Study suggests key steps to maintaining rural identity while promoting growth

While rural landscapes across the country vary widely, many rural communities face the dilemma of how to support growth while maintaining their rural identity. A new report, "Putting Smart Growth to Work in Rural Communities," commissioned by the International City/County Management Association under an agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency, seeks to answer those questions, syndicated columnist Neal Peirce reports. The report's first step to smart rural growth is supporting "your legacy, the rural landscape you have today, by keeping working lands (farms, forests, mines) viable and by conserving natural lands," Peirce writes.

Peirce describes controversy in his hometown of Bridgewater, N.H., regarding zoning laws and concludes it is "typical of the challenge so many rural American communities feel today: How to keep a rural quality of life, preserve our landscapes, sustain our small towns and cities, even while positioning ourselves for better jobs and family futures?" The report's lead author, Matthew Dalbey, writes that the second key to smart rural growth is helping "existing communities by preserving and investing in such historic mainstays as small-town Main Streets," Peirce writes. The third key is creating attractive neighborhoods and communities that will entice young people into staying in the community.

"Focus first, the new report urges, on a community's 'heart' -- a vibrant, walkable Main Street and compact, 'neighborly' residential neighborhoods around it," Peirce writes. "Encourage local businesses and rebuild on underutilized close-in lots. And if there's pressure for residential development outside of town, try to cluster it rather than allow large-lot single family subdivisions." To counter the common "It's my property and I can do with it as I please" mentality, Dalbey "suggests a raft of balancing tools, including 'right to farm' policies, conservation easements, purchase of development rights, and valuing land for taxation at its current use rather than at its purported 'highest market value,'" Peirce writes. (Read more)