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In June 2002, about 300 urban design practitioners, writers, ecologists, grassroots activists and students gathered in New York City for “The Humane Metropolis: People and Nature in the 21st Century—A Symposium to Celebrate and Continue the Work of William H. Whyte.” The Ecological Cities Project at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, organized the event with a grant from the Lincoln Institute and additional support from the Wyomissing Foundation, the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and Laurance S. Rockefeller, a longtime friend and supporter of Whyte’s work.
The symposium was held at the New York University Law School in consultation with NYU faculty, representatives of organizations and programs that continue Whyte’s work, including the Regional Plan Association, Project for Public Spaces, the Municipal Art Society, Trust for Public Land, and the Chicago Openlands Project, and with his widow, Jenny Bell Whyte, and their daughter, Alexandra Whyte. The University of Pennsylvania Press released a new edition of Whyte’s 1956 classic study of postwar suburbia, The Organization Man, at the symposium reception.
William H. “Holly” Whyte (1917-1999) was one of America’s most influential and respected commentators on cities, people and open spaces. Through his writings, particularly The Organization Man (1956), The Last Landscape (1968), and City: Rediscovering the Center (1988), he taught a generation of urban designers to view cities as habitats for people, rather than simply as economic machines, transportation nodes, or grandiose architectural stage-sets. As the United States approaches 300 million residents, of whom four-fifths live in cities or suburbs, Whyte’s vision of people-centered urban communities has never been needed more. And it seems safe to assume that this vision would today also incorporate recent insights on urban ecology and sustainability, in short a symbiosis of people and nature.
“The Man Who Loved Cities”
Norman Glazer (1999) described Holly Whyte as “The man who loved cities . . . one of America’s most influential observers of the city and the space around it . . .” Whyte gloried in parks, plazas, sidewalks and other pedestrian spaces that invite schmoozing (a Yiddish term he popularized) or simply encountering other people. Conversely, he deplored urban sprawl (apparently his term), particularly the waste of land, ugliness and isolation of tract development on the urban fringe. I stated in opening remarks the overriding premise of both the symposium and the book to follow:
Contrary to the trend toward privatization, security and “gatedness” so well documented by Dean Blakely [Blakely and Snyder 1997], twenty-first-century America needs a strong dose of Holly Whyte; namely, we need to rediscover the humanizing influence of urban shared spaces. “The Humane Metropolis” for present purposes means urban places that are “more green, more people-friendly, and more socially equitable.”
A native of the Brandywine Valley in eastern Pennsylvania, William H. Whyte, Jr., graduated from Princeton in 1939 and fought at Guadalcanal as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. Shortly after the war, he joined the editorial staff of Fortune magazine in New York, where he began to examine the culture, life style and residential milieu of postwar suburbia, leading to his 1956 classic The Organization Man. Among other findings, this book argued that the spatial layout of homes, parking, yards and common spaces is a key factor in promoting or inhibiting social contacts, helping to account for patterns of friendships versus isolation. Thus began a lifetime career devoted to better understanding how people interact in shared or common spaces.
Appalled by rapid development of his beloved Brandywine Valley, Whyte in 1958 co-organized an urban land use roundtable, jointly hosted by Fortune and Architectural Review, which attracted a who’s who of urban planners, economists and lawyers. His subsequent essay on “Urban Sprawl” added both a new term and a sense of urgency to the conversion of rural land for suburban development (Whyte 1957a).
But open space per se is not a panacea. In The Exploding Metropolis (Editors of Fortune 1957), Whyte and Jane Jacobs excoriated urban renewal programs that placed high-rise structures in the midst of amorphous open spaces modeled on Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse. In Whyte’s words: “The scale of the projects is uncongenial to the human being. The use of the open space is revealing; usually it consists of manicured green areas carefully chained off lest they be profaned, and sometimes, in addition, a big central mall so vast and abstract as to be vaguely oppressive. There is nothing close for the eye to light on, no sense of intimacy or of things being on a human scale” (Whyte 1957b, 21). And as Jane Jacobs observed in her 1961 classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, without streets and street life, projects are dangerous as well as boring (and all that green grass was soon covered with old cars).
Whyte left Fortune in 1959 to pursue a broader array of urban projects. His first technical publication on Conservation Easements (1959) became the model for open space statutes in California, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maryland. In the early 1960s, he served as a consultant to the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, for which he prepared a 60-page report on Open Space Action (1962). His association with the Commission’s chair, Laurance S. Rockefeller, led to his role as a one-man think tank on urban land problems with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which provided him with an office in Rockefeller Center. Whyte also was a member of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Task Force on Natural Beauty and chaired Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s Conference on Natural Beauty in New York. At the invitation of Donald Elliott, then chair of the New York City Plan Commission, Whyte wrote much of the 1969 Plan for New York City, which was acclaimed by The New York Times and the American Society of Planning Officials (Birch 1986). He also advised the city on revisions to its zoning ordinance, leading to improvement of public spaces established by private developers in exchange for density bonuses (Kayden 2000).
The turbulent year of 1968 yielded three environmental literary milestones: Ian McHarg’s Design with Nature, Garret Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons,” and Holly Whyte’s The Last Landscape. The latter was Whyte’s “bible” for the fast-spreading movement to save open space in metropolitan America. Open space was to the conservationists of the 1960s what anti-congestion was to early twentieth-century progressives, and sustainability and smart growth are to environmentalists today. Whyte’s book embraced a variety of negative effects of poorly planned development, such as loss of prime farmland, inadequate recreation space, urban flooding, pollution of surface and groundwater, aesthetic blight, diminished sense of place, and isolation from nature. The Last Landscape confronted each of these and offered a legal toolbox to combat them, including cluster zoning, conservation easements, greenbelts, scenic roads, tax abatements and so on.
Whyte’s fascination with the social functions of urban space was the focus of his Street Life Project, a long-term study sponsored by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Based at Hunter College in Manhattan, where he served as distinguished professor of urban sociology, the project documented social activity in public spaces through interviews, mapping, diagrams and film. That research underlay Whyte’s 1980 book and film titled The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces and his 1988 capstone book, City: Rediscovering the Center.
From Park Forest in the 1950s to New York City in the 1980s, Whyte was a diehard urban environmental determinist. He believed that the design of shared spaces greatly affects the interaction of people who encounter each other in those spaces, and their resulting sense of well-being or discomfort in urban surroundings. This in turn helps to shape the success of cities and suburbs as congenial or alien environments for the millions who inhabit them. Paul Goldberger, architectural critic for The New Yorker, writes in his Foreword to The Essential William H. Whyte (LaFarge 2000):
His objective research on the city, on open space, on the way people use it, was set within what I think I must call a moral context. Holly believed with deep passion that there was such a thing as quality of life, and the way we build cities, the way we make places, can have a profound effect on what lives are lived within those places.
Celebrating and Continuing Holly Whyte’s Work
A major goal of the symposium was to revisit Holly Whyte’s work, which anticipated many of the ideas behind smart growth and new urbanism, and reintroduce him to a younger generation of planners and urbanists. This goal was accomplished during the opening sessions through personal tributes by friends and family (Donald Elliott, Amanda Burden, Fred Kent, Eugenie Birch, Lynden B. Miller and Alexandra Whyte) and fellow urban writers (Charles E. Little, Paul Goldberger and Tony Hiss). Planners Frank and Deborah Popper and environmental historian Adam Rome offered perspectives on Holly as viewed from the twenty-first century. A second goal was to trace the influence of his work in contemporary efforts to make cities and suburbs more livable and more humane, which was accomplished through an address by Carl Anthony of The Ford Foundation, and his introduction by Robert Yaro of the Regional Plan Association. Subsequent sessions, both plenary and concurrent, reviewed a variety of initiatives in New York City and around the nation that carry on the spirit of Holly Whyte. Session topics included:
Some of these topics departed somewhat from Whyte’s own areas of focus, but the organizers felt that he would have applauded the inclusiveness of our agenda. He no doubt would have added many topics, such as urban gardens, green roofs, brownfield reuse and ecological restoration, if he were here to write a sequel to The Last Landscape today. In particular, no appraisal of current approaches to making cities more humane would be adequate if it failed to consider issues of social justice in relation to urban sprawl and inner-city land use or abuse.
Next Steps
The symposium deliberately closed without the usual “Where do we go from here?” session, but the next major task is to produce an edited volume of selected papers presented at the symposium, and possibly a film. We hope “The Humane Metropolis” (symposium and book) will provide a template for regional symposia in other cities and metropolitan regions of the U.S. These could be locally funded and planned with guidance as requested from the Ecological Cities Project and its allies across the country.
An elusive but critical function of events like “The Humane Metropolis” is the energizing of participants through sharing of experience and specialized knowledge. Feedback from speakers and attendees indicates the symposium stimulated new contacts among participants from different disciplines and geographic regions. In particular, it seems to have well served a key goal of the Ecological Cities Project, to promote dialogue between urbanists and natural scientists. According to Peter Harnik, director of Trust for Public Land’s Green Cities Program, “You are on the cutting edge of an up-and-coming topic that is given almost no attention by anyone else—since urban experts rarely talk about nature, and conservationists virtually never talk about cities.” As the consummate synthesizer of things urban, Holly Whyte should be beaming with approval.
Rutherford H. Platt is director of the Ecological Cities Project at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and organizer of the symposium and related activities. The full list of speakers and other information about the symposium may be found at http://www.ecologicalcities.org.
References
Birch, E. L. 1986. The Observation Man. Planning (March): 4-8.
Blakely, E. J. and M. G. Snyder. 1997. Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press and Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Daily, G C., ed. 1997. Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Systems. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Editors of Fortune, 1957. The Exploding Metropolis. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor.
Glazer, N. 1999. The Man Who Loved Cities. The Wilson Quarterly (Spring) 23(2): 27-34.
Hardin, G. 1968. The Tragedy of the Commons. Science 162: 1243-1248.
Jacobs, J. 1961. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House Vintage.
Kayden, J. 2000. Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience. New York: Wiley.
LaFarge, A., Ed. 2000. The Essential William H. Whyte. New York: Fordham University Press.
McHarg, I. 1968. Design with Nature. New York: Garden City Press.
Whyte, W. H. 1956. The Organization Man. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Republished in 2002 by the University of Pennsylvania Press.
_____. 1957a. Urban Sprawl in Editors of Fortune, The Exploding Metropolis. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor.
_____. 1957b. Are Cities Un-American? in Editors of Fortune, The Exploding Metropolis. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor.
_____. 1959. Conservation Easements. Washington, DC: Urban Land Institute.
_____. 1962. Open Space Action. Study Report 15 prepared for the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, Washington, DC.
_____. 1968. The Last Landscape. Garden City: Doubleday. Republished in 2001 by the University of Pennsylvania Press.
_____. 1980. The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. Washington, DC: The Conservation Foundation. Reprinted by Project for Public Spaces, Inc.
_____. 1988. City: Rediscovering the Center. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
(Picture of Holly White taken by Kelly Campbell)
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In its short history, European spatial planning has been through several iterations, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has supported many related activities that document that process, as well as the participating individuals and entities. Following a course held in Cambridge in 2001, the Institute published the book European Spatial Planning (Faludi 2002) on the movement’s early years when the European Union (EU) had no particular planning mandate. Rather, the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) was an initiative of the member states, supported by the European Commission.
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An architect who specializes in urban and regional planning, Eduardo Reese is the deputy administrator of the Institute for Housing of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. In previous professional positions he provided technical advice for the master plans of more than 20 cities in Argentina; was secretary of socioeconomic policies at the Ministry of Human Development and Labor of the Province of Buenos Aires; adviser for the Urban Planning Counsel of the City of Buenos Aires; and planning secretary in the City of Avellaneda.
Reese also teaches at the Conurbano Institute at the National University General Sarmiento in Buenos Aires. Currently he is a professor of urban management in the Institute’s B.A. program in urbanism. He also teaches urban development at master’s programs at the School of Architecture, Urbanism and Design of the University of La Plata, as well as at universities in Mar del Plata and Córdoba. In addition, he directs the master planning of the Matanza-Riachuelo watershed in Buenos Aires.
Land Lines: How long have you been involved with the Institute’s Latin America Program?
Eduardo Reese: My relationship dates back to 1997 when we were drafting the plan for the City of Córdoba, which included several large-scale urban projects. We worked to expand the debate about the impacts of these projects on the land market and, consequently, on shaping the city. I continued to participate in various activities, and four years ago I took over the coordination of the annual lectures of the Land Management in Large Urban Projects series, following the death of Mario Lungo, who had led that program for many years.
In 2004, in conjunction with the Conurbano Institute of the National University of General Sarmiento, we conducted a course on Land Markets: Theory and Tools for Policy Management, which was the first one involving a seven-month training program for 50 Argentine students. That educational experience helped create a critical mass of technicians and professionals with an innovative vision toward the management of land policies. The program’s impact has been reflected in urban policy decisions in different municipalities (such as San Fernando and Morón in Greater Buenos Aires); in the Argentine Constitution; in the Urban Reform Movement in 2005; and in academic changes at the Conurbano Institute itself.
Land Lines: What role can large urban projects play in the quality of life of Latin American cities?
Eduardo Reese: Large-scale projects in defined sectors of the city (both central and peripheral areas) have been great protagonists of contemporary urbanism in the past quarter century. Today in Latin America there are many types and sizes of projects, even though more rigorous theoretical thinking is still needed. Important examples are the Bicentennial Portal (Portal del Bicentenario) projects in Santiago de Chile; the Integral Urban Projects (Proyectos Urbanos Integrales) in Medellín, Colombia; urban operations in different cities of Brazil; and the restructuring project in the northwestern sector of San Fernando (Argentina).
Large-scale urban operations as instruments of intervention in the city have been implemented for many decades. In Buenos Aires, for instance, the Avenida de Mayo and the Diagonals, which were planned around 1880, had important impacts on physical space as well as in social, economic, and symbolic aspects. This approach of multiple impacts undoubtedly allowed better assimilation of the Avenida de Mayo, but it also generated a huge debate over who should finance the operation and who would appropriate the land rents generated. Ultimately the Supreme Court ruled that the municipality could not finance the work with the surplus created because the rents belonged entirely to the landowners. For many years this case set a judicial precedent regarding the state’s intervention in the process of valuing land generated by a large-scale public project.
Land Lines: You have a critical view on the widely acclaimed Puerto Madero urban regeneration project in Buenos Aires. What would you do differently in other large redevelopment areas?
Eduardo Reese: Puerto Madero is emblematic of urban projects that promote a model of segregated urban planning and are now being “exported” to other countries as a basic tool to compete for international investment. In this project the state submitted to the market and allowed the construction of an exclusive neighborhood for very high-income sectors. It is a notorious example of public policy explicitly designed to favor the wealthy segments without any recovery of the huge land valuations that were the product of public policy.
Moreover, to guarantee investors an overvaluation of the properties they purchased, the venture has a number of features that cut it off (physically and socially) from the rest of the city, creating even greater value because of its segregation. Puerto Madero has no external wall, as gated condominiums have, but rather multiple implicit, explicit, and symbolic signals that clearly indicate this place is off limits to most of society.
In the end, Puerto Madero is a clear demonstration of the regressive distribution of urban planning and public policy: a trouble-free ghetto for the rich.
Land Lines: As municipalities continue to compete for outside investments, is it possible to reconcile alternative objectives such as social and environmental priorities?
Eduardo Reese: The problem in our cities is not the lack of planning, but the current exclusionary pattern of planning policies. There cannot be one law for the formal city and exceptions for the rest. It is necessary to create a new urban and legal order in Latin America based on the right to the city, the equitable sharing of the benefits of urbanization, and the social function of land ownership.
Land Lines: How does the municipality of San Fernando in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area offers an alternative to this approach?
Eduardo Reese: San Fernando is located some 30 kilometers (km) north of Buenos Aires, with a land area of 23 square km and a population of 156,000 inhabitants. A 5 km long riverside faces the Río Luján and another part of the city faces the mouth of Río de la Plata, where productive nautical activities are concentrated. This privileged location has high property values and all urban services.
The plan and model of urban land management in the city began in 2003 through an agreement between the municipality and the Conurbano Institute. In 2005, a Lincoln Institute training seminar helped broaden the local debate on land management, which led to a series of major decisions:
The urban policy focused on a set of action strategies including (1) ensuring accessibility to new public spaces for recreational, sports and commercial purposes on the riverside, especially for the use and enjoyment of the poor; and (2) the comprehensive regularization of the western sector of the municipality, where most poverty is concentrated.
To implement these strategies it was necessary to increase fiscal resources for public investment in two ways: appropriation of the profitability of land use or municipal land on the riverside through the creation of the Consortium San Fernando Marina Park Company (PNSFSA) and participation of the municipality in the surplus generated from municipal tax reform. (PNSFSA is a company created by the municipality of San Fernando to manage the riverside of the northwest sector of the city, defined as Marina Park.)
The experience of San Fernando is based on a set of management tools within an urban plan focused on the redistribution of income to build a more equitable city. Land is considered a key asset within a wider strategy of local development and, therefore, management relies on a broad mix of planning, administrative, economic, fiscal, and legal instruments aimed at strengthening the role of the public sector. The core axis of policies is the search for equity in the distribution of the costs and benefits of urbanization, within the challenging context of growing pressure on land throughout metropolitan Buenos Aires.
Land Lines: What could or should be changed in the educational system that trains urban planners and managers in Latin America?
Eduardo Reese: First, it is necessary to incorporate a greater understanding of the functioning of land markets in the present context of developing and shaping cities. Second, a more critical analysis is needed of adequate theoretical, methodological and technical instruments to undertake diagnosis and intervention in urban land issues. The 2004 course on Land Markets that I described earlier attempted to develop these kinds of materials to enable students to cover the different scales and dimensions of the problem.
Land Lines: What tensions exist between private and public interests in urban planning?
Eduardo Reese: This is a critical question because the whole history of urban land management has had a common thread: the rights of private ownership of land and the structure of ownership have always come into conflict with urban planning activity, which is a public responsibility. In that sense, there will always be tension between public and private interests in building the city.
In my view, urban projects in Latin America have the responsibility to contribute not only to the creation of new spaces for public use and enjoyment, employment generation and environmental sustainability, but also social inclusion, equity in the access to services and the redistribution of urban rents generated by the project. The four cases on Chile, Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina mentioned earlier show that these benefits are possible in many contexts.
However, instead many urban projects have been justified as necessary to attract investment and/or consumers and to ensure or reinforce the dynamic competitive advantages of the city. These undoubtedly positive goals are sometimes used as a mechanism to legitimize interventions that deepen the serious sociospatial segregation of cities. Such adverse effects of the market are not fatal to the city, but are the outcome of perverse political choices.
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Jay Espy joined the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation as its first executive director in January 2008. Based in Brunswick, Maine, the foundation focuses on the environment, animal welfare, and human well-being, primarily in Maine.
For the prior two decades, Espy served as president of Maine Coast Heritage Trust, a statewide land conservation organization. During his tenure, the Trust accelerated its land protection efforts along Maine’s entire coast by conserving more than 125,000 acres and establishing the Maine Land Trust Network, which helps build capacity of local land trusts throughout Maine. He also led the Trust’s successful Campaign for the Coast, raising more than $100 million for conservation and doubling the amount of protected land on Maine’s coast and islands.
Espy received his A.B. from Bowdoin College and master’s degrees in business and environmental studies from Yale’s School of Management and its School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He serves on the board of the Maine Philanthropy Center and the Canadian Land Trust Alliance. He is a former chair of the Land Trust Alliance, a national organization serving land trusts throughout the United States. In October 2010 he was named the Kingsbury Browne Fellow for 2010–2011 through a joint program of the Land Trust Alliance and the Lincoln Institute.
Land Lines: How did you first become involved in the field of land conservation?
Jay Espy: Early in my senior year at Bowdoin College a wonderful placement counselor pointed out that some real-world experience might be useful in helping me secure gainful employment. I landed an internship documenting seabirds in Maine’s Casco Bay as part of an oil spill contingency planning project. This experience kindled an intense passion for the Maine coast and set the stage for my professional career. Following a stint working for an environmental consulting firm, graduate study in business, forestry, and environmental science at Yale, and several more internships, I was thrilled to accept an entry-level job at Maine Coast Heritage Trust (MCHT) in Topsham. At the time MCHT was a small statewide land trust and a great “school of hard knocks” for an aspiring 20-something conservationist with virtually no credentials.
Land Lines: What are some of the most significant land conservation projects in which you have been involved?
Jay Espy: In the late 1980s a 12,000-acre parcel of coastal land in far Down East Maine near the Canadian border was put up for sale by a major corporation divesting all of its timberland holdings in the northeastern United States and Maritime Canada. This was the largest remaining undeveloped block of coastal land in Maine, and one of the largest anywhere on the eastern seaboard. MCHT had never before faced such an exciting or daunting challenge.
In partnership with the State of Maine, The Conservation Fund, and the Richard King Mellon Foundation, MCHT led an effort to acquire the property and to work with local and state officials on a plan to conserve the land while incorporating appropriate working forest management, recreational trail development, and affordable housing in the Town of Cutler. Although we didn’t know it at the time, we were doing “community conservation” by engaging a wide range of constituents with varying interests. This project also put MCHT in the business of landscape-scale conservation. Dozens of projects have since been completed in that region, known as Maine’s Bold Coast. More than 20 miles of breathtaking shoreline are now accessible to the public and provide economic opportunities for the community.
I feel privileged to have helped protect many other lands, both large and small. Marshall Island, a 1,000-acre gem 15 miles offshore from the Blue Hill peninsula, was once slated for major development, but now has an extensive coastal trail system developed by MCHT. Aldermere Farm in Camden and Rockport is an iconic saltwater farm. Albert Chatfield began raising Belted Galloway cattle here in the 1950s, and the farm has been home to an award-winning breeding herd ever since. Following donation of the property in 1999, MCHT has greatly expanded farm programs for local youth and the community in general and protected additional nearby lands that are being used to support the growing local food movement.
Land Lines: When did you become aware of the Lincoln Institute’s work in land conservation, and how have you been involved in our programs?
Jay Espy: The timing of my entry into the conservation field was most fortuitous. Within months of joining MCHT, I was invited to a gathering of conservation professionals at the Lincoln Institute, co-hosted by the Land Trust Alliance (then known as the Land Trust Exchange). I had previously met Kingsbury Browne very briefly at a conference in Washington, DC, but at that gathering I had the chance to spend a full day with him and some of the other revered leaders of the modern land conservation movement.
Over the course of many years, the Lincoln Institute became a “watering hole” for conservationists, many of them originally assembled by Kingsbury, and they became valued mentors to me as I learned the trade. The Institute has continued to be a place where creative minds gather to innovate and where cutting-edge research and communication for the broader conservation community are encouraged. I am honored to be part of that legacy as a Kingsbury Browne Fellow.
Land Lines: What do you see as future trends in land conservation?
Jay Espy: The conservation field is growing, changing, and maturing in what I believe is a very healthy way. Not long ago many of us in the field thought land conservation was all about the land. I well remember early land trust brochures full of pictures of beautiful landscapes, but entirely devoid of people. Fortunately, that’s no longer true.
Today, most of us in the movement understand that land conservation is about land and people. It’s about how our communities benefit from healthy ecosystems; how outdoor recreational opportunities close to home combat youth inactivity and obesity; how protected farmland contributes to food security and the availability of nutritious local food; how outdoor spaces incorporating local arts and entertainment contribute to vibrant downtowns; how clean water, forestland, and a host of other sustainably managed natural resources support economic development and jobs; and how well-managed land allows each of us individually and collectively to live richer, fuller lives.
All across the country, the silos that have separated the work of conservation, public health, arts, education, hunger, housing, food production, and economic development are coming down. I’m encouraged by this trend. Our work today will only stand the test of time if it has direct and tangible benefit to people over many decades. Collaborative engagement of those with wide and varied interests seems an essential ingredient in any successful recipe for enduring conservation.
Land Lines: How can the challenges of funding conservation become opportunities?
Jay Espy: We do face many challenges on the funding front. Public funding from traditional federal and state government sources has been declining, private foundations have seen the corpus of their endowments erode, and individual donors have been understandably more conservative with their philanthropic investments as the markets have seesawed. As a result, fewer of the mega-scale land deals requiring tens of millions of dollars that we saw in the late 1990s and early 2000s are being launched today.
That said, there is still a great deal of very important conservation work being funded around the country. Public support for local conservation remains high, with most local bond initiatives continuing to pass by wide margins. Foundation and individual giving for conservation has not tanked as many feared. Funders remain supportive, but have become more discerning. Also, conservation projects that address multiple human interests and engage multiple partners appear to be attracting new, nontraditional sources of support. I recently spoke with a health funder who views securing more land for public recreation as a critical preventative healthcare measure. Funding for farmland conservation has also grown substantially in recent years, fueled in part by the explosive popularity of the local food movement.
Land Lines: Can you share some examples of innovative land conservation successes?
Jay Espy: In a remote area of eastern Maine, the Downeast Lakes Land Trust has been working for more than a decade to protect large swaths of forestland with extensive shore frontage near the community of Grand Lake Stream. These lands and waters have supported the timber and recreation-based economy for more than a century. With the decline in the paper and pulp industry, several large commercial timber holdings have been sold.
Rather than simply wait for the inevitable development of seasonal vacation homes and resulting loss in local culture, the community has worked in remarkable ways to acquire tens of thousands of acres and miles of shore land for use as a revenue-generating forest, wildlife preserve, and remote recreational areas. Local business owners, fishing and hunting guides, representatives from state and federal agencies, members of the Passamaquoddy Indian Tribe, and elected officials from the local to the national levels have all joined forces with the land trust to acquire these properties and manage them for sustainable timber revenue, as well as for other traditional uses, including hunting, fishing, camping, and paddling.
In the central Maine town of Skowhegan, an enterprising young woman has acquired an old county jail, which she is converting into a grain mill. Once operational, the mill will process approximately 600 tons of grain annually, an amount requiring roughly 600 acres of farmland cultivated in grain crops. This area of Maine was once a thriving wheat-growing region, and is purported to have supplied the Union troops with a substantial portion of their bread during the Civil War. Located in the heart of town, the parking lot of the old jail already serves as the site of a successful local farmers market. A commercial kitchen and several food and crafts business are co-locating in the jail, helping to create a “food hub.”
Skowhegan is the county seat of one of the most impoverished counties in Maine. Could the food hub start to change the fortunes of this region? Could a growing demand for grain stem the tide of farmland loss and result in more farmland acres being conserved and cultivated? Signs suggest the answer is to both questions is “yes.” I think what’s happening in Skowhegan is a wonderful example of the new face of conservation. It’s not yet readily recognizable, but I suspect we’ll get to know this community-based approach better in the years ahead.
Land Lines: What are your expectations about the role of conservation in the current volatile economy?
Jay Espy: I’m quite optimistic because adversity has a way of bringing people together. With less, we’re learning how to work collectively to do more. As more people participate in conservation, develop relationships with and around land, and experience the positive impact those relationships bring to their lives, I’m convinced we will see even more widespread, meaningful, and durable conservation achievements. Land, people, and community are all deeply intertwined. Ironically, these trying times may be accelerating the inevitable transformation of conservation into an endeavor that benefits even more people and more aspects of community life.
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Por cada nota periodística sobre turismo que muestra el paraíso caribeño de Barbados, con sus aguas tranquilas besando las playas de fina arena, hay también una noticia inquietante sobre un huracán en ciernes. Las Antillas Menores, un archipiélago de islas pequeñas que forman una media luna en el este del Mar Caribe, han sido siempre particularmente vulnerables, inmersas en las volubles aguas del Océano Atlántico. En 1776, el huracán Pointe-à-Pitre azotó la colonia francesa de Guadalupe y mató a 6.000 personas, resultando ser la tormenta atlántica más mortífera de la historia hasta ese momento. Cuatro años más tarde, el Gran Huracán de 1780 golpeó con más fuerza aún, tocando tierra en Barbados y después haciendo estragos en las islas vecinas, matando a casi 20.000 personas y destruyendo las flotas de Gran Bretaña y Francia en el punto álgido de la Revolución Norteamericana. Dos siglos y docenas de tormentas más tarde, el Huracán Iván, si bien no tan mortífero, devastó Granada en 2004, dejando su parlamento en ruinas y dañando el 85 por ciento de las estructuras de la isla.
En décadas recientes, los cambios climáticos han intensificado las amenazas para la región. Las estrategias empleadas en los EE.UU. cuando el Huracán Katrina o la Supertormenta Sandy no son particularmente relevantes para estas islas frágiles pero dinámicas de las Antillas Menores, desde Puerto Rico en el norte a Trinidad y Tobago en el sur. Con economías dependientes del turismo y una cantidad extremadamente limitada de suelos desarrollables, particularmente en las islas montañosas, este popurrí de países independientes, territorios dependientes y colonias extranjeras comparte un desafío común en el uso de su suelo: cómo manejar los patrones de desarrollo inmobiliario orientados a la costa y al mismo tiempo controlar la amenaza creciente del ascenso del nivel del mar.
Hay una isla en la región que sobresale por su capacidad excepcional para reconocer y prepararse para la crecida de la marea: Barbados, una isla con forma de pera, se ha convertido en un líder del Caribe en gestión integrada de la zona costera, la práctica contemporánea de integración de sectores, niveles de gobierno y disciplinas para administrar la zona costera, tanto en el agua como en tierra firme. El uso de suelos costeros y la gestión medioambiental son siempre temas contenciosos en una pequeña isla. Pero, como señaló una vez el exSecretario General de la ONU, Kofi Annan, en analogía con el boxeo: “Barbados golpea con mucha más fuerza de lo que corresponde a su peso”. A casi 50 años de su independencia, este país isleño ha utilizado una combinación de previsión, respaldo internacional y capacidad local para desarrollar instituciones de planificación y prepararse para un futuro incierto.
Del azúcar a los amantes del sol
Hoy en día, Barbados es famoso como destino turístico internacional de alto nivel, con sus playas de característica arena blanca, agua cálida de color aguamarina y sol abundante a lo largo de sus 100 kilómetros de costa. Casi 300.000 personas viven en esta isla de 430 kilómetros cuadrados; el 44 por ciento de la población vive en zonas urbanas, centradas en Bridgetown, y a lo largo de las costas desarrolladas del sur y el oeste. Con un PIB per cápita de US$23.600 y alfabetismo casi universal, Barbados está en el puesto 38 del mundo, y primero del Caribe, según el Índice de Desarrollo Humano de 2013 del Programa de Desarrollo de las Naciones Unidas. Sobre la base de su arena y oleaje, el 80 por ciento de US$4.400 millones de PIB de Barbados proviene del turismo y las industrias de servicios.
Pero esta evolución ha sido reciente, y forma parte de un patrón similar de desarrollo en todo el Caribe, consecuencia de los movimientos independentistas y la llegada de la aviación comercial. Originalmente habitada por una población nativa amerindia, por primera vez en 1627 se asentaron en Barbados los ingleses, quienes rápidamente la convirtieron en uno de los productores principales de azúcar del mundo. La historia colonial de Barbados es inusual para la región; a diferencia de muchas otras islas del Caribe, colonizadas por múltiples potencias europeas, Barbados permaneció bajo bandera británica hasta su independencia en 1966, adoptando el seudónimo de “Pequeña Inglaterra”.
La economía colonial fue un modelo clásico de comercio para enriquecer a la metrópolis. Los ingleses importaron esclavos africanos para trabajar en las plantaciones de caña de azúcar, refinerías de melaza y destilerías de ron. Como resultado, el 90 por ciento de la población actual de Barbados es de ascendencia africana. Después de la independencia, la cosecha de azúcar, ya empobrecida, que sufría las fluctuaciones comunes de todo monocultivo, se hizo aún menos confiable a medida que la presión para liberalizar el comercio llevó al Reino Unido y más tarde a la Unión Europea a ir reduciendo lentamente los subsidios y precios preferenciales.
Al mismo tiempo, Barbados invirtió con fuerza en sus servicios de turismo, lo cual modificó el foco de su desarrollo. Históricamente, la isla fue en su mayor parte rural, con plantaciones de caña de azúcar en el interior del país, que también era el lugar donde vivían los esclavos y más adelante los aparceros itinerantes que cargaban con casas móviles de madera tipo “chattel”, la arquitectura vernácula de Barbados. En la costa se encuentra Bridgetown, el puerto principal, donde un río navegable desemboca en el mar, y otros pueblos más pequeños y villas de pescadores. Un puerto de aguas profundas excavado en 1961 también sentó las bases para la llegada de cruceros. El número creciente de turistas necesitaba de hoteles, balnearios, restaurantes, tiendas y bares, todos a escasos metros del mar. Este impulso llevó al desarrollo de franjas costeras, entre el aeropuerto y Bridgetown, en la costa sur y a lo largo de la costa oeste, donde las aguas son más calmas y se encuentran los encantadores poblados de Holetown y Speightstown. Para la década de 1990, el Aeropuerto Internacional Grantley Adams de Barbados recibía vuelos regulares de British Airways desde Londres en uno de los pocos jets Concorde supersónicos existentes.
La respuesta local a la crecida de las aguas
Ubicada un poco al este del arco principal de las otras islas del este del Caribe, fuera del cinturón de huracanes del Atlántico, Barbados tiene una ventaja meteorológica. Si bien sigue siendo susceptible a grandes tormentas, experimenta muchos menos huracanes que sus vecinos del noroeste. Sin embargo, cualquier amenaza a las playas y corales que rodean Barbados podría tener consecuencias devastadoras, dada la dependencia económica de la isla de su costa. Su bienestar se ve amenazado por el lento aumento del nivel del mar, asociado a las posibles mareas tormentosas si la isla sufriera incluso sólo tangencialmente un huracán importante. El Grupo Intergubernamental de Expertos sobre el Cambio Climático (IPCC) tiene pruebas concluyentes de que tras un período de varios siglos con casi ningún cambio, se ha producido un aumento en el nivel mundial del mar en el siglo XX, y que esta tendencia se está acelerando en el siglo XXI. En agosto, el IPCC dijo que los niveles del mar podrían crecer más de un metro para el año 2100.
Los pequeños países-isla, que nunca han contribuido significativamente a las emisiones de carbono, sufren un impacto desproporcionado debido al cambio climático mundial producido por la industrialización moderna en el resto del mundo. Los cambios en los patrones climáticos han producido una gran cantidad de tormentas importantes, un aumento de las temperaturas mundiales, y el derretimiento de los hielos polares, contribuyendo al aumento en el nivel del mar. Mientras que los países industrializados más grandes, como los Estados Unidos, China y los países de Europa Occidental, también han sido afectados por el aumento en el nivel del mar, la proporción vulnerable de estos países es minúscula en comparación con las áreas susceptibles de Barbados. La incapacidad del mundo desarrollado para comprender el impacto y las consecuencias de su comportamiento, como lo demuestra la inacción política en temas como los acuerdos de intercambio de créditos de carbono (cap-and-trade), ha forzado a los países en vías de desarrollo a actuar ahora o confrontar un futuro lleno de peligros.
Paradójicamente, el historial imperial de Barbados —con frecuencia una carga en los países poscoloniales— ha sido una ventaja, ya que la isla tiene una historia prolongada e ininterrumpida de planificación urbana y rural al estilo británico. Como el Reino Unido, Barbados está dividida administrativamente en parroquias, y las leyes modernas de desarrollo se basan en la Ley de Planificación Urbana y Rural (Town and Country Planning Act) de Gran Bretaña de 1947. Cuando declaró su independencia, Barbados estableció su propio plan maestro con la Orden de Desarrollo de Planificación Urbana y Rural de 1972. En la actualidad, toda la construcción en la isla es supervisada por la Oficina de Planificación de Desarrollo Urbano y Rural (Town and Country Development Planning Office, o TCDPO), y el jefe de planificación urbana reporta directamente al primer ministro.
El desarrollo inmobiliario de la isla está guiado por el Plan de Desarrollo Físico de 1988. Desde la enmienda al documento de 2003, se ha producido un giro hacia el desarrollo sostenible, no solo como lema, sino como una visión integral del gobierno de la isla. En un discurso dado en una conferencia en 2008, el anterior primer ministro, David Thompson, reseñó algunas de las ideas centrales del plan: proteger los recursos naturales, agrícolas y culturales; promover los centros y corredores de uso mixto para alentar una economía diversificada, mantener el centro de Bridgetown como eje financiero y comercial; y estimular el turismo modernizando las viejas propiedades costeras y desarrollando nuevos emprendimientos. El primer ministro actual, Freundel Stuart, ha continuado con este empuje de sostenibilidad, tal como lo demuestra su participación en paneles de alto nivel en la Conferencia de Desarrollo Sostenible Rio+20 de las Naciones Unidas el año pasado.
Hacia finales de la década de 1970, los dueños de propiedades individuales comenzaron a notar que la erosión costera afectaba sus terrenos. Los medios de comunicación comenzaron a insistir en este tema, de forma concurrente con el impulso del turismo, que se estaba convirtiendo rápidamente en la fuente principal de reservas de divisas extranjeras. Motivado por esta erosión costera —pero también preocupado por eventos catastróficos como huracanes, terremotos, marejadas, erupciones volcánicas y derrames de petróleo— el gobierno de Barbados inició un estudio de diagnóstico de factibilidad en 1981, con financiamiento del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID), como parte de su Programa de Conservación Costera. El estudio se centró en las costas oeste y sur, ya que estas áreas de la isla tenían el mayor potencial para la infraestructura turística. Al mismo tiempo, el gobierno estableció temporalmente una Unidad de Proyecto de Conservación Costera (Coastal Conservation Project Unit, o CCPU), que super-visó el estudio de factibilidad y llegó a una serie de conclusiones sobre las causas de la erosión costera y el daño a las propiedades de la costa. Por ejemplo, como la calidad del agua en el interior de Barbados era mala, su escurrimiento contaminaba el mar y dañaba los arrecifes de coral. Ciertos fenómenos naturales, como las marejadas provocadas por tormentas y los huracanes erráticos ocasionales, también causaban erosión. A su vez, las estructuras de defensa marina existentes habían sido diseñadas de forma deficiente. El estudio del BID sugirió que la CCPU siguiera vigilando las líneas de la costa, brindara asesoramiento al público sobre temas costeros y actuara de consultora de la TCDPO en cuestiones de desarrollo de la costa.
El nacimiento de la Unidad de Gestión de la Zona Costera
La Unidad de Proyecto de Conservación Costera continuó con su mandato por una década, y el gobierno de Barbados, con financiamiento adicional del BID, se embarcó en otro estudio, que recomendó el establecimiento de una unidad permanente para vigilar la zona costera. La Unidad de Gestión de la Zona Costera (Coastal Zone Management Unit, o CZMU) fue creada en 1996 para regular, hacer recomendaciones y educar a la población de Barbados sobre la gestión costera. La CZMU, que sigue recibiendo una gran parte de su financiamiento del BID, se aloja actualmente en el Ministerio de Medio Ambiente, Recursos Hídricos y Drenaje. Como lo sugiere su título, la CZMU gestiona la zona costera, definida como “la zona de transición donde el suelo se une con el agua, la región influenciada de forma directa por los procesos hidrodinámicos marinos, extendiéndose mar adentro hasta la barrera de la plataforma continental, y mar afuera hasta el primer cambio importante de topografía por encima del alcance del oleaje de tormentas importantes”. Por lo tanto, la unidad supervisa los arrecifes de coral alrededor de Bar-bados y todos los proyectos de ingeniería costera, y funciona como asesor de la TCDPO para el desarrollo costero en tierra firme.
La relación entre la CZMU y la TCDPO está marcada por temas del uso del suelo. Cuando la TCDPO recibe una solicitud para desarrollar la zona costera, se la envía automáticamente a la CZMU para su revisión y comentario. Como la industria turística se concentra principalmente en la zona costera de la isla, gran parte de las solicitudes de desarrollo inmobiliario de Barbados pasan por las manos del CZMU. La unidad inspecciona la solicitud para verificar que los retrocesos son correctos: 30 metros de la cota máxima de agua para los emprendimientos a lo largo de la costa, y 10 metros para aquellos a lo largo de los acantilados, medidos tierra adentro de la cota. Además de verificar los retrocesos, la CZMU analiza los requisitos de drenaje, zonas de amortiguamiento, restricciones de cercas y otras reglamentaciones. La CZMU luego hace recomendaciones a la TCDPO sobre la solicitud.
La Directora en Ejercicio de la CZMU, la Dra. Lorna Inniss, que tiene un PhD. en Oceanografía por la Universidad Estatal de Luisiana, alaba este proceso: “Nuestra colaboración interministerial es extremadamente cercana. Tenemos la capacidad para establecer y mejorar la estructura gubernamental que es inclusiva y consultiva por naturaleza”. El proceso gubernamental es admirable por su cooperación y tendencia a derribar silos; desafortunadamente, las recomendaciones de la CZMU son puramente consultivas y no tienen el poder vinculante necesario para que la TCDPO pueda obligar su cumplimiento. Las reglamentaciones de la zona costera no son retroactivas a las incontables propiedades construidas durante el boom del desarrollo de balnearios, y las sanciones para aquellos que las violan siguen siendo muy bajas. Este proceso es lo más cerca que llega Barbados a la evaluación de impacto medioambiental formalizada del modelo de los EE.UU., pero es un primer paso importante para el Caribe. La CZMU y la TCDPO han tenido más éxito al planificar el desarrollo futuro de bajo impacto a lo largo de la costa este más montañosa, por ejemplo, donde el Plan de Desarrollo Físico contempla la creación de un parque nacional.
La CZMU es más efectiva cuando implementa proyectos de ingeniería costera para proteger la línea de la costa y frenar la erosión de las playas. La técnica de conservación más natural es restaurar las dunas y manglares. La plantación de vegetación en las áreas costeras permite la formación natural de dunas y evita las inundaciones debido a marejadas de tormenta, mientras que los manglares absorben la acción de las olas. La alimentación artificial de la playa es una solución rápida y popular, pero es un arreglo caro y poco efectivo, ya que las corrientes y tormentas pueden erosionar fácilmente las playas rellenadas artificialmente.
La CZMU introduce también salvaguardas en la costa con varias intervenciones físicas, como rompeolas, espigones y malecones. Los rompeolas son estructuras de hormigón, enterradas cerca de la playa, que obligan a las olas a romper más lejos de la costa, para que no golpeen directamente sobre la arena. Los espigones son estructuras de roca que penetran en el mar para inmovilizar los sedimentos. Los malecones son el tipo más grande de inter-vención de la CZMU. Diseñados para proteger las áreas más pobladas, estos proyectos de construcción consisten en rocas grandes dispuestas en forma de escollera o una muralla de contención plana de hormigón que puede crear un espacio público atractivo tanto para turistas como residentes, como el Paseo Richard Haynes, financiado parcialmente por un préstamo del BID. Como estas técnicas pueden exacerbar a veces la erosión y requerir un mantenimiento más caro que las intervenciones naturales, su eficacia a largo plazo es discutida, pero en el corto plazo protegen la línea de la costa y la industria turística.
Dada la vulnerabilidad de la isla a las tormentas, los proyectos de ingeniería pueden ser costosos. Inniss, sin embargo, explica: “Tenemos una política de consulta rigurosa a las partes interesadas, y no es simplemente una formalidad. Nuestra temporada alta es de noviembre a abril; en un proyecto reciente en Holetown, los comerciantes nos dijeron que era fundamental que el trabajo se completara antes de noviembre, así que nos apuramos para hacerlo. Cuando hay un espíritu de cooperación mutua, podemos obtener el apoyo del sector privado”. Con un poco de suerte, la CZMU podrá utilizar el capital político obtenido del sector privado en este tipo de proyectos, para conseguir que las reglamentaciones más estrictas sean vinculantes en el futuro.
Para poder obtener apoyo, la CZMU ha lanzado una campaña de gran envergadura para educar a la población de la isla, que a juicio de Inniss es la razón por la cual la CZMU es exitosa, tanto interna como externamente. “Comienza con un alto nivel nacional de educación y alfabetismo — más del 98 por ciento desde hace décadas”. El exsenador Henry Fraser concuerda con ella: “La gente pregunta por qué las cosas funcionan en Barbados. Principalmente se debe al énfasis puesto en educación desde que nos emancipamos. Y porque es un lugar pequeño y muy religioso, en el que la gente vive cerca, con respeto, tolerancia y una ética de trabajo mayor que en otros lados».
Para profundizar la base educativa del enfoque cooperativo de Barbados sobre la gestión de las zonas costeras, la CZMU distribuye un boletín, mantiene una fuerte presencia en los medios sociales, y produce un programa de televisión educativo que explica la historia geológica de la isla y técnicas para aumentar el nivel de conciencia sobre el aumento del nivel del mar y la importancia de la gestión costera. También patrocina muchas actividades, como el Día Internacional de Limpieza de la Costa, las Caminatas en la Playa a la Puesta del Sol, la Serie de Seminarios de Verano y un programa de residencia de verano para estudiantes del nivel secundario y terciario. También da conferencias para escuelas e instituciones educativas, ONG, organizaciones privadas y el público en general.
Próximos pasos y cooperación global
El BID sigue brindando un respaldo importante a los esfuerzos de Barbados. La ayuda más reciente prestada por el banco de desarrollo al país incluye un préstamo de $30 millones de dólares a 25 años plazo para un Programa de Gestión y Evaluación de Riesgo Costero. Inniss se entusiasma con la confianza implícita en este respaldo financiero, ya que es una señal de que el gobierno cree que la CZMU puede ejecutar un proyecto que generará el valor suficiente como para devolver el dinero prestado. “Será una estrategia de gestión de zona costera integrada, moderna y superior, con la participación de una serie de partes interesadas: el turismo, destilerías de ron, empresas de electricidad, puertos recreativos, navegantes, pescadores comerciales, el puerto, los buzos”, detalla Inniss. “Los dirigentes clave han reconocido que la gestión de la zona costera es importante no solo como un programa medioambiental sino también para hacer crecer la economía de Barbados”. Esperamos que otros países del Caribe hayan tomado nota, puesto que la propia Inniss ha proporcionado asistencia técnica a St. Lucia, Trinidad y Tobago, y St. Vincent y las Granadinas, inspirada a su vez por el modelo de Nueva Zelanda, Hawái y la Administración de Pesca y Océanos de Canadá para implementar estándares internacionales.
Por supuesto, hay todavía lugar para mejorar. Si bien la CZMU trabaja de cerca con la TCPDO en la planificación del uso del suelo, con los parques nacionales marinos para vigilar los ecosistemas, y con los ingenieros civiles del Ministerio de Obras Públicas, la Unidad no está completamente integrada todavía con el Ministerio de Agricultura y Pesca. Por ejemplo, reconoce Inniss: “Sabemos científicamente que el escurrimiento agrícola es el mayor contribuyente a los contaminantes marinos”.
En efecto, en una isla pequeña, el suelo y el agua están intrínsecamente interconectados. Mientras Barbados está cumpliendo su parte en la batalla contra el cambio climático mundial —otro préstamo del BID firmado al mismo tiempo que el financiamiento de la gestión costera establecerá un Fondo de Energía Inteligente para reducir la dependencia de combustibles fósiles— no puede quedarse sentada a esperar que los países más grandes actúen. Mientras que otras islas pequeñas en vías de desarrollo en el Océano Índico y el Océano Pacífico están contemplando la posibilidad de reubicar su población a otros países dentro de algunas décadas, los habitantes de Barbados piensan quedarse y proteger su pequeña porción del Paraíso.
Sobre los autores
Gregory R. Scruggs fue consultor de la Asociación Americana de Planificación para América Latina y el Caribe desde 2010 a 2013. En la actualidad está estudiando una maestría en estudios regionales de América Latina y el Caribe en la Universidad de Columbia. Contacto: gscruggs.apa.consult@gmail.com.
Thomas E. Bassett, asistente senior de programa en la Asociación Americana de Planificación–(APA), trabaja con una beca de la Asociación de Energía y Clima de las Américas para el Departamento de Estado de los EE.UU, así como también a nivel nacional en el Programa de Ayuda a la Comunidad. Contacto: thomas.e.bassett@gmail.com.
Recursos
Bassett, Thomas E. and Gregory R. Scruggs. 2013. Water, Water Everywhere: Sea level Rise and Land Use Planning in Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Pará. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Working Paper WP13TB1. https://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/dl/2282_1621_Bassett_WP13TB1.pdf.
Belle, N. and B. Bramwell. 2005. Climate change and small island tourism: Policy maker and industry perspectives in Barbados. Journal of Travel Research 44: 32–41.
Dharmartne, G. and A. Brathwaite. 1998. Economic valuation of coastline for tourism in Barbados. Journal of Travel Research 37: 138–144.
Inter-American Development Bank. 2010. Indicators of disaster risk and risk management, Program for Latin America and the Caribbean, Barbados. September. Accessed July 9, 2012. http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=35160015.
Phillips, M. R. and A. L. Jones. 2006. Erosion and tourism infrastructure in the coastal zone: Problems, consequences, and management. Tourism Management 27: 517–52.
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Growing the International Land Conservation Network
Laura Johnson is an attorney and lifelong conservationist with more than 30 years of experience in nonprofit management. She is currently director of the new International Land Conservation Network (ILCN), a visiting fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and chair of the Land Trust Alliance board of directors.
Laura was the president of Mass Audubon from 1999 to 2012. Prior, she worked for 16 years at The Nature Conservancy as a lawyer, Massachusetts state director, and vice president of the northeast region.
Laura received a B.A. in history from Harvard University and a J.D. from New York University Law School. From 2013 to 2014, she was a Bullard Fellow at the Harvard Forest, Harvard University, where she completed a study on private land conservation efforts around the world.
LAND LINES: Your program, the International Land Conservation Network (ILCN), is new this year, but it has some antecedents at the Lincoln Institute. Can you tell us about that history?
LAURA JOHNSON: There are some wonderful connections between the new network and the Lincoln Institute’s past support of the innovative, capacity-building effort devoted to conservation that eventually became the Land Trust Alliance.
In the early 1980s, Kingsbury Browne, a prominent Boston lawyer, decided to take some time away from his law firm, and he used a sabbatical at the Lincoln Institute to explore the needs and opportunities of private land trusts in the United States. Up until that point, there was no nationwide effort to seek out the best examples of land protection activities, to share those ideas and best practices, or even to keep track of what was happening in land conservation around the country. Kingsbury Browne’s study led him, along with several other land trust leaders at the time, to start a new organization called the Land Trust Exchange, which connected the country’s small but growing conservation community through a newsletter and some basic research and training activities. The Lincoln Institute played a crucial role in helping to launch the Exchange, which grew over the years and changed its name to become the Washington, DC–based Land Trust Alliance. There were fewer than 400 U.S. land trusts in 1982 when the Exchange got started; now the Land Trust Alliance serves 1,200 land trusts all over the United States. The Exchange started out with a modest newsletter in the 1980s; now the Alliance provides an online learning center, a full conservation and risk management curriculum, and more than 100 webinars and 300 workshops that served close to 2,000 people in 2014.
LL: Throughout most of your career, you have been deeply engaged in U.S.-based land conservation work. What attracted you to expand your efforts on an international scale?
LJ: When I stepped down from the presidency of Mass Audubon two years ago, I began talking with Jim Levitt, a fellow at the Lincoln Institute, the director of the Program on Conservation Innovation at the Harvard Forest, and a former Mass Audubon board member. It was initially his idea that I explore how conservationists outside the United States were using and adapting conservation tools that had been developed over the years here. Jim had become very involved in private conservation efforts in Chile, and there was an opportunity to strengthen the very new movement there by sharing U.S.-based measures such as conservation easements. At about the same time, Peter Stein received the Kingsbury Browne fellowship and award from the Land Trust Alliance and the Lincoln Institute, which allowed him to explore the breadth of worldwide conservation organizations as well. Through our different projects, Jim, Peter, and I came to the similar conclusion that many people around the globe shared a strong interest in connecting to each other and to U.S. conservationists. This desire for a community of practice seemed like a remarkable opportunity to help build capacity for privately protecting land.
LL: Why is this role the right challenge at the right time for you?
LJ: I have had the incredible good fortune to work with some great organizations and wonderfully talented people. As a young lawyer just starting out at The Nature Conservancy in the 1980s, I was able to grow professionally at a pivotal time for conservation in the United States. Looking at the historic trend lines, the U.S. land conservation movement took off then, and it was very exciting to be a part of that growth. Then when I went to Mass Audubon in 1999, I was able to run the nation’s largest independent state Audubon organization, which provided leadership not just with land conservation, but with environmental education and public policy as well. Now, I have the honor of serving on the board of the Land Trust Alliance, which does such remarkable work here in the United States to enable effective land and resource protection. Along the way, my legal training was certainly useful, but I have also learned a tremendous amount about what makes organizations successful and likely to have a positive impact. I feel very fortunate to have this background and set of experiences, and I want to bring it to bear on the issues facing the international land conservation community.
LL: You’ve mentioned capacity building and creating successful organizations a few times. Can you comment on what that means in the context of land conservation?
LJ: Land conservation organizations need all the elements of any sound nonprofit organization—a clear mission, a compelling vision and strategy, disciplined planning and clear goals, sufficient financial resources, and great people. But working on land protection requires a very long-term outlook. To start with, a land trust needs to have the knowledge and resources to assess what land should be protected—whether the mission is to conserve natural resources or scenic, cultural, or historic values—and what legal and financial tools are best suited to achieving a good outcome. Then it can take years of working with a landowner to get to a point where everyone is ready to agree on a deal. Land trusts need to have people with the training, knowledge, and experience to carry out transactions that are legally, financially, and ethically sound. Once land is protected by a trust, that organization is making a commitment to manage the land it owns or has restrictions on forever. Museums are a good analogy, but instead of Rembrandts and Picassos, land conservation organizations are stewards of invaluable living resources, and the land and water we all depend on to survive.
LL: Why is private land conservation particularly important now? Why do we need an international network?
LJ: We are at a critical juncture as the pressures of climate change, land conversion, and shrinking government resources are making it more challenging than ever to protect land and water for the public benefit. Therefore the mission statement of the new International Land Conservation Network emphasizes connecting organizations and people around the world that are accelerating voluntary private action that protects and stewards land and water resources. Our premise is that building capacity and empowering voluntary private land conservation will strengthen the global land conservation movement and lead to more long-lasting and effective resource protection.
Support for better coordination of international private land conservation is emerging from many sources. For example, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) considered the role of private land conservation in the context of global efforts at its November 2014 World Parks Congress held in Sydney, Australia. The Futures of Privately Protected Areas, an IUCN-commissioned report released at that conference, provided a number of recommendations, such as developing relevant training and improving knowledge sharing and information, which are certainly important goals for the new network. We expect to work in collaboration with partners such as the IUCN, and with the existing regional or countrywide networks that are already in existence. And of course we have the very powerful example of the Land Trust Alliance and what it has been able to accomplish over 30 years to build the capacity of land trusts in the United States.
LL: What will you try to accomplish in the first year to address these needs?
LJ: We’ve had to get ourselves organized and deal with basic issues such as our name, visual identity, mission statement, goals, and governance structure. We will be designing and launching a website to serve as the essential repository of case studies, research, best practices, events, and conferences. Eventually, we want to have a continuum of learning available on the website through tools like webinars that address a range of subjects, from legal instruments to organizational best practices. We also want to carry out a census of existing networks and active organizations, to start building a baseline of knowledge about private land protection that will help measure progress over time.
LL: What are the greatest challenges to starting the network?
LJ: There are many. Money is a big one, of course. We’ve received a generous start-up grant from the Packard Foundation, and we have great support from the Lincoln Institute. But we are working hard to identify additional sources of funding, in order to grow the network and increase its impact. And of course we are still proving that the network will provide useful, important, and actionable information and training to meet a tremendous variety of needs within the international land conservation community. We know that we can’t do everything, so we must be strategic and choose activities that will have impact. The global scale also presents a host of cultural and logistical challenges, requiring us to navigate different legal systems, languages, customs, and, last but not least, time zones.
On the positive side, we already have a very committed group of land conservation practitioners who came together at our organizing meeting in September 2014 and enthusiastically signed on to be the “sweat equity”—to provide the network with knowledge, expertise, experience, and wise counsel. It’s already very clear to me that this is a wonderful group of colleagues who are doing interesting and important work around the globe. It will be an adventure—and I know I’ll learn a lot—to grow this new network together.
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Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 6 del libro Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.
Los sectores populares en la mayoría de las ciudades latinoamericanas se encuentran en una grave desventaja al intentar influenciar la planificación urbana y la administración de sus comunidades. A pesar de que los activistas comunitarios pueden estar bien organizados a nivel local, sus intereses no están involucrados en la toma de decisiones que pueden tener implicaciones a gran escala tanto en la administración de tierras urbanas como en los derechos humanos. Como parte de este esfuerzo actual para ayudar a líderes comunitarios y a funcionarios públicos de América Latina a ser más efectivos en la implementación de políticas de administración de tierras de carácter fundamental, el Instituto Lincoln respaldó un programa educativo innovador en octubre en la ciudad de Quito, Ecuador.
El programa “Políticas de tierra urbanas para los sectores populares” fue copatrocinado por el Instituto Lincoln, el Centro de Investigaciones CIUDAD y el Centro de Investigaciones en Diseño y Urbanismo de la escuela de arquitectura de la Universidad Católica de Quito. Este programa piloto sirvió para que por primera vez se reunieran en un foro representantes de más de 50 comunidades de bajos recursos de todo Ecuador. Se discutieron ambigüedades en torno a la formulación e implementación de políticas de tierra urbanas, así como las causas e impactos de estas políticas en el uso y regulación de la tierra. Particularmente, se prestó atención al acceso equitativo a la propiedad de la tierra, el acceso a viviendas y a la construcción de ayuda propia en las periferias urbanas.
El ministro de la vivienda y desarrollo urbano de Ecuador dio inicio a la primera sesión. Un grupo de académicos, consejeros de políticas profesionales, autoridades gubernamentales locales y nacionales, y líderes de opinión ofrecieron una variedad de talleres de planificación estratégica y presentaciones de panel. El foro contó tanto con discusiones conceptuales como prácticas sobre la legislación de tierras urbanas, donde se reconoció la evidente falta de información acerca de políticas de tierra a nivel de las bases.
Muchas preguntas subrayaron la situación de Ecuador, donde la inseguridad personal, del hogar y de la tierra frecuentemente llevó a la violencia y los desalojos. Este importante tema sirvió para resaltar la preeminencia de los derechos humanos en el debate sobre las tierras urbanas, y para reforzar la necesidad urgente de tomar en cuenta una amplia gama de políticas públicas y mecanismos de planificación. Además de incentivar redes de organización entre los pobres urbanos y alianzas con otros líderes de movimientos populares y locales, en el foro se exploraron estrategias para construir solidaridad entre los diversos sectores.
La última sesión contó con la asistencia de alcaldes de otras ciudades latinoamericanas, y se concluyó que las fuerzas que afectan a los residentes urbanos de bajos recursos en Ecuador son sorprendentemente similares a lo largo de toda la región. Una clara lección es que el acceso a la información es imprescindible si se quiere permitir que cada comunidad e individuo influencie la formulación e implementación de políticas de tierra urbanas sobre una base de participación democrática. Un inventario de casos de estudio comparativo en prácticas de uso comunitario de la tierra será incorporado en programas de seguimiento para asistir a funcionarios públicos y administradores en las futuras planificaciones y gestiones de políticas para el uso de la tierra.
El foro de Quito es un ejemplo de la meta educativa del Instituto Lincoln de proporcionar un mejor conocimiento a los ciudadanos afectados por las políticas de tierra urbanas. Uno de los resultados fue “El documento de Quito”, un resumen de las estrategias a que se llegó por consenso entre los participantes. El reto de convertir el consenso de ellos en acciones será la prueba verdadera del programa piloto. El instituto podría también colaborar con el Programa de Gestión Urbana de las Naciones Unidas para Latinoamérica y el Caribe para desarrollar una agenda común de educación, investigación y publicaciones. Los resultados ayudarían a ampliar las discusiones de problemas a nivel de las bases y a mejorar las formas en que los funcionarios públicos y los líderes populares pueden trabajar en conjunto para generaran políticas más efectivas.
Sonia Pereira es miembro visitante del Instituto Lincoln. También es abogado ambientalista, biólogo, psicólogo social y activista de derechos humanos. Su trabajo sobre protección ambiental en comunidades de bajos recursos del Brasil ha sido ampliamente reconocido. Es Citizen of the World Laureate (Universidad Mundial de la Paz, 1992) y Global 500 Laureate (Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente-PNUMA, 1996).
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Over the past several years, the Lincoln Institute has sponsored executive courses for state planning directors in the Northeast and in the West. In October 2002, more than 25 planning officials from 14 western states met in Portland, Oregon, to compare their experiences, learn from each other’s successes and failures, and receive briefings, lectures and case presentations. A featured panel discussion during that course addressed “The Role of Water in Managing Growth.” This article provides a brief review of alternative policy options to link land use and water supply, and offers some suggestions for further research, education and policy development.
During the summer of 2002, many Colorado communities imposed watering restrictions as historic drought gripped the state. Along Colorado’s Front Range, from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, officials are now contemplating the possibility of adopting a coordinated program to help homeowners understand when they can, and cannot, water (Smith 2002). At the same time, Governor Bill Owens and other state officials hope to work with the Bush administration to harvest more trees in Colorado’s high-country in hopes of increasing water supply (Stein 2002). The basic idea behind this proposal, based on decades of study of state forests in Colorado, is that by removing around 40 percent of all trees in an area, the runoff from spring snowmelt can be increased significantly (Denver Post 2003). Such a proposal could change the face of Colorado for decades to come.
The situation in Colorado is symptomatic of urban areas throughout the Rocky Mountain West, one of the fastest growing regions in the country, and one of the driest. Finding sufficient water to meet the demands of burgeoning urban areas while also providing water for agricultural, commercial, recreational and environmental uses is one of the region’s most challenging land use issues.
But water is not a problem only in the West. Communities from Florida to Massachusetts experienced some form of water rationing during the summer drought in 2002 (Snyder 2002). Frederick, Maryland, for example, has experienced a water supply crisis due to rapid growth and bad planning. After imposing a ban on new development, city officials approved an ordinance in September 2002 that will limit developers’ access to water once Frederick moves beyond the immediate crisis and lifts the moratorium on construction. As further evidence of the growing need to link growth and land use with water supply, the Environmental Law Institute, the American Planning Association and other organizations cosponsored a conference in February 2003 titled Wet Growth: Should Water Law Control Land Use? It was cosponsored by and held at the Center for Land Resources at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California.
Policy Options
Water and land are inseparable, yet the need to link growth with water supply in the process of making land use decisions appears to be a relatively recent phenomenon. A preliminary review suggests four prominent policy options to achieve this linkage.
Water Markets
In their 2001 report, Water and Growth in Colorado, researchers at the University of Colorado’s Natural Resources Law Center write, “. . . managing growth through water policy . . . is probably not an option worth considering.” Their conclusion is based, at least in part, on two observations: abundant water supplies in the city of Pueblo have not spurred growth there, and a lack of water has not restricted development in the nation’s fastest-growing region, Douglas County. The authors explain that a more compelling set of issues revolve around the impact of land use and growth on water resources. The increasing demand for municipal water use tends to deplete stream-flows and thereby degrade fisheries, recreational opportunities and other environmental values; increase water pollution; foster inter-state disputes; and increase the price of water. While these impacts are undeniable and create their own set of problems, they distract us from the question of whether, and to what degree, water supply can or should direct growth.
In the West, water is considered a private property right (Getches 1984). It can be separated from the land and may be bought and sold in the free market like any other commodity. In Colorado and other western states, it is common to hear people say, “water flows uphill toward money.” This means that water is reallocated to where it is most highly valued (or to those who can pay the most), as illustrated by the trans-boundary system that diverts water from the western slope of Colorado across the Continental Divide to the metropolitan areas along the eastern slope. Under this legal and institutional system, it is quite common to transfer water rights from agriculture, which accounts for about 75 percent of water use in the West, to ever-expanding urban areas.
Water markets thus facilitate growth by acquiring the water necessary for land use and urban development (Anderson and Leal 2001). But what if a community or region is interested in managing growth to sustain some open space, wildlife corridors, and sufficient water flows for fish, recreational and other environmental values? How can water availability, or more accurately the lack of water, direct growth and land use into more desirable areas, thereby reducing conflicts with other community goals?
Public Trust Doctrine
One way is to establish priorities for water use through the political process. Article II, Section 1, of Hawaii’s constitution states, “All public natural resources are held in trust by the State for the benefit of the people.” Article II, Section 7, says, “The State has an obligation to protect, control, and regulate the use of Hawaii’s water resources for the benefit of its people.” Section 7 goes on to say that the state’s water resources agency shall “establish criteria for water use priorities while assuring appurtenant rights and existing correlative and riparian uses …” Interpreting these constitutional provisions, the Hawaii State Water Code clarifies that the state has both the authority and duty to preserve the rights of present and future generations in the waters of the state, and the state has a duty to take the public trust into account in the planning and allocation of water resources.
Hawaii’s public trust doctrine is not uncommon; most western states have similar language in their constitutions (Sax 1993). Hawaii appears to be unique, however, in the degree to which it allocates water on the basis of the public trust doctrine. The state’s water code declares that water should not only be allocated to domestic, agricultural, commercial and industrial uses, but also to protect traditional and customary Hawaiian rights, maintain ecological balance and scenic beauty, provide for fish and wildlife, and offer opportunities for public recreation. To achieve these purposes, the Commission on Water Resource Management is responsible for developing a water plan that allocates water on the basis of “reasonable beneficial use,” and for regulating water development and use (Derrickson et al. 2002).
In 1997, the Commission issued water use permits for agricultural and other out-of-stream uses on the Waiahole Ditch water system. The decision was appealed to the Hawaii Supreme Court, which overturned the Commission decision and ruled that the public trust doctrine and the state’s water code provide that, at least in this case, in-stream public uses of water receive special consideration over off-stream private uses. This and similar applications of the public trust doctrine suggest that it is possible for appropriate jurisdictions to establish priorities for water use, and then to allow the market to reallocate water rights from one use to another consistent with the priorities established by law and the political process (Sax 1993).
“Prove-it” Policies
Rather than rely on water markets, a public trust doctrine, or some combination of the two, several jurisdictions around the country have crafted policies that specifically require a link between water availability and development. According to the ordinance adopted in Frederick, Maryland, city officials will review every proposed development and decide whether the city can provide the necessary water. Under the ordinance, 45 percent of surplus water will be allocated for new residential developments, 30 percent for commercial and industrial projects, and 25 percent for other uses, including government buildings and hospitals.
Other states have adopted similar policies that require developers to prove that they have adequate water supplies prior to approving development proposals. According to Charles Unseld, the director of Colorado’s Office of Smart Growth, several communities along Colorado’s Front Range are imposing such restrictions, at least on an ad hoc basis. In October 2001, California Governor Gray Davis signed Senate Bill 221, which requires developers of proposals for subdivisions of 500 units or more to prove they have water rights before they can receive final approval. While this requirement can be avoided by building smaller developments, it nevertheless represents an incremental step in directing growth according to the availability of water.
Perhaps the most sweeping policy framework linking water supply to growth is Arizona’s Groundwater Management Act. Groundwater sources supply roughly one-half of the total annual demand for water in Arizona (Jacobs and Holway, undated). Like most western states, agriculture accounts for about 70 percent of water use in Arizona, although this percent is slowly decreasing as municipal demand increases and the agricultural economy declines. In response to a growing concern over groundwater mining (that is, pumping and using groundwater at a rate faster than it can naturally replenish itself), the legislature passed the Groundwater Management Act (GMA) in 1980, and it was signed by then-Governor Bruce Babbitt.
The GMA created four “active management areas” (AMAs) around the state’s most populous areas: Phoenix, Pinal, Prescott and Tucson; a fifth AMA was created in Santa Cruz in 1993. The primary intent of the GMA is to sustain a long-term balance between the amount of groundwater withdrawn in each management area and the amount of natural and artificial recharge. This is accomplished through a combination of mandatory water conservation requirements and incentives to augment existing supplies. To help achieve the goal of “safe yield,” the GMA prevents new subdivisions from being approved in AMAs unless developers can prove that renewable water supplies are available for 100 years.
During a recent review of the GMA by a Governor’s Commission, water managers in Arizona concluded that the “assured water supply” program is responsible for much of the substantial progress that has been made in fast-growing municipalities to move away from groundwater overdraft toward renewable water supplies, including water from the Colorado River and reuse of effluent.
Another potential policy mechanism to link growth and land use to water supply is the use of urban growth boundaries (UGBs). The statutes that authorize UGBs in Oregon do not currently single out water availability as a variable for determining where the boundary should be located. However, Ethan Seltzer, director of the Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies at Portland State University, has commented that it is not inconceivable to create a UGB within which developers would be required to prove that water is available for proposed growth.
Water and Land Management Strategies
In addition to asserting policies that explicitly link the availability of water supply to proposed development, there are other ways to meet the demand for more water to support development. Using existing water supplies more efficiently through conservation, xeriscaping and other water-saving measures can free up some water. Drought planning, water harvesting and the use of on-site gray-water systems can also help manage supply to meet demand. Groundwater development and the conjunctive use of surface water and groundwater may be appropriate for some communities. Small-scale and off-stream water storage, while potentially expensive and environmentally controversial, also could help some communities satisfy their thirst for growth.
Another option, mentioned earlier, is to increase water supply through timber harvesting and vegetation management. While some people debate the technical merits of this option, nearly everyone must question its political feasibility. During the past decade, conservation and environmental groups have consistently challenged timber harvesting practices on federal lands throughout the West, often tying-up much needed salvage logging and restoration projects for years in the courts.
The Search for a Land and Water Ethic
A recent issue of National Geographic reports, “Among the environmental specters confronting humanity in the 21st century—global warming, the destruction of rain forests, over-fishing of the oceans—a shortage of fresh water is at the top of the list …” (Montaigne 2002). In the face of what the World Bank refers to as the “grim arithmetic of water,” the author concludes that people around the world seem to emphasize two common approaches to this problem: efficient use of available water supplies, and a belief in using local solutions and free market incentives to emphasize conservation.
The relationship among water, growth and land use is a global problem that will be resolved most effectively at the local and regional level. While this article has reviewed several policy options, it is clear that there is much to be learned from other countries. More research, documentation and analysis of the effectiveness of alternative policies and practices are surely needed if the National Geographic story is correct: that limited water supplies are or will be the number-one environmental issue facing communities.
As we search for effective ways to integrate water, growth and land use, it is instructive to keep in mind the “land ethic” articulated by conservationist Aldo Leopold (1949, 224-225): “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” The land ethic, according to Leopold, is based on the premise that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. It provides moral direction on relationships between individuals and society and between humans and the biotic community, which includes soil, plants and animals, or collectively, land and water. This principle should inspire and guide us as we develop effective public policies to sustain communities and landscapes.
Matthew McKinney is director of the Montana Consensus Council, which is housed in the Office of the Governor in Helena, Montana. He is also a faculty associate of the Lincoln Institute, where he teaches courses on resolving land use disputes and regional collaboration, and coordinates the annual course for state planning directors in the West.
References
Anderson, Terry L. and Donald R. Leal. 2001. Free market environmentalism, rev. ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Denver Post. 2003. Keep forest bill’s focus on fire (February 11).
Derrickson, S.A.K., et al. 2002. Watershed management and policy in Hawai’i: Coming full circle. American Water Resources Association 38(2).
Getches, David H. 1984. Water law in a nutshell. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co.
Jacobs, Katharine L. and James M. Holway. Undated. Managing for sustainability in Arizona: Lessons learned from 20 years of groundwater management. Unpublished manuscript available from the Arizona Department of Water Resources.
Leopold, Aldo. 1949. A Sand County almanac. New York: Oxford University Press.
Montaigne, Fen. 2002. Water pressure. National Geographic (September):9.
Sax, Joseph L.1993. Bringing an ecological perspective to natural resources: Fulfilling the promise of the public trust. In Natural resources law and policy: Trends and directions, Lawrence J. MacDonnell and Sarah F. Bates, eds. 148-161. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Smith, Jerd. 2002. Cities may equalize water rules. Rocky Mountain News (November 8): 11A.
Snyder, David. 2002. A new direction in water law: Frederick ordinance resembles western U.S. approach. Washington Post (September 23): B01.
Stein, Theo. 2002. A clear-cut drought solution? Logging urged to boost runoff, but eco-groups object. Denver Post (November 10): 1.
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The debate about the reality of global warming, and the human role in precipitating climate change, has been largely put to rest. Four working groups from the United Nations–sponsored Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (2007) have come to a consensus that would be gratifying if it were not so frightening. Yes, the globe is warming they say. Yes, humans are the primary agent for this change. Yes, the consequences may be dire. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change (2007) was also released last year by the Treasury Department of the British Government, whose only task was to assess the financial implications of global warming. That report warned that the costs of correcting this problem were affordable in the short term, but if nothing was done soon, the coming global economic calamity would make the depression of the 1930s look like a period of great luxury.
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Canfei He earned his Ph.D. degree in geography from Arizona State University in 2001, and then moved to the University of Memphis, Tennessee, where he taught as an assistant professor. In August 2003, he returned to China as an associate professor in Peking University’s College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, and was promoted to full professor in 2009. In addition to his academic duties at Peking University, Dr. He has served as associate director of the Peking University–Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy since 2007. He is also the associate director of the Economic Geography Specialty Group of the China Geographical Society.
Dr. He’s research interests include multinational corporations, industrial location and spatial clustering of firms, and energy and the environment in China. The World Bank invited him to write a background paper on industrial agglomeration in China for the World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Global Economic Geography.
Dr. He has authored four academic books and his work is published widely in English journals including Regional Studies, Urban Studies, Annals of Regional Science, International Migration Review, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Post-Communist Economies, and China & the World Economy. Dr. He also serves on the editorial board of three journals: Eurasian Geography and Economics, International Urban Planning, and China Regional Economics.
Land Lines: How did you become associated with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and its programs in China?
Canfei He: I learned about the activities of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s recently established China Program from one of my colleagues at Peking University in 2003soon after I returned from the United States. At that time, the Lincoln Institute was working in China on a number of specific programs, and I became involved in several associated research projects.
My official relationship with the Institute began with the establishment of the Peking University–Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy (PLC) in October 2007. The Institute had been exploring a more long-term partnership with Peking University for some time, and as those discussions progressed, my previous contacts offered opportunities for me to serve as a liaison between the two institutions. I was nominated by Peking University to serve as the associate director with its director, Joyce Yanyun Man, who is also a senior fellow of the Lincoln Institute and director of its Program on the People’s Republic of China. Over the past two years or more, I have been helping to develop the center and coordinate its work with other partners at Peking University, as well as serving as a research fellow of the center.
Land Lines: Why are urban development studies so important in China?
Canfei He: China’s urbanization during the past three decades has been remarkable. As an overwhelmingly rural population in 1978 when reforms began, China is now 45.7 percent urbanized, and the country is projected to be 60 percent urbanized by 2020. This means that China’s cities will need to accommodate more than 100 million new urban residents in this decade.
Market forces, local forces, and global forces are all conspiring to influence the pattern of China’s urbanization and development. Accompanying large-scale and rapid urbanization are revolutionary spatial, structural, industrial, institutional, and environmental changes in an incredibly brief span of time. The multiplicity of these driving forces makes the study of urban development in China both complex and challenging. The next wave of urbanization will have far-reaching implications for the country’s future development, and thus there is a critical need for more high-quality, objective research on the subject.
Land Lines: What are some of the most unusual aspects of urban development in China?
Canfei He: China’s current urban development is quite different institutionally from that of most Western countries. Urbanization in China has occurred at the same time that its economy has become market-oriented, globalized, and decentralized. Whereas most Western urbanization occurred in a period of greater economic isolation, China’s urban development has been directly influenced by international investment and global economic trends.
A second factor is China’s hukou system of personal registration that limits the mobility of its people in part by linking their access to social services to the location of their registration. This system thus presents an institutional barrier that inhibits rural-urban migration despite ongoing reforms.
Regional decentralization is another important aspect that, combined with the state and collective ownership of land, has allowed local governments to play a distinct role in China’s urban development. Land acquisition fees resulting from the sale of multi-decade leases for the use and development of state-owned lands have generated enormous revenues, and have been a critical source of municipal financial resources for urban infrastructure investment. This fee-based revenue, in turn, creates incentives that have promoted even more intense urbanization. On the other hand, the major planning role afforded to local governments in China means that urban planning practice lacks consistency across the country’s diverse regions, and is often hostage to local interest groups.
China is facing increasing global challenges and pressures from many sources including multinational corporations, nongovernmental organizations, global environmental standards, and rising energy prices. These challenges may increase the costs of urban development, but at the same time they may encourage a more sustainable process of urbanization.
Land Lines: How do you approach urban development studies in China through your own research?
Canfei He: China’s urbanization goes hand in hand with its industrialization, and foreign investment has played a significant role in the country’s growth. Urbanization demands labor, land, capital, and technology, as well as supporting institutions. Consequently, there are myriad approaches to studying urban development in China that focus on a particular factor or set of factors.
My own research interests fall within the capital and institutional approaches. Specifically, I investigate industrial agglomeration and foreign direct investment in Chinese cities by highlighting the institutional environment of economic transition. Investigating the elements driving industrial agglomeration in different cities and understanding the locational preferences of foreign and domestic firms are crucial for designing coherent and focused urban planning policies.
For instance, my research on foreign direct investment in real estate development and the locational preferences of international banks found that local market conditions and regional institutions largely determine the locational preferences of multinational services. This type of observation can be of use to planners and politicians in China seeking to foster the growth of the service industry.
With the increasing emphasis on global climate change and acknowledgement of the environmental impacts of China’s first 30 years of reform and development, I am also becoming more involved in research on the environmental impacts of urbanization, including energy consumption and carbon emissions. China has made a commitment to reduce its CO2 emission by 40–45 percent per unit of GDP by 2020, relative to 2005. This means that building low-carbon and energy-efficient cities is another goal on the already lengthy list of challenges that includes servicing, housing, and employing the country’s millions of future urban dwellers.
Land Lines: Given this ongoing international dialogue, how can China best learn from Western urbanization experiences?
Canfei He: We recognize that there is much to learn from the West, including alternative approaches to land policy, housing policy, transportation policy, environmental policy, suburbanization, and the development and planning of megacity regions. China has the benefit of using the West’s experience as a roadmap to help it avoid many of the problems that have arisen in Western cities, such as urban sprawl and gridlock. That economic, political, and geographic diversity offers a wealth of reference points for China’s cities that should not be ignored and can help China avoid problems that have plagued many Western metropolises.
However, it is necessary to research the applicability of particular international experiences, considering the uniqueness of China’s history and culture. Too often analyses of Western urbanization are presented as a blueprint for China, when in fact institutional, economic, and political differences mean that, for one reason or another, those solutions are impractical or unfeasible.
Land Lines: Why is China’s urbanization and urban development so important to the West?
Canfei He: China’s urbanization will be one of the most important dynamics of the twenty-first century, not only for China but also for the West and the rest of the world. Millions of newly affluent consumers and empowered global citizens will exert significant new demands on the world’s finite natural resources in several ways.
First, with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, China and the world committed themselves to halving the number of people living on less than $1 per day by 2015. Given China’s large number of rural poor, the country’s urbanization and economic development will be instrumental in meeting this important goal, as well as in achieving other goals such as those related to education and improving children’s health. Only cities have the institutional reach and financial capacity to meet these goals on a large scale.
Second, much has been made of the gulf in understanding between China and the West in recent years. Urbanization and urban development will help to integrate China further into the global community, but it may also create more opportunities for cultural friction. The West has a vested interest in seeing that China urbanizes in an atmosphere that encourages openness and intercultural exchange.
Third, history demonstrates that urbanization entails a much greater demand for energy and other resources as living standards rise and as consumption and dietary patterns change. It has become a cliché to say that “as China goes, so goes the world,” but China’s urbanization and its related environmental impacts will have direct implications for the West and the rest of the world.
The recent memory of $150 per barrel of oil shows that this future demand is likely to put great stress on international energy markets and the global economy. This latent demand also has broad implications for China’s CO2 emissions and for global climate change. The United States and China are key to any real hope of keeping the increase in average global temperatures less than 2 degrees Celsius warmer than preindustrial levels, as proposed at the recent climate conference in Copenhagen. Whereas the high level of development in Western countries means that changes happen incrementally, China’s rapid urbanization offers hope to limit the world’s future emissions by making significant changes now as the country develops.
