ABSTRACT
Chapter 8 , titled “City and Countryside,” situates Ian McHarg’s study of suburbia in relationship to the work of the urban geographer Jean Gottmann. The chapter begins with a review of the argument presented by Gottmann in Megalopolis and his claim that the patchwork pattern of houses, factories, farms, forests, and recreation areas that comprised mid-20th-century metropolitan regions necessitated a revaluation of the traditional concept of city and countryside. This discussion positions Gottmann’s work in relation to the “negative development maps” that McHarg created to redirect the focus of urban planning away from built form and toward an in-depth discussion of ecological processes, resource conservation, and landscape preservation. The land use surveys that McHarg developed with the help of his students and professional colleagues in case studies on the Delaware River basin, the Metropolitan region of Philadelphia, a barrier island in New Jersey, and suburban enclave in Maryland illustrate how he translated his theory of ecological design and environmental planning into a method of practice.
