The ground we
have walked and kept.
A distributed conservation network is hard to support because it is hard to see. A park has gates, a name, a footprint you can walk. A thousand front yards woven into the same ecological fabric do not. We built this page to make the network visible, to translate every square-foot of habitat committed into a landmark you already carry in your head.
The journey runs across twenty-five milestones, each tied to a real place in Houston, Texas, or the country beyond. Together they tell the story of what becomes possible when private land is held in common purpose.
Yard to block to neighborhood to mile.
Each scale is earned by the one before it. A yard is a demonstration a block can see. A block that keeps its yards becomes the case for its neighbors. A neighborhood that holds is how a mile becomes permanent.
One front yard, planted and kept. A demonstration with an audience: the sidewalk.
Neighbors who saw it, joined. The record of what held travels door to door.
Enough blocks that the work stops being an exception and starts being how the place looks.
A garden built from its own mile: the hands, tools, and materials of the blocks around it, permanent because someone keeps it. The Custode's rung.
The ladder is the how. The Five Revolutions are the what and the why.
Where the journey begins.
Every front yard added is a foothold. These first milestones, all under two acres, are the proof that distributed conservation is happening, and what we're asking the city to recognize.
- 2,500 sq ftAn Inner Loop residential lotA typical lot inside Houston's 610 Loop. About 2,500 square feet of front yard turned over to native habitat. The first proof, scaled across the city.
- 6,600 sq ftA Heights residential lotNextA full residential lot in the Heights, around 6,600 square feet. Quietly larger than the inner-loop average, and a useful neighborhood-scale anchor.Donate to reach this
- 7,131 sq ftA Houston residential lotThe citywide average residential lot, around 7,131 square feet. When the network reaches this size, the case for residential land as conservation land is unanswerable.
- 57,600 sq ftA football fieldA regulation American football field, roughly 1.3 acres. The first milestone you can pace out in your head, woven across thousands of front yards.
- 62,500 sq ftA Houston city blockA typical block inside the Loop, about 1.4 acres. The scale at which neighbors start to recognize each other's yards as part of the same place.
When the network shows up on a city map.
Between two and twenty-five acres, the cumulative footprint reaches the size of the parks our city was built around. Distributed across thousands of yards, but the same area, the same ecological weight.
- 174,240 sq ftTranquility ParkTranquility Park in downtown Houston, named for Apollo 11's landing site. Four acres of civic space, recreated through distributed conservation.
- 217,800 sq ftPOST Houston SkylawnThe rooftop park atop POST Houston, five acres on what was once the city's post office. A symbol of what a city's leftover space can become.
- 261,360 sq ftLevy ParkLevy Park in Upper Kirby, six acres of community gathering and play. A neighborhood-scale park, reassembled across many neighborhoods.
- 510,087 sq ftEmancipation ParkHouston's oldest park, purchased in 1872 by freedmen for their community. Almost twelve acres of profound civic memory, mirrored in front-yard sanctuary.
- 522,720 sq ftDiscovery GreenDiscovery Green downtown, twelve acres that redefined what a Houston park could be. A regional landmark, distributed across the city.
- 858,132 sq ftSam Houston ParkHouston's first municipal park, nineteen acres just outside downtown. The civic origin point, scaled across many yards.
- 1,067,220 sq ftChicago Millennium ParkChicago's Millennium Park, twenty-four and a half acres of cultural commons. Different city, same lesson: dedicated public space changes a place.
When we're the same scale as the institutions.
At twenty-five to two hundred acres, the network matches the footprint of the institutions that already shape Houston's relationship with land. Botanical garden. Stadium. Major bayou park.
- 1,261,933 sq ftDaikin ParkThe Astros' ballpark and grounds, about twenty-nine acres. The first time the network's footprint is the size of a stadium.
- 5,749,920 sq ftHouston Botanic GardenThe Houston Botanic Garden, one hundred and thirty-two acres. The full footprint of a conservation institution, distributed across thousands of homes.
- 6,969,600 sq ftBuffalo Bayou ParkBuffalo Bayou Park, one hundred and sixty acres along the city's defining waterway. A civic landscape, recreated front-yard by front-yard.
When distributed becomes monumental.
From two hundred to two thousand acres, the network reaches the scale of the city's defining cultural and ecological landmarks. Central Park. NRG Park. Downtown Houston. Memorial Park. Held by no single institution. Held by thousands of households.
- 15,246,000 sq ftNRG ParkNRG Park and its grounds, three hundred and fifty acres. The largest sports and entertainment complex in the city, matched by a distributed network.
- 19,384,200 sq ftHermann ParkHermann Park, four hundred and forty-five acres. The first of the city's century-old cultural landscapes to fall within reach.
- 36,721,080 sq ftCentral Park (New York)Manhattan's Central Park, eight hundred and forty-three acres. The benchmark by which urban parks are measured worldwide, recreated through distributed habitat.
- 51,296,256 sq ftDowntown HoustonThe entire downtown footprint, just under twelve hundred acres. A scale at which the network is unmistakably a city in its own right.
- 65,340,000 sq ftMemorial ParkHouston's Memorial Park, fifteen hundred acres of forested civic land. The largest urban park in Texas, matched by a distributed network of households.
The long horizon.
Beyond two thousand acres, the journey crosses into multi-decade territory. State parks, national forests, the bioregional commons. We name these to be honest about where the model leads if it works. They are direction, not deadline.
- 87,690,636 sq ftGalveston Island State ParkGalveston Island State Park, just over two thousand acres of coastal prairie and bay. The first horizon where the network crosses out of the city and into the bioregion.
- 213,313,320 sq ftBrazos Bend State ParkBrazos Bend, nearly five thousand acres of bottomland forest south of Houston. A working state park, scaled by the network.
- 234,701,280 sq ftEnchanted Rock State Natural AreaEnchanted Rock, the granite batholith in the Hill Country, around fifty-four hundred acres. A piece of Texas geology, mirrored in distributed habitat.
- 7,102,264,200 sq ftSam Houston National ForestSam Houston National Forest, one hundred and sixty-three thousand acres of public land. A regional commons, the size of which the network can only aspire to.
- 96,693,989,040 sq ftYellowstone National ParkYellowstone, two and a quarter million acres. Named here to keep the horizon honest: the model, fully realized, is bioregional, not municipal.
A distributed network is built one yard at a time.
Every donation, every native plant, every neighbor who turns a lawn into habitat moves the whole network forward. The landmarks are the way we measure. The yards are the work.