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Harvard Forest Symposium Abstract 2012

• Title: Quantifying effects of urban growth and urban greening – preliminary findings from a stakeholder driven scenario analysis
• Primary Author: Paige Warren (UMASS Amherst)
• Additional Authors: Victoria Wolff (Urban Ecology Institute)
• Abstract:

  The Boston Metropolitan Area is experiencing both inexorable urban growth (suburbanization) and municipally supported efforts toward urban greening, making it an ideal laboratory for understanding the relationships between these two complex processes. The Boston Metropolitan Area is the 10th most populous region in the United States with 4.48 million people. Despite relatively low levels of population growth in the next 20 years, the metropolitan area is expected to consume 152,000 acres of open space, including 58,000 acres of rare and endangered species habitat. Dealing with this predicted growth will require proactive landscape planning in the developing urban fringe, as well as increased “greening” of the existing densely populated urban core. Through a stakeholder-driven scenario analysis, we are examining the effects of four different futures for the Boston Metropolitan region, including an uncontrolled growth scenario (Current Trends) and three versions of controlled growth, based in part on the Metropolitan Area Planning council’s long term strategic planning efforts (Green Equity, MetroFuture, and Compact Core). Each of these latter three emphasizes compact development, but they differ in the degree to which growth would occur in the suburbs versus the urban core. The scenarios also differ in the degree of investment in literal greening (urban tree canopy). Scenarios were identified, selected and refined with input from a diverse group of city and state level policy leaders. Analyses are ongoing, but preliminary results indicate that it is difficult to achieve some of the desired outcomes identified by stakeholders, such as social equity with respect to urban tree canopy. Increases in biodiversity through greening investments within the city might come at a significant cost to land conservation in the broader region if not accompanied aggressive redevelopment.

• Research Category: Biodiversity Studies
  Conservation and Management
  Ecological Informatics and Modelling
  Regional Studies