Rural Roots Sunday - What We Leave Behind?

By Connie Conley, a Rural Area Resident

"…The Rural Area is valued in our community for its aesthetic and cultural significance, as well as the economic and educational opportunities that agriculture provides. Our commitment to maintaining the Rural Area is clear and codified in core planning documents…" Elk Grove General Plan, December 2025

Every generation makes decisions that shape the community the next generation will inherit.

 Some decisions can be changed.

 Others cannot.

 Once rural land is transformed by development, we cannot simply decide years later that we want it back. The open land, rural roads, mature trees, farms, animals, dark skies and sense of space that have defined Rural Elk Grove for generations can disappear one parcel at a time.

 That is why decisions affecting Rural Elk Grove are about more than those of us who live here today.

 Future generations deserve a voice, too.

 They cannot stand before the Planning Commission or City Council. They cannot write letters, attend meetings or speak during public comment.

 So, we must think about them when we make decisions today.

 Many of us inherited something special.

 We inherited a part of Elk Grove where children can still grow up knowing what it is like to hear roosters in the morning, see horses along a country road, pick fruit from a backyard tree, look into a dark night sky and understand that rural life still has a place within a growing city.

That rural character is not valuable only to the people who happen to own property there.

It is part of Elk Grove's identity.

Years ago, an Elk Grove community survey asked residents what they loved most about their city. The leading category included Elk Grove's small-town feel, quiet and rural character, and sense of community. One resident specifically described Rural Elk Grove as a “treasure” that adds another dimension to life in the city.

That is worth remembering as Elk Grove continues to grow.

Growth will happen. Communities change. New homes and businesses will be built.

But progress should not require us to erase everything that came before it.

Our General Plan and planning decisions determine far more than what happens to a particular piece of property. Collectively, they determine what kind of Elk Grove we leave behind.

And that raises a question we should ask every time a decision threatens to permanently change Rural Elk Grove: What will our children and grandchildren inherit from us?

Will they inherit a city that grew while still protecting the qualities that made it distinctive?

Or will they inherit photographs and stories about a Rural Elk Grove that previous generations once had the opportunity to preserve?

That is what Rural Roots Sunday has always been about.

It is not simply a collection of stories about the past. It is a reminder that today's decisions will someday become someone else's history.

One day, another generation will tell the story of what happened to Rural Elk Grove.

We are writing that story right now.

I hope its final chapter says that when growth pressures became stronger, Elk Grove recognized that some things were worth protecting.

That its leaders looked beyond the next project and the next few years.

That residents stood up not only for themselves, but for people they would never meet.

 And that together, we understood something very simple:

We inherited Rural Elk Grove. We should not be the generation that leaves our children only photographs of it.