Rural, small-town, and tribal planning

Learning objectives

• Describe what makes rural and small-town planning different from urban planning, including capacity, land economics, and infrastructure.
• Apply farmland and rural-character tools: agricultural zoning, right-to-farm protections, conservation subdivisions, and TDR and PDR.
• Explain why scattered septic-based development is costly, and how to direct rural growth to places that can serve it.
• Describe how rural economies are changing, including amenity-driven growth in gateway communities.
• Describe tribal nations' status as sovereign governments and what that means for land use authority and planning.
• Practice respectful, government-to-government engagement and consultation with tribes.

Key concepts

Why rural planning is different

Most planning literature assumes a city with a full planning department. Much of the United States doesn't look like that. Rural counties and small towns often have:

• Limited capacity: a part-time planner, a volunteer planning commission, or staff shared through a regional council of governments.
• Land economics driven by agriculture, forestry, mining, energy, or tourism, with land values that make development pressure uneven: intense near highways and scenic areas, absent elsewhere.
• Costly infrastructure per person: long roads to maintain, wells and septic systems instead of public water and sewer, and gaps in broadband.
• Demographic change: aging populations and the outmigration of young people in some places, and fast "amenity migration" and second homes in others.
• Strong attachment to place and to property rights, which makes trust and plain communication especially important.

Good rural planning is practical and proportionate: simple, clear codes that volunteer boards can apply consistently, plans focused on a few important decisions, and partnerships that extend limited staff.

6 more sections follow in the full lesson.

Key terms

• Agricultural zoning: Zoning that protects farmland with very large minimum lot sizes and limits on non-farm uses.
• Right-to-farm law: A law protecting established farms from nuisance suits over normal farming practices.
• Conservation subdivision: A subdivision that clusters homes to permanently protect a large share of the site as open land.
• Amenity migration: Population growth driven by scenic and recreational qualities rather than jobs.
• Extraterritorial jurisdiction: Limited planning authority some states give cities just outside their boundaries.
• Tribal sovereignty: The inherent authority of tribal nations to govern themselves and their lands.
• Government-to-government relationship: The relationship between the United States and tribal nations as sovereigns.
• Trust land: Land held by the federal government in trust for a tribe or tribal members.
• Fee land: Land owned outright, which within a reservation may be owned by tribal members or non-members.
• THPO: A Tribal Historic Preservation Office, which takes on historic preservation responsibilities for tribal lands.
• Consultation: A formal, good-faith process of engagement between governments before decisions are made.
• Gateway community: A town next to public lands or other natural attractions whose economy and growth are shaped by visitors and newcomers.
• NAGPRA: The 1990 federal law requiring the return of Native American remains and cultural items and protecting burials on federal and tribal lands.