Farm Fest shows Clifton Park's other side
For the past half-century, Clifton Park has been thought of primarily as a residential suburb. Its population grew by little more than 1,000 people during the 1950s, but it tripled in the next decade and went up by another two-thirds in the 1970s. By 1980, the 50-square-mile town, the largest in southern and central Saratoga County, was home to about 24,000 people, 10 times the population in 1940.
Lots of those folks, many leaving smaller homes in close neighborhoods in Albany, Schenectady and Troy, wanted bigger homes with spacious yards. To accommodate them, builders turned sprawling farms and other open spaces into large housing developments, which in turn drew offices and retail.