HVCEO - Town of Danbury, Connecticut

Natural Setting
and Town Origins
The attractive terrain and fertile, well-watered soils of the upper Still River Valley must have come to the notice of the colonial settlers along the Connecticut coast at an early date. Well-worn trails, made by the original inhabitants of the Danbury area in their frequent treks to the shoreline of Long Island Sound to gather seafood, led inland to the valley.

Eight families from the coastal towns of Norwalk and Stratford followed these trails inland in 1684 to establish a wilderness outpost at "Swampfield", now the site of central Danbury. This modest enterprise marked the beginning of permanent settlement in the ten-town Housatonic Valley Region.

Central Danbury lies in a broad bowl near the headwaters of the Still River. Rich limestone soils characterize this valley which extends eastward from Mill Plain, near the New York border, to Beaver Brook and northward through Brookfield to New Milford.

South and southwest of the center the terrain is mountainous, and there are several peaks that reach 900 to 1,000 feet above sea level, over 500 feet above the valley floor. Hills and semi-mountainous ridges, rising northward from the valley, form the high terrain of both northwestern and northeastern Danbury.

Completing the bowl east of the center is the rim of Shelter Rock, a semi-mountainous ridge which extends southward to the center of Bethel.

Many small tributary streams flow from the surrounding hills to this portion of the Still River. The principle tributaries flowing north from the southern uplands are Sawmill River, Miry, Sympaug, East Swamp and Limekiln Brooks, while from the northern upland area flow Middle River, Kohanza, Padanaram and Beaver Brooks.

Danbury's terrain encompasses many lakes: in addition to the two -mile long Danbury Bay of Lake Candlewood, there are the six City-owned water-supply reservoirs (Margerie, Padanaram, Upper and Lower Kohanza, East and West Lakes), all in the northern highlands, and over two dozen other sizeable ponds and small lakes. Two of the smaller lakes (Waubeeka and Kenosia), as well as the southern and eastern shores of Candlewood and several of the ponds, have substantial shoreline residential development.

TOPOGRAPHIC OVERVIEW OF DANBURY, CT
The highest elevation in Danbury is about 1,067 feet between the New York border
and West Lake Reservoir. Then the low point is about 293 feet in northeastern
Danbury as the Still River flows northerly into Brookfield. See the context
for terrain on the regional topographic map.

When the great glacier which once lay 6,000 to 7,000 feet thick over the northeast started melting about 16,000 years ago, the moving ice and meltwater drastically altered the face of the Danbury area (see glacial deposits map). (See also early research on glaciers and drainage development in Greater Danbury).

The deep continental-rift valley with its limestone base, roughly the present Sympaug and eastern Still Valleys, was filled with much sediment and large glacial lakes spread over the entire central valley area. When an outlet to the Housatonic finally emerged at the north end of the valley, extensive melt-water-created gravel terraces remained in the old lakebeds.

Danbury's stratified-drift aquifers, present under much of central Danbury and the Still valley, hold large quantities of groundwater and recharge the numerous streams and lakes of the lowlands. Sand and gravel mining has been a major economic activity throughout the valley for generations.

The upland areas of Danbury lie over crystalline bedrock from ancient mountain ranges, now much eroded. Here, too, the glacier altered the face of the land. The characteristic northwest to southeast ridges of heavy glacial-till soil and exposed ledges of bedrock remain from the melting-ice streams which tended to flow southeastward over the ice toward the ocean. Danbury's rich soils and abundant water formed the base for two of its earliest major industries: agriculture and hatmaking.

Danbury Development:
Beginnings to 1950
In 1684, directly following an agreement establishing the boundary between Connecticut and New York, the Connecticut General Court ordered "the planting of a Towne above Norwalk and Fayrefield... at Paquiaqe ", granting a territory six miles square for settlement. The immediate purpose was to provide a defense outpost against Indian raids from the west and north.

The location selected by the first settlers for their cluster of eight dwellings was a level plain at the geographic center of the land grant, just south of and near the Still River. The site was flanked east and west by the two low ridges of Town Hill and Deer Hill. A wide central path or street was laid out, running northward to the river, which provided frontage for four homelots on each side. Each of the homelots extended rearward to the top of the nearby ridge. This central path evolved into what is now the southern portion of Main Street, where a number of early houses, a green and two old burial grounds still survive.

As additional settlers arrived and took up the better farming lands in outlaying sections, rough paths or trails soon branched out in several directions from the original town street. At the time of its incorporation in 1687, the Town contained 20 families. By 1710, Danbury was no longer an isolated frontier community, for the General Court had granted additional charters in the western wilderness and settlements had begun at New Milford, Newtown and Ridgefield. A mill had been erected on the Still River. The original village expanded northward along the Town Street with houses, a meeting house, shops and taverns.

The Town's population grew rapidly. Large families were the rule and the decreasing availability of land in older settlements spurred migration to the inland areas. Outlying farmlands filled up quickly.

By 1756 there were 1,527 inhabitants in Danbury, and 18 years later, in 1774, a population of 2,526 persons. Danbury saw considerable action during the Revolutionary War, including the British raid on Danbury and the passing through of the French General Rochambeau.

At the close of the Revolution, in 1782, despite war casualties and economic losses, population had increased to 2,747. Virtually the entire population was engaged in agriculture, for every family required a farm for its basic sustenance. Nonetheless, as the eighteenth century population grew, numerous trades and individual person enterprises sprang into existence to serve local needs.

Although colonial era roads were primitive cart paths or rutted trails at best, Danbury lay at the intersection of an east-west route connecting central Connecticut with the Westchester County-Hudson Valley area and a north-south route from Litchfield County to Long Island Sound. When the war broke out in 1775, these routes assumed strategic importance because of British occupation of New York City and control of Long Island Sound shipping.

Danbury became a storehouse for colonial commerce and a military supply depot for American troops. Danbury's wartime experience in producing and shipping large quantities of merchandise, however, energized its entrepreneurs and led to a postwar boom in commerce and manufacture.

By 1800, Danbury shops led the country in fur hat production and were exporting 20,000 hats annually, all hand made in small shops. By 1836 there were 24 hat shops in operation. The same year the center of Danbury contained about a hundred dwellings and numerous other buildings, 9 mercantile stores, a printing office, two churches, a courthouse and an academy. During the 1830's, total employment in hatmaking surpassed total employment in all other manufacturing trades for the first time, a dominance which would last over a century.

These small shops and factories were largely concentrated along the banks of the Still River at the north end of the central village. The concentration of homes, businesses and manufacturing shops along the length of Main Street and environs resulted in a community of interest distinct from the surrounding rural town, and borough privileges were granted by the State in 1822.

The Borough of Danbury, which was enlarged several times as growth continued, was able to tax for and provide various facilities such as improved streets, fire protection, sidewalks and water supply which the rural dwellers were unwilling to support.

Transportation, needed to maintain contact with outside markets for locally produced goods, was a constant challenge in the early nineteenth century. Several turnpike roads were built, with Danbury as the hub. In 1835, it was estimated, annual passenger trips from Danbury to New York City reached 10,000 and 7,000 tons of freight were hauled from the region. A horse drawn rail line to tidewater, and also a canal to Westport, were separately proposed at this period but never built.

Finally in 1852, ten years after completion of the Housatonic Railroad from Bridgeport to New Milford, the Danbury and Norwalk Railroad was completed and the town had effective access to the outside world. The terminal stood on the east side of Main Street near the present post office.

In 1850, the population of Danbury reached 5,964 persons, a large majority of which was concentrated in the Borough, and Danbury was growing much faster then surrounding towns. 1855 saw the secession of the southeastern section of Danbury to form the new Town of Bethel, but despite the loss of about 27% of its territory and some 1500 persons, Danbury's population had increased 21% to 7,234 at the end of the 1850's.

Prior to this time hat making had been largely a highly skilled hand operation, but in 1849 a machine was introduced which could form fur felt hat bodies -- eliminating much hand labor and revolutionizing productive capacity. At the same time rails facilitated access to raw materials and made coal available to power the new industrial machinery.

This gave rise to consolidation of the hating industry as larger shops and factories replaced the small operations, which had numbered about 120 in 1850. The new factories were highly concentrated along the banks of the Still River from West Street to East Liberty Street.

With a growing national market the hating industry prospered throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century and the Borough expanded rapidly. Town population reached 11,666 in 1880 and 19,473 in 1890. During the 1880's over a thousand buildings were constructed, factory capacity increased, blocks of business buildings were erected along Main Street an White Street near the depot, and dozens of new residential streets were laid out.

Whole neighborhoods of fashionable Victorian-style homes were built along Terrace Place, Spring Street, Farview Avenue, West Street, Division Street, Pleasant Street, Deer Hill Avenue, Town Hill Avenue, Cottage Street, White Street, Balmforth Avenue and adjoining areas.

Several hotels, banks and churches were built. A horse-car street railway opened in 1887, and electric trolley cars debuted in 1894; eventually the street railway operated 12 miles of track from its "car barns" on South Street.

The 1880's were also the decade in which water supply reservoirs were built on Padanaram Brook and at East Lake, Main Street was paved with stone block, a fire alarm system was installed, Danbury Hospital was organized, the first electric lines were strung, and a telephone exchange -- which had 141 subscribers by 1883 -- began service.

In 1881, the New York and New England Railroad was completed as an east-west rail line through Danbury, connecting Waterbury and central Connecticut with Poughkeepsie and central New York State, affording greatly enhanced accessibility to Danbury.

During the period prior to World War I virtually all growth was confined to the central area, within the City's boundaries. The "Town" area outside remained rural and agricultural. Single lane dirt roads connected farms, scattered homes and district one-or-two room schools. Many of the rural school districts preserved a neighborhood social identity well into the twentieth century, such as Beaver Brook, Great Plain, Germantown, Middle River, Miry Brook, and King Street.

With the arrival of railroads, subsistence farming declined and was replaced by market-oriented agriculture producing dairy products, poultry, fruit and produce. While marginal farmland was abandoned larger farms prospered. Agricultural fairs had been held at various locations around the county prior to 1889; in that year the Danbury Fair was organized by leading agriculturists of Danbury and surrounding towns. The Fair quickly became a major annual event on its 142-acre tract in Mill Plain, spurring competition among farm exhibitors and attracting thousands of visitors every day during Fair Week.

By the 1890's, the zenith of the hatting industry had been reached and growth of the City came to a virtual standstill. Population remained the same in 1900 as in 1890. The industrial area, mostly hat factories, continued concentrated along the Still River although now the river was used only as a conduit for waste. A lawsuit by Beaver Brook farmers and other downstream landowners had forced the City to install sewers.

Later in the 1890's, a settling pond for sewage treatment near Triangle Street. The pond was destroyed in a flood in 1894 and hat factories continued to discharge quantities of acids, dyes, mercury and fur waste into the Still River, creating a badly polluted stream. In 1895, the City purchased a 200-acre farm in Beaver Brook and constructed a pioneering sewage filtration plant, considered at the time a model for a small city.

During the 1890-1910 period several neighborhood public schools, a high school and a parochial school, each of two-story construction with graded classes, were built in the city. Danbury Normal School, a State College for teachers and predecessor of Western Connecticut State University, was erected on White Street in 1905.

In 1890 the first permanent Danbury Hospital, a 23 bed wood frame Victorian structure, was built at the edge of the Town poor farm on Locust Avenue. Additional water supply reservoirs were constructed on Kohanza Brook and at West Lake.

At the turn of the century the City remained a compactly developed community centered about the commercial and public buildings of Main, West and White Streets, and the factories along the Still River. Fully developed residential neighborhoods extended out to include nearby portions of North Street, Locust Avenue, White Street, South Street, Pleasant Street and Highland Avenue. Beyond these neighborhoods, rural countryside remained.

Precipitated by labor strife, competition from other areas and a general economic slowdown in the 1890's, the hat making industry entered a long period of gradual decline. The industry revived with government orders in World War I and strong civilian demand for hats in the 1920's, only to enter its final period of decline during the Great Depression of the 1930's.

Danbury's strategic location again came to the fore in the age of the automobile. Among the earliest State "trunk line" highways to be improved, during the years from 1916 to 1930, were U.S. Routes 6, 7 and 202, connecting Danbury, east-west and north-south to other urban centers. Various State routes were also built during this era, radiating out from the center of Danbury and strengthening its position as a regional trading center; these included present-day Routes 37, 39, 53, 58, and 133.

With the paving of local roads and streets, and a rapid escalation in automobile ownership during the prosperous 1920's, growth began for the first time outside the old core city. Population, which had declined slightly during the years just prior to World War I resumed an increase in the 1920's as Danbury held on to jobs and became more of a regional trading center. With automobile access now available, the central business district still largely confined to the blocks along Main and White Street, developed a regional clientele.

Various new businesses such as movie theaters, specialty stores and automobile dealers opened in the central area. Traffic congestion appeared in the center where main routes converged and business parking was "at curb". Some institutional and other new buildings, notably a new Danbury High School (1927) on White Street, were erected but relatively little change in the landscape of the City occurred during this era between the World Wars.

New residential streets were being added at the western and northern peripheries of the City, however, some just beyond City boundaries were accessible to water and sewer. By 1920 electric and telephone lines extended throughout both City and Town. The year 1929 saw the City's adoption of a zoning code, the first in the region. A table of census population by decade for Danbury in this period is available.

The rural area of Danbury was changing in the twenties and thirties and dirt lanes became paved roads, rural neighborhood schools closed, farming declined and city people established country homes. Wooster School, a private preparatory school was established in 1926 on a 150 acre farm in the Miry Brook section and other farms in outlying sections became the country estates of illustrious persons.

Roadsides of the principal highways quickly attracted many small traffic-oriented commercial ventures, especially along Mill Plain and Newtown Roads (Route 6), Sugar Hollow and Federal Roads (Route 7). Gasoline filling stations, tourist cabins, refreshment stands, repair garages, antique shops, souvenir and produce stands, and billboards were but some of scattered uses being erected to capitalize on the motorist.

In 1928 a group of local aviation enthusiasts purchased a 60-acre tract near the Fairgrounds known as "Tucker's Field" and leased the property to the Town of Danbury for an airport. Throughout the 1930's, this flying field was simply a leveled grass field with a single hangar. With the advent of war in 1941 federal funds for airports usable by fighter planes became available and the Town bought out the corporation of private owners, forming the Municipal Airport.

The most far-reaching development of the 1920's, however, was the creation of Candlewood Lake. A narrow and somewhat sequestered valley, drained northward by Wood Creek and Rocky River, extended 11 miles from northern Danbury to the Housatonic River at New Milford. By 1928, the Connecticut Light and Power Company had acquired, by purchase and condemnation, the entire valley for a pumped storage hydroelectric reservoir to serve a generating plant at New Milford.

About 35 homes, some seasonal cottages and a number of farms, comprising 5,420-acres in Danbury, New Fairfield, Brookfield, Sherman and New Milford, were cleared and the reservoir filled with water by late 1929. Connecticut's largest lake, and one of it's most scenic with deeply indented bays and 80 miles of shoreline, came into being.

Speculators and land developers rushed to acquire lake front acreage. Aqua Vista, Cedar Heights, Pleasant Acres and a number of other summer cottage communities began to be built almost immediately. Building lots in these early developments were small, and cottages were seasonal. By 1940 several hundred cottages, virtually all seasonal, had been built in a series of lakefront communities from Wildman's Landing to Pocono Point near the New Fairfield line.

On the opposite (west) shore of the lake, centered in a 350-acre tract of former hilltop farmland, a federal prison was constructed in 1938-40. The Danbury Federal Correctional Institution was designed to accommodate 600 "tractable" inmates but has housed nearly 1,000 at various times.

Building construction in Danbury, other than lakefront cottages, slowed dramatically during the depression years of the 1930's and war years of the 1940's. Population increased only slightly, and joblessness was a problem throughout the 1930's.

What did Danbury's neighborhoods look like in 1934? Check them out on this highly detailed aerial photograph. You will see a lot of farm land, for according to the U. Conn Dept. of Agriculture in 1935 there were 259 agricultural businesses in Danbury occupying 56% of the City's total area.

As the specter of war approached in 1940, however, idle factories began to receive government orders for defense materials. A new firm, the Barden Corporation, was launched in an old mill building to manufacture precision ball bearings for bomb sights, and Danbury benefited generally from the booming war economy.

By war's end, industrial diversification was well advanced and in 1949 the number of workers employed in industry other than hatting exceeded those in hat making for the first time since 1831.

Fortunately some of Danbury's scenic road character from this early era has been formally preserved for the future.

Danbury Development:
1950 to 2000
At mid-century, in 1950, the densely built-up area of Danbury was still largely limited to the City and its immediate environs. The City's official boundaries extended west to Oil Mill Pond and Highland Avenue, north to Hayestown Avenue, east to Somers and Cross Streets, and south to the middle of Coalpit Hill and Rogers Park, but there were many built-up residential neighborhoods adjacent to the City's west, north and east bounds.

With the close of World War II a major housing boom erupted, fueled by wartime savings, general prosperity as industries rushed to produce consumer goods, delayed family formation and low-cost veterans' mortgages. Extensive subdivision of land began in many areas of rural Danbury, at first in those areas most accessible to City services such as Mill Plain, Hayestown, Germantown and Shelter Rock, but in later decades throughout the western, northern and eastern sections.

Population reached 30,337 in 1950 and soared 67% over the next two decades, to 50,781 in 1970. Before I-84 was constructed Routes 6, 7 and 202 were channeled thru Downtown Danbury, as shown on this map. All three thru route are now combined with I-84 which was built north of the Downtown.

For an overview of the extent of land development in Danbury, CT near 1950, a review of 1946-53 USGS Topographic Maps for Danbury will be of interest (sample above).

By 1990, four decades after the boom started, population growth was slowing down but Danbury had more than doubled in size to 65,585 inhabitants. Most of this residential growth consisted of single-family dwellings on individual lots beyond the area served by water and sewer at the end of World War II, and a large proportion of it was on acre, one acre and two acre lots.

But gradual growth did continue in portions of the central area as new low-rise apartments were constructed in such localities as North Street, West Wooster Street, Coalpit Hill, Wildman Street and Tamarack Avenue, and numerous conversions to two or three family use occurred in old single-family neighborhoods. Several medium-density condominium or apartment projects were also built in such outlying areas as Mill Plain and Nabby Road.

Throughout this period, also, extensive conversions of lakefront cottages to year-round residences took place, and new permanent homes were built on small lots originally intended for seasonal cottages. In 1950, approximately 2,900 acres of land in Danbury were occupied by dwellings; by 1990 land in residential development was over 9,900 acres.

The boom in residential growth reflected not only the outward expansion of the New York metropolitan area and easy accessibility of the Danbury area for commuting to other centers, but also a significant turnaround in Danbury's economy. Long in a state of gradual decline, employment in the hatting industry dropped from 5,500 people to only 500 in the twenty years between 1950 and 1970 as the demand for hats collapsed. Decades of effort by community leaders to diversify the industrial base had finally begun to succeed during World War II with new technology and new firms producing war-related goods.

Industrial products made in 1950 included, in addition to hats and hatters' fur, precision ball bearings, surgical instruments, gun sight equipment, cosmetic containers, oil burners, shirts and children's wear. Many of the new industrial plants built just prior to 1950 were located in the southeastern or Shelter Rock vicinity; these included Preferred Utilities, Consolidated Controls, Republic Foil, Sperry Products, and Connor Engineering.

Over the next twenty years, from 1950 to 1969, more than 60 new industries located in Danbury including such major firms as Viking Wire, Heli-Coil, Davis & Geck, Eagle Pencil, Branson Sonic Power, and National Semi-conductor, and the Danbury economy grew by 10,000 non-hatting jobs.

It had always been intuitive to shape Danbury's development to natural features of the underlying landscape. These are "constraints on development" due to soil, slope and flood plain.

But as planning and zoning modernized, consideration of these limiting natural features became more formalized in local land use regulations, this trend due in part to newly available federal and state natural resource maps.

HVCEO as the regional planning agency for Danbury was formed in 1968, the word "Housatonic" in its title having its source in an old indian name.

After the arrival of Connecticut's1973 wetlands protection law, development potential in Danbury was significantly reduced as the approximately 12% of municipal land area defined as wetland was largely excluded from development.

But development continued on good land with the peak of the boom in light industrial development reached in the 1970's. By 1974, another 40 new companies had moved into the community. More significantly, the great majority of the new jobs of the 1970's and later were in the high-technology and administrative category. By 1980, the majority of people working in the ten largest firms were "white collar" personnel.|

Corporate offices, high-technology industry and research firms were the dominant economic development forces of the two decades from 1970 to 1990. New firms included Hughes Optical, Unimation, Atomic Energy Research Corp., Duracell Products, Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals and corporate headquarters of Ethan Allen, Grolier, and Union Carbide. The Carbide building, south of I-84 near the New York State line, is the largest office building in the state.

Hatmaking had finally ceased entirely in the 1980's and principal products in 1990 included, among others too numerous to list, specialized machines, heat and power units, helicopters, flight refueling apparatus, screw thread inserts, surgical instruments, leather goods, precision bearings, electronic robots, air conditioning equipment, and computers.

Major new areas of the community which had been developed for the new firms, and now comprised low-density industrial and corporate office "parks", covered extensive acreages in the Shelter Rock, Beaver Brook-Eagle Road, Sherman Turnpike, Sugar Hollow-Miry Brook, and Mill Plain-Old Ridgebury sections. From approximately 200-acres of industry in 1950, industrial and corporate office use had grown to 941-acres in 1990.

Danbury's strategic location, available land, highway, airport and utility facilities, skilled labor pool, and very attractive residential environment had transformed it from a declining mill town to a prosperous and dynamic center of high-technology industry and corporate services.

Commercial growth escalated along with residential, office and industrial growth. Although scattered, roadside commercial development had been occurring along principal highways for two decades prior to World War II, in 1950 the principal concentration of business activity remained in the downtown central business district -- primarily Main, West, South and White Streets, and adjacent blocks.

But the old central business district, with its lack of expansion space, was no match for the soaring purchasing power, automobile mobility and available land which lay outside the CBD. By the 1950's, large shopping centers were under construction on North Street (Rte. 37) and Newtown Road (Rte. 6), and many smaller commercial enterprises were locating along arterial streets leading out of the center.

By 1980, nearly continuous commercial development -- retail, service, offices, automotive, wholesale and general businesses lined the frontages of Mill Plain Road to Old Ridgebury Road, Newtown Road to the Bethel line, and Federal Road to the Brookfield line. Within these frontages, and along several other streets, were another dozen shopping centers of varying size.

In the mid-1980's the largest commercial development in Danbury's history occurred with the opening of the Danbury Fair Mall. Located on the former fairgrounds site of 142-acres, the 70-acre enclosed shopping mall is anchored by three major department stores and contains scores of smaller retail outlets as well as parking for thousands of vehicles. An interchange on the Route 7 expressway, just south of its junction with Interstate 84, leads directly to the mall parking lot.

For many years prior to 1950, the old central business district thrived with small department and clothing stores, furniture, automotive and specialty shops, a hotel and numerous restaurants. Most of these business lines are now in the outlying shopping centers, or, in the case of the bus terminal, auto sales, hotels and restaurants, near the expressway interchanges. Reflecting the growth and decentralization which has occurred, Danbury's commercial area grew from about 400-acres in 1950 to 1,059-acres in 1990.

Although seen as a disaster at the time, a devastating flood in October 1955 led to a major flood control project and redevelopment around Main and White Streets. In 1957-59, the Interstate 84 expressway was completed through Danbury and adjacent area, greatly expediting access to other urban centers and to Danbury's industrial areas.

The rapid increase in Danbury's population compelled a major school construction program. Three completely new elementary schools (Great Plain, Shelter Rock and King Street) were completed in May 1965, and a totally new Danbury High School on Clapboard Ridge was dedicated the same year. Between 1970 and 1972, two more elementary schools (Pembroke and Stadley Rough) and a second junior high school (Rogers Park) were built. Four parochial elementary schools had been established in earlier years and in 1962 a diocesan secondary school (Immaculate High School) was constructed off Southern Boulevard.

During this era the State College expanded its campus on White Street and became Western Connecticut State University. In the late 1970's the University acquired a 300-acre tract between Mill Plain Road and West Lake for long-range development of a new campus; to date a performing arts center, business school, dormitory and sports complex have been constructed.

Other new public buildings were needed. In a 1970's building program the City constructed a new City Hall on Deer Hill Avenue, a new Police Station and a new Library, each on Main Street, and several fire stations. A new State court house was constructed on White Street during the 1980's.

By the later seventies only very small portions of the long-planned Route 7 Expressway had been completed northward from I-84 to central Brookfield and southward from I-84 beyond Danbury Airport. The final verdict on this massive roadway proposal was that it would never come up from Norwalk and cross northerly thru Ridgefield, Redding and Danbury (see map of proposed route).

Growth also compelled public policy changes. Zoning regulations were finally adopted to control land use in the Town portion of Danbury in 1960, and City zoning regulations dating from 1929 were updated in 1963. Sewer studies started during this period led to significant expansion of sewers thereafter.

After approval in a September 1963 referendum, Danbury's two governments were consolidated into a single City of Danbury under a mayor and council on January 1, 1965. Comprehensive City-wide zoning regulations became effective in August 1971 and as mapped today (3.7 MB) reflect the complexity of the City as an urban area. . Land cover changes from 1985 to 2002 may be viewed on comparative maps of Danbury.

After four decades of nearly explosive growth, Danbury was a changed community. The City was justifiable proud when in 1988 Money Magazine declared Danbury and its adjacent urban area as the best place to live in the entire USA. That magazine's national survey included such factors as good schools, low crime rate, ample leisure activities and high quality medical care, all found to be outstanding here.

No longer a compact, aging single-industry small town with large rural hinterland, Danbury in 1990 was a cosmopolitan small city with a diverse and highly sophisticated economy. Except for the southern and western fringes of the city, suburban residential development now spread across large areas of the landscape.

All categories of developed or committed land use had increased greatly since 1950. Developed land totaled about 4,550 acres in 1950 and 14,400 acres in 1990. Recreation and open space land had also increased over the same period, from about 700 acres to nearly 2,300 acres. After allowing for undevelopable water supply lands, wetlands and water bodies, less than 28% of Danbury is now undeveloped.

Danbury's population reached 74,848 in 2000, a stunning increase of 14% over 1990, with Connecticut as a whole increasing by a lesser 3.6% during that same period. Such a major population gain for a city in Connecticut is unprecedented, and is clearly indicative of social and economic health. Having moved into the the twenty first century, Danbury will be the vibrant center of Western Connecticut and a City with suburbs proud to be associated with it.

To better understand land use features in Danbury today, of value are inventories of the City's retail centers, large buildings housing major employers, corporate office developments, multi-family housing complexes and local places of worship.

Also of interest, local transportation improvement needs are defined in the Danbury section of the Transportation Planning Resource Center. For a logical path for Danbury's future land use to follow, the HVCEO Regional Development Plan presents sound advice.For a more localized view see the very fine 2002 Danbury Plan of Conservation and Development.