March 1, 2009

Last month, the Greenbelt Alliance released a list of some of the 3.5 million acres of undeveloped land that it believes needs to be protected from urban sprawl. That list, which appears in the Alliance’s “Golden Lands, Golden Opportunity” report, was the result of a two-year study conducted by the Alliance and more than one hundred “open space” experts, including wildlife biologists, and local land trusts and open space districts.

It’s estimated that 73,000 more people will live in the North Bay by 2025. If new development continues to sprawl outward into remote areas, it will drain resources away from existing communities, thereby creating longer commutes, more traffic and more climate-changing greenhouse gases. We need ways to grow more sustainably, and we need them now.