Editors’ Introduction

EDITORIAL CHANGES

On January 1, 2017, Brian D. Lee, PhD, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Kentucky, will assume the role of Editor for Landscape Journal. The current editors wish Professor Lee best wishes in the pursuit of his agenda for the future for the Journal. We are and will continue to work closely with Dr. Lee in the transition of the editorship from the Universities of Georgia and Minnesota to the University of Kentucky. The current editors will retain full control over the editorial content of Volume 35 (Spring and Fall, 2016). We will assist Professor Lee in preparation of content for Volume 36. Professor Lee welcomes inquiries from future contributors.

EDITORIAL THEMES RELATING TO OUR PERIOD OF EDITORSHIP

Over the seven years of editorship by Lance Neckar and David Pitt (Volumes 29 through 32 or 2010 to 2013) and Daniel Nadenicek and David Pitt (Volumes 33 through 35 or 2014 to 2016), Landscape Journal published a total of 97 articles. The editors presented five special issues on Transdisciplinary Action Research (TDAR) in Landscape Planning and Design (30:1, Spring 2011), Lawrence Halprin (31:1–2, Spring/Fall 2012), multifunctional landscapes (32:2, Fall 2013), and cultural landscape (35:2, to appear in fall 2016). The remaining nine “omnibus” issues of our editorship contained a wide assortment of submitted articles. All of the issues focused on our original desire to sustain the Journal’s discursive openness toward and timely management of high-quality critical inquiry and discourse of and around scholarship relating to the planning, design, and management of land.

In an effort to recapitulate the contribution of the editorial team in advancing this discourse, we present an informal assessment of the content of the 97 articles appearing in the 14 issues. The editors identified 49 themes evident in the articles through an informal assessment and classification of article content based on author key words and the editors’ understanding of article content.

The following table identifies the frequency with which the 97 articles addressed each theme. The effect of the special issues published during our editorship on shaping thematic content is evident. Other than the influence of the special issues in determining article themes, entries examined: cultural landscape and cultural influences in design; history and historical influences; participatory design; design theory and pedagogy; urban and community design; landscape planning; ecological planning and design; and urban agriculture.

As noted in previous Editorial Introductions, in 2014, we switched to an online submission system. This change has increased the number of manuscript submissions. For the calendar year 2015 (the first full year of use of this system for receipt of submissions), we received 38 manuscripts for consideration. Other than during periods of calls for manuscripts for special issues, we received an average of 23 manuscripts per year.

ABOUT THIS ISSUE

In recent issues of Landscape Journal (33:1 and 34:2), we have called for presentation of scholarship in the design, planning, and management of land that examines multiple ways of seeing the landscape, both physically and metaphorically. Authors have responded, as witnessed in Alison Hirsch’s “Urban Barnraising: Collective Rituals to Promote Communitas” (34(2): 113–127) and Javier Arbona’s “Anti-memorials and World War II Heritage in the San Francisco Bay Area: Spaces of the 1942 Black Sailors’ Uprising” (34(2): 177–192). In this issue we bookend seven articles with an initial piece that examines the systematic placement of monuments to Confederate soldiers in federal cemeteries as a means of resolving differences in racial perspectives between the Confederacy and the Union. At the end of the issue, we highlight two articles dealing with disparities in the availability and perception of Detroit parks by African American and white residents, and the influence of race on the production of urban space in Baltimore. In between these bookends are two articles dealing with a conceptual discussion of resiliency and its application to the design of urban space in two central New York State cities. A second set of articles focuses on assessment of rural landscapes in terms of long-term changes in riparian corridor structure and...