Urban–Rural Planning
Rural places often absorb the costs of urban growth. I study how state and local policy plays out across the urban–rural divide.
A Short History of Urban–Rural Planning
Planners have argued for more than a century about how cities and the countryside depend on each other. The divide has always been blurrier than the maps suggest.
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- Early ideas
- 1898
The town-country magnet
Ebenezer Howard's garden city idea tries to combine the best of city and countryside in one planned community.
- 1915
The city-region
Patrick Geddes's Cities in Evolution treats a city and its surrounding region as one connected system.
- 1923
Regional planning in the U.S.
Lewis Mumford, Benton MacKaye, and others form the Regional Planning Association of America to plan whole regions, not just cities.
- 1933
Tennessee Valley Authority
The federal government takes on large-scale regional planning in the rural South, from dams to electricity to land management.
- Growth at the edge
- 1956
Interstate highways
The Federal-Aid Highway Act speeds suburban and exurban growth into farmland at the urban fringe.
- 1981
Farmland Protection Policy Act
Federal projects must consider how they convert farmland to other uses.
- Rethinking the divide
- 1998
Rural-urban interactions
Cecilia Tacoli argues flows of people, goods, money, and waste between city and country matter more than the line between them.
- 2011
Rural America in an urban society
Daniel Lichter and David Brown show how rural places are tied into urban economies, labor markets, and politics.
- 2014
Planetary urbanization
Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid argue urbanization reshapes even remote landscapes through mines, farms, and infrastructure.
- Rural environmental justice
- 2016
Urban-rural exploitation
Kelly-Reif and Wing name the pattern of cities exporting burdens like waste, pollution, and industrial farming to rural communities.
- 2016
Rural voices in EJ
David Pellow calls on environmental justice and rural studies scholars to work together, and Ashwood and MacTavish show how rural residents get outvoted on decisions that put burdens in their communities.
- 2019
Urban-Rural Linkages
UN-Habitat publishes guiding principles for planning cities and rural areas together.
- 2024
Landscapes in transition
Brown and colleagues show how climate-driven landscape changes in Europe, from energy projects to conservation, create new rural justice conflicts.
In Florida
Florida’s cities depend on rural land for food, water, and space for what cities produce, from farmland to waste. Rural counties often have fewer planning resources to shape how that relationship works.
- 1979
Right to Farm Act
Florida protects farm operations from nuisance claims. Later amendments bar local governments from restricting farm activities covered by state best management practices.
- 1985
Growth Management Act
Every city and county must adopt a comprehensive plan, including how rural land is used.
- 1999
Florida Forever
The state launches a land conservation program that buys and protects natural and rural lands.
- 2011
Community Planning Act
State review of local plans is scaled back, leaving rural counties with fewer planning resources to manage growth pressure.
- 2026
Biosolids flows
My research traces how biosolids produced in Florida's metro counties are applied in less populated rural counties.
Key Readings
- Ashwood, L., & MacTavish, K. (2016). Tyranny of the majority and rural environmental injustice. Journal of Rural Studies, 47.
- Brenner, N., & Schmid, C. (2014). The ‘urban age’ in question. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38(3), 731–755.
- Howard, E. (1902). Garden Cities of To-morrow. Swan Sonnenschein.
- Kelly-Reif, K., & Wing, S. (2016). Urban-rural exploitation: An underappreciated dimension of environmental injustice. Journal of Rural Studies, 47.
- Lichter, D. T., & Brown, D. L. (2011). Rural America in an urban society: Changing spatial and social boundaries. Annual Review of Sociology, 37, 565–592.
- Tacoli, C. (1998). Rural-urban interactions: A guide to the literature. Environment and Urbanization, 10(1), 147–166.
- Pellow, D. N. (2016). Environmental justice and rural studies: A critical conversation and invitation to collaboration. Journal of Rural Studies, 47, 381–386.