Reply to Brookeville bypass wasn't needed

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Reply to "Brookeville bypass wasn't needed"

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[quote=Anonymous]Maryland has very few small towns with unique character and a sense of community.  Brookeville is a rarity, and I support the bypass as a means of keeping the flow of commuter traffic on MD-97 off the main street.

I find it a fascinating sign of the times that folks who live in either dense urban environments or in somewhat "placeless" suburbs place such a high value on preserving very small patches of forest in areas they know nothing about.  Equally fascinating is the total neglect of what makes old-fashioned communities so pleasurable and natural-seeming.  Take Brookeville as an example: One of the marvelous aspects of old, pre-modern towns like Brookeville is the way they mix nature and community in a seamless way.  Big old trees filter the sunlight and provide shade and living space for generations of birds, cicadas, and squirrels.  Older homes with older construction materials were designed without air conditioning in mind and deliberately let in light and air from the surrounding neighborhood.  Porches in the front of the buildings provide a place for people in the neighborhood to watch each other's kids and enjoy both community and the outdoors at the same time.

Environmentalists in the 21st century, of which I consider myself one, need to be careful not to forget about the way actual human beings live when we advocate for environmental preservation.  The easy path is to let developers do what they want with the land and cry foul whenever someone wants to cut down a tree.  But wouldn't we be better off if we put a bit of pressure on developers and highway engineers to keep highways away from our neighborhoods, provide parks and walkable living spaces where community can flourish, and ensure that the natural world can be interlaced with our daily lives in an organic way?

There's very little wild forest left in Montgomery County, and the small patch of woods on the side of Brookeville, where the bypass is being built, was never any kind of crucial habitat.  There are much larger patches of identical habitat along the Patuxent and many of the protected stream valleys in the county (Lake Needwood/Seneca/Rock Creek etc.).  The small damage involved in building this bypass is a fair exchange for thevery important goal of protecting an equally valuable habitat for the residents of Brookeville.  The way out of our environmental challenges is not to draw a hard line between humans and nature, and protect nature from humans at all times.  Instead, we need to protect balanced environments and communities from encroachment and think of them as a model for future communities and neighborhoods,[/quote]

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