What if one project could help alleviate the urban real estate crisis and create public parks at the same time? Atlanta’s Red Fields to Green Fields is a non-profit organization whose goal is to use stimulus funding for the creation of new parks to transform the city into a healthier, greener, and more economically viable place to be.
Georgia leads the country in bank failure, and lots sitting on the market not being bought by developers create further problems for banks. “Red field” real estate is unused urban commercial property that continues to decline in value, while taking the property values of surrounding areas with it. Atlanta is also the lowest-ranking U.S. city in terms of acreage of green space available to residents. The plan is to buy up these red field properties and create 6,500 acres of parks and 780 miles of greenbelt throughout Georgia, in the Atlanta metro and surrounding areas. Red Fields to Green Fields hopes to make this a scalable model for other cities. The funding hasn’t been distributed yet, so this idea, which will take $5 billion of stimulus funding, is still in the works.
We first got wind of this exciting project on City Parks Blog, and you can read the full article in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. Also check out the promotional material on the Red Fields to Green Fields website for more details.
Red-breasted nuthatch, photo by Ken Batker
The wildlife living within a plant community are used to the native vegetation. Non-native species upset this natural harmony, so although birds often will eat Himalayan blackberries, they have happily feasted on the native blackberry, salmonberry, snowberry, huckleberry, elderberry, Indian plum, and thimbleberry well before the invasives came to our forests. We make sure to include these in the diverse array of native plants we select for our restoration sites. In addition to the fruit they produce, native plants help to re-establish a healthy functioning environment by preserving the natural hydrology, soils, canopy cover, and other elements of good habitat for local wildlife.
Mahonia nervosa and Mahonia aquifolium
Both varieties of Oregon grape are common in Puget Sound urban forests. They are evergreen shrubs and important understory species. Their leaves look somewhat like holly to the untrained eye, however, compound Oregon grape leaves are thinner and more delicate than those of the holly. Holly leaflets are shaped slightly differently, and are much thicker and pricklier. Both species of Oregon grape are true shrubs, and never grow to be trees like holly. They have small yellow flowers in the spring and blue-purple berries in late summer.
Dull Oregon grape is smaller in size at 1′ -2′. Its leaves have between nine and nineteen leaflets, which are thin and lighter green. The Tall Oregon grape has five to nine dark, shiny leaflets per leaf, and grows 3′ – 10′ tall.
View the Dull Oregon grape and Tall Oregon grape ID cards from WNPS.
A combined sewer, photo by Dan Bennett
An article in the New York Times discusses the current (overwhelmed) situation facing the sewer systems in cities across the country. The increasing lack of greenspace was brought up a few times as one of the strains on sewers. Parks and other unpaved natural areas serve as the city’s natural “green infrastructure” to help deal with retain stormwater overflow and prevent flooding.
As stated in the article, “as cities have grown rapidly across the nation, many have neglected infrastructure projects and paved over green spaces that once absorbed rainwater. That has contributed to sewage backups into more than 400,000 basements and spills into thousands of streets, according to data collected by state and federal officials. Sometimes, waste has overflowed just upstream from drinking water intake points or near public beaches.
. . . Over the last three decades, as thousands of acres of trees, bushes and other vegetation in New York have been paved over, the land’s ability to absorb rain has declined significantly. When treatment plants are swamped, the excess spills from 490 overflow pipes throughout the city’s five boroughs.”
When natural areas areas are paved over, or when their capcity to absorb stormwater overflow is jeopardized by declining environmental health, the cost of replacing them with built infrastructure can be incredibly expensive, not to mention the spread of illness by sewage overflow. The EPA estimates that as much as $400 billion may be needed over the next decade to fix sewer infrastructure in the U.S.
Trees help keep stormwater from overwhelming sewer systems, photo by Bill Bankson
Some cities are already recognizing the need to bolster existing natural areas in addition to improving sewer systems. “Philadelphia has announced it will spend $1.6 billion over 20 years to build rain gardens and sidewalks of porous pavement and to plant thousands of trees.”
Here in the Puget Sound region, volunteers from all over are helping to ensure that the natural infrustructure in their communities is healthy enough to provide us with vital stormwater retention for generations to come. Check out your local Green City Partnership in Seattle, Tacoma, Kirkland, Redmond, and Kent, to find out how you can get involved.
