[HN Gopher] The new golden age of wildlife in New England
___________________________________________________________________
The new golden age of wildlife in New England
Author : nkurz
Score : 101 points
Date : 2022-04-19 13:48 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bostonglobe.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bostonglobe.com)
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| I don't like how they declare a golden age while native species
| are still endangered. It's like saying we're in a golden age of
| peace because we're fighting in less wars.
| frankbreetz wrote:
| This metaphor doesn't make sense to me. Isn't less war good for
| peace?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| If you have much less credit card debt than before and still
| have student loans to pay, would you declare yourself
| financially golden? Probably not.
| ejb999 wrote:
| better is still better.
| Tr3nton wrote:
| Any time a website greets me with a giant page-filling banner
| that I can't close, or they cut off the article after a few words
| in order to get me to sign up, I close the tab.
| mywacaday wrote:
| You can add to that the allow notifications dialog, has anybody
| ever clicked yes on one of those?
| simonsarris wrote:
| fyi in Chrome you can turn those off for all sites in the
| settings:
|
| chrome://settings/content/notifications
| ilamont wrote:
| I grew up outside of Boston in the 70s and 80s. Never saw a
| turkey, coyote, or bald eagle. I thought the latter were extinct
| east of the Mississippi.
|
| The Charles River was still a polluted mess from years of neglect
| and old industrial use. There was a derelict watch factory in
| Waltham next to the river, former vehicle assembly works in
| Watertown and Cambridge, and all kinds of old industrial sites
| further upriver. There's one section of Waltham Mass still called
| "the bleachery" which was the site of a dye factory, which, of
| course, emptied right into the Charles up until the 1950s.
|
| I live a few miles from my childhood home now. The factories are
| gone, and the riverside has mostly been cleaned up. I see all of
| these animals plus many more including foxes and waterfowl. At
| night we hear great horned owls and the yipping of a local coyote
| pack. There are news stories about bears making it to within
| route 128 (the innermost ring road) and even the outer reaches of
| Cape Cod, which requires crossing a major bridge.
| https://www.wbur.org/news/2012/05/31/cape-cod-bear-twitter
| jmalicki wrote:
| "which requires crossing a major bridge." - The biologist
| quoted in your linked article believes the bear likely swam
| across the canal.
| pridkett wrote:
| It's nice to see articles that help confirm some of my anecdotes.
| I live in Connecticut, and in the last year I've seen both a bear
| and a moose in my yard. And, it's not like I live somewhere crazy
| rural - I live on a 0.3 acre lot near UCONN. My neighbors, many
| of whom have been here for 50 years, comment about how many more
| eagles, ospreys, fishers, fox, and deer there are today. However,
| there hasn't been data to back up these anecdotes.
|
| For the most part, people enjoy it, but there's a growing cluster
| of outdoor house cat owners who are dismayed when nature does its
| thing and Sir Fluffsalot meets his end after an encounter with a
| fox or eagle.
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| > there's a growing cluster of outdoor house cat owners who are
| dismayed when nature does its thing and Sir Fluffsalot meets
| his end after an encounter with a fox or eagle.
|
| Here in Oregon - known for its thriving wildlife - the number 1
| complaint on Nextdoor is "coyote sighting, bring in your
| pets!".
| foobarian wrote:
| We're right outside Boston, and this spring was the first time
| we've had an owl hooting pretty much every night since March.
| terran57 wrote:
| > For the most part, people enjoy it, but there's a growing
| cluster of outdoor house cat owners who are dismayed when
| nature does its thing and Sir Fluffsalot meets his end after an
| encounter with a fox or eagle.
|
| Outdoor cats do far more damage to wildlife populations than
| they receive.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife
| is_true wrote:
| Cats shouldn't be allowed outside. My neighbor has a cat and it
| always shit on my lawn and if it find something soft it
| scratches
| uptime wrote:
| New Haven, CT has seen a bear in a public park, lots of foxes
| and turkeys and deer. I've heard of wildcats a little further
| out. Also agree that housecats need to stay indoors to stop
| killing birds. We built an enclosure for ours to be outside but
| not freeranging.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/vR1G6
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Yeah I wouldn't be proud of having all those deer given how large
| of a vector they are for ticks...
| kibwen wrote:
| Reducing deer populations doesn't actually reduce the spread of
| Lyme disease, unless you completely eradicate all deer. Ticks
| get Lyme from feeding on mice, the deer is just one part of
| their life cycle.
| BostonEnginerd wrote:
| I hope that the insect and bird populations also start to
| recover. We don't see that many bugs in the Boston area, and the
| cities spray mosquito fog every summer because of EEE.
|
| Our birds of prey in Eastern MA are being impacted by rat poison
| - they eat rats which have been poisoned.
|
| Certainly there are improvements, and we should celebrate those.
| But we should also recognize that there's a way to go.
| thehappypm wrote:
| As someone who lives just outside of 95, I assure you, the bugs
| are doing just fine.
| kibwen wrote:
| In Boston I do see a fair number of birds of prey. Most
| memorably I was biking along the Charles in Cambridgeport and
| stopped to observe one (a falcon, maybe?) feasting on a
| squirrel not five feet from the path, unperturbed by the
| passers-by.
| fatnoah wrote:
| I've seen red-tailed hawks, bald eagles, and peregrine
| falcons in downtown Boston. One of the coolest things I've
| seen was a hawk gliding down the bike path about 6 inches
| from the ground near a large playground, as it tried to sneak
| up on some squirrels. It did the nap of the earth flight for
| a couple hundred feet and then pounced on a squirrel. It was
| utterly unperturbed by the foot traffic around it.
|
| I also lived in a high-rise, and a peregrine falcon used a
| ledge outside of my son's bedroom window as a perch to launch
| attacks on pigeons and seagulls.
|
| And then there was that time a coyote was spotted in the
| North End:
| https://patch.com/massachusetts/charlestown/coyote-
| spotted-i...
| jakedata wrote:
| I live northwest of Boston, bordering a wildlife refuge. I refuse
| to have cameras inside my house but the woods around it are well
| instrumented. I have many video clips documenting everything from
| 'buns' to bobcats, coyotes, foxes, and of course deer.
|
| With regard to outdoor cats, they wouldn't last a fortnight
| around here. Too many predators now and I am thankful for that.
| As a result, the bird population borders on riotous in the
| spring.
|
| I expect that we will see a bear before too long.
|
| -edit- oh, but those ticks... I have a jumpsuit treated with
| permethrin for working out back.
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| > I refuse to have cameras inside my house...
|
| For any purpose?
| NoSorryCannot wrote:
| It's implied that they meant surveillance cameras.
| jakedata wrote:
| Indeed, that was poorly phrased.
| pcmaffey wrote:
| Now time to reintroduce wolves.
|
| (Will also help with the tick epidemic.)
| shippintoboston wrote:
| I also live in Boston and my poor dog got hounded by those
| ticks. I assume it wolves eating deers is what would help
| with that?
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| For peopled areas, chickens do an amazing job clearing the
| ticks. They mainly need somewhere to sleep safely at night
| and can take care of themselves in groups during the day.
| flint wrote:
| Untill the hawk population recovers
| exolymph wrote:
| We have chickens, living on the edge of a regional park
| where the hawks thrive. They are reluctant to hunt near
| the house, probably mainly because the low tree cover
| severely limits their maneuverability.
| harpersealtako wrote:
| that's what the guard dogs and guinea fowl are for
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| >guinea fowl
|
| Forgive my ignorance, do they keep the hawks at bay by
| alarming every time there's danger? Cause I can't imagine
| the ones we have here fighting off anything
| dugmartin wrote:
| It is nice but I could do without the bear that demolished our
| compost bin in the backyard twice last week (I live in town in a
| small village in Western Massachusetts). Seeing bald eagles fly
| right over your head with a fish they just caught in the
| Deerfield River is pretty cool though.
| marstall wrote:
| NB: the photographer, John Tlumacki, won a Pulitzer Prize for the
| images he captured in the moments after the Marathon bombings!
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| For animals, sure, things are pretty good.
|
| For plants things kinda suck. Lots of invasive species have taken
| root over the last 200yr and are holding down native species.
| jmclnx wrote:
| I do not know why you were down-voted, but this is true. I
| those invasive vines I would see everywhere in the deep south
| are starting to appear here. Probably due to climate change.
| Never mind about the various water plants coking out native
| water plants.
| formerkrogemp wrote:
| Hydrilla verticellata, Lemna minor, and phragmites are coming
| for your cattails and Elodea :(. All of the poor fish will
| not survive.
| driverdan wrote:
| Also disease and blights have decimated certain trees like Elm
| and Chestnut.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| A cultural shift towards eating invasive species or both flora
| and fauna would really help. Use that human tendency to cause
| extirpation for good.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| That works for animals to a degree but you can't eat chestnut
| blight.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| About half of the trees in a New England forest are "invasive."
| They've been here so long someone like me doesn't even know
| what's natural and what isn't.
|
| Earthworms are also invasive in New England. They're
| everywhere, ubiquitous, and apparently the natural forest
| doesn't have them.
| kibwen wrote:
| Earthworms would have once been native to New England, they
| were just killed by the advancing glaciers of the pleistocene
| epoch, which ended 12,000 years ago. They've been advancing
| northward slowly ever since (though other species were
| brought by colonists).
| francisofascii wrote:
| I was visiting Boston this past weekend for the marathon. Saw two
| turkeys on separate days in the Lexington area near Minute Man
| park. I was really cool for a tourist like me and added to the
| Thanksgiving/colonial vibe.
| mcdonje wrote:
| Habitat is the major factor for wildlife populations.
|
| In 1900, Vermont was 30% forested after settlers cut down the
| forests for wood, farmland, and mining. Now, Vermont is over 70%
| forested. Tax structure is a large factor, but certainly not the
| only one.
|
| Unfortunately, the trend is reversing. Sprawl is a factor. Dense
| cities matter.
|
| https://www.uvm.edu/news/story/report-vermont-losing-1500-ac...
| helen___keller wrote:
| In a perfect world, we would have dense cities, we would have
| wild land that belongs to nature, and we would have farmland;
| and most land would fall into one of these classifications.
| While we might see "market share" fluctuate between these, a
| relatively stable population guarantees that we would not see a
| huge loss of wild land.
|
| In reality, every state, every city, and every town are in a de
| facto competition for tax dollars, and there is no central
| planning. So instead of adding dense housing to desirable
| Burlington, we clearcut forests or replace farmland to add low
| density housing 10 miles away in a subdivision near Shelburne.
| That family that was charmed to move to Vermont by the shops on
| Bank st will end up driving to the nearby big box store in
| Shelburne instead. The traffic will get worse, local farmland
| starts disappearing because suburban land is more valuable on a
| square foot basis, and once all the farms are gone the process
| begins again another 5-10 miles out.
|
| It's a vicious cycle, and it creates an ecosystem where most
| people can't even enjoy the city they came to love in the first
| place because they live miles and miles away (and good luck
| with traffic and parking)
| dahfizz wrote:
| > That family that was charmed to move to Vermont by the
| shops on Bank st will end up driving to the nearby big box
| store in Shelburne instead.
|
| Frankly, I don't think this happens with any frequency.
|
| The thing that makes Burlington so nice is how quiet, clean,
| and spacious it is. Nobody moves to Burlington expecting it
| to be NYC. If you try to make Burlington into NYC, you will
| ruin it.
|
| People move to VT to be in nature. To be spread out. And it's
| a nice benefit that they can visit a cool, small city every
| once in a while.
| helen___keller wrote:
| > People move to VT to be in nature. To be spread out.
|
| This describes the vast majority of Vermont, but not
| Burlington. It's not NYC but it's also not Montpelier and
| it's definitely not Stowe.
|
| Burlington is the "small city" for people who want
| everything local - local brewers, local farms, co-ops and
| farmer's markets, etc.
|
| I'm not suggesting that Burlington should build highrises
| everywhere. I'm suggesting that the building forms that
| already exist in downtown Burlington - tightly packed 2-4
| story buildings - should perhaps continue a little further
| out. It's possible to have urbanism that isn't Manhattan.
|
| With unchecked suburban sprawl, Burlington is going to
| become the opposite of what it represents now - generic big
| box stores and chains.
| dont__panic wrote:
| Precisely. Just look at what's happening to the Front
| Range in Colorado -- Boulder and Fort Collins
| specifically -- for a peek at the future of Burlington.
| m0llusk wrote:
| Competition can't be it because sprawl is terribly
| uncompetitive by almost any metric. It seems more like there
| is a large skew between what people think will make them
| happy and what actually does work out to produce happiness.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| >between what people think will make them happy and what
| actually does work out to produce happiness.
|
| People aren't all the same some like having a yard, a
| garden, and no people living right next to their walls.
| helen___keller wrote:
| Right, there's a LOT of rural and semi-rural places in
| Vermont already if you aren't a fan of cities. In
| particular though, we're seeing subdivisions of housing
| sprout up in municipalities neighboring Burlington,
| typical suburban developments that prey off the desire to
| live in/near the city but avoid the high city prices (And
| the high city prices stem from the fact that the city
| itself, already more or less "fully" developed, has no
| incentives to upzone and plan for growth)
|
| For example, take this listing
| https://www.zillow.com/community/kwiniaska-
| ridge/29091765_pl...
|
| Look at the descriptions used to sell it:
|
| > Just minutes from the lake and downtown Burlington you
| have everything you need and already do.
|
| This isn't aimed at people looking to escape the city.
| This is aimed at people looking to buy into the city at a
| lower price point.
| nerdponx wrote:
| That or it's aimed at people trying to have it both ways.
|
| I know a couple of people like this, they claim they want
| to get out of the city, but also aren't willing to live
| more than 5 minutes from a supermarket. The result is a
| compromise: suburban sprawl.
| mcdonje wrote:
| Having it both ways is best serviced by cities that
| reduce sprawl. If you want to be where things are
| happening, it's right there. If you want nature, it's
| just outside of the city. Sprawl creates miles and miles
| of area that isn't nature and isn't the center of
| activity. It's a huge amount of infrastructure for a
| design pattern that has a lot of environmental downsides
| and doesn't help most people.
| helen___keller wrote:
| It's a local optimum. Wealthy suburbs are better than small
| farms for tax dollars. There's lots of demand for housing
| due to a neighboring municipality's desirability
| (Burlington, VT). Ergo, it's worth replacing small farms
| with suburbs that supply this demand.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >and every town are in a de facto competition for tax
| dollars,
|
| So (mostly) turn off the faucet and make everywhere pay
| closer to their own way.
|
| Not getting $1-$1.10 back on the dollar isn't gonna bankrupt
| rural areas. It just means you the yuppies will have to
| suffer through the state highway to the u-pick orchard being
| replaced every 12yr instead of 10.
|
| The whole "pay taxes and then let whoever you paid them to
| give you them back with strings attached about exactly how
| you use it" model and designing to qualify for funding that
| said model incentivizes is exactly how you wind up with
| boondoggle sprawl. If places were using their own money
| things would look very different.
| banannaise wrote:
| Urban spending is disproportionately police. If each area
| pays their own way, urban areas get basically nothing but a
| ton of police. Then the cops, who live in the suburbs, take
| that money (and its potential tax revenue) elsewhere.
|
| You will note that this is already a problem, because we
| already have a partial pay-your-own-way system.
| ejb999 wrote:
| >>Urban spending is disproportionately police.
|
| I don't think that is even close to true, NYC latest
| budget for example is $92.3B (2022), Police got $5.42B,
| about accounts for ~6% of the total.
|
| Education, social services and 'other' account for almost
| 70% of the total.
|
| https://council.nyc.gov/budget/wp-
| content/uploads/sites/54/2...
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| > Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the
| community.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| > Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the
| community.
|
| Since when is "the community" roughly analogous to
| "yuppies" and since when is being a yuppie a bad thing?
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| At least some would identify with the lifestyle, etc you
| deemed "yuppie". You understand what you are doing with
| comments like that, it's divisive and not productive.
|
| Edit: I won't edit my comment to better address your
| comment since you edited after I responded.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Surely _some_ identify as yuppies but I think that 's
| immaterial here. Yuppie isn't a slur. It's a colloquial
| expression for a set of demographics.
|
| You know what's divisive and not productive? Drive-by low
| effort comments quoting the guidelines and projecting
| offense on other's behalf.
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| You are intentionally being obtuse and abrasive, please
| reconsider.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Are you kidding? It's been a slur for a long time and you
| were clearly using it as one.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Dense areas generally subsidize sparse areas.
| mcdonje wrote:
| Yes. Cities should build up instead of out. That means
| changing building codes and zoning laws to reduce
| restrictions on building heights. It also means investing in
| transportation that can move people around with less space,
| like light rail.
|
| Refusing to build up will lead to sprawl. Car-centric
| transportation infrastructure will lead to sprawl and traffic
| jams. Sprawl a bad scenario for everyone, including car
| lovers.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Building up destroys the desirability of places. No-one
| wants to live in cypherpunk environments. See
| https://www.clemensgritl.com/video
| SwetDrems wrote:
| Building up doesn't mean building a cypherpunk
| environment.
|
| Building 4/5 story buildings with units for families is
| enough for healthy urbanization.
| ericmay wrote:
| I agree, but would probably place residential height
| limit around 3 stories (jump out of the window rule), and
| then for things like hospitals you can go a little taller
| maybe up to 20 stories.
|
| We have a serious problem in talking past each other
| though. When people talk about building density the
| conversation starts around skyscrapers (bad) like Hong
| Kong or something, but what we need is just medium-
| density, mixed use development so lots of single family
| homes, narrow streets, walking/biking, and of course town
| houses and apartments so we can get variety _and_ mixed
| income levels living in the same place. The rich family
| has the giant house on the corner. The young couple fresh
| out of school lives in an apartment down the street. They
| see each other every day at the coffee shop or at the
| park in the neighborhood, or maybe even a local church,
| gym, or office.
|
| And in building this way we can weave in healthy natural
| aspects, trees, flowers, gardens, etc. and animals that
| are better adapted for these environments can live or
| "visit" these areas. Then as you get further away from
| this town/city you just get more and more hills and
| countryside and independent farms.
|
| We know how to do this. We choose not to. It's not
| profitable for Mercedes if we all walk to work. It's not
| profitable for Conagra if we grow our produce or buy from
| an independent farmer. Not that these companies are
| necessarily (although sometimes they are) evil or
| anything, it's just an incentives alignment. And
| unfortunately government officials literally just do not
| understand what we need to do, so they're like empty
| vessels chasing things like Sidewalk Labs in Toronto or
| the Smart Cities Challenge in Columbus where all it
| amounts to is a corporate handout because the only way to
| solve a lot of the problems we have is just to build
| correctly. No amount of EVs fixes our problems (I have an
| EV btw). What does fix our problems is when families have
| 1 car per family instead of 2-4, and 90% of their day-to-
| day activities are within a short walking distance. We
| need a lot less of this giant SUV to Costco 30 miles away
| because you're cosplaying living in nature attitude.
|
| This is what an appropriately dense city looks like:
|
| https://twitter.com/trad_arch_bdays/status/15171411856676
| 003...
|
| This is what a correct neighborhood looks like:
|
| https://i.pinimg.com/originals/37/9b/26/379b266652e0a2013
| c0c...
|
| This is an anti-pattern. It's devoid of life.
|
| https://facts.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/edward-he-
| uKyzX...
|
| This is also absolutely dead. There is no nature here.
|
| http://media.beam.usnews.com/70/0d/89b92a674c3b894107a036
| 41e...
|
| Idk what it looks like yet but I'm going to figure out a
| way to fix this.
| helen___keller wrote:
| Also, FWIW, the anti-pattern (shanghai skyline) is the
| central business district of one of the most populated
| cities on earth (30+ million people). It wouldn't make
| sense to propose buildings anywhere that scale anywhere
| but a handful of very rich cities.
|
| Even in Shanghai there's plenty of neighborhoods full of
| life at a human-appropriate scale. Just not at city
| center.
| ericmay wrote:
| Right - but I think when we have these conversations
| people envision being "forced" to live in something that
| resembles that central business district, and I want to
| make it clear to others that at least in the interest
| circles I run in, this would be considered a bad idea
| too.
|
| I question whether we should even have cities with 30
| million people. That's probably a problem too. People
| like to point to what appears to be lower c02 emissions,
| but that's not the only metric that matters. Metrics that
| I care about would be something like independent farmers
| per-capita, bikes per-capita, distance of travel for
| produce, etc.
| helen___keller wrote:
| Right on
|
| > People like to point to what appears to be lower c02
| emissions, but that's not the only metric that matters.
|
| On that note, central business districts & skyscrapers
| aren't actually that great environmentally, although the
| city model as a whole is much better environmentally than
| their suburban counterparts.
|
| And it's certainly possible to build a dense, urban city
| housing even millions of people without a massive central
| business district. I think, more than anything, the
| central business district is an artifact of how we
| organize ourselves economically (IE the economy is
| dominated by relatively few massive corporations). This
| is harder to change but certainly not impossible.
| ericmay wrote:
| Yes! I think it's a historical anomaly, product of nation
| states which we are just now (or perhaps we just were)
| winding down from. WW1 and WW2 begot General Electric,
| The European Union, IBM, the Chinese Communist Party, and
| the Central Business District which were needed to create
| the organizational scale and ability to conduct war on
| the nation state level.
|
| When people left the military they went to familiar
| environments. You "paid your dues" just like a private
| did. You stayed with the same company. Etc. But that's
| all changing. Historically that was not the case (well
| historically we didn't really have companies for that
| long, but you get the point). So I think we will revert
| to a more natural flow, which is more decentralization
| and fragmentation. I think this is inevitable, but I
| wish/hope/want to avoid the waste of resources in
| creating these things in the first place.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| You paint a very inviting image, that makes a lot of
| sense - until you realise that low-income, three-story
| living units often looks more like
|
| https://www.fotocommunity.de/photo/plattenbau-dessau-
| tobias-...
|
| ... which clearly is not what encourages building a
| community like you imagine.
|
| Before someone comes and says that I picked the worst
| image I could find ... nope. This is the standard for
| "affordable multi-story apartment housing" in my rather
| affluent country. In many parts we actively demolish them
| because no-one wants to live there (location is often
| semi-suburban) and because they are breed a social-
| problem-area.
| ericmay wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. We should stop building bullshit
| like that (i.e. modern style that is soulless and devoid
| of humanity) and instead just build great looking
| apartments. Typically people will say "oh but that's so
| expensive look at how much these cost" but they're
| expensive because we don't build them, and they are
| highly desirable.
|
| These are just some random examples in Paris. We should
| build more like this. We can. There are no barriers.
| None.
|
| https://bonjourparis.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2016/03/Montmart...
|
| https://www.girlsguidetoparis.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2014/08...
| lovich wrote:
| I kinda want to live in a cyberpunk environment but I
| also don't have kids which makes that an easier choice.
| My spouse and I take our vacations in dense urban centers
| instead of tropical or rural destinations precisely
| because we like the culture and energy of super high
| density environments
| L_Rahman wrote:
| If this is true, why do the cities with the tallest
| buildings have the highest cost per unit area of housing
| and commercial real estate, population density and GDP
| per capita?
| DocTomoe wrote:
| These "tallest buildings" usually are not mass-available
| apartment buildings - they are mostly office buildings
| and house few, exclusive apartments. Once you pack
| thousands of people into flats in such buildings, the
| appeal shrinks, quickly.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Cities should build up instead of out. That means changing
| building codes and zoning laws to reduce restrictions on
| building heights."
|
| I'll probably be hated for this, as usual... You also have
| to have people who _want_ to live there. Personal
| preferences and overall population seem to be important
| factors overlooked (or conveniently ignored) by many during
| these conversations. It 's more convenient to focus solely
| on zoning.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The great thing about libertarian arguments is that the
| liberty is a built-in safety valve. We can say all we
| want about how dense cities are better, but as long as
| we're saying "quit zoning for suburban development and
| let people decide for themselves how high of a floor they
| want to live on," and not, "drive humanity by threat of
| force into towering Warhammer-40k-esque hive cities,"
| there's very little chance of accidentally walking into a
| nightmare. If we're accomplishing it with liberty, we
| retain the ability to walk out.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'm not talking about forcing people. I'm saying even if
| zoning is changed to higher density, demand will still
| see more sprawling sfh development because that is what
| many people want. So the higher density zoning isn't
| going to prevent additional development of natural areas
| (in the context of the article).
| whatshisface wrote:
| If anyone wants to live in the high rises, each one of
| them is one less house in the sprawl. I'm not saying that
| everyone will decide they like city life better, only
| that some people will and it will help the situation.
| That _may_ even be enough to stop the extinctions.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "each one of them is one less house in the sprawl."
|
| Sure, maybe it slows it. But that's also less
| competition, which means the supply-demand equilibrium
| will shift so that when people who want to live in low
| density areas can have larger lots and houses. Pretty
| much offsetting the choices of the others.
|
| Not to mention any increase in population will lead to
| increase in resource utilization, thus increase in
| natural resource exploitation.
| helen___keller wrote:
| > Sure, maybe it slows it.
|
| correct. You can't stop sprawl just by upzoning, but
| maybe you can slow it. It takes a suite of urban planning
| effort to really combat sprawl, and allowing people to
| construct and live in dense neighborhoods of their own
| free will is just the first baby step in that direction.
|
| > the supply-demand equilibrium will shift [..] Pretty
| much offsetting the choices of the others.
|
| There's no basis for this statement. It sounds like
| you're suggesting that farmland and woods already don't
| exist, so if people move into dense regions, then we're
| just shuffling the remaining land zero-sum among those
| who would prefer not to live in the city.
|
| There are, in fact, plenty of places that haven't yet
| been taken over by humans. And when people looking to
| move to a city can move _to the city_ , companies are
| less incentivized to develop and subdivide 20 miles from
| the city.
|
| So, it's not zero sum. Allowing more people to live in
| the city decreases the demand for development out of the
| city.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _You can 't stop sprawl just by upzoning, but maybe you
| can slow it._
|
| Population growth appears to be leveling off globally,
| which implies that if sprawl was slowed enough it could
| be stopped completely.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "There's no basis for this statement."
|
| Basic economics, really.
|
| "There are, in fact, plenty of places that haven't yet
| been taken over by humans."
|
| That's shrinking rapidly. You could watch A Life On This
| Planet for some insight on the scope of
| development/utilization.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I'd have no problem living in dense housing if codes
| mandated _GOOD_ noise insulation. So many apartment walls
| seem to be made out of cardboard, it 's ridiculous.
| helen___keller wrote:
| I think most places with this sort of zoning discussion
| (cities) have no shortage of demand for housing
| giantg2 wrote:
| It can vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. It depends
| on what type of demand there is too (sfh vs apt, etc).
|
| If the majority of people had a preference for condos,
| then we wouldn't see large single family homes being
| developed. Even in areas where zoning is more lax (many
| suburbs).
| tomtheelder wrote:
| Suburbs have some of the strictest zoning, frequently
| mandating SFH, often with even more extreme requirements
| stacked on top of that (lot sizes, height restrictions,
| etc). Our R1 housing supply is artificially high because
| of zoning restrictions. Suburbs with lax zoning tend to
| see a lot of condo development.
|
| But in a general sense you don't actually see massive SFH
| sprawl when you don't have R1 zoning. You tend to get
| denser areas, often with a belt of SFH around them.
| Realistically that's fine, and is a model that works
| around the world.
|
| Also, housing trends just have a lot of inertia. It takes
| decades of policy change to alter the landscape. Much of
| the US was either zoned R1 or build up that way because
| of social and political forces that aren't necessarily
| relevant any more, but moving away from that is a glacial
| process.
| helen___keller wrote:
| > If the majority of people had a preference for condos,
| then we wouldn't see large single family homes being
| developed
|
| I'm saying that these sort of zoning discussions are most
| common in areas that are (a) very high demand broadly
| across the entire housing stock, and (b) very restrictive
| on what can be built where
|
| For example, I live in Cambridge, MA. There is a critical
| housing shortage. There is very little choice in what
| gets developed; development generally only happens if you
| have a large team to push the development through the
| necessary approvals and reviews, such as telling the
| zoning board that if they allow your non-compliant
| building then you'll sponsor a park and set aside 10% of
| your units as income restricted. Even the existing
| structures tend to be "illegal" because they were
| grandfathered in from the 1920s or earlier, when zoning
| did not exist. The only new developments that meet this
| bar are ultra expensive condo buildings and offices.
|
| Whether the demand exists is not in question. Whatever
| gets built, people will live in it. But there is very
| much a question of what is allowed to be built. Some
| people want more condo buildings. Some people say it
| ruins the neighborhood character. But whether a condo
| building can find residents isn't really in question.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "But whether a condo building can find residents isn't
| really in question."
|
| That wasn't questioned. It was questioned if zoning will
| actually prevent development of natural lands. Unless
| _everyone_ want to live in high density housing, there
| would be a point where additional condos would not find
| willing tenants (much higher than current levels for some
| localities).
|
| The point is there are a significant portion of the
| population that want low density housing and the sprawl
| will continue.
|
| And on the overall population side, increasing resource
| demand will continue to tax the natural world. We will
| need more land for feeding/clothing/etc the increasing
| population.
| lovich wrote:
| You've got a point on there being a demand for low
| density housing but wouldn't zoning be able to prevent
| the sprawl the same way it's currently encouraging it?
| They could easily(for certain values of easy, it's
| probably politically infeasible) zone land as not
| developable
| giantg2 wrote:
| There are places that zone for conservation. There are
| also organizations that buy land and place deed
| restrictions against developing it, then resell it.
|
| There are areas around me that do these as well as allow
| for high density housing. These areas are suburbs, small
| towns, and small cities in the Philly region. We still
| have sprawl, and prices are relatively high. Even though
| it's possible to build high density housing in many
| areas, most people don't. They can get more for large sfh
| since there's a lot of demand for that. There are some
| apartments and condos being built, but it seems most of
| them are pretty expensive or upscale. So even though the
| zoning is permissive, sfh are the primary construction
| due to preferences. The conservation can also inflate
| prices by restricting supply and introducing regulations
| to deal with.
|
| Just an aside on the regulations... some of them can be
| extremely stupid, like a prohibition on impermeable
| surfaces being interpreted to include stuff like
| _gravel_. If gravel is an impermeable surface, then maybe
| we can take the regulator to the desert and pour their
| water on some gravel and come back in a few days...
| 7952 wrote:
| In addition to dense cities suburban areas could have more
| natural planting instead of dead lawns.
| dhairya wrote:
| Cambridge and Boston are fantastic for spring migration birding
| and fall migration birding, especially Mount Auburn Cemetery in
| Cambridge. There's a resident barred owl and red tail that swoops
| in quite close when walking about.
| https://ebird.org/hotspot/L207391
|
| If you are taking a day hike in the Blue Hills, take main road
| before the hill summit to right for about a mile to the trailside
| museum. I discovered by accident and it's super cool as it has a
| public wildlife sanctuary attached with foxes, otters, eagles,
| snowy owls and other cool animals.
| abakker wrote:
| Yes...but, the deer population is out of control and demand
| greater reintroduction of predators.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03781...
|
| The issue is that deer effect forest regeneration, and there
| needs to be an increase in seedlings to keep the habitat healthy.
| Deer definitely effect oak trees, and so the forest makeup in
| places like CT is shifting to more maple and less oak. As a
| result it makes it harder for other species that depend on mast
| trees for food.
|
| The solution isn't for us to just exterminate deer, but we need
| to be careful about that population growing out of control.
| mcdonje wrote:
| Deer like the edges of forests. Lots of wildlife departments
| purposely shape forests to have more edge areas in order to
| increase the deer population so they can sell more hunting
| licenses.
| fryz wrote:
| It's cool to see some commentary regarding how hunters and
| federal policy helped (and hurt).
|
| The National Wild Turkey Foundation is solely responsible for the
| reintroduction of the turkey across most of the entire US. The
| entire purpose of the mission was to bring wild turkey
| populations up for hunting, and that hunters would be the best
| way to conserve and manage the population.
|
| An excellent podcast done by Steve Rinella (another
| hunter/conservationist, famous for his Meat Eater TV Show) about
| the topic:
| https://www.themeateater.com/listen/meateater/ep-104-turks.
|
| From the episode: the way the NWTF and DOW people captured Wild
| Turkeys was to design a gun that could shoot webs, capture the
| turkeys, throw them into a van, and drive them out and drop them
| off in the woods in another state.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| Piggybacking off this.
|
| If anyone reading this has the gut reaction that hunting and
| conservation don't go hand in hand, please listen to Steve
| Rinella and Shane Mahoney's podcast episodes about the North
| American Model of Wildlife Conservation.[0][1]
|
| As an American, it is a huge source of pride.
|
| [0] https://www.themeateater.com/listen/the-hunting-
| collective-2...
|
| [1] https://www.themeateater.com/listen/the-hunting-
| collective-2...
| rupi wrote:
| Second this one. Absolutely amazing listen, especially if you
| grew up thinking hunters just go around shooting anything
| that moves, which admittedly, I did.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| > gun that could shoot webs, capture the turkeys, throw them
| into a van, and drive them out and drop them off in the woods
| in another state
|
| Sounds like one hell of a gun.
| larrik wrote:
| Hunters were the bulk of the original conversation/nature
| pushes historically, since they want lots of outdoor space and
| large animal populations. They bumped heads a bit with
| preservationists, but at the time most people felt nature was
| something to be conquered or done away with in the pursuit of
| progress (up until shockingly recently, frankly).
| meroes wrote:
| Conservation of what and for whom? In England the hunting
| land was for the royalty. Anyone caught in royal hunting
| grounds was severely punished and probably executed for
| hunting.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Judging by the flat green lawns and lack of trees in most
| suburbs in New England, I get the impression that a lot of
| people still feel that way.
| larrik wrote:
| This sounds more like new developments (where they level
| the land before building anything). Most older
| neighborhoods are much more diverse.
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| Flat lawns and few trees doesn't sound like any New England
| I'm familiar with.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Certainly not in rural Maine or Vermont, but huge tracts
| of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut are like
| this.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Where? I grew up in the coastal area of MA, most of the
| yards had trees as far as I remember. Is this a Middle
| Mass thing?
|
| I'd believe they clear cut their yards in Connecticut,
| but that's just because Connecticut is devoted to doing
| things as wrong as possible while still being part of New
| England.
| ericmay wrote:
| Yea but it's also because people aren't able to connect the
| dots. Like I live in the suburbs in Ohio, I want to
| preserve nature, but I'm kind of trapped in my environment.
| We've planted trees, we do gardening, and we're adding
| plants that attract pollinators, but there's only so much
| we can do.
| foobarian wrote:
| I don't know which part of New England you live in but the
| part I see is the most tree-lined residential area on the
| globe.
| flyingfences wrote:
| > funding the recovery of the game species through the sale of
| licenses, tags, and stamps, as well as a 1937 federal law that
| placed an 11 percent excise tax on hunting weapons, including
| guns, ammunition, and archery equipment.
|
| The Pittman-Robertson tax raises nearly a billion dollars a year
| for conservation and wildlife management.
| Finnucane wrote:
| This is us:
|
| https://xkcd.com/1871/
| jmclnx wrote:
| Where I am, there were lots of buns, plus song birds. But 3
| neighbors got cats and they let them out all the time, after 6
| months the bunnies and song birds are now all gone.
|
| I wish NE would do what I heard New Zealand is now doing,
| forcing people to keep their cats indoors.
|
| But nice cartoon, I do not know how I missed it, I read xkcd
| daily.
| rory wrote:
| Conversely, my neighborhood on Cape Cod is absolutely overrun
| by bunnies, to the point where we could probably use a few
| cats to keep things in balance.
|
| Things used to be more reasonable, but as more people started
| living here full time, it seems the foxes were pushed back
| out of the immediate neighborhood.
|
| Disturbingly, our dogs have a knack for finding nests and
| tossing around the baby bunnies, apparently without any
| intention to kill and eat them. They sound EXACTLY like
| squeak toys.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Boston does have a lot of good buns
|
| Randall also lives in MA I believe so yeah it's also him
| nerdponx wrote:
| The Boston North Shore suburbs seem to have so many more
| bunnies than other similar areas in the northeast. Different
| climate? Lack of predators? Better food?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| They're not supposed to be there. They were introduced a
| hundred years ago and are competing with the native cotton
| tail.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_cottontail
| nerdponx wrote:
| Interesting, I assumed they _were_ the native cottontail!
| Is there a reliable way to tell them apart?
|
| Edit: Wikipedia says that they are morphologically almost
| identical. Is the species distinction just a matter of
| genetics at this point? Normally I am bothered by
| invasive species, but somehow this doesn't seem to be
| such a problem, if you literally can't tell them apart
| without molecular analysis or looking at minor
| differences in their skulls.
|
| I am aware that similar situations have happened with
| house sparrows and starlings, where they have so
| successfully outcompeted the natives that you would think
| they were the native dominant species. At least starlings
| are easy to identify and can't be confused with anything
| native, but I don't think I could tell apart the
| different sparrows.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Sparrows are easier to differentiate by their
| vocalizations (mostly). Many have a species-distinct
| opening to their song.
|
| Different species of sparrow also occupy different
| habitat, and fill somewhat different ecological niches.
|
| I'm less familiar with rabbit vocalizations. :)
| oneoff786 wrote:
| They can honk a bit when excited or growl. Probably won't
| see a wild rabbit doing any of that.
| Finnucane wrote:
| ehh, what's up, doc.
| lovich wrote:
| Rat extermination efforts have also removed a predator.
| When rats are abundant they will wipe out rabbits as they
| will enter their warrens and prey on the rabbit kits. I
| was in Somerville when they broke ground on the green
| line expansion which drove the rats that had been nesting
| in untouched government land for years into the
| neighborhood. Over the course of ~2 months we went from
| rabbits everywhere to them becoming locally extinct and
| having been replaced by rats
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I live a little south of Boston. In the spring I often get large
| rafters (herds) of turkeys on my lawn. Sometimes there are 30 or
| more going through my neighborhood.
|
| My 1-year-old loves staring at the window and pointing at the
| toms (males) with their giant plumes. They look like peacocks
| when they spread their tail feathers out to attract a hen. I have
| to sit my daughter at the window while we eat breakfast because
| she just has to stare at them.
|
| Apparently turkeys prefer to mate in fields, so they like doing
| their thing on lawns. Good to know that at least something wile
| benefits from mine.
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