A Rediscovered Frontier: Land Use and Resource Issues in the New West

A Rediscovered Frontier describes the changing land use issues taking place in the rapidly growing western United States, paying special attention to the previously unexplored area of private lands planning and local growth management. The book begins by exploring the term "New West,"and then describes prototypical land use patterns found throughout the West. It examines the spatial circumstances of rural and small town growth patterns, and provides examples of the kinds of development that could occur elsewhere in areas having similar geographic situations. The book takes a close look at Oregon's statewide planning approach to managing growth, and concludes with a forward-looking, cooperative approach to comprehensive planning. Intended as a text for college students taking courses in land use planning, a sourcebook for land use planning and environmental management professionals, as well as anyone who cares about western environments, A Rediscovered Frontier addresses the social, economic, political, and above all, geographical realities of land use in the West today.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 LAND USE AND RESOURCE ISSUES IN THE NEW WEST Chapter 2 DEVELOPMENT PATTERNS AND PROTOTYPES Chapter 3 A GEOGRAPHIC LAND USE DIGEST Chapter 4 CONVERGENT PROBLEMS, DIVERGENT SOLUTIONS Chapter 5 THE TAKINGS ISSUE AS A CHALLENGE TO GROWTH MANAGEMENT Chapter 6 A RATIONAL MODEL FOR COMPREHENSIVE LAND USE PLANNING

About the Author :
Philip L. Jackson is professor emeritus at the Department of Geosciences, Oregon State University. Robert Kuhlken is professor at the Department of Geography and Land Studies, Central Washington University.

Review :
A Rediscovered Frontier provides an excellent and sweeping 'digest' of the state of land use planning in the rapidly changing New West. This fine volume is essential reading on contemporary planning issues, emerging development patterns, and the convergent resource conflicts that come with landscape transformation. A significant contribution. Read this book if you want to know to what the New West is, where it is, and how it is changing the contemporary landscape of the American West. Jackson and Kuhlken describe both larger trends and the changes taking place in specific places, large and small, and make recommendations citizens and planners should seriously consider. Geographers Phillip Jackson and Robert Kuhlken take us on a tour of the small-town and rural West, where rapid population growth and land development are changing the social and physical landscape. From Bend, Oregon, to Ruidoso, New Mexico, they track the New West, and take the measure of challenges faced by local leaders and residents, many of whom want to fight growth, or at least channel it in ways that maintain their communities' identity and sense of place. This book will help those communities. This is a fresh look at land use trends in the rural West. The authors examine these trends in the context of controversies over growth management in rural communities, and the likely consequences of the 2004 vote on Measure 37 in the State of Oregon that challenges that state's progressive growth management legislation. They urge a return to values prevalent earlier in the settlement of the region, in which individual opportunity was balanced with common-property needs—a strong challenge to Westerner's boxed in to a growing extent by population growth. This fine book should be required reading for every resident of the New West. Philip Jackson and Robert Kuhlken provide a sweeping reconnaissance of one of America's fastest changing regions. From Bozeman, Montana to Prescott, Arizona we see the emerging land use issues and conflicts of the New West through the eyes of a pair of veteran observers. The solutions they propose will be of interest not only to planners, developers, and local government officials, but to every westerner, both New and Old, who calls the region home." An essential resource for thinking about western problems, A Rediscovered Frontier provides explanations and solutions for a troubled region. It'll hold a prominent place on my bookshelf. A Rediscovered Frontier is a great introduction to land use policy and development issues in the New West. Jackson and Kuhlken examine shifting land use planning and resource development issues that have emerged as the Old West resource extraction economy is transformed into the New West economy of tourism, outdoor recreation, and scenic amenities. This book is a great guide to the New West for land use planners and policy analysts. It helps the reader understand how the rural West and local communities can better adapt to this new settlement frontier. This volume is primarily aimed at professionals and policy makers involved in contemporary land use planning debates in the American West. Recommended.