ABSTRACT
Our interest in the land development process springs from a concern for understanding the patterns of change in the rural arena and our need to adopt a vantage point from which to observe them. In this sense, the land-development process acts as an observational “window”. Whereas other facets of restructuring, such as the labour market, could serve a similar purpose, the land-development process provides a perspective that allows the physical transformation of given places to be analyzed in terms that tie this firmly to broader patterns of economic, social and political change. From our standpoint, therefore, conceptions of the land-development process that attempt to uncover the interactions between the internal dynamic of the process and the context in which it unfolds meet the methodological position outlined in Chapter 6. But what do we mean by land development? In physical terms, land development includes changes in land management as well as land use. Each contributes to land development, although a distinction of degree and of kind can often be drawn between changes to management practice and changes to use. For example, a series of cumulative shifts in management might add up to development, as in the case of grassland improvement through reseeding, increased fertilizer applications and the build-up of stocking densities. The essential feature of land development is, however, normally a change in land use to yield either additional or new sources of income. It often involves the investment of new capital, but it may not, as in the introduction of commercial shooting to an existing woodland, or even the planned withdrawal of private capital as in the case of the current, publicly funded programme of agricultural extensification.
