How much of the land should be planned and how much designed? I would say that remote areas dominated by natural processes should only be subjected to the broadest-scale planning, and certainly should escape any fine-scale design. The rest of the world needs broad-scale planning to identify, protect, and develop best land uses. In contrast, fine-scale design that protects and creates inspiring places for people is extremely valuable in scattered spots, especially in urban regions where people concentrate. How would you answer the question?

Land planning is now considered from three broad perspectives: (1) planning and land management; (2) conservation planning; and (3) urban planning focused on urban regions.

Planning and land management

Leading off the chapter with land management highlights the relatively short-term issues of planning, where adaptively managing existing land and its resources, particularly protected land, is the goal. We begin with some perspectives on the role of planning, and then focus on land management.

The role of planning

Physical planning is the prime concern here, rather than the relatively non-spatial political, economic, social, and policy planning. Both urban planning and conservation planning focus on space. Place is more important in urban planning, and habitat in conservation planning. Both place and habitat have deep ties and meaning to space. Place includes the natural and the built, but expresses the human affinity for a space (Norberg-Schulz 1980, Seddon 1997).