ABSTRACT
This chapter engages problems in valuing green sprawl for its aesthetic nature, and explores ways that the aesthetic of nature as pristine wilderness limits meaningful everyday environmental engagements that green infrastructure in urban and residential landscapes might otherwise make possible. The view of exurban landscapes as pristine nature—a view supported, in part, by a popularized version of Thoreauvian cultural heritage—under-mines valuable possibilities for more sustainable and equitable land uses. Such land-use improvements might be encouraged by helping residents of green sprawl come to terms with the ways their landscapes could be managed to reduce their disproportionate resource appropriation.
