As soon as conversations about housing or zoning surface in the Monadnock Region, a familiar cycle begins: heartfelt paeans to our forests, views, and small-town feel quickly calcify into resistance against even the mildest proposals that would allow more people to live near jobs, schools and services. What could be a good-faith discussion about climate strategy instead collapses into a defense of aesthetics—treating the preservation of green space as if it were the same thing as fighting climate change. And with each missed opportunity, emissions rise, housing scarcity deepens, and the region drifts further from its stated environmental values.
In 2024, Peterborough voters rejected extremely modest zoning amendments that would have allowed duplexes, triplexes, and accessory dwelling units only in areas already served by public water and sewer. In Lyndeborough, the Select Board formally opposed state-level proposals that would have loosened zoning restrictions to allow higher-density housing, citing concerns about local control and community character. In Dublin, proposals to permit smaller lots near the town center met immediate and intense resistance. Though differing in scope, all had one thing in common: They would have allowed more residents to live nearer to existing services and community hubs—an approach research overwhelmingly identifies as among the most effective ways to reduce per-capita emissions.
The U.S. Department of Energy reports that 42% of New Hampshire’s energy-related emissions come from transportation, largely because long car trips are built into low-density development. A 2023 Rocky Mountain Institute analysis shows households in small multifamily buildings emit 30–50% less carbon than those in detached single-family homes. Detached single-family homes require more land, more heating and cooling energy, and longer vehicle trips, meaning that the very housing type many communities treat as sacrosanct is also among the most carbon-intensive. And the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy finds that vehicle miles traveled jump 20–70% when households are pushed from walkable areas into rural lots. The pattern is consistent: sprawl raises emissions; infill reduces them.
Yet opponents of zoning reform fall back on ever-more tenuous redoubts—unspecified aesthetic objections and anxieties about density and change—illustrated by Peterborough comments lamenting “more dense development,” despite the well-established role of density in lowering emissions. What they do not explain, because they cannot, is how blocking infill while pushing growth outward can possibly align with what we know about climate impacts.
Restrictive zoning and resistance to modest infill have predictable social consequences. They create barriers for young families, lower-income households, and workers seeking housing near schools, jobs, and services. The Monadnock Region is over 90% white, and its housing patterns—large-lot zoning, strict limits on multifamily homes, and high minimum square footage requirements—mirror national trends that Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute link to structural racial and economic exclusion. Even when opposition is framed as protecting aesthetics or community character, the effect is exclusion: fewer affordable homes, rising rents, and reduced socioeconomic diversity. Local employers—from schools to healthcare providers—report that staff increasingly struggle to find housing within a reasonable distance of work.
Allowing modest density near existing infrastructure is the clear alternative. Duplexes, triplexes, and town-scale infill reduce car travel, lower household energy use, and preserve more open land over time by preventing outward sprawl. These patterns are not radical—they are how New England’s historic towns were originally built. Thoughtful, compact development provides net environmental and social benefits, even if it changes certain views or requires limited forest disruption. Long-term reductions in emissions and expanded housing access outweigh short-term aesthetic discomfort.
The problem is not unique to the Monadnock Region. Across New Hampshire and the Northeast, small towns resist modest zoning reforms designed to allow more housing in established areas. The consequences—higher emissions, fewer homes, and increased exclusion—are predictable and well-documented. If the region truly values its environment, housing access, and community vitality, it cannot allow visual preference to dictate land-use decisions.
A forested vista can look green without actually reducing emissions. Multifamily housing and denser new development may alter the landscape slightly but deliver measurable environmental benefits: lower per-capita energy use, reduced driving, and less land consumed by sprawl.
If the Monadnock Region hopes to protect both its natural beauty and its sense of community, we must look beyond appearances to the climate consequences of our choices. Conserving open space matters, but so does allowing people of all ages, incomes, and backgrounds to live near the places where life actually happens. A thoughtful embrace of modest density is not a departure from our values. It is how we keep this region climate-responsible, economically healthy, and genuinely open to the future.
Owen Mortner is a Dublin resident and Dublin School alumnus. He was the 2022 Truman Scholar for New Hampshire and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Swarthmore College.