Maps
Urbanization

While large blocks of forest and still-productive farmland encircle the thriving Washington region, red dots of development appear scattered across the rural landscape, based on analysis by the Mid-Atlantic Regional Earth Science Applications Center (RESAC) at University of Maryland at College Park, using satellite imagery from 2000. These separated clusters of housing subdivisions, large lots, commercial "strips" and isolated office "parks," campuses and buildings are a major threat to the viability of the farming economy and the ecological integrity of forest lands and natural areas.

As growth is scattered to sites distant from existing services, transit, and communities, it fragments farms, forests, and natural habitat, and adds disproportionately to air and water pollution. Excess air pollution is generated by the driving required to reach virtually all destinations-resulting in more smog-forming vehicle emissions. The added air pollution created by all these trips not only makes the air unhealthful for people to breathe, but forms a significant source of a key Chesapeake Bay nutrient pollutant, nitrogen, which falls out of the sky and into the Bay. Urbanization of natural resource lands also degrades water quality as rainwater rushes off rooftops, roads, parking lots, and other impervious surfaces, washing nutrients and toxics straight into streams, and ultimately the Bay, causing damage to water courses all along the way.

This pattern of growth, usually referred to as sprawl, is also expensive to individual households, as more time and money must be spent driving since there's virtually no other way to accomplish the simplest errand. And it's expensive to the public, as new roads, sewer lines, and other public services are demanded to accommodate the spread-out population.

A Different Choice
Growth can be redirected to villages, towns, and cities, so that rural lands can be saved for farming, forestry and natural habitat-again, preserving our vital "green infrastructure." Redirected growth also means that people can live in convenient places where they have transportation choices and easy access to the region's jobs, housing, services, and parks. To save the Washington region's rich ring of farms and forests, lands must be designated for appropriate use, and preserved for those uses.

The farms of the Piedmont in Fauquier County, the battlefields of Frederick County, and the expansive forests of Spotsylvania and Charles Counties can be saved, but the choice needs to be made now. Protecting rural resource lands and focusing growth in village, town, inner-suburban, and urban centers is the only way to preserve the quality of life of the prosperous and naturally beautiful Washington, D.C., region. Without charting this course for guiding growth we will never save the Chesapeake Bay.

View entire Washington Region Urbanization map

Washington Region in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed
| Imperviousness | Natural Resource & Agricultural Lands
Protected Lands | Protected Greenspace Inside the Capital Beltway
Urbanization

Future Growth Model