The Working Landscape: Founding, Preservation, and the Politics of Place

In America today we see rampant development, unsustainable resource exploitation, andcommodification ruin both natural and built landscapes, disconnecting us from our surroundings andthreatening our fundamental sense of place. Meanwhile, preservationists often respond with acounterproductive stance that rejects virtually any change in the landscape. In The WorkingLandscape, Peter Cannavo identifies this zero-sum conflict between development and preservation as amajor factor behind our contemporary crisis of place. Cannavo offers practical and theoreticalalternatives to this deadlocked, polarized politics of place by proposing an approach that embracesboth change and stability and unifies democratic and ecological values, creating a "workinglandscape."Place, Cannavo argues, is not just an object but an essential human practice thatinvolves the physical and conceptual organization of our surroundings into a coherent, enduringlandscape. This practice must balance development (which he calls "founding") and preservation.Three case studies illustrate the polarizing development-preservation conflict: the debate over thelogging of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest; the problem of urban sprawl; and theredevelopment of the former site of the World Trade Center in New York City. Cannavo suggests thatregional, democratic governance is the best framework for integrating development and preservation,and he presents specific policy recommendations that aim to create a "working landscape" in rural,suburban, and urban areas. A postscript on the mass exile, displacement, and homelessness caused byHurricane Katrina considers the implications of future climate change for the practice ofplace.

Peter F. Cannavo is Visiting Assistant Professor of Government at Hamilton College.