Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, How to get involved and push the process. Wading into the world of planning is much like walking into quicksand: The more you struggle with it, the more bogged down you get. Fortunately, there are some useful starting points. General information The state […]
Communities
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Towns angling for tourism should beware of the great white shark
MOAB, Utah – The simplest way to describe what happened in Grand County is to say that, in 1986, our resilient community leaders got in their rowboat and went fishing for a little tourism to revive and diversify our economy. They hooked a great white shark. This monster has swamped the boat and eaten the […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
This boom will end like all the others – in a deep, deep bust
In 1982 a plumber named Jeff Everett and I competed to see who was the greater fool. I won. The competition centered on a 1,000-square-foot building we owned at 124 Grand Avenue, on Paonia’s two-block-long main street. It had been home to Betsy’s and my first newspaper – North Fork Times; by 1982 it stood […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Can planning rein in a stampede?
Note: this feature article is one of several in a special issue about growth and planning in the West. By now the scenario is all too familiar: Refugees from far-off, disintegrating cities, packing their dreaded California-scale equity, swarm into some previously unfashionable zip code in the rural West. Which leads to congestion and a land […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
A toolbox to shape the future
Note: this feature article is one of several in a special issue about growth and planning in the West. The planning tools being used in the West vary as widely as the character of local communities. Factors such as terrain, population profile and economics determine which tool is wielded where. Some of the tools have […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
A soft-paths approach to land conservation
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, A toolbox to shape the future. Even the most gung-ho planners admit that government can only do so much to protect native plants, animals that need hundreds of miles of habitat, and human communities. Some critics are more blunt. “I left planning disgusted […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Boulder’s ingenuity has a few drawbacks
Note: this feature article is one of several in a special issue about growth and planning in the West. Few communities in the United States – let alone the West – have tried to control growth the way Boulder, Colo., has. Using imagination and innovative planning, a progressive citizenry and equally progressive elected officials have […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Golf course splits ranch family
Note: this feature article is one of several in a special issue about growth and planning in the West. CARBONDALE, Colo. – Disagreements about how to plan for growth have reached into a ranching family here. “I’m retiring anyway, and … you can’t divide land equitably (among the heirs), but you can divide cash,” says […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
When planning plays catch-up
Note: this feature article is one of several in a special issue about growth and planning in the West. MONTROSE, Colo. – For decades this town with the stunning views of the jagged San Juan Mountains aggressively courted growth and collectively admitted no downside. When county commissioners tried to adopt a wimpy land-use plan 21 […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Some state governments try planning from top down
Note: this feature article is one of several in a special issue about growth and planning in the West. The governor of Oregon may have been a little ahead of his time, speaking out against growth and for planning: “Sagebrush subdivision, coastal ‘condomania’ and the ravenous rampage of suburbia in the Willamette Valley all threaten […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
‘Takings’ takes a hit
The state can block development that threatens Native American burial mounds, the Iowa Supreme Court has ruled. The court rejected an argument that to block such developments would weaken property rights, reports AP. The dispute began when developers bought a 59-acre tract in rural Story County, Iowa, to develop a pricey subdivision. When developers sold […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
The NIMBY factor
If you live in a rural area with no zoning, and if one day a pesticide manufacturing plant announces plans to build in your neighborhood, you might want to consult Not In My Back Yard: The Handbook. Anthropologist and activist Jane Anne Morris details how to launch and win a grass-roots battle against LULUs, defined […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
‘Poor man’s legacy’ may be preserved in Jackson Hole
It is perhaps one of Jackson Hole’s most photographed scenes: A weathered barn in a green meadow rises up against the Tetons. “They say it has angles that correspond with the mountains,” Clark Moulton says of the barn his father started building in 1913. For 81 years, Clark has lived in sight of the Tetons […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Now you see them …
Indian ruins in the Southwest are disappearing, but it’s for their own good. Cartographers are wiping famous Anasazi sites off their maps. Due to a hot black market for sacred Indian objects and increased numbers of tourists, ancient cities such as Keet Seel, Awatovi, Hawikuh and Cutthroat Castle will no longer appear on many road […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Children need the wild
In one of the eight essays that make up The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places, Gary Paul Nabhan relates an amusing but poignant scene he witnessed about 10 years ago when he was asked to arrange a meeting between a noted Native American educator in Arizona and a Phoenix television news team. […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Eating the scenery
Communities throughout the rural West worry about their futures, as wealthy urbanites buy property for vacation homes and speculation. Will congestion, pollution and increased property values destroy the very qualities that make these areas attractive? A report by CHEC, an Oregon economics consulting firm, says that it doesn’t have to be this way. Rural communities […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
FBI was out to get freethinking DeVoto
Nearly 40 years after his death, Bernard DeVoto is remembered as a brilliant historian, pungent social critic and one of the West’s earliest and most outspoken conservationists. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, however, knew him differently. To the FBI, DeVoto was an “intellectual revolutionary,” “the son of a fallen away priest of the Roman Catholic […]
Posted inJune 27, 1994: Home, home on the range ... where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
Here come Rainbows
When some 15,000 members of the Rainbow Family meet within Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest later this month, things may be calm after all. In nearby Big Piney, population 454, townspeople are open-minded about the invasion of counterculture types from all over the country, says town clerk Susan Lison. In contrast to Pinedale, where residents are […]
Posted inJune 27, 1994: Home, home on the range ... where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
Home, home on the range … where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
John Trochman calls himself a “Christian Patriot” and defender of the American Constitution. The soft-spoken man with a Robert E. Lee beard is also a field general in the “Militia Of Montana,” a paramilitary survivalist organization formed to fight what it perceives as oppression by the federal government. The number one threat to freedom, Trochman […]
Posted inJune 27, 1994: Home, home on the range ... where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
Montana organizes to fight the hate groups
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Home, home on the range … where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam. BILLINGS, Mont. – When Wayne Inman left Portland, Ore., two years ago to become police chief of Billings, Mont., he thought he had put hate crimes in his rear view mirror. Only a month […]