The writing is on the wall. We’re heading for a regional meltdown, and very few of us give a damn about it. As we in Charlotte and surrounding counties increasingly befoul our environment, our precious quality of life will deteriorate, and the once-solid foundation of our economic prosperity will sink down into our own slime.
A polite version of this grim vision is contained in recent report by the non-profit organization Voices and Choices of the Central Carolinas. The “2004 State of the Region Report” holds up a mirror for us to see ourselves, and our self-image is disturbing. The inevitable conclusion is that our future is bleak if we don’t change the way we live and do business.
Voices and Choices’ thoroughly researched document examines six different topics vital to the future of our 15-county region’s economy, environment, and public health: air quality, water quality, solid waste, transportation, land use, and economic development.
Any positive initiatives are highlighted, but they are guttering candle flames in a penumbra of gathering gloom. For example, Huntersville analyzes the impact on water quality before approving new development, but this one small town stands alone. No other local authority undertakes this kind of environmental impact study, so without broader collaboration, Huntersville’s valiant efforts pale in comparison to the scope of the problem.
The report’s conclusions make uncomfortable reading. The region is converting rural land to urban uses at four times the rate of population growth; people living, working and shopping in the new subdivisions and strip malls are consuming much more land and resources than their fellow citizens living in established neighborhoods that were built to a more compact scale. We ourselves are fatter; our houses are bigger; our cars are larger; our appetite for resources increases each year; and our piles of rotting garbage grow huge, twice the national average. We gobble up pristine nature, and defecate in our own nest.
Our typical spread-out patterns of development mean, of course, that we drive more miles and more often. The way we choose to live makes this inevitable, increasing the pollution we pump into the air we breathe into our lungs. Our metropolitan area is already ranked 10th worst for ozone pollution in the nation, causing at least one major corporation to drop Charlotte from its list of relocation sites. You can be sure the number of companies passing us by for competitor cities will only increase unless we clean up our act.
Last fall, students at UNC-Charlotte’s College of Architecture worked on a real-life project in York County for a “sustainable” development, that is, a new community where workplaces, schools, homes and shops are integrated so people can live the good life without ruining the environment or depleting our precious natural resources. This can be achieved in straightforward ways by improving the design of our buildings and the way they’re sited on the land, using recycled materials in an innovative manner, and by changing the ways we handle surface water run-off from roads and parking lots. Instead of pouring water polluted with petroleum products into our streams and rivers through concrete pipes, organic, on-site cleansing can occur naturally if we design for it, allowing water to filter through landscaped areas before discharging into streams and rivers. Because we don’t do this, 60 percent of this region’s streams are already too filthy to support aquatic life, or supply drinking water.
The design guidelines the students prepared for this model development were gathered from best practices across North America, most of them new to the Charlotte region. But all the design ideas used in the project are practical and have been adopted in some form by communities in the US and Canada. Only in extreme cases did we have to go to England for a neat idea or two, but mainly the innovations are homegrown. They’re not used widely because the inertia of our development community and the timidity of our political bodies impede our self-improvement. Developers are loath to change generic products that have sold well in the past, and politicians don’t feel confident that the public would support needed changes in the ways we live and plan if progress is to be made towards a cleaner, more prosperous future.
The politicians are probably right. There’s little evidence that the public understands the issues, or if it does, that it cares enough about them to turn off the remote control and struggle off the couch in time to be part of the solution. The paradox is clear: growth threatens our future prosperity, but we can’t have prosperity without growth. The solution is also simply stated: we have to make drastic improvements in the way we grow and develop. We know how to do it; it’s technically simple, but the political reality is hard. Do you care enough to change, or will you be content with a second-rate city on the slide?
This article appears in Apr 21-27, 2004.
