An Environmentalist Encounters An Environmental Law
by Donella Meadows
— September 14, 2000 —
Now that I’ve suffered under one firsthand, I can understand why people hate environmental laws.
On a map of our farm filed away at the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources is a fateful dot. It stands for an endangered Siberian Chive, observed by someone decades ago. This dot popped up when we applied under Vermont’s [...]
Who Has a Right To Do What with the Land?
by Donella Meadows
— March 2, 2000 —
Last week the Vermont Environmental Board denied a permit to a developer for a project in Hartland. It was a typical interstate-exit gas/food stop — the kind of place no one likes to look at but we’re all glad to find when we’re on a long trip and running low on fuel.
Hartland’s I-91 exit [...]
Clustering – Good Idea, Hard To Do
by Donella Meadows
— June 10, 1999 —
“Our city is considering cluster zoning. Is this a good idea or isn’t it?” came a question from a friend the other day.
I think clustering is a good idea. I’m about to live in a housing cluster myself. But, like many good ideas, it’s easier to say than do.
Let me back off a minute [...]
So What Can We Do – Really Do – About Sprawl?
by Donella Meadows
— March 11, 1999 —
In my mind St. Louis is the poster city for sprawl. It has a glittering, high-rise center where fashionable people work, shop and party. Surrounding the center are blocks and blocks of empty lots, abandoned buildings, dying stores, a sad wasteland through which the fashionable people speed on wide highways to the suburbs. In [...]
Sprawl by Any Other Name Is Still Out of Control
by Donella Meadows
— February 18, 1999 —
This time around the hot term is “sprawl.” During previous outbreaks of concern about America’s spreading cities it was “strip development” or “slurbs” or simply “the growth problem.”
Whatever we call it, we worry about it toward the end of every economic boom and try to stimulate it again during every recession. We try to [...]
