The Last Landscape

21. The Last Landscape

~21 The Last Landscape In putting the case for higher density, there is one argument I have not made: that by putting more people on developed land, more land will be left undeveloped, i.e., that we can have more people and more open space. It is a tempting proposition, and in theory it could be true. In practice the prospect seems quite unlikely. Let me be consistent: If we are to seek a much more intensive and efficient use of land for development, we should apply an equally rigorous standard to open space. We are going to have to. Even if the drop in the birth rate continues , we are going to have more people and less space. Vigorous open space programs will help keep a balance, but the pressures for urban land are so intense that it is difficult to foresee how there is going to be more open space in metropolitan areas than there is now. In absolute tenns, there is going to be less; in relative terms of space per person, far less. This may seem a negative way to start off a summary of the prospects for open space. But these pressures need not mean a poorer environment. True, we might have a better one if we could also save huge swaths and green belts, but until someone shows a practical way to do this we should concentrate on saving land that can be saved now, and this calls for increasing attention to the smaller spaces. There is a danger in bespeaking the case for the small spaces, for it can be easily misused by people who would be only too happy to have open spaces small and nothing more. Let it be said again, therefore, that if we have to err in our acquisition programs, let it The Last' Landscape 349 be toward more open space. I criticize the grandiose plans not because they will gain too much open space, but that by being unrealistic they will in the end gain too little. A good cause does not exempt us from competitive pressures. The dominant trend is toward more intensive land use, and this, not the machinations of speculators, is why land prices are so high. These prices make acquisition tougher, but they are also a discipline; just as they have forced developers toward a more efficient use of their tracts, so should they force planners to get much more out of each acre of open space. Each square foot, indeed. We must make every piece of space do double and triple duty, and we have all the tools and precedents we need. With ingenuity, we can make the smaller spaces seem larger; we can :6n.d ways to link them and to emphasize their continuities; we can make them far more accessible to people, and if not to the foot, at least to the eye. It is the effect of open space we are seeking, not just the space, and with this approach a given acreage of open spaces can be larlt into a pattem more pleasing, more useful, and seemingly more expansive than a far greater acreage laid out in conventional fashion. It could be said that my emphasis is on the micro-environment. This scale is all very well for local and neighborhood planning, some might hold, but it is the macro-environment that should get the emphasis, for it is in these big-picture terms-the structuring of the region-that open space fulfills its highest function. But can open space restructure the metropolis? More to the point, can planners restructure the metropolis? Those who are now assuming the burden of regional design see structure as the great new challenge and open space as a major tool; by interdicting growth in the wrong places, open space will help channel it to the right places and thereby give form and structure to the region. I think they expect much too much. Open space can help people perceive the structure; open space cannot reshape it, and it is difficult to understand why planners are fretting so much over the matter anyway. The structure is already set. The topography and the transportation lines are what give structure to the region, and they were laid down a long time ago. They can be modified, expanded, intensified. Except in very exceptional circumstances, however, they cannot really be changed. 350 The Last Landscape Most...