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The living landscape: an ecological approach to landscape planning
Book Reviews
349
necessarily address the problems of the exploited peasant, the landless and dispossessed, and the marginalized groups in both the rural and urban areas. Such groups could only be assisted by a socialist transformation, although the role of a differentiated peasantry in this transformation will depend upon the structure of social relations and practices existing at any particular time.
heavily subsidized, the most inefficient in terms of energy and other inputs, and the most packaged and processed in the world, but also that British food is highly adulterated and increasingly expensive. Importantly, Jenkins' paper adopts an action focus which details some of the policies which can be pursued at the local and national levels in order to reverse this situation.
Roger Bartra's paper focuses on Mexico's agrarian crisis and its impact on the mass of the peasants who had experienced the agrarian reforms of the 1930s. Since the 1950s, continuing capitalist development has eroded the position of the peasantry, with a shift in production towards commercial crops for export, inputs for non-food industries and luxury or non-basic foodstuffs. Such developments have been among the factors leading to the decreasing political significance of the peasantry in a political system which is increasingly urban based. The critical question now is how to dissolve the peasantry without provoking political chaos.
It will be clear from this discussion of individual contributions that the papers in this volume cover a wide range of topics. And while it is possible to take issue with many of the individual papers on points of substance or interpretation, nevertheless all maintain a very high standard.
Michael Watts' paper analyses the role of the peasantry under contract farming, the system of vertical co-ordination which links independent family farmers with a central processing, export or purchasing unit. While some observers have suggested that contract farming is a "dynamic partnership' between small farmers and private capital which promises benefits to both, Watts clearly demonstrates that it is an authoritarian relationship characterized by conflict and exploitation, involving further concentration and centralization of capital. In her paper on the Green Revolution, Utsa Pattnaik analyses the continuing impacts of this innovation in India. The first phase of the Green Revolution has been widely analysed and documented, and it is generally accepted that it involved a growing inequality in both regional and class terms, that is, the benefits of the Green Revolution largely accrued to the wealthier social groups in those areas of North India where it was initially introduced. However, because the technology has not successfully diffused to other areas in later years, the benefits continue to be concentrated, with the major returns still accruing to the minority of capitalist farmers in North India, who control the burgeoning marketable surpluses. It is this, combined with stagnation and falling rural incomes in other areas, that underwrites the paradox of starvation amidst plenty. The next round of innovations of the Green Revolution type will undoubtedly arise out of the research currently devoted to biotechnology, and Fred Buttel's paper analyses the prospects for Third World countries in establishing an indigenous technological capacity in this area. According to Buttel, biotechnology poses both a challenge and a threat to the Third World, but the impacts will be uneven. A small number of countries will be able to participate in a significant way and become major producers in the global context. However, most countries will feel the impact of developed country research and development in terms of increased 'substitutionism', in which Third World agricultural products are displaced by biotechnology, or as importers of products which may be costly and inappropriate (e.g. pharmaceuticals). The book concludes with Robin Jenkins' excellent summary of the politics of food in Britain. With great economy but considerable force, Jenkins questions many of the myths of British agriculture and food. He not only demonstrates that U.K. food production is the most
There are some significant omissions from the book, though. For example, despite an acknowledgement of the need to incorporate the question of the environment into the political economy of food, very little attention is paid to this issue. Yet it is of critical significance, particularly in terms of the opportunity it provides to expose the waste and irrationality of capitalist agriculture. More to the point, the failure to address the issue of the environment raises questions about the selection of topics for inclusion in this volume. For although the individual papers are of a consistently high quality, the book reveals some weaknesses as a collection. Despite the central focus on the food question and the shared socialist position of the contributions, the book lacks coherence and unity. It is missing that sense of organized effort and intellectual direction that might have emerged out of a more considered structure which focused on critical areas for analysis and organized these accordingly. This lack of coherence is, perhaps, to be expected in a volume which is breaking new ground in drawing in those topics which have so far been underrepresented in the analysis of the food question. However, this could have been overcome with a more substantial editorial input; for example, an essay drawing on the individual contributions and placing them in some wider theoretical and empirical context "would have greatly enhanced the overall impact of the book. As it is, the editors' introduction is fairly brief and only touches on a limited number of issues in the discussion of individual papers. These points notwithstanding, this volume makes an important contribution to our understanding of the continuing food problem, and serves to ensure that the issue will continue to be analysed in a way which is relevant and meaningful. For this reason, and for the high standard of individual papers, the book deserves to be widely read. It ensures that the real issues are kept to the fore, and it provides much useful material in countering the oversimplified analysis which so often passes for enquiry in academic and policy circles. DAVID BURCH
Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
The Living Landscape: an Ecological Approach to Landscape Planning, F. Steiner, xii + 356 pp., 1991, McGraw Hill, New York, $43.95
An Ecological Approach to Landscape Planning is a real contribution to the field of land use planning. It is a
350
B o o k Reviews
masterful synthesis of sustainable land planning, natural resources analysis, and practical applications of traditional land-use planning. Even the underpinning of Steiner's book speaks to the new genre of land-use planners. In the words of the author: 'Two fundamental reasons to plan are to influence sharing among people and to insure the viability of the future. Because we cannot function by ourselves, each of us is required to share time and space. Sharing is necessary for the well-being of our neighbors and of future generations. This book is about a specific kind of planning: It is about how to share physical space in communities' (Steiner, 1991, p. ix). The strength of Steiner's book flows from two factors. The first is its comprehensive treatment of the land planning process. The author brings the perspectives of the landscape architecture and the ecologist to planning practice on a local level. This local focus is both practical and immensely readable. Second, is the international appeal of the author's thesis, examples, and treatment of the literature. The thesis is sustainability - - a universal concern of local planners - - while the concrete examples are drawn from the author's considerable international experience. For example, in Chapter 5 entitled 'Suitability Analysis', the reader encounters project descriptions from the Zuider Zee in The Netherlands, Medford Township, New Jersey, The State of Washington and Canada. Turning to Steiner's organization of the book, both academics and practitioners will be pleased with the author's design and execution of this work. The book contains 12 chapters; the first is appropriately devoted to a thoroughly comprehensive treatment of basic concepts and explanations of the cross-linked fields of planning, landscape architecture and basic ecology. Chapters 2-5 contain detailed descriptions of data collection and analytical methods of land planning. Especially appealing is Chapter 5 which explains the concept of land 'suitability analysis' in a comprehensive and compellable manner. Steiner contrasts cutting-edge European methods with main-line McHargian and Agricultural Land Evaluation and Site Assessment System (LESA) techniques. Chapter 6, entitled 'Planning Options and Choices', is both an excellent synthesis of the literature on generating preferences (alternatives), and an innovative discussion on how to create advisory committees, opinion surveys, and conduct public hearings. Chapters 7-10 give a comprehensive treatment to the tasks of program design and project implementation. Steiner's execution of these chapters is commendable. Each chapter defines and contrasts implementations strategies, weighs the benefits and drawbacks of both traditional and innovative techniques, and concludes with solid examples of successful programs. These programs range from the Davis County (California) Energy Planning Program to the Snohomish County (Washington) Growth Management Strategy. Chapter 11 has two major strengths; both reveal the author's range of practical experience in local planning. The first is the role of the planning commission in the land planning and design process. The second is the often missing or understated budgeting procedure. The author's clear and concise treatment of Zero Based Budgeting and the Capital Improvements Budget compliments the meticulous detail found throughout the book.
As noted in the beginning, this book constitutes a very real contribution to the literature on local planning. Its special emphasis on non-metropolitan and rural resources land planning makes it ,a valuable aid to practicing planners, landscape architects and rural ecologists. Academics will find that An Ecological Approach to Landscape Planning is an excellent classroom text for advanced undergraduates or graduates. Its range, readability, and thorough treatment of a broad subject ensures that it is a major work in the field of planning. JOHN W. KELLER
Kansas State University, Department of Regional and Community Planning, U.S.A.
Urban and Rural Settlements, H. Carter, 192 pp., 1991, Longman, London, £4.95
This book is written primarily for sixth form students in the United Kingdom. It is one of a modular series of nine separate but interlocking texts which cater in its full range of systematic studies for Advanced Level teaching and learning. By selecting an appropriate combination of titles, students can assemble the reading necessary to support specific 'A' and 'A/S' Level syllabuses, including those which focus on human or physical topics alone. Against this background, the book deals in 10 chapters with the nature, growth, distribution and planning of settlements. Chapter 1 discusses basic distinctions and definitions. It draws examples from a number of countries and emphasises the imprecise nature of what is 'urban' and 'rural'. Two chapters then focus upon the patterns, forms and functions of rural settlements and communities, and three on the size, distribution, internal structure and inequalities of cities, in the developed world. Contrasting patterns and relationships are highlighted in Chapters 7 and 8 which look at Aspects of Cities in the Third World and The City in Socialist Countries, respectively. The practical and applied relevance of geographical study is emphasised in the remaining chapters which examine Town Planning and Townscape, and Settlements of the
Future. The fact that the book is written for sixth formers largely determines format, style and content. Considerable exposure is given to basic models of settlement location and structure. The morphology of settlements is also described in detail presumably as a link to teaching and learning in the field. Copious use is made of maps, diagrams and illustrations, and useful suggestions as to appropriate 'assignments' for students are made throughout the text. The range of subject matter encompassed inevitably raises questions of selectivity but the author is to be commended for striking a fine balance between breadth of coverage and depth of treatment. As well as laying the foundations for a sound understanding of urban and rural settlements at ' A ' Level, Harold Carter also identifies a number of issues that form a challenging focus of study for geographers in higher education. D A V I D CLARK
Department of Geography, Coventry Polytechnic, U.K.
349
necessarily address the problems of the exploited peasant, the landless and dispossessed, and the marginalized groups in both the rural and urban areas. Such groups could only be assisted by a socialist transformation, although the role of a differentiated peasantry in this transformation will depend upon the structure of social relations and practices existing at any particular time.
heavily subsidized, the most inefficient in terms of energy and other inputs, and the most packaged and processed in the world, but also that British food is highly adulterated and increasingly expensive. Importantly, Jenkins' paper adopts an action focus which details some of the policies which can be pursued at the local and national levels in order to reverse this situation.
Roger Bartra's paper focuses on Mexico's agrarian crisis and its impact on the mass of the peasants who had experienced the agrarian reforms of the 1930s. Since the 1950s, continuing capitalist development has eroded the position of the peasantry, with a shift in production towards commercial crops for export, inputs for non-food industries and luxury or non-basic foodstuffs. Such developments have been among the factors leading to the decreasing political significance of the peasantry in a political system which is increasingly urban based. The critical question now is how to dissolve the peasantry without provoking political chaos.
It will be clear from this discussion of individual contributions that the papers in this volume cover a wide range of topics. And while it is possible to take issue with many of the individual papers on points of substance or interpretation, nevertheless all maintain a very high standard.
Michael Watts' paper analyses the role of the peasantry under contract farming, the system of vertical co-ordination which links independent family farmers with a central processing, export or purchasing unit. While some observers have suggested that contract farming is a "dynamic partnership' between small farmers and private capital which promises benefits to both, Watts clearly demonstrates that it is an authoritarian relationship characterized by conflict and exploitation, involving further concentration and centralization of capital. In her paper on the Green Revolution, Utsa Pattnaik analyses the continuing impacts of this innovation in India. The first phase of the Green Revolution has been widely analysed and documented, and it is generally accepted that it involved a growing inequality in both regional and class terms, that is, the benefits of the Green Revolution largely accrued to the wealthier social groups in those areas of North India where it was initially introduced. However, because the technology has not successfully diffused to other areas in later years, the benefits continue to be concentrated, with the major returns still accruing to the minority of capitalist farmers in North India, who control the burgeoning marketable surpluses. It is this, combined with stagnation and falling rural incomes in other areas, that underwrites the paradox of starvation amidst plenty. The next round of innovations of the Green Revolution type will undoubtedly arise out of the research currently devoted to biotechnology, and Fred Buttel's paper analyses the prospects for Third World countries in establishing an indigenous technological capacity in this area. According to Buttel, biotechnology poses both a challenge and a threat to the Third World, but the impacts will be uneven. A small number of countries will be able to participate in a significant way and become major producers in the global context. However, most countries will feel the impact of developed country research and development in terms of increased 'substitutionism', in which Third World agricultural products are displaced by biotechnology, or as importers of products which may be costly and inappropriate (e.g. pharmaceuticals). The book concludes with Robin Jenkins' excellent summary of the politics of food in Britain. With great economy but considerable force, Jenkins questions many of the myths of British agriculture and food. He not only demonstrates that U.K. food production is the most
There are some significant omissions from the book, though. For example, despite an acknowledgement of the need to incorporate the question of the environment into the political economy of food, very little attention is paid to this issue. Yet it is of critical significance, particularly in terms of the opportunity it provides to expose the waste and irrationality of capitalist agriculture. More to the point, the failure to address the issue of the environment raises questions about the selection of topics for inclusion in this volume. For although the individual papers are of a consistently high quality, the book reveals some weaknesses as a collection. Despite the central focus on the food question and the shared socialist position of the contributions, the book lacks coherence and unity. It is missing that sense of organized effort and intellectual direction that might have emerged out of a more considered structure which focused on critical areas for analysis and organized these accordingly. This lack of coherence is, perhaps, to be expected in a volume which is breaking new ground in drawing in those topics which have so far been underrepresented in the analysis of the food question. However, this could have been overcome with a more substantial editorial input; for example, an essay drawing on the individual contributions and placing them in some wider theoretical and empirical context "would have greatly enhanced the overall impact of the book. As it is, the editors' introduction is fairly brief and only touches on a limited number of issues in the discussion of individual papers. These points notwithstanding, this volume makes an important contribution to our understanding of the continuing food problem, and serves to ensure that the issue will continue to be analysed in a way which is relevant and meaningful. For this reason, and for the high standard of individual papers, the book deserves to be widely read. It ensures that the real issues are kept to the fore, and it provides much useful material in countering the oversimplified analysis which so often passes for enquiry in academic and policy circles. DAVID BURCH
Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
The Living Landscape: an Ecological Approach to Landscape Planning, F. Steiner, xii + 356 pp., 1991, McGraw Hill, New York, $43.95
An Ecological Approach to Landscape Planning is a real contribution to the field of land use planning. It is a
350
B o o k Reviews
masterful synthesis of sustainable land planning, natural resources analysis, and practical applications of traditional land-use planning. Even the underpinning of Steiner's book speaks to the new genre of land-use planners. In the words of the author: 'Two fundamental reasons to plan are to influence sharing among people and to insure the viability of the future. Because we cannot function by ourselves, each of us is required to share time and space. Sharing is necessary for the well-being of our neighbors and of future generations. This book is about a specific kind of planning: It is about how to share physical space in communities' (Steiner, 1991, p. ix). The strength of Steiner's book flows from two factors. The first is its comprehensive treatment of the land planning process. The author brings the perspectives of the landscape architecture and the ecologist to planning practice on a local level. This local focus is both practical and immensely readable. Second, is the international appeal of the author's thesis, examples, and treatment of the literature. The thesis is sustainability - - a universal concern of local planners - - while the concrete examples are drawn from the author's considerable international experience. For example, in Chapter 5 entitled 'Suitability Analysis', the reader encounters project descriptions from the Zuider Zee in The Netherlands, Medford Township, New Jersey, The State of Washington and Canada. Turning to Steiner's organization of the book, both academics and practitioners will be pleased with the author's design and execution of this work. The book contains 12 chapters; the first is appropriately devoted to a thoroughly comprehensive treatment of basic concepts and explanations of the cross-linked fields of planning, landscape architecture and basic ecology. Chapters 2-5 contain detailed descriptions of data collection and analytical methods of land planning. Especially appealing is Chapter 5 which explains the concept of land 'suitability analysis' in a comprehensive and compellable manner. Steiner contrasts cutting-edge European methods with main-line McHargian and Agricultural Land Evaluation and Site Assessment System (LESA) techniques. Chapter 6, entitled 'Planning Options and Choices', is both an excellent synthesis of the literature on generating preferences (alternatives), and an innovative discussion on how to create advisory committees, opinion surveys, and conduct public hearings. Chapters 7-10 give a comprehensive treatment to the tasks of program design and project implementation. Steiner's execution of these chapters is commendable. Each chapter defines and contrasts implementations strategies, weighs the benefits and drawbacks of both traditional and innovative techniques, and concludes with solid examples of successful programs. These programs range from the Davis County (California) Energy Planning Program to the Snohomish County (Washington) Growth Management Strategy. Chapter 11 has two major strengths; both reveal the author's range of practical experience in local planning. The first is the role of the planning commission in the land planning and design process. The second is the often missing or understated budgeting procedure. The author's clear and concise treatment of Zero Based Budgeting and the Capital Improvements Budget compliments the meticulous detail found throughout the book.
As noted in the beginning, this book constitutes a very real contribution to the literature on local planning. Its special emphasis on non-metropolitan and rural resources land planning makes it ,a valuable aid to practicing planners, landscape architects and rural ecologists. Academics will find that An Ecological Approach to Landscape Planning is an excellent classroom text for advanced undergraduates or graduates. Its range, readability, and thorough treatment of a broad subject ensures that it is a major work in the field of planning. JOHN W. KELLER
Kansas State University, Department of Regional and Community Planning, U.S.A.
Urban and Rural Settlements, H. Carter, 192 pp., 1991, Longman, London, £4.95
This book is written primarily for sixth form students in the United Kingdom. It is one of a modular series of nine separate but interlocking texts which cater in its full range of systematic studies for Advanced Level teaching and learning. By selecting an appropriate combination of titles, students can assemble the reading necessary to support specific 'A' and 'A/S' Level syllabuses, including those which focus on human or physical topics alone. Against this background, the book deals in 10 chapters with the nature, growth, distribution and planning of settlements. Chapter 1 discusses basic distinctions and definitions. It draws examples from a number of countries and emphasises the imprecise nature of what is 'urban' and 'rural'. Two chapters then focus upon the patterns, forms and functions of rural settlements and communities, and three on the size, distribution, internal structure and inequalities of cities, in the developed world. Contrasting patterns and relationships are highlighted in Chapters 7 and 8 which look at Aspects of Cities in the Third World and The City in Socialist Countries, respectively. The practical and applied relevance of geographical study is emphasised in the remaining chapters which examine Town Planning and Townscape, and Settlements of the
Future. The fact that the book is written for sixth formers largely determines format, style and content. Considerable exposure is given to basic models of settlement location and structure. The morphology of settlements is also described in detail presumably as a link to teaching and learning in the field. Copious use is made of maps, diagrams and illustrations, and useful suggestions as to appropriate 'assignments' for students are made throughout the text. The range of subject matter encompassed inevitably raises questions of selectivity but the author is to be commended for striking a fine balance between breadth of coverage and depth of treatment. As well as laying the foundations for a sound understanding of urban and rural settlements at ' A ' Level, Harold Carter also identifies a number of issues that form a challenging focus of study for geographers in higher education. D A V I D CLARK
Department of Geography, Coventry Polytechnic, U.K.