Urban Sprawl Terminology

Posted By Les Conklin on Jul 21, 2016

Courtesy of Friends of the Scenic Drive

When you drive from Tempe to Phoenix, it landscape looks very similar. The same is true about the trip from Tempe to Mesa, Phoenix to Glendale, and on, and on. In time, will the same be true for the drives along Pima and Scottsdale Roads from Pinnacle Peak Road to Carefree and Cave Creek? Here are a few concepts to remember as you drive along.

Creeping Normalcy

Major change can be accepted as normal, if it happens slowly, in small increments. The same change would be strongly opposed if it happened in one step or over a short period.

Landscape Amnesia

As landscapes change slowly over time, people forget what the landscape used to be like, and additional changes are more acceptable.

The native society of Easter Islands depended upon trees to make large canoes for transportation, to build homes, as fuel for fires, and to move the large monoliths that the island is now attract tourists. According to Wikipedia, Jared Diamond invoked the concepts of creeping normalism as well as landscape amnesia “in attempting to explain why in the course of long-term environmental degradation, Easter Island natives would, seemingly irrationally, chop down the last tree: Gradually trees became fewer, smaller, and less important. By the time the last fruit-bearing adult palm tree was cut, palms had long since ceased to be of economic significance. That left only smaller and smaller palm saplings to clear each year, along with other bushes and treelets. No one would have noticed the felling of the last small palm.”

Shifting Baseline

Also from Wikipedia, “Shifting baseline (also known as sliding baseline) is a term used to describe the way significant changes to a system are measured against previous baselines, which themselves may represent significant changes from the original state of the system.”

As the Pinnacle Peak and Desert Foothills areas have become more populated, the environmental experience of new residents begins when they arrive (their baseline). These new residents are apt to accept what they perceive to be small changes to the environment without major opposition. Destruction of the natural environment is masked because there is a loss of perception of change that occurs when each successive group of newcomers redefines what is “natural” and establishes a new baseline.

Camel’s Nose

Again, quoting from Wikipedia, “The camel’s nose is a metaphor for a situation where permitting some small undesirable situation will allow gradual and unavoidable worsening.” Evidently the term originated in fables, like one where an “Arab miller allows a camel to stick its nose into his bedroom, then other parts of its body, until the camel is entirely inside and refuses to leave.” Is the use of text amendments, to achieve higher densities a “camel’s nose?”

According to the City of Scottsdale’s Web site, “Scottsdale is a community that embraces conservation and preservation of the environment. Because of its rich history and legacy of long-range thinking, it has a particularly handsome endowment to protect and retain. Scottsdale will continue its environmental stewardship partnership with the public.”