Albuquerque's Environmental Story

Educating For a Sustainable Community

Environmental Topic: Landscapinge

by Bill Perkins

Background

Yucca
photo by Barbara Trujillo

Urban and suburban development substantially alters the natural environment. For example, paving disrupts the natural drainage patterns so that rainfall runs off the land more rapidly, thereby reducing the amount of moisture absorbed into the soil. To minimize building costs, sites are typically regraded, stripping the land of naturally occurring vegetation. Buildings alter wind patterns, in some cases creating wind tunnels. Automobiles and industry pollute the atmosphere, thus increasing summertime heat and glare. These are just few of the ways that the natural environment is affected by the built environment. While these changes can make the environment more functional, these changes typically make the environment harsher, less livable.

Cities are made more livable in a variety of ways. For example, unique open space is preserved an protected from development. Attractive buildings are created to provide comfortable interior spaces. An, trees, shrubs, ground cover, perennial and annual plants are added and encouraged to grow in the city. Plants help make the city more comfortable, beautiful, and expressive of the region.. Plants provide shade, help reduce temperature, mitigate wind and blowing dust, reduce the rate of water runoff, reduce noise, and can lend visual cohesiveness to the environment.

During Albuquerque's formative years of the 1940s and 1950s, the functional considerations of development received a higher priority than livability and aesthetics. The automobile dominated the city's layout. There was an engineering approach to the form of streets and subdivisions. In one notable exception to the emphasis on function, Mayor Clyde Tingley encouraged an ambitious planting program of Siberian elm trees. These trees grew quickly, provided shade, and softened the architectural look of the city. (Since that initial program, the problems with this species have become painfully evident: susceptibility to disease, prolific, unwanted seeds, high pruning and maintenance requirements.)

During these early years, Albuquerque's population grew dramatically. New residents brought their values and expectations from other parts of the country. They brought their perceptions of the ideal landscape--forests, rolling green hills and year round lushness of such places as the Midwest, the East, and California. Residents were free to landscape generously, encouraged by reports that Albuquerque was above an aquifer of clear water comparable in size to Lake Superior.

In the 1970s and 1980s, there was an increasing awareness of the importance of livability. The Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Comprehensive Plan, area plans, sector plans, and site-planning guidelines typically called for landscaping as an integral part of development. Minimum landscaping was required as a condition for site development, and cool-season grasses such as Kentucky bluegrass proliferated. Shade trees like sycamore and ash predominated. Evergreen shrubs such as euonomomus, juniper, and photinia were planted. And plants truly did transform the appearance of the city and in many respects helped make it more livable.

However, with the nineties came greater awareness of water limitation and an increasing sense that the landscaping chosen fails to express or accommodate the high desert region. Piñon and juniper are characteristic of the foothills, and native grasses on the surrounding mesas. A trend is under way to promote the use of native and naturalized plants characteristic of our region, plants that require little water for healthy growth. Xeriscape principles--planting concepts that call for plants with low water requirements--are being utilized more now. Advances in irrigation technology are allowing for significantly lower water application rates. The landscape and the look of Albuquerque are continuing to change.

Problems and Concerns

There is an increasing awareness of the relationship between pollen-producing plant species and allergies. In many instances, low-water-use plant species generate relatively high levels of pollen. How will these concerns be reconciled?
The threat of criminal penalty might encourage landowners to reduce landscaping instead of change the type of landscaping and thus the aesthetics might then suffer.
Many of the city residents consider low-water-use landscaping (xeriscaping) unattractive and "messy." How will people be educated to the new aesthetic?
There is a perception that low-water-use landscapes have low maintenance requirements. In fact, while traditional landscapes require structured maintenance programs that include watering and mowing, the xeriscape requires greater understanding of horticulture. The cost of maintaining xeriscaping in a manner that will achieve its full aesthetic potential is a concern to some.
The scale of forms that dominate the city is large: roads, bridges, buildings, billboards, etc. The scale of plants in xeriscaping is generally smaller, more intimate. Designers must effectively address the scale of larger projects within the constraints of low-water-use landscaping.

Options and Opinions

Discussion Questions

Why is public education a major problem for both beautification and landscaping?
Who should pay the installation costs of landscaping? The maintenance costs?
Should the amount of water required by various types of plants be a factor in determining the selection?
Would you exchange the lawn in your own yard for dry land and native vegetation? Why or why not?
What effects on a community call local pride have? What else can be done to develop community pride?
Aside from the priority of dealing with local growth, what other factors have delayed the development of a landscape program in Albuquerque?

Possible Solutions/Opinions

In arid natural areas and cities, the relief of green spaces is worth whatever it costs.
Native vegetation, which usually requires less water than other plants, should be used when appropriate.
Landscaping, although it provides many benefits (aesthetic pleasure, noise and visual barriers, shade) is too expensive at this time when the city has so many other needs.
The method of financing landscaping should be one that does not impose a disproportionate share of the burden on the poor though regressive taxes or higher prices at the marketplace.
People should be allowed to have any sort of landscaping on their propoerty that they desire.
Landscaping will only increase the humidity in Albuquerque and make the air more uncomfortable.

Activities

Prepare a list based on recollection, or on a class field trip, of places around the city that could be improved by landscaping. Select one area in which the class is especially interested. Contact the Albuquerque Planning Department or Parks and General Services Department to see if there are plans for landscaping in that section. If there are not, develop class plans. Present them in two- or three-dimensional form to one of the agencies.
Contact the Parks and General Services Department (857-8650) about the Adopt-a-Park, a program that encourages private contributors to pay for landscaping and equipment to improve the quality of public centers. Conduct a fund-raising event and purchase a shrub, tree, bulbs, or planter to be donated to a site selected by the class. If possible, arrange to do the planting and to care for the site.
Set up a controlled experiment in the classroom to determine the difference in amount of water required by cacti and other succulents as compared with such house plants as ivy, philodendrons, and begonias. If the school grounds have both native vegetation and non-indigenous plants, find out from the custodian whether there is a difference in the amount of water used for each type of landscaping. Discuss the "tradeoffs" related to the use of each type of vegetation.
Prepare a cost/benefit analysis for a hypothetical situation in which trees and planters would beautify one of the major arterial such as Lomas Boulevard, Central Avenue, or Menaul Boulevard. Include in this analysis such points as the cost of installation, labor for maintenance, and water; the benefits such as aesthetic improvement, noise barriers, and shade. Discuss who should pay each of the costs, private business or the city through taxes. Analyze whether or not the citizen pays in either case. Interview small-business owners to determine their feelings about landscaping near their stores.
Visit a local nursery to become familiar with some of the most common native vegetation and non-indigenous plants. (See Section IV for lists, descriptions, and references.)
Arrange for a speaker from the County Extension Service or a native plant nursery to talk to the class about appropriate landscaping in Albuquerque.
Have students do research on native and drought resistant plants. Prepare scrapbooks, bulletin board displays or exhibits of live plants informatively labeled.
Take a walking trip around the neighborhood and compile a record of the most widely used plants in private gardens. Discuss findings. Does there appear to be a need for public education about the advisability of using suitable landscaping?

(Up to Section V, Back to Land Use, On to Neighborhoods)