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Strategic plan targets invasive species
The Superior Daily Telegram (11/17)
Douglas County’s Land Conservation Committee is forwarding a plan to the county board that takes aim at invasive species.
Mich. Clean Marina Program: Public-private partners work together to improve water quality
Grand Rapids Environmental News Examiner (11/9)
Partners from the public and private sector in Michigan are working together in a voluntary program to improve the quality of the Great Lakes.
Researchers seek funding for wind test site in Lake Michigan
Grand Rapids Environmental News Examiner (11/7)
In a recent article in The Muskegon Chronicle, it was reported that researchers at Grand Valley State University’s Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center (MAREC) cited a lack of year-around data (on wind platform testing) needed by prospective development companies.
COMMENTARY: Senate needs to pass clean energy act to help Michigan
The Grand Rapids Press (10/26)
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was absolutely correct with his recent proclamation about the current condition of the Great Lakes State: "The State of Michigan," Reid declared from the Senate Floor, with a copy Time Magazine in his hand, "is in trouble."
First Nation women 'walk the environmental talk'
WeNews (10/23)
Tomorrow's global day of climate activism aims for media and political attention. First Nation women have another way. Since 2003, they've walked the shoreline of a Great Lake or major river, meditating on the needs of an unborn generation.
City making big push for water school
The Business Journal (10/23)
The push is on to convince the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee that the best location for its new School of Freshwater Sciences is near the university’s existing Great Lakes Water Institute on East Greenfield Avenue.
What's going on in your neighborhood this month? Meet other people and learn together at recreational and educational events! Our new dynamic calendar is updated daily with current educational events.
2 | What are the causes of urban sprawl?
After World War II, people started moving from the cities into the countryside. The GI Bill, road building projects, and increased car manufacturing all contributed greatly to this shift, and living in "suburbia" signified a better quality of life. Land was cheap and there was plenty of it, and government incentives and subsidies helped families realize their dream. Today, subsidies from the federal and state governments, such as for highway construction and commercial development, continue to promote sprawl and its effects.
The lack of effective land use planning allowed this move to the countryside to occur virtually uncontrolled. All Great Lakes states allow local governments to create comprehesnsive plans to guide growth and to create local laws (called zoning ordinances) to decide what types of development can happen where. However, none of the Great Lakes states actually require local land use planning.
In all of the Great Lakes states, land use planning happens at the smallest level of government (e.g., town, township, city), so the state has very little say in how land gets developed, except when it involves spending state tax dollars, such as for major highway projects. When local land use plans are developed, often they are inconsistent with the zoning ordinances and do not consider the impacts on surrounding areas and nearby communities. In practice, zoning ordinances and building codes, not land use plans, govern most land development decisions. The problem with this is that zoning tells "where" and "what type" of development can take place, but it does not consider questions of "how" and "when" development should take place. Most zoning ordinances separate different types of land uses, establish minimum distances between houses, minimum setbacks from roads, minimum parking space requirements, minimum road widths, and so on so that the only type of development that can occur is sprawl. In this way, the lack of land use planning and the reliance on zoning ordinances has promoted sprawl.
With little or no land use planning to protect greenfields, farm fields and rural countrysides and ecologically important habitats such as wetlands have been carved up. More roads were needed to connect the new development to downtown, which invited more development on the outskirts and the cycle continues today. As more people and businesses move out to former greenfields, fewer taxpayers are supporting older towns and cities, leaving them to deteriorate.
See also: Land Use in the Great Lakes Region
Graphic: New housing subvision
