After looking at the results of my research on the History of the Site page, one can gain a better understanding of the Northfield community.  One can see how this part of Northfield has changes over the years as it has changed hands and undergone different uses.  These changes seen have impacted  the entire Northfield area.  If there is still a farm there and no residential houses, a large part of residential northfield would be absent.  The people who live there now would not live there and the area would be open farmland not historical houses.  Just driving from one place to another in Northfield would give one a different experience.

I have given each date that the piece of land was sold and to whom it was sold in order to fully illustrate how the land was divided up.  The names are included also to give the history a more personal touch.  After examining the history of the land it became apparent that in the beginning the land stayed in the family and did not really change hands very much, only when someone died and it was willed.  However, in less than ten years (1909-1917) the house was sold from the original family and broken up into smaller pieces never to be owned by the same person again.  These smaller pieces have since continued to be sold off  more and more until the residential area we can see there today came to be.  Since researching all of these pieces would not be feasible,  I only researched a fourth of the larger original piece up until today. 

From the interview with Barbara Hill (one of the current owners) I found out her and her husband sold off part of their land which has now been developed.  She also said that when they first moved in, some houses already existed on each side of them which were built in the 60's and houses were built behind them soon after they moved in.  All of this evidence clearly shows that in the last few decades the once farmed piece of land has now become developed.  This seems to be consistent with the trend seen in the article I reviewed titled, "On the Trail of White-Collar Settlers" from the Economist.  The article described how in the last few decades urban sprawl has been moving further and further out into the rural areas, which is exactly what is seen in the history of the piece of land that I researched.   After reading the Relevant Literature I provide, it seems quite clear that the fact that the land I researched was converted from farmland to a residential area is not and isolated incident but part of a larger trend seen all over the United States.

The results of my research clearly indicate that the piece of land that I researched was sold off piece by piece and in the last few decades turned into a residential area.  The literature that  I reviewed helps one to further understand the effect this transition can have on the entire community and what changes commonly occur.  The overall information obtained from literature review consistently maintains that as urban sprawl moves in property values go up and small scale farmers get pushed out while viable farmland is developed for housing.  This may have been what influenced the original farmers on the piece of land that I researched to sell.