Suburban development is a democratic and environmental issue

Since I created this blog I've been unsure about the focus and how much time I could put into it.   I wanted to focus on local issues and to show the local aspects of global issues, but it has been easier to write about national and international policies.  It seems like it is easier to find information online about issues at those scales and the political lines often seem clearer.  For example, I think it is clear that the US is treating detainees wrongly and illegally and that very few people benefit from the unjust and illegal Iraq War.  These issues are covered in many other places on the Net, so it is more useful and unique to look at local issues.  Supposedly 'all politics is local,' so talking about local issues more might be a way to reach more people.

 

In southern Durham, and elsewhere around the Triangle, suburban sprawl is a major issue.  I care about the loss of natural areas and farmland, but it seemed too local and not a big progressive, anti-capitalist issue.  It could also be knee-jerk, since I would rather keep the trees we have then see a nearly treeless St. Lawerence or Centex development carved into a forest or field.  Besides being an environmental problem, it affects how people travel, the school system, our taxes, and local weather.  Now I am seeing that it is often an issue of democracy and illegal actions.  For these reasons how development occurs is an issue progressives (especially Marxists) should organize around more.  After all, communists should try to reach people, especially workers, in the suburbs and rural areas, not just people in urban areas.  Small farmers and workers have many issues in common, which was the basis for the alliance of the working class and the peasantry in the USSR (symbolized by the sickle and hammer) and other socialist countries.

 

The specific issue I am thinking of now is the proposed Scott Mill development on Scott King Rd. between Grandale and Herndon Roads, near the American Tobacco Trail.  The site is at the very southern end of the County on a peninsula of uplands jutting into a large area of protected bottomlands along Northeast Creek.  A survey of the lands affected by Jordan Lake in the late 90's found that that area is possibly the best example of that kind of forest in the State and there are populations of rare Lewis' heartleaf and Indian physic growing there.  The Scott Mills site has already been clearcut around an old farmhouse, but development would probably result in silt and other water pollution and reduce and degrade habitat.  The light and noise pollution from a development would harm some species.  Even small clearings in a forest have affects.  For example, cowbirds, which are native to the Midwestern praires, moved east as forests were cleared and even a trail is enough of a clearing for them.  Cowbirds harm other birds by tricking other species into raising cowbird chicks instead of their own, which the cowbirds usually kill.  Trees even far from a forest edge are at risk from being blown down in storms due to that edge, so shrinking a forest should increase wind damage (for example, I think clearcutting resulted in the storm toppling of two very big Willow Oaks near where I live). 

 

Besides these environmental issues, the developer (actually a middleman) has ignored the concerns of the public, acted in bad faith, and has a history of ignoring environmental laws.  The Planning Commission even recommended unanimously that the rezoning request for this development not be approved.  The development would no doubt increase traffic and construction traffic would damage nearby roads.  The neighbors are tired of construction noise.  A subdivsion might also cut off a potential hiking trail, linking the Tobacco Trail to other trails, along the high-tension powerline corridor running through the site and beyond RTP and Jordan Lake.  There is much more to say about this.    

 

The final decision about the current development plan will be sometime after 7pm on Monday, June 26th, at the County Commissioners meeting in the old Courthouse at 200 East Main Street.