Presentation Transcript

1. GEOG 346: Day 20

   Urban Green Space
2. Housekeeping Items I mentioned last week about the Burlington Land Trust that is attempting to address that city’s housing crisis: Here’s a clip about it: https://marlin.viu.ca/malabin/door.pl/0/0/0/5?srchfield1=GENERAL%5e&SUBJECT%5e&GENERAL%5e&record%20id%5e&searchdata1=100032375 There were a couple of articles in the folder that kind of shook me up. One was about the new and recently approved Oak Ridge development in Vancouver, complete with 42-storey towers and incredible density, which will displace the large single-family neighbourhood there at the moment. The author argued that, with people expected in Vancouver in great numbers, this would help accommodate people and that desirable amenities and transit access were a part of the package.
3. Housekeeping Items The other was about a whole rental townhouse development on SW Marine Drive near Oak that’s being bulldozed for condo towers by Concord Pacific: http://www.vancourier.com/vancouver-special/marpole/marpole-marine-drive-residents-fear-the-wrecking-ball-1.898137
4. Housekeeping Items What’s the right way to accommodate growth? Is it always necessary and desirable to do so? What’s the alternative? And what about affordability? Often it seems that growth comes at the expense of affordability. That the developers don’t care who they displace in the process of realizing their profits. Any thoughts? The topic is relevant to today’s topic. I think for the second mini-assignment, we’ll do a role play with the following groups on Thursday: developers, city council/ administration, environmental activists, and neighbourhood activists (the interests of the latter two groups are not always identical). If we don’t have enough people, we’ll collapse the last two groups. There will NO make-up assignment. Anyone who doesn’t show up loses the 10% associated with the assignment.
5. LINLEY VALLEY There are a number of videos about Linley Valley, including ones showing the beavers (many since trapped out). Just Google Linley Valley. Here’s some information on the latest controversy involving Linley Valley and adjacent areas: http://917coastfm.com/news/protesters-targeting-linley-valley-dr-extension-in-nanaimo/.
6. Housekeeping Items Here’s the area in question, I believe: https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Nelson+Rd/@49.2269817,-124.0280107,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x548898b25fca309d:0x175c58f412b2c2fe See also: https://www.nanaimo.ca/UploadedFilesPath/Site_Structure/Corporate_Services/Corporate_Administration/Presentations/COW140303PLinley_Valley_Drive.pdf
7. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 How would you characterize the development process in cities from an ecological point of view? It is certainly not undertaken from an ecosystem perspective. Too often it’s a “death by a thousand cuts” approach – i.e. “Oh, well, we’ve got more forests and wetlands, it won’t hurt to pave over some more.” That may be the prevailing attitude in the Linley Valley. In one of the You Tube videos, Mayor John Ruttan and (former) planning director, Andrew Tucker, are shown pointing to the forms and checklists and saying: “The developers did everything required by law, they jumped through all the hoops.” But just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it is socially or ecologically optimal, or even ethically right.
8. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 To take an ecosystem approach, one would need to look at the big (regional) picture or, as Condon says, to see that “the site is to the region what the cell is to the body… the ecological function of the site have everything to do with the ecological health of the region.” You can’t make ecologically irresponsible decisions at the site level and expect them to add up to greater ecological health at a regional scale. He extends his analogy to the human body by saying that rivers and streams are the veins of the urban ecosystem, and that rooftops, driveways, lanes and streets are the capillaries.
9. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 His critique of the way we currently do development is two-fold: • it undermines ecological health, and it • deprives children and others of direct nature experiences. It has been shown by numerous psychological studies that contact with nature greatly reduces stress and restores attention. What are the main barriers to doing things differently? Idea #1 Idea #2 Idea #3 Idea #4
10. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 What does ecological health consist of in an urban context? For those of you who have taken 352, how does this relate to the notion of ecosystem services? What kinds of activities in nature can have a salutary effect on human health and well-being? How are these issues exemplified (or not) in Linley Valley? How do cities function optimally for both humans and non-human species? Is this even possible?
11. Source: Save Linley Valley West Face- book page
12. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 In this chapter, he discusses a bit of the history of landscape architecture, his discipline. It was founded, at least in North America, by Frederick Law Olmsted, and was influenced by the romantic strain of the transcendental movement of Emerson and Thoreau. Olmsted’s greatest achievements were the design of Central Park in New York and the Emerald Necklace in Boston, but he also designed Parc Mont Royal in Montreal. There are many things that his parks were supposed to accomplish: • spiritual uplift • bringing different social classes into contact with one another • facilitating passive and active recreation • enhancing real estate values • facilitating transportation (paths and trails) and • enhancing ecological function. His thinking is many ways was more holistic and integrative than most 20th century parks planners.
13. Frederick Law Olmsted
14. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 The Emerald Necklace exemplifies a critical feature of contemporary ecologically and alternative transportation-inspired parks planning: connectivity – creating linked corridors through the urban environment that can facilitate wildlife movement, walking and cycling and that match, in some cases, stream networks. Olmsted’s son and stepson carried on his work. His proto-ecological thinking was revived by Ian McHarg, author of Design With Nature, and John Lyle and others. McHarg anticipated GIS by developing sieve mapping, which involved the overlay of different types of data to see where development would be most advantageous (or least injuri-ous). He mapped habitat, areas of hydrological significance (e.g. recharge areas), unstable soils or those with agricultural value, etc. and steer development clear of those areas.
15. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 The largest application of McHarg’s ideas was the new community of Woodlands, Texas. While Condon has some criticisms of it, it was and is a huge advance on conventional greenfield planning and development. The short chapter by Randall Arendt I am asking you to read for Thursday represents a modest application of some of the same principles. Low-impact development standards have also been developed in cities like Olympia, WA. These involve significant riparian buffer zones and emulation of natural processes in the treatment of stormwater. In terms of the latter, Dockside Green has imple-mented such a system into its structure. Ian McHarg
16. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 The work of limiting urban sprawl was greatly facilitated by Oregon’s passage, in 1973, of Senate Bill 100, which mandated that all cities establish land use goals and urban growth boundaries. Despite numerous court challenges, it has endured. In Ontario, as a result of agitation by the Save The Oak Ridges Moraine (STORM) Coalition and other groups, the province was forced to set up a large green belt to limit the sprawl of Metro Toronto and to protect important aquifer and habitat areas along the Oak Ridges Moraine and Niagara Escarpment. How successful it has been is open to question…
17. Niagara Escarpment Oak Ridges Moraine
18. CONDON, CHAPTER 7 In the rest of the chapter, Condon offers five principles for urban green space planning: put nature out front (where it is visible), not out back; use the seam between nature and the city for alternative transportation; integrate natural systems into more formal recreation areas and civic spaces; expand the green network indefinitely; provide an alternative movement system throughout the city (for cyclists and pedestrians, etc.). Apart from the example of Pringle Creek in Salem, OR – which Condon cites as an example of all of them – can you think of examples of each of these principles?
19. If Linley Valley Were to Be Developed… Despite the City of Nanaimo’s Commitment to GHG Reduction and Reducing Automobile Dependence Virtually All Housing Developments Approved Remain Single Family and Auto-dependent Source: Community Profile (Nanaimo), Economic Development Office of Nanaimo
20. If Linley Valley Were to Be Developed… Are there more innovative ways of doing development than is the norm in Nanaimo? (One exception is Hawthorne Corner by Insight Developments) An example from Boulder, Colorado is as follows: http://www.boulderhousing.org/content/recent-development-holiday-neighborhood. Another is Dockside Green. What are your ideas?