Dane County, WI

Dane County, Wisconsin, home both to the University of Wisconsin and to some of the richest farm country in the United States, is pulling off one of the most challenging natural resource protection juggling acts in the nation. Led by a savvy county executive, Dane County has employed both an “outside” game and an “inside” game to advance its ambitious growth management strategy. Its outside game is built on a combination of regulatory, acquisition, and restoration tools to limit sprawling rural development and protect the county’s numerous water-based resources--lakes, wetlands, and streams. The outside game is liberally spiked with incentives to secure cooperation from a myriad of independent local governments within its borders.

On the inside, Dane County has worked closely with its constituent towns and cities like Madison to support infill and redevelopment as well as affordable housing strategies-all geared to focusing development within existing municipalities in a compact manner. Supported by some impressive private land conservation efforts and an active roster of nonprofit conservation organizations, Dane County has one of the most well-balanced and thoughtfully crafted natural resource protection programs in the nation.

>> More information on Dane County, WI and the other top communities is available in Nature-Friendly Communities.