Chapter 3 Land Use Planning for Environmental Management
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/11oct_sprawl.htm
http://sciencebulletins.amnh.org/bio/v/sprawl.20050218/
I.
Land use in America
a. Early urban development
i. City size constrained until industrial revolution by technology
ii. Small compact city built quickly based on plan for physical
development
1. L’Enfant’s plan Washington DC for example
2. After 1900 city shaped by private development loosely
guided by government regulation
iii. Role of Zoning in separating land uses – Page 37
b. The advent of Sprawl – page 38
i. Post WWII period saw adoption of suburban development policies
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Population growth
Economic prosperity
Federally financed highway construction programs
Urban social decay
Federally backed mortgages
Federal infrastructure financing
ii. 1990s saw emergence of Edge Cities –Boomburgs
1. Suburb with little connection to the central city it is
associated with
iii. Suburban sprawl type development would not have happened
without federal government policies that supported that type of
development
1. Are the suburbs what people wanted or was this type of
development forced upon the public
2. Did people make a mistake in wanting suburban type
development?
3. Page 38 – Lifestyle debates
c. Responses to sprawl
i. Growth management – page 39
ii. Smart Growth – page 39
iii. Design response
1. new Urbanism
a. Set of urban design concepts that
i. Emphasizes needs of people not the needs of
cars
http://www.newurbanism.org/pages/416429/ind
ex.htm
ii. Develops a strong sense of place
Slide Show http://www.cnu.org/
2. Smart Growth
a. Encourage development in areas with existing
infrastructure
b. Push growth away from areas unsuitable for
development
c. Variety of government policies encourage sprawl
i. Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act (Superfund)
ii. USDOT – 90% cost of new highways but much
less for repair and maintenance
iii. Support for central sewage lines to villages
with failing septic systems. Wellsboro to
Whitneyville – Mansfield to Covington
iv. Regional response
1. Most metropolitan areas spread over 10s to hundreds of
municipalities.
2. Little incentive for cooperation in development given property
tax funding and federal grant strucutre
d. Rural land use
i. Rural areas experiencing inflow of population Retirees and
telecommuters
ii. Inexpensive land and little land use regulation is leading to larges
lot, large house, scattered development
iii. Need to identify and exclude from development natural resource
base
1. Pennsylvania Wilds
http://www.visitpa.com/visitpa/wilds.do
http://www.fermatainc.com/penn/
e. Public Lands
i. 30% of USA owned by federal government
ii. In western states federal land use policies determine development
iii. Policies have not always been environmentally friendly
1. Competition for development dollars
II.
Land Use and Environmental Protection
a. Land use and natural hazards
i. How strongly should government restrict development in hazardous
areas
ii. How much responsibility does government have to protect
development in hazardous areas
iii. How much responsibility does government have to replace and
repair areas damaged by predictable hazards
b. Land use and public health
i. Early planning was based on public health concerns communicable
diseases
ii. Recently shifted to ambient environment
c. Land use and hydrologic systems
d. Land use and agriculture
i. USA surplus of agricultural lands which have little value as
agricultural lands
ii. Might need these lands for the future
iii. What is the best way to preserve these lands
iv. Maybe low density, large lot residential
e. Land use and ecological resources
i. Need to preserve natural resources that provide function or service
to society
1. for example floodplains – aquifer recharge areas
2. Importance of biodiversity?
f. Land use and energy resources
g. Land use and cultural heritage
h. Land use and environmental justice
i. Complaints that poverty and poor ambient environment go together
ii. Not clear how to redress this imbalance
III.
Land Use Planning
a. Background data and analysis
i. Most entry level jobs involve this activity
b. Long range general planning
i. Used to be called Comprehensive Planning
c. District planning
i. Transit stop planning – new town center planning
d. Functional planning
i. Transportation planning – open space planning
e. Implementation plans
i. Use to be called Capital Improvements Plan
ii. Specific projects to be built to implement functional or district plan
f. Community consensus
IV.
Emerging Trends
a. Community based
b. Watershed management
c. Ecosystem management