ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Valentine Cadieux explores the paradoxical nature of the modern pastoral, an idea drawn from Frankfurt school critical theory, architectural theory, and analysis of literature and literature of the environment. The “modern pastoral” refers to a technologically-enabled idealization of the natural environment that obscures the industrial processes that make the green sprawl landscape and its aesthetic appreciation possible. The ways that exurban residents modify landscapes to reflect their ideologies are a central theme of this book. Cadieux makes the idea of the modern pastoral accessible by taking a look at exurbanites’ management of trees as an entry into understanding ideologies of nature and the ways these are made material.
