Book rec on green land development
tupchurch
| Posted in General Questions on
I am learning to be agnostic and indifferent to less and less things. Just let a dozer guy follow a customer’s requests until we had built the house pad up 4′ or 5′ from the surrounding land. This is not what I call resting lightly on the land and is a bit appalling. I hope this customer is happy, but I want to learn ways to avoid this in the future. Are there any books telling how to make sensible and restrained changes to the land?
P.S. I have an interest in developing neighborhoods someday and I hope to never make a living naming developments after destroyed ecology.
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Replies
"Green" is one of those words that can mean anything or nothing.
My personal belief is that the lowest-impact way to live is at high density, in cities. Preferably in multi-family dwellings. Probably the highest-impact way to live is in large lots, like 2-4 acres, where every house has its own well and septic, and you're far enough away from everything that you have to do a lot of driving but still dense enough that there's no dilution of your waste.
Moving dirt around isn't per se ungreen.
I see what you mean. Just finishing up "The Geography of Nowhere" for the second time.