- By Roger Amsden
Conservation efforts in New Hampshire's urban areas pose a unique challenge: Most of the state's cities were developed as manufacturing centers in the 19th century, resulting in a fragmented pattern of land ownership in which the land closest to rivers near water power, and eventually hydroelectric power, was the most valued and highly developed.
Over time the open land around the city core was developed for housing and, once transportation became centered around the automobile, for commerce. Open space was gobbled up at a rate that alarmed state and local officials as well as residents and organizations dedicated to preserving New Hampshire's landscape and natural resources.
Faced with the continuing loss of environmentally sensitive land to development, most of the state's cities have responded with efforts of their own to conserve open space and valuable natural resources by using a variety of means ranging from zoning to the outright purchase of land to the use of conservation easements.
Conservation efforts in New Hampshire's urban areas pose a unique challenge: Most of the state's cities were developed as manufacturing centers in the 19th century, resulting in a fragmented pattern of land ownership in which the land closest to rivers near water power, and eventually hydroelectric power, was the most valued and highly developed.
Over time the open land around the city core was developed for housing and, once transportation became centered around the automobile, for commerce. Open space was gobbled up at a rate that alarmed state and local officials as well as residents and organizations dedicated to preserving New Hampshire's landscape and natural resources.
Faced with the continuing loss of environmentally sensitive land to development, most of the state's cities have responded with efforts of their own to conserve open space and valuable natural resources by using a variety of means ranging from zoning to the outright purchase of land to the use of conservation easements.
Photo courtesy of Five Rivers Conservation Trust.
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