Heat Island Science

  • A city like Las Vegas is actually cooler than the desert, because of all the lawns and trees inside the city. And a city like Chicago is hotter than the tree-lined suburbs surrounding it. (Photo courtesy of NASA)

Not all heat island effects are
the same. But, Rebecca Williams
reports, NASA scientists have
found there’s one thing all cities
can do to cool things down:

Transcript

Not all heat island effects are
the same. But, Rebecca Williams
reports, NASA scientists have
found there’s one thing all cities
can do to cool things down:

The NASA scientists found the heat island effect is much less intense in hot, dry parts of the country.

A city like Las Vegas is actually cooler than the desert, because of all the lawns and trees inside the city. And a city like Chicago is hotter than the tree-lined suburbs surrounding it.

It’s all about trees. Shady trees cool things down.

Lahouari Bounoua is one of the researchers.

“One of the most simple and natural ways of mitigating the excess heat is to plant trees within the cities.”

He says the key is to make sure the trees you plant are well adapted to the region, so you don’t end up wasting water. He says that’ll be even more important as the climate continues to change.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Big Apple Tree-Huggers

  • One NYC artist recruited arborists and neighbors to record messages about the city's trees. She placed markers in the cement listing numbers to call to hear the recordings. (Photo by Samara Freemark)

Trees along big city streets have a rough
life. Between pollution, development,
and vandalism, street trees die off at
a pretty alarming rate. One New York
artist thinks if people knew more about
street trees, they’d appreciate them more –
and treat them better. Samara Freemark reports from New York’s “Tree
Museum”:

Transcript

Trees along big city streets have a rough
life. Between pollution, development,
and vandalism, street trees die off at
a pretty alarming rate. One New York
artist thinks if people knew more about
street trees, they’d appreciate them more –
and treat them better. Samara Freemark reports from New York’s “Tree
Museum”:

When artist Katie Holten was commissioned to do a piece commemorating Grand Concourse boulevard in the Bronx, the first thing she thought of was trees. The Concourse, after all, is lined with them. The problem was, no one else seemed to notice they were even there.

“I had conversations with people who were sitting under the trees for the shade. And I’d ask them about what they thought of the trees. And they would say, ‘oh, there aren’t any trees on the concourse.’ But they were sitting underneath one.”

And if people did notice the trees, they weren’t always thrilled they were there.

“Kids told me that trees should all be chopped down because they couldn’t see the view. A teacher told me that all trees were the same, that there was only one kind of tree.”

People didn’t pay much attention to the trees. When they did, they often abused them – which is pretty common treatment for the trees that line city streets. People pin street trees with flyers. They spray trees with grafitti. They chain their bikes around trees, stripping their bark. City buses jump curbs and plow into trees. And developers chop them down to put up new buildings.

“You can’t just stick a tree in the ground and hope for the best. It’s a really tough environment.”

In fact, half of all trees planted in New York City die.

Holten figured one way to protect street trees was to get people to understand all the good that trees do.

So she recruited arborists and neighbors to record messages about the Grand Concourse’s trees. She placed markers in the cement listing numbers to call to hear the recordings. And she called the whole thing the Tree Museum.


“There are 100 trees along the 4 miles. And each of the trees gets a small marker. So we can walk up here to 165th street and I’ll show you one. Here’s one of the markers- nice and dirty.”

(sound of dialing in)

We dial and hear…

“I’d like to a moment to say thank you to this tree. This tree is busy cooling the air and helping to keep the river clean. The leaves in the canopy above are pulling water out of the air, reducing humidity, like an AC.”

It’s not really clear how many people are actually calling in to the museum, or whether the recordings are changing anyone’s mind. But it’s a start.

Joyce Hoagy lives further up the Concourse. She recorded a message for tree number 31. And now she feels kind of possessive of it.

“This is my tree. It’s a honey locust and I’m identified by it.”

Hoagy says Bronx trees have been under particular threat lately. This year the city cut down hundreds of mature oaks to make room for the new Yankees stadium.

“One street had these giant oaks, and they formed this canopy. And on the hottest day of the year you could walk down…people didn’t know what they had till it was gone.”

So now Joyce Hoagy’s spreading the word about the Tree Museum too. She hopes it will give her neighbors a hundred reasons to care about trees around them – and watch out for them.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

Related Links

Getting People to Stop Burning Trash

  • Robert Olsen used to burn his trash. Now he drives his trash into town. (Photo by Todd Melby)

Getting rid of your trash in the city
is easy. Take it to the curb on pickup
day and the city does the rest. In rural
areas, many people don’t have garbage pickup.
So they burn their trash. And that causes
pollution. Todd Melby tells us about one
place that’s trying to change its burning
habits:

Transcript

Getting rid of your trash in the city is easy. Take it to the curb on pickup day and the city does the rest. In rural areas, many people don’t have garbage pickup. So they burn their trash. And that causes pollution. Todd Melby tells us about one place that’s trying to change its burning habits:


Robert Olsen lives out in the country. He used to burn his garbage. But not any more.


(Pickup hatch opens)


On this windy morning, Olsen has driven his pickup into town to dump his trash.


“I think this is probably a week’s worth for us.”


He grabs the blue plastic bin from the back of his pickup and dumps it into a green Dumpster.


“Not too difficult.”


Olsen runs the environmental office here in Lincoln County, Minnesota. It was his idea to set-up nine Dumpsters throughout this sparsely populated county. He did it because he knows that burning garbage pollutes.


“The issue is that when you burn garbage at home, in the country, the first people or persons who are going to experience any harmful effects from that garbage are going to be you.”


That’s because a lot of trash — including even plain old paper — contains chlorine that produce dioxins when burned at home. Plastic is even worse.


Mark Rust is a solid waste expert with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.


“If you’re using a burn barrel or fire pit or you’re burning garbage in any way on your own property, you’re creating a perfect factory for producing dioxins.”


Smoke from burn barrels and fire pits are now the leading source of dioxins in air pollution. Some studies have connected dioxins to cancer. Burning garbage is especially bad because there are no anti-pollution scrubbers on do-it-yourself burners.


“With a burn barrel, it’s all right there.”


Melby: “It all just goes right up into the air?”


“Into the air, into the soil. Ultimately, we’re going to be taking it in on the dinner table.”


Most states still allow people living in the country to burn their garbage. In Minnesota, only farmers and those without access to affordable garbage pickup can burn. A 2005 survey found that about half of the people living in rural Minnesota burn at least occasionally.


Which is why the state offered rural counties some start up money to get people to burn less.


Rural residents in Lincoln County, Minnesota have had access to drop-off sites for seven months now. When the program started, haulers took away about 8 tons of trash every month. Now it’s up to 15 tons.


Back at one of the county’s drop-off sites, Clarence Lietz is getting of his Buick and grabbing newspapers for the nearby recycling bin. What doesn’t get recycled, gets burned, he says.


“What garbage we have like small things for the yard we just burn right at home, you know. I’d say about a five-gallon pail full or something like that.”


Another elderly customer — she didn’t want her name used — says she burns junk mail and envelopes at home.


“Papers. That’s all you can burn. I don’t burn garbage.


Melby: “And why don’t ya?”


“It’s not right to burn garbage. It don’t burn any good anyway.”


Melby: “Why isn’t it right to burn it?”


“You know why, don’t cha?”


I do now.


For The Environment Report, I’m Todd Melby.

Related Links

One Genius of a Farmer

  • Will Allen, founder and CEO of Growing Power, Inc. (Photo courtesy of the MacArthur Fellows Program)

An advocate of urban farming will
be able to do more to get locally grown foods
to communities. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

An advocate of urban farming will
be able to do more to get locally grown foods
to communities. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Will Allen founded the group ‘Growing Power’. Allen says the group tries to provide healthful and affordable food to
people who really need it. He says he’s mainly focused on growing and getting food to cities.

“Our rural areas are becoming suburban areas, and cities are getting larger and
growing out into suburban areas. And we have to figure out a way to feed people
with local food, and we need to come up with a just way of doing that.”

Allen says growing food locally and getting better food to people is key to building communities.

Allen is getting help. The MacArthur Foundation has recognized him with one of its ‘genius’ grants. He’ll get a half-
million dollars over the next five years to use as he sees fit.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Subdivisions Go for Green Acres

  • Conservation Subdivisions by definition must preserve at least 50% of the total land that can be built on in a development. Local land trusts typically oversee the preservation of meadowlands, forests, and orchards -like this one - once they’re surrounded by condos and single family homes. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)

Developers are designing a new type of
subdivision that is selling even in this down
market. They say these homes sell better than
traditional ones because they give people what
they want: the feeling of living in the country
while living near the city. Lisa Ann Pinkerton
reports the new subdivisions are getting mixed
reviews:

Transcript

Developers are designing a new type of
subdivision that is selling even in this down
market. They say these homes sell better than
traditional ones because they give people what
they want: the feeling of living in the country
while living near the city. Lisa Ann Pinkerton
reports the new subdivisions are getting mixed
reviews:

(dog chain rattling and walking sound)

Robbie Dryden is walking her golden retriever Casey past a large apple
orchard in her neighborhood.

“The orchard’s great! Because when the apples start coming off the trees, my kids and I
walk down here and we just pick apples.”

But Dryden doesn’t live in the country. In fact, her subdivision is near a major
intersection, just south of Philadelphia.

“We’re off the street, so a lot of people don’t even really know we’re back here. I tell people where we live, that live in this area, and they’re like ‘where is that?’ It’s
where the orchards are. Because all the houses are kinda tucked back, so it’s private.”

Dryden’s neighborhood is known as a Conservation Subdivision. Its design
preserves the orchard and surrounding meadows forever. A land conservation
easement protects 70% of the subdivision from ever being developed.

Across the country, a few zoning boards have begun to mandate such
preservation in new residential developments.

(construction sound)

One of these is going up just a few miles east of Dryden’s neighborhood. This
subdivision is called ‘Weatherstone’. Out of its 300 acres, 180 of them are reserved as
open space, the form of small parks, a working farm and surrounding fields.
Weatherstone is being built by the Hankin Group and Vice President Jim
Fuller. He says his company preserves open space in all of its projects,
whether it’s required or not.

“It’s certainly more challenging to try to get this kind of project approved, and more challenging to build it as well,
but it’s definitely more rewarding.”

Fuller says conservation design builds the same number of homes as a traditional
subdivision. But instead of spreading the homes out, conservation lots are smaller
and closer together. That makes them cheaper to build compared to traditional
houses. That’s because the smaller lot sizes mean shorter roads and sewage
lines are needed. On top of that, since the houses are surrounded by open
space, builders can charge 10% to 20% more for the homes.

The downside, Fuller says, is smaller lot sizes can make local planning boards
nervous, especially if they’re not familiar with the idea. Building houses closer
together is known as higher density, and it’s associated with cheaper housing.

“Density is something that people are afraid of. They think that if the lots are smaller
than the values are lower, and will change the values of the adjoining houses. I think it’s been proven many times over that the opposite is
the case.”

“As a concept its fine. But it doesn’t work everywhere, that’s the problem with it.”

That’s Isobel Olcott, who serves on the local and county planning boards in
her area of Harding, New Jersey. Her board recently rejected a conservation
design that would have preserved 91 acres.

She says some townships cherish rural character. Township officials think
they can better preserve that by restricting developments to large lots.

“If they don’t want to live in clusters, it doesn’t matter how much opens space surrounds
them, they will always opt for low-density zoning.”

But across the country open space is being marketed as an amenity and
people will pay for it – even in a bad housing market.

Shyam Cannon is with the real estate research firm Robert Charles Lesser. He
says demand for these types of developments is out-pacing supply 2 to 1.

“There’s a fundamental need for water, for air, for access open space and I think the
traditional development paradigm simply doesn’t satisfy those desires anymore.”

Cannon and others say today’s generation of homebuyers don’t want a typical
suburban neighborhood. Often they want a neighborhood that simulates a
rural experience – and they’re willing to pay for it.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

Related Links

Prospecting for Wind

  • The wind is up, and so is interest in wind power development. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Wind power is a small, but fast-growing segment
of the U.S. energy market. Right now, energy companies are scouring rural America for the best spots to put up wind turbines. But wind is not enough – these companies need land, too. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee looks at one wind developer’s search for its next wind farm:

Transcript

Wind power is a small, but fast-growing segment of the U.S. energy market. Right now, energy companies are scouring rural America for the best spots to put up wind turbines, but wind is not enough – these companies need land, too. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee looks at one wind developer’s search for its next wind farm.


The search for wind power could turn into a modern-day gold rush. Wind’s becoming a profitable way to meet growing demand for clean energy, but wind power companies face an obstacle: they can’t just find a windy spot and throw up some wind turbines.


They’ve got to sign a contract with a landowner, usually a farmer, who’s willing to rent out some breezy land. Mike Donahue is Vice President of Midwest Wind Power. His main job: find windy land and the farmers who own it. Donahue says the job’s changed recently.


“The biggest difference is the level of knowledge and sophistication that local elected officials and landowners have gotten regarding windpower. I mean, when we first started, they were like, ‘Wind what? Wind turbine? What’s that?’ They didn’t even know what a wind turbine looked like, let alone whether they wanted one in their field or not.”


For their part, savvy farmers aren’t waiting around for companies to call them. They’re taking the initiative. David Coffey farms hundreds of acres in Illinois. A few months back, he did a little investigating.


“First of all, I just had got the information from the Farm Bureau Magazine and what was going on in other areas. And I just got it in my mind, I thought, ‘Well, I’ve got a ridge here, what’s it worth?'”


So Coffey got equipment from a university and tested the wind along his ridge. The initial results were promising, and the university posted the data online. Donahue’s company noticed the results, and gave David Coffey a call.


Which leads us to today. Coffey’s agreed to give the company a tour of the area. After some quick introductions, Donahue, his partner Tim Polz, and I, squeeze into Coffey’s white pickup.


(Sound of door shutting)


Coffey drives us along a maze of gravel-lined back roads and soy bean fields. Soon, we see the ridge that brought Donahue’s company here. It’s not that spectacular, really. It’s just a big, rolling hill, but it spreads to the horizon.


DONAHUE: “Just eyeballing this, it looks like this ridge runs how many miles, would you say, from east to west?”


COFFEY: “Well, I would say it’s going to be close to… I’d say eight to ten.”


DONAHUE: “And then it’s roughly a mile across it?”


COFFEY: “Yeah, or a little better, if you’re gonna stay right on top of it, I’d say.”


Midwest Wind Power wants a large site like this, because it’s hard to turn a profit on smaller ones. Several farmers own bits of this ridge, so Donahue might have to deal with all of them, and that could be a headache.


David Coffey says some locals are worried about helping out. Landowners who build support for the project might not have enough wind on their own farms to qualify for a turbine and a rental
contract. Donahue says there’s a way to smooth that over. If someone’s been helpful but is left out…


“We actually do offer a kind of good neighbor compensation package to them as well.”


Of course, maybe other companies noticed David Coffey’s wind data, too. Donahue’s assistant, Tim Polz, broaches the subject.


“Have you guys had any of the other developers give you any type of financial offers?”


Coffey says yes, but doesn’t elaborate. Donahue makes his pitch. He says his company offers more than good rent, it offers other benefits attractive to farmers.


“Along those lines, we grant a great deal of flexibility to the landowners to have input into turbine locations, access road locations, cabling routes.”


Even with this flexibility, though, money counts. The company will pay farmers about seven thousand dollars each year for every turbine on their property. That’s a lot for an Illinois farmer. On average, they make only thirty thousand dollars in farm income each year.


Soon the conversation shifts away from money. Donahue asks whether Coffey’s neighbors are mostly farmers.


“If you’re in an area that has a number of non-farming residential homes, maybe built in wood lots, or people who want to live in the country, they’re less accepting of having wind turbines developed in view of their homes.”


Coffey assures him nearly everyone’s a farmer out here. And with that, he ends the tour.


“Well, what do you think of the area?”


Donahue says the company needs to run more wind tests along the ridge, but overall…


“The first impressions are very favorable as to the site and its potential. We’re looking forward to meeting with your other landowners and then ultimately, meeting some elected officials as well.”


It’s not clear what will come of today’s meeting. Maybe another company will land a contract, or perhaps there’ll never be turbines here, but the chances for success improve with each encounter.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Urban Vegetable Farm Takes Root in Brownfield

  • Just outside the Greensgrow compound (photo by Brad Linder)

A farm is a strange thing to see in the middle of a gritty, urban area.
But the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brad Linder recently visited a small
farm on what used to be a polluted site in an industrial neighborhood:

Transcript

A farm is a strange thing to see in the middle of an gritty, urban area.
But the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brad Linder recently visited a
small farm on what used to be a polluted site in an industrial
neighborhood:


One of the first things you notice about this one-acre plot in
Philadelphia is how out of place the farm looks. About a block away is a
busy interstate highway that jams up with rush hour traffic twice a day.


The farm itself is surrounded by rowhouses, a steel galvanizing plant, and
an auto detail shop.


Chino Rosatto runs the auto shop. About 8 years ago, he first met his new
neighbors – a small group of farmers.


”It was weird at first, you don’t see no farm in the city.”


But Rosatto says he got used to the farm started by Mary Seton Corboy
pretty quickly.


“It was an empty lot. Nothing there. Just fenced up, and that was it. She
came up, did something with it.”


Before it was an empty lot, this city block was a steel plant. In 1988
the building was demolished, and the EPA declared the site hazardous.


It was cleaned up, but Rosatto says it was nothing but concrete slabs
until Mary Seton Corboy and her small group of volunteers came and started
the farm they call Greensgrow.


Corboy moved to Philadelphia from the suburbs nearly a decade ago. With a
background as a chef, she’d always been concerned about how hard it was to
find fresh produce. So she decided to grow it herself.


“The question that just kept coming up over and over again was, is there
any reason why you have to be in a rural area to grow food, given the fact
that the market for the food, the largest market for the food, is in the
urban area?”


Corboy says usually food travels an average of 1500 miles from its source
to wind up on most Americans plates. And she says when it comes to flavor
– nothing is more important than how fresh the food is.


“If you eat strawberries that are commercially available,
you have no taste recognition of something that people 40 years ago would
say is a strawberry, because of the refrigeration, because of the way they
are picked underripe, because of the things they are sprayed with to give
them a longer shelf life.”


Corboy says her first choice for a farm wouldn’t have been an abandoned
industrial site. But the rent was cheaper than it would be at almost any
other spot in the city.


And even though the EPA and scientists from Penn State University
confirmed that there were no toxic chemicals left, Corboy doesn’t plant
anything edible in the ground.


She grows some plants in greenhouses. Others are planted in raised soil
beds. And she grows lettuce in PVC pipes that deliver nutrients to the
plants without any soil at all.


Corboy still regularly sends plant samples out for testing. The results?


“At one point Penn State sent us back a report, we talked to
them on the phone about it, and they said your stuff is actually cleaner
than stuff that we’ve seen grown on farms. Go figure that. We feel very, very comfortable
with the produce that we grow. Because, you know, I’ve been living on it
myself for 8 years.”


And restaurant owners say they’re happy to buy some of the freshest
produce available.


Judy Wicks is owner the White Dog Cafe, a Philadelphia
restaurant that specializes in locally grown foods and meat from animals
raised in humane conditions. She’s been a loyal Greensgrow customer for 8
years.


“As soon as we heard about Greensgrow, we were really excited
about the idea of supporting an urban farm on a brownfield – what a
dream! To you know, take an unsightly, unused block, and turn it into a
farm. It’s just a really exciting concept.”


Wicks says she’s never had a concern about the quality of the food,
because of the care taken to prevent it from touching the soil.


In addition to its restaurant business, Greensgrow sells fruit and
vegetables to Philadelphia residents at a farmer’s market twice a week.
The farm also operates one of the only nurseries in the city, which begins
selling plants this spring.


Mary Seton Corboy says running the farm has taught her a lot about food,
the environment, and waste. She says she doesn’t look at empty lots the
same way anymore. She’s learned to squeeze fruits, vegetables and flowers
out of every space of this city block. And she sees value in the things
other people throw out.


On a recent night Corboy was driving home with her farm manager Beth Kean,
and they spotted a pile of trash beside a building.


“But what they had dumped were all these pallets. And Beth
was with me in the car, and we both turned and looked at them and went,
Look at those pallets! Let’s come back and get them, they’re in great
shape!”


Urban farming is tough. Corboy originally had lofty goals for her farm.
Greensgrow was going to be a pilot project, something she’d expand to
include 10 farms throughout Philadelphia.


8 years later, Greensgrow is still anchored on its original one-acre site.
But by keeping her costs low and selling to loyal customers, Corboy sold
200-thousand dollars worth of produce last year. That was enough to make
2004 the farm’s first profitable year.


For the GLRC, I’m Brad Linder.

Related Links

The Debate Over Mobile Home Parks

  • Because mobile homes can be transported they're not taxed the way permanent homes are. They're taxed like vehicles (when they're bought and sold). Mobile home owners pay a small tax for the small plot of land they sit on. (Photo by Chris McCarus)

People who live in mobile homes might be seeing their property taxes going up. Some government officials say it’s an attempt to tax for the services used and to discourage mobile home parks from sprawling across former farm fields. But others wonder if higher taxes aren’t a form of discrimination against this kind of affordable housing. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:

Transcript

People who live in mobile homes might be seeing their property taxes going up. Some government officials say it’s an attempt to tax for the services used and to discourage mobile home parks from sprawling across former farm fields. But others wonder if higher taxes aren’t a form of discrimination against this kind of affordable housing. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:


(sound of expressway traffic)


The Capital Crossings mobile home park sits on rolling farmland near an Interstate highway. The residents of the 15 homes have moved here either to retire or to make the 30 minute daily commute to nearby Lansing, Michigan. And more mobile homes are being pulled in.


(sound of construction)


Workers are building porches and attaching the skirting between the ground and the house. It’s supposed to show permanence, like a foundation. But mobile homes are not permanent. And mobile homes are not taxed the same way as other houses. They’re taxed like vehicles. Taxed when they’re purchased. Taxed when they’re sold. Still there are no property taxes on the homes. Only on the tiny lots on which they sit.


Some government officials say the $3 a month that these park residents have been paying for property taxes don’t cover the costs of police and fire protection or other government services. They want a tax hike to give local governments more money. Dave Morris is a farmer and the local township supervisor.


“We all have to pay our fair share for services such as sheriff, ambulance, fire department as well as schools. Schools is a big issue of course. And they aren’t paying their share. That’s all.”


But advocates for affordable housing say hiking taxes on mobile home residents is more likely just an attempt to discourage that kind of housing. They say zoning mobile homes out of existence has been tried, but taxing them out is a new idea. Higher taxes will likely lead to mobile home parks closing.”


John McIlwain is with the Urban Land Institute. He says as mobile home parks become more expensive to operate, their owners will sell off to subdivision or big box store developers.


“The numbers are going to be so attractive that the people who own mobile home parks are going to be much more interested in selling the land to a housing developer than in continuing to run the mobile home park. So in time the parks are probably going to disappear on their own anyway and trying to raise the taxes on them specifically is simply going to make that day come earlier.”


In Michigan there is a proposal to raise the taxes on mobile home sites four times higher. State Senator Valde Garcia says the $3 a month that mobile home park owners pay for each home site is not nearly enough.


“What we are trying to do is really change the tax structure so it’s fair to everyone. The system hasn’t changed in 45 years. It’s time we do so but we need to do it in a gradual manner.”


Senator Garcia’s colleagues in the state house have voted to raise the tax to $12 a month. He’d like to raise it to at least $40 a month. The mobile home park industry has hired a public relations firm to produce a video criticizing the tax increase.


“Site built homes pay sales tax only the materials used in their homes and don’t pay tax on resale. Manufactured home owners pay sales tax on materials, labor, transportation profit of a home and they pay sales tax every time a home is resold. ”


The two sides don’t agree on the math. Tim Dewitt of the Michigan Manufactured Housing Association says $3 a month sounds low because it doesn’t show hidden costs. The biggest cost comes when park owners have to pay the higher commercial property tax instead of the lower homestead tax. Dewitt says the park owners then pass the tax to the home owners whose average family income is only about $28,000 a year.


“That’s our worst fear. It could put people who could least afford any type of tax increase into a tough position.”


15 million people live in mobile home parks around the country. And different local governments have tried to find ways to increase taxes on mobile home parks. But Michigan is one of the first states to propose hiking taxes this much. State Senator Garcia says he is not trying to hurt the mobile home industry or make life harder for mobile home park residents. He dismisses the idea that he’s being pressured by wealthier constituents who don’t like to see the mobile home parks being developed.


John McIlwain of the Urban Land Institute says a bias against mobile home parks is part of the mentality that leads to sprawl. When people from the city and the suburbs move a little further into rural areas they want the look and feel of suburbia.


“The mobile home parks are no longer things that they want to see. And so they find ways to discourage those mobile home parks. The ones that are there try to see if they can be purchased, turned into stick built housing or otherwise discourage them and encourage them to move on elsewhere.”


But often the people who move in also want the shopping centers, restaurants and conveniences they once had instead of the mobile home parks.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris McCarus.

Related Links

Part 1: Selling the Family Farm to Developers

  • A former farm field in Central Ohio ready for development. It's an increasingly common sight in this area. This land is right next door to a dairy. Worried about his new neighbors, the farmer is planning to sell. (Photo by Tamara Keith)

In the Great Lakes region, farmland is rapidly being developed into homes, office parks and shopping centers. Nationally, farmland is lost at a rate of more than 9-thousand acres a day. But in order for this development to happen, someone has to sell their land. In the first of a two-part series on farmers and the decisions they make about their land, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamara Keith introduces us to some farmers who have made the difficult choice to sell:

Transcript

In the Great Lakes region, farmland is rapidly being developed into homes, office parks
and shopping centers. Nationally, farmland is lost at a rate of more than nine-thousand
acres a day. But in order for this development to happen, someone has to sell their
land. Tamara Keith introduces us to some farmers who have made that difficult choice:


At a busy intersection in a newly suburban area, a red barn and white house sit back
off the road. Lush green pasture land hugs the old farm buildings. But the days are
numbered for this bucolic scene.


(sound of construction)


Across the street dozens of condos are under construction… and farmer Roy Jackson has
put this 216-acre farm in Central Ohio under option for development. As soon as the
developer gets approval to build, Jackson’s farm will be no more.


“I’m a third generation farmer and you put your roots down and to see your land be
developed is something I have seen coming, but to actually see it happen across the
road; it’s a sad thing, but it’s progress.”


Sitting on his front porch, Jackson looks our on a neighborhood where once there were farms.


Jackson: “At one point we farmed over 1500 acres and now we’re down to about 300.”


Keith: “What happened?”


Jackson: “We’ve lost a lot of it to development. In the estate of my mom and dad
we had to sell that to settle the estate and that was part of it as well.”


Like many in agriculture, Jackson didn’t own all the land he farmed. He was leasing
it and when the owner decided to sell for development, Jackson was out of luck. Now
he says there’s not enough land left to farm profitably.


“I have a son that wants to farm with me and to do it here, there just isn’t enough
land to sustain two families and make a living for both.”


So, he’s found a big piece of land down in Kentucky, in an area where land is still
plentiful and development pressures are distant. He’s leasing it with an option to buy.
Soon Jackson and his son will have the cattle ranch they’ve been planning for years.
It just won’t be in the state where his family has farmed for three generations.


(sound of heavy machinery)


Workers operate backhoes to grade the ground in an open field that will eventually
be home to some seven-thousand people in a new development. Retired farmer and
agriculture educator Dick Hummel recently sold a portion of this land, allowing
the project to move forward.


“I had some people critical of me because I was going to sell farmland, but on
the other hand, I really didn’t. I traded. You just have to accept that in this
community because that’s what’s going to happen. That’s what has happened. Plus
the fact, it’s been pretty tough farming and this has given a lot of farmers a
chance to sell some land for some excellent prices.”


Hummel sold about 100 acres of farmland and bought some new land – 77 acres –
farther out in the country. His father had bought what Hummel calls the “home farm”
in 1935, and that family history weighed heavily on Hummel when he was deciding what
to do.


“It was harder to decide to sell that land because it had been in my family for many
generations than it was the agricultural part.”


His father bought the land for 100 dollars an acre and Hummel was able to sell it
for a whole lot more. Asked why he sold, Hummel’s answer is simple.


“The offer. I hadn’t thought about selling at all. I didn’t even know that they
would want any of this particular land ’till all at once there were others that
were selling for a price. I heard about that, and first thing I knew, a heck of
a lot of land in this area was selling. So you compare notes as to prices, et
cetera and so forth, and that’s how it happens.”


Hummel says he wasn’t pressured to sell. He’s well past retirement age, and
he says it was the right decision personally. And such is the case for most
farmers who sell their land for development, says Sara Nikolich, Ohio director
with American Farmland Trust.


“You’ve got acres of farmland that can be sold for 20, 30,000 dollars an acre at times.
For a lot of farmers that’s their retirement they’re sitting on, and when you have
development surrounding you and you don’t have any public policy to promote agriculture
and perhaps you don’t have any heirs, you don’t have any options available to you other
than development.”


And so, the personal decisions of individual farmers are transforming some of the
nation’s rural landscape into suburban landscapes.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamara Keith.

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Report: Renewable Energy Can Kickstart Job Growth

  • Turbines like these not only could help produce energy from a renewable and seemingly infinite resource, but could also create thousands of new jobs, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

A new report says a national renewable energy policy could create thousands of new jobs in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

A new report says a national renewable energy policy could create thousands of new
jobs in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:


The report by the Union of Concerned Scientists urges Congress to adopt a policy
requiring 20 percent of the nation’s energy to be produced using renewable sources
by the year 2020. Those sources could be wind, solar, or geothermal energy. The report
says such a policy could create thousands of new jobs in manufacturing, construction and
maintenance.


Jeff Deyette is an energy analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He says
rural communities – especially farmers – could be the biggest winners under the proposal.


“Farmers that were chosen to have wind power facilities sited on their land could get up
to as much as $4,000 per turbine to lease on their property.”


Deyette says a national renewable energy standard could save consumers nearly 50 billion
dollars by 2020. He says that’s because increased competition from renewables would help
lower the demand and the price of natural gas.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.

Related Links