Current and former leaders from our State are drawing attention to a bill before the General Assembly this session to create a State constitutional amendment to protect the right to a healthful environment in Maryland. Delegate Wanika Fisher, a sponsor of a bill, notes that: “There is a difference between regulations, which address a particular issue, […]
This week, while going through my blog feeds, I came across something that gave me pause. It was a post by the Project for Public Spaces (PPS) on the topic of “equitable development.” The upshot of the piece was this: “While ending police violence may be one of the most urgent needs, systemic racism infects […]
We want to take this opportunity to offer our sincere thanks to Council Chair Cathy Bevins and to Assistant County Attorney Amy Grossi for their help in securing a right of entry to the parcel labeled “5” in the map below, which is part of Cherry Heights Woodland Garden in Overlea. This is turning into […]
Last week I relayed this story from my childhood: I think I was 9 or 10. The exact age really doesn’t matter. The important thing is this: what came out of my mouth in the presence of my father one morning while waiting for the bus is not something I could have come up with […]
I had no clue what I would find at the 2020 Future Harvest Conference. Barbara felt my attendance would be valuable and we’ve been talking about the issue of Urban Farming for some time. I went to the conference with an open mind considering this to be a very broad, open-ended subject. Urban Farming can […]
Baltimore County is a quagmire of communities. The reason the URDL exists was due to a concerted movement to protect the rural areas north of the Beltway, which concentrated development and infrastructure investment south of the line. In doing so, we have also created areas where there is no nutritionally adequate and safe foods available […]
Suburbs, like cities, need many more neighborhoods where residents can meet daily needs on foot; streets that give priority to walkers, cyclists, and light rail and buses over cars; and high-quality public spaces. Retrofitting suburbia, to quote Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson, who wrote a book with that title, is “the big project for this […]
A final step in rolling out our new mapping tool was to have the model validated by independent experts. With $4,000 in funding from Keep Maryland Beautiful and the Maryland Environmental Trust, we asked the Chesapeake Conservancy, local GIS experts, to evaluate the model. In their September 2018 report to us, they concluded that “[t]he insights […]
In the 19th century, we piped clean water into people’s homes and began treating wastewater. Communicable diseases were wiped out and life expectancy skyrocketed. In the 20th century, we lowered infectious disease rates with regular vaccinations. A new guide caught our eye recently, which suggests that smart investments in green infrastructure in the 21st century can have […]
This is what Bentley Park, a half-acre site in Historic East Towson looked like when NeighborSpace originally purchased the property for $80,000, using local open space waiver fees, several years ago: What looks “lush” and “green” is anything but. Like much of the vacant land inside the URDL, the property was so full of invasives […]