Last Saturday, I hiked on the decommissioned Concord Naval Weapons Station. I've been working with a great coalition for the past year and a half to make sure that the redevelopment planned for the site is equitable, sustainable, and forward-looking. The land is still owned by the Navy, though, so it was no small feat for Save Mount Diablo, 
one of our partner organizations, to get permission to lead hikes on the property. It was worth the effort.
Although I'd been looking forward to the excursion, I didn't realize how exciting it would be until I stepped out of the car and almost started skipping. To have spent so many months on maps, plans, meetings, ideas, and now to walk the hills felt both inspiring and grounding . . . literally. Gazing at the trees, lone native oaks and clustered experimental forests of imported eucalyptus - walking alongside unnaturally happy-looking cows - staring down abandoned railroad tracks - listening to the meadow larks - noticing wildflowers growing up through pavement cracks - feeling the sun's intensity as 8 a.m. became 
11 - looking out to the delta, the East Bay hills, Mt. Diablo - tasting what it will be to inhabit this land 30 years from now.
The site is gigantic. Eight square miles sounds big on paper, but driving and walking through it really brought home the scale of the thing. The planned-for 30,000 residents will not feel crowded out there, even clustered on the one-third of the land closest to BART and existing neighborhoods.
It's not empty wilderness, but it is nature. The railroad tracks, empty munitions bunkers, decomposing roads, and standing fence posts drove home that this is an urban infill site, not the east side of the Sierra. And that was charming.
11 - looking out to the delta, the East Bay hills, Mt. Diablo - tasting what it will be to inhabit this land 30 years from now.The site is gigantic. Eight square miles sounds big on paper, but driving and walking through it really brought home the scale of the thing. The planned-for 30,000 residents will not feel crowded out there, even clustered on the one-third of the land closest to BART and existing neighborhoods.
It's not empty wilderness, but it is nature. The railroad tracks, empty munitions bunkers, decomposing roads, and standing fence posts drove home that this is an urban infill site, not the east side of the Sierra. And that was charming.
