Plans for a Snug Harbor, RI subdivision. October, 2000

Is rural character too ephemeral a concept to be quantified? Should its proper role remain simply a subconscious aspect of habitat and recreation land protection?

Questions that interest those studying rural character include the following: Can a town be built to its limit, with no further building allowed? Should towns protect land for the sole purpose of keeping the area looking the way it has looked for a hundred years (stuck in one "moment in time")? And who determines the point in time after which buildings look too modern? Why are we so drawn to the past and its character? Does it give us a sense of comfort, or stability, to know that something has lasted so long? Do we fear the future and the imminent change it will bring, because we are so safe with the known past? Can we build up land as long as it still looks pretty and quaint? Is the protection of land and preservation of things the way they are precluding an entire sector of people from living in certain places because of rising property values and snobbery (classism, racism)?

Snug Harbor, RI subdivision. October, 2000

In one hundred years, maybe subdivisions will be considered beautiful. We live with the fear that once the things we consider beautiful in this world are gone, it's impossible to get them back, but perhaps things will just change as they have been doing for thousands of years. In the future there will be new beautiful things, and society's version of beauty will probably change anyway. Maybe existence value is what is really important to people, just knowing that beautiful things exist somewhere, and never having to actually see them.

Waterplace Park, Providence, RI. Photograph by Richard Benjamin

And maybe urban character will become/is becoming just as important to society as rural character. Character doesn't have to be natural to have value. "Naturalness" is partly a human construct anyway, so the next step is understanding character in a place that is entirely constructed by people: cities. Waterfire and other cultural additions to Providence are beginning to address the issue of urban character. Should Rhode Island set up a quantitative scale to address the question of urban character as well?

(See Inconsistencies and Data Gaps, and Future Work)

Rural Character Main/Open Space Main/RI Indicators