New Hampshire Vision Plan: Overview

In any scale planning, the people one is planning for, clients, residents, or tourists, must be involved. The project team wishes to increase tourism for visitors and residents without harming the natural environment. Another goal is to create connections between nodes of natural, recreational, and cultural resources along linear corridors that may be natural habitat, bike routed, multi-use corridors, or scenic and cultural byways. But these corridors also must not fragment the resources. In all the plans, the answers to these complex issues will eventually lie with the people who will build, maintain, and use the corridors. This project represents a Vision for what could be. A Plan to connect east to west, north to south, state to state, nation to nation. The greenway planning team offers this body of work as a guide to future protection and capitalization of resources in the hope that excitement is garnered and optimism in the successes of grass roots efforts is realized. Because, it is, especially in New Hampshire, the grass roots efforts that are the hallmarks of implementation. Partnerships between local groups and state organizations are even better because while the local groups can provide will power and ideas, the state groups can provide legislative and financial power. New Hampshire is a state of intense independence. Tax laws are difficult to maneuver and funding is sometimes tied up in bureaucratic red tape before it reaches the target constituents. Public-private partnerships such as the Land and Community Heritage Commission and the Connecticut River Scenic Byway Study Byway Action Committees are two good examples of groups working together for a common goal. Even at such a large scale as this project, a sense of community is critical to establish. The pride in one's land can be translated at a larger scale to pride in one's state and country. New Hampshire-ites are a very proud group with a rich history. The Big Picture is necessary to plan effectively and sustainably for the future. Landscape architects can benefit by seeing the potential to their pockets of all these integrated projects. They can court their towns and push for federal monies. Armed with this document and the GIS maps, state and local agencies will be better prepared to plan for the twenty-first century with the confidence that a thorough investigation into the opportunities for connections between natural, recreational, and cultural resources has indeed been made and mapped.