WEBVTT

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[sil.]

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[music]

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When we experience a landscape,
we see at like a snapshot,

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we see what’s there at the moment.

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So you look at some village and
there is the church from 1803,

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and there’s the gas station that they put on the
main street back in 1962 with a bright red roof.

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And there is the village green from 1782.

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There all these different things that we experience
in a movement but that happened over time.

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[music]

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We’re seeing a sum total of thousands and
thousands and thousands of little decisions

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that were made every day and every week

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and every year that people have lived
on that little piece of ground.

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[music]

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I think the landscape is the repository

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of the people’s deepest believes and
of some other saddest mistakes.

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[music]

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Major funding for this program was provided
by the corporation for public broadcasting.

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Additional funding by the following.

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Sprawl, it’s hard to define
by know it when you see it.

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Sprawl is houses in the field where cows once
gazed, its two acres lots fragmenting the forest.

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Sprawl is traffic clogged roads and
strip development to the edge of town.

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Sprawl is the slow study
drumbeat of half hazard growth

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that is making our place
more like any place.

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We throughout northern New England as in the rest of the United
States are experiencing two mass migrations at the same time.

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One of the mass migrations is
from a natural resource based

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rural economies into urbanized
areas in search of jobs.

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The second migration has been from
the urbanized centers outward

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into a 30, or 45, or 50 minute radius.

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It’s that second migration
that we refer to as sprawl.

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A relentless leaving of the centers into
the this previously rural landscape,

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prematurely converting the
countryside to, umm… a (inaudible).

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[sil.]

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Our first communities on the coast
were not permanent settlements.

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They were built somewhere up the river
systems essentially to exploit resources.

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And there’s wonderful quotes in
the… from early 17th century,

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there are forest that could never
be felled by human beings ever,

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but there are so many fish that, you know, you could scoop them up
and throwing on the beach. It’s still having more forever and ever.

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And once that American Revolution was over,

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settlers began absolutely flooding in.

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Thousands of thousands of young people from Southern New
England, a lot of them thought, this is our chance,

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yeah, this is where we can have own farm, a big
farm, and… and… and make a living for ourselves.

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But the reality that they faced when
they got there was that the in…

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initial sort of soil futility of the land

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that had built up over centuries and centuries
and centuries was really rapidly depleted.

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There were places in the Piscataqua region,
for example, of Maine and New Hampshire

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where as early as the early 18th century,

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their entire watersheds that had already
stripped of all of their big trees.

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You read these poor accounts of
these people whose… whose, uh…

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who spent most of their farming time
picking rocks out of their fields.

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By the mid 19th century, a real sense
of disillusionment was settling in.

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The hope became the railroad sound. The railroad
just… was just come in, that’s gonna be prosperity.

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But what actually happens is that

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the railroads came, and the railroads run two ways.
They don’t just run in, they are running out.

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And massive numbers of
people from… from Roman

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and New Hampshire got on the railroad
and just headed… headed west.

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They headed down to the factories, you know,
the textile factories of Massachusetts.

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The cities were getting larger.

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The farms were abandoned and rural New England
was quite poor quite economically depressed

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The cities on the other hand
promised jobs, housing,

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uh… more robust and retro-social life. Uh…
There was that song after World War One,

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\"How you gonna keep them down on the farm.
Once they’ve seen have seen gay(ph) Paree.

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Substitue for gay(ph) Paree. Uh…
Littleton and Burlington and uh… Bangor.

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Now I think we’ve seen, there were
factors which push people out of cities,

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and pull them back into
the mere countryside.

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One of the culprits if you will in
what happened with the post war here,

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uh… was federal policy on housing,

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federal and state policy on road building,

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and America’s unbelievable love
affair with the automobile.

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And of course, what can only be called
the Neo-Jeffersonian suburban ideal,

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somehow that life is richer and better living in
the suburbs or the country where Johnny and Janie

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has room to roam, and uh…

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folks live in their single
family detach dwelling.

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We have strip development, uh…

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outside of most of our major urban centers.
We have world(ph) land fragmentation,

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large lot, housing, development happening
out in forest land and farmland.

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So we… we definitely have sprawl.
It’s… it’s what I would call

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rural sprawl, small town sprawl,
it’s not megalopolis sprawl, umm…

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but it sprawl nevertheless

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As sobering as the trends are, the news is into all bad, we still have
working forests, active farms, vital communities, dynamic downtowns,

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and we have people fighting back that.

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…We are still great. Protect
us from urban sprawl.

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Trying to move forward
by choice not by chance.

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Land is the… the foundation
of our cultural house.

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And everything that we built in our culture on top of that
is either on a strong foundation or shaky foundation,

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and that pulls down to choices
that we make about the land.

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[music]

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[music]

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I think people in New England kind of like the idea that there’s a farm
down the road. My wife Carol and I, we have a… a mixed life start farming,

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a kind of an old fashion in New England. Start a
farm you don’t see them around very much anymore.

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We have row crops, we have hay. We
have, you know, life stock. And

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through the diversity, we’ve
been able to, uh… make go of it.

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In May 2000,John Hutton was making decent
living as a farmer in Stratham, New Hampshire

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in heart of Rockingham County, the
fastest growing part of the state.

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We farm almost 450 acres
of land and we own 1.09.

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So we really live on the edge. We’re probably
the most endangered farm there is in this area.

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Umm… Just not so much that I think that all
my landlords are gonna sell their land,

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but capability of that happening is
very large and we have no control over.

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And I was a kid when seven dairy farms on this road.
Only one dairy farm left in town, period know.

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Two years later Hutton’s worst fears came true not in
the farm of housing development but a golf course.

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It’s… it’s tough. I mean,

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it’s… it’s not easy to see that, and

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I think would have been easier for me to see that
southern division versus being a golf course.

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Yeah, people are saying, \"Well, the golf course is always
gonna be green out there\". And you’re like, yes, it is.

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But you will never be allowed to be out there. You
walk out there, you are gonna asked to leave.

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[sil.]

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Stratham part of the sea coast region of New Hampshire
and Southern Maine has been strained by growth for years

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as people move up from the south for
jobs in a less congested lifestyle.

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I mean, that every reason to believe
if that the population density

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in this year were double in the next 10 to 20
years. You got these two interesting inner states,

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101 and 95, you’ve got three airports,

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and that (inaudible) you got train going
in from Exeter(ph) to downtown Boston.

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My biggest thing is I don’t wanna really
particularly move out of Stratham

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but uh… reality says that Stratham
is so expensive now that, umm…

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I don’t know that I could buy in
Stratham and stay in Stratham.

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Rockingham county is growing in both, uh… numbers of
people, numbers of households as well as the wealth.

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So it’s… it’s… it’s growing…
it’s getting wealthier

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at the same time as it’s growing.

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We’re known as an expensive pumpkin-stand but we’re known that \"Boy, they’re pumpkins
are great. and everything they have is good. And that’s the customer we want.

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There has an… there’s an enormous
sources of employment right here.

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And that just, uh… you know, low skill wage
environment, very highly paid employment.

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(inaudible) is a developer
from nearby (inaudible).

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Though business has been good, he
doesn’t necessarily like what he sees.

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A lot it’s been done poorly and has
consumed up vast amount of land.

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It’s uh… using an entire piece of open
land with a house on every 2 acres.

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This type of large lot zoning is
one of sprawl’s major culprits.

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A developer who wants a 50 acre parcel in a
town with 2 acre zoning can build 25 houses,

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but is required to scatter them
across the entire the parcel

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leaving no open space for farming,
forestry, and recreation.

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(inaudible) thinks there’s a smarter way to accommodate growth
and preserve open space, it’s called ‘Conservation Development’.

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…Or you can build that same number of
homes or perhaps even slightly more, uh…

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a greater density but on 15 of the 15 acres and try
to leave contiguous conservation built around it.

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And that’s the best thing that, uh… everybody
wants to preserve as a world carat on this town,

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and they… and they…
they’re willing to do it.

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They just don’t know how to do it. I try to make
a butter and create conservation development,

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so that people can (inaudible).

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There’s a lot of rural character
and characters in this area.

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Article number 4… On March 15th, 2002, a
record crowd turned out for town meeting.

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The hot topic was whether voters would
approve a $5 million bond issue

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to buy some of the remaining
open space left in town.

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In two thirds vote majority, Ballot Bowl
contained that is required for passage.

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The kind of stratum desires to maintain a
well-planned community with a real residential…

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I have a… a real problem with giving
somebody $5 million to go out and stand.

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One of my favorite farms that
would be the Wigan farm,

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uh… got gobbled up we all know what happened.
Now everybody needs a place to live

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but my guess is if this, umm… bond issue

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has been in place back when the Wigan’s were
faced with the decisions that they had to make

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that I could still get green beans there.

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People are quite conflicted about this, I mean, you
come here because you want this overall character.

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And so, you know, often the people
who are being our obstacles and our…

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you know, appealing or suing the planning
board’s decision having approved our projects

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are people who live in very similar subdivisions, but
that the old kind where there is no conservation land.

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My husband Buck and I entered into a
conservation easement on our farm land in 1998.

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The land rarely requires town services.
It creates no traffic except,

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fortunately at our farm stand we have some
traffic. And it presents no schooling bill.

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A lot of people are really starting
to understand that, you know,

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the more open space we have the lower your tax rate is,
you know, that field stays open, that’s 12 west houses.

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We lose about $3500 a house I think
over what they bring in for.

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For tax rate so, you know, you start to say, \"Well, Jesus, we got together and bought that
land and… and had to stay that way, you know, thankfully our tax rate would be stable.\"

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But all I can see from this area is continued
growth and higher and higher incidence.

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The demand for public transportation
is going to become more intense,

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the domain for public (inaudible),
it’s gonna become more intense.

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And that means higher taxes. And…

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And that’s what happens. And all I can hope for is that
sometime in the next 20 years somebody says, \"Wait a minute,

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we better start sitting a side, some open space so
that this area isn’t just competent with houses.

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Are we prepared to go out and spend
up to five billion dollars now?

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For what we may we realize 13 years down
the road, can we (inaudible) afford that?

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We don’t have time. If we wait 13
years, this will not be an option.

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We vote tonight, yes.

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Like many towns across the country, the
citizens of Stratham are struggling to grow

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without losing the soul of their community

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with a financial commitment to conserving special open
spaces. Alongside an effort to use land more wisely,

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Stratham might have a chance of holding on to the
qualities that make people want to live here.

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You know, this was… This was a cornfield right here at
one time and then a little belly scrapers, our was,

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uh… cropland, hayland
and to the right of the

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big machines out there was (inaudible)…

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You know, I mean, I… I knew that
land as well as anybody did.

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And I had some horses that know it better
than me because they plow those fields, and

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when they stop to pick the plow up because they’re
over rock there, and you know, I give ‘em.

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Get pretty close land when you’re… you’re walking
behind a team, I think when you move the tractor,

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I think that’s a little bit harder.

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To take now that you really see everything being done and finished,
and this is like, yes, this land is, will never be farmed again.

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…that just needed to be 350 (inaudible)

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\"yes\" votes, in order for that to pass.

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We’re done with the vote wise, 462 voted,
\"yes\", 63 voted \"no\", and the (inaudible).

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[music]

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Sprawl happened very incrementally

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in a way that is very hard
to connect cause and effect.

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Those who leapfrog out into
rural, one’s rural areas,

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and have their house on
one or two or five acres.

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Strongly believe that what they are doing is good
for the environment. There is no inclination.

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But the fact that they have taken a
small bite out of a forest to farmland,

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or a wildlife habitat, the
fact that they now drive

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10 miles to work and so forth. Actually,
is doing something that individually

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and not have much effect, but few
other people that (inaudible)

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else is doing it is having
quite a profound effect.

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When the form of town government has to change, when
you have now hire a full time building inspector,

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a recreation department, an expansion
to the school, nobody says,

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\"Oh, it’s because of the
way, this region has grown.

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\" Instead, they think it’s inefficiency, they think that somebody
has screwed up, and not the fact that people with suburban mindsets

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commanding suburban services
have moved to a place

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where there aren’t such services and
now you’ve got to recreate them.

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That very incremental process leaves people

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without a sense of cause and effect.

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[music]

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Place, it means a lot to for loaners.

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Couple things are really affecting now and

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one is people increasingly living outside of these
places, working in another community, or umm…

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shopping in another community. A second
major phenomena is commercial development

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drifting outside of these town
centers out onto the highways,

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and so there’s less interaction
within these places

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and from on where they’re
used to be in interaction.

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Change is the only constant
even in often idealized Vermont

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and nowhere in the state is changed more
apparent than in Chittenden County.

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Here in the Burlington area, the tension
between jobs, growth, and the quality of life

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is hotly debated as the state wrestles
with a proposal for a massive new highway.

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IBM came here 45 years ago. Tom Watson Jr.

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Who was a chairman of the Board of IBM. Umm… He had
a ski placed in the (inaudible) and he liked, umm…

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the Vermont area and visited
here frequently. And

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a group of business people who are trying to create some economic
development Vermont spoke with Watson and he agreed to put

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a relatively small facility in place in
Burlington Vermont for a six junction Vermont.

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You know Vermont had really umm… not
entered the 20th century until…

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until IBM, so people were leaving farms
and it was a great place to work.

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And people felt like they could be part of the rest of
America and have that American dream of TV and a car and…

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
By the early 1970s, IBM had become
Vermont’s largest employer.

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
We have about 8,000 employees currently.
We have 3.5 million square feet,

00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
40 acres of roof, and umm… about
(inaudible) amount of parking lots.

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
It’s not just IBM that has made Chittenden
County the state’s fastest growing region.

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
There’s the university, the
hospital, related businesses,

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
and the quality of life in and
around the city of Burlington.

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
You know, with… with Lake Champlain incredible beauty of Lake
Champlain, umm… the surrounding mountains and the natural environment,

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
it’s just a huge draw. As a child that I was come to go
skiing on the weekends, so I already had a love for Vermont

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
but I fell in love with
a native (inaudible).

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
We live on land that’s been in his
family since the early 1900s.

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
You can see out the back window Lake Champlain,
this is considered outer Malletts Bay,

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
Colchester has more lakefront
then any town in the state.

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
Of our 8,000 employees, 20… 25%
out of them over 2,000 employees

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
live outside Chittenden County, many
of them outside the 25 mile radius.

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
Chittenden County is
reaching into the island’s

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
Grand Isle uh… County up into Franklin County which has
traditionally been a very much of a dairy umm… industry.

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
It’s now getting a lot of
development from Chittenden County.

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
Back in the mid 1960s,

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
the state transportation department first proposed
building a circumferential highway around Burlington

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
that would keep traffic off of local roads. Thirty years and $70
million later with only one segment of the highway completed,

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
the project is still deeply controversial.

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
What’s your position in that regard that politically
you might be waging ending up your fight.

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
The traffic situation is much worse as we’ve had
other retail growth in other umm… suburban growth.

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
Consequently, the towns around us
have many, many failed intersections.

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
If you built this the circ highway,

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
all but one of those currently classified
failed intersections will be relieved.

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
In Williston we have Walmart, we
have Toys \"R\" Us, we have Pets Mart,

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
we’ve got Circuit City, we’ve got about

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
seven or eight big box retailers
now Home Depot out in Williston.

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
And if you are anywhere between the week
before Thanksgiving till… till Christmas

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
you can count on your daily commute being
increased by umm… that many more minutes a day.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
Now a few minutes doesn’t seem like
much, but when you’re traveling

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
already 40 minute commute because you can’t afford
to live any nearer here, that becomes an irritant.

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
Marilyn Sowles is a full time mother who used
to coach the Colchester’s high school ski team,

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
training on land owned by the school.
In the fall of 1992,

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
she was surprised to learn that there was a hearing
to sell some of the land to build the circ highway.

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
As I started to get involved in
trying to understand the issues

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
and have people think about
the two different sides,

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
you know, it wasn’t just about, umm… is
this gonna take traffic off the road.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
It was also about how will impact
our community. So I went and

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
got the studies that have I have been done
for the Serkin, I read the studies and,

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
you know, (inaudible) said that there
were going to be land use impacts.

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
When you put in the interchanging, the land values
rise. And uh… people want to cash in on that.

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
But it’s more than just that. The peripheral
towns outside the circumstantial highway,

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
beyond the circumstantial highway,
suddenly are becoming more accessible

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
and… and people who live there can
get to their jobs more quickly.

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
[sil.]

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
If it were a viable alternative, that would be one
thing, but I think this really becomes an excuse

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
or a rationalization for not moving
forward with what needs to be done.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
If they did transportation to man management,
umm… they’ve focused a lot in car pools,

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
they worked with the bus company
on Better Bus service out there.

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
The Burlington Essex, uh… St.
Albans rail line was operational.

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
How much of their transportation problems
would be solved by those improvements.

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
And this is of course…

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
Is the circ highway good for Vermont or not? A
political science class at the University of Vermont

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
invited candidates for governor
to define their positions.

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
Well, I believe the highway should be constructed, but we need
to make sure we deal with the storm water or (inaudible).

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
I mean, all over the country there’s been businesses
that have had success using alternatives.

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
So I think it could be feasible here.

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
I don’t necessarily think we should roll over and bend over
backwards for a large corporation and at the same time,

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
I went to school briefly in Flint Michigan. And when
General Motors left Flint Michigan, it was devastation,

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
and I know that that’s what
would happen here if IBM left.

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
And… And I love the state night and… and
unfortunately, the state is addicted to IBM labor,

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
and we can’t afford to see it go.

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
We are a… a rural state,

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
but we have a concentration over a few urban areas and
suburban areas which make up of 5-10% of the state

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
to balance of the equation being open land.

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
You’ve got to provide some space and some
planning for the people who live here

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
as well as for just, uh…
the prettiness of it.

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
There are certain myths that we all grow
up with and a really hard to let go of.

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
The highways one of those myths, you know, we all grow
up believing highways will solve traffic congestion.

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
If you don’t have infrastructure, if
you don’t have predictable zoning,

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
if you don’t have an economic development policy that
will encourage business to stay here or grow here,

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
if you keep on accumulating all
of these factors, at some point

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
you’ll start to see a flight
of business of flight of jobs

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
and that will lead to economic consequences which can
be very hard to reverse once it starts to happen.

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
Have the past 30 years shown that that’s
true in other parts of the country,

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
or did they have to keep expanding those highways to keep
building out of the increased traffic that came from

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
the increased business that comes, the
increased housing that comes, you know, you…

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
you end up in a different place… your town is a different
place. If that’s the town that you’re choosing,

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
that’s okay, you know.

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
But does every place have to
choose to become like that?

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
The circ proposal has become the lens through
which political and personal questions converge.

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
How do our economic policies, our
investments in transportation,

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
as well as our own choices about where to work,
shop, and live, all affect are sense of place.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
The economy of Vermont does need
to be tended to and watched,

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
but it does not need the circ highway and it can survive
without the circ highway, it can survive without a highway.

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
It’s going to set in motion forces

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:53.000
that will destroy some of the very
things that make us wanna live.

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
I would love to do is tell you a quote from one of my
favorite quotes about visioning from Donella Meadows.

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
She says, \"A sustainable world can only come into being if it can be envisioned,
and that vision must be built up from the contributions of many people

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
before it’s complete and compelling.\"

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
And I think that’s one of the central
points of how we can address sprawl.

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
That if we take purely an economic stance, or purely an
environmental stance that we’re not going to be able

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
to assemble the forces we need to come
up with a compelling alternative,

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
that I think that if we bring lots of
different perspectives to the table,

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
we’ll be able to identify

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
the key qualities that we
value in our community,

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
and think creatively about how to maintain
those in a completely alternative growth path.

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:50.000
[music]

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
I think it’s the best town in the country. Anyone who
comes here right can save the vitality of the town.

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
It’s amazing what’s happening.

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
One of the surest ways to fight sprawl is
to keep down towns vibrant healthy places.

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
Just beyond Franconia Notch in northern New Hampshire, the
Main Street in Littleton has weathered many ups and downs.

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
But today, it’s a place
where the town’s past,

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
present, and future intersect.

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
The village a Littleton was started right in this
building with the Littleton Grist Mill in 1798.

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
Sometimes I like to refer to it as the
first industrial park in Littleton.

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
We were a shoe shop town and
that was our manufacturing base

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
starting literally back in the ‘20s.

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
I remember way back when (inaudible) kind of that offer should company employ 600
employees all the shoe company I believe had about 300 role both OSHA companies along on.

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
1992,we literally hit economic bottom. Umm…

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
We had 17 vacancies on our Maine Street.

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
We lost our major banks. Umm… There was
a general Malays in the community.

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
That’s a very big turnaround this time was it when Brien
Ward, umm… put together an economic development task force.

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
And 75 members of the
community came together,

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
and basically sat down in lies or strengths and weaknesses.
And we decided that we were kind of wasting our time,

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
umm… feeling sorry for yourself because we had a lot of things going
for something. We weren’t doing a good job, moaning what we had,

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
but we had the lowest like (inaudible)
mistake. Umm… We were right off I93

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
for transportation access, so we
had a wonderful Maine Street,

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
uh… that was could use some buffing up and some
polishing but I mean the buildings were replaceable.

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:53.000
[music]

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
They have some long standing merchants, Porfido’s market on
Maine Street, the Hahout(ph) family, uh… our family, of course.

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
Uh… So we have families have been here for many, many
years, and they continue to put the money back and

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
start as a teaching studio, and then, as an
acoustic guitar store, and then, we start…

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
Dan Solomon runs the Northern Lights Music store in Main Street
to pick up the slack and instrument sales back in the ‘80s,

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
he started selling stereos,
TV’s and home electronics,

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
but the new big box stores on the edge of town took a bite
out of his margins. So he decided to get back to his roots.

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
Music is more interesting for us. Uh… It’s… it’s a little
bit more of a specialty thing we have less competition

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
and the Maine Street is heading
towards specialty stores anyways.

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
And we thought well we’ve got the electronics business. And
I have a little our staff go and it was gonna really be…

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
be a barebones type operation. But in
the couple of months we’ve done it,

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
it’s more like there was a real pent up
demand for this kind of a specialty up your.

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
It’s a nice guitar, this has rows wood(ph). I hope you can see…
where they get the strips (inaudible). So it goes like that.

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
I’m… I’m bias and prejudice
but our chut… Chutters store

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
which has… has a longest candy counter in the world, and is in the
Guinness Book World Records, that was a closed Brooks drugstore

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
and it looked like something right out of Beirut.
I mean, it was just… in just tough shape

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
and very full on. Across the street
which is Deacon’s Bench Furniture(ph),

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
uh… was an old umm… restaurant could have… on an hard times
those two buildings… now if you look at them right now…

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
they any Maine Street nation would be just
tickled pink to have them on the Maine Street.

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
This candy counter is a
111 and 3/4 inches. It

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
really is 112 but Guinness said we had
to remove a half an inch for shrinkage.

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
So that’s how that is. The
candy was something that

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
the more people told me it couldn’t be done,
the more determined I became to do it.

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
And uh… even my husband fought me, everybody fought me. \"It
won’t work… it won’t work.\" \"Yes, it will. It will work.\"

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
I know it would work and I think that a lot of back
became that way because we asked people what they wanted.

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
The revival of Littleton’s Main Street has
been slow and steady with no magic bullets.

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
Downtown businesses, community
leaders, and citizens

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
have been working together to restore historic buildings
build affordable housing and promote downtown businesses.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
The street is a draw again for both
locals and visitors to the North Country.

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
This may sound, seem like a small town, but you’ve
come from the north, this is like hidden civilization.

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
People don’t often think of, you know, small
rural communities as being progressive.

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
Uh… But when you think about
well you have scarce resources

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
and uh… limited population, umm…

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
you got to find some clever
ways to get things done.

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
We haven’t had a department store since 1963 our Main Street we haven’t had a
highway store for 10 years. The last drugstore left Main Street Littleton about

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
six months to a year before Walmart came.

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
Littleton must have shocked Walmart, Kmart.
When they were welcomed to come to Littleton.

00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
We encourage them to come because we were lacking a
major anchor to attract people from outside the area.

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
Walmart is a… is a result of
being pleased by that attitude

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
actually has allowed us to put two signs up on
their property indicating where Main Street is.

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
‘Cause I was little nervous about Walmart coming. It’s like
how many people are going to actually stay on Main Street,

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
because of where we come from in
the tri-city area of the state

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
umm… the Walmart and all the big-box
giants, I mean, you could take a ride,

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
take a ride to (inaudible) to watch us to New Hampshire and look what’s
happened to the beautiful… beautiful Main Streets are just drying out

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
because nobody goes into the villages, they
never go into the main streets anymore.

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
You know, we need to pay attention as a community to how much
do you actually want taken away from your little town here.

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
But Main Street in Littleton has thrived partly
because of the specialty shops it hosts,

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
but also because it’s still
home to the post office,

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
library, bookstore, movie theater, and
restaurants, it is still the heartbeat of town.

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
When people come to a
community, how do we judge

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
the health and well-being of the community, it’s not
well, it’s a really attractive industrial park.

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
It’s what is downtown look like and downtown
is the heart and soul of the community.

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
One of the other things that Littleton’s done that’s really
wise is decided to keep the schools in center of the community.

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
It means that they’ve got to do a lot of renovations
to their existing facilities to even get them

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
up to code for the state, but
they’ve decided that the games,

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
the potential games are so great, because they’re
using community facilities as classrooms.

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
For example, the Chutters, they’ve turned the basement
of Chutters into a classroom for the high school.

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
We donated the whole website so everything is there, they changed
the name from… from Chutters to Chutters Candy connection.

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
They got their license name, they had to do
the business plan, they have to do all of it.

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
As an educational tool incredible.

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
And one of the… one of the great things here is the variety of makes use of the
traditional downtown where you would have commercial business on the ground floor,

00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
offices on the second floor, apartments on the third.
When I moved to town, I moved to live on Main Street.

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
All you need to do is go through a town
that’s lost the main street battle

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
and see all the lights out.

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
Main Street that doesn’t have people
living on it is a dying Main Street.

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
While most everyone agrees there has
been a minor miracle on Main Street.

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
Littleton is less unanimous about what happens at the
edge of town without zoning rules in place to prevent it,

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
some are worried that continued strip development might
eventually reverse the hard one games on Main Street.

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
So the work continues.

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
You know in this town there is a
enthusiastic outgoing (inaudible) town.

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
And on June 15th, Littleton expressed its enthusiasm by
unveiling a commissioned bronze statue of Collingham.

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
[sil.]

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
As you’re aware of the (inaudible)
author’s Collingham that was born.

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
Are you Collingham? I umm… I am now.

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
I mean she’s in the dictionary, look up in the
direction (inaudible) there she is. Here she is.

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
We don’t have any naysayers that time. We have
constructive people, constructive criticism,

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
but we don’t have people that have taken
over this town with negative (inaudible),

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
you know, they… they work together, they work out
the differences and achieve the public goal.

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
The crisis on the landscape
is really a crisis of values.

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
Americans grow up hearing
about the American dream,

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
but what is the American dream?
What should the American Dream be

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
for the 21st century? Is the
American Dream only economic,

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
because I think what’s happening to the world(ph)
modern landscape into the broader American landscape

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
is that arts and commerce are
dictating the whole landscape,

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
that we are spending so much of our time

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
just consuming rather than living.

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:05.000
[sil.]

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
I… I guess I… I could get the cow genes,

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
that’s what my grandfather had.
And both of my daughters,

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
you know, are (inaudible) cows as well.

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
Good health and well. The goal when we planted the orchard what we
had two daughters and was that it would put them through college

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
which is a tall order.

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
I guess… I been in charge of the college for a while, but I
guess my dad passed away I was at boss. Last… Last march.

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
March 3rd, yeah, a year ago. Umm…

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
And that’s not exactly where I want to get to be
the boss. Umm…That’s the way I… I got to be here.

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.999
I came here to continue to find, you know,
umm… because it wasn’t a farm community.

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
And I needed to come to an area
where, you know, you could talk.

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
Shoreham is a rural town

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
on the shores of Lake
Champlain in western Vermont.

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
With sprawling Chittenden County a safe distance to the north and no
major industry but farming the threats on Shoreham’s slander subtle,

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
but the roots of sprawl are here as
farmers labor to sustain themselves,

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
their land, and their landscape.

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
[sil.]

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
I used to watch Lassie growing up here, (inaudible)
watch that. And growing up in the city,

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
I thought the farm was just a
fantastic place. So I dreamed of umm…

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
being like Timmy’s mom, you know, baking
pies selling them on the windowsill and so.

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.999
That’s not the reality that we… we had.

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.999
Fortunately, Vermont farmers have had the support
of the state wind farmland conservation program.

00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
Shoreham represents the highest concentration
of conserved farms in the state.

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
Myself and Gerard and Judy Saverin and Joe and
Mary (inaudible) have all conserved farms,

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
and we, you know, kind of bought our farms
when the developer rights were being sold…

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
Farmers who take part in the program are
paid to keep their land in agriculture

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
in exchange they give up
their right to develop it.

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
Farmers can use the money they
receive in any way they choose.

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
We… We put the first parcel into…
in an easement umm… for cash

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
partly to reduce debt

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
when we bought the farm
we had a lot of that.

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.999
And then the second two parcels that we
put in, we put in that’s been in farm.

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.999
In Shoreham there is umm… 26 farms or 26 properties
that are conserved and that’s about 7,100 acres

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
which is about 23% of the total land area.

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
Well, they have this modernized a lot some extra money
paid off debt, put us in a better financial position.

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
If we purchased the development
rights on this farm,

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
how is that gonna help the future
of Vermont agriculture? And

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
probably just by itself, just by that one farm it’s not
gonna have that much of an impact, but collectively,

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
now there’s over 300 farmers
that are conserved.

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
Even with the success of
the farmland program,

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
farming remains a tough
business on many levels.

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
On average, we’re gonna produce pretty close to break even
and that’s were a pure competitive business operates.

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
And the farms that are little more efficient make money
the ones that are little less efficient lose money.

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
If the price of apples just
kind of came back up enough

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
to sustain orchard (inaudible) believe me,
every orchard has second think of in this town

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
would choose to do that if possible, but we’re getting
less for our fruit now that we did 15 or 18 years ago.

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
And every expense has
gone up needless to say.

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
I look at it as a three legged stool
of land, people in economics and

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
maybe the economics is the biggest thing that’s maybe
out of our control and there’s the people that

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
need to be there to farm and then we need
to have the land available to farm and

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
we’re sort of working on one of those things
that maybe that’s the easiest piece to control.

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
But New England farmers can’t control the price of
apples, potatoes, milk, beef, or any of the commodities

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
most farms produce.

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
Across New England in central Maine, Adrian Wadsworth a farmer in Turner, and
Russell Libby director of the Maine organic farmers and gardeners Association

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
met over breakfast to talk about
the economics of farming.

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
I think about it in terms of
the leaky bucket, you know,

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
every time we send money away for something that we
can do here we have to keep filling the bucket up.

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
We have a net outflow of $50
million a week for food.

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
And we replace a little bit of that by selling
lobster and potatoes and a little extra money.

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
But essentially that bucket we
have to keep pouring money in.

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.999
And as that money leaves our communities, so do the farms.
People who can’t sustain their operations have few choices,

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
usually the most profitable
option is to sell land

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
for housing or a commercial development.

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:24.999
Every family in Maine spend $10 a week, we keep another
$100 million in the state. And $10 a week on local food is…

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
is the way we start plugging
that bucket essentially.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:34.999
Every time that an American citizen
buys food, they are voting for the

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.999
distribution system. The
processor and the farmer,

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.999
the closer you can keep the dollars, you
spend the whole better off we all are.

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.999
And I think that if we want to work at sprawl
at a fundamental level and controlling it,

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:54.999
and that’s how we do it to support the
people that own the land and work for land

00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
that our friends and our neighbors.

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
Back in Shoreham Will Stevens is in
full swing at Golden russet farm,

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
Will runs a CSA or community supported farm

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
where families prepay before the growing
season for weekly pickups of fresh produce.

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
Will has not sold the development rights on his land, yet
he’s turning a profit and helping to plug that leaky bucket.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
And the community supporting our efforts
directly by purchasing our products,

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.999
that’s good enough for me, that’s
very efficient, it’s a closed loop.

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
There’s no real outside,
you know, assistance,

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
you know, and I like it that way.

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
Succeeding as a farmer in New England is
probably no easier today than it ever was.

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
It takes a blend of hard work, ingenuity, and a little luck, but
there’s so much at stake for the farmer, for the community,

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
for our huge tourist industry,
for our regional identity.

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.999
Certainly in Vermont at one time, it was
entirely wooded, 200 years ago or whatever. And

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.999
the reason why so much of it is open and you have the visitors and
you have the beautiful views and to have those split rail fences

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.999
and pastors and in our case,

00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.999
apple trees in rows, beautiful rows.

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.999
To have that, you have to (inaudible).
And it… it has to be sustainable.

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.999
Yeah, I can imagine being the last farming
town that would be a whole different…

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.999
whole different attitude, you know.
So I… I like farm because of that.

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.999
I think that it looks good… Yeah.
Future looks good right here right now.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:39.999
Right.

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.999
What keeps us here? You jump and shout.

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:49.999
You wanna say that, if in fact we do give
up that we done everything we can do, and

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.999
make it by amount. We’re starting out
here and we love it here and we just

00:44:55.000 --> 00:45:00.000
want to try and make it work.

00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.999
It’s really interesting
to… to think first of all

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.999
that although the (inaudible)
wrote that book, you know,

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:19.999
the Sand County Almanac in which the
essay a land ethic appears in 1949.

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.999
That he said some really remarkable things in that.
All ethic so far evolved rest upon a single premise

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:29.999
that the individual is a member of a
community of interdependent parts,

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
his instincts prompt him to compete
for his place in the community,

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
but his ethics prompt him also to cooperate perhaps
in order that there may be a place to compete for.

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.999
The land ethic simply enlarges
the boundaries of community

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:49.999
to include soils, waters, plants, and
animals were collectively the land.

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:54.999
Our equivalent (inaudible) today is not
a land ethic, it’s an ethic of enough.

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.999
It’s people all throughout New England
saying, you know, enough is enough,

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.999
I’m tired of the commute, I’m tired of the places
that I knew of as a child no longer existing,

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.999
I’m tired of my children not
having safe places to play,

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:14.999
I’m tired of my food arriving
from 1800 miles away, you know,

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:19.999
I’m tired of… of all of the…

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.999
the things that I value about being a New Englander
changing, you know, what can I do to stop this.

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:33.000
[sil.]

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
Take a drive down Route one in Maine and you’ll find a metaphor
for New England’s past and present, scenic in some places,

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
strip mall and traffic clogging others. Route one
is a road that continually changes with the Times.

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:54.999
Route one is very historical road.

00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:59.999
And in many cases there were Indian trails
first before there was a coastal route.

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.999
And over time turned

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:09.999
the wagon roads which went
up and down, (inaudible)

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
what became the coastal road, the
coastal route and then route one.

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
Route one became avenue
for these regional images

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
people were driving down route one
in Maine in the 1920s. And in fact,

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
they began to see Maine right on the road.
Gas stations built to look like lighthouse.

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.999
Or lobsters, big use lobster signs,
lobsters for sale, lobster shacks.

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:39.999
So this idea that

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.999
these various images that people
had of Maine could now be found

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.999
if they looked out their window. It was as
though Maine in the 1920s had moved to the road.

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
When route one was expanded, and..

00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
Road was acquired back in
the another ‘50s and ‘60s,

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.999
they anticipated that is ultimately gonna be a four lane
highway, the typical development scenario is roadway,

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.999
a lot of the green space maybe

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.999
and then large stretches of parking lots and
then the buildings that set way, way back.

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
And so the inclination is that when you
drive by, you don’t have any side friction,

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
you’re driving through a real
automobile oriented landscape,

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
there’s virtually no
room for the pedestrian.

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.999
The part of route one that divides the town of Scarborough is the traffic
clogged variety, what used to be a neighborhood here at Dunston corner

00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.999
is now a busy and unsafe intersection.

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.999
Well, that’s what we talked about was a community center in Dunston.
Are we just increasing the traffic and nobody can cross it.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
Are we talking about sidewalks? Are
we talking about zebra striping?

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
Parking partial solving the traffic
problem that we were all here has been,

00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.999
you gotta make it easier, safer, more
convenient and comfortable and appealing

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.999
to move around what used to be a village…

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
Typically a developer would develop a plan bring it to the
Town Planning Board, we liked it to go to the neighbors for us

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
and get them involved in the process to the
point where they actually sat down at a stretch

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
and actually designed our project.

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
And out of this came the series of design sketches that
people said this is the way we’d like to see this developed.

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
And this was incredible, and it is the first time
I’d ever seen lay people very concerned people

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
come together and participate, you know, right from the
(inaudible) for the development of this community.

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.999
My husband I came and there were probably,

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.999
I don’t know, probably 50 people in the room
at the time. And we talked about Plan Z

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.999
which is, you know, 60
homes on two acre lot with

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:54.999
huge impacts to the traffic problem.
Or let’s look at a new way to develop.

00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.999
Nobody’s building this because
it’s not, uh… allowed and

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.999
any current zoning in any
town in Southern Maine.

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.999
For that matter, there is nowhere in New England where
you could build a traditional New England village.

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
There are rules about how and where
people can build on the land,

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
and by design or default, our
rules have mandated sprawl.

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
There was if you will about zoning and you’re still
is a type of rigidity making residential areas pure

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.999
of anything other than residences,

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.999
and making business series, holy business
series, and the two shall never meet.

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
And we would develop lines and edges
between the two to maintain this rigidity,

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.999
and somehow that was gonna protect
property values and protect people.

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.999
You couldn’t do multiplex, uh… which means the two…
two family on up would have to go the row homes.

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:54.999
I was captivated by… I thought it was very progressive
that I thought it looks like a responsible way

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.999
to start looking at development.

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
Typically you wouldn’t see any of the parks develop a typically
wouldn’t put in the trails, you wouldn’t see the athletic field,

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
you wouldn’t see the possibility of a future
school, you wouldn’t see the commercial.

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:14.999
And in the commercial piece on route one was really the
transition between the community and the new neighborhood,

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.999
an opportunity to make… to make something that
people remembered about the good old days,

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.999
town green that you might have a
pizza parlor or a post office that…

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.999
these are things that people said they were missing
from their automobile oriented neighborhood right now.

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:34.999
Somehow we have lost faith that you can actually build a
neighborhood that’s going to be good for the community.

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.999
They give something back. They give open
space back, they give human scale back,

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.999
they give a place to walk it’s up
to sort of a porous public place.

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:49.999
Why not build neighborhoods the way
people used to build neighborhoods.

00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.999
Let’s think about people first, let’s think about creative
places, let’s think about making walk-able communities,

00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:59.999
these neighborhoods are built to human scale, the
heights of the building versus the width of the street

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.999
can create an intimacy of (inaudible) right

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.999
that people love and people are very much attracted
to and when they see it they hang around it.

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:14.999
And we have many of these neighborhoods usually
built pre 1950 throughout northern New England.

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:19.999
And when you see it, you know you’re in someplace
very special and in fact they hold the price of well.

00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:24.999
Kirkpatrick Sale a very, very
bright guy marvelous writer

00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:29.999
published a book some time ago that I
think is emblematic of this region,

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:34.999
and we called it human scale.
And what he was arguing is that

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:39.999
in… in this rush for
bigness and amalgamation,

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:44.999
and global villaging(ph), we
were cannot forget the village

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:49.999
and we ought not forget the scale at which

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:54.999
we have developed over 400 years,
and which still sort of matters.

00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:59.999
Though the plan for a new neighborhood at
Dunston Corner is exciting and innovative,

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:04.999
it has been creeping through the
planning process for two years already,

00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:09.999
far longer than it would have taken
to build a sprawling subdivision.

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:14.999
Local policies have made it nearly impossible to
do the right thing. If we don’t change the rules,

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:19.999
Dunston corner and projects like it will be
just another good idea ahead of its time.

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:24.999
It is smart development, it’s roads that twist and
turn with sidewalks which keeps the traffic down,

00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:29.999
and we all had a piece of it.

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:34.999
There are lots of questions to be asked about the nature of
growth, what kinds of communities are we going to develop

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:39.999
for our children and for our families.

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.999
What will they look like? How will they
function? Where shall our teachers live?

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:49.999
Our firemen or policeman is going
to be the kind of community

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:54.999
where people have to leave the community
in their older more mature years

00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:59.999
because they can no longer afford the
property taxes, wouldn’t that be a shame

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:04.999
to lose our families or (inaudible)
and our heritage just for growth.

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:09.999
You can’t make development go away, you can mold it and change it
and if you can be involved in the process, that’s a good thing.

00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:14.999
Give me a thumb, thumb, neutral or
thumbs up in terms of how we’re doing.

00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:19.999
Dunston corner if it gets built

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:24.999
I think will become one of the models
for traditional neighborhoods in Maine.

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:29.999
When you get that type of
opportunity, you know.

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:34.999
[music]

00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:39.999
When we… When we look at no
England and project, the rate,

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:44.999
and pattern of development we see that we’ve
got about 20 years to change our minds

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:49.999
about how we arrange our landscape.

00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:54.999
The change that needs to happen in New
England must come about through the work of

00:54:55.000 --> 00:54:59.999
thousands and thousands and
thousands of individuals

00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:04.999
dwelling and imagining their lives
differently, and so I have to do that as well.

00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:09.999
That won’t be an awful place. And there are
these places all over the United States

00:55:10.000 --> 00:55:14.999
that passed this point that I’m
talking about 20, 30, 40 years ago

00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:19.999
will just be different.

00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:24.999
I think some people will look back and
say, \"Who allowed this to happen?\"

00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:29.999
It’s you, it’s me, you know, it’s not just you ‘cause you’re the young generation,
it’s not just me ‘cause I’m the one that’s that age, that’s in charge right now, it’s…

00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:34.999
we have to… we have to all do it again.

00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:40.000
[music]