How Is Urban Land Use Unique?

Abstract

This chapter discusses current urban land use (in terms of form, size, and shape of cities and urban areas) against a global background. The specifics of urban land use (surface characteristics, dynamics of change, and impacts on the environment) are examined using different conceptual approaches (e.g., ecosystem services, risk, and governance aspects). Although urban land use is a special case (i.e., small in scale, yet dominant in influence), a range of commonalities exist between urban and nonurban land use. A discussion on shrinking cities underlines that there are more pathways to urban land (-use) development than growth. The current extent and rates of urbanization force us to rethink land connectivity, competition, and decision making, and the resulting knowledge can be used to generate a new concept of land use. The connections and implications of urban land-use patterns need to be examined on a global scale, as local-scale patterns may be affected by global-scale outcomes and vice versa.

Published in

Title: Rethinking Global Land Use
ISBN: 978-0-262-32211-9Publisher: MIT PRESS, FIVE CAMBRIDGE CENTER

Conference

14th Ernst Strungmann Forum

UKÄ Subject classification

Other Earth and Related Environmental Sciences


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262026901.001.0001

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/89627