Preserving Winescapes amid North America’s Urban Sprawl*

Abstract

Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula and California’s Napa Valley, both smaller than most of the world’s famed wine regions, exist within two of the most densely populated regions in North America. Their fields, orchards, and vineyards faced pressure from expanding metropolises and became part of ongoing debates about the loss of prime agricultural lands in Canada and the United States. In 1968, Napa County created one of the world’s first agricultural preserves to stave off sprawl. In 2005, after decades of debate, the Ontario government included the Niagara Peninsula in a greenbelt for the larger Toronto metropolitan region; its agricultural provisions mimicked Napa’s preserve. Boosters in both regions have emphasized the multifunctionality of the countryside. In the end, however, wine production and the tourism it engendered offered financial benefits that few other crops provided. Winescapes proved essential to protecting rural spaces. Yet differences also emerge in these histories. The complexity of land use and of municipalities in Niagara complicated efforts to preserve agricultural lands.