As a woman rising up within the late Seventies, Heather Uhlar spent many joyful hours using her pony alongside the filth roads in her hometown, Chatham, N.Y., stopping right here and there to swim in a creek or amble by way of rolling pastures flecked with asters and goldenrods.

Even then, she understood that Chatham’s filth roads have been one thing fantastic.

“I simply at all times thought filth roads gave our space character,” Ms. Uhlar stated not too long ago. “They made us particular.”

Since then, as Chatham has grown, Ms. Uhlar has seen a few of the prettiest roads get paved over. In her dismay, she helped begin a nonprofit, the Chatham Dust Street Coalition, which lobbies to advertise an appreciation for filth roads and sluggish the advance of the asphalt vehicles.

It turned out lots of people felt as she did: In a city of about 4,100 folks, her Fb group now has greater than 1,300 members. In accordance with the coalition’s web site, filth roads “are a dwelling connection to our historical past.” The location incorporates a hand-drawn map of the city, which depicts Chatham’s community of filth roads in mild brown.

Not everybody shares Ms. Uhlar’s enthusiasm for filth roads. Unpaved byways are tough to take care of and costlier in the long term than gravel; they’re additionally muddy in ‌spring and dusty in ‌summer season.

“Actually,” stated Jeff Antalek, Chatham’s freeway superintendent, “I’ve by no means gotten a name from anyone that lives on a paved highway that informed me they need me to tear it up and switch it into an unpaved highway.”

Mr. Antalek lives on a dust highway himself. “I’ve vintage vehicles,” he stated. “It’s a royal ache driving them out and in. They get soiled, even simply sitting in my barn due to the mud off the highway.”

Coalition members don’t dispute that filth roads are costly and sometimes a nuisance. They merely agree that the trouble and further price to take care of them are effectively value it.

“It’s totally different strolling on a dust highway than it’s strolling on a macadam highway,” stated John Wapner, a psychologist who lives in Chatham in an 1852 farmhouse. You’ll be able to drive quick on asphalt, he stated, however filth roads drive you to decelerate, take within the surroundings and benefit from the rural quiet. You discover belongings you wouldn’t have in any other case.

“It feels to me such as you’re strolling on the land, not over the land,” Mr. Wapner added.

As filth highway followers see it, one thing important to the city’s id is misplaced every time a highway is paved.

A century in the past, Chatham was an agricultural city, its rocky hills dominated by small dairy farms. However as household farms have progressively disappeared, increasingly weekenders have arrived from New York Metropolis, two and a half hours to the south. Dust roads that after handed solely a farmhouse or two can now be shared by 20 or extra residences.

In contrast to a few of its neighboring cities within the Hudson Valley, Chatham nonetheless has extra filth roads than asphalt ones. However visitors has grown, rising the strain to pave.

One chilly Sunday morning not too long ago, Ms. Uhlar, 49, stood exterior her household’s stables in using breeches and a dirt-smudged windbreaker. A part of her fondness for filth roads stems from her love of horses. Within the pasture close by, her Irish sport horse, Valhalla, rolled on its again contentedly, as Ms. Uhlar enumerated the roads misplaced to asphalt throughout her lifetime.

There was Woodward Street, the place she grew up. After it was paved, vehicles began driving sooner previous her home, and her dad and mom grew extra protecting about letting her play exterior. There was Jefferson Hill Street, the place she used to go using. And Drowne Street, the place her mom as soon as labored at an area promoting company. Ms. Uhlar used to go to her there within the afternoons. “That one broke my coronary heart,” she stated.

Nowadays, she avoids using on paved roads altogether, principally out of concern for her horses. An excessive amount of time on asphalt, she stated, could make a horse lame.

The battle between the paved and the unpaved is hardly new. In 1986, The New York Instances, in an article titled “Debate on Dust Roads: Attraction vs. Consolation,” chronicled how residents of Bedford, Lewisboro and different New York suburbs recognized for his or her rustic byways have been sad about impassable and rutted roads.

But throughout the nation, as growth pressures enhance, a rising variety of cities are taking steps to protect filth roads. And in some circumstances, paved roads are being restored to gravel, stated David Orr, the director of the Cornell College Native Roads Program.

Mr. Orr stated the motion had gained steam within the Hudson Valley after the terrorist assaults of Sept. 11, 2001, when many individuals fled town seeking rural security and tranquillity. Some cities have handed legal guidelines to guard filth roads and set up new standards for paving.

In Chatham, what in the end spurred Ms. Uhlar to motion have been rumors that a number of huge development tasks have been within the works, together with a winery that may double as a marriage venue.

“Mainly, when you’ve huge-scale usages on filth roads,” Ms. Uhlar stated, “they’re going to get paved. You’ll be able to’t have that a lot visitors going up and down. Finally, they’re going to wish to widen the highway. And that nervous me.”

Her considerations have been shared by Doug Welch, 69, a longtime resident who’d spent a profession in promoting.

Mr. Welch grew up within the suburbs of Washington, D.C., coming to New York Metropolis after faculty. Finally, he purchased a second residence in Chatham, the form of picturesque outdated farmhouse that has been fueling the desires of greenery-starved New Yorkers for generations. (His quaint nation residence turned out to have a considerably anomalous historical past: Throughout World Warfare I, it was briefly owned by the Horwitz household, whose sons would acquire fame because the Three Stooges.)

Mr. Welch shortly grew besotted by the world’s rural allure and finally moved to Chatham full time. He additionally grew to become a dust highway devotee, given to quoting the naturalist John Muir, who stated, “Of all of the paths you soak up life, make sure that just a few of them are filth.”

When Mr. Welch noticed how standard Ms. Uhlar’s group had change into, he determined to marshal his promoting abilities in help of the trigger. His aim was nothing lower than ending paving in Chatham. “You don’t wait till the machines are on the finish of the highway,” Mr. Welch stated, “to let folks know you worth the roads.”

The coalition distributed bumper stickers and the filth highway maps. It raised cash to lease billboards on the town, reminding residents that filth roads are “a rural heritage value preserving.”

It additionally grew to become a sponsor of a preferred dirt-road bike race known as the Farmer’s Daughter Gravel Grinder, which pulls a whole bunch of individuals to Chatham every Might.

Mr. Welch found the coalition at an auspicious second. The city of Chatham was drawing up a complete plan, and a survey of residents confirmed sizable help for preserving filth roads. Partly for price range causes, Chatham hasn’t launched into a significant paving undertaking since then. However some city officers privately acknowledge that the coalition’s efforts have additionally made them reluctant to broach the topic.

In fact, some folks on the town would like to see an asphalt truck come their method. Ronald MacFarlane lives on a dust highway that connects a significant state route with a closely traveled native one. It tends to get plenty of by way of visitors.

“I dwell 300 ft off the highway, and we are able to get mud in the home,” Mr. MacFarlane stated. “When a car goes by, it appears like a mud cloud, and the wind blows it as much as the home finally.” Mr. MacFarlane has really pleaded with the city to pave his highway, however, he stated, has been informed that cash’s too tight.

“I even considered operating for city supervisor at one time to get it executed,” he added.

Paving roads might be costly, however, in the long term, sustaining them turns into cheaper, stated Mr. Antalek, the freeway superintendent. Dust roads have to be regraded every spring, at appreciable expense, and a heavy rain could make them nearly impassable. Final 12 months, Chatham went by way of almost 14,000 tons of gravel to repair ruts and potholes, at a value of almost $100,000.

“It’s nearly a shedding battle with filth roads,” Mr. Antalek stated. “You nearly can’t throw sufficient cash at them to maintain them effectively maintained.”

Residing on a dust highway might be an ordeal, particularly in springtime, when the bottom thaws and the roads flip right into a muddy quagmire, stated Gail Behrens Day, whose household are longtime farmers in Chatham. However you study to regulate, she stated. Within the moist months, you are taking the pickup truck to city as an alternative of the automobile.

“It’s simply the rhythm of the highway,” Ms. Day stated. “You recognize there’s going to be a mud season, and it’s going to be days, or it might be two weeks, when it is likely to be actually unhealthy. Nevertheless it’s going to get higher.”

After which there’s washboarding, a phenomenon through which horizontal ridges kind over time on the highway’s floor and may make a automobile rattle like a aircraft going by way of turbulence. Drivers who go too quick on filth roads eventually pay a value in damaged axles and ruined tires. Ms. Day identified a close-by home that was not too long ago bought by a musician from Brooklyn.

“When he first got here, he drove too quick. Now, he doesn’t drive too quick. I feel he figured it out on his personal,” she stated dryly.

Mr. Welch admits that filth roads might be tough on vehicles. He stated he needed to substitute his tires each 20,000 miles or so. However he wouldn’t have it some other method.

“It’s simply form of important for the character of Chatham. In the event you pave the roads, it’s not Chatham anymore,” he stated.

One afternoon, earlier than winter had set in, because the solar drifted out and in of the clouds, Mr. Welch took his growing old BMW convertible for a spin alongside Chatham’s again roads. As an advert man, Mr. Welch understands good visuals, and several other instances he pulled over to rave in regards to the pastoral vistas unfolding earlier than him.

“Have a look at that view. It’s superb!” Mr. Welch stated. “To me that screams ‘rural.’” He gestured towards a herd of brown cows grazing on a grassy hillside, the purple Catskill Mountains within the far distance. A red-tailed hawk stared down from a phone wire. A small group of untamed turkeys strutted throughout the highway. The one sound got here from a close-by stream, which turns right into a torrent every spring when the snow melts. However after this 12 months’s lengthy, dry summer season it was little greater than a trickle. It was a scene of utter tranquillity.

“Do you suppose this may be the identical if this have been a paved highway?” he requested. “I don’t suppose so.”