Research Projects

Land Conservation and Urban Development in the Intermountain West

Start Date:
End Date:

Researchers
Susan Culp, Jim Holway, and Mia Stier

Description
JOINT VENTURE partnerships
Sonoran Institute, Phoenix, Arizona

The Lincoln Institute and the Sonoran Institute established
their joint venture partnership project to further
their respective yet overlapping missions to shape the
future of the Intermountain West by informing land use
policy. The joint venture seeks to enable public policies
that promote regional-scale planning, improve the management
of state and federal public lands West-wide, and
integrate energy, transportation, water, and conservation
infrastructure at the landscape level.
The geographic scope of the joint venture is the arid
Intermountain region. Special focus is on Arizona’s Sun
Corridor megaregion, the Western Slope of Colorado, and
the Crown of the Continent in Montana with these desired
outcomes: increasing knowledge concerning land use
policy in the West; providing valuable tools to urban planners
and public land managers; transforming place-based
demonstration projects into real-world laboratories that
inform our work; delivering knowledge gained through
our research to targeted audiences; and achieving our goals
by engaging with partners and decision makers who influence
land use policy at local, state, and federal levels.