Albuquerque's Environmental Story

Educating For a Sustainable Community

Introduction

Albuquerque's Profile in the Nineties

• Albuquerque is still relatively clean. Litter on streets and vacant lots, caused by litterbugs and heavy winds, has sparked community concern and effective action. Graffiti, a phenomenon that appeared in the early nineties, was countered almost immediately by a determined, irate citizenry, the city council, and the mayor.

• Air quality, particularly during winter months, became a serious problem. A sprawling city, more people, more cars, and more fireplaces led to Albuquerque/Bernalillo County's designation by the federal Environmental Protection Agency as a nonattainment area for carbon monoxide. Measures to control use of fireplaces, to use cleaner fuels in cars, to inspect our automobile emissions - and new cars with less pollution - all combined to dramatically improve air quality in recent years. Still, an expanding urban area must be constantly involved in reducing the impact of continuing growth and preventing new problems.

• Historic buildings like the Alvarado were unthinkingly torn down in the past, and neighborhoods rich in tradition were deformed, but Albuquerque has now successfully committed itself to the preservation of our city's priceless heritage and historic buildings.

• Continued pressure against ill-conceived development and environmental degradation is being matched with some effectiveness by neighborhood associations and similar public-interest groups determined to protect open spaces, air quality, water supply, neighborhood integrity, and other elements important to our quality of living.

• A widely held belief in the importance of preserving open spaces led to the establishment of an Open Space Trust Fund to be used for future acquisition of public lands, and management of existing public open spaces.

• The unattractiveness of some aspects of our built environment resulting from bland public areas and commercial strips displaying garish signs has been somewhat mitigated by a sign ordinance, the Urban Enhancement Trust Fund, and the first Art in Public Places program.

• Recognition of a widespread need for a sense of community, of belonging, led to the Community Identity Plan in 1994. Ten small areas in the city were identified, each with its own distinctive characteristics. These distinctive areas give the locale a sense of place, and form the basis for new directions in community-based planning and delivery of municipal services. The city is thus learning how to spend public money in the ways residents deem best.

• Crime is a fact of life here as it is in most other parts of the county, urban or suburban. Although the adult crime rate in the mid-nineties had decreased, juvenile crime in Albuquerque, as in most of the country grew alarmingly. In a mid-decade poll, 95% of city residents assessed crime as a serious or very serious problem. City government and the community have united in a determination to enlarge the police force, add more substations and other community-based components and to develop vigorous prevention strategies designed to keep the crime problem under control.

• The long-held opinion that we have an unlimited water supply turned out to be erroneous. An extensive water conservation program was initiated by the mayor and supported by the city council as well as the entire community. This effort began in 1994 when the potential problem was identified, and a decrease in water consumption was achieved within a year.

• Urban sprawl, though recognized by city officials, is probably the major aspect of growth that has not been widely addressed. It has already made substantial inroads in the Northeast Heights and in the developing West Mesa. In the mid-nineties, it has become the city's largest environmental problem. A growing awareness of the interrelationship between land use and transportation, of the need for infill and of the importance of finding urban forms and designs suitable for our unique area, may prevent further damaging sprawl.

Albuquerque's civic and governmental response to emerging problems is usually as quick and effective as a realistic observer could expect in a democratic society. Most people respect diversity and recognize that we must allow time for differences of opinion and values to blend into acceptable compromises. Seldom has an environmental crisis reached the point of no return What does this all add up to? What will it be like to live in Albuquerque in the next century? What might Ernie Pyle say now - or in the year 2005?

We can only guess at what Pyle might say, but we can quote from V. B. Price, the perceptive observer of the Albuquerque scene, who wrote the following in the December 23, 1994, Albuquerque Tribune.

Albuquerque has inner beauty only the West can have

But that doesn't mean it's an environmental dream come true.

At Christmas, my mother used to tell me, everything appears as beautiful as it really is.

Being in Albuquerque for over 36 Christmases, I've thought a lot about what she said over the years. Many people think Albuquerque's not a beautiful place at all - at any time of year. I'm not one of them.

But the reality of Albuquerque is always clearer to me in December - its astonishing natural beauty, the spiritual power of its mountains; the Rio Grande (or, as it used to be known, "The American Nile"); its sublime, if threatened, old cottonwoods; its valley farmland; its Western deserts; and the miracle of New Mexico's starry sky apparent just a mile or two out of the city.

At Christmas, everything appears as beautiful as it really is. My mother was right. Even the Albuquerque we see and sense every day with its endless, sprawling strip malls; its California-cated countryside; its ravaged water supply; its toad-paced, homicidal traffic; its tangled undergrowth of neon and eternal asphalt . . .

Why is this so? Because, even with the worst kind of land exploitation and the most mind-draining tourist kitsch, it's just impossible to take the real New Mexico out of Albuquerque. No one can deny the beauty of this state. And the more attention we pay to the New Mexico in Albuquerque, the better our quality of life will become.

One of the best ways to understand the New Mexicanness of our city is to read something called "Albuquerque's Environmental Story," first published in 1978 and revised last in 1985, by the Albuquerque Public Schools and the city of Albuquerque.

Written by scholars, it gives a comprehensive view of Albuquerque's natural resources and ecological conditions. . . [and] it helps us pay attention to the part of Albuquerque that gets its beauty from New Mexico.

When I asked my mother years ago what she meant about things appearing to be as beautiful as they really are at Christmas, she replied something like this, "Christmas teaches us to live as if inner beauty mattered more than superficial ugliness."

Maybe next year if we all treated Albuquerque as a beautiful city, it would become as beautiful as it really is.

(Reprinted with permission)

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Copyright © 2008, Friends of Albuquerque's Environmental Story