Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The country club I participate in raised over $112 million in charity funding throughout the 2013 fiscal year from charity tournaments. And we're one of the smaller ones on the east coast. How many parks and front yards accomplish that? It's hard to call them a waste of anything for their contribution.
Yep. The parks around here (northern NJ) are all landscaped. I haven't seen any watering, but that may just be because we've had a cool summer with plenty of rain and they haven't needed it.
\
Yea, thought I hadn't noticed much of any watering this summer.
Every park in my city has a nice lawn of Kentucky blue grass and trees, neither of which are native to Colorado. That is true for the parks I can think of in Denver as well. There's not much of anything that grows here w/o watering and fertilization, certainly not green grass and most trees. Some of them also have nice flower plantings.
Most of the lawns in our parks are brown during the summer. We have rather sever water restrictions here, but you wouldn't know that looking at the capitol grounds, state cemeteries and municipal golf courses. They are the problem children, not the parks.
You also categorized all parks in Louisville as having irrigated vegetation in response to verybadgnome's post that most parks in Austin are kept in their natural state. That's simply not true of the Front Range cities in general if you include the large number of city-owned natural areas (which are not mowed, watered, or modified from their natural state beyond the construction of trails and some light infrastructure).
I hate to break it to you, but even most open space is maintained to a certain extent. The city mows a swath of about 2' at the side of the trails. And I really don't know why you're arguing about this. I made a distinction between parks and open space. And yes, it's true of all Front Range cities that I'm familiar with. We're not talking about the Denver Mountain Parks here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by verybadgnome
Most of the lawns in our parks are brown during the summer. We have rather sever water restrictions here, but you wouldn't know that looking at the capitol grounds, state cemeteries and municipal golf courses. They are the problem children, not the parks.
In answer to the OP's question, no, golf courses are not a wasted use of land. I'd rather have a golf course than another sub-division of cookie cutter houses ! When the nearby city took over the 121 acres behind my house to build a park I was a little put out (It had been farmland) but then realized there would be 350 + fewer houses around me. I don't like the park because they made soccer fields out of it, but it's still better than having a bunch of houses making noise behind me. And no, I don't play golf, never even tried it.
You had to ask, didn't you? (J/K) Despite the fact that this stuff is in the paper once a month, I can't seem to put in the right words to get the articles.
Per Accuweather Louisville, for August, 1.36", on a total of 13 days. It's supposed to rain again today. (That is adding it up manually, so I could be wrong.)
July: 4.05" on a total of 15 days. Highest rainfall, 2.56 on the 30th.
June: .77" on a total of 9 days. Highest rainfall, .42 on June 8.
Normals:
June 2.1" Actually low, but it had been a wet spring.
July 1.9" (We had more than 2X the nl)
August 1.9" (We'll probably have close to nl)
It's also been cooler than nl.
90 degree days (from Weather Underground)
June: 2 (Normal 6)
July: 9 (Normal 14 [~1/2 the month!] with an average of 1 day >100, no 100 degree days this year.)
August: 2 (Normal 9)
In contrast, last year had a record 54 days of >90 degrees.
The non-irrigated areas still have a little green, which is extremely unusual for this time of year.
When the August wrap-up appears in the paper, I'll post it. Their numbers will be for Boulder.
ETA: I think most golf courses and some parks are watered with "gray water".
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 08-31-2014 at 12:20 PM..
And of course golf courses are not even parks they just pretend to be as a means of greenwashing! You don't cut down huge swaths of tree in parks. You don't add tons of fertilizers and herbicides to make green lawns in parks. You don't waste acre-feet of water in parks because of course they are self-sustaining and fit the climate they inhabit.
I know my town way better than you do. People here are not clamoring for more parks. What they want are (1) traffic relief and (2) more affordable housing. The best way to create affordable housing is to supply more of it near employment centers. That should be priority number one, not recreation facilities for the minority of the population.
These are high-priced areas I'm talking about. If they do build a strip mall it will be a damn fine looking one with lots of customers.
I wasn't saying you don't know your town. But, what you had said had argumentative flaws: until the above information, your evidence was anecdotal by definition; in a discussion about golf courses as a general concept, you made specific points about a specific place, Austin, TX; you implied that Austin's parks were sufficient in quantity, but had not made a statement as to their being sufficient in overall quality.
To you specific point about strip malls, even as nice as they may be, I don't care; they're plaster and asphalt and less pleasant for me--clearly, you differ, as is your right--to look at than a golf course.
Let's, you and I, be clear about one thing. I live in the Bay Area. So I understand your point about housing affordability. That said, however scarce you think housing is in Austin, in relative terms it has nothing on San Jose, which has the highest gross rents in the US. Even so, even as it eats me alive to live here, I'd rather see already built land used more efficiently than every swath of green--hyperbole, admittedly--paved over. Paving over a golf course is a drop in the bucket when the problem is the systemic underutilization of our developed lands.
I hate to break it to you, but even most open space is maintained to a certain extent. The city mows a swath of about 2' at the side of the trails. And I really don't know why you're arguing about this. I made a distinction between parks and open space. And yes, it's true of all Front Range cities that I'm familiar with. We're not talking about the Denver Mountain Parks here.
Well yes I was talking about mountain parks. For many cities along the Front Range those (and prairie parks in the other directions) make up the largest percentage of city-owned land. But back to golf courses ...
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
