Speech

I’m here today to talk to you about the environment. Now, I’m not here to talk about the horrors of global warming, because apparently global warming doesn’t exist. And I’m not here to condemn the world’s businesses and companies to the ultimate destruction of our earth. I’m not here to chain myself to a tree or call the American capitalist market an anti-environmentalist conspiracy. In fact, I want to start off by disclaiming the assumption that because I care about the environment, I’m willing to give up my car and my nice house and all the other comforts in my life. I’m pretty sure no one really is. That’s why so many people cringe at the topic of environmental health and humanity’s influence on it, because it draws a fine line between discussing the priority of environmental preservation versus foundational aspects of our society, like money or material goods. Fortunately, this fine line hasn’t been totally avoided, and efforts have definitely been made to improve our effect on the international environment. We’ve all been made aware of our generation’s monumental “Green” movement, consisting of 100% recycled shopping bags and hybrid cars and the occasional guilt trip from Al Gore. And it’s all about compromise. I think it’s safe to say we’ve made some bona fide efforts to help the environment. We’ve become accustomed to turning the faucet or the lights off in a room when they’re not being used, and we’ve all replaced our old lightbulbs with compact fluorescent lamps, known more commonly as CFLs. We recycle, and some states, like Florida and Arkansas, currently recycle up to seventy five percent of their trash. In the last few decades, the United States has done extraordinary things to contribute to the Green movement.

But the country still has environmentally harmful habits to break, one of which being development. Since the Industrial era, we’ve been so motivated to constantly be moving and to expand outward. What started as a necessity and option to fight overpopulation in a few concentrated areas has become a sense a habit. And this habit is development. The constant building of new communities and suburbs, seemingly better and better than the last: this one’s gated, that one has a golf course, etc, etc. I’ve been around real estate development almost my entire life: Lexington. This city, in particular, has been booming with new properties and communities for the past fifteen years. It’s a prime example of trying to fit as many properties into one city as physically possible. And Lexington reflects thousands of cities around the United States executing the Leap Frog Effect, only looking to expand outward continuously instead of looking inside an already established area. But, you ask, how can you look in when you’re looking to build new property? How can you build more in, say, a downtown area or old business district as opposed to starting in a new open place? It may seem like a nonsensical solution to alleviate both the stress of overpopulation and that on the environment, but recycling and redeveloping property in a city’s older region isn’t such a bad idea. It saves money and land in the long run, especially in our economic situation right now. It saves companies millions by renovating older but sturdy properties, rather than building structures from scratch. Also, redevelopment saves on construction procedures like “x-raying,” a process of hiring specialists and analysts to evaluate a plot’s water sources, potential hazards, etc.

And of course, there’s the preservation of the Environment. Although it seems as if we have plenty of land left in the country, little less than thirty percent of land remains undeveloped in the US, and only about a quarter of that is protected by government preservation clauses. The rest has been increasingly cut up and demolished to make way for development. In accomplishing this goal, millions of square kilometers of land and ecosystems, from marshlands in the south to giant temperate forests through the north, have been run over to make way for ‘progress.’ Bodies of water have dried up due to irrigation systems resulting from inadequate planning, and many more have been polluted beyond repair. It’s only a matter of time before the land will be bought and dozed over to create more headquarters, houses, and parking lots for giant companies and communities. Furthermore, cities are constantly developing “edge-cities,” in the areas’ outer limits. These smaller populated regions expand with no strict growth boundaries anywhere in the United States except Oregon.

It’s safe to say development is becoming an increasing threat to the environment. But how can a country so accustomed to always looking out, turn into its cities for development? Rather than pushing jobs and homes outward, and potentially wasting tons of resources that could be saved for other use, the United States should take an example from thriving cities in Europe such as Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. Not only is it known for its new age quirkiness, but Amsterdam is also praised for blazing the path in terms of renewed development. Amsterdam is famous for taking old buildings in central city areas and converting them into studios, rehearsal and retail spaces, and even living spaces. This Dutch capital has a long tradition of reclaiming the unused or abandoned and putting it back to good use. New developments are still built, but under boundary restrictions and only when an older space cannot be used. Because Amsterdam and major cities in the United States are so similar, the idea of recycling built property seems possible and especially efficient, potentially saving companies millions on resources and labor.

Although some cities in the United States have tried to become more environment-friendly—Lexington being one of them—we are far from significantly and effectively using what little land we have left. Instead of spreading out for miles, unused and unsold buildings in downtowns and other central-city areas could be restored and sold to smaller companies and real estate agencies, and growth boundaries could be established to prevent the construction of edge-cities. We can still develop property, but effectively and efficiently. We can utilize development to invest our money, resources, and land instead of wasting them.

Bibliography:

· The Unforeseen, a documentary on development in Austin, Texas

· Sadler, A.E.; The Environment: Opposing Viewpoints, 1998

· Rail, Evan; “Reinventing Amsterdam,” Travel International Magazine

· http://www.theoryoflivevolution.com/files/beware.pdf

· Grant, Thomas; http://www.dailypress.net/page/content.detail/id/504625.html?nav=5005; Daily Press Newspaper

· Company of Biologists in the United States, Ltd; http://dev.biologists.org/; 2009