Franklin & Marshall College

LANCASTER, Pa. – Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Thomas Hylton will discuss "Save Our Land, Save Our   Towns: Growing Communities, Not Sprawl" on Monday, March 30 at 7:30 p.m. in Stahr Auditorium, Stager Hall.  The talk, co-sponsored by the Center for Liberal Arts and Society, the Campus Sustainability Committee, and the Susquehanna Sustainable Business Network, is free and open to the public and is in celebration of Sustainability Week.

According to Hylton, for the last five decades, Americans have unwittingly pursued a policy of abandoning our cities and towns, ravaging our countryside with sprawling development, and destroying our sense of community in the process.  "Through careful planning, we can encourage a neighborhood-focused way of life -- centered around villages, towns, and cities -- that can reduce our cost of living, preserve open space, protect the environment, encourage upward mobility, and give us a feeling of place and belonging," he says.

Hylton is author of a color coffee table book called Save Our Land, Save Our Towns. The book is a plea for comprehensive planning to save our cities, towns, and countryside.

He is also host of an hour-long public television documentary called "Save Our Land, Save Our Towns." The program has been broadcast during primetime on all Pennsylvania PBS stations and has aired on more than 100 PBS stations nationwide. As president of Save Our Land, Save Our Towns Inc., a non-profit corporation, Hylton serves as an advocate of traditional towns that house people of all ages, races, and incomes.

Since publication of the book, Hylton has given more than 400 presentations in Pennsylvania and 34 other states on land use planning and community building. He addressed the nation's governors at the winter 2001 conference of the National Governors' Association. He has given talks to legislators sponsored by both the Democratic and Republican caucuses of the Pennsylvania House and Senate.

Hylton is an organizing member of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, a coalition of civic groups dedicated to land use reforms and community building in Pennsylvania.

A three-time winner of the American Planning Association's annual journalism award, Hylton received a fellowship from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1993 to study state planning issues.

A native of Wyomissing, Pa., Hylton has lived his entire life in Pennsylvania cities and towns. Since 1973, he has lived in Pottstown with his wife, Frances, an elementary school teacher in the Pottstown School District. For 22 years, he wrote for Pottstown's daily newspaper, The Mercury. His editorials advocating the preservation of farmland and open space in southeastern Pennsylvania won a Pulitzer Prize in 1990.

Hylton conceived and organized Trees Inc., a non-profit corporation that raised nearly $500,000 to plant and maintain street trees in Pottstown. He co-founded Preservation Pottstown, an organization dedicated to preserving Pottstown's historic neighborhoods and enhancing the borough's quality of life. He helped bring about the integration of Pottstown's elementary schools through a special edition of The Mercury advocating the cause.

Hylton is chairman of the Pottstown Planning Commission and the Pottstown Shade Tree Commission. Pottstown Council recently adopted an innovative "user-friendly" zoning ordinance Hylton wrote with a grant from the William Penn Foundation.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: MARCY DUBROFF (717) 291-3837
E-MAIL: MARCY.DUBROFF@FANDM.EDU
WEB: HTTP://WWW.FANDM.EDU