Natural Beauty Roads

In May of 1995, Michigan lawmakers passed legislation that enables the Department of Natural Resources in that state to protect roads that are considered to have outstanding natural beauty, based on the criteria found in these documents.  While the act does stipulate that scenic areas are considered ripe for preservation, most of the roads protected under the act have been preserved because of their natural setting, which is to say that they represent scenery that would have existed along the road in pre-settlement times.  Although existing non-native plants are acceptable along the roadsides, the planting and proliferation of native species are a goal of this legislation.

Natural beauty roads are easily recognized by signage at the termini of their routes.

Speed limits are kept low, which is not normally an issue, as the roads are only designated on local access roads rather than main arteries.  Local access, of course, implies that this is not out in the middle of nowhere.  People do in fact live along these roads, and usually petition to keep them pristine.

As you can see, the houses do tend to be a bit obscured, but the road is obviously still in developed areas, which is the whole point of such roads.  As you can see, the natural watercourse of a draining stream is exposed instead of tunneled under a subdivision.  The drain is not large by any means, and could easily be obscured to make more building-suitable high ground around it, but the property owners decided to keep their land as they found it.  The results are a wonderful green space in, of all places, heavily urbanized Wayne County in south east Michigan.

One could hardly guess that just based on the pictures.  Natural preservation of this sort raises land values, takes little maintenance or public spending, and gives us so much more in return.