[GreenFreeper]

See some environmentalists can make some sense:

"We feel that the only way you can entice people to change what they're doing is to show that it's cheaper," said Brook McDonald, president of the Naperville-based Conservation Foundation, which sponsors the Kendall Growth Conference."

[HostileTerritory]

See some environmentalists can make some sense:

Doesn't matter. Some people are going to criticize this article without really knowing why, just having the sense that wasting land and energy is a conservative value in itself.

[GreenFreeper]

ECO-PING

FReepmail me to be added or removed to the ECO-PING list!

[doug from upland]

Yes, if we are true conservatives, we should want to conserve our environment in a sensible way. This is good. We aren't attacking evil business and pushing a socialist agenda in the name of conservation.

[Mike Darancette]

I don't care what they do as long as i can still drive an SUV and live on an acre of land should I choose and can afford to.

I'm always for having the other guy do all they can do to save the universe.

[stylin_geek]

However, this is a key line: Despite the economic advantages of eco-friendly neighborhoods, governments and developers have been slow to embrace them, possibly because they take longer to build, according to Jim Miller.

Okay, they're throwing out numbers on cost savings, but if the units take longer to build, there are costs associated with those delays. The most significant impact on costs is going to be labor, and I'm not sure this article isn't playing a bit fast and loose with the figures.

I'm a bit skeptical, because yes, maybe material costs went down, however, a longer time span to build means substantial increases in labor costs.

[BigTex5]

Imagine all the fuel the developers could save instead of bulldozing entire tracts of land they can [GASP] build around the trees.

[Marine_Uncle]

What does a builder want to accomplish on the job? Well they want to maximize their profits. How do you do that? You build as cheaply as you can, get away with any violation of building codes that you can get the local yocals to look the other way on, and you pack them shacks as close as you can. You want to maximize the number of units to be sold per acre. So clearly:
"The difference between traditional and conservational development is in the design principles."

So as usual, either the developers and their sponsors act in good faith, or building permits must be denied those that want quick dirty profits. An ongoing thing that has been around since the seventies or so. Nothing new in this supposed research that has not been brought out in hundreds of formal research projects. Same things said over and over again.

The real issue is in how willing the local governments are willing to go in not padding their pockets.

[ElkGroveDan]

New research reveals that building "conservation communities" can be 15 to 54 percent cheaper than traditional suburban developments, according to Wisconsin-based Applied Ecological Services (AES).

blah, blah, blah, yackity smackity

[Old Professer]

I Googled up a bit on AES; seems they are in the business of building swamps.

[KarlInOhio]

grass swales rather than storm drains

Is a swale a fancy word for ditch? Well I'd expect that to be cheaper than a concrete storm sewer.

[L98Fiero]

I am never going to buy a property where I can spit out my window and hit my neighbor's house. I hate zero-acre lots with a passion.

Ditches are cheaper that storm drains. Wow what a revelation. Our old neighborhood, built in the early fifties had ditches. Nothing like a bunch of standing water in which to breed mosquitoes. I also really liked having to pick up the trash out of my ditch that flowed in from 4 blocks over.

[adamsjas]

We feel that the only way you can entice people to change what they're doing is to show that it's cheaper," said Brook McDonald, president of the Naperville-based Conservation Foundation,

And show that it is cheaper they will, regardless of the facts.

None of these savings ever seem to end up being passed to the end purchaser.

[Rebelbase]

A developer adverstised an eco friendly development in a higher value area of the county where I live and sold the lots for an abusrdly ridiculous price.

Apparantly for some, the knowldege that all the trees are not going to be bulldozed in a neighbohrood was incentive enough to pay a premium.

[RightWhale]

Rain follows the plow.

It doesn't matter how we micromanage our property, that we own it and have recorded that fact, is most important. It is also the difference between the West and the 'impoverished' third world. When the third world wakes up to the fact that they have no capital because their systemwide legal system ignores 50-90% of their wealth, then we can talk about eco-concerns and foreign aid. The wealth of the impoverished of the world is 100X the amount of foreign aid they ever received, which would include outside financed infrastructure building. Too bad the ecos are focused on a trivial problem and ignore the recorders office because it is so dumb boring.