Billboards. TV dishes. Junk cars. Tract homes.

A decade ago, when North Carolina conservationist Hugh Morton was lobbying to preserve the vistas along the Blue Ridge Parkway, he found crucial ammunition across the state line. As the president of the Year of the Mountains Commission, he simply drove into Virginia and shot images of the despoiled views. Then, he successfully pitched his fundraising spiel at political and civic gatherings.

By looking at the misdeeds of its northern neighbor, his commission shone a spotlight on the imperiled beauty of the mountains in western North Carolina and sparked a land preservation movement that is the envy of some in the Old Dominion.

"There were houses and developments so close to the road when you crossed the state line up there," Morton said. "You can immediately tell the difference. The slides showed people down here what it could look like if we let it get out of hand."

A dance of desire and dollars is playing out along one of the nation's most scenic motorways as North Carolina takes the lead in protecting its vistas while Virginia stumbles along. Today, on the 70th anniversary of the 1935 groundbreaking of the parkway near Cumberland Knob, is a good time for assessment and scrutiny. Some telling differences are North Carolina's consistent funding for conservation, earlier passage of state tax credits for landowners who relinquish development rights, and a legacy of treasuring its piece of the 469-mile route owned by the National Park Service.

Visions of the parkway's future may continue to diverge in the two states, and may hinge on private citizens who crusade for preservation and champion the public trust. Grass-roots initiatives and leadership from the government's top brass give impetus to preservation efforts, say experts.

"It's partially mind-set, but it is mostly who gets involved. When certain citizens get involved and believe strongly in something, they can influence development patterns,'' said Tom Hylton, a Pulitzer prize-winning author in Pennsylvania who helps community planners avoid sprawl. "It's never too late for whatever has not been ruined."

While North Carolina's activists have preserved many trails, in parts of Virginia new tract homes have replaced the grassy fields once populated by songbirds and grazing cows.

The parkway crosses about 217 miles in Virginia and about 252 miles in North Carolina. In both states, about 90 miles cut through national forests, according to Sheila Gasperson, a land specialist with the parkway.

Conservation efforts in North Carolina have protected about 21,000 acres along the Blue Ridge Parkway since 1995, when former Gov. James Hunt's Year of the Mountains Commission helped empower the preservation of parkway vistas. Unfolding negotiations eventually may shelter another 14,000 acres.

By contrast, only about 2,400 acres have been protected along Virginia's stretch of the parkway in the same decade despite the best efforts of local land trusts, according to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, a quasi-state agency that holds the easements on the protected land.

The dynamics in the two states traversed by the motorway - stretching from Waynesboro to Cherokee, N.C. - help explain why Virginia is lagging. Land prices are booming in Virginia, and developers are promoting the cachet of living near the parkway. No Virginia politicians offer anything comparable to Hunt's leadership on conservation.

Another key part of the story lies in the higher land values in Virginia's piece of the parkway. Federal purchases averaged $7,256 an acre in Virginia compared with just $783 an acre in North Carolina during the last five years.

North Carolina has had greater political willpower, spun into motion and dramatically shaped by Hunt's vision, which placed a premium on the parkway's eco-tourism and recreation potential. The state gave $45,000 to start the Year of the Mountains efforts with the highest priority on the Blue Ridge Parkway, said Morton, who owns the 5,964-foot Grandfather Mountain, one of the highest peaks along the parkway.

Private citizens raised another $250,000 to start the Year of the Mountain's initiatives that targeted the region's cultural, economic and natural resources, said Tom Massie, the commission's former administrative assistant.

"Without the political support, there wouldn't have been any public dollars going into this effort whatsoever," Massie said. "In western North Carolina, we live and die on the eco-tourism. The Blue Ridge Parkway is what brings people here."

For each of the past five years, North Carolina has allocated about $100 million for natural resource acquisitions, while Virginia only recently bumped up its natural resources funds to about $12 million annually after languishing near the bottom for years in national rankings.

Some Virginia activists want to slow the pace of development near the parkway in an effort to galvanize public action to halt urban encroachment. Zoning that encourages building, they said, helped the developers have their way.

"The disregard for the parkway is a real signal that we the citizens need to challenge the government. Otherwise we are going to destroy what makes us an attractive community," said Annie Kruchalis, an environmentalist and Bent Mountain resident. "We're overly influenced by the developers, particularly in Roanoke County."

Hylton, who toured the parkway several years ago, said that attitudes toward preservation are reflected in the local landscapes. The parkway is in a time warp in North Carolina, Hylton said, while it is awash in urban pressures in parts of Virginia.

"In North Carolina, great care has been done to make sure that nothing has intruded on the vistas and if you just changed the car to a Cadillac Fleetwood, you easily could be back to the 1940s," Hylton said. "But when I crossed the border into Virginia, I was dismayed to suddenly be looking into people's back yards and to see nondescript housing plopped here and there on the hillsides, which ended the motorway's magical vista."

Replicating the public-spirited conservation work of North Carolina in Virginia would be a godsend to the parkway, said parkway spokesman Phil Noblitt.

"Were Virginia to develop some similar initiative to the Year of the Mountains, it would be more than pleasing to the parkway," Noblitt said. "There is not enough money in the federal treasury to preserve all the views along the parkway."

The Year of the Mountains brought sorely needed attention to the negative impact of development near the parkway, said Reid Wilson, executive director of the Conservation Trust of North Carolina.

"Not only do people in North Carolina care about saving the Blue Ridge Parkway, but there are actually state funds to do it," Wilson said.

That's exactly what Virginia lacks, said Elizabeth Obenshain, executive director of the New River Land Trust in Blacksburg. Consistent funding of about $40 million annually would be a boon for conservation efforts, she said. Her views are echoed by the Nature Conservancy and others in Virginia fighting for predictable funding for land conservation.

"We're eating our seed corn," Obenshain said. "We must begin doing a better job of planning and protecting our open spaces or our next generation won't have them."

State incentives, such as income-tax credit for private landowners who adopt conservation easements, makes preservation more financially attractive. North Carolina has a good track record using this incentive, which it passed in 1983, and Virginia followed suit in 2000. While the tax credit is a valuable tool, there still is an uphill battle in preserving scenic and natural resources.

Federal spending illuminates some of the contrasts in the two states. In the past five years, just $837,000 has been spent to purchase lands and preserve views along the parkway in North Carolina. By contrast, federal officials have spent roughly $4.6 million since 2000 to acquire the higher-priced acreage near the parkway in Virginia. The land boom and higher prices in Virginia affect what the neighbors of the parkway build, and the quality of the parkway experience.

"That lopsided figure partially reflects Virginia's need to catch up to North Carolina. The federal officials have to buy now to make up what wasn't done in acquiring land in the 1930s," said Anne Mitchell Whisnant, acting associate director of Duke University's John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute and author of a forthcoming book on the history of the parkway.

A well-organized tourism industry near Asheville helped get the parkway routed through North Carolina, instead of Tennessee, in the early 1930s. Virginia's attitude toward the parkway was more relaxed, as the road would go through the state by necessity.

"The bottom line is Virginia takes the Blue Ridge Parkway for granted, and in North Carolina it is celebrated and appreciated more," said George Kegley, a board member with the nonprofit Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation. "It is a mind-set."

The federal government footed the bill with public works dollars when parkway construction began during the Great Depression, while the states had to obtain the rights of way from the 1930s to the 1960s.

"From the beginning, there was a difference in the relative enthusiasm of the state governments toward the parkway," Whisnant said. "It's hard to tease out the reasons why. It may just boil down to the differences in the people involved."

She said that Getty Browning, an outdoorsman and head of highway location in North Carolina, was totally enamored of the parkway and pursued it with gusto. He read the laws broadly and was able to obtain a 1,000-foot buffer in some parts of North Carolina. State laws allowed officials to post the maps in a county courthouse and, at that moment, the land conveyed. Then, they would go work out the purchase price with the landowners.

His counterpart in Virginia, Henry Shirley, she added, tended to read the highway laws narrowly in light of Virginia's stronger protections for private landowners' rights. He sought only the minimum right of way for the parkway, resulting in today's legacy of the parkway's owning just a 200-foot buffer from the motorway's center line in some parts in Virginia.

The rapidly urbanizing Roanoke Valley - the most populous stretch of the motorway - is at risk of pricing itself out of preservation, making private efforts even more vital for this stretch of the parkway to thrive. At stake are the local ripples of $2.2 billion in tourism dollars spent annually by parkway visitors. Home builders in the Roanoke Valley tout the status of living near the motorway, where the flatter topography and rolling hills allow for development along the parkway's flanks. In other regions, the parkway curves along ridges and escarpments.

"The development just ruined the views," said Miami schoolteacher Jennifer Goehl, picnicking outside her motor home with her family at the Roanoke River overlook last month. "It looks like you're in the middle of the city. We came here to get away from city life."

Alexander Boone, whose father developed The Groves subdivision in Roanoke County, said they donated about 7 acres of pasture to the Western Virginia Land Trust. Several vinyl-sided homes are visible from the parkway, but Boone said his company worked with parkway officials and landscapers to blend the earthen-colored homes into the landscape.

"We worked very hard, cared greatly and worked closely with the players to come up with a plan that everybody agreed with," he said. "Everything we did had the full approval by Roanoke County, the Blue Ridge Parkway and the VDOT [Virginia Department of Transportation]. We are very good corporate citizens and neighbors."

A cherished tradition of private property rights, coupled with spiraling land prices and development pressures, make conservation difficult to achieve in the Roanoke Valley, said Roger Holnback, executive director of the land trust.

"People love what they have - their farm valleys, mountain views and all - but in the end, are they willing to pay for it?" Holnback said. "People need to have the political will to do the work and preserve what we have."

For some people, zoning is a dirty word in the Southwest Virginia counties that the parkway traverses.

"There is definite resistance to restrictive zoning measures that might better protect the parkway," Holnback said. "In fact, some counties have no zoning at all."

Pressures on the parkway are such that a 28-mile stretch through Roanoke County was named a "Last Chance Landscape" by a group called Scenic America two years ago. Sticker shock is greater here, too. Parkway records show that an acquisition this spring in Roanoke County fetched about $40,000 an acre, while one in North Carolina's Alleghany County, also in the spring, cost roughly $7,000 an acre.

But there are some encouraging glimmers. In April, Roanoke Valley developer Frank Radford donated 60 acres to the parkway, the first private gift of Virginia land that parkway officials can recollect in years - perhaps inspiring future gifts.

Also, federal officials have channeled precious funds to acquire Roanoke Valley views before they vanish forever. For example, one 20-acre tract acquired in Roanoke County in March commanded $800,000 - about the same amount of federal spending in North Carolina over the last five years to protect lands bordering the parkway. Some people said the Virginia land purchase was worth it, regardless of the price.

"It is a question of values," said Roanoke County resident Kruchalis. "I would pay a higher price as a taxpayer because I value the green space, the viewshed and I don't want the parkway to become a commuter road."

Lately, development near Asheville is encroaching on the nestling and enfolding hills, indicating that no place is immune to construction pressures. Million-dollar homes are dotted near the Jack Nicklaus signature golf courses at The Cliffs at Walnut Cove in Avery's Creek. Acreage has been carved out of the Biltmore Estate forests for another development edging the parkway in Asheville, the second-largest city near the parkway. Lots for that 400-home development, called The Ramble, will vary from $150,000 to more than $400,000.

At age 84, Morton said that someone else will have to lead the battle to protect the parkway views from this latest construction onslaught. He said the Year of the Mountain's spirit and legacy may have to be reinvigorated.

"The fight between the city council and county commissioners over this development is epic. I'm sorry about it, but it's got to be somebody else's fight," Morton said. "At my tender age, I can't get into every do-good fight there is."