ABSTRACT
Introduction Public debate about the consequences of land-use change and ‘urban sprawl’ raise important challenges for social and natural scientists. From a social science perspective, land-use change is often viewed as an economic process in which landowners determine land use based on the economic rents from alternative activities, as described in Chapter 6 (Muth 1961; Alonso 1964). While this simple atomistic framework provides useful insights, it is often criticized for treating land as uni-dimensional and ignoring the private and public externalities associated with land uses (e.g., Bockstael 1996). On the other hand, natural scientists concerned with land-use change attempt to determine the consequences of land conversion from natural to developed states for species diversity and the provision of ecological services. As discussed in Chapter 6, these externalities and environmental effects may extend beyond the boundaries of the converted land and contribute to the negative impacts of urban sprawl. A fundamental message from these different perspectives is that land-use change decisions, driven by the invisible hand of private property incentives, may not lead to socially optimal landuse patterns (Brueckner 2000; Daily 1997; Douglas 1994). This tension between private and social interests in land-use decisions creates an important research agenda for social and natural scientists. The broad objectives of this agenda were succinctly expressed by Jane Lubchenko, past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in her prospectus on the role of scientists in the 21st century:
The current and growing extent of human dominance of the planet will require new kinds of knowledge and applications from science – knowledge to reduce the rate at which we alter the Earth systems, knowledge to understand Earth’s ecosystems and how they interact with the numerous components of human-caused global change, and knowledge to manage the planet (Lubchenko 1998, p.495).
