ABSTRACT
The study of ordinary landscapes is a focus of cultural geography and at its best can reveal societal attitudes and political choices in ways otherwise hidden from view. Where historical accounts of interesting places tend to focus on social histories and downplay the role of space within which change takes place, landscape study situates that space as a central character. In this chapter, the landscape of Churchville, an Ontario riverside village, is the central character in a narrative of exurban change. Laura Taylor, a planner and geographer, draws out the felt experience of sprawl, which is often difficult to discuss as something beyond mere nostalgia for the landscape sprawl has replaced. Recounting the history of settlement as the intertwinement of nature and culture, Taylor explains the exurban impulse to escape urban areas as a reaction to contemporary urbanization, which creates landscapes devoid of everyday relationships with nature.
