Today is Blog Action Day. On this day, bloggers around the web are supposed to unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. It says in the organizer's overview of the event that every blogger should post something about the environment relating to their own topic, theoretically getting everyone talking towards a better future.
In thinking about what to post, I looked for something Real Estate related, since thats what I do to earn a living. Its also what I do that sadly causes a larger carbon footprint than I'd like since I have to drive - alot! But I was pleasantly surprised to learn that even with our car driven professions, Downtown Dad and I have actually been professing a "Green" lifestyle all along!
I went to Wikipedia's List of Environmental Issues and scrolled down until I saw a term that has been mouthed with disdain for a long time in our household - Urban Sprawl. In reading this, I was surprised to learn that quite unintentionally, Downtown Dad's soapbox, and my personal Realtor ethics have not only been going along the same paths, but are actually quite environmentally conscious!
For example, what we consider to be adverse developments of urban sprawl, things like housing subdivisions full of McMansions with three and four car garages; strip malls, with their sea of pavement and concrete; and fast food chains with more and more drive thru service, cater almost exclusively to the car centered society. In our house we've come to resist that kind of thinking for several reasons, a few of which include: The lack of diversity this fosters, culturally and economically; the erosion of old fashioned walkable neighborhood quality of life, the increase this causes in infrastructure costs, and the decreases we are starting to see in natural resource quality and quantity.
I'm no public orator and I try not to preach, so if this interests you, click on the Wiki link and read more about it.
3 comments:
Good for you! And good for you for posting for Blog Action Day. I've done quite a bit of blogging and blabbing about urban sprawl myself and I can't imagine for the life of me what sort of people actually want to live in one of those McSubdivisions -- you can't even call them neighbourhoods or communities. They're just vast parking lots with gigantic sleeping quarters attached.
Good for you. Re-development in suburban Boston is a real problem and I hate it. We live in town, in a neighborhood of triple deckers, but there are still trees, and flowers. Yay density-- we actually know our neighbors, and can walk to stuff.
People hate two things:
1. Urban sprawl
2. High population density.
It's hard to get it right, isn't it?
I did not participate in Blog Action Day. But I decided to write a belated post of my own about an environmental issue that might strike a cord with some of your readers:
Brazilian Teak, Slave Labor, and the Destruction of the Rain Forest.
You can find it at:
http://www.realestatetwincities.net/blog/
Anything that you can do to help promote awareness of this issue will be deeply appreciated. This issue is important to me.
Keep up your good work.
Thank you!
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