Critical Planning

The planning profession has focused on the problems of urban areas and largely ignored issues of rural areas. Within the profession, rural places are most often seen as those yet to become urban. In doing so, planners have not only ignored the needs of rural populations but also the importance of rural landscapes for food production. Cheaper lands in rural areas, especially near recreational amenities, have become popular destinations for relatively wealthy exurbanites searching for an escape from the extreme housing prices and congestion of urban areas.

This paper highlights not only the planning crisis in rural areas, but also how the conversion of rural land and the loss of productive lands in rural places is directly driven by poorly considered application of traditional planning tools. This paper argues that if we continue to use urban planning tools to address rural issues, planners will have actively contributed to the demise of these rural landscapes. Rural contexts beg for place-based approaches that acknowledge land and lifestyle challenges of non-urban space. Absent such a change, planners will continue to play a central role in the conversion of productive rural lands to residential development, perpetuating a crisis of planning.