Small cities and towns outside of significant natural amenities such as national parks, public lands, ski areas, and scenic rivers throughout the western United States are becoming increasingly popular places to visit and live. As a result, many of these gateway and natural amenity region (GNAR) communities — such as Jackson, WY, and Moab, UT — grapple with “big city” issues, including severe congestion, lack of affordable workforce housing, and concerns about sprawl. Other GNAR communities are just beginning to, or may soon, experience significant growth and tourism pressures.
The GNAR Initiative exists to help western GNAR communities thrive and preserve the things that make them special. Effective and proactive planning is critical for helping GNAR communities preserve and enhance the qualities that make them such desirable places to live and visit. We strive to help provide communities with resources and education to help them work toward this goal.
The GNAR Initiative provides education and learning resources to GNAR communities through our webinar series and other efforts aimed at building awareness and understanding of the unique experiences and concerns of western GNAR communities. Our core team also trains graduate and undergraduate students to understand and work in the unique contexts of GNAR communities.
Planners, public officials, consultants, and others working with western GNAR communities are seeking tools, information, and resources to assist in addressing challenges. We strive to provide a range of capacity building and planning support for GNAR communities and the people working in them. Check out our GNAR Network or Toolkit Pages for more info.
The GNAR Initiative serves as a hub to foster and support multi-university and trans-disciplinary research aimed at better documenting and understanding opportunities and challenges in GNAR communities. It also develops, supports, and studies evidence-based strategies for helping western GNAR communities thrive amid change. To learn more about our research projects and findings, see our Research page.
In 2017, professor Philip Stoker from the University of Arizona and I launched a major study to document and begin to understand the planning and development challenges in western gateway communities. At that time, there was no common term or typology for...
Danya Rumore, a professor of planning at the University of Utah, could feel her hometown changing. Sandpoint, Idaho, on the edge of Lake Pend Oreille in North Idaho, had always attracted visitors with its easy access to the Schweitzer ski area, but in the...
Somewhere between scrambling down a rocky drop-off on the side of the highway to a hidden slot canyon and taking a break under an enchanted grotto of mossy ferns, Ella Bagley stops and smiles. Beams, actually. “I thought I would be so stressed this whole...
Our guest for the hour today is Jordan Smith, Director of the Institute of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism at Utah State University. His work uses social media analytics and geospatial technologies to develop an understanding of how outdoor recreation is c...
