For most of the two hundred or so years of developed land use in this area, the demands upon the land steadily increased, but the lifestyle of the rural and town residents remained similar and interrelated. The main town--Winchester--and the villages--Decherd, Estill Springs, Huntland, Sewanee, Sherwood--were small and directly related to the surrounding farms by interest, commerce, trade. With some exceptions, most of the food and goods consumed daily in the household were locally produced. The infrastructure was simple: roads were gravel, plumbing was entirely local, electricity was absent, and there were no cars and no need for a regular supply of gasoline.

In this context, the land was used largely to produce food and to generate a small income for the land owners. The land itself did not have to bear the burden of supporting the expanded infrastructure of services inherent in the late 20th century lifestyle. By the 1990's markets and economies were already global, and few aspects of local life remained untouched by larger regional, national and international effects. The origin of most clothing sold in local stores is a lesson in geography for any who read the labels: local stores now sell clothing manufactured in Albania, China, Bahrain, Brazil, Romania, Korea, Taiwan, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore. The origins of common foods and manufactured goods is equally diverse. Very few consumer goods in the county are produced locally.

More important however is the rise in expectations of municipal services that have accompanined the general shift in lifestyles noticeable since the 1950's in America. In 1900, there were two marginal fire brigades in the county. The general rule was that any structure that caught fire burned to the ground. The best that the fire brigades usually could hope for was to protect nearby structures and prevent a conflagration. Today, fire insurance is an obligatory feature of the mortgage lending system, and there is considerable local pressure not only to equip and support local fire departments but also to extend municipal water mains through out the county. Although septic tanks remain common in rural areas, political pressures--driven in part by environmental concerns--steadily increase for the extension of sewer lines into the country side. Where once it was a general practice to dump untreated sewage into watercourses, now communities are building expensive water treatment facilities.

In 1950, most roads in this county were unimproved; by 1970 all but the least used were "paved"--commonly with tar and gravel. Today, although a few lanes and public roads remain gravel, paving is the general condition and expectation. Along with paving roads must be maintained by ditch and edge maintenance and by periodic patching and scheduled repaving. For most of the last 200 years, local residents dumped their trash and refuse into ditches and ravines or burned it in a backyard pit or barrel. Fortunately, for most of this time, there were relatively few consumer goods, most usable containers were recyled for domestic use, and food waste was recycled to the hog trough. With the post-World War II development of vast consumer product lines, based upon plastics and synthetics, the volume of trash has risen exponentially. Very little of this waste is domestically recyclable. Tennessee and Franklin County indexed to trash-per-person are as American as any other locality, sometimes exceeding the average of 4# per person per day. Today the municipalities and the county must support very expensive trash collection and disposal schemes. Neighboring Grundy County currently estimates that its solid waste disposal costs may soar to $200,000 per month in the next two years.

The infrastructure and the network support of the new lifestyle is costly. The county and the local municipal units have been severely strained to meet current demand or to protect services against rising costs and increasing regulation. Expansion of services--a new water line, a new sewage treatment plant, a macadam surface on a road, a new bridge over a dry creek watercourse, a new trash "convenience center"--all cost money that is fiercely competed for and which has been relatively inelastic in supply. Schools, jails, hospitals, and courthouses cost even more than general services. Direct agricultural property taxes cannot sustain the infrastructure of modern municipal services. The land as used for farming does not generate revenue for the people; it generates revenue for the farmer. Five hundred acres of agricultural land with farmhouse and barns will generate about $xxxx of county revenues per year. The same 500 acres sub-divided into half acre lots improved with 1600 square foot houses will generate $xxxx per year.

Across America and visible in this county as well a combination of powerful social and economic forces inevitably lead to the exchange of farmland for residential or commercial purposes. Short of massive industrial development which the rural areas of Tennessee have had difficulty creating, county government and local municipalities do not have available an adequate tax base to support the services expected of government. Locally it is much the common practise to blame TVA, builder of Tims Ford Dam , and the now defunct TERDA--Tennessee Elk River Development Agency--for changing the way of life in the county. Yet the lands claimed by TVA for the Tims Ford Project and re-developed as recreational and real estate properties have generated far more county revenue that the original farms. The lesson for planners and managers is simple: farms don't pay for infrastructure; houses and businesses and industries do. Very few people any longer are willing to exchange their electricity, paved roads, and "city water" for the nostalgia of rural life here 75 years ago.

These economic forces are clearly seen in the distribution of cable TV: cable operators are very reluctant to string miles of cable to service just a few families; their return per foot of cable strung is much greater in a sub-division than among farms. The principle is the same although unrecognized with electricity and water: usage pays the bill of development. Farms with water and electricity, paved roads and sheriff patrols, have enjoyed decades of unaccountablilty because of the American ideology of the small farm. Today, as economic forces have leveraged political realities, we see small farms being rapidly being brought within the orbit of economic accountability. Farmland is being transformed into revenue producing land to pay for the lifestyle that both non-farmers and farmers enjoy.