If we are being honest, the climate crisis is already here. In Charleston, we wade through “sunny day” flooding, watch ghost forests rise from saltwater intrusion and eroding shorelines, and sweat through longer, hotter summers — only to get doused by unprecedented rainfall.
The usual list of solutions, such as solar panels, electric cars, energy conservation (while all good and worthy), feels increasingly mismatched to the scale of the problem we face living here.
A way to lessen impacts to our communities is to have smarter development and conscious redevelopment. It may not be popular, but it’s low hanging fruit. It just requires a mind-shift and political will.
Rewilding the suburbs
Our lawns might just be the most irrigated crop in the country, requiring nearly 9 billion gallons of water a day. They also emit greenhouse gases through fertilizers and mowers and support almost no biodiversity. What if we treated suburbia not as tidy landscapes but as ecological opportunities that support life and mitigate flooding?
Many people are rewilding their yards by planting native species and creating pollinator habitats. In Minneapolis, the Lawns to Legumes program gives grants to homeowners to replace turf with bee-friendly landscapes. Tallahassee, one of the first U.S. cities to achieve “Bee City USA” status, incentivizes similar practices.
Rewilding helps mitigate climate change by rebuilding soil carbon, reducing the urban heat island effect and capturing stormwater naturally. It’s beautiful and low-maintenance. And it’s radically simple. I’m certain there are easy steps toward rewilding that can be a compromise between tidy overwatered lawns and a woodland in everyone’s front yard.
Hold the boundry line
Sprawl is not inevitable. It’s a choice made in zoning departments and by lawmakers.
Zoning codes that require large lots, single-family-only housing and wide setbacks force cities to spread out instead of grow in. That means more car dependence, more paved-over greenspace and more roads and pipes. Cities that zone for density with duplexes, townhomes and accessory dwelling units can house more residents without expanding their footprint. With such zoning, there would be more people willing to ride the expanded bus rapid transit system that is going to be developed in the next few years.
If you care about traffic issues and if you care about the quality of life here in Charleston, you must be pro-density. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t preserve large swaths of land if you don’t support urban infill. It’s common sense.
Charleston County has a tool to keep development at bay called the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB), adopted in 1999 and reaffirmed in 2021. But surrounding counties like Dorchester and Berkeley still allow sprawling developments to leapfrog and undercut regional sustainability. It’s a huge problem.
Expanding growth boundaries and enforcing them isn’t about limiting growth. It’s about shaping it responsibly where infrastructure and opportunity already exists. It’s about saying we value marsh, forest and farmland more than a second garage. Isn’t that why most people move here and love living here?
Stormwater solutions
As climate change brings more intense rain events, stormwater management has become critical infrastructure. That means permeable pavement instead of asphalt. Rain gardens instead of retention ponds. Bioswales that double as habitat.
Charleston has made strides with programs like Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) grants and local projects by the Ashley Cooper Stormwater Education Consortium. But we need more ambitious regulations that require new developments to include stormwater features that also provide habitat.
Nature is the best engineer and one of our most affordable climate allies. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We just have to stop paving over it and have the guts to stand up for our communities instead of appeasing developers.
Toni Reale is the owner of Roadside Blooms, a unique flower, crystal and plant shop
at 4491 Durant Ave., North Charleston. Online at roadsideblooms.com.
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
