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I read an interesting article in an online newspaper this morning, and thought I'd share it. The discusses a proposal, first made in the mid 80s, to revert large swaths of the Great Plains back to native grass praries, effectively creating an enormous national park. It also talks about declining populations in rural Kansas counties, and is just generally interesting (to me anyway).
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I'm confused by the direction of the Journal-World article, Noemon.
First the article talks about saving the prairie and having this large preserve...
Then it turns right around and talks about ways towns are trying to reverse "out-migration" of people by "giving away land" to get them to stay. So this is, in essence, urbanizing land (on a small scale) around these towns. How is that preservation?
The urbanization rate of farmland and of native pasture is one of the greatest threats to Kansas. So I am confused by the dual philosophy of this article.
And we do already have several prairie preserves, such as the Maxwell preserve, and also the large Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve that is trying to save some of the native prairie.
posted
I remember the furor over the first "Buffalo Commons" proposal. If the Poppers think this proposal is less controversial today, they should come to Clifton or Washington or Smith Center or any one of the county seat towns and see what kind of reception they would get. Rural people are very direct.
Buffalo Commons may well occur, but it will likely be a natural evolution rather than a forced migration. I say this because I can see no immediate reversal to the population decline except where a lucky few towns latch on to a prison or a small industry for a few years.
Maybe we should make a "Coastline Preserve" and save our tidal wetlands and ocean fronts in the name of ecology?
A lot of people out here see the argument as being the same. It is very emotional to see your town die. Don't make flippant replies to that unless you have been through it.
I won't solve it and I don't even mean in this reply to try to. I don't know the economics or the sociology of it. I just wanted to share a couple of thoughts.
Kansas rural resident.
PS I know Lester Lawrence. He has a scholarship in his name at the local high school.
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I agree FarmGirl, the article did seem a bit muddled (but hey, it's the Journal World; what do you expect?).
What I took it to be saying (and I've only read through it once, and fairly quickly at that, so I could easily be wrong) was that there would be urban islands dotting the prarie, but that the farms that once existed around those cities would be transformed back into prarie.
Screechowl, I can imagine what a contentious issue this is for people living in the area, and I completely sympathize with them. I have relatives that farm in western Kansas, and I doubt that they'd be positively disposed toward this plan. I'm sure that people in coastal areas would be fairly hostile to the coastal preserve areas you suggested too. That doesn't mean that they're a bad idea though.
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I would rather see them work on some way of "containing" the urban islands of Wichita and the Johnson County area before the sprawl gets any worse.
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Lawrence is sprawling pretty badly too. I'm always shocked when I go back and see how much it's expanded. It isn't going to be all that long before Lawrence, Johnson County, and Topeka have formed into a single urban corridor.
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Noemon, as I said before, the concept may evolve naturally before it is implemented as a plan, IMHO.
Many western states have the urban and rural diversity of Kansas. Some would call it the urban-rural split, which it is increasingly evident.
There is still a lot of life in the rural Great Plains yet. Many people live and work and die happily here. Many would return to raise families if they could find living wages and good jobs. As it is, if you return to Washington, KS to raise your family, you better be a jack of all trades to make a go of it.
I remember a map of Kansas that I saw about 14 years ago. (Bear with me, Kansas Hatrackers) The map showed eastern Kansas roughly as Johnson, Wyandotte counties; western Kansas included Wichita; the rest of the map was labeled Unexplored. Posts: 440 | Registered: Oct 2001
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