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Land-use planning — From global to local challenge
89
ically simulated by researchers like Lawrence in Geneva, but a comprehensive, step-by-step manual like this book, for simulating different personalities’ preferences in (landscape) architectural design, is well overdue. RWYATT School
of Environmental Planning
University of Melbourne Melbourn, Austral
LAND-USE
PLANNING
Land-Use Planning - From Global to Local Challenge by Julius Gy. Fabos. Published in U.S.A. by Chapman and Hall, 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001, in Great Britain by Chapman and Hall, I1 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE, 1985, Dowden and Culver, 223 pp., illustrated, hardcover &25.OO/US$39.95, soft&l 1.95/US$l8.95, ISBN O-41 2cover 2510-4. Europeans tend to think that American planning legislation is weak by the standards of the old world. Their opinion rests on the undoubted fact that there is no national system of land-use control in the United States. There are, however, a number of national policies, including the 1785 rectangular survey and the post-1872 national park reservations, which have led to improved land utilisation at the national level. At the state and local levels there has been an enormous amount of innovation and experimentation in different approaches to land-use planning. This background has enabled Fabos to take a broad overview of his subject. Other authors, who have written within the context of an established planning system have often found it difficult to stand back and consider the real objectives of land-use planning and
the
likely success of different approaches. Fabos takes a series of “issues” as the starting point for land-use planning and makes the excellent point that this word does not carry the negative connotations of the word “probissues are related to lem”. The fundamental resource exploitation/ growth, population, utilisation, preservation, reclamation and environmental impacts. They are discussed with regard to natural science, technology, values, organisations and the cultural landscape. With regard to the cultural landscape, Fabos argues that monoculture has proved to be a thoroughly bad principle. Lewis Mumford traced its development from the Baroque era and today it is applied to agriculture, forestry and urban land use. Too many towns have been carved into zones of “industry”, reserves”. Chris“housing” and “wildlife topher Tunnard once likened this type of planning to the way in which a butcher conceived of a cow as “rump”, “sirloin” and “silverside”. Geographers have good reasons for producing land-use maps, but planners, like doctors, must be concerned with the land as a physical and biological organism. In order to make the point that there is strength in diversity and an integrated landuse pattern, Fabos tells the story of his youth in Hungary : On December 4, 1944, the Soviet army invaded the area. My home town and our farm became a battleground for the following four months. During this time we stayed with relatives some 30 kilometers from the raging war, while my father returned frequently to the area to take out some very much needed food from hiding places to replenish our supplies. We had plenty of food left after the war. We were able to plant all the fields and distribute much food to relatives and friends. We could do all this, not only because we were farmers, but because our farm was highly diversified. Just imagine how well an American wheat farmer would fare in a similar situation. (p. 85).
The lesson of this experience with great effect to the problems huge conurbations:
is applied of living in
Suburbia.... has been in many ways another monocultural land use. That is probably the reason why millions of Americans have moved further out into rural communities, which are much less centralised and much more diversified, offering people more options and a better chance to adjust to uncertainties. (p. 86).
Fabos argues that in order to achieve a synthesis between land uses, it will be necessary for planners to rely less on control and more on a creative approuch. This has led to the conversion of San Francisco’s cannery into a shopping centre, and to the use of a former granite-mining pit as a swimming lake in Maine. It could lead to an “infinite number
of other potential land uses” for the huge industrial complexes left by the failure of the Chrysler Corporation. Fabos is a registered landscape architect and Professor of Landscape Planning at the University of Massachusetts. He makes a convincing case for an imaginative contribution to the process of land-use planning at the global. national, state. metropolitan and local multi-state, levels.
T.H.D.TURNER 29 Westgrove Lane London SE10 G t. Britain
ically simulated by researchers like Lawrence in Geneva, but a comprehensive, step-by-step manual like this book, for simulating different personalities’ preferences in (landscape) architectural design, is well overdue. RWYATT School
of Environmental Planning
University of Melbourne Melbourn, Austral
LAND-USE
PLANNING
Land-Use Planning - From Global to Local Challenge by Julius Gy. Fabos. Published in U.S.A. by Chapman and Hall, 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001, in Great Britain by Chapman and Hall, I1 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE, 1985, Dowden and Culver, 223 pp., illustrated, hardcover &25.OO/US$39.95, soft&l 1.95/US$l8.95, ISBN O-41 2cover 2510-4. Europeans tend to think that American planning legislation is weak by the standards of the old world. Their opinion rests on the undoubted fact that there is no national system of land-use control in the United States. There are, however, a number of national policies, including the 1785 rectangular survey and the post-1872 national park reservations, which have led to improved land utilisation at the national level. At the state and local levels there has been an enormous amount of innovation and experimentation in different approaches to land-use planning. This background has enabled Fabos to take a broad overview of his subject. Other authors, who have written within the context of an established planning system have often found it difficult to stand back and consider the real objectives of land-use planning and
the
likely success of different approaches. Fabos takes a series of “issues” as the starting point for land-use planning and makes the excellent point that this word does not carry the negative connotations of the word “probissues are related to lem”. The fundamental resource exploitation/ growth, population, utilisation, preservation, reclamation and environmental impacts. They are discussed with regard to natural science, technology, values, organisations and the cultural landscape. With regard to the cultural landscape, Fabos argues that monoculture has proved to be a thoroughly bad principle. Lewis Mumford traced its development from the Baroque era and today it is applied to agriculture, forestry and urban land use. Too many towns have been carved into zones of “industry”, reserves”. Chris“housing” and “wildlife topher Tunnard once likened this type of planning to the way in which a butcher conceived of a cow as “rump”, “sirloin” and “silverside”. Geographers have good reasons for producing land-use maps, but planners, like doctors, must be concerned with the land as a physical and biological organism. In order to make the point that there is strength in diversity and an integrated landuse pattern, Fabos tells the story of his youth in Hungary : On December 4, 1944, the Soviet army invaded the area. My home town and our farm became a battleground for the following four months. During this time we stayed with relatives some 30 kilometers from the raging war, while my father returned frequently to the area to take out some very much needed food from hiding places to replenish our supplies. We had plenty of food left after the war. We were able to plant all the fields and distribute much food to relatives and friends. We could do all this, not only because we were farmers, but because our farm was highly diversified. Just imagine how well an American wheat farmer would fare in a similar situation. (p. 85).
The lesson of this experience with great effect to the problems huge conurbations:
is applied of living in
Suburbia.... has been in many ways another monocultural land use. That is probably the reason why millions of Americans have moved further out into rural communities, which are much less centralised and much more diversified, offering people more options and a better chance to adjust to uncertainties. (p. 86).
Fabos argues that in order to achieve a synthesis between land uses, it will be necessary for planners to rely less on control and more on a creative approuch. This has led to the conversion of San Francisco’s cannery into a shopping centre, and to the use of a former granite-mining pit as a swimming lake in Maine. It could lead to an “infinite number
of other potential land uses” for the huge industrial complexes left by the failure of the Chrysler Corporation. Fabos is a registered landscape architect and Professor of Landscape Planning at the University of Massachusetts. He makes a convincing case for an imaginative contribution to the process of land-use planning at the global. national, state. metropolitan and local multi-state, levels.
T.H.D.TURNER 29 Westgrove Lane London SE10 G t. Britain