Constructed Climates

Service on a local citizen group,  Durham’s City and County  Open Space and Trails Commission, was my first introduction to the issues behind urban open space.
I spent the first couple of years waiting for the commission, as a whole, to be asked important questions from elected officials, but after awhile I concluded that nobody was going to tell me or us our role.
One part of the commission, the trails committee, had clear and present directions helping make citizen demands for trails throughout the region a reality, but the open space committee had much less citizen input or appreciation.

Our little open space committee clearly needed to figure out something to work towards.
Taking stock of the situation, we could see that despite large-scale development, many parts of Durham County remain quite rural with plenty of privately owned open spaces, and dedicated staff seeking long-term preservation.
Many local conservation groups protect natural areas quite forcefully, and there exist a few watershed protections (under continuous threat from development) given the recognized drinking water requirements throughout the region.
Instead of focusing on rural areas, we started pushing the idea of Urban Open Space with the goal of protecting and developing nature and vegetation within the city.
We boldly put forth a resolution asking for city and county support to direct the Planning Department to start work on an Urban Open Space plan with grand ideas of an even greener city.

After some time, I realized that I, for one, couldn’t really provide a good cost-benefit argument for preserving and creating natural spaces in the city.
Why should the city and county spend scarce money planting trees when schools need more resources, roads and sewers need maintenance, and people suffer harm at the hands of others?
I couldn’t really answer those concerns or give insight into those trade-offs beyond providing a vague idealistic image.
Seeking an answer to that question turned out to be a wide-ranging study, and addressing it requires a broad synthesis of many environmental topics and human issues.
Many of these issues involve the relative values of cleaner water versus smarter children versus calmer citizens versus higher taxes.
These values lead to  choices and compromises that science alone can’t make, but science can and must inform elected officials and citizens making the choices.
With this book, I intend to summarize that science and provide the synthesis needed to inform a broad range of interested students and citizens while they carry out these difficult compromises.