NeighborSpace is proud to announce the completion of The Open Space Guidebook. The guidebook will act as a tool providing the best practices and resources for open space management. The hope is that this guidebook will help everyone from our stewardship partners looking for resources to community members wondering how to improve community land. The […]
I’ve done many things in my life, but none have made me feel more a part of a community than my work with NeighborSpace. By that, I mean, that getting to know and work side-by-side on common goals with so many of you – our supporters and partners in government, community associations, and other nonprofits […]
I’d like to say that my love of nature implies that I “…will find beauty everywhere,” as inspired by Laura Ingles Wilder; however, in today’s climate, as a witness to mass declines in trees, bees and birds, I’m wondering where the beauty may lie. In September of 2018, NeighborSpace held a fall celebration at Adelaide […]
One of the best things about going to the annual Land Trust Alliance conference, known as “Rally,” is the opportunity to take a field trip to see projects that other land trusts are doing around the country. This year, Rally was in Raleigh, NC, and among our land trust hosts was the Triangle Land Conservancy […]
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 […]
June 21 marked the inauguration of the Donald C. Outen Urban Tree Society, an effort by NeighborSpace to further a county goal for maintaining 40% forest cover in communities inside the URDL. Looking just at existing numbers, it looks like the goal has largely been achieved: Census Designated Place CDP Acres Tree Canopy Acres Percent […]
The Rationale for Creating the Donald C. Outen Urban Tree Society When New York’s Parks Department assessed the value of the City’s urban tree canopy, the benefits totaled $120 million annually, 5.5 times the department’s annual budget. The breakdown included energy savings of $28 million, air quality improvements of $5 million, and storm water mitigation of $36 […]
That’s often what you get when you find what you think is a nice piece of vacant land inside the URDL using GIS – someone’s side yard (i.e., a parcel not suitable for subdivision), a panhandle with few redeeming qualities other than being vacant, a landlocked parcel, or a parcel that has a lot of […]
$54,000,000. That’s the price tag for solving the problem of food insecurity experienced by 105,000 county residents, about 13% of Baltimore County’s population. According to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, food insecurity occurs when there is a limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable […]