ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a provisional reading of how landscape informs the present and future commitments of urban design and planning. Landscape's recent cultural relevance relates to a unique combination of broad environmental awareness and the rise of the donor class as the means through which design is defined as culture. The recent renewal of landscape's relevance for discussions of contemporary urbanism has little to do with the McHargian project. A brief survey of contemporary landscape design practices internationally offers a provisional thesis: in many instances landscape design strategies precede planning. The city of New York has been among the most important venues for the development of landscape urbanist practices. While practices of landscape urbanism have reshaped the planning and development of North American cities, these practices is found increasingly commonly in cities around the world. Another genre of work deploys landscape strategies as the pretext for broadly conceived program of water management and economic development.
