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The evaluation of land
Book
standard payment with discretionary payment. It could be questioned, however, whether these increase conservation mindedness or are just more attractive. Thus a comprehensive set of criteria which attempts to cover all aspects of policy objectives is used. The report concentrates on management agreements, whether individually negotiated or not, and ownership both public and grant aided. However, the conclusions include other mechanisms, such as the fact that tax breaks are efficient, and it is not clear how this was reached.
The publication is therefore a useful review of conservation mechanisms, for which it must be a welcome addition to the literature. It is a starting point for analysis in this area, but it does remain a consultancy report and as such is brief and lacks some of the rigour which would enable it to be used more widely.
Caroline Saunders of Agrjcffttura/ Economics and Food Marketing University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Depa~ment
Up-to-date treatment of land resource evaluation THE EVALUATION by Donald
OF LAND
Davidson
Longman Scientific & Technical, low, UK, ZWpp, f13.00
Har-
Donald Davidson’s new book is excellent. It is a completely rewritten, enlarged and retitled edition of Soils and L
LAND USE POLICY
October
1993
systems and approaches in the text. The book is excellent value for money, well illustrated, and full of relevant examples. Those of us who teach land evaluation will be grateful to Davidson for providing us with such a wealth of material to use in our future lectures! The first three chapters effectively set the scene, discussing land use planning issues on a global, regional and national basis, and the various kinds of land resource surveys, and there is a separate chapter specifically on soil surveys. In the soil survey chapter Davidson has wisely avoided an overelaborate treatment of techniques, dealt with adequately in other texts, and has instead stressed the quality and reliability of soil survey data. This is an important matter, often overlooked or at least not fully appreciated by many users of soil survey and derived data, and Davidson returns to it in chapter 6, where he deals with the prediction of land properties and qualities from soil surveys. One could argue that the three central chapters of the book are in the wrong order, The order chosen is of land capability classifications, then suitability classifications and concluding with soil survey interpretation, whereas a case could be made for building up from relatively simple interpretations, through suitability classifications for specific uses, to classi-
reviews
fications of overall land capability. It is good to see emphasis, however, on the FAO Framework for Land Evaluation in the suitability chapter, and the related FAO publication on Land Evaluation for Rainfed Agriculture. The FAO approach is well explained and illustrated by two good examples (one of the classic 1977 Young and Goldsmith study in Malawi). This chapter also includes a treatment of the parametric approach, again with good examples. On the other hand, in the capability chapter, British readers south of Hadrian’s Wall will be disappointed to see only a brief treatment of the Agricultural Land Classification of England and Wales, which must be, by a long way, the most regularly used land evaluation system in the UK. However, the discussion on the influence of land capability on crop yields and land values is instructive to those who may, from time to time, question the objectives of land evaluation. The final two substantive chapters deal with geographic information systems and modelling, respectively. These have a high academic content, and while of interest and value to the serious student of land evaluation, one does wonder if many day-to-day users of land resource evaluations are interested in fuzzy set theory, kriging and the like. For those who are ill at ease with statistics and computer manipuiation of data, these chapters could be heavy going. While there is a glossary of soil science terms, one wonders if a person who does not already know what particle-size class or soil pH is should be reading a book such as this. Perhaps a glossary of the terms used in these two chapters might have been more use. To be fair, Davidson makes a good job of explaining these matters in the text, and the reader should persevere. Unfortunately, one suspects that many readers will simply skip these chapters as being beyond their intellectual capabilities, and not part of the real world. This would be a great pity, because it means that the producers and users of land resource evaluations will become separated by an ever-widening gulf. In the first edition the author concluded that the prime need in soils and
325
Book reviews
land use planning was for the application of known techniques rather than further methodological development. Now, a decade later, the conclusion is that what is needed are model validation and linkage to expert and geographic information systems, and the further development of integrated
approaches to land use issues. Those who share that view should get a copy of the book and start reading!
Stuart A&Rae Wye College (University of London) Ashford,
Kent, UK
Ambitious analysis of land in the city LAND AND THE CITY Patterns and Processes of Urban Change by Philip Kivell Rout/edge,
1993,
London
223 pp,
and New York, hardback,
f40.00
f 12.99 pap@rbaGk
This book embarks on the ambitions project of an analysis of land in the city and its relationships with the processes of change. It is a project which is well conceived but which proves to be far too ambitious; the result is that the book lacks depth and focus and the author is too easily drawn into all kinds of by-ways which he cannot hope to investigate in sufficient detail and gravitas. The value of the book is as a grand synthesis of many ideas and concepts and as an inventory of useful facts in a text which casts its net widely indeed. In the preface, the author states his aim as to ‘provide a broadlybased, yet succinct statement of landuse patterns and processes in urban areas’, and this is an accurate summary of what is achieved. The weakness is the cost involved in combining the objective of being broadly based with that of being succinct. The book is organized into eight chapters and has a clear structure and readable style. The introduction (chapter 1) summarizes a whole set of different approaches to the study of land use patterns in the city and covers topics such as n~orphology, land as power, and land as environment. Some of these are no more than brief notes with land as environment, for
326
example, being covered in 13 lines of text. This chapter identifies the fact that planning is based on outdated models and that land is the key to understanding some aspects of urban development. The latter assertion can in some ways be justified, but it does run the risk of forgetting that land is merely the commodity and it is the decisions made about it which provide the real key to understanding. Chapter 2 is titled ‘Urban land allocation’ and runs through the familiar models of Burgess, Hoyt, Garner, etc, and the basic bid-rent theories which underlie them. There is a page or so on Marxist criticisms and a useful section on regulatory devices, but the conclusion is rather limp and falls back on statements such as the ‘market in urban land . . . tends not to operate quite according to the economist’s view of normal markets’ (p 41). Chapter 3 (‘Measuring and monitoring urban land’) looks at some of the data sources and provides some details on aerial photography and satellite imagery. Some major land use surveys (Stamp, Coleman) are given short shrift, surprisingly so given their status as major undertakings in the history of land use studies and their relevance to planning. There is comment on the paucity of comprehensive land use surveys and the fact that the 1969 survey based on aerial photography is the best recent source. In this context the value of the local ad hoc surveys on which planning authorities often rely might have been given more emphasis. Chapter 4 (‘Patterns and changes of land use’) is a more substantive chapter and provides some useful statistics,
and chapter 5 (‘Land ownership’) has a useful section on the growth of municipal land ownership, which is supported by a case study of Manchester. Chapter 6 (‘Land policy‘) reviews the development process with a range of brief summaries of current practice in the United Kingdom, West (?) Germany, France, Italy and the United States of America. The UK, it is suggested, tacks a coherent and consistent programme because of its adversarial two-party system (p 149). Chapter 7 (‘Vacant and derelict land’) is a much more focused chapter, with a good mix of data, case studies and explanation, while chapter 8 provides some general conclusions to the text as a whole. Throughout much of this book there is a pattern which tends to draw the author into open-ended discussions of diverse literature. The result is that many things are mentioned and the linkages between them are identified, but for the reader who wishes to explore an explanation in some depth there is limited satisfaction. There are many examples of this in the text, as in chapter 4, where the large themes of decentralization and counterurbanization get a fleeting mention, and in chapter 8, where the need to consider ‘transitions’ leads to a series of brief paragraphs on major issues such as industrial to post-industrial and public welfare to individualism. Too many chapters degenerate into lists which are occasionally repetitive and never really up to the task of integrating various strands to some central purpose. Occasionally the choice of examples jars: Hanley is the case study for the central business district, but the actual diagram (Figure 4.3, p 83) tells us little and the choice, from a poly-centred conurbation, is a little eccentric. Overall, the choice of examples is expedient rather than balanced and indicative. Table X.7 (p 193) is described as summarizing the broad areas of change, but its purposes are not that clear. Is this #he western city or the UK city? The book is by implication about the developed world, encompassing examples from Japan, but there are far more major and minor differences in the urban change process within the developed
LAND USE POLICY
October 1993
standard payment with discretionary payment. It could be questioned, however, whether these increase conservation mindedness or are just more attractive. Thus a comprehensive set of criteria which attempts to cover all aspects of policy objectives is used. The report concentrates on management agreements, whether individually negotiated or not, and ownership both public and grant aided. However, the conclusions include other mechanisms, such as the fact that tax breaks are efficient, and it is not clear how this was reached.
The publication is therefore a useful review of conservation mechanisms, for which it must be a welcome addition to the literature. It is a starting point for analysis in this area, but it does remain a consultancy report and as such is brief and lacks some of the rigour which would enable it to be used more widely.
Caroline Saunders of Agrjcffttura/ Economics and Food Marketing University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Depa~ment
Up-to-date treatment of land resource evaluation THE EVALUATION by Donald
OF LAND
Davidson
Longman Scientific & Technical, low, UK, ZWpp, f13.00
Har-
Donald Davidson’s new book is excellent. It is a completely rewritten, enlarged and retitled edition of Soils and L
LAND USE POLICY
October
1993
systems and approaches in the text. The book is excellent value for money, well illustrated, and full of relevant examples. Those of us who teach land evaluation will be grateful to Davidson for providing us with such a wealth of material to use in our future lectures! The first three chapters effectively set the scene, discussing land use planning issues on a global, regional and national basis, and the various kinds of land resource surveys, and there is a separate chapter specifically on soil surveys. In the soil survey chapter Davidson has wisely avoided an overelaborate treatment of techniques, dealt with adequately in other texts, and has instead stressed the quality and reliability of soil survey data. This is an important matter, often overlooked or at least not fully appreciated by many users of soil survey and derived data, and Davidson returns to it in chapter 6, where he deals with the prediction of land properties and qualities from soil surveys. One could argue that the three central chapters of the book are in the wrong order, The order chosen is of land capability classifications, then suitability classifications and concluding with soil survey interpretation, whereas a case could be made for building up from relatively simple interpretations, through suitability classifications for specific uses, to classi-
reviews
fications of overall land capability. It is good to see emphasis, however, on the FAO Framework for Land Evaluation in the suitability chapter, and the related FAO publication on Land Evaluation for Rainfed Agriculture. The FAO approach is well explained and illustrated by two good examples (one of the classic 1977 Young and Goldsmith study in Malawi). This chapter also includes a treatment of the parametric approach, again with good examples. On the other hand, in the capability chapter, British readers south of Hadrian’s Wall will be disappointed to see only a brief treatment of the Agricultural Land Classification of England and Wales, which must be, by a long way, the most regularly used land evaluation system in the UK. However, the discussion on the influence of land capability on crop yields and land values is instructive to those who may, from time to time, question the objectives of land evaluation. The final two substantive chapters deal with geographic information systems and modelling, respectively. These have a high academic content, and while of interest and value to the serious student of land evaluation, one does wonder if many day-to-day users of land resource evaluations are interested in fuzzy set theory, kriging and the like. For those who are ill at ease with statistics and computer manipuiation of data, these chapters could be heavy going. While there is a glossary of soil science terms, one wonders if a person who does not already know what particle-size class or soil pH is should be reading a book such as this. Perhaps a glossary of the terms used in these two chapters might have been more use. To be fair, Davidson makes a good job of explaining these matters in the text, and the reader should persevere. Unfortunately, one suspects that many readers will simply skip these chapters as being beyond their intellectual capabilities, and not part of the real world. This would be a great pity, because it means that the producers and users of land resource evaluations will become separated by an ever-widening gulf. In the first edition the author concluded that the prime need in soils and
325
Book reviews
land use planning was for the application of known techniques rather than further methodological development. Now, a decade later, the conclusion is that what is needed are model validation and linkage to expert and geographic information systems, and the further development of integrated
approaches to land use issues. Those who share that view should get a copy of the book and start reading!
Stuart A&Rae Wye College (University of London) Ashford,
Kent, UK
Ambitious analysis of land in the city LAND AND THE CITY Patterns and Processes of Urban Change by Philip Kivell Rout/edge,
1993,
London
223 pp,
and New York, hardback,
f40.00
f 12.99 pap@rbaGk
This book embarks on the ambitions project of an analysis of land in the city and its relationships with the processes of change. It is a project which is well conceived but which proves to be far too ambitious; the result is that the book lacks depth and focus and the author is too easily drawn into all kinds of by-ways which he cannot hope to investigate in sufficient detail and gravitas. The value of the book is as a grand synthesis of many ideas and concepts and as an inventory of useful facts in a text which casts its net widely indeed. In the preface, the author states his aim as to ‘provide a broadlybased, yet succinct statement of landuse patterns and processes in urban areas’, and this is an accurate summary of what is achieved. The weakness is the cost involved in combining the objective of being broadly based with that of being succinct. The book is organized into eight chapters and has a clear structure and readable style. The introduction (chapter 1) summarizes a whole set of different approaches to the study of land use patterns in the city and covers topics such as n~orphology, land as power, and land as environment. Some of these are no more than brief notes with land as environment, for
326
example, being covered in 13 lines of text. This chapter identifies the fact that planning is based on outdated models and that land is the key to understanding some aspects of urban development. The latter assertion can in some ways be justified, but it does run the risk of forgetting that land is merely the commodity and it is the decisions made about it which provide the real key to understanding. Chapter 2 is titled ‘Urban land allocation’ and runs through the familiar models of Burgess, Hoyt, Garner, etc, and the basic bid-rent theories which underlie them. There is a page or so on Marxist criticisms and a useful section on regulatory devices, but the conclusion is rather limp and falls back on statements such as the ‘market in urban land . . . tends not to operate quite according to the economist’s view of normal markets’ (p 41). Chapter 3 (‘Measuring and monitoring urban land’) looks at some of the data sources and provides some details on aerial photography and satellite imagery. Some major land use surveys (Stamp, Coleman) are given short shrift, surprisingly so given their status as major undertakings in the history of land use studies and their relevance to planning. There is comment on the paucity of comprehensive land use surveys and the fact that the 1969 survey based on aerial photography is the best recent source. In this context the value of the local ad hoc surveys on which planning authorities often rely might have been given more emphasis. Chapter 4 (‘Patterns and changes of land use’) is a more substantive chapter and provides some useful statistics,
and chapter 5 (‘Land ownership’) has a useful section on the growth of municipal land ownership, which is supported by a case study of Manchester. Chapter 6 (‘Land policy‘) reviews the development process with a range of brief summaries of current practice in the United Kingdom, West (?) Germany, France, Italy and the United States of America. The UK, it is suggested, tacks a coherent and consistent programme because of its adversarial two-party system (p 149). Chapter 7 (‘Vacant and derelict land’) is a much more focused chapter, with a good mix of data, case studies and explanation, while chapter 8 provides some general conclusions to the text as a whole. Throughout much of this book there is a pattern which tends to draw the author into open-ended discussions of diverse literature. The result is that many things are mentioned and the linkages between them are identified, but for the reader who wishes to explore an explanation in some depth there is limited satisfaction. There are many examples of this in the text, as in chapter 4, where the large themes of decentralization and counterurbanization get a fleeting mention, and in chapter 8, where the need to consider ‘transitions’ leads to a series of brief paragraphs on major issues such as industrial to post-industrial and public welfare to individualism. Too many chapters degenerate into lists which are occasionally repetitive and never really up to the task of integrating various strands to some central purpose. Occasionally the choice of examples jars: Hanley is the case study for the central business district, but the actual diagram (Figure 4.3, p 83) tells us little and the choice, from a poly-centred conurbation, is a little eccentric. Overall, the choice of examples is expedient rather than balanced and indicative. Table X.7 (p 193) is described as summarizing the broad areas of change, but its purposes are not that clear. Is this #he western city or the UK city? The book is by implication about the developed world, encompassing examples from Japan, but there are far more major and minor differences in the urban change process within the developed
LAND USE POLICY
October 1993