salt. Then an hour or so later, in the third store…


“Finally! Windsor salt.”


So, I wasted a lot of fuel putting this dinner together. It’s probably still an improvement over what the Sierra Club says is an average two thousand miles of driving that goes into each ingredient for my usual dinner.


But here’s the thing: if all this local stuff is available, I think I should be able to get it at the grocery store down the street. I should probably let them know that, and let them know I’m willing to pay more for it. I mean, that’s better than driving to Canada for salt, anyway.


But making that happen would take a lot more effort, a lot more voting with my pocketbook, and a lot more than just checking labels.


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Related Links

Preserving the Classic Thanksgiving Turkey

  • John Harnois raises Narragansett turkeys, one of the so-called heritage breeds. He also raises a few Bourbon Reds, another heritage breed. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

The type of turkey you buy for your big holiday feast isn’t always an easy decision. You can choose the usual supermarket bird, or you can get a kosher turkey, or one that’s been fed only organic feed. You can also buy a heritage turkey that’s got a little wilder history. Rebecca Williams has the story of farmers who are trying to keep these older turkey breeds from going extinct:

Transcript

The type of turkey you buy for your big holiday feast isn’t always an easy decision. You can choose the usual supermarket bird, or you can get a kosher turkey, or one that’s been fed only organic feed. You can also buy a heritage turkey that’s got a little wilder history. Rebecca Williams has the story of farmers who are trying to keep these older turkey breeds from going extinct:


John Harnois talks turkey.


“The turkeys pip, they bark, they gobble, (Harnois makes gobbling sound and turkeys respond in unison).”


He’s got a yard full of turkeys, mostly males. They’re trying to look all big and macho as they strut around in front of the hens. These turkeys are Narragansetts, one of the so-called heritage breeds.


“They’re old time turkeys, much closer to wild. They don’t have the broad breasts, so proportionally for eating (turkeys gobble, Harnois laughs), they have more dark meat to white meat.”


People who’ve tasted a heritage turkey say the flavor is stronger too. Sara Dickerman is the food editor for Seattle Magazine. She taste tested different types of turkeys, from the Butterball brand, to kosher, to heritage.


“When you taste one of these heritage breeds you’re getting more of a… it begins to taste more like a distinct meat, and I’m afraid our vocabulary is so ill suited to describing it, except that it tastes meatier, it tastes more intensely, and it just has a resonance that you’ll never get in a Butterball.”


Dickerman says still, you’ve got to be pretty committed to buy a heritage turkey. They can cost upwards of $100.


Taste and cost aren’t the only things that set heritage turkeys apart from the turkeys you find in the grocery store. Your common grocery store turkey is a breed called the Broad-breasted White. These turkeys have been bred over the years to produce a lot of meat in a short period of time. As a result, they’re large breasted birds with short little legs.


John Harnois says that means they can’t mate naturally.


“One of the things about heritage birds is they’re small enough to mate as opposed to the broad-breasteds which is artificial insemination. With that big breast they just can’t do the deed.”


But even though heritage turkeys can mate naturally, they haven’t been doing so well on their own.


“These birds, the heritage breeds, were real close to dying out. It’s funny, you gotta eat ’em to keep ’em going. To keep their genetics in the gene pool, there has to be a market for them.”


That’s where the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy stepped in. It’s a non-profit group trying to keep rare breeds from going extinct. Marjorie Bender is the group’s research manager. She says just three companies own the rights to the commercial turkey breeds.


“And they’re all very, very closely related and it’s that narrow genetic pool that has been of particular concern to us, and what makes the conservation of these other lines of turkeys and these other varieties of turkeys so important.”


Bender’s group is encouraging farmers to raise rare turkeys so there will be a larger genetic pool of the birds. And they’re helping to market the turkeys. Bender says now, there are more of these heritage turkeys than there were a few years ago.


“In terms of the breeds themselves, they’re not out of the woods, in terms of the farmers and the market. It’s so young that many farmers are really investing capital in them to make this a viable option, but they are making some money off the birds, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it.”


(turkeys gobbling in background)


John Harnois says he is earning money from his heritage turkeys, but it’s not easy money. Heritage turkeys cost a lot to raise, and it takes longer to get them to market weight. And unlike the commercial turkeys, the heritage birds can fly the coop.


“You’re chasing them, and it’s dark out, and you don’t know if you’re going through poison ivy, if you’ve got shorts on you’ve gotta change your pants to long pants… it’s a pain.”


But he says the late night chases and extra turkey TLC are worth it.


“When there’s no more Narragansetts the gene line is done. You can never pull on that. You don’t want everything being the same, and if you only have one thing and something happens to it, there’s no more. Where are the turkeys going to come from?”


Harnois says he feels like it’s his job to make sure there will always be plenty of different kinds of gobblers to go around.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

The 100 Mile Meal: A Homegrown Thanksgiving

  • Reporter Dustin Dwyer found all the ingredients for his Thanksgiving dinner within 100 miles of his house, including the turkey (poor thing). (Photo by Dustin Dwyer)

Thanksgiving is about family, friends, and ridiculous amounts of food. But the food we buy can have a big impact on the environment, and a lot more people are starting to look for local ingredients to put in their meals. One movement encourages people to get all their food from within 100 miles of their home. Dustin Dwyer tried to find out how practical that could be for his Thanksgiving feast:

Transcript

Thanksgiving is about family, friends, and ridiculous amounts of food. But the food we buy can have a big impact on the environment. And a lot more people are starting to look for local ingredients to put in their meals. One movement encourages people to get all their food from within 100 miles of their home. Dustin Dwyer tried to find out how practical that could be for his Thanksgiving feast:


I like to look at labels on my food. I don’t care so much about the nutritional info, I just want to know where it came from.

But there’s a problem with that. Even if I know where something is packaged, I still have no idea where the actual ingredients come from. I mean, where the heck do they make partially hydrogenated soybean oil?

I have no idea. And so, for one meal, for the most important meal of the year, I decided to try to get all my food, and all the ingredients in my food, from within 100 miles of my apartment in Southeast Michigan.

If you’re impressed by my ingenious and creative idea, don’t be. I stole it from someone else. Alisa Smith and her partner James MacKinnon were on a 100 mile diet for a year, and they’re writing a book about it. I called up Alisa for some help.

Dwyer: “So my wife and I are going to do the 100 mile Thanksgiving, and I want to ask some advice.”


Smith: “Oh, great! For doing a single meal you picked a very good time to do it because it’s the harvest bounty, so that makes life a lot easier.”


I’m thinking, excellent, this could be a piece of cake. But I’m worried about a few tough ingredients, such as salt. Alisa says salt is a problem for a lot of people.


“I think in the end, you probably will find that salt isn’t available. And not being able t o make it yourself you might just say ‘okay salt is going to be an exception for us.'”


Ok, fine, but I still wanted to make as few exceptions as possible. I’ve got to have a challenge here, somehow.


That said, our menu would be simple: just turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and pumpkin pie. Turkey turned out to be easy.


“Roperti’s Turkey Farm.”


Christine Roperti has been living on her family’s turkey farm in suburban Detroit all her life. Farms like this one are getting crowded out more and more by suburban sprawl. There’s even a brand new subdivision next door to Christine’s place. There have been offers for her land too.


“Yeah, but I don’t want to go anywhere. I like the farm, and like raising my turkeys.”


I liked knowing that Christine actually enjoys this, and cares about it. It made me feel good. And that’s important, because I was also paying a lot more for her turkey than the store-bought stuff.


Anyway, I was flying high, and things were going really well. My list of exceptions was firming up, and it was mostly spices: salt plus all the spices for the pumpkin pie.


Then, while I was bragging at work about how I’d be able to get almost everything but salt for my local dinner, someone reminded me that there are actually salt mines under the city of Detroit.


Like a good journalist I looked into it, and ended up on the most absurd shopping trip of my life.


“Okay I’m headed over the Ambassador Bridge, going from Detroit to Windsor, Ontario. They do have salt mines in Detroit, but they don’t sell that salt as food salt in the US, they only sell road salt. So in order to get food salt that’s made within a hundred miles of my house, I have to go to Canada.”


Because of some trade regulation I don’t understand, table salt from this mine can’t be commercially shipped into the US. So I ended up in a city I barely know, looking for a grocery store. I went into the first, and then the second without finding the right brand of salt. Then an hour or so later, in the third store…


“Finally! Windsor salt.”


So, I wasted a lot of fuel putting this dinner together. It’s probably still an improvement over what the Sierra Club says is an average two thousand miles of driving that goes into each ingredient for my usual dinner.


But here’s the thing: if all this local stuff is available, I think I should be able to get it at the grocery store down the street. I should probably let them know that, and let them know I’m willing to pay more for it. I mean, that’s better than driving to Canada for salt, anyway.


But making that happen would take a lot more effort, a lot more voting with my pocketbook, and a lot more than just checking labels.


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Related Links

Preserving the Classic Thanksgiving Turkey

  • John Harnois raises Narragansett turkeys, one of the so-called heritage breeds. He also raises a few Bourbon Reds, another heritage breed. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

The type of turkey you buy for your big holiday feast isn’t always an easy decision. You can choose the usual supermarket bird, or you can get a kosher turkey, or one that’s been fed only organic feed. You can also buy a heritage turkey that’s got a little wilder history. Rebecca Williams has the story of farmers who are trying to keep these older turkey breeds from going extinct:

Transcript

The type of turkey you buy for your big holiday feast isn’t always an easy decision. You can choose the usual supermarket bird, or you can get a kosher turkey, or one that’s been fed only organic feed. You can also buy a heritage turkey that’s got a little wilder history. Rebecca Williams has the story of farmers who are trying to keep these older turkey breeds from going extinct:


John Harnois talks turkey.


“The turkeys pip, they bark, they gobble, (Harnois makes gobbling sound and turkeys respond in unison).”


He’s got a yard full of turkeys, mostly males. They’re trying to look all big and macho as they strut around in front of the hens. These turkeys are Narragansetts, one of the so-called heritage breeds.


“They’re old time turkeys, much closer to wild. They don’t have the broad breasts, so proportionally for eating (turkeys gobble, Harnois laughs), they have more dark meat to white meat.”


People who’ve tasted a heritage turkey say the flavor is stronger too. Sara Dickerman is the food editor for Seattle Magazine. She taste tested different types of turkeys, from the Butterball brand, to kosher, to heritage.


“When you taste one of these heritage breeds you’re getting more of a… it begins to taste more like a distinct meat, and I’m afraid our vocabulary is so ill suited to describing it, except that it tastes meatier, it tastes more intensely, and it just has a resonance that you’ll never get in a Butterball.”


Dickerman says still, you’ve got to be pretty committed to buy a heritage turkey. They can cost upwards of $100.


Taste and cost aren’t the only things that set heritage turkeys apart from the turkeys you find in the grocery store. Your common grocery store turkey is a breed called the Broad-breasted White. These turkeys have been bred over the years to produce a lot of meat in a short period of time. As a result, they’re large breasted birds with short little legs.


John Harnois says that means they can’t mate naturally.


“One of the things about heritage birds is they’re small enough to mate as opposed to the broad-breasteds which is artificial insemination. With that big breast they just can’t do the deed.”


But even though heritage turkeys can mate naturally, they haven’t been doing so well on their own.


“These birds, the heritage breeds, were real close to dying out. It’s funny, you gotta eat ’em to keep ’em going. To keep their genetics in the gene pool, there has to be a market for them.”


That’s where the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy stepped in. It’s a non-profit group trying to keep rare breeds from going extinct. Marjorie Bender is the group’s research manager. She says just three companies own the rights to the commercial turkey breeds.


“And they’re all very, very closely related and it’s that narrow genetic pool that has been of particular concern to us, and what makes the conservation of these other lines of turkeys and these other varieties of turkeys so important.”


Bender’s group is encouraging farmers to raise rare turkeys so there will be a larger genetic pool of the birds. And they’re helping to market the turkeys. Bender says now, there are more of these heritage turkeys than there were a few years ago.


“In terms of the breeds themselves, they’re not out of the woods, in terms of the farmers and the market. It’s so young that many farmers are really investing capital in them to make this a viable option, but they are making some money off the birds, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it.”


(turkeys gobbling in background)


John Harnois says he is earning money from his heritage turkeys, but it’s not easy money. Heritage turkeys cost a lot to raise, and it takes longer to get them to market weight. And unlike the commercial turkeys, the heritage birds can fly the coop.


“You’re chasing them, and it’s dark out, and you don’t know if you’re going through poison ivy, if you’ve got shorts on you’ve gotta change your pants to long pants… it’s a pain.”


But he says the late night chases and extra turkey TLC are worth it.


“When there’s no more Narragansetts the gene line is done. You can never pull on that. You don’t want everything being the same, and if you only have one thing and something happens to it, there’s no more. Where are the turkeys going to come from?”


Harnois says he feels like it’s his job to make sure there will always be plenty of different kinds of gobblers to go around.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

The High Costs of Empty Parking Lots (Part Ii)

  • A new book says that much of the space covered by parking lots is only designed for use for the holiday rush, and is unused for the rest of the year. (Photo by Lars Sundström)

A growing number of city planners say we’re building more parking than we really need. They say the fact that nearly all parking is free, makes the situation worse. Their ideas are turning nearly fifty years of urban planning on its head. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this second report in a two-part series:

Transcript

A growing number of city planners say we’re building more parking than we really need. They say the fact that nearly all parking is free, makes the situation worse. Their ideas are turning nearly fifty years of urban planning on its head. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this report:


If you had to pay for a parking space, would you think twice before making a frivolous trip, say, to a convenience store for a candy bar?


City planning researcher Donald Shoup bets you would stay home if you had to pay, or maybe you’d walk instead. That’s a point he makes in his recent book, The High Cost of Free Parking. In it, he tries to show that free parking entices us to waste gas. He says paved lots also compete for better uses of land, like parks or housing. Shoup says the problem’s very real – but to see it, you need to step out of your automobile.


“Any view of suburbia from the air will show you a lot of parking lots and a lot of these parking lots will have empty parking spaces.”


I decided to take a look at what’s Shoup’s talking about in Lincolnwood Illinois, a Chicago suburb. I cheated by skipping the air fare, though. Some new Internet sites can provide satellite photos of your area. I joined two of Lincolnwood’s city planners, Tim Clarke and John Lebeque, in their office to get a birds-eye view of their home turf.


Clarke: “The plus is closer.”


Allee: “Right, and go ahead and see if you can find… There it is. Lincolnwood.”


Clarke: “Wow.”


Lebeque: “Whoa.”


Allee: “So find a retail strip.”


Turns out, Donald Shoup was right. Within a minute, we find a popular grocery store, with a huge parking lot. Tim Clarke recognizes it.


“It’s probably one-third filled. I’m not sure when this aerial was taken. I’ve never seen the parking lot full.”


So why should a busy store’s parking lot be two-thirds empty most of the time? Shoup says it’s the cities’ fault. Cities make the rules. They say how many spaces each new business, house, and apartment building must provide.


By his estimation, city government does a poor job at guessing how much parking we really need. Shoup says governments force businesses to provide enough spaces to meet peak demand, such as the day after Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping day of the year.


“Everyone understands the advice, don’t build your church for Easter Sunday, but we build our parking for the week before Christmas.”


In other words, cities tell stores to build parking for the year’s busiest two weeks, even if most of the spaces are empty the rest of the time. He says, without city pressure, a lot of businesses would create smaller lots or they’d sell off parking space they don’t need.


Tim Clarke, the Lincolnwood planner, says suburbs do err on the side of too much parking, but they’re often planning for future growth. He gives an example of a small Lincolnwood dental practice that had 7 examination rooms, but only used three of them. The dentist wanted to build fewer parking spaces than the village required, because it was small and family-run.


“But one could imagine that that family at some time in life would sell that business and someone would come in and want to use all 6 or 7 examining rooms at one time.”


So city planners have to look at the long term use of a building.


Many of Lincolnwood’s largest retailers actually build more than they need to. Bob Johnson runs a Lowe’s Home Improvement store built in late 2003. He says stores like his don’t gamble with having too few spaces.


“I think customers are going to shop, again, where they feel most comfortable and what’s convenient for them. The key word there being convenience. If they’re inconvenienced, they might drive another couple blocks down the road.”


Shoup says that’s a calculation that businesses have to make. He says market forces can help decide how many spaces should be built, but government should not force retailers to have too many spaces. Nor should it force them to offer only free parking.


In fact, Professor Shoup says cities, especially suburban cities, could use land more efficiently if businesses controlled demand for parking like they control everything else: by setting the right price.


“I’m just saying that cities should not force anyone to provide more parking than drivers are willing to pay for.”


Killing our appetite for cheap, abundant parking could be difficult, but Shoup says pressure’s building for change. He says, as suburbs grow, space gets tight. And that raises prices for all land uses.


“I think most people now are focused on the high cost of housing. I think we’ve got our priorities wrong if housing is expensive and the parking is free.”


In his battle against too much parking, Shoup says the most effective weapon might be a little comparison shopping. Free parking might not seem so cheap once it’s compared to the cost of other needs.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Tree Farmer Makes Season Merrier

  • Duke Wagatha drives down from northern Michigan each year to sell his Christmas trees. While in Ann Arbor, he and his crew live in this 1951 Vagabond trailer. (Photo by Mark Brush)

It’s that time of year again – parking lots across the country are filled with Christmas trees. Just about one out of every three people who celebrate Christmas buys a live tree. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush spent some time with one tree grower in the height of tree-selling season:

Transcript

It’s that time of year again – parking lots across the country are filled with Christmas trees. Just about one out of every three people who celebrate Christmas buys a live tree. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush spent some time with one tree grower in the height of tree-selling season:


(Sound of generator, saws, people chatting)


It’s a crisp afternoon at this Christmas tree lot. That generator you hear is powering the electric saws. The guys trim up the base of the tree so it’ll fit on a tree stand. Their hands are all blackened with sap and dirt from wrestling hundreds of trees off of the flat bed truck. They take the bundled trees, open them up, and stick them onto stands. They’ve created a makeshift forest in the middle of this strip mall parking lot. Customers wander through the forest searching for the perfect tree.


(sound of talking)


Duke Wagatha runs this tree lot in southeastern Michigan. He appears with his trees each year from his farm up north.


“We get here the weekend before Thanksgiving. Takes us probably about a week, or five days to set up. With the idea of opening the day after Thanksgiving. We like to let folks get one holiday out of the way and then we start on the next…”


He calls his business “Flat-Snoots Trees.” You couldn’t tell from looking at his face now, but he calls it “Flat-Snoots” to make light of a broken nose he suffered in high school.


Duke’s coveralls are all tarnished with pine needles and sap. And when he moves, you hear ringing from the bells on his hat. He moves between the trees in his parking lot forest telling his customers jokes and filling their heads with visions of Scotch Pine, Fraser Firs, and Blue Spruce.


Margaret Jahnke has been buying trees from Duke for more than six years.


“He just makes it really personable – and there was one year, it was really kind of warm and he had his Hawaiian shirt on and his straw hat, and he was out here partyin’ away! And I’m like, ‘Whoa!’ It’s fun to come… you know just to run in… you know to talk to him. And they’re really helpful!”


While they’re away from home, Duke and his crew live in a 1950’s vintage trailer. The trailer’s paint is faded, but Duke spruces it up for the holidays with wreaths and pine boughs. And when you step inside, the old lamps and rustic furniture make it seem as if you’ve stepped back in time.


(Sound of trailer door opening)


“Whooo! It feels better in here doesn’t it? I needed a good excuse to get in here.”


The trailer also doubles as his office. Customers pay for their trees in here, and on occasion, they’ll have a complimentary nip of what Duke calls his “bad Schnapps.” Duke is from Mesick, a small rural town in northern Michigan. Christmas tree farming is big business in Michigan. The state is second only to Oregon in the number of acres that are in Christmas tree production.


Duke calls himself a small-time grower. He’s a carpenter by trade, but his work tends to dry up in the long winter months.


“It’s not enough to make a living for me and my family year-round, but it’s a good extra source of income… and, uh… winters are tough up there, so if you make a little bit of extra money – winters are tough and expensive. Living in the country, you know, like anybody, you got propane bills and all that, and it’s a little colder up there, so to make a little bit of money going into winter is pretty nice.”


A lot of work went into growing the trees that are now on his lot. Each summer, workers plod through the rows and rows of trees, swinging razor sharp machetes. They trim each tree to give them that classic, symmetrical, Christmas tree shape. And after about ten years, the trees are ready for harvest. They’re cut, they’re run through a baling machine, and they’re loaded onto trucks and shipped down to the lots.


(sound of customers on lot)


Even though there’s a jovial atmosphere on the lot, there’s also a sense of urgency. After all, Duke only has a few weeks to sell trees that in many cases have taken more than ten years to grow. And while selling the trees is an important part of Duke’s income, he gets something else out of it. He enjoys making connections with the people who wander through his tree lot.


“Sometimes you get grumpy folks coming in, and it’s usually just because they’re overwhelmed with shopping… it’s cold out… they didn’t wear their long underwear or whatever… but we can usually get them turned around, you know, we have a little fun with them… like I say if we have to bring them to the trailer and have a shot of bad Schnapps with ’em, hey, that’s just fine too.”


It’s closing time at the tree lot. The workers are headed for a warmer space. Right now, Duke’s trailer is filled with his extended family and friends…


(sound of door opening)


“Come on in! This is Duke’s family… it’s warm in here, huh?”


Duke will continue to sell his trees right up until Christmas Eve. Then, he’ll drive home to spend a few days with his family before he comes back to tear the lot down.


“It’s kind of like the circus coming to town. You build up your tree lot, you almost build like, well, I wouldn’t say a village, but a little spot where there was nothing, just, you know, an asphalt parking lot. And when we leave, there’s nothing left – we sweep ‘er up and go – so it’s almost like a mirage… were those guys really here?”


(sound of laughter)


And so, they spring to their trucks and drive out of sight, knowing they’ve helped make the season merry night after night.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.

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Christmas Tree Sellers Hoping for Better Season

Christmas tree sellers are in the height of their season right now. Truckloads of spruces, pines and firs are being delivered to stores and Christmas tree lots all across the region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Christmas tree sellers are in the height of their season right now. Truck loads of spruces, pines
and firs are being delivered to stores and Christmas tree lots all across the region. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Christmas tree growers are hoping sales are up this year. Last year they were down substantially.
Sales dropped from the year before by about five-and-a-half million trees. That’s because of two
things. Thanksgiving came late last year, making the buying season shorter. Then, the hustle and
bustle of the condensed holiday season caused some families to skip the tree altogether.


Andy Cole is a grower in Michigan and a spokesperson for the National Christmas Tree
Association. He says hopefully newer trends in trees will help sales this year. In recent years
instead of Scotch pines, people are leaning toward true fir trees such as the Frasier fir and the
Balsam fir.


COLE “Well, they’re a more open layered tree and they have a sturdy branch pattern that will take
the large ornaments that are so popular now.”


The National Christmas Tree Association expects one out of every four households will buy a
fresh tree this year. That amounts to 28 million trees purchased between Thanksgiving and
Christmas.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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