Profile; Interview with Peter Kurth; Interview with Beth Humstone

PETER CURSON new book recently grace that most coveted of literary real estate. The cover of The New York Times Book Review launching his comprehensive work on is adored Duncan best selling biographer a columnist and cynic at large Peter Kurth is with us today on profile. PETER CURSON family moved to Burlington by way of Oklahoma and England. He remained here through a degree and honors in English from the University of Vermont. His first book Anastasia the riddle of Anna Andersen it was an international bestseller that led to an NBC mini series and numerous documentaries and media appearances for Kurth other biographies followed on Dorothy Thompson the last royal couple of Russian Nicholas and Alexandra Zelda Fitzgerald and now the founder of modern dance is adored Duncan. KERTH also writes for national magazines including Vanity Fair Harper's Bazaar Forbes cosmopolitan and the online journal salon. He is well known locally

for his crank call column in seven days for which he recently won an association of alternative weeklies award for outstanding commentary. Congratulations and thanks for being with us. And you're getting a lot of press about us and oh yes well it's been wonderful. Wow so grateful. Now this is not so much a book about dance though it certainly is as it is about an extraordinary character and quite remarkable times. She newsstands Cotto and Rodin and probably crossed paths with all the noted politicians and literary and figures of her time had affairs with half of them. OK. Exactly. You remarkably did all of those voices and make research easier more difficult. It made it in the end easier. But at the beginning harder and I think difficult to explain I mean I knew nothing. I don't nothing about Isidore when I started this except that she was a dancer and that she had died in that famous way when her scarf caught on the wheel of the car programme actually which is a true

story. And I was very daunted at the beginning this idea was suggested by an editor at Little Brown and I said well why not. You know I'll look into it. And before I knew it they had given me this contract and all sorts of money to do this book and I thought well. I don't know anything about Dad I don't have a dance right I don't go to watch that. But I my thesis here if there is a central one is that she is in the ultimately more memorable as an American character than as a dance figure because her dance revolution that she worked in the world of dance ended in a way with her. It wasn't something that she that she that her students could carry to great heights after she had done it. What it did was it opened up the whole world of dance for other kinds of dancers and sort of liberated the scene. She is credited as the mother of modern dance but I would think of her more exactly as a muse dance in the old in the old historical sense of

even a quarter of dads actually you know someone who inspired others to their own creative possibilities. And she knew everyone as you say there was a massive amount of material there have been so many things written about Isidora since she died in 1927 that just reading it and digesting it took years. Oh really. And I had never worked on a book that believe it or not including the Romanovs that had so much material to work and there's a big Duncan collection at the New York Public Library Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center. And they still to this day most of the requests they get from outside the library are about as a door and people are just fascinated by her. And there have been all kinds of scholarly approaches to it. There have been lots of dance writers who've written about her I didn't think I needed to do that again and that I mean I tried my best I tried valiantly I think. Gottlieb said it here. Natalie I think. Too to keep up with this with this changing world of dance

I think I did alright but that is not in fact what I think. The most memorable things about her. Sure I think she was such a personality that sort of blew everything else out of the picture. Her life was so extraordinary Actually it's also a sensational life. And she was somebody who thought all was possible. Yes. Did this come from her California settlers roots that that American frontier spirit. I think a lot of it did originally. Her father was one of the most flamboyant characters who to have settled San Francisco in 1849. He was he was a writer and a poet and a banker and a salesman and a con artist Donavon and her parents were separated when she was very very small. Less than a year old and he was quite oh he was much older actually than her mother it was his second marriage at least. And I think her own personality combined with that that time in American history when indeed people were

actually proclaiming that anything was possible. That was the the slogan really. And coupled with his missing father this sort of idea of this romantic older man certainly stayed with her all her life but I'll tell you everything I read over all these years I never got any suggestion from anything that she ever dolla herself for a moment. Yeah this is this is really extraordinary at it you know way. If she hadn't been gifted Jean it was genius really for movement and for performance. She would have been certified. I'm sure because you can't because of the single mindedness and the powerful domination of a scene that she that she always had wherever she was. If you came into a room there was no one else there. Believe me it's almost pathological really. But it's what it's what enabled her to not just know people like wrote dad but actually to just go home and knock on his door and say Here I am. This company I mean there weren't many people who.

And America with no formal education at all she was entirely self taught and she left wherever she went she left an enormous impression not just on dance but on all of the arts. The acting opera sculpture and painting especially that mainly in Europe more than here. In fact most of her career was in Europe based in Europe because she felt she was more better understood there originally. Initially she certainly in the end became quite successful and famous in the US but she had to leave it first right to sort of make her mark and she set up schools in Berlin and then Paris and Moscow Moscow and. And her family believed in her all all I mean they were all they had they moved as a as a group to stay there and in many ways they were they saw it at the beginning certainly they thought they thought of themselves as a class divisible with their mother as their leader the mother was actually although she was a very bright woman was was mainly passed out

drunk at the time which is the sort of thing I didn't write about too explicitly and here because I didn't think it's necessary I think it shows itself. There's one moment where. Is it or is it or as mother was reported missing. And you know every now and then she would disappear for two or three days and you found him out of the way hotels I believe the phrase was and is a doorstep he said. When I'm that age I'll be like that too. And so the subtext is clear here and the children were actually looking after the mother. But they they had this great sense of solidarity. They didn't actually split and go in their separate ways artistically until Isidore had already become world famous as a dancer. And then when she especially when she had her first great love affair with Gordon cracked the family what wasn't happy about it. And she put her foot down that and said essentially Thanks thanks I'm on my own. Now also there was some bitter ness about that. But in the end they were united behind her. They

all acknowledged her as the genius of the clan even though they all were in their own way important artists night. So Gordon crankset you brought him up it was the first of three major lovers and probably hundreds of hundreds if not thousands I mean it was quite speaking of pathological. There was definitely in her life and especially in her the second half of her life which was rather tragic. She was never without a lover added in the last year as when she was drinking very heavily. There was you know these lovers could come from the wharf or they could come from the salad bar. I mean it didn't matter much to her. What what is her most significant legacy for you is it just this freedom to do anything. Yes I think for me you know personally yes this confidence this utter confidence in what she was doing. Yes. What's one question you would ask her if you could.

Oh I wonder I don't know but I'd want to know about how she bagged all the best. You know I know I don't know that seriously. I mean I would want to know where she got that ability to stand still. And open up and sort of fill a state not just a stage or a room but with the enormous cavernous concert on doing nothing. Her her stillness was as eloquent as any movement she ever made. And this is very very rare but it was always rare it's increasingly rare now to see any actor or performer be able to do that simply stand very still and dominate around by lack of motion. Yeah that's what interests me most is how to do it without without them. But all of this of course is second hand so yes you know I'm just really able to see it an extraordinary amount of research on nearly 60 pages of notes and acknowledgments

you know nothing plagiarized yet. Well I want you to know everything is in quotes and so to just the way it should. Well that's kind of the question because it's definitely we did hear it's really wonderful but there are there have been these stories about historians who are doing a thorough job. Now what's what's going on with. Well there are various different standards for book publishing and journalism. Journalists are an editors of newspapers and magazines and I suppose TV and Radio 2 are are much more anxious about being able to verify what's said than a book publisher is which probably doesn't have the staff to do it first of all and it's very very difficult to prove plagiarism it's very difficult to prove libel of any kind. And traditionally with books people haven't bothered much. You can say almost anything you want in the book and get away with it. You can say anything you want about a dead person and get away with it. They're the dead have no rights whatsoever. So the book you know they don't it is frightening you could you could lie through your teeth about someone who's diseased and nothing no one can do anything about it. The error is nobody.

It's different in other countries but here it's always been wide open. That's the problem. Popular historians serious historians like Stephen Ambrose and Doris Goodwin I know are put I think putting out too many books too quickly. They're selling too many and they have too many researchers doing their work for them they don't actually know where a lot of the stuff comes from. I don't believe there are either you know either of those cases there was any intention to rip off somebody. It's just the fact that there's too much going on at once and they're and they're not quite on top of it. Well you took 10 years to write this book which from its comprehensiveness it might have taken anyone but it was it. This is a trying 10 years yes in your life. Among other things you were battling AIDS. Yeah. And you found out you were HIV positive before you started. Yes. Yes. Did did you feel you were going to be able to. I didn't you know I didn't know I would say if I had felt that

I I didn't even worry about it overtly. I just I sort of put my eyes down on the ground about it. I have been very lucky with HIV. I've never Only once have I been seriously ill. That was seven years ago and right before the new protease inhibitors and new therapies came by and I've done extremely well since then. What happened was I put it aside for after I got sick. I was living in New York City. I had another book to do in the middle of this. The second book about the Romanovs which was commissioned it was commissioned by the publisher and I had to do that. And then I I was sick and I wasn't sure what would happen obviously. And it took about two years before I got the gumption again I guess to say all right I am going to try and finish it but I didn't. I didn't actually think I might not finish it. I didn't think about it. I thought that it's the only way I could do it was to say it's

just really a day at a time that's a cliche but that's how it was done. Every day I would sit down and say well let's see how far we can get today. And there's always a kind of anxiety and suspense Anyway when you're doing a book because you know you never know really. You really can't in the end be sure until someone confirms that an editor or a reader confirms that it's doing what you intend. So I just sort of wrap it all up in one big ball of anxiety. I'll just continue day after day and see how far I got the actual writing of it took more than two years which none of my books have taken that long. The actual write once all the research was done and assimilate it. So in that sense it was bigger than the others. It is a door's life was tremendously dramatic and tragic she lost two children and a horrible drowning accident her third child died in infancy. She had many turbulent relationships. Your life you have lost many friends to AIDS

you or your family has seen great tragedy. How did your life and the doors resonate as you were writing it and did it affect the writing of it. It did. We worked very hard my editor and I to keep any suggestion of my own story out of this book in terms of information I had had originally in the introduction I had had a whole section about how this book came about and what I was dealing with while I wrote it and my editor at Little Brown I think wisely said write that for publicity for the book. Dont put it in the book. This has to stand on its own. And so that conscious effort not to make direct connections. I think what was left was this residue of feeling and identification or recognition more the advocation of what she must have been through when she lost all these people. I mean there is in her life and

in mine there is this very clear dividing line before and after. And when her children drowned in 1913 plainly Nothing Was The Same for her ever again. She was never the same ever again that she carried on as long as she did afterwards. And as in the end as she did I could only feel a great compassion for that. So I know that that makes a difference a lot of people have presumed to be as adored doc and superior when they write about her on these matters and to sort of criticize her for this for this very messy last few years of her life. I couldn't look at it that way. I could only look at it as something for which I felt enormous compassion. How while trying not to do that to myself I was going to say yeah yeah I know it's always a sort of a somebody has been there. I have I have I tried to go there way back when I first had this HIV diagnosis. It seemed the only thing to do really and I actually don't regret it. I mean I really did you know carry on for a little while. But once that was over

once that played itself out I wasn't dead and I woke up every day and said well you might as well just pretend you're not going to be dead because you're not going to be sick. Really. So anymore so. There was a great sublimation of that. I let her do it for me in a way I secretly admired her for even that courage of not apologizing herself when the pain literally got the better of her. Yeah. I'm wondering how you get the right emotional tone for a book like this or even this in motion that you wanted it. You know I do use metaphors for your art or did you for your other books this one. Each book each book is more consciously done. The first one Anastasia which everyone loves still. I haven't read it in a long long time. It was written you know blind and innocent so it had it had a sort of momentum of its own because I was just totally enthusiastic and there are the times and was more consciously structured. Certainly the necklace the Alexander book which is a

big coffee table right picture book was when I came to this what I realized as I wrote was that the book the words the language the paragraphs the sentences had each move each one had to lead to the next. There couldn't be anything that sort of stopped the momentum. And I was more conscious of that in this making a deliberate parallel with what her dancing was like which is that people who saw it couldn't quite tell you what it was she had done unless they studied it with her but the audience couldn't actually describe what she had done they just knew that everything fit and everything moved together. And so I had this idea and I have never worked so hard and never worked so hard. Recht sentences so hard as I did in this one it's to try and make sure that there's nothing there that shouldn't be there. Going back to the first book What led you to write Anastasia and why biographies I mean was this what I'm going to be a biography No no no on a stage it was of great interest of mine from the time I was very young.

I was 13 or 14 and it probably would have died out. Like other enthusiasms did but I actually ended up knowing members of the Romanov family in the United States in Vermont actually and that gave me a sort of inside look at that very mysterious very strange story. And I worked at it and studied it so long that when I got out of college I said Well I I was going to be an actor. That's what I thought. I thought well I really want to do this first I've put so much effort into knowing about this story and I actually knew that I was in by that time. So I stumbled into a biography I never even gave it a thought while I was writing and I stated that I would be a biographer and I was quite taken aback when everyone including the publisher said well what's the next biography. And I thought why do I have to do it. But as it happened I found myself with a career because that book was very successful and we've so far kept it to women. I was certain period of a certain

period. Definitely because the research for each one sort of helps with the other certainly the Russian research on the romance helped a lot. Well there's a Dora who was in Russia a great deal and lived there. But it's sort of it's an accidental career. I think most careers probably are in the end but it certainly was. You left Burlington for New York and Europe and other places but you keep coming back you've come and go I guess Riyadh for. What works for you about living in Vermont. And do you have the itch to leave again. I don't think I want to leave the way I used to when I leave for one day on. I'm too old for that. I mean you know it's not when you're young when you're 25 or something you have a lot of energy that you might not have when you're nearly 50. So I don't think I want to leave I'm not sure I want to stay in Burlington. I might want to you know move further out because Burlington is becoming rather congested. What works about Vermont is that it is it's it's beautiful

I have a lot of friends here I have family here. There is still something of the old Vermont Live and Let Live idea this is a great place to be a minority. And contrary to a lot of at least for me it has been a great rise. It's got its good. It is speaking of compassion it is a compassionate state. And not all of them are at its home. Really it was the first place first place when we moved here the first place I'd lived for more than two years in my life so it when we stayed long enough it became a home that this is a big question but certainly you've been an AIDS activist for quite some time and it's almost as if oh it's in Africa now and there's there's a sense of what's going on kind of what what is what is the state of that I mean the drugs are great but they're not the drugs are great for some people. Yeah they've been great for NOT LIKE YOU FEEL GREAT necessarily. No I think I think you know I don't know what it would take to poison

me. But they are really talks like the drugs and I've been lucky that way too. I don't I don't have a lot of the side effects that a lot of people do and they have worked splendidly I am I should add fanatic about taking them. Taking them as prescribed on time every day without fail which requires a kind of obsessiveness but it's worth it. I don't know where AIDS is in this country. It's nowhere with the Bush administration certainly who couldn't care less about it and have in fact dismantled are in the process of dismantling the AIDS service structure that existed in Washington. It is a world epidemic. It is hitting other nations harder than it's hitting us. It is not in fact spreading to hugely to the general population in so-called developed countries the way it is in the so-called underdeveloped countries. It has to be become a global effort or it will never be bested. At the same time they're constantly coming up they're learning more about it all the

time they're coming up with new medications all the time. They'll be fumoir out next year. Well one of your outlets for that is is your work as a columnist. And we do it to be naughty I guess and you know all of our I mean you know nothing is sacred God I think Bush is nothing. Is that why you love it is that why you think yes because it's a very rare opportunity. First of all it is called crank call. I mean so it's conceived to be you know not what you're usually reading. People seem to misunderstand this I mean of course I don't assume that anyone who reads one of them has read all of them which they surely haven't so I'm always surprised when someone says How can he say such a thing and I said well look at the title What am I supposed to say I'm supposed to be getting people a little bit agitated. But it's really an opportunity that a writer doesn't get very often. Sure I have a column of that length which is about 900 words. Every other week on any topic I want. This is very rare to have and it's actually nice to feel that I've been

with seven days since 1996 in this capacity with a few interruptions this interrupted it a bit. I love doing it. Do they edit you. They had a little yes yes they do actually about editors. Helen Gurley Brown you said was your favorite why because you know it's funny because she's also well because she's she was very enthusiastic about it. Everything I did. And they have a way of those kind of slick magazines of making anything anyone writes sound like everything that they print. I mean there's a sort of magazine language. Yeah. And they take whatever you write and they sort of feed it through their magazine processor and so little bits and pieces of the author will still pop up but mainly it sort of slows over. She never looked at anything I wrote and edited it herself sort of that was passed off to other people. But she just was funny and friendly and easy going. And now she's got I don't need to read obviously cosmopolitan. I don't know what it's like there right now.

But this was some time ago that the early 90s were her last years there. What's next for you. Autobiography. Well there is there is there is talk of a memoir. Which I will have to do sooner or later but I'm leaning toward doing a revisionist new big fat biography of little help. Oh wow. Who is was undoubtedly one of the world's most difficult women. But was not I think quite the villain as she's been made out to be since her death I don't. I can't think of another writer let alone a woman writer who's been so mercilessly attacked posthumously by people who didn't dare attack or what she would say if it's ok I'm working on it. Well we'll look for thank you very much thank you. And to read more of and about Peter Kurth Peter Kurth dot com is a great site to go to. Thanks a lot.

What a woman. He's lucky. Some Vermonters accepted sprawl as inevitable BET.com Stone has led the charge to

focus our awareness on the harmful effects of suburban creep and she now has a stunning new book out to prove her point. Join me in a conversation with Beth St.. Next. For. Her star earned her master's degree in city planning from Harvard's Graduate School of Design and 973 and has been tackling sprawl as a consultant and planner for small cities towns and rural areas. Ever since she's worked closely with dozens of Vermont towns and has created tools for planners across New England home St. serves on the Burlington Planning Commission. Is Vice President of the Growth Management Leadership Alliance and until recently was the chair of the Vermont housing and Conservation Board. She has been recognized in numerous awards and citations throughout her career including the Rome prize and planner of the year in Vermont and New England. She is currently the executive director of the Vermont forum on sprawl.

And best known as the first lady of sprawl like there's so many people. Oh yeah the sprawly. You know how I feel but it's a little odd but. But you're not out there. It's pretty mate. So you have just coauthored a new book it's called Above and beyond which explains how sprawl happens and suggestions on how we can possibly avoid it. With stunning photographs by Alex McLean and we'll look at some of those in a minute. Who is this book intended for. It's really intended for a general audience. It's highly visual. And so you could actually look at it like a National Geographic and read the captions and look at the pictures and learn a lot about what we're doing with our landscape our landscape has changed over time. And then if you want to get into it further then you can read the text. He gets more information which is a very erudite I mean

it's very studied and very very good work. Well we worked Julie Campo Lee Alex McLean and myself worked for six years on developing this book. It's it's been a real labor of love for all of us something we all believe strongly in the now most of us I think in a concept of it. But what for you is the definition of well for me sprawl is low density auto dependent development that spreads out of urban and village centers into the countryside and along rural highways. And we actually have asked for monitors what sprawl is and they have told us that that the things that really resonate with Vermonters are commercial development spread out along a highway. Single family homes spread out over former farm fields paved areas more paving whether it's roads or big parking lots scattered development with. And loss of farmland.

Well let's look at the we have an image that you have of of St. Alban's and that and it covers a lot of stuff and maybe talk about the major differences between traditional and contemporary development styles I mean explain what we what we have here a little bit in this image. Well in the background of the image you see the historic downtown of the city of St. Albans. And there's an arrow indicating where the city center is and in that location you have a very compact development. The buildings are close together. You have a mixture of fuses. Two there's about a million and a half square feet of space in downtown St. Alban's that's a mixture of housing apartments single family homes offices all industry retail stores and public buildings like the Post Office and the town hall and so forth and they're all next they're all next to each other in the center of St. Albans. And then if and that again we look at the.

Foreground that is the town of St. Alban's and in the town of St. Alban's you see much more spread out. Appearance of the development you can see the farm fields with a residential subdivision on both sides of them. And it just seems like it's going to be inevitable that you'll lose that piece of farmland there but it's fragmented development it's sort of broken up spread out very auto dependent in the city you could walk between the stores in your home or your business in a restaurant or whatever and walk down to the post office in the slide in the foreground. You're using your automobile. Right. And the industry up there in the industry separated from the housing is separated from the commercial. So at what point did people get the idea of getting industry out of town and and separating industry residential retail What did that idea come from. Well actually you can trace it back to ancient Rome.

Oh OK. But where they did put potting shed and cemeteries and so forth and outside the walls of the towns but. In this country and more recently with the pollution industrial revolution and more pollution coming from industry and more noise and there was a movement to separate industry from homes and commercial areas and that and that's a lot made sense at that time because it was polluting and it was noisy and now we have much more control over industry and we have different forms of industry which is more research based. It's not noxious it's not polluting most of it is not noisy. And so it's a different era now. So but it also that I mean a lot of towns and remote work built around their factories that were smack in the middle of town yet they're now abandoned and everything's out of the industrial park or something. Well that's true in a lot of cases but not every case but

a lot of the industry did move out and zoning encourage that. Sure immunities. We're making provisions for industry to locate outside of town centers. Thinking this was a good thing right and wrong. But we do have a tradition in Vermont of industries located within centers such as Pine Street in Burlington or Flint Avenue or that area where it's in it's within walking distance of residential areas. You can walk to the corner store from the job so we have a tradition in Vermont of industry and commerce and residential locating closer to each other. But the the trim really in in the post-war period with the increasing use of the automobile and trucks and so forth has been to take it outside to get the noise to get the pollution to get the traffic and move it outside of the towns. Right. Well let's let's take a look at St. Alban's again went up picking on St. Albans but there is a wonderful images of St. Albans and where you have illustrated what zoning was created for each of these these parts.

Right then is a good point that St. Alban's is only an example of what's happened I mean it's all around the country. Now this image here shows this city of St. Alban's and then the zoning in the town of St. Alban's a commercial zone the residential zone and the industrial zone. And you can see that they're separated as in contrast to the city above where most of those uses coincide very close to each other. And then we have an image that shows how this actually all worked itself out. Right. Hopefully where where we have actually the you know here we are here is the result of the zoning very typical of communities in the 60s in the 70s setting aside areas for residential setting aside other areas for commercial and other areas for industrial. This is the product of the zoning in this particular community. And what we see is that you don't walk between

these uses you don't you know the open space is really fragmented by these and they're very spread out. They're not the compact development that you saw in the city. So you're beginning to lose a sense of community. You're losing a sense of community and you're also wasting a lot of land because everything is so spread out. Right. And you're increasing the need to use an automobile to get around. Well also the the Randolph exchange which is one that I've gone to a lot just the whole zoning around there encourages sprawl it's right in energy. I'm not sure if you've worked. You're working in that area right now though I think there's a quick stop at McDonald's or a fast food but I think we have an image of the of the Randolph exchanges as well. This is ripe I think as you say for more strip development.

It is and it's a concern. It's also a concern of people within the town of Randolph they've actually been studying this interchange and trying to figure out what to do in this area for some time. But the presence of the sort line you can see the image indicates where the sewer line is the line going right up through. Right. And the zoning which allowed the gas station convenience store and the McDonald's to locate there has enabled a what would be the big could be the beginnings of a long strip Carter that connects that intersection back down the hill to the village. Randall Right. So so what what do you suggest to Randolph I take it a you know possibly consult with you and your organization and what do you give them as alternatives. Well they have not specifically consulted with. But we would be glad to see they will be working with them. They have been studying this very hard so I don't want to second guess the kind of work that they've been doing but you do have a situation there where you've got a village

where they offer restaurants they offer gas stations there are facilities there and one of the things that. You do want to encourage is people coming. The traveling public coming into our villages and experiencing what a Vermont village is all about and what our beautiful landscape is around these villages. And if we zone for strip development from interchanges to these centers we're going to lose that. Feature of the Vermont landscape that people come here for because they've also done a great job with their downtown after the fire they have mixed use and all of those things that purport to be yes could develop now they've done a great job in the downtown they have senior housing on the upper floors. They've done a lot with low and moderate income housing the Ben Franklin store was temporary located during after the fire and has moved into their first floor space in the village so they've done a really good job of planning for that.

It was like in a big tent or something. Yes like it was. Some may think they don't want to. Let's let's keep this store. You know another thing that your book illustrates so well is this this whole idea of the American dream of a residence on the hill and you have this beautiful view and this big space. And many many as in many towns in Norwich we have a example of that houses started showing up on the hillsides. This is very different from the rural landscape that we used to have. Right. And and that's one of the things that's such a it's such a dilemma about how to present this to people because people come to Vermont because they want this rural experience but if the development pattern looks like this they're going to lose that rural experience they came to Vermont to enjoy if you picture that image replicated across that landscape. It's suburbia and sprawl and.

So that's one it's difficult to communicate this to people to get them to look ahead to see what their act or whether it's the zoning or the individual's act to locate in that place. In the long run what is that going to lead to in that location. When some zoning would say you have to have a five acre lot yes I mean that's beginning to change again but you had to have the five acres which really cut out the land in kind of this awful as you said like like a like a kid with scissors or something right. And it's true. I mean the zoning is often dictated a lot of the patterns of development that we have that are sprawl in nature. Spreading house lots over our former farmland as opposed to looking for some alternatives to how those lots could be located on the parcel of land. There are lot of communities though now that are working to change that. Right. But they they and they call us for help. It's not that they want to have it look like this. They want ideas for solutions so that's one of the things that the form from a

four month sprawl that we work on training and publications to help communities. To address that. What about that you know we. What do we really want we long for community and we want we are privacy and security. We were at odds with our own self-interest actually and that we did some polling of Vermonters in which that became very clear they talked about the ideal community that people could walk to to shops and bicycle in the countryside and hike in the countryside and walk to town meeting and so forth and then we asked them well where would would you like to live. And 74 percent picked the option in the countryside. And so the people love the character Vermont they believe in a working landscape Environmental Quality and vital community centers but there's a disconnect between what they want and what they value and what their own actions are.

And it's tough drawing that because you know we're not going to solve everybody's needs for housing and wants for housing with the work that we do. No green space is such a buzz word. You know as long as we have a development and we have our green space and yet as you point out so beautifully in this book green space ideas can be extremely wasteful in Willesden there's a there's a there's a development as there are in many many places and we have this green space which you highlighted. But right now it's not connected to anything. It's right and this is one of the challenges because you encourage communities to do cluster development to set aside open spaces so you don't have that pattern of housing spread across the farm fields. But what we see here in the in the like green areas is an example of what I call cluster sprawl where you've got cluster development and you have some drainage areas protected and little green space set aside in these subdivisions. But it's not connected and

it still has the appearance of sprawl development. So an alternative. Would be to connect those green spaces in an in an open space plan in the community whether it's farmland or just open land that can be used for hiking or walking or a picnic or or possibly even farmed. I mean that all this wonderful land of that that's not really being used well there's a one other illustration of Colchester which looks like a paper cut out that you have where you've actually blocked out there right away left is the green spaces like what do you do. This is these mainly industrial and Parker These are mainly commercial and industrial buildings surrounded by parking lots this is a wonderful image that Julie Campos developed and what it shows is you know in contrast to places like Pine Street in Burlington where the industry and commerce are located really close together and you don't see a lot of green space between them.

This is a product of zoning around the interstate interchange and Colchester. And you see the scattered nature of it the lack of really functional green space to it's not in some of it may protect a drainage way or something but it's pretty much not usable for recreation or it's not particularly scenic for that matter either. And also not in this case but farmland really lush farmland is being lost to this loss to residential subdivisions or industrial green space. There's there are a couple of images here. But here here is another look at all of this land industries require that or is that somehow part of zoning or. Well it's sort of a mix. Because this this image shows the property boundaries are around him when he went out to the right

more green space there. You know some industries want more land they want a corp to project a corporate image on their site so that when you arrive you were arrive at X company's place and it's got a real identity as beautifully landscaped. And so that's what a lot of the industries are trying to achieve. In addition you have zoning that requires a very small lot coverage you can only cover 10 percent or 15 percent of the lot with buildings and parking areas. So as a result of that you have 85 percent green space. So what is that doing there. Who is going to use that what is that for. So it's a combination of zoning and the preferences of businesses and industries. But not every business and industry and we're working on a project actually right now with the remop is this round table to come up with alternative models for commercial and industrial development that use land more efficiently that incorporate

mixed uses that integrate better within the communities. And you've even talked about you know food security as a global issue is one of the things that you say in your book and we have a look at Morrisville in 1941 when I write all of this farmland around it a very small village center and then in 1995 we've lost most of that and that was six years ago so it's probably even worse now. Right. What this shows is again this was a product of a number. It was a product of a number of things it was a product of zoning that changed out in in that location and it required the lot sizes that you see there and the more spread out development and then eventually that area had to be served by sewer. And because there was so much development out there so the sort of line got extended. Now while that resulted in a tremendous loss of farmland good farmland in that area the town of

Morristown. Said OK we've got a sewer line there we've already got it developed. How do we maximize the use of the space out here how can we fill in a lot of these empty spaces these big parking areas so they're actually looking at ways to reuse the lot of that land in a more efficient way in a what we would call a smarter growth way. So even though those I would call it a mistake but if they did it with good intentions I'm sure there are ways that you can address that and recreate a better environment. Speaking you just spoke very diplomatically and I'm just wondering you have but you have very strong opinions that range sprawl is a mess is making a mess. How do you balance the diplomacy with your strong opinions when you're dealing with constituents here. Well we don't tend to mince words about the impact of sprawl and what it's doing to communities and why we should be concerned about it. But we

recognize that. There are a lot of decisions that go into creating sprawl thousands of decisions into this pattern. And some of them are a result of individuals some of the result of community decision making some of them are result of federal investments or state investments like putting a post office outside of a town center for example. There it's very complicated so we don't think that pointing the finger is a way to address these issues. We would rather work in partnership with community groups the business community. State government federal government and coming up with alternatives. How did you get your passion for this work. My father was a city planner and I grew up as a child with a book called The little house by for genially Burton that show this little house in the countryside that gradually got swallowed up by development and more and more development until it was surrounded by high rises and then it was moved out. The grant great grandchildren

found the house moved it out to the countryside just some hills and you sort of breathed a sigh of relief for the little house. But in the distance there were these high rise buildings and smoke and smog and you know you sort of had this sense that that was inevitable and and I think there instilled something in me even then. This is isn't it. Yeah it was earlier than that. Oh never. Does this have to be inevitable. Yeah and I think that's always been something that's resonated with me all my life. Does it have to be inevitable. No. In your book it talks about retail sales and Burlington going down 36 percent over the last 20 years and the outlying areas there are retail sales going up five hundred percent. Right now some people would say is this all bad. But you know kind of you have this even even the nightlights are who's doing the shopping you know what's going on.

Yeah the thing the issues with that are multiple. They're just huge. I mean we don't have a regional decision making body operating in Chin in county so you have a series of towns and they're competing for tax base and they want industry they want commerce and you have like you will Austin zoning the tough corners areas for commerce and industry. But you don't have a way really of resolving. Well what about Burlington. We've had tremendous investment in downtown Burlington to support this city and we are almost duplicating the public investment out at places like Taft corners or in Essex or and even in South Burlington. And so it's there's a public cost to this pattern of development. Where in terms of water sewer roads transportation we have people that are separated from their jobs we have people low income people in Burlington

who work at the big box stores and there's no there there's no transportation right now to get here. No public transportation because Wilston is not a member of the CTA bus system. So you know that it creates tremendous problems and not only that but you have Burlington with this infrastructure and this cab capacity to handle additional growth with the water the sewer the roads and so it's a waste in terms of an asset that we already have. And so as a matter of working within the Regional Planning Commission there are yes some that somehow there needs to be a regional approach to this is that so. So what is your current strategy and what constituencies do you focus on. Well we work statewide the Vermont for months for all works statewide and not just in ginning County and we are trying to encourage a regional approach to the planning work that communities do. But some things have helped with

this transportation planning is now happening on a regional basis and that requires looking at land use and on a regional basis too because you really need to. Plan where the development is going to fit with where the transportation is going and going to be. So that's one good thing that's happening and another is we do have regional planning commissions that are I'm not sure that they've been all that effective right. But they are an opportunity to try and create more regional decision making. Quick answer are you optimistic about Vermont's future on this. I am OK. Vermonters values are very strong for the environment and they love their communities. OK. Beth from St. thank you so much for coming on and thank you for joining us on profile tonight.