City sprawl has swallowed up rural communities; a
revised edition of Saving America’s Countryside: A Guide to Rural
Conservation shows how local action can stave off urbanization.
Written by Samuel N. Stokes, A. Elizabeth Watson, and Shelley S.
Mastran, the book offers everything from well-honed ideas for
organizing residents to sample drafts of easements designed to
strengthen a downtown. The authors cite 32 examples from around the
country, including seven Western states, and detail how locals
working together can block everything from inappropriate
development to the destruction of a local treasure. Citizens in
Bandon, Ore., for example, saved a historic U.S. Coast Guard
station by selling port-authority owned marshland to the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, then using the proceeds to purchase the
station. The renovated building now houses a historical museum and
the marshland is protected public land.
Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2715 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD
21218-4319. Hardcover: $49.95; paperback: $25.95. Illustrated with
black-and-white photos and maps, 448 pages.
*Sara
Phillips
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Keeping rural American rural.
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