224 Basic principles for molding land mosaics
This chapter is a palette or treasure chest of principles. All deal with land
use, most with nature and people, and many with urban regions. They are not
to beblindly followed. If your guidebook says that bears avoid the habitat type
you are in and you see a bear moving rapidly toward you, it is wise to think
beyond the guideline. Principles are to be creatively and intelligently used.
The bear example emphasizes that planning or action is also based on charac-
teristics of the land. Land is not a blank canvas or a homogenous space. Spatial
patterns, as well as flows and movements across them, are always present. The
big challenge, and opportunity, is the integration of those existing land patterns
with both principles and creativity. The goal is to improve the pattern and set
of flows, and have improvements continue into the future.
Thus a set ofprinciplesuseful for land-use planning and derived from a range
of fields is presented. Overall these are statements of importance, of wide appli-
cability, and with predictive ability. All have at least some empirical evidence,
fit with indirect lines of evidence, and in some cases also have a known theoret-
ical basis. Other scholars and planners, of course, would pinpoint a somewhat
different list, including additional points. Indeed the reader can doubtless add
to the list. Nevertheless, the bulk of the principles here seem to represent a
consensus within each of the fields represented. Cutting-edge hypotheses and
results are absent, as are narrowly focused principles with limited applicabil-
ity. As always, both ongoing research and special attributes in a region dictate
caution in applying or extrapolating a principle.
Notsurprisingly, with a focus on natural systems and their uses in a region,
landscape ecology is a particularly important contributor to the list. Yet princi-
ples are also drawn from transportation, community development, economics,
conservation biology, water resources, and other fields.
Principles are conveniently placed into five broad categories, though clearly
much overlap exists among the categories: (1) patch sizes, edges, and habitats;
(2) natural processes, corridors, and networks; (3) transportation modes; (4) com-Land mosaics and landscape change
Patchsizes, edges, and habitats
Principles in this first category focus on spatial pattern or structure of
theland, especially relative to nature or greenspace. Consistent with the basic
idea of nature conservation as a priority for society, rather than attempting to
protect each species, the emphasis is on landscape patterns. The list of principles
leans heavily on those presented in Schonewald-Cox and Bayless (1986), Salvesen
(1994), Forman (1995,2004a), Dramstadet al.(1996), Mitsch and Gosselink (2000),
Farina (2005), Dale and Haeuber (2001), Opdamet al.(2002), Gutzwiller (2002),