"One subdivision, one shopping center, one office park at a time. But this is not planning; it is only a sequence of permits that consumes land and does not add up to a city."

  ~   Dwight Young, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

"Sustainability is a strategy for improving the quality of life while preserving the environmental potential for the future, of living off interest rather than consuming natural capital."

  ~   The National Commission on the Environment

When I read recently of the planned development of the 7000 acre Walsh ranch just west of Fort Worth, I lamented its impending loss. The beautiful, rolling landscape it contains represents a remainder of our region’s past, a little relic of a tall-grass landscape that once stretched from Winnipeg in southern Manitoba all the way to Houston. It also represents the conversion of countryside and wildlife habitat into suburbia, which is occurring all across America, though nowhere more rapidly than in Texas.

Moreover, the prairies upon which Fort Worth and Dallas are built are part of the most heavily utilized and endangered ecosystem in North America, the tall-grass prairie. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, from 82.6 to 99.9 percent of the tall-grass prairie across the U.S. and Canada has disappeared to development or other uses, a decline that exceeds those reported for any other major ecological community in North America. Acreage declines in Texas are reported at over 90 percent by The Nature Conservancy. In fact, the USGS has identified the Fort Worth Prairie as a “priority landscape of biological significance in the Great Plains” and one in need of conservation. For the bordering Blackland Prairie to the east, the situation is even worse; less than 1 percent remains today in small, fragmented patches. Of the 12.5 million acres of Blackland Prairie in the state, less than 5000 acres remains.

Indeed, Texas leads the nation with some unfortunate tallies. Data from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service show that our state led the nation in the total number of acres developed between 1992 and 1997. In those 5 years alone an astonishing 893,500 million acres of open space was lost in Texas, an average of 178,700 acres per year, the highest rate in the country. Texas also led the nation in loss of prime and unique farmland between 1982 and 1992, accounting for nearly 12 percent of the U.S. total. In 1998 Texas ranked No. 49 in per capita spending on parks and No. 24 in per capita acres of parkland, and has set aside only 3 percent of the state’s area as public land. Texas’ open space protection program is rated 46th in the nation, based on comparisons of agricultural acreage destroyed, quality of agricultural zoning, extent of floodplain development, and prevalence of development rights swaps, described below.

Like the tall-grass prairies, many other natural communities throughout the state, such as bottomland hardwoods and wetlands, are likewise threatened and fragmented by a combination of burgeoning population growth and urbanization. Sprawl is a significant contributor to the problem. Causes of urban sprawl itself can be complex but include population growth, lifestyle choices, infrastructure subsidies, lack of regional planning, tax incentives and competition for tax revenue, and local zoning policies. For decades public policies have favored auto-oriented, low-density, segregated land use patterns.

One of the most cherished and common assumptions of state and local officials is that growth generates more money in revenue than it demands in new services. This is because we rarely take into account the true costs of expansion. Numerous studies show that urban growth rarely pays it’s own way. A 2000 cost of community services study conducted by the American Farmland Trust in Hays County, just south of Austin, found that for every dollar that agricultural and open land generated in revenue for the county, school, and public service districts, those lands required only $0.33 in services; whereas residential lands required $1.26 in services for every $1.00 they paid in taxes. Similar results have been repeated all across the country. Furthermore, greenways, parks, and open spaces, so called "vacant land" or "real estate," often pay more in property taxes than their associated costs because adjacent residential property values are increased. The enormous costs of suburban development - new infrastructure, roads, schools, emergency services, plus the difficult to quantify external costs like traffic congestion, air and watershed pollution, central city decline, isolation and eroding sense of community - are almost never listed on the balance sheet. These costs are paid by society as a whole, and they frequently outweigh the benefits, financially, socially, and environmentally. Indeed, if we add the benefits paid to society by natural areas in terms of "ecosystem services" - flood mitigation, aquifer recharge, recycling of waste, fertile topsoil, absorption of greenhouse gasses, pollinators, and gene pools, just to name a few - converting a prairie into strip malls or housing developments just might not be the "highest and best use" of the land after all.

Development radiating out from urban areas is only one threat. Subdivision of large farms and ranches into small "ranchettes," fueled by people’s desire to be "closer to nature," is ironically destroying exactly what they are seeking. As large tracts of land are converted to shopping centers, parking lots, homogenous housing developments, or ranchettes, remaining natural habitat is fragmented and degraded.

As already suggested, slowing and eventually eliminating losses of open space to urbanization will require addressing the problem on multiple fronts. With 97 percent of the land in Texas privately held, the continued existence of native habitat is very much in the hands of individual landowners. According to the Wray Trust, "the 144 million acres of private land in Texas are valued at $75 billion on the open market, yet have only $12 billion in productive value, creating a $63 billion pressure to sell and fragment private farm and ranchlands."

Policies that lower property tax rates and pay ranchers for provision of ecosystem services should be expanded. The federal estate tax, which often contributes heavily to the debt load of agricultural landowners, forcing them to sell, should be permanently repealed. Standardized rules for county implementation of the Wildlife Management Tax Valuation - a state program to appraise agricultural land used to manage wildlife - should be issued to encourage its use. Additional options and incentives for conservation, such as a "purchase of development rights" (PDR) program used to compensate property owners who want to voluntarily restrict the future use of their land, should be funded by the state. PDR programs allow property owners to sell development rights on their land for purposes of conservation, separate from other property rights. Conservation easements, legal agreements that ensure a property will be managed according to the landowner’s wishes for years into the future, provide another tool and should be further promoted; these agreements often provide significant tax benefits to land owners and are generally donated to nonprofit conservation organizations known as land trusts. Strategically located easements and PDR purchases, used as an urban growth boundary, can help limit sprawl and direct growth back toward the city.

Another alternative to sprawl is adoption of traditional neighborhood design patterns and "smart growth" strategies. Smart growth may be defined in a variety of ways. Central to the idea of smart growth is the concept of sustainability and that the process of growth itself should occur in a deliberate and collaborative manner. Thus, growth of the built environment and growth in population are managed in consideration of social, economic, cultural, and environmental goals with explicit recognition of the connection between each of these factors and quality of life.

As observed in a report by the Texas Center for Policy Studies, "The most striking and easily understood aspect of sustainable land use policy ... is the recognition that land is a finite resource." Yet, the population of the state is predicted to double in the next 50 years with most of the growth occurring in major urban areas. With an eye cast toward these realities and a vision for the future that provides for untamed and open spaces, Texans’ common attitude that the supply of land is endless and property rights sacred should be tempered with a few facts and an increased understanding of the pressures placed on natural systems by population growth and consumption, along with an awareness and appreciation for the services that healthy ecosystems provide.

Unplanned and irresponsible population growth and urbanization are substantially increasing pressures on natural resources in Texas. The state is loosing farmland, rangeland, riparian and ground water resources, and wildlife habitat at an alarming rate. The landscapes and wildlife we value are disappearing, lost to burgeoning growth and urban sprawl. When it comes to population and consumption, bigger is no longer better, even in Texas. As individuals, as a community, and as a society, we must stop to consider what is lost in the name of "progress" when more and more open space and native habitat are lost to the bulldozer and cement truck. The process seems inevitable, but it isn’t. Unrestrained growth, urban sprawl, and loss of natural areas are the result of a series of concrete decisions; just as we made those decisions, we can change them. We must ask ourselves what is truly worth valuing and preserving, thereby determining how and whether we should grow. After all, the value of the land is not determined exclusively by what someone will pay you for it. Thus, in a perfect world, where population and resource consumption were sustainable, we would finally come to regard the land not as a commodity but as a community of which we are but a part.

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© Michele Basham May, July 1, 2001

This commentary was published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on September 2, 2001 in The Weekly Review section under the title "We Can Make Better Choices" as part of an editorial series with the following premise:

"One of the greatest obstacles to solving many of society's problems is the limited vision caused by "real-world" concerns. These constraints include finances, time, bureaucracy, the it's-never-been-done-that-way hurdle, etc. Pragmatism, although a real and necessary part of public life, can act as a damper to problem-solving. With that in mind, The Weekly Review [features] an occasional series called "In a Perfect World." The goal is to have experts free themselves from the constraints of everyday limits and offer ideas to problems with no concern for the practical. Consider each of the subsequent essays through this prism: In a perfect world, I would (blank) to fix (blank)."

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