Opened on August 29, 2008 as a multi-use biking and walking trail, the Missouri Riverfront Trail (MRT) in Platte County has proven a major success of the MetroGreen initiative. Comprised of 3.5 miles of trails and greenways running from E.H Young Park to Burlington Creek the MRT was a collaborative effort between various public and […]
The Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) and the MetroGreen Alliance (MGA) have fostered a number of cooperative arrangements among stakeholder groups to integrate the regional green infrastructure plan in the Kansas City metropolitan area. In order to foster a collaborative approach toward green infrastructure adoption and implementation, MARC and MGA developed a Green Infrastructure Indicators Project. […]
“To effectively address green infrastructure issues, local communities must view themselves as part of a larger regional or watershed context. Water and air flow in and out of communities, as do traffic, people, and wildlife. Urban and nearby residents need to learn how their land-use decisions affect one another and how they might work together […]
Green infrastructure (GI) has abundant promise for improving development practices to support necessary ecosystem services and sustain community health. GI is a broad and emerging field; given financial constraints and organizational hurdles, its best application can often be nebulous. Effectively implementation of green infrastructure can be improved using scientific monitoring and data collection to compile […]
According to Tom Jacobs, Environmental Program Director for the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC), “green infrastructure is now an intrinsic part of the dialogue within the Kansas City metropolitan region.” Much of this dialogue can be credited to the work of the MetroGreen Alliance, the organization network tasked with both building community support and coordinating local […]
The MetroGreen is a project aimed to connect 1,144 miles of green spaces and trails across seven counties in Kansas and Missouri: Platte, Leavenworth, Johnson, Wyandotte, Clay, Jackson, and Cass. Despite the work they have done so far of protecting 91,000 acres of riparian areas, I imagine there may be challenges up ahead in terms […]
“The region’s 125 municipalities and nine counties support the MetroGreen Vision, but, while several counties and municipalities have local funding sources, local financial commitments vary widely. Local property, parks, and stormwater taxes…resulted in the first 200 miles of greenway creation.” Funding the Vision MetroGreen began as a plan to preserve recreational areas for the Mid-America […]
Exciting, engaging, motivating, and heartfelt: The keys to garnering public support for Green Infrastructure