North Carolina Group Examines State’s Growth

The conservation group Environment North Carolina has issued a new report detailing the growth of North Carolina’s urban and suburban areas. The report mainly focuses on the destruction of cropland and farms in the State’s rural areas.

It [the report] found that the Charlotte area has lost one-fourth of its cropland and forestland over the past 20 years -- 270,000 acres in all -- while adding 321,000 acres of developed land. That's an 88 percent increase, the report said.

The Triangle area around Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill lost 24 percent of its cropland and forestland, and doubled its developed acreage by 327,000 areas. The Triad area -- Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point -- lost 14 percent of its forest and farmland while rural counties in the Piedmont added 322,000 acres of development.

Much of the report illustrates what is clearly visible to most North Carolinians; the State’s growth has been rapid, dramatic, and shows no sign of slowing. Environment North Carolina proposes drastic, but potentially beneficial growth management policy.

There is a plan. It's not cheap but it's worth doing: As the Land and Water Conservation Study Commission recommended last year, the General Assembly should approve a $1 billion bond issue that would provide an additional $200 million a year for five years to preserve land and protect waterways. It would help set aside 260,000 acres of farmlands, forests and other natural areas, add parks and trails to the state's inventory, and preserve more than 6,000 acres of streams and buffers adjacent to the state's waters.

The actions of North Carolina’s state government could provide valuable lessons to other Southern states on the issue of growth management. Rapid population growth also creates difficult decisions for Southern leaders, as many must balance the concerns of population and economic boom with the assistance demanded for growing abject poverty and desolation of many of their State’s rural areas.

Experts Describe Health Benefits of Reduced TVA Emissions

There is a new development in North Carolina's lawsuit against the Tennessee Valley Authority. The Raleigh News and Observer reports that experts weighing in on North Carolina's behalf have quantified the effects of TVA's pollution into real numbers. The numbers are presented as to illustrate the benefits from reduced pollution for areas affected by TVA's power plants.

People in the East and Midwest would suffer about 1,400 fewer premature deaths a year, environmental health experts say, while North Carolina children would miss 2,300 fewer school days annually. And the views in the Great Smoky Mountains would increase from 15 miles to 26 miles on the smoggiest days, says another.

These numbers illustrate the importance of this upcoming lawsuit for both future environmental law in the South and the huge impact of TVA pollution on the region.

Residents of North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee would gain the most health benefits from cuts in pollution, said the experts in power plant emissions, air modeling and environmental health.

Big blows to once-Big Tobacco in Virginia

Governor Kaine's proposed smoking ban in Virginia's restaurants, announced late last month, is not without its opponents in the General Assembly. But the ban got an unexpected boost this afternoon from one of the Commonwealth's most respected statesman. Senior Senator John Warner, speaking to students in Charlottesville, stated his support in no uncertain terms. Charlottesville's Daily Progress quotes:

“It’s clear now, the building evidence that in ways sometimes we can’t always explain why, tobacco and tobacco smoke is injurious to health. Consequently, I think it’s important that Virginia join and be the 22nd state in the union to improve health.”

The power and influence of Big Tobacco has been waning in Virginia for the past couple decades, helped along by the Commonwealth's Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission, created in 1999 to help farmers and tobacco-dependent areas transition out of growing the crop. Governor Kaine's ban- and the new bipartisan support of the influential Senator Warner- is an encouraging milestone as Virginia moves towards policy decisions based on public health rather than industry influence.

The American Prospect Bashes the South

Do cheap Southern stereotypes sell magazines? Apparently, the editors of The American Prospect think so. The April issue of that venerable liberal magazine contains several pieces dealing with Southern issues, none of which present the region in a particularly realistic light.

Perhaps the most outrageous article is "Wal-Mart Comes North: The Continuation of the Civil War by Other Means" by longtime labor journalist Harold Meyerson. This article ostensibly aims to describe the political fights that have occurred in northern cities like New York and Chicago over Wal-Mart's efforts to open stores. Those attempts have led local residents, rightfully, to to ask hard questions about the company's labor practices.

Instead of using the Wal-Mart wars as a way to discuss complicated questions of of economic competitiveness and fairness in a globalized economy, Meyerson instead likens Wal-Mart's northern push to an attempt to impose a barbaric "Southern way of life" on an enlightened population. One example of Meyerson's characterization of the South follows:

"Before Wal-Mart, no nationally dominant company has ever come from the nation's most backwards region, let alone clung so stubbornly to that region's casual barbarities."

Such inflammatory language is both stupid and silly. Wal-Mart's expansion plans are not part of some coordinated, nefarious Southern plot to conquer the nation. In fact, many Southerners object strongly to the kinds of labor policies pursued by firms like Wal-Mart. By peddling such cheap stereotypes, Meyerson manages to alienate people who otherwise would agree with him and misses an opportunity to discuss meaningfully questions of work, wages and opportunity -- questions of central importance to progressives in every part of the country, even the South.