28 Planning land
dependence of natural organisms on a space’s set of environmental conditions.
So, physical planning, both urban and conservation, provides spatial arrange-
ments. Places and habitats are arranged. Furthermore the spaces arranged vary
widely in the relative degree of human and natural influence.
Still, physical planning is directed to a potpourri of targets. For example,
planning may focus on biodiversity, hazards/disasters, economic development,
public health, water supply, energy, air pollution, climate change, and on and on.
Aplanoftenincludesmanyorall of the targets, and if so, a hierarchy of priorities
and emphasis is present. Usually one, two, or three targets are primary, with the
rest superficially considered. Land planning occurs at national, state/province,
and local county/town levels (Babbitt2005).
Narrowplans focusing on a particular sector or goal may be useful, but then
meshing them effectively with diverse land uses becomes problematic. Rather,
multiple-goal solutions reflected in a mosaic of best land uses is the subject at
hand. Plans may be weak or strong, with a short-term or long-term horizon.
The alternative, or control, is lack of overall planning which characterizes most
areas of land. Perspectives of the public, of policymakers, and of the planner
determine the focus areas of a plan. Usually extreme views, such as considering
the citytobean‘‘urbandesert,”oralternatively, the surrounding land to be
simply ‘‘hinterland,” are filtered out early. Thus in urban regions the traditional
primary targets have been economics, transportation, housing, industry, and,
to facilitate implementation, public policy (Campbell and Fainstein 2003, Hall
2002,LeGatesand Stout2003,Berkeet al. 2006). Commonly water, biodiversity,
air pollution, and other ecological dimensions (Atkinsonet al.1999,Ravetz2000,
Tresset al.2004, Marsh 2005, Register2006)arenot.
The final planning subject introduced here is especially significant. Most peo-
ple want to leave the world a little better. Yet worldwide, both cities and nature
seem to be degrading in the face of huge, almost unstoppable forces. So, in
practice, theincremental approachimplies improving spots one by one within the
broad trend. Or, more ambitiously, one may slightly slow the rate of degrada-
tion. An alternative approach for planners is to envision a better future. Then
make thevisionspatial, sketching out or outlining, without details, its general
formand structure. The policymaker and the public can evaluate and appropri-
ately modify a tangible vision, even lay out possible routes to get there. Which
approach is more promising in a downward spiral, incremental steps or striving
for a vision?Land management
All protected lands and resources have one planning and management
objective:prevention of human overuse.After that, each type of protected land