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expanse of asphalt far parking. Santa Fe, N.M., requires parking spaces for 50% of the <br />high school student body.l~ At 300 square feet per parking space, a student lot far 1,000 <br />cars would need 300,000 square feet, or about seven acres of land for blacktop. Teacher <br />and staff parking requires still more asphalt. In Charleston, S.C., schools serving 3,000 <br />students are being built with nearly ten acres of parking, according to the South Carolina <br />Coastal Conservation League, aland-use planning advocacy organization that examined <br />200 schools in Charleston's Lowcountry.l s <br />When asked about multi-level schools as a way to reduce land consumption, the <br />architect of a large Midwestern firm specializing in school construction responded: "We <br />7d~~o7n't believe in three-story schools. Kids can fall on the stairs. So they're considered a <br />habilrty 79. _. _ . , _ _ <br />Sites as large as those recommended today aze hard to find in older cities and <br />towns, where older schools typically occupy only two to eight acres, are surrounded by <br />densely developed neighborhoods, and have no room to expand. Although big-city <br />school districts can easily get waivers from these requirements, small and mid-sized <br />communities often struggle with them because acquiring more land is not considered a <br />big problem. "Expansiveness is taken for granted" in most suburban and rural areas, say <br />the CEFPI guidelines.16 The system thus recognizes the difficulties large cities encounter <br />in meeting the acreage standards, but it ignores the fact that small and mid-sized <br />communities might want to keep schools in town for the sake of maintaining vibrant town <br />centers and cohesive neighborhoods. <br />Alternatively, large school site requirements may force a community to encroach <br />upon land already occupied by businesses or homeowners, who are then forced to <br />move.l ~ In New Castle, Pa., the local school district has condemned -- and plans to <br />demolish -- no fewer than 13 historic homes to make way for a new school, athletic <br />fields, and parking. In Massachusetts, older .communities have had to give up precious <br />parkland and farmland so schools could meet acreage standazds. <br />In some cases, state acreage standards are actually more flexible than they are <br />represented to be. However, some school districts treat recommendations as if they were <br />regulations, particularly when they want an excuse to tear down and build new. When <br />citizens working to save older neighborhood schools try to distinguish between what's <br />17 <br />