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LOOKING AROUND
<br />oes your community
<br />Green Infrastructure
<br />by Edward T. McMahon
<br />have a
<br />long-range transportation plan?
<br />How about a plan to upgrade and
<br />expand the airport, sewage treatment
<br />plant, storm water facilities, fiber optics
<br />cables, or other community utilities? Most
<br />growing communities have such plans,
<br />but many of these same communities
<br />have no plan to preserve their essential
<br />life sustaining natural infrastructure.
<br />Webster's New World Dictionary
<br />defines infrastructure as "the substructure
<br />or underlying foundation, especially the
<br />basic installations and facilities on which
<br />the continuance and growth of a commu-
<br />nity depends."
<br />Just as growing communities need to
<br />upgrade and expand their gray infrastruc-
<br />ture (i.e. roads, sewers, utilities), so too,
<br />they need to upgrade and expand their
<br />"green" infrastructure -the network of
<br />open space, woodlands, wildlife habitat,
<br />parks and other natural areas, which sus-
<br />tain clean air, water, and natural resources
<br />and enrich their citizens' quality of life.
<br />According to Charles Little, author of
<br />Greenways for America, the concept of
<br />green infrastructure began 130 years ago
<br />with Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., the
<br />designer of New York's Central Park as
<br />well as Boston's Emerald Necklace.'~"9
<br />"No single park," Olmsted believed,
<br />"would provide people with all the benefi-
<br />cial influences of nature." Instead, parks
<br />should be linked to one another and to
<br />surrounding residential neighborhoods.
<br />Likewise, more than 60 years ago the
<br />South African Wildlife Society recognized
<br />the importance of connections to main-
<br />taining the continent's wildlife. By the
<br />1960's, U.S. ecologists had become believ-
<br />ers in the need to create an "integrated
<br />conservation system" that protects
<br />wildlife while maintaining natural land-
<br />scape processes.
<br />Both of these concepts - Olmsted's
<br />linking chains of parks, and ecologists'
<br />linking conservation areas to counter
<br />habitat fragmentation-have come togeth-
<br />er in planning for systems of green space.
<br />In recent years, there has been a grow-
<br />ing awareness by local and state govern-
<br />ments of the need to plan for green infra-
<br />structure. In his Inaugural Address in
<br />January 1999, Maryland Governor Paris
<br />Glendening said, "Just as we must care-
<br />fully plan for and invest in our capital
<br />infrastructure -our roads, bridges and
<br />waterlines, we must also invest in our
<br />environmental or green infrastructure -
<br />our forests, woodlands, streams and
<br />rivers. Just as we must carefully plan for
<br />and invest in our human infrastructure -
<br />education, health services, care for the
<br />elderly and disabled - we must also invest
<br />in our green infrastructure."
<br />The concept of green infrastructure
<br />represents a dramatic shift in the way
<br />local and state governments chink about
<br />green space. In the past, many communi-
<br />ties assumed that open space was land
<br />that had simply not been developed yet,
<br />because no one had filed a subdivision
<br />plan for it. This view was reinforced by
<br />the legal and philosophical framework of
<br />our land use system which assumed that
<br />land was a commodity to be consumed.
<br />Communities that planned for open
<br />space primarily thought about preserving
<br />land for parks. And these parks were often
<br />viewed as a community amenity, an extra,
<br />even a Trill. Likewise, until recent years,
<br />most open space preservation efforts were
<br />site-specific in their orientation: develop a
<br />park here, protect a natural area there.
<br />Today, however, a growing number of
<br />communities are recognizing notjust that
<br />green space is a basic community necessi-
<br />ty, but that it should be planned and
<br />developed as an integrated system.'
<br />TRENDS INFLUENCING THE PROCESS
<br />What are some of the trends that are
<br />causing this shift to a systematic, green
<br />infrastructure approach to open space
<br />planning?
<br />• Landscape Fragmentation -Increased
<br />urban sprawl has caused the rapid frag-
<br />mentation of land, particularly on the
<br />fringes of major metropolitan areas. Citi-
<br />zens have reacted to this trend by
<br />demanding that policymakers take steps
<br />m preserve open space and channel
<br />growth.'
<br />• Federal Water Quality Mandates -
<br />Clean water standards mean that natural
<br />drainage systems have become more
<br />important as urban waterways and wet-
<br />lands are protected.
<br />1 In 1991, the Nadonal Recrea¢on and Park Associa-
<br />tion Joined (owes with the American Academy for
<br />Park and Recreation Administration to puhlish Park,
<br />Recreation, Open Space and Greenway Guidelines. The
<br />report noted [ha[ economic, demographic technolog-
<br />icaland development trends over the past decade had
<br />profound imphcadons (or open space punning -and
<br />required a change in "our entire philosophy of plan-
<br />ning for parks and open space" to encompass a "sys-
<br />terttsapproach."
<br />2 Aeeocding to the U5. Department of dgriculmres
<br />recently released 1997 National Resources tnvenlory,
<br />the loss of farmland and other open space m develop-
<br />ment has more then doubled in recent years. Between
<br />1992 and 1997, [he rate o[ loss grew «> 3 ~ million
<br />aces a year.
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