Acknowledgements
The conceptualization and articulation of this thesis would not be possible without the support and contributions of several people, groups, and institutions that have helped me lay the framework for a continuously evolving worldview.
The Interdisciplinary Studies Department of Appalachian State University continues to amaze me, both encouraging and insisting on thinking outside of the box. As far as I am concerned, this sort of thinking is the only kind that has ever gotten us anywhere. Dr. Derek Stanovsky has relentlessly proctored this insistence throughout the realization of this work for me, and my fellow students of this spring’s Senior Seminar alike. The prospective graduates of the class of 2007 from the Interdisciplinary Studies Department inspire me to be optimistic about the future, as they are, every day, breaking the mold for opportunities created by higher education.
In my efforts in discovering the success of
In such a seemingly intimidating and unpredictable world, I have come to realize the importance of a friend, family, a teacher, and even a passing stranger. Not only are some there to actively support and encourage whatever endeavors one may undergo, but the others are equally as important; They are passive reminders of exactly what our efforts are for; The betterment of not just the lives of a few loved ones, but of all citizens and aspects of our ever-shrinking global community.
Methodology
I will begin this dissertation with an exploration of the modern concept of development in regards to our current globalizing society. In attempting to qualify sustainability as a multidimensional entity, interdisciplinary in nature, I will look at the implications of environmental health, economic stability and positive community relations as essential parts of sustaining vitality in a community. Outside of an ideal world, these three elements rarely harmonize as foundation for a developing town or community. As a result, problems arise in their prioritization, measurement, and execution.
I will then advocate the importance of communication as an essential element of establishing a distinct cultural identity that is specifically tied to place. As I focus on the dynamics of the small town facing growth, I will uphold that a cooperative effort in mapping out this identity is the cornerstone of maintaining and encouraging cultural vitality and overall sustainability. Determining what traits, virtues and common goals a town or region shares should be the starting point in moving toward sound development. Here I will portray communication and cooperation as the engines for such a change.
I will support this claim with a case study of
Introduction
In today’s world, the word “growth” has many connotations. For the most part, they are purely quantitative. Here, with a focus on sustainability, a more appropriate word would be development. Sustainable Development of a community involves the development of the economy, the environment, and society as a whole (Hart 2). As an inherently interdisciplinary study, Sustainable development requires the integration of many knowledges and disciplines in order to evaluate these three main areas. Evaluating these three aspects of community sustainability can be problematic.
Indicators are used in each area, which are also intrinsically disputable. Depending on what motivations are behind each set of data, there are underlying insecurities and questions; how are they developed, measured, and used (Schroeder)? Forming a relationship of the community sustainability indicators can cause problems as there many ways of interpreting the economy, society, and environment and their relationships to each other. They can be viewed a separate entities, three interconnected, or three integrated entities (Hart 5). Because of these issues with the quantitative measure of cultural sustainability, we must then move toward a more qualitative form of evaluation. The greatest source of information regarding quality of life in a small town is the people.
Power to the People
In order for a community to be sustainable, it must have economic security, a healthy environment, and cultural vitality. The town government must act as a motivator for involvement and without paternalism in order to reach a plan for such a common goal.
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The citizen, the most important player in the scene of small town development, must feel a sense of impact on one’s community, equity, and must retain a certain identity that is specifically tied to place. When facing development, the first step in achieving sustainability for a community is to clearly define together the aspects of a town’s identity (Sargent 41).
In the
The small town citizen, while largely valuing individualism, also places great investment in their community, culture and heritage, especially areas so distinctively like Western North Carolina and
The Following is a case study on a nearby town,
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- Mix land uses
- Take advantage of compact building design
- Create a range of housing opportunities and choices
- Create walkable neighborhoods
- Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place
- Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas
- Strengthen and direct development towards existing communities
- Provide a variety of transportation choices
- Make development decisions predictable, fair, and cost effective
- Encourage community and stakeholder collaboration in development decisions
The last is the tenant I focus on as the crucial part of Davidson’s success in Smart Growth.
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A Sustainable Community, Tried and True
A look at the cultural implications of sustainability in Davidson, North Carolina
Introduction
In recent decades, paralleling global development, urban sprawl has exploded across the
unrecognizable state. Our society has built a lifestyle that revolves around the automobile. Our consumptive culture has shifted our priorities toward a more selfish way of life. This new world view will not make us happier, but rather pull us further apart from each other and from the places we once called home. Not only is this development detrimental to our environment and health, it is destroying the vitality of the culture and lifestyle of small town
The United Nations defines sustainable development as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”[1] This refers largely to limits to growth and resources and the environmentally detrimental affects of our current worldview. This definition not only describes our goals as a worldwide community in reference to the environment, but also to our culture, and to our values.
There is a common phrase used in the field of sustainable development today, “think globally, act locally.” Identifying what is important for us as a society is the first
step in preserving our morals and values in a changing world. Along with our environment, one of the most precious things that we as humans have is our culture, our identity. These things, varying across the globe, are directly tied toward geographic location. There is an unmistakable tie between people and place. The citizens of
Welcome to Davidson
Picture a small, welcoming town in southwestern
Located around Davidson College, with one of the top ranked liberal arts programs in the country, the town’s people have open hearts and open minds. The quaint town often referred to as “Pleasantville” from the surrounding communities has
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ordinances and governance that has set in place regulations on development, changes to
the streets and walkways, and created criteria for new development within town limits. New neighborhoods are designed to better the community relationship, be affordable and fair, and preserve the green areas. If a new corporation moves in, they have standards they must meet. The collective people have decided to grow intelligently, and in a way that still retains the integrity of the town they know and love. Davidson, armed with a strong, intelligent and active local community, alongside revolutionary policies and governance, has bonded together to allow growth that is true to the values of Davidson, fighting the nationwide epidemic of placeless culture. Marie Hoff describes in
Sustainable Community Development that approaches to development and “opportunities are unique to each setting and that an entry beginning point for social change must be found that is specific to the local situation.”[2] Davidson has found that specific method.
Facing the Monster
Located about thirty miles north of
In a localized, democratic process, Davidson completed the first task of this sort of development; conducting a goals survey of as many members of the community as possible.[4] They developed what they call a “charette” which is a process where officials design the layout for a goal or plan and then have an open forum with the citizens to
amend the plans. Throughout 1991 and 1992, the 8, 200 citizens gathered at numerous town meetings to seek out the answers to three crucial questions: What did they like about Davidson? What would they do differently as they grew if given the chance? And what did they want to avoid as they grew? In their talks, the people found that they shared common interests in preserving several things:
In 1995, the town board wrote The Land Plan, a radically progressive set of principles including a development ordinance created to achieve the town’s wishes. The streets were tailored to for the pedestrian, and routes of travel connected throughout the town. Along with the desires above, also lies their desire to remain distinct. The town is beautiful, and the residents aimed at preserving that town appearance that is so inviting and appealing. They insisted on not seeing paradise paved. Vice Mayor Marguerite
Williams explained, “If we are going to grow, we are going to still look and act like Davidson.”[6]
Looking Like Us
With much of the growth incurred in small towns today, also comes a changing of the geography of the land and town. Lakes can be made, dirt removed, and trees torn down. Buildings can be erected that change the foot traffic in an area. Large corporate buildings like grocery stores and such can create an uninviting appeal to the pedestrian. With no windows facing the street and no sidewalks along the perimeter the sidewalk seems more like an alley. This can create a sort of atmosphere that tells the passerby to ‘keep out’ and make them feel unsafe.
Think of your local CVS Pharmacy store. What does the actual building look like? It is square, brick, and there are no outward facing windows. The red and white cement baring the name that wraps around the top of the building is an eyesore and the only natural light comes from the automatic doors in front. The halogen lights inside confine the customer, and it is all-around simply unpleasant. When CVS wanted to move to Davidson, Davidson insisted on a compromise. The new store to be located in their cherished downtown area, with no outside facing windows would shut out passer bys and create an unwelcoming and rigid landscape.
After many disputes and discussions, claiming that the windows facing the street would impede on the way they stocked their products, CVS finally agreed. They
modernized their floor layout with a two-story building with twenty-foot tall windows along the sidewalk. The company also had to forgo the common layout including a huge parking lot. This waste of space encourages the automobile lifestyle which Davidson wants to avoid. There is no parking lot for the CVS in downtown, just like every other business, it is all public. The brick building and green awnings reflect the style of the rest
of the Village Green and downtown area, and since the remodeling, CVS sales skyrocketed. It is thought that sales were boosted by the incorporation of natural light. [7]
Davidson also made requirements for new developers in the area. In order to protect rural and open spaces, fifty percent of all new developments are to remain open and the housing clustered to maximize the amount of open, shared space. This creates a delicate balance between the property rights of the owner and the rights of the community. Davidson has survived many law suits in attempt to sue the town for property right infringements standing their ground in placing the greater good in the forefront. Stream and wetland areas are protected both before and after construction, preserving the natural beauty of the local environment. Town Greenways connect through to neighborhoods via sidewalks and bike lanes and the current green spaces are protected under town ordinance[8]. This new layout will encourage foot traffic whenever possible, facilitate neighborly activity in the common areas, and better the health of the local environment due to reduction of emissions.
A New Approach to the Neighborhood
Many neighborhoods built today focus on the size of the home. Lots are becoming smaller and smaller and house design is changing. Through trial and error, the citizens of Davidson have learned what building designs are conducive to a communal lifestyle, and which ones alienate people from each other. Whether it is discovering a new way to incorporate affordable housing into the community or a ban on gated communities,
Davidson hopes to create a residential area that does not separate the people along economic or geographic lines.
River Run, built in the past five years, is a sprawling gated community in Davidson. White fences line the road alongside the development and a large monolithic sign distinguish this community as a prestigious and private one. The entrance, a semi-private zone, is long and empty of homes, with trees planted alongside the street as a guard against intruders. The neighborhood, albeit beautiful and full of extravagantly large homes, separates itself from the rest of Davidson.
Gates signify a separation in lifestyle, prestige, and desire for safety. Spreading with the boom of resorts and country clubs in the 1960’s and 70’s, gated communities are designed for exclusivity. The gate itself is the single primary identity feature that signals the elite status and economic superiority of the people within. This layout is no longer only for the elite, but has become wildly popular in the middle class. In our new, material world, people are caught up in the appearance of being elite. People want to flaunt their status, and show everyone else that, financially, they are doing well. [9]
The citizens of Davidson, however, find this development style to deteriorate the welcoming community they intend to sustain. River Run says to the passerby, “stay out, we are better than you” a thought that conflicts with the cohesiveness of the town’s people regardless of race, sex, gender, religion, and economic status. Gated communities also encourage a sort of separate town feeling, sometimes having their own legislation, committees, etc. This deteriorates the town around it. In response to this, no more neighborhoods are to be built that shut out the community. In fact, neighborhoods don’t even have signs that distinguish entrances. There are no more monuments at the front of neighborhood, only a street sign. People are not separated, they are brought together. They are more likely to act with the whole town in mind rather than their specific area in which they live. This perpetuates the feeling that no person is a member of a certain social status or neighborhood. Each person simply lives on a street in Davidson.
The town has also determined what styles of homes inhibit community growth. In Paige’s Pond, an eye sore of a neighborhood with houses facing away from the road, developers simply wanted to pack in as many houses as possible. Homes are right on top of each other, and to save space, garages are placed on the front of the house. Rather than conserving space, this design creates a rigid appearance that is unwelcoming and perpetuates the lifestyle of the automobile. Below is a home in Paige’s Pond.
Figure 1 : The Car-centered Home
When you look at the house, you think of the car. A resident can walk straight from the car to the door without even acknowledging their own neighbor.
Figure 2: Walkable, livable neighborhoods
The alternative is a style with parking around back is inviting for pedestrians. Sidewalks run through each neighborhood, and homes are built together to conserve space.
Above is an example of the new, progressive design for neighborhoods in Davidson. These homes are very nice, and the residents enjoy the larger amount of shared green space in the center of the neighborhood. The town insists that fifty percent of all new residential development be open space. With beautiful landscaping including
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stone streams and fountains, benches, and a community grill, this layout allows the residents to share a large, open space, rather than owning a tenth of an acre of unusable
lawn space. The worries of property rights here are also beginning to dissolve. It is becoming known that the open space or preservation of a small pond is actually increasing the property value in these naighborhoods.
Equal Opportunities
With their desire to provide fair access to people of all groups, The Davidson Housing Coalition worked to incorporate affordable housing into their new neighborhoods. Oscar Newman, a renowned architect and city planner, explains in his article “Defensible Space” that the institutional appearance of affordable housing separates the residents from the rest of the community, visually creating ghettos[10]. Separating the families in need creates a dichotomy among the citizens. The resulted ghettos are areas that inhibit crime and perpetuate a feeling of separation. The DHO
works to avoid this. Thirty two units across the town are now affordable. Designed with dignity, these homes blend in with the surrounding neighborhood. The only differences are the materials used in construction, making it almost impossible to distinguish them from the other homes.[11]
When many cities exile poorer families to projects, economic division creates barriers that facilitate the inevitable ghetto. This is a result of our social tendency to be
anti-poor.[12] Davidson makes it clear that they want to offer housing and equal opportunity to all of its citizens.
Hitting the Streets
Another aspect of community building and development in focus in Davidson is decreasing traffic congestion within the town. In order to fight against the car-centered life that our society perpetuates, we must create an environment that is conducive to the pedestrian. If a street is too busy, people aren’t going to want to cross it.
In residential areas, much of the traffic problems are incurred on the major veins running through an area due to the post-modern popularization of the cul-de-sac. Since the 1970’s, cul-de-sacs have been incorporated in nearly every constructed neighborhood.[13] Distinct from the previous grid-like layout of streets in the
sacs seem to create a safer, more peaceful path of movement with an area with less traffic accidents and noise. Here, the neighborhood resident, as in many other ways, is trying to create prosperity via seclusion. Davidson, however, sees things a little bit differently.
Contrary to the previous mindset, the people of the town of
Figure 3: Separated Cul-de-sacs
Seen in Chart A above, modern cul-de-sacs separate groups of homes from each other within a neighborhood. Homeowners find this layout desirable as it inhibits a more
private lifestyle while decreasing the amount of through traffic. What is not considered, however, is the affect these dead end streets will have on traffic along the main roads within the neighborhood. Homes on major streets are less safe, and their property value is lower.
Figure 4: Connectivity
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Chart B, above, shows the newfound connectivity in Davidson. These streets are no longer closed to the public, increasing community interaction and decreasing congestion on the roadways. [14]
Identified as one of the goals of the town, connectivity has been revitalized through the connection of streets. This has created a fluid pattern of traffic throughout the town.
An option to reducing congestion utilized frequently is the widening of roads. Ten years ago, the NC Department of Transportation intended on widening
more difficult to cross. In response, Davidson expanded the sidewalks along the crosswalks out into the streets further to shorten the distance needed to cross.
Enjoying a Sustainable Culture
When all of these changes were proposed, of course there was some skepticism. The result however, has proven that Davidson can change with the world and still remain distinct and special. With all of the hard work of the Town Board and involvement of the citizens, Davidson continues to thrive economically, and culturally. There is a sense of security among the citizens in knowing that even though growth charges at their town every day, they will still be able to enjoy the good things in life.
This common effort and democratically progressive approach to development gained recognition nationwide. In 2004, Davidson earned the EPA's National Award for Smart Growth Achievement in all size categories. Williams accepted the Award for the town and continues to educate communities across the nation about the town’s efforts and vision. Davidson broke the mold in small town sustainability, not just for the environment, but also for the vitality of its culture. It is a beacon for possibility and a prime example of the positive results of involvement and communication. Today Davidson is a place anyone would want to live; it is beautiful, accepting, and full of personality. Tomorrow it will be too.
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Sharing Knowledge
Once a town, like Davidson, has attained such a proactive movement toward community powered sustainability, they have a responsibility to share their experiences with other towns that face similar growth. Here in
On April 18, 2007, the town planners and council members of
At the breakfast the next morning, town officials from both Davidson and Boone convened and discussed the first and foremost issue in the High Country; establishing the traits of our identity. Without an open forum of communication, this will be impossible. This democratic process in working together must be one hundred percent participatory. The main idea here is communication; between citizens and town government, between neighboring communities, and between local and federal governments. The possibilities that technology proposes for doing this are endless. We must open lines of
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communication with “charrettes” meetings, flyers, websites, and memos. The most important method here, however, is face to face participation and cooperation. If we work together, we can establish the foundation for starting a movement toward sustainability in the High Country.
[1] U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division on Sustainable Development.
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[2] Hoff, Marie. Sustainable Community Development: Studies in Economic, Environmental, and Cultural Revitalization.
[3] Williams, Marguerite, interviewed by Mary Horton, 4 February 2006, Interview 1,
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[4] Sargent, Frederic O. et al. Rural Environmental Planning for Sustainable Communities.
[5] Williams, Marguerite, “Growth in Davidson: Discovering and Sustaining Ourselves.” Presentation with power point slides on the town of
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[6] Williams, Marguerite, interviewed by Mary Horton, 4 February 2006, Interview 1,
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[7] Williams, Marguerite, “Growth in Davidson: Discovering and Sustaining Ourselves.” Presentation with power point slides on the town of
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[8] Williams, Marguerite, “Growth in Davidson: Discovering and Sustaining Ourselves.” Presentation with power point slides on the town of
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[9] Blakely, Edward and Snyder, Mary, “Forting Up: Gated Communities in the United
States.” Journal of Architectural Planning and Research 15:1 (1998): page 4
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[10] Newman, Oscar. “Defensible Space: A new physical planning tool for urban
Revitalization.” Journal of the American Planning Association vol. 61 no. 2 (1995):p. 3
[11] Williams, Marguerite, “Growth in Davidson: Discovering and Sustaining Ourselves.” Presentation with power point slides on the town of
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[12] Newman, Oscar. “Defensible Space: A new physical planning tool for urban Revitalization.” Journal of the American Planning Association vol. 61 no. 2 (1995): p. 7
[14] Williams, Marguerite, “Growth in Davidson: Discovering and Sustaining Ourselves.” Presentation with power point slides on the town of
[15] Williams, Marguerite, “Growth in Davidson: Discovering and Sustaining Ourselves.” Presentation with power point slides on the town of
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