University of Washington Professor John Marzluff is an expert on crows and ravens, among other birds. Recently, he began looking at the effects of urban sprawl on bird populations.
He was surprised to find that the effects were positive. Breaking up farms or woodlands into lots, each of whose owners manage their land a slightly different way, significantly increased biodiversity for songbirds.
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The Antiplanner is not surprised by this at all. Large-scale farms are the closest humans have come to practicing monocultures. Industrial forests are next. Family-owned farms and woodlots are a little more diverse, but still can be pretty monotonous. Breaking up land into smaller lots can significantly increase vegetative diversity. For many species, I suspect the ideal lot size might be anywhere from one-half to five acres.
Of course, not all species benefit equally. Some are particularly intolerant of humans. Many of the species that thrive in sprawl might be common anyway. But any claim that urban sprawl is bad for wildlife is simply wrong.
Bird feeders have had an impact too.
Households on large lots can have a wide variety of plants & even gardens for edibles. For those that live in arid & semi-arid regions (AZ, NV, most of CA), that property will even have more greenery than otherwise, with the irrigation. Water source is another problem.
High density has much less nature & more impervious ground (creating more runoff). There’s also less privacy, more noise, more crime, more shadow, more traffic.
For high density, open space? Where? Miles away. How do you enjoy it, w/out a car? How often?
Households with nice yards can enjoy open space all of the time.
And the whole neighborhood enjoys the nature & open space on each property, by viewing it.
BTW, there is no correlation between urban density & VMT.
This densification is not helping its main goal & actually increasing congestion, in addition to increasing many more problems.
http://www.greenroofs.org/
Scott: For those that live in arid & semi-arid regions (AZ, NV, most of CA), that property will even have more greenery than otherwise, with the irrigation. Water source is another problem.
Mike: Sort of. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, Arizonans (and presumably southern Nevadans) kept lawns that drank from canal irrigation. Even today, entire neighborhoods in older sections of Tempe, Scottsdale, and Phoenix have the “water plug” trench system in place. You pulled your water plug on prescribed days, and the canal system released enough water to irrigate the entire street, etc.
Nowadays, basically since the early 1980s, and this is certainly true in Vegas as well as AZ, Xeriscape is the thing. Lawns and deciduous trees are by far the exception. In fact, one of the key indicators Realtors use to instantly know the year a neighborhood was built is the shade of gravel used in the Xeriscape landscaping. 1980s pink gave way to 1990s orange, which darkened to late 1990s-early 2000s gray, which has given way to late-2000s brownish earth tones. The average Xeriscape yard has very low water usage and less greenery than nearby unimproved desert scrubland.
Birds seem to have adapted.
Scott:“For high density, open space? Where? Miles away. How do you enjoy it, w/out a car? How often?”
ws:You need to get out more. Portland has one of the largest urban parks in the country and is very accessible from the city. Look at the huge swatch of greenspace right by the downtown area in Google maps..
Central Park is another great example of green space in a highly urban area.
Scott:“Households with nice yards can enjoy open space all of the time. And the whole neighborhood enjoys the nature & open space on each property, by viewing it.”
ws: Even large yards cannot replace a big park – which many suburban communities are lacking. I’d refrain from using the word “nature” when describing the non-native ornamental shrubs and water / chemical consuming lawn. Greenspace, maybe?
I just find it funny that I can find more trees in downtown Portland than I can in many of the suburbs in the metro area. Mostly the developers chop down the nice doug firs, red cedars, ponderosas for fear of wind throw and “replace” them with the wonderful fastigiate (upright) trees that have zero canopy (what’s the point of the tree, then?). Plenty of red maples, though. Thanks developers!
I have not seen one elm tree in suburban Portland area. Plenty in the city, however. But hey, suburbs are “leafy and green”, so I’m told (grass and a dinky tree, that is).
ws: I have not seen one elm tree in suburban Portland area. Plenty in the city, however.
Many of Portland’s notable elms, e.g., at Ladd’s Additions, survive only on life support with annual inoculations of fungicides to combat Dutch Elm disease. Many suburban elms, which are younger and less stately, have fallen victim and died.
Scott wrote:
“High density has much less nature & more impervious ground (creating more runoff). There’s also less privacy, more noise, more crime, more shadow, more traffic.
For high density, open space? Where? Miles away. How do you enjoy it, w/out a car? How often?”
Here in Sunny Bath, I have an urban farm about 100m away. About 300m away in the other direction is a large park area. That’s one of the nice things about Bath – it has a lot of parks, and unlike London, all of them are public.
Noise is a problem, but most of it is people playing their music too loud in hot weather, with their windows open. There are several solutions to that one… Unfortunately, dealing with it by writing laws is a lot less sexy than other big government projects, and so we wait.
Despite the high density, I live in a cul-de-sac, apparently the epitome of urban living. 🙂
Andy Stahl:“Many of Portland’s notable elms, e.g., at Ladd’s Additions, survive only on life support with annual inoculations of fungicides to combat Dutch Elm disease. Many suburban elms, which are younger and less stately, have fallen victim and died.”
ws:There’s disease resistant elms, notably the Princeton Elm. West coast American elms have been much more tolerant and less impacted by DED.
I have never seen an elm tree planted in Portland’s outer suburbs…ever. I’m getting way too OT, but I was just on my soapbox and pointing out to the terrible tree selection (elm tree was an example) of many new developments in the Portland Area.
Regarding this post, it is interesting to note that this is speaking of conversion of heavy forestland into an “open” edge condition. This is one ecological example in a given region of the Seattle Area. I would argue it is not better for many bird species by converting open meadow edge conditions (1/3 of the Willamette Valley was oak meadow at one point) into a large scale development.
“The meadowlark  the state bird  has nearly vanished as grassland habitat gives way to housing and parking lots.
The rufous hummingbird that winters in Mexico but returns to the wooded Northwest to breed has declined 79 percent in Oregon over the past 40 years. Even the familiar red-breasted robins have declined nearly 3 percent per year in the Portland metro area over the same period.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003750758_weboregonbirds16.html
If development (urban sprawl) is so good for birds, and knowing we have developed a lot in the last 60 years, how come many songbird species are in severe decline?
These are complex issues but many studies in many parts of the world demonstrate that suburban gardens provide higher biodiversity pastoral farms etc.
Of course you do have to wait for the gardens to mature a few years or even a few decades for truly large trees.
It is easy to jump to conclusions. Office desk planners here in NZ try to impose rules saying that cats should be banned from rural residential subdivision. Their simple two-body theory says cats eat birds therefore cats are bad for bird populations therefore ban cats.
But the main predators of our native birds in particular are imported rats weasels and stoats and cats kill rats weasels and stoats. Also our native birds are top feeders while cats are ground feeders.
Which is why those of us actually develop park developments with large areas of native forest and other plantings welcome cats because the native birds thrive while the cats tend to drive out the imported birds like mynahs.
But then, what we would know?
There’s a dif in what I mean for open space vs parks.
Sure, parks are great & most UAs have many.
Part of the goal for high density is to preserve a huge area of open space (larger than the whole UA), beyond the edges.
In the US, <3% of the land is urbanized. Those UAs are in counties that occupy about 20% of the land. In other words, (&w/math) each metropolitan county is about 1/7 urbanized, on average. There are extremes, many counties are 100% urban. Some counties have millions but are very large with much open space (Clark & Maricopa).
The point is that there is plenty of open space & groups want to prevent urban growth into a few more square miles which is only a small amount of the region, and while there is already many more times open space than built area.
For example, in the Bay Area, which has the most restrictive land policies & the highest housing prices, Santa Clara County is <1/4 built. There is plenty of farmland & hillsides that could be built on to relieve the pressure. There are also policy attempts to create affordable housing which actually worsen the situation.
What’s the problem with non-native nature?
Who cares the origin? There’s more greenery & more variety.
Yes, source of water is a problem.
Here’s one plan: All of coastal CA should use desalinated water & rainfall; no imported rainfall. The Central Valley can use the transported water. None of the Colorado should go to CA; just NV & AZ, for the lower part.
Scott: Here’s one plan: All of coastal CA should use desalinated water & rainfall; no imported rainfall. The Central Valley can use the transported water. None of the Colorado should go to CA; just NV & AZ, for the lower part.
Mike: Well, you won’t hear a complaint out of me about that, when you consider the current allotment of the lower basin river water (59% CA, 37% AZ, 4% NV). That ratio was set in 1928 and probably made a lot of sense based on population figures at the time. If the ratio had been set according to border frontage instead, or some other objective non-fluctuating metric, AZ might not have needed the CAP canals decades later. In fact, it was only after the end of the Arizona v. California case disputing the allotment that the CAP was created.
Francis, Thanx for telling me about Bath. Relevance? Sounds like low density, BTW, I don’t know what an “urban farm” is?
ws & others, When referring to subdivisions that have few trees, the density is probably 5-10DU/acre, that’s high. It is a shame that some tree are cut down. You’d think that leaving trees would be a selling point. Maybe some don’t necessarily like an abundance of greenery. After Levittown was built, it was pretty barren. I think there’s plenty of greenery now.
ws, You are going to to extremes when starting with the point that “birds like yards in the suburbs” to claiming that if so, then all birds should flourish & none should die. Why do you blabber nonsense like that? You sound like a little brat-kid talking back to the teacher about a simple principle that’s not understood.
What birds or other species are endangered? Why should humans even care?
Owen McShane said: The main predators of our native birds in particular are imported rats, weasels and stoats. Cats kill rats, weasels and stoats. Also our native birds are top feeders while cats are ground feeders.
THWM: The genie is out of the bottle.
Scott:“ws, You are going to to extremes when starting with the point that “birds like yards in the suburbs†to claiming that if so, then all birds should flourish & none should die. Why do you blabber nonsense like that? You sound like a little brat-kid talking back to the teacher about a simple principle that’s not understood.
What birds or other species are endangered? Why should humans even care?”
ws: Plenty of birds are endangered. If the theory goes that urban sprawl is good for birds (in all ecological conditions), then it would mean that song bird populations would not be in decline. Regarding farmland, so much of it is monoculture crops. That means very little in terms of biodiversity. Conversion of a prairie landscape with grasses, wildflowers, etc. to a corn of soy crop with heavy pesticide/herbicide use is not going to benefit any birds.
Blabber and nonsense? Have you read any of your posts before?
Scott:ws & others, When referring to subdivisions that have few trees, the density is probably 5-10DU/acre, that’s high.
ws:There’s a huge difference between between 5 and 10 DU/acre, but you can keep plenty of trees with that density.
ws, You still have not explained your logic about birds liking yards to “therefore none should die.” Let me tear apart your assertion some more since it seems to be beyond your comprehension. About 2.7% of the US is urbanized. How can that portion of land affect all habitats? You offered a clue as to why your claim is false: farmland. Are you now considering farmland to be sprawl? I never heard that one. You are really trying to change definitions & parameters to fit your bogus claims. What’s your solution? No more farms? You want negative population growth or genocide? You hate other humans? You claim that non-human life-forms are more important.
ws, You immaturity & lack of solid backing is showing again when just reverse things around by saying, “Blabber and nonsense? Have you read any of your posts before?†Well, it shows your lack of accepting reality. How would it be possible that a person could type something & not be aware of it? Please give some examples, from my posts, on what doesn’t make sense to you. I will then elaborate & bury your ignorance & misconceptions.
Your statement clearly shows that you do not understand many items. I try to make my posts brief. I could expand into pages for those who lack the understanding in many concepts. Dude, forgive my cockiness, but accept this, there are many things that I know, which do not. I’m sure you have specialized knowledge in areas that are more than my knowledge too. If you don’t agree with something or understand, you don’t need to uphold your ignorance.
ws, You missed the point about 5DU/acre & higher being dense. The point had nothing to do with comparing 5-10 DU/acre. You so easily demonstrate how you don’t understand. Let me explain to your limited capacity. For developments that have little greenery, they are usually not at low density; in other words, there are small yardsâ€â€types that are pushed by New Urbanism & such.
Can anybody explain what value that endangered species have?
And why are some more important than humans?
Scott said: Can anybody explain what value that endangered species have?
THWM: You don’t really know what you have till it’s gone.
THWM, Again, no sense. There are many extinct species. So, according to your logic, we should know what we had. Please elaborate.
Scott:“ws, You still have not explained your logic about birds liking yards to “therefore none should die.—
ws: I have no idea what you’re talking about. Honestly.
Scott:“About 2.7% of the US is urbanized. How can that portion of land affect all habitats”
ws: Birds are migratory. When one of their migration spots (where they eat and live) is destroyed, it limits their survivability. Knowing that they are migratory means that they are not just staying in the US, despite a terribly mischaracterized statistic about urbanization of land in the US. You have learned from the best, apparently.
Scott:“You offered a clue as to why your claim is false: farmland. Are you now considering farmland to be sprawl? I never heard that one. You are really trying to change definitions & parameters to fit your bogus claims. What’s your solution? No more farms? You want negative population growth or genocide? You hate other humans? You claim that non-human life-forms are more important.”
ws:I never said anything about farmland being urbanization. In fact, ROT mentioned the ecological diversity of farmlands in the same article as urban sprawl, and I was commenting on this. Follow along, please.
Farmland = conversion of natural land. A farm that has a lot of diversity (say a prairie landscape that offers some shade trees/shrubs) may offer something better than what was there. My counter to this is so much of farming is huge monoculture agriculture and is in essence not offering diversity.
Scott:“Can anybody explain what value that endangered species have? And why are some more important than humans?”
ws:Losing a species, particularly large mammals can have dire impacts on ecosystems (which humans are apart of). The return of the Gray Wolf in Yellowstone brought down out of control Elk populations. The elephant in Africa maintains the grassland “Savannah” of encroaching trees.
Native Americans in the Willamette Valley actually burned the grasslands to return the lushness of this ecology – and reduced the encroachment of Douglas Fir trees over shade intolerant Oregon White oak trees.
Some birds are considered a keystone species.
On the most basic level, I have to say, watching and listening to songbirds is the highlight of my day. Maybe I’m just that boring. Who are you to question my individual pursuit of bird watching?
WS, are thinking about an Easter Island situtation? I know that’s a small location.
ws, Did you forget what you previously questioned: “If development (urban sprawl) is so good for birds… how come many songbird species are in severe decline?â€Â
You are making a logical error in cause & effect.
First of all, the suburbs were not claimed to be “so good†but just habitat providing.
Secondly, you missed that fact that <3% of land is urbanized, which means that there’s plenty of habitat, unaffected by urban areas.
Thirdly, the fact that one area is good for birds, does not mean that there are areas that are bad for birds.
You mention farms. Sure, that can hurt many animals, but you are going off-topic away from urban areas. Do you propose less farmland & therefore less people?
ws, I’m sorry I fail to see what “value†shown by your examples:
(in other words, significance?)
More of one mammal (wolf) reduces number of another (elk). So???
A tribe burning grasses centuries ago is way outside the parameters of discussion, thus, no relevance.
Elephants destroy trees in favor of grasses. So???
Songbird noise. Good for you & others to enjoy that (I did not & would not question individual pursuits/interests). You can get recordings of bird noise (& other nature), even better than what you hear. You need to live in fairly low density to have a prevalence of birds, right?
Back to the anti-planners original point: It was minor, that birds can thrive in the suburbs. I think what he means, in a general sense, is that many claim that low density is almost devoid of nature (or similar). That is not true. Sure, there is less nature with human habitation, but that is unavoidable. There is even less nature in dense areas.
highman, Re: your point on Easter Island. Yes, it is too small of an area for a people that over-consumed their surroundings. However, that is a good example on a small scale of what could happen globally. I’m impressed that you actually, finally made a valid point. Although, it is off-topic & non-tangential to this thread. Basically your point is Malthusian, that we might run out of resources. Technology will continue to provide. But fewer offspring (including more abortions) will help too. Any kind of monetary discount for having children should be eliminated. How about even a kid tax or a procreation license (prove ability to raise responsibly & financially).
Excuse me for going way off-topic.
WS, the problem with those like O’Toole is that they make suburbs seem like very hostile places and there are hostile suburbs. Though suburbs can be walkable transit mixed friendly environments too, streetcar & railroad suburbs are a great examples of this. They weren’t really too planned they just sprung up, though there wasn’t the type the homogenized land use regulations that there are today.
Though there is a need that as cities expand with population, to keep open space/park land for wild life & people.
Scott:“ws, Did you forget what you previously questioned: “If development (urban sprawl) is so good for birds… how come many songbird species are in severe decline?—
ws: The crux of ROTs post is that development is good for birds. If this were true, how come we have developed greatly over the last 100 years (despite your 3% claim, which is irrelevant to the point) and seen decline in many songbird populations? If this relationship held true, as development increased birds populations would increase. However, many bird species have declined in numbers due to development (among other things).
Clearly in many aspects and examples, development may not be good. I mentioned that this post covers bird species in Seattle that converting a heavily wooded area into an open “meadow” (so to speak). Some birds may enjoy this as it adds biodiversity. However, if you completely remove the adjacent forest and remove that “edge” condition, that may be negative to birds species. Once again, this is one example in one ecological condition. We cannot make broad statements like this, ROT knows hes being misleading.
Scott:“You mention farms. Sure, that can hurt many animals, but you are going off-topic away from urban areas. Do you propose less farmland & therefore less people?”
ws:It’s not way off topic, ROT was talking about it. Yes, a farm can be beneficial in some cases to birds if it adds diversity to the existing landscape. However, having a monoculture running all the way up to the road where none of the native landscape is maintained is not going to be beneficial to many birds.
For instance, some animals thrive in urban conditions like squirrels. Are they better off in their native habitats? Maybe, but they do very well in urbanized areas. Different species do not interact well in these conditions.
Scott:“Elephants destroy trees in favor of grasses. So???”
ws:Because there are certain animal and plant species that need this type of landscape to survive. If the elephant goes away, Acacia trees (I believe) will take over and certain species will be rooted out whereas other species will flourish. This is not a judgment call stating that this is good or bad, but it shows the implications that JUST ONE species can have on the environment.
Relating this to your questioning of why bird species are important to save, some birds are KEYSTONE species – if they go away they could have a negative effect on unintended species. That is my justification for keeping the species alive. Somewhere down the line of affected species may be humans. Ya’ dig?
Scott:“A tribe burning grasses centuries ago is way outside the parameters of discussion, thus, no relevance.”
ws:It’s very relevant. Humans are keystone species in many regards. My example of the Native Americans in the Willamette Valley showed their importance in reshaping the landscape, to which many animal and plant species benefited from.
Apparently I need to give more examples of keystone species, because you are not understanding the relationship.
Scott:“It was minor, that birds can thrive in the suburbs. I think what he means, in a general sense, is that many claim that low density is almost devoid of nature (or similar). That is not true. Sure, there is less nature with human habitation, but that is unavoidable. There is even less nature in dense areas.”
My point regarding “nature and suburbs” was to comment on how the sprawl apologists always make this claim about suburbs being close to nature. I find this debases the entire meaning of “nature”, as the new developments in my area destroy the nice trees and put their ornamental non-native tree species that get 20 feet high and a patch of grass (maybe some beauty bark too!) and then call it “nature”. Then they have the balls to name the subdivision after the thing they destroyed: (Cedar Village, Deer Park, Forest Park, etc.). That’s the one that gets me really angry – it’s insulting to my intelligence.
The issue is not that it’s a man-made landscape, it’s the misrepresentation of this typology as being “leafy and green” and “natural” as compared to the city. Well, not in Portland, where they actually have trees in the city that get big, not to mention numerous large parks of contiguous forestland.
ws, You convinced me. Humans are bad & less important than other organisms.
Therefore, the US policy should be to sterilize everyone & disallow immigration.
In about 80 years, there will be no more humans, & complete nature can take over.
I never said humans are bad, in fact I gave an example of where human involvement enhanced the environment. I also stated that some farmland conversion of natural land (like ROT mentinoed), except monoculture farms, can be beneficial to bird populations. Clearly this hyperbole of yours is omission that you are ill-equipped to discuss the topic at hand.
ws, I gave up on discussion because your are being unreasonable & favor non-humans.
Us humans have to give other species their space too, it’s for our mutual benefit.
Though this is the same kind of bull shit you do against transit, you’re damn greedy!
highman, Your ideal of mutual benefit (how ?) to allow space for species has no connection with transit. It’s funny how you twist things, including greed, which you exhibit in wanting other people to pay for your transit; you are very selfish.
What ever turns you on Scott!
highman, What does do these issues have to w/”turn-ons”?
That is not an issue; you misdirect again to avoid your fallacious reasoning.
Your continually avoid the confrontation to your “take” on the issues, where you view is obliterated, w/ the facts & principles presented by me & others.
Please humor us. What is your place/role in society?
In other words, what is your occupation?
That is not necessarily relevant, but can lead to understanding your motivation & delusional views.
It’s never clear what your are motivated by [nor your desires], but it seems selfish, that you want mass transit to come to where you are & other areas where there is low density.
Highman, Let me guess: you are in prison & just trolling from a PC. You seem to have no concept of reality & just post randomness to create disagreement.
I’ve been away.
Marzluff was a prof of mine.
Randal’s assertions scaled up are bullsh–.
DS
Dan,
Please try some substance.
The label of BS has no meaning & shows you puerile (your words) tactics & lack of ability to communicate or to substantiate/have validity.
Most readers here could pummel you with insults, decrying your ignorance & lack of relevance, but “we’ (usually) address the issues with concrete facts & principles.
Do I need to be blunt?
What “assertions” by the anti-planner are inaccurate (or as you say “BS”)?
Let me try to preempt you from a red-herring:
Transit subsidies are mostly not justified.
The fact that some municipalities subsidize private development is a separate issue, and does not mean that gov should pay for everything.
As an analogy, the fact that our justice system put criminals in prison does not mean that gov should restrict all freedom.
Using one indicator to judge the health of ecosystems is the same thing as saying, oh, the clearing up of Scott’s pimple means he gets a clean bill of health. Everyone knows this is ridiculous.
That is: trumpeting this one indicator is ignorant or mendacious. IME the narrow demographic that adheres to the site’s preferred ideology is ignorant of the natural sciences. Not all, but most.
DS
What’s the one indicator for a healthy ecosystem?
Where did that topic come from?
Who made any assertion similar to “one thing is good, therefore the whole is good”?
You are commenting on a tangent of a tangent.
What’s IME? Ah, from your point of view, you admit “I Miss Everything.”
Do you really want to have an intellectual discussion?
You bring up all these things & non-sequiturs, yet you cannot elaborate, offer solutions, counter objections or explain your inconsistencies when questions are posed to you.
No, I’m not on a tangent. You aren’t smart enough to know the topic. Having an intellectual discussion would mean having a discussion without you in it.
[ignore]
DS