What are You Wasting?

In class on Tuesday we were asked to write about our own excess, or in other words what we are wasting. Last semester we started our Intro to Urban Ecology class by looking at a Starbucks coffee cup, and all the hidden energy it took to make it. We talked about the upstream and downstream cycle of the cup including what materials went into its creation and where it went after its intended use.

I will focus on the after the cup is used cycle, and how it relates to what I have wasted over the last 24 hours. The last few days before this class period, I came home almost every day to find our garbage can full of trash. I'd empty it out only to find it full again within 1 - 2 days. Thinking that I didn't contribute much to the flow of trash out of our house, I thought this a well timed observation.  Here is what I "threw away" in the last 24 hours:

• 1 craft singles cheese plastic wrapper for my sandwich
• 1 paper towel 1/2 sheet from wiping the counter
• 1 inch long piece of spinach stem that fell on the floor
• 1 Rice-A-Roni Box with mix packet for my lunch
• Gas in my car that idled for 3 mins (before I turned it off. I was pulled over for doing a California rolling stop at a stop sign at 11:56 PM in the middle of nowhere.)
• Electricity for my laptop as I browsed the internet.
• Electricity for the fridge I left open while making a sandwich.
• Extra water as I left the faucet on while rinsing my mouth after brushing my teeth.

Somehow the garbage can was full again after "throwing away" the few things I did. I was still surprised at the excess waste that I found in my life from just letting things run or needless trash. Honestly, I felt helpless as to what I can do to reduce the things I placed in the trash or how they could be reused. That was until I watched the following video:

I looked up projects for recycling in Orem and found their schedule. They pick up recycling every other week and only accept certain things. Those certain things did not include the following:

• Plastic bags and clear plastic wrap
• Video and cassette tapes
• Shredded paper
• Glass, plates, mugs, and pots/pans
• Food, liquids or yard waste (like the organics in the video)
• Food-soiled cardboard, paper cups/plates
• Carpet, cloth or textiles
• Used paper towles/tissues
• Construction/industrial debris
• Electronic waste
• Automotive parts
• Medical/Bio hazardous waste

Some of the items Orem City won't recycle can be picked up by Dunn Recycling, a private company. For those items still not accepted by these two companies there are other sources in Utah that will take the rest. The recycling program isn't fantastic, but the more we use it the more it will grow.

We could do similar to what is being done in New York, by asking to buy city government's organic waste for our own community and home gardens. If interests in organic material were to increase in the city's eyes, they would work harder to collect more as they are now able to turn a profit. This could be one potential solution, but what are other potential solutions for helping city and state governments to be more recycle friendly?

There is No Away

As I was looking for my class "Show and Tell" piece I came across this video:
Last semester in Intro to Urban Ecology we talked about the face that there is no “away." I, as I am sure you as well, use the phrase "throw away" on a daily basis.

I see a piece of plastic and I toss it in the trash can, where all useless things go. It's trash, it served its purpose and now has no further use. After watching this video my eyes were opened, and I was reminded of the "away" principle I was taught last semester. There is no away.

I throw a piece of trash away, but where does it go? Most of the time in a trash can which hides it from my view, and masks any potential scent. I empty that trash can into a larger garbage can so a dumpster truck can pick it up, and take it "away" to a refinery or landfill.

Is it "away" from me? Yeah, at least for that moment, but it's not truly away. It could come back by acid rain, toxins in water, stench on a windy day, disease from degraded environments of people or animals, and so many other ways. It's never really away!
This video brings value to our everyday trash. The thing I use, might have outworn its use in that form, but what other good could come of it? Next time you place something in your "trash can" think how else it could be used, or what more could come of it! Every pebble has a purpose.

Green Walls

I've heard of (and studied) green roofs, at this point I think everyone has at least heard of them once in their lives. In class on Tuesday I heard a new term that strangely I had never thought of or heard before: green walls.

The term "green walls" includes all vegetated wall surface types. And green façades, living walls, retaining living walls, biowalls, vertical gardens, modular green walls, vegetated mat wall are all types or other names for green walls.

I am not sure why I felt the idea so revolutionary, when it would have been so easy to take the green roof idea and move it down to the walls or even the floor. (Yeah I said it green floors, talk about really being surrounded by nature in it's original state! Wake up in the morning and your feet fall upon warm grass. This isn't me advocating the idea only taking the existing and connecting it to other similar areas.)

As I searched for more information on green walls the first several results, outside of wikipedia's green walls page, were all commercial companies completely ignoring the real benefits of having green walls. They listed things like: "There is no better way to brand your company as being "Green" than with a beautiful Living Green Wall by Ambius." If you want to be superficial that is probably who you should use to build your new green wall.

To their defense they did state a few other benefits to having a green wall, just on other pages:

• Plants look attractive
• Provide a pleasant and tranquil environment
• Plants help reduce stress - "We experience less stress when there are plants around us."
• Buildings are more stimulating and interesting
• "People in offices [with green walls] are more productive, take fewer sick days, make fewer mistakes."
• "Patients in hospitals benefit greatly from being more in touch with nature."
• "There is even evidence showing students perform better in improved learning environments."
• Plants improve air quality

Green walls or interior plants also help with:

• Reducing carbon dioxide levels
• Increasing humidity
• Reducing levels of certain pollutants, such as benzene and nitrogen dioxide
• Reducing airborne dust levels
• Keeping air temperatures down
• Plants help lower background noise

(I am using this information from ambius.com, and a lot of their information can at least in part be supported in the article "The Effect of Indoor Foliage Plants on Health and Discomfort Symptoms among Office Workers")

The best list of benefits I was able to find came from, the Green Roof's website page: (See their page for more information on each benefit)

• Aesthetic Improvements
• Reduction of the Urban Heat Island Effect
• Improved Exterior Air Quality
• Local Job Creation
• Improved Energy Efficiency
• Building Structure Protection
• Improved Indoor Air Quality
• Noise Reduction
• Marketing Potential
• Increased Biodiversity
• Improved Health and Well-Being
• Urban Agriculture
• Onsite Wastewater Treatment

To close my post, I ask you and me to think about what other current ideas we have, and how can we expand them into other areas?

The City Today and Our Lives as Flâneurs

The title of this post for most of you might be a bit confusing, so let me start out with a definition and explanation.

Flâneur - an idler or lounger, or for purposes of my Green Communities class the word means to be an engaged observer or diagnostician.

Our cities today are the product of years and years of "planning" and refined "best practices" that resulted in massive sprawl and freeways spider webbing throughout the country. In other words we have set rules and guidelines for how to deconstruct your cities, towns, and green spaces while you do your best to make them work.

I used the phrase "make them work" on purpose, as I thought it a great transition into today's topic.

For the longest time we citizens have, for the most part, been silent observers of the chaos happening or rather being planned around us. We haven't had incredible influence into the plans of our cities. If we are the ones using our cities and have little to no say in how they are created, then how will they ever become a place we would love to live?

My professor (Stephen Goldsmith), can often be heard in our lectures saying: "Nothing about us without us is for us." Reread it, and let it sink in: "Nothing about us without us is for us." If anything that has something to do with you is planned without you, how can it ever be for you?

That leads me to the point of the post, I have been observing the path I take in my every day life. I have tried to break every building, road, design, and type of transportation down to its roots to see if there could be a better way to do it; one that is designed for us, with us actually in mind.

On my way home from school I broke down some of the specific buildings that helped structure my path home. The first being the Marriott Library, as that is where my class was located. I thought it interesting that the only exit points from the library are one on the north east and a second on the north west of the building. From a birds eye view they are seemingly close together, and there is no exit to the south. In addition to this when exiting the building on the east there are cigarette dispensers sitting 30 feet outside of the main doors to the library, which always gives the pleasant aroma of death as soon as you leave the building, because that 30 foot barrier doesn't account for wind.

As I continued my trek towards the Stadium Trax Station I found myself walking along the raised walkway on the back side of the field house staring at a white wall, and the Trax cables with a backdrop of the stadium's fence. This pathway, as well as many others, weren't designed with people in mind.

So much more could be done with these spaces, and it is our job as the future residents of our cities and towns to rethink every detail and design them in a way that is for us. I challenge each of us to not only evaluate those areas that we just try and make work, but also voice your opinion on them. Take part in your community and let us as a community make it better!

Green Communities Intro

The posts over the next several weeks will be blog entries from the subjects we discuss in my Green Communities class at the University of Utah. During our first class, we discussed what Green communities are and looked at how "best practices" have all but ruined the economy, environment, and social fabric of our towns and cities. 

This post specifically will discuss my view of what a Green city is and cite text from "EcoCities." 

To start off we were asked to define what we believe a Green Community was, and in the moments we had in class, this is what I was able to pen:
A green community is a sustainable community, one that is not only sustainable but enhances and enriches the environment around it. A green community doesn’t emit toxic or unbalanced levels of anything. A green community if evaluated similar to any other ecosystem in “nature” would look no different or rather would have every part carrying out its ecological function to build or contribute to the whole. In other words zero pollution.

I wanted to build upon the idea, to help others better understand what I believe a Green Community really is. To do this I wanted to share 2 quotes from EcoCities:

• "The quality of life depends largely on how we build our cities. The higher density and diversity of a city, the less dependent it is on motorized transport; and the fewer resources it requires, the less impact it has on nature." - Richard Register, EcoCities
• "Cities need to be rebuilt from their roots in the soil, from their concrete and steel foundations on up. They need to be reorganized and rebuilt upon ecological principles." - Ecocities
  

I believe it should be impossible to differentiate a Green Community from any other ecosystem on paper, their definitions should be the same. There should be no waste which leads to everything in the community being reused exactly how any ecosystem would function. Organisms should build and contribute to the whole, all having their important role in the ecosystem to to play.

"We have overshot the optimum in cars, suburbs, and sprawl and their attendant patterns of energy waste, pollution and environmental destruction. We have overshot the mark in losing community and identity among thousands of acres of huge tract homes in former family farms - with even more demand for more roads, concrete, parking." This, our current model of city needs to be rethought and rebuilt as if from scratch. We need to rethink energy. We need to rethink transportation, social settings, and economy. If we are ever to eliminate our footprint on the planet we need to function fundamentally like the rest of the planet. No waste, no borders, no class or differential treatment.

"Building the ecocity [or green community] will create a new cultural and economic life"

Ecology and Ecosystems: How Do You Engage?

There were several intriguing thoughts or principles from the pages outlined; my thoughts however focused on the following section, “The parts take on their specialized roles only within the context of the whole... it is misleading to think of parts as if they were independent. In natural systems, parts and whole interact with and influence each other continuously. What we call parts are in complex webs of relationships; that can never really be separated.” I am writing this on the complexity of the relationships woven not just in our communities, but throughout the world. We affect every person who has lived while we have been on the earth and who will ever live until the end of time.

As I pondered this thought my mind got carried away to those I have affected and the ways in which I affected them while moving through this mortal sojourn. I was born in Vallejo, California and my parents, and grandparents on my father’s side were in attendance, as well as 3 nurses and 2 doctors. I grew up and had 3 good friends in Vallejo, than my family moved to Independence, Missouri where I stayed until I graduated high school. At that point I moved to Provo, Utah where I lived with my brother and his friend. A year later I served a 2 year LDS mission for my church in Donetsk, Ukraine after living at the MTC for 3 months. On return of that mission I lived in Logan, UT where I attended Utah State, and followed that up with a few years in Spanish Fork, and 4 in Orem, UT. I also have visited 40 of the 50 states, and 14 different countries on 3 major trips to Europe.

Why does this matter? In every place we live, visit, or pass through we affect those around us either positively or negatively. I helped shape the personality of my best friends, and family growing up by the experiences we had together. In turn they have shaped their friends and extended family and so on. I have done the same for every other person I have come in contact with since before birth, because just as a leaf landing on a pond causes a tiny ripple so does every single interaction we have with everyone.

How is this possible? Let’s say I pass a girl in the hall and I smile at her, several things could happen with her. She could think I was attracted to her or just friendly, either way a smile brightens her day and changes her reactions to those in whom she comes in contact and so on. Adversely I could cut someone off on the freeway, and potentially negatively affect that person’s day. Even walking by someone and them having to adjust their course even slightly changes their entire life and when they will arrive where they will arrive. Now multiply that by all those I have ever met in every country, city, or place including the MTC and the thousands of missionaries going all over the world; I affected them and that ripple continued to who they came in contact with and so on. Everyone on the planet is affected by every other person on the planet.

Me being on the planet fills a hole of the collective human species that only I could fill, and that is the same for everyone. You have come in contact with me and therefore changed the rest of my life and everyone else I will ever come in contact with, which can easily span the world especially now that social media is around to link us more easily. Even those individuals who have never met are affected because that person fills a void, just like a plane full of passengers. If you have taken up that seat, you affected all the others who wanted the seat and they will fly on other planes and affect those around them. You fill that gap everywhere, from the food you eat, to where you live, sit, classes, jobs, vehicles, Internet pages, etc. Because you are taking those spots no one else can, and it fills that gap like no one else could. Only you will do everything you will ever do. Something has to fill that space, and if you choose not to, you have affected others because your choice made it possible them to fill that spot.

Not only does our influence span the time and space in which we live, but it will forevermore influence those on this planet. Your ripple continues just as water will never be the same after the leaf has touched it. Every atom or particle will forever be affected in its eternal path. We are rewriting history simply by existing. You and I have changed every living being forever, and it is impossible not to.

Every relationship we experience in this life whether small or great creates a footprint on that of all other organisms that we will never be able to take back. Ultimately our goal should be to make that footprint a positive one, one that improves the world around us both socially, physically.

Is There An Ecological Unconscious?

I am currently enrolled in a class at the University of Utah entitled: Intro to Urban Ecology with Professor Stephen Goldsmith. In the course he asks us to turn in a journal entry for each class period. Over the next few weeks you will see my responses to the topics we discuss in the class.

Today's topic is on solastalgia, topophilia, or specifically Is there an ecological unconscious?

Solastalgia - "is a neologism coined by an Australian; The philosopher named Glenn Albrecht in 2003 with the first article published on this concept in 2005. It describes a form of psychic or existential distress caused by environmental change, such as mining or climate change." In other words it's the feeling you have when your home is being changed negatively in front of you.

Topophilia - "(From Greek topos "place" and -philia, "love of") is a strong sense of place, which often becomes mixed with the sense of cultural identity among certain peoples and a love of certain aspects of such a place." It is the love of place.

Ecopsychology - "studies the relationship between human beings and the natural world through ecological and psychological principles."

Today's Journal:
Growing up in Independence, Missouri, in the family I did, helped to establish the solastalgia I feel today. I will have to build upon this Idea to help others really understand my thoughts on this subject.

My parents both went to Brigham Young University. My older brother did as well, and my oldest brother despite going to UVU loves BYU just as much as the rest of my family if not more. In Missouri there are MU fans and KU fans, and the deal there is you either love MU, and hate KU or vice versa. Can you stay out of that battle? Yes, but it can be difficult with others trying to make you choose, or being so staunch in their own opinion and distaste for the other option that it bleeds over to you. (As if there are only two opinions.)

As I said before growing up in Independence, Missouri meant for me that the only influence I had in the battle between BYU and U of U was a love of BYU, and a distaste of U of U. In a neutral environment, meaning an environment where either an equal amount of U of U fans and BYU fans reside or where neither influence exists, it is easy to stay aloof or unbiased toward one or the other; however that wasn’t my background.

In addition to that upbringing I have lived in Utah Valley for 4 years, and continue to receive the same message from the vast majority of BYU supporters. I went to Utah State University and loved it. USU is a school packed with outdoorsy people and nature. It allows one to relax and be close to mountains, rivers, lakes, fields, etc. I have lived in Utah for 8 years now, and this has adapted to be my environment. In other words no matter where I go in Utah, it feels like home.

Fast forward to today and how all of the above stated background applies. We have been challenged to answer the following question with this paper: “As our environment continues to change around us, the question Albrecht would like answered is, how deeply are our minds suffering in return?”, and base it on the ideas of Topophilia, Solastalgia, Ecopsychology, and I am adding a 4th term of Technological Nature.

(Technological Nature - All things are nature, from the computer screen in front of me to my backpack and the building I am sitting inside. They might not be nature in its original state, but all the parts to make every thing we have came from nature. Technological Nature as I am coining it is nature + invention. In other words everything designed is technological nature. As everything is nature in one form or another.)

Everyone no matter who they are, are adaptable. Most feel, whether consciously or subconsciously, that the world changes around them, and that they are constant or not moved. I am one who feels that way consciously. I am still in the same city, and people and relationships surround me, nature, in its original state, is still almost everywhere with a backdrop of mountains. My local natural environment hasn’t changed. I live in Utah Valley still, and commute to the U.

As listed above we feel like things move around us and we are constant. Following this my environment is constant, yet due to my commute I have been feeling moderate to extreme solastalgia. Not in the sense that the mountains are being torn down and nature ripped from me, but my peers’ distaste for the U over the years has sunk in at least in part. No matter how good you are at staying aloof from a side, with years and years of anti-persuasion toward something it is hard not to feel it at least a little.

The crazy thing is I enjoy the U, and have nothing against it, but I find it difficult to fully immerse myself in the University and its activities because of all the years of negativity toward the school. I didn’t attend the game on Thursday, despite the love of football, because strangely in my mind I felt frowned upon, or rather felt I would be frowned upon for going to the Utes football game. I am a true blooded Aggie and my family was ok with that. They know I am attending the U of U, and getting a degree is great, but it just doesn’t seem as sweet as it would have been at a different school, any other school.

My Solastalgia or “pain experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides and that one loves is under immediate assault” comes from the school I attend. It is ridiculous to feel this way and yet I feel I have little control over feeling a homesickness by going to the U. It isn’t USU where I fit in perfectly and people seemed to love being in the outdoors as much as I did. We avoided the BYU, U of U discussion altogether. We were Aggies and didn’t care. BYU could keep their “Zoobies”, and U of U their “Apostates”. That is what everyone else believed, but at USU it didn’t matter! We had animosity toward no one because we had nothing to prove. If we beat one of the schools it was an upset. If we lost it was normal. We loved USU and had a pride in it.

What adds to this solastalgia is USU’s main color is blue, as is my life long favorite color. Blue is motivation by intimacy or friends and closeness. Red is motivation by power. I always avoided the Red answers in personality tests because Red to me seemed that I would be prideful and power hungry, and I am not, or at least I don’t want to be.

This is where all of my thoughts and feelings come together. In High School I was a Fort Osage Indian, and our colors were Red, White, and Black. I should feel at home here, so why do I feel all this unease? I guess because my norms of the past 7 years are what are under attack, and it is a really odd feeling. I am still at a University, despite the colors being different, the people for the most part are the same or similar. Solastalgia is a real thing, and I am definitely going through it.

How do you experience solastalgia?

Ecological Design

"Ecological design is any form of design that minimizes environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes." This definition was coined by Sim Van Der Ryn and Stuart Cowan in the 1970's.

In basic terms Ecological design is an ecologically sound or responsible design practice or discipline. It integrates the natural form of the land and accentuates its features.

Not only does it do this it links sustainable agriculture, ecological engineering, restoration, and green architecture into one great design. It places ecology as being one of the most important factors of the design, minimizing energy, materials used, keeps the natural habitat intact, reduces pollution, and restores the ecosystem (among other things).

This discipline focuses on making "function" fit as closely as possible the "form" of the land. This is one of the most creative new disciplines of the landscape architecture community. It pushes the creative mind to greater heights and beautiful landscape designs. "Ecological design thus can be defined as a careful and deliberate form of human intervention with the natural environment that attempts to improve natural conditions or reverse environmentally destructive impacts."

"In many ways, the environmental crisis is a design crisis," Sim Van Der Ryn and Stuart Cowan say in the book, Ecological Design. "It is a consequence of how things are made, buildings are constructed, and landscapes are used...We have used design cleverly in the service of narrowly defined human interests but have neglected its relationship with our fellow creatures. Such myopic design cannot fail to degrade the living world, and, by extension, our own health."

The reasoning behind this discipline is the desire to bring human needs and activity with the earth's ecosystem, thus minimizing the impact we are making.

Principles Behind Ecological Design:

• Follow nature’s example
• Transcend market culture
• Intervene as little as possible
• Context is everything
• Appropriate technology
• Moderate and efficient resource use
• Individual thought and action
• Green living inspiration
• True comfort
• Preserving our legacy of ancient wisdom

For more information see also Sustainablity, or read: Ecological Design, Tenth Anniversary Edition by Sim Van der Ryn, and Stuart Cowan.

The English Knot Garden

The English Knot Gardens started making their appearance during the Medieval Era. These gardens were originally found on a smaller scale, but can be found today on larger scales as well. Some of the most well know Knot Gardens of today are:

• St Fagans, South Wales
• Antony House, Cornwall, UK
• Red Lodge Museum, Bristol, UK
• Alexandra Hicks Herb Knot Garden, University of Michigan, USA
• Western Reserve Herb Society, Cleveland Botanical Garden, Cleveland, USA
• Anzac Square, Dunedin, New Zealand

The beginnings of the English Knot Garden came by way of those seeking a little peace in their world full of war and turmoil. The high walls surrounding the homes and towns were bleak and cold, and the knot gardens brought a little bit of comfort to those grounds. The idea behind the garden was to allow residence of the home to be able to look out their window, onto the grounds below to see natures beauty.

The English Knot Gardens highly manipulated boxwood, rosemary, and lavender into basic geometric patterns, giving the owners a sense of control over something in their uncertain lives. These designs were usually in box shape but, as the garden developed, the basic patterns became more and more intricate and elaborate, creating a woven or embroider look. (The patterns woven or embroider look in low growing boxwood came to be know as Parterre.)

One of the most well know books written on English Knot Garden Design was: The Gardener’s Labyrinth written by Thomas Hill in 1577.

The English Knot Gardens of today require a great amount of maintenance, but are very aesthetically pleasing for those seeking for a well balanced neat garden.

For more information on English Knot Gardens, and English Knot Garden design: Knot Gardens and Parterres by Robin Whalley

Smart Growth

Smart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in the center of a city to avoid urban sprawl; and advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a range of housing choices.
Smart growth values long-range, regional considerations of sustainability over a short-term focus. Its goals are to achieve a unique sense of community and place; expand the range of transportation, employment, and housing choices; equitably distribute the costs and benefits of development; preserve and enhance natural and cultural resources; and promote public health.

Smart Growth Overview

In communities across the nation, there is a growing concern that current development patterns -- dominated by what some call "sprawl" -- are no longer in the long-term interest of our cities, existing suburbs, small towns, rural communities, or wilderness areas.

Though supportive of growth, communities are questioning the economic costs of abandoning infrastructure in the city, only to rebuild it further out. They are questioning the social costs of the mismatch between new employment locations in the suburbs and the available work-force in the city. They are questioning the wisdom of abandoning "brownfields" in older communities, eating up the open space and prime agricultural lands at the suburban fringe, and polluting the air of an entire region by driving farther to get places.

Spurring the smart growth movement are demographic shifts, a strong environmental ethic, increased fiscal concerns, and more nuanced views of growth. The result is both a new demand and a new opportunity for smart growth.

Smart growth recognizes connections between development and quality of life. It leverages new growth to improve the community. The features that distinguish smart growth in a community vary from place to place. In general, smart growth invests time, attention, and resources in restoring community and vitality to center cities and older suburbs. New smart growth is more town-centered, is transit and pedestrian oriented, and has a greater mix of housing, commercial and retail uses. It also preserves open space and many other environmental amenities.

But there is no "one-size-fits-all" solution. Successful communities do tend to have one thing in common--a vision of where they want to go and of what things they value in their community--and their plans for development reflect these values.

(Text from executive summary of Why Smart Growth: A Primer by International City/County Management Association with Geoff Anderson, 7/98.)

Principles of Smart Growth

• Create a Range of Housing Opportunities and Choices-Providing quality housing for people of all income levels is an integral component in any smart growth strategy.
• Create Walkable Neighborhoods- Walkable communities are desirable places to live, work, learn, worship and play, and therefore a key component of smart growth.
  
• Encourage Community and Stakeholder Collaboration- Growth can create great places to live, work and play -- if it responds to a community’s own sense of how and where it wants to grow.
  
• Foster Distinctive, Attractive Communities with a Strong Sense of Place- Smart growth encourages communities to craft a vision and set standards for development and construction which respond to community values of architectural beauty and distinctiveness, as well as expanded choices in housing and transportation.
  
• Make Development Decisions Predictable, Fair and Cost Effective- For a community to be successful in implementing smart growth, it must be embraced by the private sector.
• Mix Land Uses- Smart growth supports the integration of mixed land uses into communities as a critical component of achieving better places to live.
  
• Preserve Open Space, Farmland, Natural Beauty and Critical Environmental Areas- Open space preservation supports smart growth goals by bolstering local economies, preserving critical environmental areas, improving our communities quality of life, and guiding new growth into existing communities.
  
• Provide a Variety of Transportation Choices- Providing people with more choices in housing, shopping, communities, and transportation is a key aim of smart growth.
  
• Strengthen and Direct Development Towards Existing Communities- Smart growth directs development towards existing communities already served by infrastructure, seeking to utilize the resources that existing neighborhoods offer, and conserve open space and irreplaceable natural resources on the urban fringe.
• Take Advantage of Compact Building Design- Smart growth provides a means for communities to incorporate more compact building design as an alternative to conventional, land consumptive development.
  

Overview of Issue Areas

In addition to the many resource areas (bibliographies, documents, etc.) in the Smart Growth Network website, specific topics of smart growth are organized into 7 issue areas that each contain overviews and on-line resources. (Click on the issue area name to go to that page)

• Community Quality of Life- Smart growth offers a framework to build community and help create and preserve a sense of place. It does this through housing and transportation choices, urban green spaces, recreational and cultural attractions, and policies and incentives that promote mixed-use neighborhoods.
• Design- Smart growth creates communities that offer health, social, economic, and environmental benefits for all. It achieves this by promoting resource-efficient building and community designs, green building practices, low-impact development, and mixed-use and walkable neighborhoods.
  
• Economics- Smart growth encourages community-based small business investment and development, adds to the variety of local employment opportunities, and helps attract new businesses and industries. More efficient government services are key to this, as are public and private investments that focus on quality of life improvements.
• Environment- Many of our current environmental challenges — air and water pollution, global warming, habitat fragmentation and conversion — are due in part to the way we have built our neighborhoods, communities, and metropolitan areas during the past half-century.
• Health- Smart growth reduces health threats from air and water pollution and indoor air contaminants through resource-efficient building design and offering transportation options such as mass transit, bike lanes, and pedestrian walkways. These engage residents and workers in a more active, healthy lifestyle.
• Housing- Smart growth promotes housing options for diverse lifestyles and socio-economic levels. It does this through mixed-use, affordable housing and compact development that revitalizes neighborhoods and provides an alternative to automobile-dependent communities.
• Transportation- Smart growth protects public health and environmental quality, conserves energy, and improves the quality of life in communities by promoting new transportation choices and transit-oriented development.

For more information on Smart Growth: Smart Growth in a Changing World by Jonathan Barnett, F. Kaid Benfield, Paul Farmer, Shelley Poticha, Robert Yaro, and Armando Carbonell, or visit SmartGrowth.org