Director's Page, Spring 2000

Buzz Williams

This Quarterly I am vacating my Director’s page so we may print the body of a letter written by our Board member, Dr. Robert Zahner. He originally wrote the letter to the Jackson Macon Conservation Alliance, a new organization to which the Chattooga Conservancy belongs. This letter was intended to give us direction as we were writing the organization’s goals. The subject concerns the much abused idea of so-called “sustainable development.” The Alliance’s member organizations are concerned with development in Jackson and Macon counties in North Carolina, primarily the Highlands-Cashiers plateau, which is also the headwaters of the Chattooga, Cullasaja,Tuckasegee, French Broad Rivers, as well as the rivers of the Jocassee Gorges. Since this letter was so instrumental in guiding our thinking on this important subject, we decided to share it here. I think all will agree that Dr. Zahner’s land ethic is based on nothing less than profound wisdom.

It is unfortunate that two relatively innocuous words, “growth” and “development,” have come to be synonymous with urban sprawl, in particular, the undesirable transformation of scenic rural country sides into commercial and residential landscapes. Both words have very positive meanings, like “spiritual growth” and “cultural development,” but we don’t hear much debate on those attributes. Contemporary debate on urban sprawl has led politicians and economists to adjectives like “sustainable” and “smart” to ameliorate the negative connotations of growth and development. We must be careful not to be deluded by this smokescreen.

“Sustainable” is a politically correct buzzword these days, although most people who use it don’t understand the true meaning. Sustain means “to keep in existence; to provide for sustenance or nourishment,” the implication being forever. Sustainable is a great adjective, but should be used to describe a noun that can be sustained.

"Sustainable growth," for example, is a favorite feel-good term used frequently today by the pro growth lobby. But this term is a contradiction of words, an oxymoron, as nothing can grow forever, certainly not in a finite environment. It is used interchangeably with the term “smart growth,” another feel-good political term used by the building and housing industries to justify urban sprawl. Both terms—sustainable growth and smart growth—have caught on in urban areas across the country because they seem to justify land development, implying that destruction of natural landscapes is desirable for the economy and utility of local citizens as long as it is “planned.” We must remember that growth is neither sustainable nor smart. Growth is the strategy of the cancer cell.

National conservation organizations have exposed many examples of blatant sprawl hiding behind the façade of “smart growth.” Please, let’s stay away from that one. I view the Highlands Cove project as an example of what the construction industry calls “smart growth!” [Dr. Zahner is referring to a new golf course and residential development in the Highlands, North Carolina area, where the majority of the terrain is in excess of a 60% slope. Naturally, ground-moving activities here have wreaked havoc on the native landscape, and a stream coursing through the property has been choked with mud. Local property owners sued the developers, who were found guilty of blatant violations of North Carolina erosion and sedimentation laws.]

So where does this lead us? Is the term “sustainable development” any better? Can development be sustained forever? Perhaps it can, if we avoid using the term in its “growth” meaning, that is, avoid using development to imply proliferation and enlargement. Development can mean improvement, strengthening, maturation and augmentation, all of which can be sustained indefinitely without adding new physical growth.

Thus, “sustainable development” must be limited to the concept of improving infrastructure, and strengthening cultural, educational, spiritual, and aesthetic opportunities for our communities. Of course, you can argue that these things also represent the desirable side of “growth,” but that’s not what the commercial developers and homebuilders’ lobby have as a goal for their sprawl. So, the lesson in this essay is to understand the various meanings of “growth” and “development,” and to be careful when modifying either of these words with an adjective like “sustainable.”

Sincerely,

Bob Zahner