While the NRI data suggest the rate of land development has increased, the increase is only marginally impacting the amount of open-space overall. In fact, developing a consistent federal response to open-space issues is problematic because states vary significantly in the amount of land developed. The most developed state in the nation is New Jersey where 35 percent of the state's land is developed. Less than 3 percent of many western states is developed. Already, the federal government owns more than 400 million acres, almost four times the amount of land developed according to the preliminary NRI data.
Some states have more than half their land locked up in federal and state wildlife preserves.
Not surprisingly, the greatest debates about open space occur at the local and regional level, not the national level. For example, Washtenaw County, Michigan was the focus of an intense fight to pass a property tax increase to fund a land preservation program. The county is home to Ann Arbor and part of the greater Detroit economic region, and the debate centered on farmland loss and the quality of life. Yet, more than half of Washtenaw County's land was still in rural and agricultural uses. Similarly, debates over growth management and land development have proliferated in largely rural and suburban areas, from Portland, Oregon to Ventura County, California to Lancaster County Pennsylvania.