Re: Urban Sprawl | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Stuart Staniford-Chen (staniforcs.ucdavis.edu) | |
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 14:27:53 -0600 |
James Kalin writes: > Urban sprawl is abating in regions and communities with strong open-space > and farmland preservation laws and regulations. It can and is being > controlled where citizens are active and working smart and hard to make it > so. > For example, in the greater SF Bay Area a citizens group called Greenbelt > Alliance has for years been instrumental in enacting effective anti-sprawl > laws and government regulations. In California, the Williamson Act The impression your words create is that urban sprawl is under control in the SF bay area. Nothing could be further from the truth as a drive up I-80 from San Francisco to Davis will convince you. We are not far from connecting San Francisco to Sacramento with nearly continuous sprawl (of the most ugly, alienating kind - I can't think about it without getting angry). > The loss of America's, and the world's, farmland, through paving, > residential and industrial development, industrial ground water depletion > or pollution, acid rain, etc, will this decade cause global food supply > disasters, and political and military repercussions, of unparalleled > proportions. There are NO technofixes available, now or in the foreseeable > future, that will handle the global food supply shortfalls caused by > farmland loss. > As an ex-farm advisor, with extensive knowledge of alternative > agritechnologies, I am convinced that loss of farm land is one of the most > critical global environmental problems we face on our small planet. And > urban sprawl, in the US and elsewhere, is a leading cause of farm land I agree with you about the seriousness of this problem, though I'm not quite sure about "this decade". A good reference for folks concerned about this issue is "State of the World 1995" by the Worldwatch Institute (ISBN 0-393-03717-7). The first chapter especially is a good overview of the problem in a rational, non-alarmist (yet alarming) manner. However, I'm not sure that this problem will have much effect on Americans. Rich people such as us will always be able to buy what food there is. Since when did we change our behaviour much because poor people were starving? Stuart. =================================================================== Stuart Staniford-Chen | Dept of Computer Science stanifor [at] cs.ucdavis.edu | UC Davis, CA 95616 h:(916) 756-8697; w:(916) 754-8742 | and http://seclab.cs.ucdavis.edu/~stanifor/ | N St Cohousing Community ====================================================================
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Re: Urban Sprawl Buzz & Denise, October 26 1995
- Urban sprawl Debbie Behrens, November 13 1995
- Urban Sprawl James Kalin, November 15 1995
- Re: Urban Sprawl Stuart Staniford-Chen, November 15 1995
- Re: Urban Sprawl Paul Zelizer, November 18 1995
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