Says Ryan Avent:

According the Washington Business Journal, the Earth Conservation Corps is suing the District and the federal government over toxic waste at Poplar Point, and lobbying to have the whole Point be a park. As far as I know, the name Earth Conservation Corps is not intended to be ironic.

You see, the development at Poplar Point will be dense and mixed-use. It will be near the center city and transit. In other words, the residents there will have small geographic and carbon footprints. And by helping to satisfy some of the demand for dense, urban living, development there will reduce some of the price pressure on households that pushes them out into the suburbs or away from Washington entirely, to places like Raleigh or Houston. And of course, the land occupied by such households in the suburbs, or in Raleigh or Houston, would be far, far larger than the land at Poplar Point.

Which isn’t to say we need to build on every green space in the District. Parks have value. But so does dense, central city housing. Environmental groups really need to recognize that.

BeyondDC ran into this problem all the time back in our Colorado days, where “density” is a dirty word among so-called environmentalists. But Ryan is spot on – opposing Smart Growth hurts the earth. “Environmentalists” that fight density are *not* doing the environment any favors. And no, “communing with nature” on a big ranchette 50 miles out isn’t friendly to the earth, either.