Public education for growth management: Lessons from Wisconsin's Farmland Preservation Program

Excerpt

There is a growing national movement among state and local governments to manage growth creatively. More than a dozen states and hundreds of local communities have adopted one of a variety of approaches to growth management (3, 6, 10, 11). Because the key element of growth under local control is land-use policy, these new programs require or encourage local governments to develop comprehensive land-use plans consistent with state criteria. The importance of local public education and involvement in such efforts is increasingly evident; many decisions made in the past by trained planning professionals are today made with extensive citizen involvement, by a citizenry increasingly knowledgeable about the issues (8). In a recent national survey, for example, the local growth management approaches which were self-assessed as highly effective included strong community outreach and education as key factors in their success (11).

UW-Extension's land-use planning education efforts

University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension has been active in public education for land-use planning and natural resource management throughout this century. Its most recent period of intensive involvement in land-use planning was in the 1970s) when efforts centered around the newly passed state program for farmland …