Informal conversations with residents of Northwest Arkansas cities and many comment periods at public city meetings make it clear that the majority of long-time residents do not want the cities to grow by filling in all the nice green spots. And a lot of rural people speaking at the county meetings make it clear they don't want urban sprawl on their neighbor's property.
The conclusion is obvious: Nobody wants population growth unless he believes he can profit from it. And the majority of current residents CANNOT profit from it and WOULD NOT participate in destroying what we already have here if it meant working one day and never having to work again.
However, the push to grow is real, so management of that fact is a necessity.
Susannah Patton wrote in Tuesday's Northwest Arkansas Times:
The Washington County Quorum Court will again take up the issue of zoning in the rural areas of the county.
The County Services Committee debated an ordinance Monday that would establish zoning in the remainder of unincorporated areas of the county. The ordinance will be discussed by the full Quorum Court at its next regular meeting on Sept. 13.
The ordinance, sponsored by Justice of the Peace David Daniel, amends the zoning passed last November that restricted development in the growth areas of cities to agricultural and single-family residential. The ordinance would zone all areas of the unincorporated county and restrict growth in those areas to agricultural.
Patton quoted County Judge Jerry Hunton: “ The full-time farmers just aren’t there anymore, ” he said. “ By protecting their rights, maybe we can encourage people to stay in farming. ”
If the city is to push "sustainability" and "infilling" at the same time, then city folk need to encourage the zoning of agricultural and timber land to prevent its being destroyed.
The grape festival and the apple festival illustrate the point. Tontitown and Lincoln are being FILLED IN with housing developments. Those rural towns are no longer surrounded by endless vineyards and orchards. The very SOIL on which agriculture depends is being buried or replaced by hard dirt with little or NO ORGANIC content. The shallow aquifers that made ground water easy to get and kept the land green whether cultivated or not are either polluted or actually destroyed by a landfill in the case of Tontitown and other sources of pollution all over the county.
Chicken litter must be controlled and managed better to prevent pollution and farmers must ALL be convinced that keeping the environment clean and green is in their best interest. Most farmers understand the importance of keeping soil healthy and water and air clean.
And the city folk ALL need to understand.
A company called CaseStack is coming to Fayetteville, according to the Northwest Arkansas Times' Aug. 24, 2007, edition. In that story by Adam Wallworth, Dan Sanker, a co-founder of the company based in Los Angeles, acknowledges that his first goal in coming to Fayetteville is to satisfy his stockholders.
Referring to a concept most of our ancestors understood long before the words conservation and environmental concern were popular, Sanker is reported to have said "he first became interested in sustainability when Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott spoke to the
retailing excellence board
about two years ago."
"Sanker said he left that meeting a bit confused, but the more he thought it the more he felt it was a 'huge concept.'"
EUREKA, Sanker was saved by one apparently awesome sermon. Maybe Scott's words should open every meeting of the planning and governing bodies in Northwest Arkansas until every public official comes to the altar and every politician's constituents understand.
Sanker's company expects somehow to reduce the cost of shipping goods by efficiency in packing. But the really important thing is to reduce the number of things that require shipping. Everyone should have the opportunity to grow his own food, even if it is only in small pots on the stoop of an apartment. No tomato or pepper or numerous other vegetables should be shipped into Northwest Arkansas in the summer. Our photo of the apartment-yard garden of Dwight Wells in south Fayetteville shows the potential of limited garden sites to be beautiful and help feed the neighbors as well.
True, not everyone has a "green thumb" or wants to get his hands dirty growing his vegetables. But keeping our rich soil wherever it is found and keeping water in rain gardens (featuring flowers and vegetables) on every dwelling site keeps the opportunity viable. And, should times get tougher, people could actually remain and survive in Northwest Arkansas by simply learning how to use that soil and water for practical purposes.
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