People in the Park: A Toolkit for Fostering Vibrant Adirondack Communities

PEOPLE IN THE PARK A TOOLKIT FOR FOSTERING VIBRANT ADIRONDACK COMMUNITIES

Conway School of Landscape Design | MARCH 2008 | Kevin Adams | Liz Kushner | Catherine Pedemonti | Dillon Sussman

People in the Park A Toolkit for Fostering Vibrant Adirondack Communities

March, 2008 Bibliography

Copyright Š 2008 Conway School of Landscape Design Kevin Adams | Liz Kushner | Catherine Pedemonti | Dillon Sussman

CONTENTS

4 - 11

12 - 25

28 - 39

Executive summary

S EC T I O N 1

A Vision How Things Are | How Things Could Be The MARRIAGE How Things Were | How to Get There from Here | How to Begin

S EC T I O N 2

NATURAL CAPITAL Food Production | Agroforestry | Sustainable Forestry | Ecosystem Services | Biomass | Wind Power | Hydropower BUILT CAPITAL Land Use | Infill | Mixed-Use Development | Main Street Revitalization | Cluster Development |Complete Streets Complete Neighborhoods | Green Buildings | Green Streets | Green Towns | Green Networks Alternative Transportation | Form-based Codes | Transfer of Development Rights | The Transect

64 - 73

HUMAN CAPITAL Tourism | Education | Government | Manufacturing | Artisans | Retirees and Baby Boomers | Green Collar Jobs

74 - 84

SOCIAL CAPITAL Buy and Sell Local | Cooperatives | Local Currencies | Broadband | Community Housing | Third Places | CSAs

86 - 87

Last Thoughts

88 - 93

Works Cited

94 - 97

Resources

Bibliography

40 - 63

The Adirondacks are at a unique moment in their history. Long divided by passionate disagreement about land planning, residents are coming together to work out their differences. They realize that they must work together to overcome common challenges, that they must speak with one voice to be heard in a noisy and crowded world.

The Common Ground Alliance is one example of this new spirit of cooperation. The Alliance is an ad hoc group of leaders representing nonprofit organizations, municipal governments, businesses, and economic development and environmental organizations in the Adirondacks.

They work together to identify common concerns and to build a platform for action. They work by consensus and leave “axes, egos, agendas, and logos” at the door. Their Blueprint for the Blue Line, published in February 2008, is an articulate statement of problems facing the region and steps that can be taken to mitigate them. It identifies fourteen major challenges facing the Adirondacks: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Aquatic and Terrestrial Invasive Species Acid Rain Global Climate Change Main Street Revitalization Water, Sewer, and Stormwater Infrastructure 6. Marketing and Entrepreneurial Development 7. High-Speed Telecommunications

8. Workforce/Community Housing 9. Transportation Infrastructure 10. Energy 11. Effective Governance and Policy Framework 12. Land Use Change 13. Property Taxes 14. Primary Healthcare Crisis Recognizing the value of a fresh perspective on the Adirondack region’s future, the Common Ground Alliance approached the Conway School of Landscape Design to build on the Blueprint for the Blue Line and identify tools for, as they put it, “marrying the Adirondacks’ economy and environment to foster vibrant communities.”

This handbook re-frames the long-standing economy-environment antagonism by proposing a view of community development that improves quality of life through reinvestment in natural capital, built capital, human capital, and social capital.

The handbook shows that by taking advantage of the region’s abundant natural, built, human, and social assets, Adirondack residents—smart, hardworking, and persistent—can foster communities that satisfy and sustain them: allseason communities that can thrive in the winter, spring, summer, and fall; self-reliant communities that are not dependent on the whims of tourists, state government, or international corporations; vibrant communities that are ecologically rich, economically sound, and socially fulfilling.

Executive Summary

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The handbook has two parts. The first chapter of Section One describes the Adirondacks as they are now, identifies significant trends and presents a vision of vibrant communities in the Adirondacks. Chapter Two of Section One presents the historical and economic analysis that led to the vision. It includes a brief discussion of conventional and new theories of economics.

There are important ideas in this chapter, and we hope readers will take the time to read it, but for a casual reader in a hurry, skipping to the strategies presented in Section Two might be a better way to start. Section Two presents tools for realizing the vision described in the first part. Techniques for place-based economic and communitydevelopment are complemented by stories of innovative activities that are already remaking the Adirondacks and similar places.

The ideas and tools illustrated in this manual are not exhaustive or cure-alls. There are many other tools for building successful communities.

There are also real trade-offs inherent in the tools presented; communities must make complex decisions about the kind of future they desire.

Ultimately, lasting revitalization will only succeed if Adirondack residents are full participants, sitting down together to take control of their own futures. This report provides examples of how that conversation might proceed.

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1 SECTION

A Vision

A VISION

FOSTERING VIBRANT ADIRONDACK COMMUNITIES A vision requires looking at how things are now and imagining how they could be.

How Things Are

The Adirondack region is vast and complex, making fine-grained economic, ecological, or social analysis difficult. Challenges of scale are compounded by the region’s divided political history, which has profoundly shaped the way residents see the Park, and its successes and failures. The picture of the Park described below, drawn from available publications and conversations with people on the ground in the Adirondacks is, of course, incomplete. It does, nevertheless, point toward a new view of the Adirondacks and the relationship between its people and the land.

Stories about the Adirondacks typically begin like this: the Adirondack Park was established in 1892.

The Park was based on a novel concept: massive tracts of land would be protected, as “forever wild,” but people would continue to live among the protected forests. Towns, villages, farms, and working forests would remain. The Park was, and is, special because it incorporated both people and nature. How has this arrangement worked out?

Conserved Land In terms of conservation, the Park has mostly been a success. Over 3 million acres of forest have been permanently protected from development. The Park contains one of the largest contiguous deciduous temperate forests

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in the world. The large wild areas have fostered the return of the moose and the cougar to the Park. The wild areas have enriched the lives of Adirondack residents and millions of visitors.

But the “forever wild” designation has not protected the conserved lands from the longdistance effects of human activities. Acid rain has poisoned—among other things—Adirondack lakes, loons, and sugar maples (Jenkins & Keal, 2004). Invasive species have marched through the Park: funguses decimated chestnuts and elms at the beginning of the twentieth century; Eurasian watermilfoil is choking out native aquatic vegetation (Grisi, 2005). Meanwhile, global climate change is having local effects. Adirondack winters have already warmed by 4 degrees since 1970 (Jenkins & Keal, 2004). If recent predictions are correct, Northeastern winters will warm by 8 to 12 degrees by the end of this century and summers might warm by 6 to 14 degrees.

The pace of these changes is unprecedented and Adirondack ecosystems may not be able to adjust to them. It’s likely Adirondack spruce and fir trees will not survive (Frumhoff, 2007).

The Adirondack forest will still be protected at the end of this century, but it will likely be a very different forest from what exists now. The Adirondack dream of a land where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man may not be possible.

CONSERVED LAND Approximately 50% of the Adirondack Park is owned by the state.

For Adirondack residents, life in the Park has been a mixed bag. There have been success stories and there are serious challenges. On the positive side, Adirondack residents live in a place of incredible natural beauty. They have enjoyed quiet days, dark nights, and strong communities while Americans in other parts of the country have lost touch with nature and their communities.

Working, Residential, and Industrial LAND Approximately 50% of the Adirondack Park is privately owned.

Adirondack residents have been affected by many of the major changes that have played out in the United States since the late 1800s. A short list of these changes includes: rapid industrialized natural resource extraction in forests and mines, followed by deindustrialization; increasing disparities in wealth; changes in land management policies, including the creation of wilderness areas, landuse legislation, and conservation easements; and national demographic and power shifts from rural areas to urban areas and from the northeast United States to the south and west.

These changes have had real implications for Adirondack communities. Adirondack workers have suffered from the loss of their primary industrial base of lumber and paper mills.

Residents now commute long distances to lower-

paying jobs. Children leave home and don’t return. Fire departments and PTAs can’t find volunteers. Meanwhile, second-home buyers continue to want their piece of the Adirondacks.

The “great camps” of Adirondack history are smaller now, but there are far more of them.

Second-home sales drive up prices. Long-time residents can no longer afford to live in their communities. Adirondack residents call them “the towns where the lights are off in the winter.”

A Vision

The People in the Park And what of the people who live in the Park?

Approximately 132,000 full-time residents call the Adirondacks home. They can be found in 102 towns and charming villages, nestled in forests, and along lakefronts.

SECOND HOMES Compared to New York State as a whole, the Adirondack Park has many second homes. Second home development may be raising housing costs for Adirondack residents.

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The Adirondacks will continue to be affected by the major trends facing the United States.

Increasing economic globalization and declining fossil fuels will have day-to-day implications for Adirondack residents who have high rates of unemployment and long commutes.

Global climate change and other long-distance ecological shifts will impact Adirondack human communities, as well as natural ones. For example, winter tourism might decline as the Adirondack snow season is cut in half. Conversely, demand for Adirondack lakes might grow as millions of New York City residents seek relief from over one hundred ninety-degree days each summer by 2099 (Union, 2007). There are several current trends facing the Adirondacks that deserve a closer look because they raise the kind of questions the region will have to face in the future.

Demographics Current demographic trends show that rural places across the United States are losing people to urban areas. The loss of population reduces the rural places’ ability to maintain strong communities and economies. In the Adirondacks this trend shows up as a “brain drain” in which bright, young Adirondackers are drawn to cities.

The loss of rural population is also taking place across the northern forest and it is particularly severe in the Midwestern states. There are many possible explanations for the shift: loss of jobs in rural places as farming and forestry have declined, falling crime rates in cities, media portrayals that

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glorify city living, warmer winter temperatures down south.

Whatever the cause, the loss of population hits the Adirondacks hard because the region’s residents are already spread out in small widely-dispersed settlements and villages. With around nineteen residents per square mile, the Adirondacks have one of the lowest population densities in the northeast. Compare this with the rest of upstate New York, which has a population density of 227 people per square mile (Webb, 2002). With so few people in each community, every person is important.

The loss of young people raises some important questions for the Adirondacks. How can the region keep the talent they have and attract functioning members of their communities to replace the ones they have lost? If young people are attracted to cities, is there a minimum population density that will maintain stable Adirondack communities? What is the future of the larger Adirondack towns? Do they need to be revitalized to attract more young people? Will the pendulum swing back toward rural living, flooding the Adirondacks with back-to-thelanders, or people who want to enjoy small town living and outdoor recreation?

Manhattan

A Vision

Trends

Young Adults About half of the Adirondack Park has a low percentage of young adults, while half has average rates. In contrast, New York City has very high rates of young adults. Minimizing out-migration of young people may be essential for the region’s future success.

Distance to Interstate Highways The northeast portion of the Park is nearly an hour from an interstate highway. This affects the delivery costs of products to and from those areas. As fossil fuels rise, transportation costs might consume a significantly larger portion of Adirondack budgets.

On the other hand, the Adirondacks’ proximity to major markets might open new opportunities for the region.

But as fossil fuel prices skyrocket, people are paying more attention to the cost of energy.

Many experts believe that the worldwide fossil fuel production is at, or near, decline. Increases in the costs of goods and services based on their embodied fossil fuel use—the amount of fossil fuel it takes to create, transport, or run them— may soon ripple throughout our economies and our lives (Adams, 2006).

A Vision

(Data not available for Canada)

The Cost of Fossil Fuels At the dawn of the twenty-first century, many experts believe that the era of cheap fossil fuels is past. A glance back four decades provides the necessary perspective. By 1970, the U.S. had pumped half of all the oil it would ever pump from its territory, and from then on began a decline in its ability to control the price of oil.

A decade of oil shocks and economic turmoil ensued; the specter of an age of scarcity sparked an interest in alternative energy and back-to-theland movements across the country. But in the 1980s—when oil was discovered and pumped from Alaska and the North Sea—the world was once again awash in oil and the price fell to ten dollars a barrel. For a quarter of a century, roughly 1983 to 2005, petroleum could be had throughout the industrial world at bargain prices.

In the economic, infrastructural, and cultural initiatives that emerged during those years (such as the boom in second-home development in the Adirondacks), “Can we afford the energy cost?” was not a question that needed to be asked (Heinberg, 2003).

One activity highly dependent on fossil fuel, where dramatic changes—in a region of 138,000 people spread thinly over three millions acres— will soon alter residents’ lives like no other, is transportation.

For Adirondack residents, both year-round and seasonal, the dramatic increase in energy costs could mean today’s personal transportation habits become unaffordable. This may entail more people staying put in the Adirondacks, more people moving out, or even more people visiting from downstate New York, when exotic vacation options become financially unfeasible—nobody knows for sure. But transportation costs are likely to keep changing and the impact could be tumultuous. A great many of the Adirondacks’ current economic arrangements, infrastructure, and personal and collective habits that grew up in the past few decades may have to be reworked, perhaps in a hurry.

Transportation consumes about forty-three percent of our energy use and ninety percent of our oil (Adams, 2006). During the past quarter century of ultra-cheap energy, transportation costs were so low that they became a negligible fraction of the cost of goods. Wal-Mart’s shelves could be stocked by China and local industries could be flattened.

With the rise of transportation costs, not only will Wal-Mart’s “warehouse on wheels” business

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A Vision

model, as it has been called, be under pressure, but the entire global trading system could realign as it becomes less feasible to use petroleum as a material, to engage in energy-intensive manufacturing, or to transport products long distances. There could be radical new pressures for more local manufacturing, increased demand for raw materials for industry, and a growing clamor for non-industrial and thus less energyintensive food sources (Adams, 2006).

The Adirondacks can take advantage of the many opportunities caused by a world of declining fossil fuels. Will Adirondack farming and forestry be revitalized as fossil fuels supplies decline? Will the Adirondacks become leaders in alternative energy utilizing the region’s abundant supplies of wind, rushing water, and biomass?

Global Ecological Change Three current ecological trends raise fundamental questions about the future of the Adirondack wilderness and humans’ place in it.

Over the last hundred years, acid rain and snow, primarily caused by car emissions and Midwestern power plants, has doubled the number of highly acidic lakes in the Adirondacks. The acidity kills plants and fish and it alters soil and water chemistry, which has long-term effects. For example, for the past forty years, acidified soils have prevented sugar maples from reproducing normally. Acid precipitation has also contributed mercury to lakes and streams, which has

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accumulated in fish and poisoned everything that eats them, including loons, eagles, and fishermen (Jenkins & Keal, 2004). Although levels of sulfur dioxide have dropped, nitrogen levels have not, and so Adirondack ecosystems continue to feel the effects of acid rain. Even if acid rain were to halt immediately, the changes it has wrought in soils and lakes, and plant and animal communities will be felt for generations (Jenkins & Keal, 2004).

Invasive species, which include plants, animals, and microbes that were brought to the Adirondacks by humans, are spreading throughout the Park, on land and in lakes and streams. Invasive species are troubling for several reasons. They can choke out native species or make them vulnerable to disease. They can alter fundamental natural processes, like the way water moves across the land, how much light reaches the bottom of a lake, or how often fires occur. Invasive species typically follow human transportation routes. In the Adirondacks they hitch rides on cars and boats. But even without human help, invasive species can still move across the landscape (Randall, 2003; Grisi, 2005).

Global climate change isn’t just about rising temperatures; it’s about wholesale ecological change. It will fundamentally alter where plants and animals can survive. If upstate New York’s climate becomes more like South Carolina’s current climate, as is predicted, it will be a whole new ecological niche that has never existed on earth before (Frumhoff, 2007). The region will

GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE By 2090, New York summers are predicted to feel like current summers in South Carolina (Union, 2007).

In all three cases, it seems that the Adirondack wilderness is no longer untouched by man. Is an acid lake wilderness if it was acidified by human actions? Is a wilderness forest really wilderness if its most significant nut-producing tree was wiped out by a human induced fungus? Will the wilderness still be wilderness if its climate has been dramatically changed by humans? In each of these cases, there are profound moral questions for the stewards of the Adirondack Park. Should humans take actions to help these ecosystems regenerate? If a highly acid lake returns to a more natural pH, should humans take steps to reintroduce the life that was once in them? Or should we let nature take its course? If invasive

species take over a portion of the forest preserve, should we eradicate them? If climate change is coming, should people be testing trees now to see which will survive warm winters in Adirondack soils? Should we be establishing seed-beds for the future forest? Will the wilderness be better off with no human manipulation, some, or a lot?

How do we determine where the line is?

A Vision

still have New York State’s soils and its lengths of days and sun angles, but it will experience South Carolina’s temperatures, and a completely novel set of precipitation patterns. Many creatures that currently live in the Adirondacks will no longer be able to survive and will need to find new homes.

For example, the alpine communities on top of Adirondack mountains will probably not survive (Farnsworth, 2008). Other creatures from other places will be looking to fill the niches left by Adirondack natives, but what creatures will they be, and will they be able to migrate long distances into the Adirondacks? Even if Southern longleaf pine could survive in the new New York, how long will it take to arrive? Will it be able to make the journey, if its habitat is marching northward faster than the wind, water, or organisms can spread its seeds?

The challenges and questions outlined above point to the need for increased cooperation amongst all of the people who care about the Adirondacks—locals, state officials, visiting tourists, non-governmental organizations.

Adirondackers have a long history of surviving under difficult circumstances, but these difficult circumstances have also, at times, been divisive.

To succeed in the future, Adirondackers will need to find common ground and identify common goals. They will need to engage all members of their communities and all sectors of their economies. They will need to participate in local and regional planning.

Together, Adirondackers can foster vibrant communities that provide a good quality of life for people and healthy woods and waters.

Together, they can look to the future and see better times ahead.

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A Vision

HOW THINGS COULD BE A VIEW OF THE future

The people of the Adirondacks enjoy vibrant communities

plants that provide heat and electricity to revitalized main

that are ecologically rich, economically sound, and socially

streets.

fulfilling. When asked why they live in the region, Adirondack residents often reply, “There’s a good quality

Adirondack settlements and villages are full of life. Streets

of life here.” That simple phrase has deep meaning across

are lined with stores, restaurants, social clubs and churches.

the Park.

During lunch, full-time and seasonal residents converse with visitors who have come to enjoy, not only the Park,

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Adirondack residents work close to home in fulfilling jobs

but the innovative people who live in it. Vacationers can

that provide solid incomes. Some workers telecommute to

be seen unloading their bikes from train stations in most

distant offices using the region’s state-of-the-art broadband

towns, eager to begin rides from hamlet to hamlet, stopping

network. Others make a living from the region’s abundant

in bed and breakfasts and small businesses along the way.

natural resources. Outdoor education specialists, park

Adirondackers also use the train, although more and more

rangers, guides, farmers, foresters and carbon traders play

they find they rarely leave the Park, since most of what

an active role in protecting and regenerating the Park’s

they want can be found close to home. Many Adirondack

natural resources so that future generations will be able

residents are homeowners. They live in established

to use them too. The local economy is building strength,

neighborhoods, where residents know and support each

especially among businesses that serve full-time residents.

other. Adirondackers spend their plentiful free time

Residents take pride in shopping in the Park, where they

playing with their children, visiting with grandchildren, or

trade AdironBucks for local fruits and vegetables, crafts,

exploring the healthy woods and streams that are easily

and manufactured goods.

accessible to all.

Adirondackers power their lives with home grown power—

Adirondack residents have reinvested in their land, their

some have small-scale wind or microhydro turbines in their

towns, their people, and their social networks and the

back yards. Others take advantage of municipal biomass

investments have paid off.

A Vision

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THE MARRIAGE

Renewing THE union between the ENVIRONMENT and The ECONOMY

The Marriage

How Things Were

Looking back at the Adirondacks’ rich history provides examples of how Adirondack communities and economies have succeeded in the past and where they have fallen short. The history of the region, before and after the Park’s establishment, suggests that the region’s vast natural resources have always been the foundation of Adirondack communities and their economies.

The present challenge, then, is to find ways to utilize those resources in a way that benefits Adirondack communities both now and for the long term. Adirondack history points toward a future that strengthens “the marriage between the region’s environment and its economy.”

History of the Region’S Industries The Adirondacks are part of America’s great Northern Forest—the contiguous boreal and northern hardwood forest that flows from upstate New York across Vermont and New Hampshire and hooks northward deep into Maine. For generations, the people of the Adirondacks have made their livelihood by harvesting the vast resources of the region’s environment to fuel their economy.

Early Native Americans were seasonal visitors— hunters and fishermen—who left the region before snow started to fall. Those who remained through the winter were mockingly called Adirondacks, “bark eaters,” by the Iroquois.

Just one year after Henry Hudson “discovered” the Hudson River in 1609, the Dutch began

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sending ships up the river to purchase furs from Iroquois who hunted in the Adirondacks. As the fur trade boomed, the Europeans made massive profits (the price for a pelt in Europe was nearly one thousand times what a Native American received for it), while the Native Americans nearly extinguished most furbearers in the region and engaged in a hundred-year-long war for control of trading routes (Schneider, 1998 and Jenkins & Keal, 2004). The French and the English followed suit, battling each other for control of the region’s water routes in the French and Indian War. During the Revolutionary War, and again in the War of 1812, it was the British and Americans who fought for control of water routes. This early period established two patterns, which can be traced throughout Adirondack history. First, a run on the region’s resources was initiated by an external demand. The resources were overharvested and then exported world-wide. The people who harvested the resources did not profit

as much as those who resold them. Second, the region’s waters were highly valued and control of them was the subject of intense conflicts.

European settlers began moving into the Adirondacks around 1800. They stuck to the region’s periphery, farming the rich soils of the Champlain, Saranac, Hudson, and Ausable valleys (Jenkins & Keal, 2004). Though growing seasons were short, and the influx of these farming homesteaders eventually began to ebb after 1840, those who remained grew apples, potatoes, and oats, herded sheep and cattle, and ran dairies for years to come. Their spirit of self-sufficiency inspires the Adirondacks today.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, iron ore mining and iron making had solidified as the Adirondacks’ primary industry. Iron mining took advantage of the region’s rich iron deposits and waterpower. It also consumed nearly seven thousand acres of trees per year, which were harvested to make the charcoal that heated the forges. Dozens of towns grew up around the iron mines, especially in the northeastern portion of the region. Many were company towns where the mining companies also owned the houses and the stores. Workers were paid in scrip that were redeemable only at the company stores.

The mining companies profited greatly from this system. In the 1870s, J. & J. Rogers Iron Company owned three stores and sold more than $350,000 in goods (Adirondack Museum, 2008). Iron mining ended in the region after World War II,

Miners worked long hours under dangerous conditions. in part due to the high cost of transporting the iron out the region. Some towns vanished with the mines, but many remained. The effect of transportation costs on Adirondack industries’ competitiveness continues to be a significant factor in the region’s economy, as do the former mining towns.

Tanning was the second largest industry in the early 1800s. It thrived where there were plentiful supplies of hemlock, whose bark yielded tannic acid used for leather production. Like the mining industry, tanneries cut large swaths of forest. By the turn of the century they had cut the hemlock on between a million and a million-and-a-half acres of land (Jenkins & Keal, 2004). Once the accessible hemlock supplies ran out, so did the tanning industry. By 1900, the tanning industry was dead in the Northern Forest (Williamson,

Early logging was a byproduct of farming. A farmer could make a quick dollar from the hardwood forest he or she cleared by making potash from its ashes, which was used for making soap, glass, dye, and fertilizer (McMartin, 1994).

Timber harvesting began in earnest in 1813, when the first log drive on an Adirondack river took place. Pine was stripped from the hills and floated down Adirondack waterways to wood-hungry cities. When the pines ran out, spruce became the tree of choice (McMartin, 1994). Like the fur trade of the seventeenth century, the wealth from logging primarily accrued to the traders—those who bought and sold Adirondack lumber. By 1850, Albany had the most active lumber port in the country. Timber barons made a fortune while the typical Adirondack lumberjack worked fourteen hours a day for a top wage of $2.50 per day plus four meals (Adirondack Museum, 2008).

Unlike the ironworks and the tanneries, forestry companies did not usually establish towns.

Lumberjacks would spend the fall and winter in lumber camps, where they slept in bunkhouses and ate in the camp mess hall. In the spring, the lumberjacks would follow the logs down the rivers, breaking logjams and camping along the way (Adirondack Museum, 2008). A small resident population of innkeepers and hunters

did settle in the Adirondack interior. Small hotels were established at the heads of many of the log-driving rivers and some of the larger lakes (Jenkins & Keal, 2004). At first they serviced the lumberjacks, but around 1850, the Adirondacks’ popularity as a vacation destination began to grow. The region was promoted through numerous travel guides and memoirs. Their authors praised the beauty of the region and declared that the wilderness could refresh the spirit of a person worn down by city life: “Give a month to the enjoyment of a wilderness-life, and you will return to your labors invigorated in strength, buoyant in spirit—a wiser, healthier, and better man” (Hammond, 1857).

The Marriage

2002). Like the iron industry, tanning also left a legacy of towns that had grown up around an industry. These towns are mostly located in the south and southeast of the region.

Tanneries consumed massive numbers of hemlock trees.

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The Marriage

mills used trees that previously had no value: poplar, balsam, and odd-sized trees.

Sportsmen discovered the Adirondacks in the 1850s.

The sportsmen were joined by other vacationers.

Adirondacks to play and display wealth. They In the mid 1800s, artists, philosophers, scientists built “great camps” along lakeshores, complete and others seeking inspiration turned to the with private steamboats, private train stations, and Adirondacks. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem massive private parks.

“The Adirondacs” captured the sentiment of the scholars transported to the wilderness from their In the 1870s, paper mills arrived in the Adirondacks. city homes (Handmade, 2006).

They provided steady employment and created an even greater demand for Adirondack wood. Paper And, in the forest, delicate clerks, unbrowned, sleep on the fragrant brush, as on down-beds. Up with the dawn, they fancied the light air, that circled freshly in their forest dress, made them to boys again. Happier that they slipped off their pack of duties, leagues behind, at the first mounting of the giant stairs (Emerson, 1858).

While the philosophers came for the “spirit in the woods,” the very wealthy came to the

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Thus by the late 1870s the major elements were in place that have continued to define Adirondack life since. The region’s periphery was dotted with farms, industry and small towns. The interior was more sparsely settled. It contained working forests, private parks, and scattered villages that depended on vacationers. Sportsmen loved the region for its game and its fish; scientists and philosophers drew inspiration from its wilderness; the very wealthy appreciated it as a playground; and the residents made their living working for captains of industry—in the mines, mills, forests, tanneries and hotels. All groups valued the region’s natural resources, but had different ideas about how those resources should be used.

That created a tension that would change the Adirondacks forever.

Lumberjacks went into the woods in fall and did not come out until the snow melted.

In 1864, the New York Times published an editorial that set the stage for the Adirondacks’ future. The editorial was in response to news that Thomas C. Durant’s Adirondack Company was building a railroad line from Saratoga into the heart of the Adirondack wilderness. In some ways, it reads as an advertisement for that railroad.

Within an easy day’s ride of our great City… is a tract of country fitted to make a Central Park for the world… and with [the railroad’s] completion, the Adirondack region will become a suburb of New-York [sic]… It will become to our whole community, on an ample scale, what the Central Park now is on a limited one… and here we venture a suggestion to those of our citizens who desire to advance civilization by combining taste with luxury in their expenditures… let them form combinations, and, seizing upon the choicest of the Adirondack Mountains, before they are despoiled of their forests, make of them grand parks, owned in common, and thinly

dotted with hunting seats, where, at little cost, they can enjoy equal amplitude and privacy of sporting, riding and driving, whenever they are able, for a few days or weeks, to seek the country in pursuit of health or pleasure. In spite of all the din and dust of furnaces and foundries, the Adirondacks, thus husbanded, will furnish abundant seclusion for all time to come; and will admirably realize the true union which should always exist between utility and enjoyment (New York Times, 1864).

It is somewhat unclear whether the New York

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Times was calling for the government to seize control of the Adirondacks, or for private individuals to form cooperatives that would protect the Adirondacks. In either case, the editorial gave wide exposure to the idea of an Adirondack preserve.

The Establishment of the Park The establishment of the forest preserve in 1885, and the Adirondack Park in 1892, grew out of widespread concern that the Adirondacks would be destroyed by unfettered logging. A coalition of diverse groups advocated for the Park’s protection and succeeded.

The state of New York began purchasing land in the Adirondacks in the middle of the nineteenth century. Joel T. Headley described the scene in 1849, “you have no conception of the quantity of lumber that is taken every winter.... A great deal of land is bought of government solely for the pine on it, and after that is cut down, it is allowed to revert back to the State to pay its taxes” (Headley, 1849). In addition to forfeiting lands that had already been harvested, timber companies also relinquished lands that were too rugged to be profitably cut. It seems that early land purchases by the state were not part of an effort to create a park. Instead, the state was simply buying land that no one else wanted. The state was essentially taking a burden away from local communities and holding the land until it could profitably return to forestry (Jenkins & Keal, 2004).

In 1872, the State of New York contracted a young surveyor named Verplank Colvin to chart the lands of the Adirondacks and see if it was appropriate to establish a park at the headwaters of the Hudson River (Henshaw Knott, 1998).

In one of his reports to the New York State Legislature, Colvin sounded the alarm:

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Unless the region be preserved essentially in its present wilderness condition, the ruthless burning and destruction of the forest will slowly, year after year, creep onward... and vast areas of naked rock, arid sand, and gravel will alone remain to receive the bounty of the clouds and be unable to retain it (Adirondack History, 2008).

Colvin’s comments reflect ideas of scientific forestry that were developing at the time.

Scientific foresters, also called conservationists, had begun to realize that massive deforestation led to soil erosion and reduced the forest’s ability to regenerate. They also realized that deforestation could lead to flooding and droughts.

Scientific foresters opposed clear-cutting and advocated instead for forest management that would enable larger long-term yields.

Colvin’s report about forest destruction was echoed by many travelers, especially those who saw the vast wastelands on the eastern side of the Adirondacks, which were caused by forest fires and unrestrained wood harvesting for ironworks and tanneries. By 1885, the conservationists, sportsmen, vacationers, and downstate industrialists had convinced the state that the Adirondack needed protection. The state created a forest preserve from the lands they already owned. The forest preserve was essentially a timber bank that would be harvested in a restrained style.

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It was only in 1892, when it became clear that wide-scale deforestation in the Adirondacks was threatening the water supply for the Erie Canal, that the Adirondack Park was established. In other words, the creation of the Park occurred because the Park’s timber economy threatened the economy of wealthy downstate industrialists.

It was a conflict between different economic uses for the region’s environment that led to the creation of the Park.

Nevertheless, even the establishment of the Park did not prevent the cutting of trees on state lands, nor did it quell fears that deforestation was threatening water supplies. Seneca Ray Stoddard, author of a popular book about the Adirondacks, wrote: The propagation of game and fish in the Adirondacks is eminently commendable as a sentiment; the great State Park is an undoubted blessing and the preservation of the forests for the Nation’s sanitarium of great worth to humanity, but the question of pure water for the millions is infinitely more important than all the others.

Soon the people of the great cities must look to the mountains for the water they drink. They have a right to it, untainted, and to its undiminished flow—now jeopardized by the cutting away of the forests about its head…. This is the danger that threatens.… The State

Sportsmen joined forces with conservationists and industrial interests to advocate for the Park’s protection. should control, absolutely, to the rim, the Hudson River watershed. To our heirs it would be a hundred times the value of lands that send their water other ways (Stoddard, 1893).

In statewide voting in 1894, New Yorkers, convinced that logging on state lands had to stop,

enjoy the wilderness and the lakes. Adirondack residents were in the enviable position of having several industries to support them, and ready access to land that other people considered a worthy playground. In the words of the New York Times editorial, they were in a position to “admirably realize the true union which should always exist between utility and enjoyment.”

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passed an amendment to the state constitution that declared state land within the Park would be “forever wild.” The level of protection that the constitutional amendment established is almost unique world-wide. Ironically, much of the “forever wild” land that had already been heavily influenced by humans by the time the clause was introduced. Some bore the scars of logging.

Other areas of the forest had been more subtly altered—by the extirpation of the beaver, and the effects of fires and erosion on neighboring parcels.

The establishment of the Park and the constitutional amendment reflected the complex interplay of interests at work in the Adirondacks.

The coalition of industrialists, preservationists, scientific foresters, sportsmen, and vacationers had established a Park that would be a balance between public and private, between wilderness and working land. In both the public and the private lands, the Park was a marriage between the economy and the environment. The stateowned parts of the Park provided what are now called ecosystem services by protecting drinking water and water for transportation. The wilderness drew vacationers, who appreciated the restorative qualities of wilderness or hunted its game. The privately-owned parts of the Park supplied necessary materials for the industrial machine: timber, paper, iron, and minerals. These industries employed the residents of the Park who mostly lived in towns near the Park’s edges.

Residents also served the tourists who came to

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How To Get There from Here Conventional & Alternative Notions of Economy Unfortunately, many Adirondack residents have not benefited from the Park’s unique opportunities. A brief look at economic theory helps to explain why.

The term “economics” comes from the Greek oikos (house) and nomos (custom or law), hence “rules of the house.” Economics provides the rules we use to manage our households both individually and as communities, or even at the

Figure 1

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scale of regions and nations. The economy, then, can be understood as simply the production, distribution, and consumption of all the things people make or the services they provide, and the myriad ways we exchange goods and services so that as best as possible, everyone can “manage their households” well.

Conventional Export-Led Economic Development Theory To understand what drives an economy and what does not, regional economic planners often use export-led theory analysis. This theory assumes the different industry sectors in an economy, such as manufacturing or retail, can be broken into two key categories: basic sectors and nonbasic sectors. Basic sectors are those activities that draw money into that local economy. They do this supposedly by feeding an economy’s growth via the production of a surplus that is not being used to meet local needs and therefore can be exported. Non-basic sectors are important contributors to the economy as well; however, non-basic sectors are mostly consumed by the region itself and, according to conventional export-base theory, do not achieve economic development. This view of the economy is very prevalent.

To test the value of export-led theory, the authors conducted a location quotient analysis using data from 2005. Location quotient analysis compares a region’s economy to the economy of similar regions. In this study the region’s economy was

compared to the United States as a whole and to states in the Northern Forest.

The results of this analysis suggest that in eight of the eighteen sectors defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, the Adirondacks economy is relatively weak. The category of professional, scientific, and technical services is very low. The Adirondacks are relatively strong in retail, manufacturing, health care and social services, and education services. In utilities, transportation, entertainment and recreation, and accommodation and food services, the region is no different than the nation.

And in only forestry and agriculture is the region clearly a leader (Figure 1).

The strength of the social service and education sectors reflects the high number of government jobs in the region. Governments employ approximately one-third of the region’s workers.

The largest employer is a school. The second largest is a prison (Jenkins & Keal, 2004).

The tourism industry can be understood as the combination of accommodation and food service jobs, entertainment and recreation jobs, retail jobs, and possibly construction jobs, to include all the second homes that are being built for seasonal use. Of these, in 2005 only retail was above average. Accommodation, food services, entertainment, and recreation were all rather nonbasic, and construction was somewhat low. Based on this conventional economic development theory analysis one can make the surprising

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Figure 2 conclusion that the region’s economy in 2005 was not driven by tourism.

Furthermore, when compared to the other states in the Great Northern Forest region—Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine—the Adirondacks had some of the lowest location quotients (Vermont has the best of the four in the sectors related to tourism). Figure 2 (above) looks at this group of regions in 2005.

Unfortunately, looking at years before 2005 does not improve the picture of the Adirondack economy. Data from 1998 reveals an even worse export-led picture of the Adirondack economy

Figure 3 as many Adirondack location quotients dropped between 1998 and 2005 (Figure 3). From this analysis one could conclude that, even by its own measures, export-base led economic development may not always be the best option for the Adirondacks.

Critiques of Conventional Economic Development Theory This conventional economic-base theory analysis is often used to support a model of economic development based on comparative advantage and free trade. Comparative advantage is the theory that regions should specialize in producing the goods and services that they can produce

most cheaply. Those products can then trade in the global economy. In contemporary export-base economic development, regions are encouraged to bring in businesses that create jobs. Those jobs have “multiplier effects” which lead to more jobs for people serving the employees of the primary industry. But are the assumptions of this traditional approach always valid? And what are some of the consequences of this approach?

Proponents of global free trade claim that it increases economic prosperity as well as opportunity. They place their faith in the economic theory of comparative advantage, believing that in general, free trade leads to lower

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prices, more employment, higher output, and a higher standard of living.

Critics of the current wave of economic globalization, however, look at the damage to the planet in terms of the unsustainable harm done to the biosphere, as well as the human costs.

They point to a multitude of interconnected consequences—social disintegration, a breakdown of civic society, more rapid environmental deterioration, increasing poverty and alienation— which they claim are the unintended, but very real, consequences of globalization.

The Adirondacks have seen the effects of exportbase economics throughout their history. Fur trading, tanning, mineral extraction, and forestry, were all export-based industries. In their early days those industries caused rapid environmental deterioration, dangerous working conditions and social unrest, which—in the case of Native Americans engaged in the fur trade—even led to war. Currently, the Adirondacks are demonstrating some weaknesses of the multiplier theory. Although money does come into the region through forestry, it often goes right back out of the Park to purchase essential goods and services in the Park’s ring cities.

Within the United States, there has been an undeniable shift from manufacturing to service work. Professional service jobs still maintain middle-class wages, but many other service jobs often have wages and benefits that are low.

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Moreover, many families that were once part of the middle class because they held well paying but low skilled manufacturing jobs have had to take lower paying positions due to global outsourcing.

This also means that people in the lower class have a much harder time climbing out of poverty because of the absence of the middle class as a steppingstone.

Meanwhile, recent scientific research has shown that across industrialized nations, happiness levels have been flat since the 1950s—even amongst people whose incomes have risen. And signs of unhappiness like depression, suicide and crime have been steadily increasing. It seems that beyond a modest threshold of wealth (about ten thousand dollars per year), more money does not actually make people happier (Layard, 2005).

Quality of Life As an alternative to export-base economic development, some economists are proposing a new goal for economic development: improving quality of life.

To have a good quality of life, people need access to food and shelter, security, affection, understanding, participation in society, leisure, spirituality, creative and emotional expression, identity, and freedom (Costanza et al., 2007).

Some of these items can be purchased, but many of them are not commodities. As Cornell economist Robert Frank said in his book Luxury Fever, most people would be better off if “we

% Very Happy

GDP Per Capita

100

$

80

60

40

20

0

1946 1951 1956 1961 1966 1971 1976 1981 1986 1991 1996

The degree of happiness self-reported by Americans has fallen since about 1956, even while GDP has continued to rise (Adapted from Layard, 2005).

consumed less and spent more time with family and friends, working for our communities, maintaining our physical and mental health, and enjoying the benefits of nature” (Frank, 2000).

On the one hand, it seems that economic and community development in the Adirondacks does need to increase the amount of money circulating in the region; better paying jobs would provide Adirondack residents with better access to food and shelter. But Adirondack residents also need more opportunities to enjoy the other aspects of life that contribute significantly to quality of life.

They need more time to enjoy leisure, family, and exercise. It’s not enough to have good neighbors if you don’t have time to interact with them. It’s

WORKERS WHO COMMUTE BETWEEN 5 AND 24 MINUTES PER DAY In the north-central portion of the Park between 70 and 100 percent of workers have moderate commutes.

If, in recent years, Adirondack residents have not been able to live out the “true union which should always exist between utility and enjoyment,” it is because they have lacked both stable satisfying jobs (utility) and time to participate in community and take advantage of their beautiful surroundings (enjoyment). To improve their quality of life, they will need to reverse both of these trends.

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not enough to have clear mountain streams if you don’t have time to fish in them. Some statistics point out the problem: “Between 1973 and 2000, the average American employee added 199 hours to his annual schedule—that is, the equivalent of five forty-hour work weeks.... Between 1969 and 2000… overall labor productivity increased by 80 percent, so that the average worker in 2000 could produce nearly twice as much per hour as the average worker in 1969” (McKibben, 2007).

If gains in productivity had been translated into reduced working hours, American workers would be working only a little more than twenty hours a week and would still be producing the same amount as they did in 1969 (Juliet Schor in McKibben, 2007). In addition to longer work days, commuting times have also been rising.

Research by Robert Putnam shows that every ten minutes of commuting time cuts social activity by ten percent (2005).

WORKERS WHO COMMUTE BETWEEN 24 AND 59 MINUTES PER DAY Very few workers in the center of the Park have long commutes, but 45 to 50 percent of workers who live on the western edge of the Park, and over 50% of workers along the Park’s northern edge have commutes between 24 and 59 minutes.

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Import Substitution An alternative model of economic development, called “import substitution,” could refocus the economy of the Adirondacks on improving quality of life, in both its monetary and nonmonetary dimensions. This idea, developed by the urban theorist Jane Jacobs, asserts that the best way for a community to improve its economy is to become more self-reliant. Import replacement might be the most traditional economic development policy on the globe. Towns and hamlets have practiced it since the days of Mesopotamia (Jacobs, 1969). The small port of Venice pursued this strategy in its relations with Constantinople, as did the United States in the nineteenth century, Japan in the twentieth, and now China and India today.

The most successful places use initial trade to ignite a process through which they gradually replace the goods and services they have been importing with locally made versions. In a sense they create their own comparative advantage.

Jacobs cites the famous example of the Japanese transportation industry. The Japanese imported bicycles into Tokyo in the late 1800s. Tokyo bike repairmen began to make their own bike parts for repairs. Eventually they could make the whole bike and no longer needed to import bike parts nor the bikes themselves. This process evolved, so that by the mid-twentieth century the multi-faceted Japanese transportation industry

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manufactured ships, trains, and automobiles.

This replacement process not only creates work, but, more importantly, creates know-how and encourages innovation. Places learn how to solve problems in new ways and then transfer this experience from one type of industry onto another.

The Adirondacks can begin the process of strengthening their local economies by using the money that is currently coming into the region through forestry, outdoor recreation, and seasonal businesses, and reinvesting in local businesses that serve full-time residents. Building these businesses will benefit both the monetary aspects of the economy—Adirondack residents will have better access to the goods and services they need and more money will stay in the region—and the non-monetary—local businesses build better local communities. Anyone who has lived in a small town knows that there is more conversation among shoppers and storekeepers in local stores than in suburban big box stores. A recent study showed that shoppers have ten times as many conversations at farmers’ markets than they do at supermarkets (McKibben, 2007).

Setting New Economic Terms Building local businesses and tailoring economic development to improve quality of life does not imply that the Adirondacks need to cut themselves off from the rest of the world. On the contrary, building a local economy can empower a

region to renegotiate the terms of its relationships with its trading partners.

Since Europeans established trading posts on the outskirts of the Adirondacks, Adirondack residents have been negotiating from a weak position. Their best resources have been sold down the rivers and Adirondack residents have not been adequately compensated. Recently, the Adirondacks have been providing many of their best resources for free. The Park provides incalculable ecosystem services to the Northeast United States, including clean air, clean water, carbon-sequestration. As markets for ecosystem services grow, Adirondack communities will benefit if they can ensure that they are perceived as the stewards of those services and that they are justly compensated for that role.

The decline of fossil fuels may provide another impetus for the Adirondacks to renegotiate their terms with their neighbors. Current global economic arrangements are largely based on cheap fossil fuels. Low transportation costs make it possible for regions to search worldwide for the cheapest products. As fossil fuel prices increase, transportation costs will make up a greater percentage of the prices of products. Spatial proximity between producers and consumers will become more important. Seen from the sky at night, the Adirondacks hover like a flying saucer over an asteroid belt of cities from Buffalo to New York. That asteroid belt is made up of

POPULATION DENSITY The Adirondacks have a very low population density of about 19 people per square mile, but within one day’s drive, there are over 85 million people. The relationship between the Adirondack region and its neighbors is vital to the region’s economic well-being.

people

Not only must the people of the Adirondack region start to set better terms with places downstate and across the Canadian border, but they must also start setting better terms with each other. The Park includes towns near its borders (often referred to by the Adirondack Park Agency as gateway communities) and interior towns.

In addition, there are many towns that are split by the Park border. Some of those towns have dense populations outside the border, and sparse populations inside. The populations on either side of the Blue Line have different needs, but these towns are served by one governmental and one tax structure. Many workers currently commute into the Park for tourism jobs. As the location quotient analysis shows, those jobs are not really driving the economy or sufficiently providing for the people who hold the jobs. Perhaps it is time to expand economic development policy to deal with the regional issues of affordable housing, transportation, and other social issues that the

Park’s development patterns and its relationships with its neighbors have created.

In the nineteenth century, Adirondack economic relationships were extractive and exploitive of people and the land. In one industry after another, natural resources depletion led to economic decline in the Adirondacks. Then the people of the cities to the south, for better or worse, decided to make the region a Park, and Adirondackers have been dealing with the economic implications of that event for over a hundred years.

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eighty-five million customers within one day’s drive of the Adirondacks. When proximity becomes more important, these customers may suddenly be looking toward the Adirondack region in wonder, especially at all the natural resources that could supply their economies.

Adirondack forests and farms may become more attractive to nearby customers. Manufacturing and mining may also become more significant. The Adirondack region may accrue new economic power. Will that power benefit local residents?

As new trends such as global warming and fossil fuel depletion arrive in the near future what will be the new set of terms? Will it be economic models that benefit the people of the Adirondacks or others? Will it be economic models that sustain the region’s forests and thus the people’s livelihoods or give away those resource in a boom that quickly leads to bust?

If Adirondack residents begin acting now, they can negotiate how their resources are used and under what terms. They can negotiate for economic terms that benefit the people of the Adirondacks, and that sustain forests, waters, minerals, and people’s livelihoods. They can negotiate for terms that build toward long-term stability in the economy and ecological integrity.

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How to begin If building local capacities through import substitution is the way to foster vibrant Adirondack communities, where should Adirondack entrepreneurs begin? For the Japanese, bicycles were the place to start. For the Adirondacks, who have long winters and long commutes, it might be alternative energy or alternative forms of transportation that need to be developed locally. Replacing some imported food with locally grown food is another good opportunity. Or perhaps, the Adirondackers can expand their well-known brand of Adirondack chairs to include a full line of furniture made by genuine Adirondack woodworkers using local Adirondack wood. In truth, there is not just one starting place. The Adirondacks can try many strategies simultaneously. Not all of the strategies will succeed, but as the adage says, “mistakes are shortcuts to learning” and as Adirondack residents become smarter, more strategies will be successful.

Identifying potential opportunities for building more vibrant Adirondack communities is basically a two-step process. First, identify goods and services that Adirondack residents need that could be produced locally. Second, reinvest in Adirondack assets that can help meet these needs.

Towns and hamlets currently develop capital improvement plans for long-range purchases of equipment, infrastructure, or buildings. While capital improvement plans are usually for such

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tangible things, the notions of “capital” and its “improvement” can be expanded to a host of other assets, tangible and intangible, which support towns and the region.

First reconsider the idea of capital. Besides physical and infrastructural capital there is also knowledge and entrepreneurial capital, the diverse stock of people and their ideas that keep local economies humming. This human economic capital doesn’t operate in a vacuum but sits in a social and natural context. Social capital may be maintaining a town or region’s social cohesion while natural capital is aiding the air and water and all the other natural systems on which towns depend. Next, reconsider the idea of improvement. Many times it simply means more—more equipment, more schools—but often it can mean better. Finally, reconsider the idea of a plan. Is the best plan more business as usual or is it time to try something new?

Adirondack assets fall broadly into four types of capital with overlaps and inter-relationships between them:

Natural capital. Renewable and nonrenewable goods and services provided by ecosystems

Built capital. Manufactured goods such as tools, equipment, buildings.

Human capital. The knowledge and

information stored in our brains and hearts, as well as our labor

Social capital. Those networks and

norms that facilitate cooperative action By reinvesting in the region’s natural, built, human and social assets, Adirondack residents can build vibrant Adirondack communities.

It’s important that the economy is built upon reinvesting in assets, not just exploiting them.

If Adirondack residents want to improve their quality of life over the long term, their assets need to grow over the long term. Adirondack quality of life will always depend on healthy ecosystems, efficient infrastructure, well-educated and happy people, responsive governments and strong connections amongst Adirondack residents. Strategies for developing Adirondack communities should be evaluated based on how they affect all forms of capital. For example, a building project that damages a wetland, which is protecting a town’s water supply, may not be a good investment even if it provides short-term jobs. On the other hand, restoring a wetland might not be a good investment if it is in the only location for a new town facility that will allow the town to reach a critical population density to support a new school. There are complex decisions ahead. All Adirondack communities have a stake in them, and the most successful decisions are built from everyone’s participation.

The next section of this handbook describes tools for fostering more vibrant Adirondack communities.

It also spotlights efforts that are already under way.

These tools and spotlights evince a future of the Adirondacks that could be very bright.

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2 SECTION

Natural Capital

Natural Capital

The Adirondack Park has immense natural resources. The Park covers six million acres— five and half million of which are forested.

The Park has eighty-five percent of all of the wilderness area in the eleven northeastern states, including 2,800 lakes and ponds, 35,000 miles of streams, and one million acres of wetlands in thirteen watersheds.

Ninety percent of all plant and animal species in the northeast are present in the Adirondacks.

If used wisely, the Park’s natural capital will sustain the region’s communities for generations to come.

Forest Cover

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Looking to natural capital for economic development doesn’t necessarily imply resource extraction (such as mining or logging), which has contributed to the region’s boom-bust economic history for centuries. More broadly, natural capital can include sun, wind, water, soils, wildlife, and forests. In the Adirondacks, natural resources abound: the largest temperate forest in the lower forty-eight states, headwaters of fourteen major rivers including the Hudson and the St. Lawrence, twenty-two natural lakes, and forty-six mountains over 4000 feet high.

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NATURAL CAPITAL But how can these resources be harnessed in a way that still preserves the integrity of the forest, protects water quality, and safeguards the other natural resources in the region?

Promoting sustainable management, regenerative design, and the conservation of resources, the following strategies suggest how the Adirondack economy can evolve by capitalizing on—while still maintaining and preserving—the resources that make the region exceptional.

Food PRODUCTION • AGROFORESTRY • SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY ECOSYSTEM SERVICES • BIOMASS • WIND POWER • HYDROPOWER

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FOOD PRODUCTION

Natural Capital

FARMING IN ATYPICAL LOCATIONS Presently, most of the farmland within the Park can be found along its periphery, with the highest concentration in the Champlain Valley where the soils are the most fertile and the least rocky, and the growing season is the longest. Several groups, including Adirondack Harvest, a community organization dedicated to farm advocacy, are already encouraging agricultural pursuits on existing and abandoned farms.

Through a combination of age-old and contemporary techniques, small-scale farming in slightly less desirable conditions, such as colder climates and rocky soils, could become a viable option for Park residents in other parts of the region. As climate change and fossil fuel depletion impact food production around the world, the demand for local produce will likely rise. Thus, the following techniques, just a sampling of those available, can make it possible to grow and sell more produce locally, reducing transportation and energy use and stimulating economic and community development.

PLASTIC SIDES ROLL UP IN THE MORNING TO ALLOW FOR VENTILATION

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The focus of season extension isn’t necessarily the production of crops in the winter, but more on the fact that spring crops can be planted earlier and fall crops harvested later, thus extending the season by a few weeks on either end.

High tunnels at Rivermede Farm.

SEASON EXTENSION

HIGH TUNNELS A high tunnel, one form of season extension, is a greenhouse that uses only solar passive heating.

The structure can range in size and is often quonset-shaped, composed of metal bowed posts that are draped in a layer of plastic. The only dimensional standard is that high tunnels are tall enough to walk in and are sometimes built to fit a tractor. The height also works well for crops that require trellising, such as tomatoes. Other benefits include the tunnel’s economical nature, as well as its ability to warm the soil and protect crops from wind, rain, and sometimes insects.

FLAPS ROLL DOWN IN THE EVENING TO KEEP IN WARMTH

FOR ROCKY OR INFERTILE SOILS

While many parts of the region lack the soil structure to support large-scale intensive farming, several options exist for smaller-scale operations, including raised beds.

RAISED BEDS Raised beds offer an alternative to back-breaking tillage and high-cost machinery that still provide excellent soil drainage and room for root growth.

A raised bed also avoids the soil compaction that comes from walking between garden beds. Many farmers endorse no-till techniques, such as raised beds, maintaining that regular tilling can reduce soil fertility and disrupt soil composition.

Spotlight: Rivermede Farm

Being situated in the heart of the high peaks region proves challenging for farming, as cold

air from the mountains drains down into Keene Valley, keeping the area particularly cold for a longer period of time than other parts of the Park. However, Rob Hastings of Rivermede Farm has been fruitfully experimenting with season extension techniques such as greenhouses and high tunnels in order to capitalize on the area’s rich lake bottom deposit soils. Rob’s next ambition is to transition to using geothermal and solar-powered greenhouses to allow for yearround production.

Rob says that he believes in the “trickle up system,” that is, starting small, making reasonable investments based on what you can afford, and then reevaluating and expanding from there. He started with just a rototiller and one acre and has now expanded his cultivation to a manageable three acres for vegetables, and twenty-seven more acres devoted to sugar maples for syrup to complement the produce sales. Rivermede sells their products through a farmstand and to local restaurants.

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To highlight some of the inventive ways in which farmers are utilizing land in the Adirondacks, Adirondack Harvest, a community organization dedicated to farm advocacy, has produced Three Farms, a documentary that showcases three farms in the region. One of them, Rivermede Farm in Keene Valley, serves as a particularly interesting model, due to its geographical location.

2006 marked the land’s one hundredth anniversary of being in the Hastings family as a working farm. Rob is the third generation to be working the land, which has seen dairy, poultry, and vegetable production throughout the years.

Photos courtesy of Adirondack Harvest

“I find there’s nothing better in the world and nothing more satisfying than knowing I’m supplying the food to my village and surrounding area and that they’re not having to eat something that’s trucked in from across the country or from way down south. I can still provide for them here. It’s very satisfying and you become very proud of it, too.” — Rob Hastings Rob (second from the left) and his farm crew in front of the high tunnels in mid-summer.

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AGROFORESTRY

ENCOURAGING FRUITFUL COMBINATIONS IN THE FOREST

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Spotlight: Uihlein Sugar Maple Research and Extension Field Station Working at the Uihlein Sugar Maple Research Station in Lake Placid, New York, Cornell Cooperative Extension has been experimenting with agroforestry practices for nearly fifteen years. While most of their work focuses on sugar maples, there are also twelve locations spread over the 200 acres in which maples are coupled with ginseng, an herb whose root can be harvested for

medicinal purposes. The pair coexist amicably; the ginseng grows best under maple trees in their moist, rich soils, where they are well-shaded and can find nourishment in the calcium of the fallen maple leaves. The field station’s primary focus is research and education, so the combination is used for demonstration purposes only and the ginseng is not harvested. However, the

fruitful coexistence of the two species illustrates agroforestry at its best: the ginseng is able to grow in a niche that does not affect the sugar maples’ development, and the two (if harvested) are collected at different times of the year (ginseng in September and maple syrup in March).

Photos courtesy of Bob Beyfuss

Close-up of ginseng growing at the base of a maple tree

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Ginseng in a maple grove

Typically, agroforestry involves a mix of woody perennials and herbaceous crops. Sometimes farmers will combine animal husbandry with forestry practices, a technique known as silvopasture. In silvopasture, trees allow for sun and wind protection and ample forage for the livestock, while the livestock can help control weeds and fertilize the soil to support the trees’ development. The farmer tends to the animals and the trees and they in turn provide a wide diversity of products (from meat to dairy to nuts and fruit) year-round, making the endeavor profitable and viable. Both the land and the selected species must be thoughtfully considered

in order for the arrangement to be a success.

For instance, cows will disturb woodland plant species and compact the soil more than smaller animals (such as pigs or chickens) and might also eat the young saplings of trees. Also, if one were to place cows in an apple orchard, one would have to be careful to pick up fallen apples because eating too many could make the animals

sick. Agroforestry thus requires a commitment to attentive management of all aspects of a given system (be that trees, animals, or understory growth) in order for the venture to work.

However, given thoughtful consideration, utilizing agroforestry practices adds to the quality of life for the trees, the understory, the animals, and the farmer.

Natural Capital

Agroforestry is a land management practice that allows for multiple uses of the same acreage, producing a greater total yield from any given plot. The arrangement utilizes the forest’s vertical nature, maximizing growing space by encouraging growth all the way from the top of the canopy down to the soil’s surface. While there are obvious economic benefits to a multipurpose plot, agroforestry also fosters mutually beneficial relationships amongst the land’s inhabitants. Strategic placement of trees, for example, can control erosion and provide wind protection and shade for livestock, crops, and buildings. Depending on a farmer’s individual goals, sustainable management of the forest can generate lumber and other wood products or produce fruit and nuts that can be made into value-added products and also supply wildlife food and habitat.

Trees can reduce wind velocity up to 70%, protecting livestock in cold climates

Trees provide shade for livestock during summer months

trees are spaced to let in enough sunlight for forage growth

Combining crop trees with pasture land can provide an additional source of income for farmers through selective cutting for timber and pulp wood or the harvesting of fruits and nuts, while also providing benefits for livestock and wildlife.

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SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY

Natural Capital

Managing forests for today and tomorrow Sustainable forestry is practiced across the Adirondacks so that forests can meet present needs without compromising the needs of the future. Sustainable forestry maximizes quality of life for forests, their owners, foresters, and loggers. Foresters who use sustainable forestry techniques grow and harvest trees for useful products, but they also care for the forest’s soil, water, air quality, and biodiversity.

In contrast to “high grading” practices, which repeatedly harvest the tallest and strongest trees, leaving behind a stunted and genetically inferior forest, sustainable forestry practices mimic the natural conditions under which trees have evolved. By manipulating the size of openings that are created when trees are harvested, foresters can mimic natural disturbances, such as wind throws or fires. Different sized openings affect the amount of light that reaches the forest floor and therefore determine what kinds of trees will regenerate. For example, very small openings will encourage shade tolerant hemlock and sugar maple, while large openings will encourage oaks or spruce which cannot tolerate as much shade.

Foresters who use sustainable management techniques are increasingly opting to have their forests certified through independent monitoring organizations. Wood certified for sustainability sometimes commands a premium price and certification is a prerequisite for trading forest regeneration credits on the two major American carbon exchanges.

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Spotlight: RCPA Sustainable Forestry Program The Resident’s Committee to Protect the Adirondacks’ (RCPA) Sustainable Forestry Program has helped certify over 11,000 acres of sustainable forests in the Adirondacks since 2002. The RCPA works in partnership with SmartWood of Richmond, Vermont, to certify forests that are owned by Adirondack residents under the largest sustainable forestry certification program in the world, the Forest Stewardship Council’s certification. Twenty-eight private land owners have used the program to create forest management and timber harvesting plans that are ecologically, economically, and socially sustainable.

The RCPA’s focus on private land owners is significant because approximately one million acres of Adirondack forests are held by nonindustrial private owners.

Kim La Duke, of Bloomingdale, recently certified his 246 acres. He described his motivations for certification this way, “Some wring their hands at adversity decrying the lack of outside intervention. I believe that each individual must do their part. For my part in this world of globalization, I harvest timber and other products for the local economy, share my opinions with any who are willing to hear, and manage my forest with maximum carbon-sequestration as a

byproduct” (RCPA, 2007). La Duke uses singletree selection harvesting techniques, manages for beech bark disease, and controls for deer browsing to help maintain a healthy forest.

The RCPA Sustainable Forestry Program also creates a market for certified wood by connecting local wood-product-using businesses to sources of locally-grown certified wood. The RCPA program helps wood products businesses obtain Chain-of-Control certificates that allow them to advertise when the products they sell are FSC certified. Consumers can then make informed purchasing decisions that consider how wood was grown and harvested.

ECOSYSTEM SERVICES Capitalizing on natural processes

Three business models for capitalizing on ecosystem services are emerging: 1. Direct payments: resource managers are compensated for maintaining ecosystem services What are Ecosystem Services?

An ecosystem is a community of plants and animals that interact with each other and their physical environment, which includes physical and chemical components like soil, water and bacteria. Ecosystem functions include the interactions of living organisms and the flow of non-living materials, like air and water.

When ecosystem functions benefit humans they are called ecosystem services (Daly, 2004).

Ecosystem services fall into four categories: Provisioning food fresh water wood and fiber fuel

Regulating Cultural Regulating Cultural climate regulation aesthetic flood regulation spiritual disease regulation educational water purification recreational Supporting

nutrient cycling, soil formation, primary production

2. Certification: labels help customers make informed choices 3. Tradable permits: new rights or liabilities for natural resource usage are created and the owners of the rights and liabilities are allowed to trade them (Bishop & Timberlake, 2007).

sequestration by forests may be a major source of revenue for the Adirondacks. Water may also be an emerging market if global climate change affects drinking water supplies.

Natural Capital

Ecosystem services, such as water purification and carbon sequestration, are beginning to be valued in economic markets worldwide. The best available estimates show that the services provided by Adirondack ecosystems are worth billions of dollars (Wilson, 2004). Capitalizing on them could have major implications for the Adirondack economy.

Direct payments have been put into practice in Costa Rica where the government pays private landowners for carbon sequestration, watershed protection, biodiversity conservation and provision of scenic beauty (Daily & Ellison, 2002). Direct payments have also shown up in the Adirondacks, where through conservation easements, owners of lands are paid when they sell the development rights of their land to protect its ecosystem, or other, services.

Certification is taking place in Adirondack forests, many of which are certified for sustainable forestry, and on farms, which can be certified for organic production.

Tradable permits are an emerging market with huge potential. The establishment of the Kyoto Protocol created a global carbon trading market.

By 2006, the global carbon trade was already estimated at $30 billion (Bisop & Timberlake, 2007). Across the United States, wetland banking shows the potential of the tradable permits approach.

ECOSYSTEM SERVICES Adirondack ecosystems services are worth billions of dollars.

In coming years, tradable permits for carbon

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ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

Natural Capital

Looking toward an energy-efficient future It is an important moment in time. With oil reaching almost $110 per barrel, Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth a hit, and George W. Bush announcing the “Clear Skies and Global Climate Change Initiatives,” the country is beginning to comprehend what peak oil and global climate change mean to our nation, our towns, and our homes. No one knows precisely what the future ramifications of these trends will be on the Adirondacks, but already the effects are palpable.

The price of gas is above $3 per gallon, making driving long distances to work and amenities less and less affordable, and those who heat their homes with oil, electricity, or propane are seeing their heating costs rise.

Hubbert Curve predicted the “peak” of oil production, after which point the price of fossil fuels will continue to increase as supply declines.

The Adirondacks, however, have assets that will help them cope with these changes. They have sunlight, wind, soil, lakes, and rivers. They have existing dams. They have the largest deciduous

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forest in the lower forty-eight states. These assets can all be turned into energy in the form of solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, and biomass.

So what can Adirondack residents do now?

Retrofitting and building energy efficient green homes is discussed on page fifty. Alternative transportation is discussed on page fifty-six.

Nurturing local businesses that will supply residents with goods when transportation costs render importing products impossible is talked about on page seventy-six. In the following pages on alternative energy, windpower, hydroelectricity, and biomass are explored.

Many individual local residents are already embracing these principles, installing solar hot water heaters in their homes, or using geothermal energy to heat and cool their businesses. On a Park-wide level, partnerships are emerging to examine how the Adirondacks might confront peak oil and global climate change. The Energy Smart Park Initiative was created in 2005 to promote and facilitate energy conservation, efficiency, and wise use through the deployment of sustainable technologies and a diverse set of research, economic incentives, and educational programs.

In addition, the Energy Smart Park Initiative has formed partnerships in upstate New York, forming a bridge between the Center for Excellence in Syracuse to the west and the Saratoga Technology and Energy Park to the east.

Domestic applications of wind and solar are increasing nationwide.

BIOMASS

Energizing Forestry The Adirondacks can take advantage of the national interest in renewable energy to build a better energy future for themselves, and the nation, by investing in biomass.

The Adirondacks have plentiful supplies of low-grade trees which are routinely removed to encourage high-value trees to grow. Historically,

Biomass could be used in local power plants. This could keep money in the Park by reducing energy bills. As Jim Mardsen, the director of buildings and grounds of a school district in Vermont that recently installed a biomass plant, says, “The cost of making one million BTUs with oil is $17.

With wood, it’s $5.50. That’s a huge difference” (BERC, 2007).

Burning biomass also has environmental benefits over fossil fuels. Biomass is a renewable energy.

It is carbon-neutral because growing trees absorb carbon dioxide, which offsets the carbon released when they are burned (Ruether, 1998).

That means that biomass energy production contributes less to global warming than fossil fuel -based energy production. Also, some studies have shown that burning biomass produces fewer of the compounds that produce acid rain (Biomass Energy Home Page, 2007). By taking advantage of biomass, Adirondackers can demonstrate the feasibility of local, cheap, clean energy. If other places imitate the model, there may eventually, be a nationwide reduction in the

need for the large coal burning power plants in the Midwest which have been dumping acid rain on the Adirondacks for years.

Biomass does have some potential downsides.

Cutting low grade wood profitably requires large machines and big acreages (Smallidge, 2008).

Over time, if biomass harvesting becomes prevalent it might change the look or composition of Adirondack forests. Although biomass pollutes less than fossil fuels, it does still pollute, and because the Adirondacks are prone to inversion that traps pollutants, Adirondack air quality might suffer if local power production grows. On the other hand, since approximately thirty percent of energy is currently lost in transmission, the efficiencies of local production might outweigh the downsides (McKibben, 2007).

Natural Capital

Biomass includes any biological material that can be burned to produce energy. Ethanol produced from corn has received much attention recently.

For the Adirondacks, wood products like bark, sawdust and woodchips are the most promising forms of biomass for generating energy. These wood products can be burned to produce heat, electricity, or both together, which is called co-generation.

the low-grade wood was used in paper plants around the region. Now, after a wave of plant closings, much of the Adirondack pulpwood gets shipped out of the Park, often to Canada.

Finding a use for that pulpwood closer to home would stimulate local jobs and reduce the negative effects of long distance transportation, which include fossil fuel consumption and air pollution.

Case Study: Fuels for Schools

There is a developing niche for small-scale biomass plants that can serve institutions like schools, prisons or even small towns. Vermont has actively pursued this niche. Their Fuels for Schools program equips schools for biomass heat generation. Over the last fifteen years, thirty-one schools have installed wood chip heating systems.

Twenty percent of all public school students in Vermont attend wood heated schools. On average, heating bills have been reduced thirty to fifty percent compared to oil systems and seventyfive to eighty percent compared to electric heating (BERC, 2007).

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WIND POWER

Generating renewable energy

Natural Capital

Rotor Blade

Generator

Wind power is the conversion of wind into energy such as electricity. Humankind has been using wind energy in the form of windmills for centuries. Windmills in Northern Europe date back to the 12th century and have been used to grind grain, pump water, and even generate electricity. As the era of cheap fossil fuels begins to draw to an end, we are looking once again to renewable energy and in particular wind power.

In 2007, the United States wind energy industry expanded the nation’s total wind power generating capacity by forty-five percent in a single calendar year (American Wind Energy Association, 2008).

Opportunities exist in the Adirondacks for both

large and small-scale wind applications.

Tensions

Rotor Diameter

Tower

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Wind power, however, does come with a certain amount of baggage. Environmentalists worry about harm to birds and bats in the form of collisions with wind turbines. Citizen action groups worry about the scenic qualities of the Park. “There are both direct and indirect consequences of wind energy facilities, including the often overlooked impacts resulting from loss of habitat for wildlife due to construction, the footprint of the facility, and increased human access.” commented Dr. Ed Arnett, conservation scientist with Bat Conservation International.

However, studies show that wind turbines are responsible for very few collision-related bird fatalities. “Based on current estimates, windplantrelated avian collision fatalities probably represent from 0.01% to 0.02% (i.e., 1 out of every 5,000 to

Wind power being used to pump water in Northern Europe.

10,000 avian fatalities) of the annual avian collision fatalities in the United States” (National Wind Coordinating Committee, 2001).

Opportunities exist for closer collaboration between wind farm developers and scientists to promote wind energy with the least impact on wildlife. Regarding their impact on the viewsheds, one can’t help but wonder if just as tourists travel to Europe to view historic windmills, will they one day visit the Adirondacks for their attractive and innovative wind farms?

HYDROPOWER PUTTING WATER TO WORK

In addition to large-scale hydroelectric plants, microhydro operations can provide clean electricity to homesteads and small towns.

“Hydro is the renewable energy of choice. System component costs are much lower, and watts per dollar return is much greater for hydro than for any other renewable resource” (Schaeffer, 2007).

The key element in identifying a viable site for microhydro power generation is the amount the water drops (or “head”). A small amount of water dropping a great distance produces as much energy as a great amount of water falling a small distance, but the equipment for the former is much more affordable and easier to install.

Microhydro

Lake “Head”

Hyropower is a function of the amount of water and vertical distance, or “head.”

Turbine Alternator

Battery

Pipeline/ Race

Natural Capital

In a region full of lakes, rivers, and dams, the power and potential of water has not been lost on Adirondack residents. Today water is being used to power twenty-nine hydroelectic plants, producing 260 megawatts of power (Jenkins, 2004). There is potential for increasing the amount of hydroelectricity produced in the Park.

The town of Indian Lake is currently seeking a permit to construct a hydroelectricity generation facility on the Indian Lake Dam.

Spotlight: Beaver River Project While hydropower provides renewable energy, it can also adversely affect fish, wildlife, and other resources. To better inform consumers, the Low Impact Hydropower Institute in Portland, Maine, offers a voluntary Low Impact Hydropower Facility certification. Like “Certified Organic” labels on vegetables, this lets consumers know that the electricity they are purchasing was created without adversely affecting the environment.

megawatts, and produces an average annual generation of 197,285 megawatt-hours (Low Impact Hydropower Institute, 2008). The eight developments operate in a peaking mode, which means that water is stored and released in accordance with energy needs and subject to restrictions for environmental protection.

The Beaver River Project northeast of Syracuse, which consists of eight hydroelectric plants both within and outside of the Blue Line, was the first hydroelectric project in the state to earn Low Impact Hydropower Facility certification. The project has an installed capacity of 44.8 Beaver River Project: Moshier, New York

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built Capital

Built Capital

Building development in the Park is concentrated along roads. The most dense development has ocurred where major roads intersect. Relatively dense clusters of development can be seen in the northeastern and southern portions of the Park. There is also a clear line of development running east-west through the center of the Park.

There are a striking number of airports in the Park, and there is the remnant of a once vital railroad network.

In contrast to the areas outside of the Park, which are shown here for a ten-mile extent beyond the Blue Line, the Park is quite sparsely developed and has far fewer roads.

The development patterns on this map show several micro-metropolitan areas in the Park’s northeast, center, and south. These areas might serve as incubators for fostering vibrant Adirondack communities.

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Built capital includes the towns, as well as the roads, railways, and airports that connect the towns. It encompasses the buildings within the towns, as well as the dishwashers and televisions within the buildings. Built capital is the grey infrastructure. It is the human-made environment.

Built Capital

B U I LT C A P I T A L

LAND USE • INFILL • MIXED-USE • MAIN STREETS • CLUSTER • COMPLETE STREETS • COMPLETE NEIGHBORHOODS • GREEN BUILDINGS • GREEN STREETS • GREEN TOWNS • GREEN NETWORKS • ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION • FORM-BASED CODES • TDRS • the TRANSECT

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LAND USE

Built Capital

Insuring Adirondack towns remain “rural by design” When Randall Arendt was writing Rural by Design (1994), a ground-breaking text on how to build a traditional town, he went looking for traditional places. He found them in the Adirondacks. These traditional town layouts, however, are more than quaint patterns of the past. They are valuable assets, whose land-use patterns can instruct Adirondack towns today. Arendt specifically mentions the hamlet of Essex, but there are many other examples of traditional townscapes in the Adirondacks. The historical map represents the nineteenth century land-use patterns of Keeseville. Nineteenth century Adirondack towns were compact and easily crossed on foot.

Consequently they preserved nearby farmland and open space.

In places that have been more economically robust during the twentieth century, patterns of development associated with sprawl have crept into the Park, inefficiently using the limited lands available for development in the Park. The aerial photo is of modern day Elizabethtown, just seventeen miles from the hamlet of Essex.

The patterns of excessive setbacks and excessive space between buildings, denoted by the red arrows, and extensive surface parking lots, denoted by the yellow overlays, overwhelm this landscape.

Towns and hamlets hoping to maintain their traditional land-use patterns may need a plan to keep sprawl at bay. Strategies exist at multiple scales for them to deploy.

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•

• •

At the site scale, towns can employ the strategies of mixed-use development, cluster development, infill development, and main street revitalization.

At the town scale, towns can make their neighborhoods and streets “complete.”

And to implement these development strategies, at the regulatory level, towns can adopt form-based codes and transfers of development rights.

Excessive Distances Between Buildings

Excessive Setbacks

Extensive Surface Parking

Patterns of sprawl devour this town’s rural character via excessive setbacks, distances between buildings and surface parking lots.

Spotlight: Adirondack Hamlets

Built Capital

Planner and writer Randall Arendt praises Essex for “the scale and pattern of its house lots, the relation between commercial and residential uses, and the interconnectedness of the street layout.� Some of these patterns are visible in the plan view drawing of Essex Hamlet on the top left. Buildings tend to front the street and there is a concentration of development along Main Street which runs parallel to the lake front. Rather than private residences dominating the lake, multiple points remain for public access to the water.

Its close-together lots and small setbacks make Essex a model for land-use patterns in the Park.

Similar land-use patterns can be found in many other Adirondack hamlets. The drawing on the bottom right, courtesy of Mitch Lee, is the hamlet of Inlet, in the heart of the Park. As with Essex, most of the development does not dominate the lake front but rather clusters along the main road. Buildings in the center of the hamlet are nestled next to each other and do not have excessive setbacks, defining the shared outdoor space and creating a sense of place.

Inlet is also a model for compact land-use patterns in the Park.

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INFILL DEVELOPMENT

Built Capital

Encouraging growth within hamlets and town centers While the Adirondack Park Agency attempts to encourage infill in the hamlets by limiting regulation in town centers, the evidence shows that, in fact, development continues to happen outside of these areas. The current pattern of sprawl hugs roads, shorelines, and ridges, thereby fragmenting wildlife habitat, discouraging social interaction, and threatening water quality as well as the viewshed. Infill development, the practice of concentrating development in underutilized or vacant lots within town or village centers, is an alternative to sprawl. This practice saves towns money by making use of existing infrastructure, protects natural resources, and encourages social interaction and stronger community bonds.

Old Forge, Current

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Sprawl along roads encourages isolation and car-dependency, inhibiting interaction among residents.

Development along lakeshores contributes to non-point source pollution in the form of runoff and failing septic systems. Note the lack of vegetated buffers between homes and the lake.

Old Forge, with infill development

MIXED-USE & MAIN STREETS REVITALIZING TOWN CENTERS

Mainstreet Revitalization

The main street of a small town is often thought of as the heart of the community. Pedestrianfriendly spaces that celebrate local architecture and promote local businesses, these places can both nurture and inspire pride in residents of the Park. Main street revitalization can be approached through building design, as well as streetscape and parking design. Vibrant main streets foster interaction among residents, thereby strengthening the fabric of the community.

Residences built above businesses Local business supported by yearround residents

Parks and trail access within the town center

Easy access to restaurants, grocery stores, and other amenities

Built Capital

Mixed-use development combines homes and businesses in the same building or area, either as vertically mixed-use buildings (traditional home above business scenario) or horizontally mixeduse sites. Mixed-use development allows for pedestrian access to amenities such as restaurants and grocery stores. While this may seem like a new concept, it is in fact an age-old pattern.

Before the advent of cheap oil, towns and villages were organized to conserve resources and energy.

Homes and businesses were concentrated in a town center, while working farms and forests sat on the periphery of the town, providing food and wood.

The town of Inlet has a vibrant main street with traditional mixed-use development.

Historically, store owners would have lived above their stores. Note as well the Inlet Department Store above, next to which is Kalil’s Grocery Store, both examples of community fostering local business.

Photos courtesy of Town of Inlet

Mixed-use Development

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CLUSTER DEVELOPMENT

Preserving open space while fostering neighborhoods portion of the land. It benefits the community by protecting natural resources and wildlife, and decreasing fragmentation. In addition, the higher density encourages social interaction and can foster community.

Built Capital

Cluster development involves arranging building lots closely on a portion of a lot, while identifying and retaining the ecologically rich portion of the parcel as open space. This practice benefits developers as it frequently allows the construction of more homes on a lot in exchange for preserving a

Standard Development Patterns This development follows standard development patterns and the current zoning regulations in the Park. These homes break up the landscape and fragment wildlife habitat.

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Proposed Cluster: “Eco-village” Under this scenario, homes are clustered tightly, thereby facilitating interaction among residents and preserving the majority of the parcel. The homes are arranged linearly instead of in a typical circular cluster to preserve views of the water, and there is a trail system through the conserved land.

Proposed Cluster: “Adirondack Style” In this arrangement the homes are farther apart and staggered along the hillside to provide each home with a view of the water and privacy, something that many come to the Park seeking.

COMPLETE STREETS

DESIGNING STREETS for pedestrians, bikes, cars, & buses Streets are the arteries of a community. Since the 1950s American streets have been designed almost exclusively by engineers. The primary goal has been to produce fast and safe car-oriented streets. Over the years this has spawned streets that exclude other users and do not connect well with nearby land uses. Values, such as street aesthetics, lack of noise and pollution, or sufficiently slow speeds for children to play or shoppers to be enticed into stores, have often been lost.

Built Capital

Complete streets policies direct transportation planners and engineers to design with all users in mind. Complete street legislation has passed in Oregon, South Carolina, and Illinois and is pending at the federal level in 2008. From a social and economic perspective, complete streets create a sense of place and improve social interaction, while augmenting the value of adjacent property.

Street trees

Bus pull-out Median

Crosswalk

Tupper Lake Main Street, current

Bike lane

Tupper Lake Main Street, utilizing complete street principles

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COMPLETE NEIGHBORHOODS

Built Capital

Taking stock of amenities and walkable streets Complete neighborhoods is a concept in tandem with complete streets and similar to the idea of mixed-use development. For a neighborhood to be complete it should have a full range of housing and amenities. Of particular interest to public health experts and environmental justice advocates is access to pharmacies and groceries stocking healthy food. Other destinations might include parks, schools, restaurants, banks, and libraries. The more types of destinations in a neighborhood the more complete it is considered to be.

by these lots, since parking is tucked behind the buildings. However, in other locations the urban fabric is somewhat compromised. Whereas adequate parking is currently critical to support downtown businesses, in a costly fossil fuel scenario, nearby residences become more critical to business survival. Whether or not the market fundamentals exist to create infill with residential developments, widening sidewalks, landscaping, and partially screening parking lots could transform Church Street into a more walkable pattern. The photograph series on the facing page was taken walking toward the emerging district from downtown Saranac Lake via the two possible pedestrian routes. The map denotes the paths. Walkability of this area is high towards the center of town (photograph A) but drops off sharply on Bloomingdale Avenue (photograph B).

While the signs along Church Street (photograph C) indicate that this street is for pedestrians, the urban design and architecture do not (photograph D).

The second aspect of completeness is the concept of walkability. A neighborhood must not only have multiple destinations, it must also be easy and convenient to walk to them. Health professionals recommend at least thirty minutes of moderate exercise a day, and walking is the easiest method to meet that goal. Destinations within a quarter mile pedestrian radius of each other are considered the most walkable. However, while numerous nearby places to walk to may make a neighborhood complete, they may not be the key factors getting people on their feet.

People will walk in a pleasant environment just for the fun of it. Therefore, lighting, landscaping, open spaces and other urban design considerations become just as critical to make neighborhoods complete.

The photo on the right represents Saranac Lake today. The area has many parking lots. In the retail core traditional urban fabric is not compromised

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Along Main Street in Saranac Lake parking is tucked behind buildings, preserving the traditional streetscape.

If Saranac Lake hopes to maximize the number of people walking toward the emerging train station district, street improvements and infill development, especially along sections of Church Street and Bloomingdale Avenue, would aid this goal. Moreover, as car use declines, there is an opportunity for some parking lots to be converted into small plazas or open spaces. There already exist several pocket parks and pedestrianfriendly streets in Saranac Lake’s retail core that can serve as models for Church Street.

Spotlight: Saranac Lake

New District Built Capital

C A

B

C

D

D

High Walkability

Low Walkability

B

A RETAIL District

In downtown Saranac Lake high walkability exists along Main Street and Broadway (in green) due to the traditional streetscape. However, low walkability exists on Church Street and Bloomingdale Avenue (in red) due to the architecture and excessive setbacks.

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GREEN BUILDINGS

Built Capital

Constructing efficiency FOr today and tomorrow With the threats of climate change and fossil fuel depletion on the horizon, Adirondack residents should take whatever measures they can to preserve their Park while creating new economic opportunities. Green building is a strategy that could do both. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, a green building uses resources efficiently from construction through demolition. “Research and experience increasingly demonstrate that when buildings are designed and operated with their life-cycle impacts in mind, they can provide great environmental, economic, and social benefits” (EPA, 2008). Traditionally, architects are the green-building experts, designing their buildings for better energy efficiency, wastewater management, waste reduction, and recyclable materials. The diagram on the following page indicates what such a building might entail.

Spotlight: The Wild Center

An isolated green building, however, is of less value than a green building that is part of a green community. In a sense, green builders construct better performing structures. But for a building to perform to its highest green potential it must be working in concert with the buildings and streets around it. Thus, the efficiencies of green building could be extended to green streets, green towns and green highways that link those towns together.

The Wild Center, Tupper Lake

When the Wild Center, a natural history museum of the Adirondacks, opened in 2006, the New York Times proclaimed “ Now, … there is a

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Photos courtesy of The Wild Center

Solar panels on the Center’s Bio-building

chance to grasp the science behind the scenery: the complex relationships underpinning a wilderness landscape that is also a host to humans” (Kenna, 2006). The Wild Center embodies the relationship of man and nature in more than its content. Built on a recycled gravel pit and to exceptional standards, it exceeded the base LEED certification to earn a Silver distinction and is the first New York museum to achieve benchmark green building certification.

The Center generates ten percent of its power from its Bio-building’s photovoltaic roof array; stormwater from the roof is fed into an adjoining pond; composting toilets reduce water use; and its buildings are well insulated to reduce energy use.

The interior of The Wild Center

The following graphic depicts a single family detached home, constructed with an eye for the green principles of harnessing energy, managing storm water, and using natural and non-toxic materials.

Built Capital

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GREEN STREETS

Built Capital

Managing Stormwater runoff Sustainably Green streets call on towns to manage stormwater sustainably, keeping non-point source runoff out of water bodies. This is particularly relevant in the Adirondacks, where many towns sit on the shores of lakes. One thousand square feet of impermeable surface in Lake Placid generates almost 24,000 gallons of rainwater each year. Following the principles of green street design, this water can be captured, slowed, and filtered through the use of planters and vegetated swales. The plants in these landscaped areas filter pollutants and nutrients, and the roots, insects,

and worms create spaces that can store stormwater, thereby slowing the flow of water into bodies of water.

Stormwater planters can contribute aesthetically to a street and create microhabitats for birds within town centers.

Stormwater planters filter runoff into the ground water, keeping it from being funneled into storm sewers, lakes, and streams.

Another way to manage stormwater is through decreasing the amount of impermeable surface in the form of roofs, roads, and parking lots. While water is not a limited resource in the northeast now, many believe that water could become scarce in the coming decades. In new construction, hamlets could utilize porous paving to allow for the infiltration of water. There are also

opportunities for capturing and utilizing stormwater coming off roofs. A 2,600-squarefoot house in Lake Placid generates over 60,000 gallons of rainwater each year. This water could be stored and used for irrigation. Roof gardens on public buildings and rain barrels for individual homes could harvest this water.

Finally, green streets can help create attractive, safe, and pedestrian-friendly streets.

Photos courtesy of City of Portland Environmental Services

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Recommended plantings include lowmaintenance, water tolerant natives. Planting trees is also recommended.

GREEN TOWNS

RECYCLING WASTEWATER SUSTAINABLY

Photo courtesy Katja Patchowsky

A green town embraces the principles of a closed loop system, whereby inputs not only balance outputs but become the next round of inputs.

For the purposes of this book we will focus on managing wastewater as a step towards creating a green town.

Wastewater

Greywater is wastewater that comes from sinks, washing machines, and showers. Blackwater is wastewater from toilets. Traditionally both types of wastewater are processed together in municipal sewer systems and ultimately end up, after being treated, in rivers and lakes. Greywater, which Many towns in the Adirondacks are currently makes up fifty to eighty percent of residential struggling with aging sewer infrastructure wastewater, contains little to no pathogens and and failing septic systems. Combined sewers, ninety percent less nitrogen than blackwater. This which provide partially separated channels for calls into question the efficiency of treating the wastewater and stormwater runoff, are further two together. Could treating greywater separately complicated by groundwater infiltration into reduce the stress on municipal sewer systems the sewer system. During storm events, this and individual septic systems, the costs to towns, combination of sewage, groundwater, and and the impact on the environment? Many stormwater overwhelms the system, causing homeowners nationwide are installing simple it to discharge into the receiving lake or river, greywater treatment systems in their homes. On untreated. As towns look to update these systems, a larger scale, companies and organizations are are there more affordable and sustainable options building greywater wetlands to manage their that also might reduce water pollution? greywater on site.

Built Capital

“Living machine” on Interstate 89 in Sharon, Vermont. Because this rest stop was perched atop bedrock, the state was unable to install a septic system and therefore was going to have to transport its waste elsewhere to be treated. John Todd’s “Living Machine” provided an affordable alternative whereby the wastewater would be treated on site and then recycled as toilet water. This “living machine” also serves as a tourist attraction and educational tool.

Case Study: “Living Machines” South Burlington, Vermont has installed an innovative but increasingly popular alternative to municipal waste systems that comes in the form of a greenhouse and treats sewage from 1,600 residences. In this “living machine,” solids are first filtered out, and then the sewage is fed into a series of large linked plastic tanks in which a combination of plants absorb nutrients in the sewage, bacteria and microbes on roots break down pollutants, and fish and snails cleanse the wastewater to the point that it surpasses federal EPA requirements and is fit for irrigation, toilet flushing, or car washing. Invented by John Todd of Living Technologies, these “machines” cost about half as much to install as traditional treatment plants. They don’t smell, are aesthetically pleasing, and are educational.

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GREEN NETWORKS

integrating roads, wildlife corridors, and natural resources Roads bring the people in the Park into contact with each other and the landscapes. These roads bring people close to numerous waterways and wildlife habitat, and therefore can adversely effect water quality and wildlife. Green networks in this handbook refer to roads that connect people with nature while preserving ecological integrity in the Park.

Built Capital

Riparian Buffers

Many roads in the Park hug shorelines, offering motorists the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of Adirondack lakes. However, the associated stormwater runoff threatens water quality.

Protecting existing riparian buffers and planting new buffers along waterways can slow the movement of runoff, trap sediment, and filter pollutants. Riparian buffers have the capacity to remove up to fifty percent of nutrients and pesticides, sixty percent of certain pathogens, and seventy-five percent of sediment (Natural Resource Conservation Service, 2008).

Strategically placed “windows� through the vegetation can be incorporated to provide views of lakes to passing motorists.

Without riparian buffer

Riparian buffer

These trees, shrubs, and herbaceous perennials serve to filter and slow runoff from the street, keeping harmful pollutants out of water bodies. In addition, riparian buffers decrease streambank erosion, shade water to protect aquatic ecosystems, and provide wildlife habitat.

Left: A street in Tupper Lake with no riparian buffer to filter runoff into the lake Right: A road, also in Tupper Lake, from which the stormwater runoff is filtered by a riparian buffer

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With riparian buffer

Beet Juice to Combat Salt Pollution

There is potentially an emerging market for this beet juice, and the Adirondacks could step in to fill this void, enriching both their farming and manufacturing sectors.

Simulation of wildlife overpass in Adirondack Park

Wildlife Underpasses & Overpasses

In addition to affecting water quality, roads in the Adirondacks impact wildlife. They can reduce the size and quality of habitat, prevent access for wildlife to resources, subdivide wildlife populations into smaller and more vulnerable subpopulations, and contribute to significant wildlife mortality in the form of car accidents.

These accidents heavily impact both wildlife and humans. It is estimated that 1.5 million traffic accidents involving deer in the United States cause $1.1 billion in vehicle damage each year (Donaldson, 2005).

In the Park, wildlife overpasses and underpasses could be incorporated along major roadways.

These crossings would preserve the Park’s unique wildlife populations, and could furthermore serve as a tourist attraction and educational tool.

Built Capital

To combat pollution caused by road salt, many towns across North America are successfully experimenting with the use of beet juice in conjunction with road salt as a de-icer. The beet juice allows the salt to better adhere to roads and work at lower temperatures, thereby allowing towns to use less salt more effectively.

“In the same way the gin in your icebox has a low freezing point, so does this beet juice. Legend has it that a farmer discovered the vegetable’s unique quality when a pond where he dumped his beet remains never froze” (Schlesinger, 2008).

Simulation

Existing

As the cost of fossil fuels rise and global climate change acts upon the landscape, what will be the effects on roads? Will roads become less used as the cost of gas rises? Will they see more car shares, hybrids, shuttle buses, maybe even bikes? And as increasing storm events act on the landscape, will roads see increased flooding?

Will there be blown out bridges and culverts?

What will be the cost to towns of damaged road infrastructure? Currently, the use of roads is causing much of the global climate change. “The transportation sector directly accounted for about twenty-seven percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2003” (EPA, 2008). This needs to be addressed by increasing fuel efficiency, exploring alternate modes of transportation, and building pedestrian-friendly townscapes that no longer rely heavily on cars for navigating life.

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ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION

Built Capital

eMBRACING RAIL, SHUTTLE, AND CAR SHARES The 103 hamlets throughout the Park are isolated by miles of mountainous terrain. Someone in Long Lake might have to drive seventy-five miles to do grocery shopping. Someone in Inlet might drive over an hour to go to the doctor outside of the Park. A tourist visiting the Park from New York City would have to drive over 200 miles to reach the Park, and then another 267 miles to make a circuit of the Park that would include, at minimum, a visit to Lake Placid, Saranac Lake, Tupper Lake, Long Lake, Old Forge, and then back again to Lake George. As the cost of fossil fuels continues to rise, driving such long distances is going to be neither affordable nor sustainable.

Railways

Alternate forms of transportation such as rail, once common but displaced by the advent of the automobile in the twentieth century, will once again become economical options for connecting residents with goods and services, each other, and nearby metropolitan areas outside of the Park. In addition, as oil prices continue to rise, trucking goods is becoming less economical.

Railroads can haul three times more weight than trucks for the same amount of fuel. As international trade becomes less economical due to rising transportation costs, the Park will turn once again to its towns and region for goods. The development of a rail infrastructure will facilitate regional trade and the Adirondacks will be poised to supply the Park and wider region with locally produced goods.

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Spotlight: Adirondack Scenic Railroad In 1992 the Adirondack Railway Preservation Society was formed to revive a section of the former New York Central line from Thendara south to Minnehaha. Since then, the group has succeeded in returning nearly seventy miles of track to passenger service along the Utica-Lake Placid line. Currently, the railroad serves primarily tourists, carrying 600,000 each year. The

Adirondack Railway Preservation Society aims to initiate development of rail and coordinated trailbased education and historical projects; complete the restoration of the remaining track between Saranac Lake and Carter Station, north of Old Forge; and restore service between the end points of Lake Placid and Utica.

Car Share

Car Sharing, launched in 1987 in Switzerland, came to North America in 1993. While car sharing has traditionally been an urban phenomenon, it has begun to successfully spread into rural areas. Car shares can be tailored to fit an individual community, and can be as formal or informal as appropriate to a particular town.

Case Study: Green Mountain Car Share

Currently, a group in Burlington, Vermont, is in the process of launching Green Mountain Car Share with the support of the city and the University of Vermont. Unlike large cities, many residents will still want to own one car for daily commutes, but hope that car sharing might allow them to avoid owning a second car. The organization would pay for insurance, maintenance, cleaning and gasoline, while members would pay a monthly membership, an hourly fee for use of a car and mileage.

In Yosemite National Park there is a shuttle service that connects key points within the Park to each other and to the public transportation bringing visitors into the Park. Acadia National Park in northern Maine is currently launching a program called “Car Free Acadia� which will promote alternative modes of transportation, from bike and hiking trails to a shuttle bus. The Adirondacks, while it differs in size and layout, would clearly benefit from a similar system that would preserve its viability for both residents and tourists in the years to come.

Built Capital

So what does it take to set up a car share in a rural area? Hamlets or towns where population is centralized and people can walk or bike to the center of town. Dedicated volunteers who will help ensure that the process runs smoothly or an organization willing to sponsor the program.

Someone to manage a calendar and someone to manage maintenance and repairs. Clear ground rules and respect for other members. A car.

Shuttle Service

Shuttle services could be established on both a town-wide and regional basis. On the town level, a shuttle could run from the town center to trailheads and lakes, also stopping at banks and grocery stores, thereby serving both the resident population and tourists. On a regional level, a circuit through the Adirondack Park could shuttle tourists from gateway towns at the edge of the Park to a series of towns within the Park.

A shuttle service on a regional level would save on gas, cut emissions, and provide for a more directed, educational, and sustainable experience for tourists.

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FORM-BASED CODES

Built Capital

Regulating for dimensional standards rather than land use In the twentieth century, the most widely adopted land use regulatory tool has been “Euclidean” or “Building Block” zoning. The primary goal of Euclidean zoning is to keep incompatible land uses separated. Typical land-use types to be separated are single-family and multi-family residential, commercial, industrial, and in rural areas, agricultural uses. Additionally, dimensional standards often stipulate the magnitude of the development, including building density; building height; setbacks (the location of a building on the parcel); open or paved space requirements or limitations; and how much parking to provide.

Separating exceptionally noxious uses from the public may be valid policy, but the effect of strictly separating uses, as well as blanketing dimensional standards such as setbacks and parking requirements across the landscape, has created the sprawl template that has been turning every place in America into the same place. Sprawl decreases density and often creates development that does not respect the character of open space or the time-honored urban design patterns of traditional towns and hamlets.

One answer to this problem is to cease focusing on land uses almost entirely, and to start making dimensional standards, setbacks, heights, densities, and so on, that make sense for each individual place. America needs a smart code to accompany smart growth. Without a new code system, infill, clustering, and main street revitalization, are next to impossible to achieve (Duany, 2008).

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These new codes are often called form-based codes since they replace the typical use categories with dimensional standards appropriate to the context of the development site. Rather than hard-to-understand codes, with abbreviations such as R-1 or C-2, form-based codes regulate via illustrations, including plan views, sections, elevations and Three-D images. Many places across the nation, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Arlington, Virginia, have begun replacing their standard zoning codes with formbased codes. In order to implement form-based codes the Local Government Commission, a nonpartisan organization that provides information and technical assistance to local elected officials, recommends towns conduct an inventory of current form types and dimensions; conduct a public charette to gauge public opinion on community character; determine urban and architectural standards; and then illustrate the new codes (LGC, 2008).

Form-based codes create a different kind of public space by fostering continuity among buildings and by defining the street and other public areas. They also prevent sprawl by increasing density. The attention to architectural detail that many form-based codes require ensures that this increased density remains desirable. The following diagrams are examples of a corner lot that one might find in a form-based code.

ALLOWABLE DRIVEWAY

SURFACE PARKING

BUILD TO PROPERTY LINES

DEFINE ENTRANCE OCCUPY THE CORNER

ALLOWABLE CAP TYPE

APPROPRIATE HEIGHT

ARTICULATE FACADE

ALLOWABLE BASE TYPE

CASE STUDY: ELIZABETHTOWN

Right: Euclidian and Form-Based developments in the context of Elizabethtown

Mixed-Use parcel influenced by Form-based Codes

Built Capital

High quality “community fabric” can be found throughout the towns and hamlets of the Adirondacks. Form-based code advocates could use many Adirondack towns as templates for their codes. Places that have developed in the twentieth century with a sprawling pattern, however, such as Elizabethtown in this photo, could use formbased codes to transform their development patterns. The top set of images indicates the differences between Euclidean and form-based codes. Image A is of a roughly 100,000 square foot store on a 275,000 square foot block. It is set back several feet from the road. The building is also a one-story box, since Euclidian zoning often has few form requirements beyond use, parking, and set back standards. Image B is of a series of mixed-use buildings representing roughly the same commercial square footage with the addition of residential or office uses on upper floors. It fronts the road; has a height requirement of a minimum of three stories; hides its parking behind the building; requires traditional materials such as brick; and has a façade punctuated with windows on the ground floor. All these requirements regulate form without excessively confining the architect to a specific style.

Commercial parcel influenced by Euclidian Zoning Codes

A

B

B B A

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TRANSFER OF DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS Putting Development in its Best Place

TransferRed to Developable Parcels In TOwn

Built Capital

residential deVelopment IN undesirable Locations

Another tool for ensuring that smart growth occurs where the town or hamlet benefits most is transferring development rights (TDR). This transfer is often used to protect land and create more open space. In the Adirondacks, however, the focus could be directed toward towns and hamlets. After determining parcels within hamlets that should be more intensively developed, a community could give incentives to developers and landowners in outlying areas to sell their rights for the right to develop close in. Local governments can form a TDR bank that purchases and holds the development rights of in-town parcels for sale at a later date. Units used to determine the value of development rights are often potential dwelling units per net acre or square feet of commercial floor area.

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Double TDRs go one step further by having sellers dismantle existing buildings, roads, or other infrastructure in addition to selling the parcel, for the right to redevelop in a better pattern on parcels within towns and hamlets. This is financially justified with the long-term perspective that developing in-town often produces a more rentable and higher value real estate asset. If a TDR bank is established, it could be directed specifically towards sellers willing to dismantle their real estate on a parcel the community wishes to be returned to open space. Establishing double TDR’s with the Park Agency on parcels they desire to add to the Park could be another innovative means for towns and hamlets to redevelop their town centers.

CASE STUDY: Lake Tahoe, California

In the mountain resort town of Lake Tahoe, California, such a double TDR ordinance allowed the local government to remove over one hundred homes polluting the lake while fairly compensating landowners. Lake Tahoe’s TDR experience is a good example for the many lake front towns of the Adirondacks. When removal of poorly developed parcels is coupled with better development in town, TDR has the benefit of not just preserving natural assets but also adding built assets that enrich landowners while building more healthy and vibrant communities.

THE TRANSECT

PLANNING FOR THE ADIRONDACK REGION began appearing in discussions about the built environment. In recent years the greatest proponents of a transect of human habitat have been professional designers and planners in the New Urbanism movement. They have been creating explicit versions of transects for towns, cities, and regions around the world. What distinguishes these urban transects from natural transects is their focus. As with form-based codes, urban form is the primary means of regional organization. A typical urban transect for a region delineates where development forms are most appropriate. In other words, transects assign the dimensional standard of one size fits all Euclidian zoning to where they fit best.

As theory about the human habitat has begun to emulate ecological theory, however, transects

Towns and regions in America have begun replacing their 20th century zoning with

T1: Forest Preserve

T2: Managed Forest

T3: Homesteads

transect-based codes. The true beauty of this kind of approach lies in its regional orientation.

Transect-based codes acknowledge that farms, towns, hamlets, and forest preserves do not exist in isolation, but blend in and out of each other’s territory. This kind of regional vision, although simply a shift in planning orientation, could be very useful to the Adirondacks as the region strives to carve out a shared vision. Rather than six transect zones (T1 to T6) from New Urbanism, which focus mostly on urban core types of development, some of which are not appropriate for the Adirondacks, the illustration below is of a transect unique to the Adirondacks.

It breaks the region’s landscape patterns into five ideal categories: Forest Preserve, Managed Forest, Homesteads, Villages and Neighborhoods, and Town Centers.

T4: Villages & Neighborhoods

Built Capital

A transect is simply a drawing in section illustrating relationships between different landscape patterns. One of the first transects appeared in the bio-geographical analysis of naturalist Alexander von Humboldt in the 18th Century (SmartCode Central, 2008). By the 20th century the landscape planner Ian McHarg was also using the transect in his work to protect sensitive environments from urban development.

Natural transects such as Humboldt’s and McHarg’s are simply cross-sections of environments, series of “eco-zones,” for example, from wetland to upland or tundra to foothill.

Thus, the transect’s roots are in ecology (Von Holtzbrinck, 2000).

T5: Town Centers

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THE TRANSECT

PLANNING FOR THE ADIRONDACK REGION

Spotlight: The Adirondacks The Adirondack region already has models for good land use patterns that can inform the built and natural capital policies of each transect zone.

Built Capital

T1: FOREST PRESERVE

T2: Managed FOREST

(includes working farms) Form: Road networks, Form: No human structures (includes working forests) Form: Roads pass through or natural landscapes and less Use: Purely educational, access natural assets but few concentrated settlement existing together spiritual and environmental structures are allowed Use: Natural asset related employment

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T3: Homesteads

Use: Small farms, permaculture, etc.

T4: VILLAGES & Neighborhoods Form: Smaller less densely developed than towns but more concentrated than homesteads Use: Mostly residential developments with small service centers

T5: Town Centers

Form: Largest, most densely developed places Use: Large service and employment centers

The following matrix indicates in which Adirondack transect zones each of the natural and built capital strategies fits best.

T1: Forest Preserve

T3: Homesteads

T4: Villages & Neighborhoods

T5: Town Centers

Built Capital

Season Extension No-Till Agriculture Agroforestry Sustainable Forestry Ecosystem Services Biomass Large-Scale Wind Power Small-Scale Wind Power Large-Scale Hydro Power Small-Scale Hydro Power Infill Development Mixed-Use Development Main Street Revitalization Cluster Development Complete Streets Complete Neighborhoods Green Building Stormwater Management Wastewater Management Riparian Buffers Wildlife Overpasses Railroads Shuttle Services Car Share Form-Based Codes Transfer of Dev. Rights

T2: Managed Forest

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Human Capital People are an essential component of the Adirondack Park. They build communities and care for the land; sometimes, they get paid for that work. This map shows the number of jobs in each Adirondack zip code. There is a concentration of jobs in the center of the Park, and along the northeastern and southeastern borders.

Human Capital

Higher densities of jobs just outside of the Park reflect higher population densities. But for Adirondack residents who live on the Park’s edges the towns outside the Blue Line provide much needed job opportunities.

jobs Per Zip code

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HUMAN CAPITAL Human Capital

Human capital is the people—their skills, talents, and expertise. It is their physical labor, as well as what’s stored in their brains. It is their paid labor as well as their unpaid labor, volunteer work. It is the work that they give, donate, barter, sell, and receive.

TOURISM • EDUCATION • GOVERNMENT • MANUFACTURING aRTISANS • rETIREES • BABY BOOMERS • gREEN cOLLAR jOBS

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TOURISM

REDIRECTING THE SEASONAL ECONOMY

Human Capital

Ask anyone in the Adirondacks what drives the region’s economy and most will instantly reply, “tourism.” Unfortunately, location quotient analysis conducted for this report calls into question this commonly held view of the Adirondack economy. It is understandable why so many people mistake tourism as the driver of the Adirondacks. It accounts for nearly a third of the region’s jobs. That is a lot of human capital sequestered in one industry. If tourism is not necessarily a driver of the Adirondack economy, could it help attract new types of human capital to the region? Rather than a driver, could it become a vehicle?

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The Blue Print for the Blue Line indirectly makes such a case, highlighting the need to bring professionals into the region to both play and live. The location quotient analysis in this report also supports such a policy. Tourism can act as a mechanism to attract not only a population of tourists and second homeowners, but also a resident population of telecommuters, sometimes called the “creative class.” These people could adopt the Park as their own, investing in their communities. They would plow their driveways during the winter, leave their lights on, coach Little League, volunteer with the fire department, and send their kids to school, invigorating both the economy and the community. They would be attracted to living in the Park for a number of reasons: for its “rural character,” for vibrant, bustling main streets with coffee shops and restaurants serving local food, and for accessibility

in the form of Internet access and roads. The first step in making this a viable solution would be the investment in the infrastructure for broadband, as well as the encouragement of infill and main street revitalization. Tourism can market these qualities, showing people that the Adirondacks is a great place to call home.

However, there is no need to put one’s eggs all in the creative-class basket any more than in tourism.

Other ways tourism can act as a mechanism to create new economic arrangements in the Park

are by drawing in homesteaders or individuals participating in the current rebirth of the backto-the-land movement. By offering programs for these types of individuals to work on organic farms, participate in permaculture design certificate classes, to learn about wildlife, or other ideas yet to be explored, tourism could bring in a diversity of individuals who will bring with them alternative economic terms that invigorate both people’s connections to the Park and to each other.

Spotlight: Paul Smith’s College The legendary Paul Smith, storyteller, charmer and savvy entrepreneur, founded the Saint Regis Hotel, one of the first tourist resorts and hotels of the Adirondacks in 1859 (Handmade, 2006).

Paul Smith’s legacy of hospitality, however, also provides an historical instance of a successful strategy of using tourism as a vehicle to a new type of economy. The site of the Regis has become Paul Smith’s college, not only creating a new industry for the region, education, but also bringing young people to the Adirondacks every year, some who likely make it their home.

A student lounge at Paul Smith’s College

EDUCATION

ExPanding Training Opportunities And AtTracting InNovative Minds OUTDOOR CLASSROOM

Transforming the Adirondacks into an outdoor classroom, shifting the focus from outdoor recreation and service jobs to educational tourism, is another method to reframe tourism.

While there are a number of existing programs such as conservation education summer camps offered by the Department of Environmental Conservation and nature hikes offered by the Adirondack Mountain Club, potential exists to expand these activities.

This type of tourism could replace or augment seasonal and often low-paying service jobs with

STEWARDS

A steward is a caretaker, and in this case a caretaker of the land. In the Adirondacks, no one knows and understands the Park better than its residents, and therefore no one is better able to care for the Park than its people. The Department of Environmental Conservation currently employs about 250-300 people year-round and 400 seasonally. These people are environmental

conservation officers and forest rangers; they care for the campsites, boat launches, trails, and points of fishing access. In addition there are voluntary stewards coordinated through the Adirondack Mountain Club Stewardship Program and the Summit Steward Program.

As global climate change begins to act upon the landscape of the Park, there may be a need for more stewards to monitor the Park’s ecosystems and respond to changes. Park residents could be trained as ecologists, biologists, and climate change experts, and then employed to monitor areas that they are most familiar with. Park residents can bring their knowledge about how the land has evolved over their lifetime to the study of how it is currently changing. Stewardship allows Park residents to contribute meaningfully to current studies on global climate change and how it will affect land and people.

Human Capital

At present many experience the Park through hiking its trails, canoeing its rivers, and swimming in its lakes. This brings people closer to nature, which has merit, but it does not necessarily deepen their understanding of its complex ecology or its unique natural and social history. Nor does it bring adequate financial compensation to Park residents. While other parks often charge an entrance fee, visitors access the Adirondack Park’s natural amenities for free, leaving Park residents to seek financial compensation through the service industry. The Adirondack region could shift its tourism industry to offer more active education, such as guided nature walks, apprenticeships with local artisans, farm-stays, or intensive nature camps, all led

by Park residents. This type of tourism would capitalize on Adirondack residents as assets— utilizing more fully their knowledge and expertise.

more valuable educational jobs. It could honor the knowledge and expertise of Park residents, and recast tourism so that it capitalizes on not only the land but the people within that land and their unique relationship with it. Finally, it would highlight the mutually beneficial relationship between people and the Park, demonstrating that the people support their Park and that the Park supports its people.

Guided nature walks offer a richer experience of place, and are gaining in popularity in natural scenic areas.

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EDUCATION

ExPanding Training Opportunities And AtTracting InNovative Minds

Human Capital

NEW FARMERS AND HOMESTEADERS

Many farmers are turning towards the growing, lucrative market for organic production.

According to the Organic Trade Association, organic products have grown at a rate of nearly twenty percent per year for the last seven years, and industry experts are forecasting continued growth from nine to sixteen percent in the next five years. The Adirondacks, with a growing number of organic farms and CSAs, are already responding to this trend. In addition, there is a rising back-to-the-land movement where urban dwellers are migrating to rural areas, interested in reconnecting with nature and learning to work the land. Furthermore, many young people are flocking to organic farms near and far, itching to get their hands in the dirt. One organization in particular, WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) connects young people who are willing to work for room and board in exchange for some hands-on learning, and farmers who are anxious to get some more help in the field. The combination of these trends suggests potential for attracting farmers

and homesteaders to the Park: people who are interested not in vacationing in the Park, but moving to the Park to work the land and actively participate in its communities.

So what would it take to be a farmer or homesteader in the Adirondacks? When asked about farming potential in the Adirondacks, both Rob Hastings of Rivermede Farm and Mark Kimball of Essex Farm mentioned it had less to do with a lack of available farmland and more to do with a lack of well-trained growers.

The training required is two-fold: hands-on experience and business training. Many farmers in the Adirondacks are already offering training to young apprentices, and this could be expanded, either by joining the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms network, or by offering farm stays. In addition, the Adirondack Harvest has begun offering training courses to Adirondack farmers, including the New Farmer Training Program, and could expand these efforts to fill gaps in training that would prepare new farmers for setting up shop in the Adirondacks. In addition, farmers could offer permaculture design

courses where students would become certified to start their own homestead. This would not only add an additional source of income for the farmer and more farmhands working the field, but also foster enthusiasm for a lifestyle that will help strengthen local communities.

There is a rising trend of young people looking to work on organic farms— exchanging labor for hands-on experience.

Adirondack farms are poised to offer this type of mentorship, possibly leading to an increase in small-scale organic farmers and homesteaders in the region.

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GOVERNMENT

SWaPping PRison Guards For Park Rangers At the beginning of 2008 the New York Times spotlighted Franklin County and its five state prisons. “What we’ve seen in New York and other states,” the Times quoted, “is that one prison led to another prison and led to another prison, creating the notion that there’s no other economic development option than to build prisons to foster stability in rural areas” (Santos, 2008).

But now some of those prisons are beginning to close, like the Camp Gabriels facility in Franklin County. According to Edmund J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center for New York State, also quoted in the New York Times, “There should be other ways of improving the economic situation in upstate New York that doesn’t involve filling upstate New York with prisons.”

One idea that corresponds well with the strategies highlighted in the previous discussion on education is to specifically target employees of the current prison system to become the trainers and organizers in Adirondack stewardship and outdoor classroom programs. While this idea may

Naturally, there are no easy answers to problems as big as a declining prison employment base.

There will be numerous prison facilities with the lights out and numerous people who need work, and clearly everyone cannot be trained to work in the outdoor recreation and education sectors.

The trick is to envision these economic changes as opportunities, and the newly unemployed as assets rather than liabilities. Fortunately, countless communities have already dealt with the closing of large facilities like prisons, military bases, or other large industries and have survived. The strategy for redeploying the built and human capital of these places is rooted in the planning process. Communities that plan earlier and involve the community in the process of redirecting these resources do better. Local officials can play an integral role in recovery by directing the community process of assembling these plans. If not prison guards to park rangers and educators, perhaps the community will envision a better strategy to tackle the difficult transition.

Human Capital

When a community becomes dependent on prison income, it’s hard to turn back. Indeed, nearly thirty percent of the Adirondacks’ employment is in government services and a significant percentage of that is related to prisons.

The Adirondack region supplies a third of New York State’s Prisons, which provides statewide 10,000 jobs and $465 million in annual payroll (Jenkins & Keal, 2004).

sound farfetched, it is not hard to fathom how many of the social skills of running correction facilities and programs may translate into the social skills needed to run training programs in other areas. In essence the Park could begin swapping its prison guards for private park rangers.

Job opportunities may exist for trainers and organizers in park stewardship and outdoor education programs.

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MANUFACTURING

CapitalIzing On the Region’s Wood HEritage

Human Capital

Whether by tanning, paper mill manufacturing, or outdoor recreation, the forest has always been vital to the Adirondack economy. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries forest jobs mostly meant lumber extraction. “The jobs connected to the logging industry were labor intensive, and it took many hands to tap the resources of the forest. One premier job in the woods was that of spudder. The spudder was the one who removed the bark in sheets from the hemlock trees to make tannic acid necessary to tan hides. It was a skilled job and paid the highest wages” (Williamson, 2002).

By the late twentieth century, however, the forest became mostly a visual asset for tourists and second-homeowners to enjoy. The spudders mentioned in the quote ceased to exist and by 2005 all but one Ticonderoga paper mill has disappeared. Is there a future in forestry that can build on this history? This report has discussed sustainable forestry and alternative forestry techniques: another way to realize the potential of both natural and human Adirondack assets is to create forest products with the region’s local manufacturing expertise—in other words, the region’s human capital in wood-related manufacturing.

Looking at the manufacturing data from the Census Bureau’s 2005 Business Patterns data set, the Adirondacks’ manufacturing sector reveals a high export potential, as well as gainfully employing sixteen percent of the workforce.

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Inside the Blue Line, the dominance of wood in the manufacturing sector becomes especially evident. While it is true that removing the Ticonderoga paper mill slices out a significant number of Adirondack manufacturing jobs, a still sizeable twenty-five percent of all manufacturing jobs is dedicated to a smorgasbord of wood specific manufacturing, from kitchen cabinets to tiny sawmills to wood pallet and cardboard box makers. If global economic and ecological crisis ultimately put pressure on local forests to be utilized as more than just scenic assets, combining forestry and manufacturing to create an even more diverse wood manufacturing industry in the Adirondacks would be good policy.

To create more vibrant, healthy communities of Like many roads in the Park, this road in the future, it is time to think out of the box—a Schroon respects Adirondack heritage. wood box no doubt—and to capitalize on this asset and manufacturing heritage.

Lumber awaits processing at International Paper Co., Ticonderoga.

ARTISANS

Designing Crafts and Communities numerous potters, jewelers and metal workers.

Adirondack Chairs... Made in China?

Wood is part of the cultural life force of the helped build the Wild Center in Tupper Lake; Adirondacks. It was from wood that an artistic to Ian Itar and Sam Hendren of Clovermead Adirondack identity was born, manifesting in a Farm who make local cheese in Keeseville; to myriad of forms, including but not limited to the well-known Adirondack chair. potlight ocal

Opportunities exist to expand the region’s wood working tradition. Wooden furniture imports in the United States grew from about $12 billion in 2002 to about $17 billion in 2006. Of that, 46.5 percent came from China (worth $7.9 billion).

Adding a twist, American owned companies make up 60% of the exports of wooden furniture from China (UNECE, 2007). Many other types of artisans contribute to the diverse human capital of the region, from local granite workers who

S :L Woodworkers

Human Capital

“The use of native materials was a natural occurrence in the Adirondacks. Existing materials grown in the forests were inexpensive and available. Rustic twig furniture, logs, and rustic trim on houses, rustic gateways, fences, and bridges were commonplace” (Williamson, 2002).

High numbers of artists, artisans and other creative individuals are believed to be indicators not just of the cultural but also of the economic vibrancy of a community. Artisans and other creatives have an impact on economic development by fostering a creative culture. Their main contribution to the community is to think, designing new methods for fixing the problems not just in the arts but in multiple facets of community life.

The Forest Stewardship Council is a not-for-profit “created to change the dialogue about and the practice of sustainable forestry worldwide.” The FSC sets standards for guiding forest management toward sustainable outcomes. In the Adirondacks the FSC has certified a half dozen wood workers who create Adirondack chairs and other wood products from locally grown and certified sustainable wood.

Participants include Hickory Hill Woodworks of Westport, Old Adirondack of Willsboro, Northern Hardwoods of Lake George, and Hornbeck Boats of Olmsteadville (FSC, 2008).

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RETIREES AND BABY BOOMERS ENCOURAGING VOLUNTEERs

Human Capital

The Adirondacks have a relatively high percentage of people over the age of sixty-five, compared to many parts of New York and the United States.

The older population, many of whom are retirees, is a unique asset for the region. Retirees have a wealth of experience and many have strong social networks built up over a lifetime.

Retirees often want to give back to their communities. Nationwide, about 45 percent of retirees participate in formal volunteer activities, which is near an all-time high (Zedlewski, 2007).

In 2006, 61.2 million Americans volunteered. The estimated value of their labor was $152 billion (West, 2007). David Eisner, the head of the Corporation for National Service, a government agency that promotes and coordinates volunteer services, put it this way, “The bottom line is volunteering isn’t just nice, its necessary to solving some of our toughest social challenges” (West, 2007).

It’s clear that retirees are a significant resource for the Adirondacks and that volunteering should be encouraged and facilitated. Generally, volunteers face several challenges. Many retirees want to volunteer but can’t find opportunities, especially ones that are interesting and challenging (Great Expectations, 2007). Adirondack organizations could strengthen their volunteer outreach through word of mouth, flyering, and mass media.

Nationwide, the Internet is one of the leading methods that volunteers use to find opportunities (Great Expectations, 2007). This is yet one more

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reason why the Adirondacks would benefit from an improved broadband network.

transportation would facilitate his volunteering (See “Alternative Transportation”).

Some volunteers have trouble arranging transportation to volunteer opportunities. For example, a gentleman in Inlet would like to volunteer weekly at the town hall, but he is unable to drive. Organized ride shares and public

In the coming years there is likely to be an explosion of volunteering as the baby boom generation ages. The number of Americans who will turn sixty-five over the next two decades increased by thirty-nine percent during this decade (Greenberg, 2005). Aging baby boomers could double the number of volunteers by 2034 (West, 2007). As baby boomers retire, and look for a place to live out their years, the Adirondacks could be working to attracting them.

Many Adirondack communities, especially in the central and eastern portions of the Park, have relatively high percentages of elderly people compared to the state at large. In some areas of the Park, people over sixty years old, make up more than twenty-five percent of the population.

The first step in attracting baby boomers is to make sure that the Adirondacks are caring well for their elderly now. Aging baby boomers may evaluate prospective homes based on the availability of health care and activities for retirees. They will also be drawn by natural amenities. Recent studies show that Americans prefer to move to places with mountains, water, and a pleasant climate—warm winters and mild summers with low humidity are desirable (ERS/ U.S.D.A., 2007). Currently, the Sunbelt states lead the way when it comes to attracting retirees, but as climate change makes the Sunbelt a little too sunny, and Adirondack winters become milder, the region might find that its lakes and mountains draw an echo-boom of retiree volunteers.

GREEN COLLAR JOBS

Catalyzing Economies THROUGH BETTER Infrastructure Earlier in this document we recommended green buildings, green streets, green towns and green corridors. Retrofitting the Adirondack built environment to achieve all this green will require skilled labor. In essence, a policy of building green is also a policy for “green jobs.”

In the same way that tourism could be used as a vehicle to spur new industry clusters, the secondhome industry in concert with the Adirondacks’ numerous social service agencies and appropriate regulations could produce an economic cluster in green buildings. Essentially, the public sector would implement codes that all buildings and

streets must be built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards, while providing workforce development training in these skills. The public sector could also jump start the market in this industry by taking the initiative and rehabbing their built assets first.

The US Environmental Protection Agency, among many other organizations, is already administering grants to assist towns and regions wishing to implement smart growth principles and to build green. As climate change and energy crisis pressures increase, grants from the state and federal levels will probably increase as well.

Local granite used in Wild Center piers.

Planting seedlings on the green roof of the Wild Center’s Bio Building.

Installation of the first solar panel on the roof of the Bio Building.

Photos courtesy of the Wild Center, Tupper Lake

Human Capital

Contrary to some perceptions, the Adirondack construction sector is not in expansion but rather decline. In 1998, based on zip codes in and around the Park, the construction sector had roughly 6,400 jobs. Eight years later, in 2005, and despite a national boom in construction that likely peaked in that year, jobs in this sector declined to only 5,000 positions, a twenty percent drop, and one of the largest job declines in the Adirondack region in both absolute and percent change terms.

There is likely a significant amount of skilled human capital in this sector looking for ways to gainfully redeploy its expertise.

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social Capital Gathering places provide an opportunity for people to come together and build community. In the Adirondacks, gathering places are dispersed relatively evenly throughout the Park. Retail and food service establishments tend to cluster and to cooccur with libraries and churches. Libraries and churches, however, also often stand alone. Parks and sporting facilities tend to cluster and often are far from other gathering places.

Social Capital

Gathering places are much more concentrated outside of the Blue Line (shown here for a tenmile extent beyond the Park’s border).

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Providing more gathering places might be a good way to build community in the Adirondacks. In particular, providing more parks and sporting facilities near eating establishments might be a good investment for the Adirondack region.

SOCIAL CAPITAL Social capital is the networks formed by the people in the Park. It is the organizations and collectives, both formal and informal. It is communities of farmers, snowmobilers, business people. It is the community of Inlet or the community of the upstate New York region. It is people interacting and collaborating.

Social Capital

buy local • sell local • cooperatives • local currencies broadband • community housing • third places • csaS

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LOCAL FIRST

Social Capital

BUYING and Selling LOCAL When asked where he did most of his shopping. a gentleman in Old Forge said, “I go to Utica.”

We asked if he ever shopped at home or in other towns in the Park. “Utica’s much closer; it’s only an hour away,” he replied. It’s a familiar story in the Adirondacks. People will drive miles to acquire essential goods and services. From Old Forge to Utica, for example, is fifty miles.

Retail services often cling to the edges of the Park, especially congregating in the larger nearby cities such as Utica. It is understandable, that, when many products not geared to tourists are not well stocked or are not well priced within the Park, people often leave to make these essential purchases. But how many times have retail dollars that could be supporting a local merchant with more of a stake in the community left the region?

Most people are creatures of habit, especially when doing essential shopping. Perhaps they would buy from a local merchant if those habits could be redirected. In other instances Park residents might spend more simply to support their local economy, if they were given more information about where and how to do it.

The concept of buying American has been around for decades; in recent years some communities are taking this concept one step closer to home by buying local first. Buying local first does not mean walling oneself off from the global economy. It does mean restoring balance to one’s current set of economic arrangements.

There are many compelling reasons to buy local first. If it’s dollars one is after, recent research is

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Wal-Mart or Local-Mart?

Ticonderoga

showing that money spent at a locally owned and operated stores has a greater economic impact on the community than money spent at chains. One of the better known studies, by Civic Economics, compared purchases at a local bookstore in Austin, Texas, to a national chain. They found

that the multiplier effect was much higher at the local store. For every $100 spent at the chain store they showed that only $13 went back into the local economy. The same $100 spent at the local store generated $45, nearly three times as much local economic activity (Civic Economics, 2002).

Local firms spend so much more of their income locally because they don’t have the chain stores’ economies of scale. For example, the local store may have to outsource some of its advertising and marketing budget to someone local whereas a large chain has the efficiency of an in-house staff doing this task and others in a corporate headquarters miles away. While the prices at local businesses do tend to be higher, (although even this idea is coming into question) the number of dollars circulating locally is much higher. There are also many intangible, non-monetary benefits to buying local first. It is well documented that local business owners are more likely to be involved in their communities, supporting everything from the local chamber of commerce to the local soccer team. Local profits tend to stay in the community too, supporting charitable giving and other social causes. And from the consumer’s perspective, buying local often means more of a community experience in his or her daily shopping. The benefits of these kinds of informal interactions are hard to quantify. Still, it may be that these social capital benefits are the most valuable aspect of buying local first.

Case Study: Business Alliance For Local Living Economies Realizing the need to compete with the economies of scale of the big chains, networks of local business owners and entrepreneurs have been forming around the country. These networks pool resources in things like marketing, learning from each other what it takes to not just survive but thrive in a world of chains. The fastest growing group of this kind is the Business Alliance For Local Living Economies (BALLE).

Today there are over fifty BALLE networks in twenty-five states and provinces. In New York State they include Buffalo First and Sustainable Hudson Valley.

• •

Form a producer cooperative: these are business groups that collectively purchase, advertise, and lobby for local sellers.

Direct Deliver: B2B delivery services affiliated exclusively with local sellers can cut individual delivery costs.

Create a B2B Marketplace: These are business that link local businesses to one another.

They take a commission on each local “input replacement.” Such an entity could also broker deals to help local businesses buy cost

effective inputs of local supplies. This could especially work well with energy inputs.

• Create a B2G (business to government) entity: This is a business that aggregates small businesses into an entity that for a fee bids for government contracts.

• Establish Micro Funds: These are loan funds for small businesses to create a lending pool for businesses wanting to sell local first.

Spotlight: Adirondack Harvest Transporting goods to markets across a 6 million acre region is a challenge Adirondack farmers often face. Adirondack Harvest is experimenting with ways to connect sellers and buyers. Their Winter 2008 newsletter highlighted the Farm to Family Food Network, which addresses food distribution in the region. Jennifer Perry, comanager of Paul Smith’s Farmers’ Market and a Certified Naturally Grown Market Gardener, is coordinating with vendors and consumers to launch the Farm to Family Food Network. The delivery service will operate from October to May, allowing time to focus on farmers’ markets during the summer months. Member consumers will pay an annual fee and member vendors will connect with Jennifer to inform consumers about availability and cost on a bi-weekly basis. Though

the endeavor is still in its infancy, the Farm to Family Food Network addresses a growing need in the Adirondacks to encourage connections between growers and consumers.

Social Capital

Probably the best type of local-first initiative is not between consumers and businesses, but rather between businesses and other businesses, also known as B2B. The concept of businesses selling to Adirondack businesses first may not be the most financially lucrative arrangement for those businesses, but it could be the most sustaining.

The economist Michael Shuman, author of Going Local, recommends many ways to achieve the benefits of selling local first (Shuman 2000).

• Form a BALLE Chapter: BALLE chapters promote local products to each other as well as directly to consumers, collectively secure credit, and teach each other new skills. The chapter could also make a sellers directory of businesses selling local first.

•

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COOPERATIVES

COLLABORATING FOR A COMMON PURPOSE

Social Capital

As communities throughout the world work to boost their local economies, provide decent living wages for residents, and supply products of good quality, a number have found success with alternative business models, including cooperatives, of which there are four general types: consumer, worker, producer, and purchasing/shared services.

The business model for a cooperative is fairly straightforward: a number of people who share a common business and community goal pool their resources to produce enough start-up capital to purchase the necessary space, equipment, and supplies to begin operations. Each member therefore literally has a vested interest in the venture’s success. The members can be workers, producers, consumers, or a combination of the three. Worker-owned cooperatives, for example, offer a way for workers to become shareholders at their places of employment, encouraging a greater connection to their work and the other employees.

Due to a cooperative’s democratic decisionmaking process, businesses are also able to reevaluate present trends, rules, and structures and readjust accordingly to make the system more effective, efficient, and advantageous not just for the present moment, but over time. For instance, the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation of the Basque Region of Spain, renowned for its unique, large-scale cooperative model, has been able to accommodate members’ priorities as

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they shift over the years. “As the environment became a matter of world concern, Mondragon was able to act collectively both to retool their processes to be more environmentally friendly and to invest in product technologies that are in line with the values of conservation” (Graham, 2008). Mondragon’s system essentially involves a cooperative of cooperatives, where a larger umbrella cooperative organizes the smaller ones. The smaller cooperatives are divided into three areas: industrial (e.g., household products

or automotive parts), financial (e.g., banks and insurance groups), and distribution (e.g., food and commercial distribution).

A smaller-scale operation, but no less effective an example, can be found in northern California.

Located in what is known affectionately as the Gourmet Ghetto of Berkeley, California, the Cheese Board Collective has been successfully

Spotlight: The Artworks Looking for a place to showcase their work, in June, 1989, several artists formed the Artworks cooperative in downtown Old Forge. Established under the auspices of the Adirondack North Country Association, The Artworks has been self-sufficient for about eighteen years. There are no employees; every member volunteers time to help the store run smoothly, managing everything from sweeping the floors to coordinating sales.

Each artist gives 20 percent of sales to the co-op for maintenance, rent, utilities, packaging, etc.

There are a few consignment artists who give 40 to 60 percent and one wholesaler, Adirondack Chandlers in Glens Falls, New York. A selection committee decides what pieces to show, always with the goal of presenting a variety of styles and media. The gallery includes an eclectic array of work: baskets, jewelry, quilts, clay work, pottery,

origami, woodwork, photography, and painting.

Each piece shown is an original.

The cooperative has inspired other artists’ cooperatives, including one in Lowville, New York. In addition to offering artists the space to exhibit their work, The Artworks builds social capital by providing a place for like-minded individuals to connect.

operating for over forty years. The collective now specializes in artisan breads and pizzas. In fact, the collective was so successful that the workerowned cooperative expanded to Oakland in 1997 and eventually made its way across the bay to San Francisco in 2000, with Arizmendi Bakery establishing itself as a favorite of the Inner Sunset district. The new bakery took its name from José Maria Arizmendiarrieta, the young priest who helped found the Mondragon cooperative system.

From food co-ops, to department stores, to bakeries, to banks, the cooperative model can effectively influence a wide variety of businesses and industries.

Spotlight: Saranac Lake Community Store

In July 2007, the Saranac Lake Community Store was launched. The motivation behind this

store was a hotly contested but defeated WalMart bid, a resident population that was tired of driving fifty miles to Plattsburgh to buy socks, and a hamlet in the process of revitalizing its downtown.

When asked if this model could be replicated throughout the Adirondacks and rural America, local community organizer and artist Gail Brill responded with a resounding “yes”. She pointed to the homogenization of rural America and offered community-owned stores as a way for small towns to retain their individuality and human scale. She advocated community stores as a way to provide goods to residents while keeping money and jobs local. She felt that community stores reinvigorate not only the local economy but also the local downtown and ultimately the larger local community.

Social Capital

Imagine a store that carries affordable socks and sneakers, as well as fleeces made by your neighbor, furniture made by the local Little League coach, and food grown by local farmers.

Imagine a store that complements instead of competes with other stores in your downtown, pays a living wage, and provides decent health care to its full-time employees. Imagine walking into a store that offers you a gathering space for community meetings, holds farmers’ markets outside its doors, and even delivers goods to the elderly in your town. Imagine that you own part of this store. Sound like Utopia? It might be. But Saranac Lake, along with a number of other small towns across America, is doing it.

Images courtesy of the Saranac Lake Community Store

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LOCAL CURRENCIES

Social Capital

Greasing the Wheels of Adirondack Exchange Local currencies, also known as community currencies, are intended for trade solely in a town or a region. There are many models for local currencies. Some can be used like actual dollars while other local currency systems are similar to barter. Whatever the model, local currencies are based on agreed rules or on an agreed backer of the currency’s value, such as hours. Perhaps the easiest way to understand local currencies is to think of them as functioning like a gift card or a coupon; however, instead of only being redeemable for a certain product or at a certain store, they are useable at multiple businesses throughout one’s community. Because they can only be circulated at locally participating businesses, people tend to use them before using other forms of cash, thus facilitating more exchanges locally than a typical currency does. In economic terms their “velocity” is considered high. Moreover, local currencies can catalyze a community that has unproductive and underutilized resources. This is especially true for undervalued human capital.

Almost everyone has expertise that can contribute to economic activity whether or not they can find a job in the traditional market place. When jobs are scarce due to national or international economic conditions, local currencies can release some of this pent-up economic potential. Author and economist Jane Jacobs explains that this works because currencies are simply regulators of trade. “Currencies are powerful carriers of feedback information, and potent triggers of

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adjustments, but on their own terms. A national currency registers, above all, consolidated information on a nation’s international trade” (Jacobs, 1984). A local currency can give back this feedback ability to the local economy. Local currencies respond to local trade conditions, not national or international trade conditions; and thus, facilitate local trade among willing and able parties whether or not the trading partners have access to national dollars.

To grease the wheels of buy-and-sell-local-first strategies; to stop seepage of wealth to goods and services outside the region; and to build the local economy, the Adirondacks could set up their own small-scale monetary system that could be used only within the Blue Line. It might even be fun for the tourists and second-homeowners who arrive seasonally. Through innovative marketing campaigns that hook tourists on using the local currency, visitors’ buying patterns could be realigned to benefit Adirondack communities more often. It is even conceivable that residents

in gateway communities who acquire the new AdironDollars or AdironBucks, could begin coming into the Park to shop: a welcome counterpoint to the current situation of residents within the Park who leave it to shop.

Case Study: Ithaca Hours

Since 1991 the town of Ithaca, New York, has been using a community currency called Ithaca Hours to buy everything from goat cheese to tax consulting. Communities around the world have begun replicating Ithaca’s unique local currency model that is backed by hours. In their own words, “Ithaca Hours help to keep money local, building the Ithaca economy. It also builds community pride and connections. Over 900 participants publicly accept Ithaca Hours for goods and services. Additionally some local employers and employees have agreed to pay or receive partial wages in Ithaca Hours, further continuing our goal of keeping money local” (Ithaca Hours, 2008)

BROADBAND

BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE Though the heady days of dot-com fever are over, the Internet continues to reshape life across the globe. Seventy-five percent of Americans use the Internet and of those, seventy-two percent use it on a daily basis (Pew, 2008). Although sites like YouTube get most of the attention, the Internet is still mainly used for email and to find information (Pew, 2008)—activities that are essential to building businesses and functioning democracies.

Ironically, rural residents may be the ones who most need the Internet in the first place. The Internet could remake rural life by eliminating the isolation that stunts rural economies and communities. Better broadband could connect Adirondackers to each other across long

If fossil fuel prices continue to increase, world business exchanges may be profoundly transformed. The Internet may transition from a

better way to do “business as usual,” to a whole new way of doing business. For example, players of “Second Life,” an on-line virtual reality game, spent $1.6 million real U.S. dollars on virtual products and virtual real estate on a recent runof-the-mill March day (Second Life, 2008). By building their infrastructure and training residents the Adirondack region can position itself for the digital future.

Spotlight: CBN Connect CBN Connect is a public-private partnership that is working to bring cutting edge broadband service to Clinton, Essex, and Franklin counties.

CBN Connect will build a public fiber optic and wireless broadband network that will be used by private companies to provide voice and data services to end users. The model is similar to a publicly owned airport that is used by private airlines.

The network will: • Connect every school, hospital, library, business, and municipality • Provide connection solutions for residents • Support expanded cell phone coverage • Be affordable and secure

•

Offer a choice of competitive retail services to end users.

The effort was initiated in 2000. A feasibility study determined that a publicly created broadband network could bring $120 million in economic benefits to the three counties within ten years.

Social Capital

Although Internet evangelists promoted the web as the “great leveler,” Internet usage patterns remain closely correlated with old social divisions: young people use the Internet more than older ones, urban residents use the Internet more than rural residents, and people with more education and income use it more than people with lower education and income. These statistics point to a “digital divide.” Anecdotal evidence suggests that Adirondack residents are on the wrong side of this divide; they suffer from slow or unavailable service and pay high prices for what they have. As the Internet creates new business opportunities and knowledge becomes the driving commodity in the economy, Adirondack residents fear they may be left behind.

distances, open access to telecommuting jobs in and out of the Park, and provide much needed workforce development through distance learning.

In addition, more high paid knowledge workers might want to make the Park their permanent home, if fast broadband were added to its long list of amenities.

The cost of building the 500-mile fiber optic network is estimated at $14.9–53.4 million.

Currently, CBN Connect has raised $8,693,111 (CBN Connect, 2008).

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COMMUNITY HOUSING

Social Capital

pRESERVING HOMES FOR Park RESIDENTS

The boom in second-home development has resulted in drastic increases in property values and taxes. Many in the Park are being forced to sell their homes, move just outside the Blue Line where homes and the cost of living are cheaper, and commute long distances back into the Park to work. The significance of this trend extends beyond individuals not being able to afford taxes or purchase a home—the very fabric of Adirondack communities is unraveling.

The Adirondacks are not alone in their current housing crisis. As a response, community land trusts have sprung up across the country in order to provide affordable housing to residents of a community. Under this model the community land trust retains ownership of the land, while homeowners own the house on the property.

In order to assure that these homes remain affordable into perpetuity, the appreciation is capped so that when a homeowner decides to sell their home, they either sell it to the trust or to another qualifying homeowner for an affordable price.

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Spotlight: Adirondack Community Housing Trust The Adirondack Community Housing Trust has been established to create a stock of homes that will remain affordable for year-round Park residents. Under this model, the housing trust will retain ownership of the land on which the trust homes are located, while residents will own the home itself. When the homeowners want to sell their home, the ACHT will have first option to buy, followed by other income-qualified families.

A formula written into the lease will limit the amount of appreciated value the homeowner will receive at the time of sale, ensuring that the home remains affordable for future owners.

So what might community housing in the Adirondacks look like? Housing would ideally be located in town centers, close to amenities as well

as other people. They could be single or multifamily homes, and could be retrofitted to be energy efficient (saving residents money) and handicapped accessible, or new homes built with Adirondack materials, Adirondack labor, and honoring traditional Adirondack architecture.

Community land trusts can go beyond providing affordable homes to stimulating sustainable economic growth and invigorating town centers and community. They can create jobs for local realtors, construction workers, and landscapers.

They can incubate green building, encouraging the construction of energy efficient homes built from local materials. Finally, the availability of affordable housing to year-round residents will inspire pride and invigorate communities.

THIRD PLACES

Meeting, Trusting, and Forming Associations The “third place” is a term used by community developers to refer to the social places outside of home and work. Ray Oldenburg coined the term in his book The Great, Good Place, where he argued that third places are critical to civil society, democracy and social well-being. Third places are where people “meet, trust, and form associations.” They are critical social glue and the anchors of community life. Oldenburg’s hallmarks of a true third place include: • Friendly environments

• • •

Free or inexpensive access Available food and drink Regulars—people who habitually congregate there • Visitors—people who may be there for the first time In light of research on the creative class and the Blue Print for the Blue Line’s emphasis on broadband to attract them, local officials should consider taking an inventory of their “third places.” Telecommuters often seek third places

to do their work via computer laptops. Workers cite isolation in working at home and many feel the third place is a happy medium between the home office and the work office. While third places often involve food and drink they are not limited to it. Oldenburg claims that the best third places are locally owned and operated by someone everybody knows in the neighborhood.

Traditional third places were often the corner store or the neighborhood pub.

Spotlight: Nori’s Village Market Social Capital

In downtown Saranac Lake there’s home, work, and then there’s Nori’s Village Market. Asking for information about the community on the street, more than one local suggested to ask at Nori’s.

As one walks in the door he or she is greeted by a large community board, a small seating area to a have a cup of coffee with your neighbors, and of course the smiling faces of the owners, Lori Dodge-Cushman, Andy Keal and Amy Kohanski, the latter two of whom are represented to the left.

Left: Nori’s village market with owners Amy Kohanski (left) and Andy Keal (right).

Luncheonette, downtown Ticonderoga

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CSAs

A successful model since its introduction to the United States in the mid-1980s, Community Supported Agriculture is an agricultural business approach in which farms are supported by locals who buy shares for a certain amount of produce each month. Some operate on a system in which members receive (either through delivery or pickup) a box of produce each week. Others rely on a weekly market set-up. Sometimes members are required to work a certain number of hours on the farm as well. Whatever the arrangement, the advantages to Community Supported Agriculture are numerous. For the farmers, they are often able to have money up front to start the growing season, and therefore can pay more attention to the field and less to marketing. For members, CSAs provide local high-quality produce (often at a much lower cost than at a store), as well as a much-needed connection to community growers and the food they consume.

Kristin Kimball works the fields at Essex Farm CSA with her draft horses.

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Spotlight: Essex Farm The story of Mark and Kristin Kimball and their farm is nothing short of inspiring. Kristin, a writer, went to interview Mark, a farmer, at his farm in central Pennsylvania. “The next thing I knew,” Kristin recounts in an article from the New Farmer Journal, “I had a hoe in my hand, and Farmer Mark and I were talking as we made our way down opposite sides of the same row of broccoli. Somewhere in the smell of turned dirt and sting of worked muscles, something clicked.”

The writer never wrote the interview and before long the two had moved up to Essex, New York to start what is now one of the most successful CSA farms in the region, their first season starting in fall 2003.

Photo courtesy of Adirondack Harvest

Social Capital

Feeding Your Village First

The CSA comprises 75 individuals (about 30 families altogether). Their setup includes a weekly market that is held on Fridays from 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm. Each member has a free choice share, meaning that everyone should take all they and their family can eat for a week. There is no required number of hours of volunteer work, though many CSA members gladly offer help in the field when it’s needed.

During a phone interview, Mark reviewed the farmstand’s contents for a week in early March: the spread included a wide array from sour cream

to parsnips, to winter squash, to corn flour, to ground beef. Using, as the Kimballs see it, a fairly rudimentary storage setup in their basement, they are able to store a great deal of vegetables to add to their year-round supply, which is also supplemented by the meat and dairy products they sell. Their ability to sell to customers throughout the year, due to their diversity of products, makes their model particularly lucrative.

Why has the CSA model worked so well for the Kimballs? The perks are many, but to start, the farmers know their customers; they interact on a weekly basis. This provides the initial connection that gets people coming back. Then, the high quality of food further encourages the relationship. Eventually, the members establish sustaining connections to one another, sometimes showing up to swap recipes and stories. Mark also noted that the farm’s free-choice system allows for better farming decisions. As long as everyone’s fed, then the farm is doing fine and the farmers can experiment with cover cropping and different varieties of crops. Because the customers pay in advance, this also takes cash out of the customer’s minds and in turn creates a different relationship with the products and food in general.

S T R A T E G I E S F OR A N E W V I S I ON ASSEMBLING THE PIECES FOR SUSTAINABILITY ONE BY ONE

LAST THOUGHTS

Last Thought

This report began by acknowledging the work of the Common Ground Alliance, a non-profit, non-partisan group representing government, businesses, social, and environmental interests in the Park, a group that is working together to identify common concerns and to build a platform for action. Next, this report talked about vision, and even took a stab at articulating one.

This report discussed at length the marriage of environment and economy, showing how from the very beginning they’ve always been together.

In that discussion some emerging trends— demographic, environmental, and fossil fuel related—were discussed. Some of these trends were more alarming than others; all of them require action.

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This report has discussed four types of capital, including natural, built, human, and social capital.

This report then highlighted strategies—from notill agriculture to cluster development—which the people of the Adirondacks might employ to build each type of capital as well as the connections between them. Some of these strategies have been very specific; most have been very broad, requiring refinement. Sometimes these strategies even conflict. There are complex decisions to be made. Hopefully, the vision, the trends, the history, and at least some of the strategies have been compelling. But one may still legitimately wonder, “Why struggle to make any of these strategies real? Why make the effort?” Zooming out from the Adirondacks for a moment might provide some perspective.

First, consider the environment. In the distant past people’s actions, their strategies for building better lives and communities, may not have had such huge effects on the natural capital on which all other forms of capital are dependent. Today, the world seems to be changing very fast. There are acid rain, invasive species, climate change, to name just a few environmental concerns that appear in the Common Ground Alliance’s Blue Print for the Blue Line. Moreover, people’s actions seem to be having huge effects, quickening these crises into a tsunami of problems that is complex and difficult to know how to confront. But it is also clear we cannot go back to the past. Setting aside an area as “forever wild”, for example, may have seemed adequate at one time, but is probably not sufficient to combat the global environmental problems of today.

Next consider, the economy. Until the present an economy built on constant growth and global comparative advantage may have had its merits, but as struggling people in the Adirondacks and elsewhere can attest, these economic models aren’t necessarily working well, for either the environment or for a majority of people, especially in rural places like the Adirondacks. In short, just as the old environmental models may no longer be working when those models don’t sufficiently fit people into the ecosystem, the old economic models may no longer be working when they don’t sufficiently fit people into the economic system, and if people must construct new models, it makes sense to create models that

work for both ecosystems and economies.

Zooming back to the Adirondacks, the unique opportunity for the region becomes more intriguing. Since the Adirondacks is an actual rather than a figurative park, with people living and working inside it, it is a very special place.

There are few places like the Adirondacks. The Park could play a very special role, perhaps becoming a model for places around the globe. More specifically that role could be to demonstrate tools to emulate in and outside of the Blue Line that provide people with the power to forge a new vision that is better for both people and parks.

The most exciting thing about the Adirondacks, however, is not that this could be a reality, but rather that it is a reality, materializing daily through the innovative work done by communities and people across the region.

Time after time as the authors of this report tried to recommend a cutting edge technique or concept for sustainability to the Adirondacks, we discovered that the region was always one step ahead of the curve. In one strategy after another, either through agroforestry in Lake Placid or an artist’s cooperative in Old Forge, the people of the Adirondack Park are already creating the new intertwined environmental and economic models the world so desperately needs.

Many residents may not realize just how much is going on in the Park. Since the seeds of

environmental and economic transformation have already sprouted in the Adirondacks, the next step may not be so much to plant seeds but to nurture what exists. The people of the Adirondacks could then design the complex support structures, whether ecological or economic, which form in all systems.

With continued hard work and cooperation, the Adirondacks can become a more vibrant model for us all.

Such a plan for putting it all together is a process one cannot glean from a manual.

While there are countless connections to be made between the strategies spotlighted here and ones yet to be named, the process of discovering and strengthening those connections will be the work of Adirondack residents.

Ultimately, creating the vision and the future of the Adirondacks is up to the people in the Park. Fortunately, the Adirondacks are already constructing that vision, through numerous strategies in all types of capital.

Last Thoughts

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RESOURCES A Vision

Applications. Washington: Island, 2004.

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The Marriage

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Alternative Economic Theories Costanza, Robert, Susan Joy Hassol, Tim Kasser, and James Gustave Speth. “Some convenient truths: Scaling back our energyhungry lifestyles means more of what matters, not less.” Grist: Environmental News and Commentary. 9 Dec. 2007. gristmill.grist.org/ story/2007/12/7/171425/969 Daly Herman E., and Joshua Farley. Ecological Economics: Principles and

Jacobs, Jane. Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles in Economic Life.

New York: Random House, 1984.

Jacobs, Jane. The Economy of Cities. New York: Random House, 1969.

NATURAL CAPITAL Food Producton & CSAs The Adirondack Harvest: www.adirondackharvest.com New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets: www.agmkt.state.ny.us/AP/organic Local Harvest: www.localharvest.org Cornell Cooperative Extension: www.cce.cornell.edu Northern New York Agricultural Development Program: www.nnyagdev.org New York Agriculture in the Classroom: www.nyaged.orgaitc United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Services: www.nass.usda.govStatistics_by_StateNew_Yorkindex.asp The Intervale Center, Burlington, VT: www.intervale.org

Conservation Tillage Information Center: www.conservationinformation.org?action=learningcenter_core4_ convotill High Tunnels: www.hightunnels.org Pennsylvania State Center for Plasticulture: www.plasticulture.cas.psu.edu The New England Small Farm Institute: www.smallfarm.org

WBCSD, 2007.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Opportunities and Challenges for Business and Industry. World Resource Institute, Washington: World Resource Institute, 2005. www.millenniumassessment.org/en/index.aspx Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI): www.rggi.org/

Adirondack Farmers’ Market Cooperative: www.adirondackfarmersmarket.com

Biomass Biomass Energy Resource Center: www.biomasscenter.org/upcoming. html

USDA’s Alternative Farming Systems Information Center (CSAs): www.nal.usda.govafsicpubscsacsa.shtml

UNH, Carsey Institute. “Biofuel Production and Rural Revitalization”: www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu/publications.html

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Alternative Energy Energy Smart Park Initiative: www.energysmartpark.org

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Schaeffer, John. Real Goods Solar Living Source Book: The Complete Guide to Renewable Energy Technologies and Sustainable Living. Gabriola Island, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2007.

Sustainable forestry Forest Stewardship Council: www.fscus.org Adirondack Park Sustainable Forestry Project. Residents’ Committee to Protect the Adirondacks: www.rcpa.org/forestry.html

Ecosystems – New Challenges and Opportunities for Business and the Environment.

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Ecosystem Services Daily, Gretchen, and Katherine Ellison. The New Economy of Nature: The Quest to Make Conservation Profitable. Washington: Island, 2002.

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BUILT CAPITAL Land Use Arendt, Randall. Rural by Design: Maintaining Small Town Character.

Chicago: American Planning Association, 1994.

Arendt, Randall. Dealing with Change in the Connecticut River Valley: A Design Manual for Conservation and Development, 1998.

Smart Growth Online: www.smartgrowth.org American Planning Association, Congress for the New Urbanism. Codifying New Urbanism: How to Reform Municipal Land Development Regulations, 2004.

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Car Sharing.net: www.carsharing.net Ithaca Car Share: www.ithacacarshare.org Form-based codes Local Government Commission: www.lgc.org Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company: www.dpz.com Transfer of Development Rights American Planning Association: www.apa.org

Green Buildings US Green Building Council Upstate New York Chapter: www.greenupstateny.org

Transect Smart Code Central: www.smartcodecentral.com

Green Buildings: www.greenbuilding.com, www.buildinggreen.com

HUMAN CAPITAL

Green Streets Portland Bureau of Environmental Services: www.portlandonline.combes

Education Department of Conservation Environmental Education Camps: www.dec.ny.goveducation29.html

Green Towns John Todd Ecological Design, Inc. : www.toddecological.com

World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms USA: www.wwoofusa.org

Ocean Arks International: www.oceanarks.org

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Alternative Transportation Adirondack Scenic Railroad: www.adirondackrr.com

Schaeffer, John. Real Goods Solar Living Source Book: The Complete Guide to Renewable Energy Technologies and Sustainable Living. Gabriola Island, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2007.

Permaculture Institute: www.permaculture.org Artisans The Forest Stewardship Council: www.fscus.org

Retirees and Volunteering ERS/USDA Research Emphasis – An Enhanced Quality of Life for Rural Americans: Rural Gallery. 18 Jun. 2004. www.ers.usda.gov/ Emphases/Rural/Gallery/RetirementDestination.htm Great Expectations: Boomers and the Future of Volunteering. San Francisco: Volunteer Match. www.volunteermatch.org/nonprofits/ resources/greatexpectations/

Social CAPITAL

Local Currency Ithaca Hours Online: www.ithacahours.org Broadband CBN Connect: www.cbnconnect.com/about.php Third Places Oldenburg, Ray. ­The Great Good Place. St Paul: Paragon House Publishers, 1989.

Buy & Sell Local First Civic Economics: www.civiceconomics.com Business Alliance for Local Living Economies: www.livingeconomies.org Cooperatives Mondragón Corporación Cooperativa: www.mcc.esingindex.asp Oklahoma Food Cooperative: www.oklahomafood.coop2007workshop.php National Cooperative Business Association: www.ncba.coopabcoop.cfm Donahue, Brian. Reclaiming the Commons: Community Farms and Forests in a New England Town. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

The Cheeseboard Collective: www.cheeseboardcollective.coop Resources

Arizmendi Bakery: www.arizmendibakery.org

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THANK YOU . . .

This project was supported in part and made possible by a grant to the Conway School from William Gundermann of Patterson, NY, to whom the school is very grateful.

Thank you to the members of the Common Ground Alliance for meeting with us, sharing your insight and experience, answering countless questions and emails, and giving us valuable feedback.

Thank you in particular to: Ray Curran, President, Adirondack Sustainable Communities Inc.; Bill Farber, President of the Adirondack Association of Towns; Greg Hill, Community Assistance Specialist, Adirondack North Country Association; Brian Houseal, Executive Director, The Adirondack Council; Bill Johnston, President, Housing Assistance Program of Essex County; Terry Martino, Executive Director, Adirondack North Country Association; JR Risley, recent President of the Adirondack Association of Towns and Villages; Zoë Smith, Adirondack Program Director, Wildlife Conservation Society; Lani Ulrich, Founding Director, Central Adirondack Partnership for the 21st Century; Gregg Wallace, Supervisor, Town of Long Lake Town; and Ross Whaley, former Chairman, Adirondack Park Agency.

Thank you to those in the Park who met and spoke with us, candidly sharing your experience and your views.

Thank you to the students and faculty of the Conway School of Landscape Design for your inspired ideas, thoughts, and feedback.

Thank you in particular to: Bob Beyfuss and Mike Farrell from the Uihlein Sugar Maple Research & Extension Field Station; Gail Brill from the Saranac Lake Community Store; Deb Carhart at CAP-21; Sloane Crawford, Forest Utilization Specialist for New York D.E.C.; Laurie Davis and Anita Demming at the Adirondack Harvest; Mary Farmer from Old Forge’s Artworks Cooperative; Rob Hastings from Rivermede Farm; Andy Keal and Amy Kohanski from Nori’s Village Market; Mark and Kristen Kimball at Essex Farm; Betsy Lowe at the Department of Environmental Conservation; Jennifer Perry from the Farm to Family Food Network; Sean Ross from Lyme Timber; Peter Smallidge, D.N.R. State Extension Forester; Curt Stiles, John Barge, Richard Weber, and James Connolly at the Adirondack Park Agency.

Thank you fellow Class of 2008: Sarah Bray, Jesse Froehlich, Douglas Guey-Lee, Elizabeth Hammen, Pamela Hurtado, Adrian Laine, Michael Lance, Amy Livingston, Kathleen McCormick, Katja Patchowsky, Seth Pearsoll, Theresa Sprague, Tom Sullivan, Joseph Weidle, and Andrew Weir.

Thank you to the faculty for your ideas, encouragement, feedback, and hours of editing: Mollie Babize, Ken Byrne, Kim Erslev, Paul Hellmund, and Jono Neiger.

The Conway School of Landscape Design is the only institution of its kind in North America. Its focus is sustainable landscape planning and design. Each year, through its accredited, ten-month graduate program just eighteen to nineteen graduate students from diverse backgrounds are immersed in a range of applied landscape studies, ranging in scale from residences to regions. Graduates go on to play significant professional roles in various aspects of landscape planning and design with an eye to sustainability.

Copyright Š 2008 Conway School of Landscape Design 332 South Deerfield Road, Conway, MA 01341-0179 | 413-369-4044 | www.csld.edu