Eleven million acres of prime farmland were lost to
urban sprawl in a 15 year period. Some small cities are embracing
the growth and helping developers circumvent so-called Smart Growth
restrictions on sprawl.
The U.S. has lost millions of acres of productive farmland in the last decade to urban sprawl. Researchers say state and county officials are seeing Smart Growth plans circumvented by politicians in small cities. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The US has lost millions of acres of productive farmland in the last decade to urban sprawl. Researchers say state and county officials are seeing smart growth plans circumvented by politicians in small cities. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.
Most states have passed legislation or are looking at doing so to reduce urban sprawl. Even some counties are working to restrict development to certain areas. But often developers approach small cities, promising increased tax revenues and infrastructure if the town annexes large areas of surrounding land for the developers. Rich Green is a geographer at Northern Illinois University. He says some small town officials don’t see past their own city limits.
“And in some respects, they may overlook the regional concerns to benefit their own territory, developers, shopping malls, retailers, playing one municipality off the other in terms of getting the best deal to locate.”
And so long debated plans to manage growth become nothing more than lines on a map, while natural areas and farmland are replaced by subdivisions and parking lots. Green says that’s led to eleven million acres of prime farmland being taken out of production in the fertile Midwest and East in a 15 year period due to urban sprawl. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
This levy currently separates the biggest farm in
Illinois (on the left) from the floodwaters of the Illinois River (on the
right). The Nature Conservancy is planning to turn the 7,600 acre
farm into one of the biggest Midwest wetland restoration projects ever.
Lost wetlands are restored for a number of reasons. Sometimes, they replace a wetlands area lost because of construction or farming. Typically those projects are small in scope. Now a conservation group is looking to create an entire ecosystem in the Midwest through a massive wetland restoration program. The plan is garnering attention from scientists as a new model for how to return land to its natural state. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
Transcript
Lost wetlands are restored for a number of reasons. Sometimes they replace a wetlands area lost somewhere else because of construction or agriculture. But typically these projects are small in scope. Now a conservation group is looking to create an entire ecosystem in the Midwest through a massive wetland restoration program. The plan is garnering attention from scientists as a new model for how to return land to its natural state. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports.
(Ambient sound – the farm)
Tractors are rolling across the Wilder farm in Central Illinois, tending to fields lined with rows of corn and soybeans. This plot of land is 76-hundrd acres, or nearly twelve square miles. It’s the biggest farm in the entire state. But it won’t be a farm for much longer. The Nature Conservancy has purchased the land, and hopes to make the area one of the biggest Midwest wetland restoration projects ever. The group hopes the Emiquon Wildlife Refuge will make improvements to the land ranging from creating a new stop for migrating birds, to improving the quality of the Illinois River that is the source of drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people. Joy Zedler is an Ecology Professor at the University of Wisconsin. She says the size of this project creates a unique opportunity to reintroduce extinct plants once native to the area.
“If you have a wetland the size of this table, and you want to restore an endangered species, very likely you wont be able to find the right conditions to support it. But if you have 7600 acres, somewhere in that site may well be the combination of conditions that can support that species.”
Zedler says bringing native plants back to the area can provide food and habitat for a variety of animals and insects that were once native to that region, and improve the health of the region’s ecosystem for miles in every. One major advantage Emiquon has is the entire farm is surrounded by a levy. That means one hole in the levy could allow the area to be a contained flood plain for the river. Rip Sparks is a professor at the University of Illinois. He says allowing that to happen has the potential to bring a wide variety of plants and animals back to the river area. That’s because it would create a seasonal flood plain.
“The spring flood lasts long enough that the organisms have adapted to utilize it for spawning and feeding areas. And the birds have used it as feeding areas as they make their migrations. So it seems very important that river be connected to the flood plain.”
But not everyone is excited about the plans to turn Emiquon into a wetland. Tom Edwards is an activist who has studied the Illinois River region for decades. He is one of several environmentalists that say all of the excitement about the project is mis-founded. Edwards says the waters of the nearby Illinois River are so polluted, that if one drop becomes part of the Emiquon site, all the talk of reintroducing native plant and animal species will become moot.
“Nothing on the Illinois River has any vegetation on it. It’s a toxic waste. The fish can hardly survive. If they let the river water in, it will create another mud hole. It’s not a way to cleanse the river, and we would lose a valuable asset for the future.”
Edwards says Emiquon can be a separate, stand alone lake that protects some wildlife and plants. But he says it will never be the grand experiment in wetland restoration that some claim it will be. Many scientists counter Edward’s argument by pointing out that wetlands can be excellent filters for pollutants, and improve the quality of nearby bodies of water. And the Nature Conservancy says it is aware of the challenges of creating a wetland so close to a less than healthy river. And that, says the Conservancy’s Michael Rueter, is what makes this site ideal. Because it’s enclosed by levies, whatever is done here can be reversed. If opening the site to the river causes problems, the levy can simply be closed up again, and something else can be tried.
“Any action that we take will be reversible. So we’re not taking down levies or lowering the heights of levies. Because we want to be able to reverse this and adapt as we learn more information.”
Rueter says one option would be to install a gate in the levy, so they could control the amount of water that comes into Emiquon. Scientists could than closely monitor the effect of adding River water to the site. Reuter says the Nature Conservancy hasn’t decided how it will approach restoring the site just yet. The group has time to think about it. Part of the purchase agreement gives the former owners the right to continue to farm the land for up to five more years. But when it does become a restoration project, it will likely have the attention of activists and researchers around all of the Midwest. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.
This levy currently separates the biggest farm in
Illinois (on the left) from the floodwaters of the Illinois River (on the
right). The Nature Conservancy is planning to turn the 7,600 acre
farm into one of the biggest Midwest wetland restoration projects ever.
A conservation group is planning a wetland restoration project that will be one of the biggest ever in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl has more:
Transcript
A conservation group is planning a wetland restoration project that will be one of the biggest ever in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
The Nature Conservancy has purchased the biggest farm in Illinois, and is planning to convert the land into a wetland. The seventy six hundred acre plot of land in Central Illinois is attracting attention from researchers from around the region. Joy Zedler is an Ecology professor at the University of Wisconsin. She says the project will be significant.
“That fact that it is large already puts it on the map. And the fact that we could experiement with reintroducing rare species and finding the conditions that facilitate their growth is exciting.”
The Nature Conservancy is facing some challenges with the project that is less than a half a mile from the Illinois River. Critics say the polluted waters of the river will make it nearly impossible to recreate a natural wetland. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.
Sprawl affects urban and rural residents of every Great Lakes state. Rapid development continues to swallow farmland and leave impoverished urban cores in its wake. But one Great Lakes mayor believes there’s still time to preserve land and revive cities. Mayor John Logie shares this commentary:
Transcript
Sprawl affects urban and rural residents of every Great Lakes state. Rapid development continues to swallow farmland and leave impoverished urban cores in its wake. But one Great Lakes mayor believes there’s still time to preserve land and revive cities. Mayor John Logie shares this commentary.
Urban sprawl is alive and well in Grand Rapids, my hometown. The term refers to the insidious way that webs of suburbs, manufacturing plants, etc., are expanding in unplanned, ever-widening circles around our city. Such sprawl results in longer commutes, pollution, and the loss of undeveloped land. The American Farmland Trust reports that 70% of the country’s prime farmland is now in the path of rapid development. On the list of 30 of the most sprawling cities in the entire United States, Grand Rapids, which has experienced a 48% increase in its urban area between 1990 and 1996, ranks right in the middle, behind such hyper-growth communities as Las Vegas, Austin, and Tucson, but well ahead of Cleveland, Chicago, and Portland in our rate of sprawl increase.
This Land-use change has rarely been done in a responsible fashion. Some sprawl apologists say what we’ve ended up with is that’s the American Dream, and any problems are easy to fix. They say there’s plenty of land left in America. They say congestion would go away if we just build more roads. But sprawl matters. Pollsters say it’s the most important issue in the Country.
Distress about urban sprawl arises from many factors: loss of open space, traffic congestion, economic segregation, a lack of affordable housing, and a lost sense of community. According to Harvard University political scientist Robert Putnam, the longer people spend in traffic, the less likely they are to be involved in their community and family.
To solve these problems, it takes a combination of land conservation and real free market economics, which can actually provide smaller lots for those who want them. However, many communities try to maintain what they believe are high property values by allowing only large-lot homes to be built. This effectively excludes several types of households, including singles, some empty nesters, single-parents, and the elderly, along with lower-income people. And the favored “middle-class family” with kids, today represents just 25% of new homebuyers. Only 11% of U.S. households are “traditional” families with children and just one wage earner. One size no longer fits us all.
Here’s what we need now.
We need smaller houses in walkable clusters, town homes in real “towns,” lofts in vital urban neighborhoods, and affordable housing just about anywhere. The development of compact communities that offer urban amenities and street life will show that the market actually supports more density and more housing diversity—not less. But we’re not building communities like those; communities that can help reduce many symptoms of sprawl, including traffic. Instead, we’re just building new roads. But for every 10% increase in new freeway miles, a 9% increase in traffic is generated within 5 years as sprawl continues. You just can’t build your way out of gridlock. More importantly, today we can no longer afford to keep building new freeways. The key is building more walkable communities. All this depends on promoting different land-use patterns, and not just building new roads.
Property rights advocates argue against regional planning, or any planning for that matter. They say that people should have a right to develop their properties as they please. As a historic preservationist, I have heard that for years. But what if one person’s development decision adversely impacts another’s property, or the whole neighborhood, or the whole region? What if certain choices require more public tax dollars to pay for infrastructure and services than others? At the regional level, it is public dollars that enable development on private property. Without highways, roads, sewers, water systems, and public services, development cannot occur. Therefore, we must use the tool of government spending appropriately – and seek out and implement the most cost-effective public investments which creatively and positively support growth, but discourage sprawl. My name is John Logie, I’m the Mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
No one likes the idea of a major powerline running through their
backyard. But a proposed bulk transmission line in Wisconsin is
generating more than the usual amount of controversy. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Transcript
No one likes the idea of a major power line running through their backyard.
But a proposed bulk transmission line in Wisconsin is generating more than
the usual amount of controversy. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Steve Olson will never forget the night of June 25, 1998. He was working
the overnight shift at Minnesota power’s control center when something went
very wrong.
“I really didn’t know exactly what was going on at the time but I knew it was
serious. I knew it was something bigger than Minnesota power. It’s within
a matter of a minute or two we had half a dozen lines opening.”
The open lines meant the electric grid was breaking apart. The grid
connects Minnesota power to eight states and three Canadian provinces.
lightning strikes in Wisconsin – 200 miles away – caused the breakup. Over
40,000 people lost power.
John Heino is a spokesman for Minnesota power. He says that kind of
situation is one step away from a regional blackout.
“Normally this system is designed to work together so neighboring states and
systems can support each other, but in that situation, it just breaks up
into pieces and there’s no guarantee the power plants in that area are
enough to supply the load that’s left.”
The near miss convinced Minnesota power to do something to shore up the weak
link in the regional electric grid.
The Duluth-based company joined with Wisconsin Public Service to propose a
345-kilovolt transmission line from Duluth Minnesota to Wausau Wisconsin.
It would tap into cheap coal and hydro power from western Minnesota and
Manitoba. Heino says the new link would lighten the load on existing lines
and make service more reliable.
“With all these sources to the north and the west, and you have the Twin
Cities, Milwaukee and Chicago, to the south and the east, so there’s this
general day in and day out tendency for the power to flow to the south and
the east.”
The plan has attracted a lot of opposition along the proposed route. Eight
counties and over fifty local governments have gone on record against it.
Opponents worry about property values, loss of farmland, and health issues.
(sound of meeting)
At a recent meeting in superior Wisconsin, nearly 200 angry people showed up
to confront Minnesota power officials.
Person 1: “Both of these proposed routes would go through our property. We sunk our
life savings into it and we thought we could protect it. Lo and behold,
what did we know?”
Person 2: “As far as I’m concerned, this is a dinosaur. We’re looking at smaller
leading edge technologies that are more adapted to local generation.
Person 3: “I have a very nice neighbor and the power line is going across his land
and
he said to me, if it comes across my land, I’ll shoot’em.
Some Wisconsin farmers oppose the line because of problems they’re having
with other electric lines. Debbie Beyrl says ground currents have made her
cows sick. That’s reduced milk production and made it harder to keep the
business going. She’s also worried about her family’s health.
“I worry about my kids because they’re in the barn helping us. And I think
it’ll put us out of business, not that we’d want to quit but I think it
would finish us off, yeah.”
Power company officials say ground currents are caused by improper wiring or
local distribution lines, not large transmission lines.
But environmentalists question the need for the line. Chris Laforge sells
wind and solar electric generating systems. He says utilities could avoid
building expensive power lines by using alternative systems.
“It’s a perfect match. Distributed photovoltaic generation on rooftops of
large buildings can meet peak air conditioning demand because electricity
gets made right when you need it.”
Power companies say there’s great potential in alternative technologies, but
the current need is acute. Jim Loock is the chief electrical engineer
at the Wisconsin Public Service Commission. That agency has the authority
to approve the line.
“Our electrical system is growing at 2-3% a year, so we need 200-300
megawatts of additional supply every year. That’s why we say part of the
equation is energy conservation and demand side management, we feel strongly
that the consumer needs to conserve energy and use it as wisely as possible.”
Hearings are scheduled this month in Minnesota and this summer in Wisconsin.
if approved, construction could start in September 2001.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
A survey reveals most states are working from development planning
statutes put together in the 1920’s. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Lester Graham reports… one group is urging states to update their laws
to help prevent urban sprawl:
Transcript
A survey reveals most states are working from development planning statutes
put together in the 1920’s. One group is urging states to update their laws to help
prevent urban sprawl. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The American Planning Association says when Herbert Hoover was Secretary of
Commerce, the Department adopted some model planning acts. Today, many state
planning laws are still based on them. Stuart Meck is a senior researcher
with the American planning association. He says local governments control
much of zoning and planning. But the state is often the most powerful
influence on development.
“Every time a state department of transportation programs a highway
widening, or puts in a new interchange, or authorizes some type of loan to
local government to build or expand a treatment plant, that has some sort of
an impact on development.”
Meck says some states are tinkering around the edges of their planning laws.
But he argues if states are going to control urban sprawl, they need to
completely overhaul their planning statutes.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
In the Great Lakes region states have been slow to put together
legislation to address urban sprawl. Only one state in the region,
Wisconsin, has passed comprehensive reforms of its planning statutes.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… now
developers, environmentalists, and political leaders in that state are
all reading from the same blue-print:
Transcript
In the Great Lakes region states have been slow to put together legislation
to address urban sprawl. Only one state in the region, Wisconsin, has passed
comprehensive reforms of its planning statutes. Now developers, environmentalists,
and
political leaders in that state are all reading from the same blueprint. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
At the American Planning Association’s office in Chicago, Stuart Meck says
there’s been a huge surge in interest in trying to curb out-of-control
growth.
“It was almost as if somebody had turned on a switch in communities
across the United States and in state legislatures and there was just this
whole different environment starting about three years ago and it was no
longer business as usual.”
Meck is a senior researcher with the American Planning Association. He’s
been working to compile updated models for planning and zoning legislation.
He says the group found most state planning statutes are based on model acts
adopted by the U.S. Commerce Department in the 1920’s.
After World War II, development in the suburbs boomed, but planning laws
didn’t keep pace. Meck says most communities reacted to growth by turning to
the state, and the state reacted by building roads. Meck says few places
actually followed any kind of plan.
“And we’ve tried all these fixes like, you know, expanding our
interstate system, and widening highways and stuff like that and it doesn’t
seem to be working. The cumulative effect of all of those things is they use
up a lot of farmland; they create suburban areas in which there’s no
activity after dark, and we think what’s going on right now is sort of a
revisiting of some of earlier types of development forums, and seeing
whether there’s some value to that.”
Stuart Meck says the American Planning Association is finding cities want to turn away from endless
tracts of suburban homes on meandering streets and instead look at building neighborhoods of homes,
stores, and schools.
But an urban area’s growth is affected by development outside a single community. Meck says that’s
why state governments need to establish a framework for planning, uniform laws that help individual
communities and larger areas manage growth.
In the Great Lakes region, only one state has passed legislation that over-hauls its planning
statutes: Wisconsin.
Tom Larson is the director of land use and environmental affairs with the Wisconsin Realtors
Association. He says in the past, Wisconsin’s debate was about whether growth should be stopped.
That argument pitted pro-growth developers against anti-growth environmentalists, and towns were
not thinking of anything beyond their own borders.
‘Communities were often planning very myopically, looking at only one particular issue without
looking at potential impacts on various… on other areas of their community.”
Larson says Wisconsin’s new comprehensive planning statues acknowledge there will be growth, and
tackles the question of how to grow better.
The new statutes require more public involvement. Public hearings must be held so that residents
and neighboring communities know what the state or local government is planning. Tom Larson says
communities now have to think about how development affects not just the prosperity of a community,
but how it affects things such as parks, transportation patterns, and schools. The statutes also
close loopholes that allowed communities to ignore their own plans whenever it suited them.
Brian Ohm is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He’s credited with
bringing together environmentalists, realtors, homebuilders, and government planners to draft the
legislation. Ohm says Wisconsin’s planning law reforms are broad. They’re not just about preserving
land.
“It goes way beyond just saving an acre of farmland here or there. There’s a lot of issue that are
involved and hopefully through good local comprehensive planning as a base, we can begin to address
the broader and more complex issues of sprawl.”
Ohm says reforming Wisconsin’s planning statutes won’t necessarily stop sprawl. But the
comprehensive planning process adopted by the state will make communities aware of what they’re
doing.
‘You know, communities, through their plans, will still be able to be as pro or anti sprawl as they
want. The state’s not going to dictate the outcome of that, but again it’s going to have to be—
those decisions as made
my local governments are going to be made on a more informed set of factors
through the comprehensive planning process.”
Ohm says the new planning statutes will mean local communities, counties,
and the state will all be aware of each other’s plans and how their plans
affect overall growth in an area.
Tom Larson at the Wisconsin Realtors Association says following the
comprehensive planning process will mean some changes and some
inconveniences for realtors and developers. But he says it will also mean
everyone will understand what a community’s goals are and how every sector
fits into the plan.
“What our end goal was, was to be able to plan through consensus, to
bring all the interest groups together at the local level as well as at the
state level and say, ‘How do we want our communities to grow; how do we open
up communication, make everybody part of this process, and how do we build
through consensus?’ I think that’s what… hopefully that’s what our message
is and hopefully what the legislation will encourage communities to do.”
All the parties involved say changing Wisconsin’s planning statutes was not
easy. Not every issue was resolved. They also say Wisconsin never could have
managed its growth without over-hauling the law. The American Planning
Association says states that try to tinker around the edges of their 1920’s-style
planning laws will find little success.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
A nationwide report on how well states and communities plan
for growth finds the Great Lakes region not planning much at all. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has more:
It doesn’t happen very often, but for the last year, a republican
governor, the farming community, and environmentalists have been working
together to protect endangered wetlands, by taking certain farmlands out
of production. But now, a new federal proposal could be separating the
groups. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl has the story:
The outward growth of big city suburbs and of small towns booming because of retirees getting out of the city is putting pressure on some farm areas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports state governments are stepping in to regulate some of the seemingly out-of-control growth:
Eleven million acres of prime farmland were lost to urban sprawl in a 15 year period. Some small cities are embracing the growth and helping developers circumvent so-called Smart Growth restrictions on sprawl.
