A question for the reader: Does the development of land inherently degrade our shared social and environmental values? If you answer yes, I would agree that it typically does. But, does it have to? I believe not. It is possible to harness development as a tool to serve and protect those same values. This question is worth serious consideration.

In John Baden’s recent column, he very clearly described the problem facing those of us fortunate enough to live here. In these “best of the West” locales, culture and education sit comfortably in a setting of incomparable natural beauty. Increasingly, individuals and families learn of such places and make the decision to come. By that simple decision, they unintentionally join in the potential demise of the life that they seek.

My personal introduction to this process occurred in 1980. It was then, at 26, that I left my rural home in western Ohio and moved to Sonoma County, California, for decades one of the country’s most naturally beautiful and fastest-growing areas. Despite the extremely tight regulation, I saw how land can be literally consumed in response to in-migration. This was very different from the rural Midwest. There, what little development occurred was highly dispersed across the land. It was scattered throughout a seemingly infinite number of settlements, villages, and towns nestled among the fields. This pattern of “natural development,” established by the needs of a horse-drawn world, preserves the landscape better than any other model that I have seen. How might it be replicated or simulated?

We should recognize that economics is a prime mover in the creation of landscapes and land uses. We can influence but not suspend this fact.

The economics of homesteading gave us much of what we see in the West.

Today’s economics of western farming threatens to take it back. Depleted soils, overgrazing, and water pollution are but three undesirable impacts of land pushed hard to adequately support a family.

Many landowners would like to protect their land in a conservation easement, but cannot afford to take this step with the family’s principal asset. Others sell to developers, who convert the land into a new subdivision, in response to today’s economic incentives. People who call this place home want to keep the land as it was when they were kids, or when they first laid eyes on it. Newcomers will continue to come, and they want the same thing.

Now consider this fact, an innovation: most new subdivision residents pay to preserve and maintain significant tracts of open space within their communities. This is accomplished through higher lot prices and association dues. The extra dollars buy and maintain sometimes hundreds of acres of open lands within a development. Preservation is also done by placing agricultural land in conservation easements. One notable example: the residents of a subdivision contributed over $250,000 to a neighboring family. This enabled the family to place a conservation easement on the ranch. The reward for the subdivision’s residents was the ability to forever enjoy the view of the land.

This trend is developing within environmentally rich communities. It is important that those of us in the planning profession, along with local governmental agencies and decision makers, be sensitive to this innovation. I hope we unite to fully explore the opportunities to realize this core desire for an unspoiled home. I see great win-win potential. Highly dispersed, extreme-low-density cluster residential development patterns could be carefully applied to large tracts of land. This would allow historic uses to continue.

Consider a development designed specifically to provide supplemental funding, environmental management, and other resources needed to keep a family farm -- or group of family farms -- in operation, using sustainable, low-impact practices. A development of 1000, 2000, or more acres in size, with 95 percent of its area undeveloped under a conservation easement, would be possible. This would offer small, rural settlements, consistent with our historic open land traditions.

Is this feasible? I think so. Worth exploration? Absolutely. I’m optimistic.