Maryland

In 1997, Maryland launched its Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation Initiative, which is designed to rejuvenate existing communities while preserving farms, forests and other open spaces. Central to the success of this initiative are two related ideas. First, the state would no longer provide financial support for haphazard development, but would instead redirect all of its financial resources to existing communities and areas approved for growth. Second, Maryland would take a much more aggressive and strategic approach to preserving open space.

The new strategic approach to land conservation manifested itself in two separate programs. Maryland’s Rural Legacy Program seeks to protect large, contiguous blocks of farmland and other rural open spaces by working with local governments and non-profit organizations to define preservation boundaries and then concentrating preservation efforts and funding in these areas. The state’s new GreenPrint Program aims to identify and protect the state’s most ecologically sensitive lands.

Although the State of Maryland has worked diligently to conserve its finest natural areas for decades, until the creation of GreenPrint, the efforts were not part of an overall long-term strategy. GreenPrint identifies the state’s green infrastructure — a statewide network of large ecologically significant hubs bound together by greenway corridors or links. The state has allotted $145 million over five years to protect these hubs and links.

For more information about this project, see Related Links at bottom right of screen.

Click here to download the case study (pdf).