a leaf warbler's gleanings

In the language of urbanism, “greenfields” usually means rural land at the metropolitan edge, where suburbia metastasizes. “Brownfields” are former industrial sites that could be redeveloped once they are cleaned of pollution. “Greyfields” — picture vast empty parking lots — refer to moribund shopping centers. Recently another such locution was coined: “redfields,” as in red ink, for underperforming, underwater and foreclosed commercial real estate.

Redfields describe a financial condition, not a development type. So brownfields and greyfields are often redfields, as are other distressed, outmoded or undesirable built places: failed office and apartment complexes, vacant retail strips and big-box stores, newly platted subdivisions that died aborning in the crash.

Now comes “Redfields to Greenfields,” a promising initiative aimed at reducing the huge supply of stricken commercial properties while simultaneously revitalizing the areas around them. (It’s a catchy title, if imprecise because it’s about re-establishing greenfields within developed areas, not about doing anything to natural or agricultural acreage at the urban margins.) The plan, in essence, is this: Determine where defunct properties might fit a metropolitan green-space strategy; acquire and clear them; then make them into parks and conservation areas, some permanent and some only land-banked until the market wants them again.

What an excellent idea! Read the entire article which explores the possibilities quite well, and lists a number of cities that are studying these options. Fresno is not on the list, but really should be! Seems like a perfect opportunity for some reconciliation ecology experiments too, if ecologists and conservationists can get involved. Can we try some new ideas to invent habitats for other species while we are at this?

Fresno was quite a real-estate boomtown when I came here 6 years ago, despite being one of the poorest cities in the state even then. The crash of the real-estate bubble therefore hit this growing metropolis quite hard, as evidenced by half-occupied desultory shopping strips everywhere amid foreclosed houses with abandoned yards (and many with "green pools" - another ecologically interesting phenomenon that should be scary from a health perspective).

Fresno is also one of the odd automobile-centric cities that has allowed its burbs to sprawl (I've heard Fresno described as a bunch of suburbs looking for a city!) without building nearly enough neighborhood parks. Even neighboring Clovis has more small parks (I think) than Fresno does - although Fresno does have its two really big parks, one of which is set to lose half its acreage to the expansion of our zoo.

So what better way to reclaim some of the wasted real-estate from these dead shopping/commercial strips than by turning them into parks? Of course raising money for something like that will be a big challenge, but I wonder if folks involved with urban planning here are thinking about these ideas. I sure hope someone is. Perhaps I should check with Archop, as they have more of a finger on the urban development pulse around here - although a quick search of their website yields nothing for "greenfield" or "redfield".

Let me know if you know of similar initiatives here, or wherever you live.