Many have written about, commented on and discussed with friends all the unusual, troubling, difficult and upsetting aspects of this past year. Often the increased importance of the outdoors and specifically outdoor spaces for eating, meeting friends and getting a moment’s peace is highlighted. This is no surprise, when for many the alternative became looking at the same four walls you had already been looking at for months. And even if you did go to work or somehow had the ability or need to get outside your home, you were still significantly limited in where you could go, what you could do and whom you could see. Overlaying all of that were the stresses related to the election, the administration, the fear of COVID-19, of possibly having lost your job or coming down with some other illness or disease, plus, of course, the regular stresses of day-to-day life.
Thank goodness we had and have the outdoors. Many of us cannot imagine how we could have held it together as well as we did if we didn’t have the escape of the outdoors.
We are lucky on Long Island and especially on the North Shore of Long Island that we have so many amazing opportunities for outdoor enjoyment. We have a number of preserves thanks to organizations like the North Shore Land Alliance and the Nature Conservancy. We also have gardens and arboreta thanks to a history of wealthy residents whose estates bequeathed their former homes and grounds for use by the public. And most apparent perhaps is the natural outdoors available to us because of being an island, our beaches and many waterfront areas.
We can and should be thankful for what is available to many of us as a consequence of living in less developed suburbs than our neighbors to the west. We have yards to enjoy, sidewalks shaded by trees and often quiet streets to walk on.
While a neighborhood walk is not the same as a hike through the woods or even a stroll in one of the many landscaped gardens at a former oil baron’s or railroad magnate’s estate, it is still an opportunity to breathe fresh air, marvel at the trees and listen to the sounds of the birds and insects. And we have choices when the neighborhood walk isn’t enough; we can take advantage of one of the many other options available across the island.
It seems simple enough, but the truth is, not everyone living on Long Island has access to all these amazing outdoor havens. A Long Island Index/USGS map of development on Long Island shows that people living south of the Long Island Expressway in Nassau County are surrounded by medium intensity development whereas those on the North Shore live in areas with notable sections of low intensity development and even sizable areas of barren and forest land (especially in the Town of Oyster Bay). This means that those of us living on the North Shore can expect to see trees and even occasional open, undeveloped space with relative ease. After this last year, the importance of that should be apparent.
While high population density has its merits from an environmental perspective (certain efficiencies can be achieved, resource consumption can be moderated, emissions can be reduced, and it can allow for leaving other areas undeveloped), it should not come at the cost of eliminating the outdoors.
This is particularly significant since typically people living in higher population density and more developed areas in Nassau County (and many other places in the country) are lower income and people of color. So much has come glaringly to light in this last year with respect to racial and economic inequities in this country. Access to the outdoors is something we need to prioritize for all people’s health, well-being and sanity.
This means that when questions regarding funding for public transportation come up for vote, you should emphatically say yes. Public transportation can get people to the outdoors when they don’t have a vehicle to take them there. It means that when considering whether or not to preserve open space, you should pause and really examine the value of the development versus the value of the open space. And if the balance tips in favor of development, make sure that it comes with requirements for native plants and other natural elements, not only for people to enjoy but to protect our groundwater and provide wildlife habitat as well.
The outdoors doesn’t belong to the wealthy or privileged. We must take care not to treat it as if it does. We should all have somewhere to go outside for a change of scenery, a breath of fresh air and a chance to listen to the sounds of nature. Act to make that a reality.