Walmart has won approval to build a Supercenter on the edge one of the most important battlefields from the Civil War: the Wilderness Battlefield.

Wilderness was the location when Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first met in battle, on May 4, 1864. Altogether, on both sides of the fighting, 160,000 soldiers total took part with approximately 29,000 killed or wounded. It was the beginning of the turning point of the Civil War.

Supervisors in Orange County, Virginia voted Monday night to grant a permit to the corporate giant, despite public outcry, especially from historians and Civil War buffs.

Jim Campi, of the Civil War Preservation Trust, is against it because,

What Walmart is proposing would absolutely transform the landscape. Walmart is proposing a superstore closer to a national park boundary than any previous Walmart, and this is right on the boundary of the national park.

Only one-quarter of the historic battlefield is protected, so the controversy has surrounded the question, “What is a battlefield?”

Read more of this story »

Artist Don Simon creates stark worlds that cut to the chase and make thoughtful commentary on human’s impact on animals and their habitat. Via Grist, you can see a flash movie of his work, complete with commentary by the artist.

Read more of this story »

I asked all these questions to Keith Hodge, green real estate broker for Green Key Real Estate, Inc. Keith Hodge lives in the Castro and particularly likes walkable communities.  One of the reasons he was drawn to Green Key was to help change the system that, he says, has been tarnished by ‘growth at any cost’ lobbying.  The National Association of Realtors, the third largest lobbyist organization in the country (in terms of spending since 1989), tends to lobby for policies that can increase sprawl, roads, and segregated communities.  This is under the guise of helping to create vibrant communities for people to live and work, but common sense says their strong emphasis on single family homes (which tend to sell for more than condos, townhomes and other higher-density dwellings and thus provide a richer paycheck to realtors) leads to the kinds of communities where sprawl is the norm and communities become ever more dependent on cars as public transit becomes less feasible.

Hodge, who earned a degree in environmental studies, saw the real estate market as low-hanging fruit for making big changes for sustainability.  Hodge has been taking classes from PG&E to learn how to help homeowners go green, a service he plans to offer to customers as part of their package when buying or selling a house with him.  While Green Key does not just represent green or LEED certified homes,

Read more of this story »

The extension of suburbs further and further out from the core of businesses and services not only consumes acres of land, with its attendant loss of woods, fields, wetlands, farmland, and animal habitat, but it also requires miles of pavement, and the attendant infrastructure (sewers, phone and power lines, etc.) to support the new development. Residents of these displaced communities are forced to rely on cars for more and more of their access to various services and amenities, and very often travel greater distances to work as well as other destinations. This increases both the consumption of fuel resources and the pollution caused from the extra travel.

Read more of this story »

But does that have to be the case? Suburbs might not have been developed with New Urbanism in mind, but maybe they could be reinvented. Perhaps they could become the 21st Century version of the 18th Century farm community, with lots of individual homesteads dotted across a wide swath of agricultural land.

Read more of this story »

As a passionate enemy of suburban sprawl, I listened intently to an interview this morning on NPR with Brookings Institution demographer William Frey in which he notes that housing prices are falling faster in the areas outside cities. Is this a permanent correction that is making “exurbs” less desirable overall? And how are gas prices influencing this loss of home value? Mr. Frey was cautious in his answer, saying “the jury is still out” and that Americans have a history of moving outward from cities in order to buy more housing for less, seeing long commutes as an acceptable trade off.

However, it doesn’t take a genius to see that, when a commute costs more than one is saving on housing, while sucking up hours of one’s valuable time, (and as the saying goes, “They aren’t making more of that”) why would one buy a home in the far suburbs? Why, indeed?

Sperling’s Best Places did a survey two years ago when gas prices were at $2.90 a gallon. The following were the most expensive cities in which to commute and listed the average annual commuting cost:

City Annual Commuting Cost (2006)

1. Atlanta $5,772
2. Birmingham, Ala. $5,464
3. Orlando, Fla. $5,404
4. Jacksonville, Fla. $5,360
5. Pensacola, Fla. $5,173

So, if gas prices reach $6.00, Atlanta’s commuting cost would be over $10,000 per year. Yikes.

Read more of this story »

Read more of this story »

Speakers at a water conference in San Francisco today discussed the relationship between development and water supplies. Or, more to the point, the lack of water and continued urban sprawl in much of California and other western states.

The talk given by Roger Moore and David Boyer entitled, “The Water Supply and Land Use Interface: Lessons from a Decade of Litigation under the UWMPA, CEQA, and SB 610/221″ was part of the 2008 California Water Law & Policy Conference organized by Argent Communications Group.

Moore and Boyer, both environmental lawyers, shared their perspectives on California’s Urban Water Management Planning Act, the California Environmental Quality Act, and Senate Bills 610 and 221–often called the “show me the water” laws.

Read more of this story »