Several days ago, while watching television during a visit with my 80-year-old grandmother, a commercial played showing a child crossing a V-shaped rope bridge over a stream.  Chances are you've seen them or perhaps even crossed one during a high ropes course: a sturdy rope is strung between two trees for walking, and a series of ropes are strung outward from the central rope for bracing and balance. Upon seeing it, my grandmother's eyes lit up.

"We used to have one of those out on Bell's Ferry," she said, "You could cross the river on it, and anyone could come out and use it."

"Wasn't it dangerous?" I asked, remembering how I'd trembled and worried my way across one during a ropes course in college.

"Well, yes. But it was fun!" she exclaimed. "That was before everything around here grew up, though."

It was true, I thought. The area around my hometown, nestled in the sprawling suburbs of metro Atlanta, had certainly grown up, even in the 25 or so years since I had been a child. The wild patches of woods that I had played in through my teenage years had become industrial parks, subdivisions, and shopping centers. As an adult, I now have a choice of eight different supermarkets to visit within a five-minute drive of my home.

We all became familiar with the Atlanta suburbs last summer when they were in the grips of the South's epic drought. In 2000, the Atlanta metropolitan area ranked 4th in the nation for sprawl by Smart Growth America and supports a still-growing population of almost 5 million. At the peak of last summer's drought, these 5 million people were siphoning the metro area's water supply at a dramatic rate, without enough rainfall to replenish it. CNN and other major news networks  provided sweeping wide-angle shots of Lake Lanier (Atlanta's main water source), with it's banks receded dramatically to show a striking, red clay bottom. Homeowners were furious; the Georgia governor suggested, among other things, piping in water from Lake Michigan. Michigan responded by threatening to call out its militia.

This year has seen more rain and less worries of a water shortage, but my grandmother's memory got me thinking. The loss of open space for playing and nostalgia are one factor, but just how much of this once-rural and undeveloped region has become enveloped in suburban sprawl? And, more importantly, how much of what is still undeveloped are we planning to conserve?

To provide some insight into this, I looked into the comprehensive, 20-year growth plans drawn up by three of the Atlanta metro area's fastest growing counties: Forsyth, Gwinnett, and Hall. These counties are situated on the metro area's thriving northeast quadrant, line last summer's contentious Lake Lanier, and at one point or another have been listed as some of the fastest-growing counties in the entire country. Each growth plan is similar and outlines the given county's land use and development strategies through the year 2020.

The results are striking. Based off of data provided in each county's plan, Forsyth leads the pack in land set aside as parks, recreation, or conservation with 12.25% of its total acreage, up from 6.25% set aside for conservation in 2004. Gwinnett County comes in second with a much smaller 3.41%. However, it's my home county, Hall, that provides perhaps the most striking numbers. Out of the entire region supervised by the county government, only 0.63% of Hall County land is planned to be set aside for conservation - a mere 1,500 of the county's 274,457 acres. The rest will become large-scale residential, retail/commercial, or industrial development by 2020.

While this seems like a localized or trivial argument on the surface, the Atlanta region bears watching. Its struggles with water availability and a continued, explosive population growth will likely only get worse and will serve as a microcosm for the rest of the nation on natural resource issues. President Obama has pledged to focus on the three-state region (including Atlanta) served by the Apalachicola River Basin during his presidency, and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is currently touring each of these watershed states - Georgia, Alabama, and Florida - with each state's respective governor. He toured Atlanta and the Lake Lanier area this week. To several of the counties in this region, however, it appears slowing growth and increasing land conservation are options that are off the table.

But it's at the local level where the effects of sprawl are perhaps felt the most. Without parks or other development-free areas to visit, children lose a vital connection with the outdoors. Wildlife vanishes. Resource issues become worse as population grows denser. And memories like my grandmother's never have a chance to be made.

Her comment on the rope swing gets me thinking about another quote altogether. Almost a year ago, an incredibly large tract of intact, forested land was up for sale in Hall County near Lake Lanier. A development group from Atlanta bought the tract, planning to install a large-scale development with a 600-home subdivision, townhomes, multiple parking decks, a five-story hotel, a miniature medical center, and a shopping district complete with its own lingerie outlet. It was approved by the county commission almost immediately without debate. At this commission meeting, the local newspaper interviewed one of the developers about the project.

"I call it placemaking," he said proudly. I can't help but beg to differ. Instead it seems we're losing places faster than we can make them.