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I'm not willing to live in a concrete jungle so somewhere, hundreds if not thousands of miles away, there's a little bit more real jungle.
I'm noticing that neither of you seem to care about the middle ground: thoughtfully planned development that allows for, but doesn't require, car use, and is instead focused on providing safe, comfortable, cohesive neighborhoods, even if the buildings may be townhomes and 4-floor condos/apartments.
A lot of the suburban-urban arguments seem to get stuck on the extreme versions of each; it's either a big house on a big lot with artificial nature and design features that don't see a lot of use or it's Metropolis.
I live in New Jersey, the nearest thing to actual nature is hundreds of miles away -- and anything near to untouched you probably won't find south of Canada or east of the Mississippi. There's lots of parkland but it isn't really undisturbed. But the little bit of back yard I have, that I can enjoy all the time.
I'm not willing to live in a concrete jungle so somewhere, hundreds if not thousands of miles away, there's a little bit more real jungle.\
What you are describing as "actual nature" is more wilderness. A forest preserve or parkland and provide quite a bit of nature as well.
Where I live, i have nearly 0 yard space. But within a few miles, is farmland, an aubodon society preserve and then long stretches of scenic hillsides for bicycling. I like biking and hiking in rural land. I do appreciate seeing a bit of greenery right around where I live, but I see little purpose in having extra space around my house past that. When I lived in Long Island, there wasn't all that much preserved land. If the residential density was 2-3 time higher, more preserved land would have been possible.
To me, the low density development removes useful green space.
I'm noticing that neither of you seem to care about the middle ground: thoughtfully planned development that allows for, but doesn't require, car use, and is instead focused on providing safe, comfortable, cohesive neighborhoods, even if the buildings may be townhomes and 4-floor condos/apartments.
That describes much of Philadelphia (well, you can argue about the safe, comfortable, and cohesive, but you can usually get at least one). It's not a middle ground; it's urban.
What you are describing as "actual nature" is more wilderness. A forest preserve or parkland and provide quite a bit of nature as well.
That I've got nearby, but yes, I wouldn't consider the reservations "actual nature".
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When I lived in Long Island, there wasn't all that much preserved land. If the residential density was 2-3 time higher, more preserved land would have been possible.
Except it's as likely you'd just have 2-3 times as many people on the same land with no additional preservation. Somewhere, many miles way, the suburban/rural boundary might have been slightly closer, but the cost you'd pay for that is the increased density near where you are. Density doesn't necessarily mean more preserved land, nor lack of density less: after all, the area I'm in is not particularly dense, yet we have 2500 acres of reservation.
Except it's as likely you'd just have 2-3 times as many people on the same land with no additional preservation. Somewhere, many miles way, the suburban/rural boundary might have been slightly closer, but the cost you'd pay for that is the increased density near where you are. Density doesn't necessarily mean more preserved land, nor lack of density less: after all, the area I'm in is not particularly dense, yet we have 2500 acres of reservation.
That's only if the limiting factor of population growth is available land, rather than economic factors. Might be partially true in Long Island (or the rest of the metro) not so much everywhere else. 2 to 3 times denser would mean far more land available for reservation. This is a bigger plus in a smaller metro, for a larger metro the suburban/rural boundary will be far away from most at just about any density.
I'm thinking of something like the the San Francisco metro area where most everyone, urban or suburban live within 5-10 miles of preserved land, and the suburbs are denser than most other american suburbs. Partly from topographic constrains but also from conservation laws. The Bay Area has run out of room to grow, one of the reasons for its very high housing costs (another just being a wealthy area with lots of high paying jobs), but the suburbs were built at even higher densities, close to San Francisco itself, then the land shortage would be less acute. In contrast, Boston is annoying to bicycle out of, there's 30+ miles of suburbia / semi-rural land mixed in.
The Bay Area has run out of room to grow, one of the reasons for its very high housing costs (another just being a wealthy area with lots of high paying jobs), but the suburbs were built at even higher densities, close to San Francisco itself, then the land shortage would be less acute. In contrast, Boston is annoying to bicycle out of, there's 30+ miles of suburbia / semi-rural land mixed in.
I think if you want to preserve, you have to preserve before the development happens; the density is unlikely to affect preservation much. Maybe if you build dense it will give you more time to preserve, but I doubt it is significant.
I think if you want to preserve, you have to preserve before the development happens; the density is unlikely to affect preservation much. Maybe if you build dense it will give you more time to preserve, but I doubt it is significant.
Depends what you're preserving too. Living in the Central Valley of California, preserve means preserve farmland. We don't really have any nature left here. The "greenbelt" between my city (suburb, whatever) and the next one over is mostly orchards and vineyards. It's no more nature than my front yard and less useful as an ecosystem than the suburbs which have much, much, much greater diversity. True, it's completely artificial diversity but that's not any different than the farmland.
There's some reason to preserve farmland, of course. It's a pretty sizable component of our economy, after all, but preservation is not one of those reasons. The reasons are really entirely economic and don't even get into the hippy crap local farming since it's all cash crops and not vegetable gardens. Actually, it's not. There's a little strawberry stand that grows a bunch of vegetables as well. But you can look out over it as you drive over the new railroad overpass. It's a tiny little section of a huge orchard that stretches off to the horizons.
Toronto's greenbelt contains a mix of wilderness and farmland. Among the farmland being protected there is Holland Marsh and the Niagara Fruit Belt, both unique agricultural areas that are highly productive. The rest of the farmland is also pretty good farmland, Ontario has 50% of the Class 1 farmland in Canada, despite having a much smaller fraction of the overall farmland. This Class 1 farmland is mostly in Southern Ontario, which is also where most of the cities are, including Toronto, Hamilton and other cities beyond the greenbelt like Windsor and London. Toronto's greenbelt is also home to the Oak Ridges Morraine, which is important for its aquifers and headwaters, and the Niagara Escarpment.
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