IN THE NEWS: Click here to read a selection of news articles relating to SEDA and/or regional sprawl development.
About
The Greenfield Coalition is a group of citizens and leaders in Fresno, California who are committed to preserving our city’s agricultural land and green spaces, revitalizing our urban core, and advocating for responsible growth and urban planning.
We envision a Fresno where all communities - new and historic - thrive with equitable investment, safe neighborhoods, vibrant schools and businesses, and sustainable infrastructure. Through research and advocacy, we strive to protect our existing communities and environment, and aim to create a resilient city that cherishes its heritage while embracing innovative solutions for sustainable growth.
“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”
― Edward Abbey,
The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West
Our past mistakes can inform our future.
Fresno has a long history of supporting development and greenfield annexation on the edges of our city. For decades, city leaders have prioritized developer interests and greenlit subdivisions on the city’s edges with shiny promises of new housing, safety, and the American dream, but this unchecked outward growth has led to significant negative impacts in the heart of our city. Physical decay, blight, vacant lots, and crumbling infrastructure in our urban core are blatant, visual examples of those impacts, while residents are also facing unseen impacts of worsening air quality, overcrowding, and increased poverty rates.
Our oldest, poorest neighborhoods aren’t the only places put at risk by this outward expansion. Over the years, residents who fled to the “newest” neighborhood have seen their property values drop as the next new development siphoned away our city and taxpayer resources. Over time, the true costs of development at the city’s edges reveal themselves, and residents, businesses, schools, and families are left paying the price.
Our coalition supports responsible growth, but we recognize it is critical to thoroughly understand growth’s current and future financial and environmental impacts, not just on the new-growth areas, but on the entire city. For the first time, new technology gives us the tools to conduct comprehensive assessments with accuracy and integrity. Sophisticated algorithms, economic trend predictions, and powerful computers are now readily available to our city government and its leaders so we can make thoughtful, informed, and transparent decisions about the future of Fresno.