The Endangered Habitats League (EHL) is an organization established to instill widespread growth management, resource protection, and efficient patterns of development state-wide. At the same time, the EHL has numerous initiatives in progress in the Inland Empire, San Diego, Orange, and Los Angeles Counties to help protect the environment from development.
An ambitious Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan created by the County of Riverside is designed to protect more than 150,000 acres of pristine natural habitats. This project will ensure proper completion of protection plans and ultimately help to subsidize the protection of local and natural resources. This attempt to secure a stabilization of ecosystems will help to ward off further development in Greater Los Angeles. There is more being done to protect the wildlife from sprawl and it is helping to change the look of the landscape in regions impacted by sprawl. EHL, again within Riverside County, has made “compact Community Centers with ‘Transit Oases’ centerpieces of Riverside County's visionary Integrated Project, which combines land use, transportation and habitat planning.” (Endangered Habitats League) Not only does this planning approach benefit the lifestyles of people, it lessens the use of gas and cars, which in turn means fewer pollutants in the air due to sprawl. A collaborative effort in the Inland Empire is helping to secure a better ecosystem.
With the efforts of EHL in Los Angeles and Orange counties, the Nature Reserve of Orange County is able to make progress in connecting the coastal areas to the riparian foothill community to that of the Los Angeles National Forest. This process of connecting rural landscapes and natural ecosystems allowed the Los Angeles LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission) in 2005 to support the necessary litigation to help save critical wildlife corridors from development. (Endangered Habitats League) Also in Orange County, EHL formed “The Heart and Soul Coalition” to save vital portions of the historic 23,000-acre Rancho Mission Viejo, along with other sensitive areas. Collective agreements with landowners and developers allowed for ongoing ranching and future habitat restoration.
In northern Los Angeles County, EHL is working with other organizations to protect Tejon Ranch, where development threatens one of California’s most important landscapes. Wherever the Los Angeles landscape is being threatened by humans and ongoing development, EHL and other environmental organizations are there to combat sprawl and to protect wildlife communities.
Solutions to an Acute Problem
There are many solutions to harness sprawl in more environmentally conscious ways. For example, the city of Portland is at the forefront of sprawl control, green space, and sustainable design. Portland provides examples of what a city should be to keep its people in an urban area. Its well structured grid of streets and parks throughout its urban center show why Portland is able to keep people continually interested in remaining in the city. In order to encourage people to remain in cities across the United States, “at least 38 states have passed laws creating incentives for more compact development.” (Miller 103) For compact development around urban centers, it is necessary to designate an area or perimeter confining urban growth; another name for that is “Smart Growth.” Portland is a leader in “Smart Growth” which in 1973 was required to draw an urban-growth boundary around its metropolitan core to discourage dense development outside the line. “Then Portland enacted the Metro 2040 Growth Concept, a municipal document outlining how, and where, the region plans to grow into the middle of the twenty-first century, specifically developing mixed-use centers.” (Miller 100) Portland packs its urban development all within a regulated boundary and has achieved successful planning for the future. Efforts by Portland’s city government to secure regulation of urban growth and developing city-wide plans is reflected in similar efforts by the Los Angeles’ city government, as a “green” movement has swept across southern California. There are significant anti-sprawl plans currently slated for implementation in Los Angeles city’s government. Los Angeles is slowly trying to change its image as the epitome of sprawl. In October of 2008, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a “bill that will for the first time allow the state to use its transportation funds to reward plans that provide for housing near job centers and transit corridors and that slow the advance of urban sprawl.” (Wedner, Los Angeles Times) Essentially the bill is proposing more urban development in connection with transit-oriented development, in order to reduce the use of the automobile. The bill will also provide incentives to developers for using sustainable strategies in building high-density in transit-oriented development.
While not in the form of legislation, a concept developed by two Vancouver-based architects is encouraging for the future of urban smart growth that minimizes sprawl. Downtown Los Angeles has numerous skyscrapers amidst little open space in a concrete jungle, but one can envision the possibility of continuing the vertical growth pattern. This would relieve stress horizontally allowing for some areas to be used for urban renewal. It would make sense because it increases the density of downtown Los Angeles while increasing the amount of public space, thus creating a greater amount of land per resident in Los Angeles. Proposed by Mari Fujita and Matthew Soules of the University of British Columbia School of Architecture the idea is called EcoMetropolitanism. (Weder, The Tyee) It essentially states that America should build vertically in urban areas to relieve stress on our city perimeters that eats away at the environment. Bringing nature back into the urban centers of Los Angeles gives people the proximity to nature that they need. Just as nature is a necessity to social well-being, cities provide invaluable resources to lifestyles and a laboratory for innovative ideas. Cities have been in a battle between favoring sprawl over density and conformity over difference. Los Angeles is combating this problem with new sustainable urban development. “The Environmental Protection Agency says the city has the nation's most Energy Star buildings, which use at least 35 percent less energy than average buildings.” (Vincent, Los Angeles Times) EPA spokeswoman Maura Beard mentioned that "California often leads the country in being progressive in looking at the environment and looking at what they can do." An interesting notion is that most of the cities recognized last year by the EPA for energy efficient buildings were cities with significant sprawl occurring. These cities are trying to curb the effects of overgrown urban centers and suburban developments by incorporating innovative technology that in the long run helps the environment and potential growth of the cities. The use of government provided tax breaks or incentive can help in “[b]reaking the cycle of subsidies [to] help us curb suburban sprawl while also restraining population growth.” (Miller 163) Offering tax breaks and incentives was beneficial back in the mid-1950s to help pay off the war. Tax breaks continue to be a useful tool in spreading “Smart Growth” planning and development to create more innovative cities.
Conclusion
Los Angeles is a city ripe with opportunity to make beneficial changes to its landscape. People in Los Angeles are increasingly willing to do what is necessary to help improve the image of the city. This trend would help get the public behind an idea to change the landscape for the future of Los Angeles. When the future is contemplated, it is usually filled with robots, flying cars, and unattractive utopian outfits, but in twenty-five years Los Angeles will hopefully be the leader in environmental development. The city is already meeting regulations and enacting new ordinances to further the process of preserving what already exists and facilitating the best of what is yet to come. Sprawl and the tempering effect of the “green” movement have ignited a prodigious change on the Los Angeles landscape and across the United States. If the state and city government officials can follow through with their proposals of creating public spaces, improvements in public transportation, and the preservation of nature, then Los Angeles will become the epitome of environmentally-conscious sprawl.
As hard economic times currently continue to plague the country, sprawl may stall in many areas, but these downturns are cyclical. In essence, sprawl will once again reappear as one of our nation’s primary environmental problems as suburban developments continue to grow and populations move to cities that encroach on natural habitats. Residents of the Los Angeles area need to make tough decisions, ones that may significantly impact their lives and the environment, but those decisions would certainly benefit them and their families over the long run. No longer should people be thinking in a short-term manner, because society is a collective unit of individuals, all of whom can do something to make Los Angeles grow more efficiently, in a better, smarter, more nature-friendly way.
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18 March 2009
Wedner, Diane. “Governor Signs Bill That'll Help Slow Urban Sprawl.” Los Angeles Times 5 October 2008. 5 May 2009
