MISSION
SCENIC UTAH is a state-wide grassroots organization working to protect and enhance the scenic qualities of our communities, countryside, and roadways. We partner with geographically diverse groups who share the common goal of safeguarding the extraordinary visual character of the Beehive State, and promote policies that encourage community engagement, protect and enhance scenic beauty, and limit visual pollution.
SCENIC AMERICA
SCENIC UTAH is a state affiliate of Scenic America, the only US-based nonprofit dedicated to preserving and enhancing the visual character of America's communities and countryside. Scenic America supports the public sector in preserving and enhancing our scenic environment through billboard and sign control efforts, and supports programs and policies focused on limiting visual blight, protecting scenic public lands and byways, undergrounding utility wires, reforming the Highway Beautification Act of 1965, and other efforts focused on scenic conservation and aesthetic community design.
HISTORY
A White House Conference on Natural Beauty convened by President and Lady Bird Johnson in 1965 led to passage of the Highway Beautification Act, aimed at controlling outdoor advertising and roadside blight along America’s new Interstate highways. Sadly, since passage of the Act, outdoor advertisers have been successfully gutting it. Today, many of our highways and communities are shrouded in visual pollution that leaves ugly and indelible marks on our landscapes, our viewsheds, and our psyches. Inspired by the intent of the Highway Beautification Act, Scenic America and its affiliates like SCENIC UTAH believe protecting our scenic values should be seen as it was 50 years ago: as an act of patriotism. Investment in scenic conservation and preservation should be an integral part of local and national policy making. And citizens and their elected leaders should have a say in how their communities look.