1、出处：Tjallingii S P. Ecology on the edge: : Landscape and ecology between town and countryJ. Landscape & Urban Planning, 2000, 48(34):103-119.中文 3138字 单词 1750字 Ecology on the edge: Landscape and ecology between town and country Sybrand P Tjallingii Abstract The trends are world wide: p
2、eople and goods are increasingly mobile, compact cities develop into urban networks, industrializing agriculture is becoming footloose, rural life becomes urban life in a green setting. Social segregation, traffic nuisance, urban sprawl and other unwanted impacts of these trends challenge urban and
3、regional planners. The search for planning answers to these issues is further complicated by the need for sustainable development at a global scale. What is the role of ecology in the context of the discussions on the future of town and country? The traditional, and still dominant, approach is based
4、 on the polarity of urban and rural worlds. In this perspective, ecology focuses on the nature of protected areas and biodiversity. The papers in this special issue explore the prospects of a wider perspective in which natural processes are seen as basic to both, rural and urban development. This ar
5、ticle is digging up the fundamental discourses underlying the two approaches to ecology and nature. Firstly, the object-oriented and process-oriented discourses are analyzed.Secondly, the prospects of a process-oriented discourse are illustrated with plans for the Dutch Randstad and the German Ruhr
6、area. Then, some new concepts are introduced that may strengthen the institutional conditions for the process-oriented approach. Discourses, concepts, plans and projects all circle around the central question in this article about the role of ecology in planning the edge of the city. Keywords
7、Urban and regional planning； Ecology； Discourses； City edge 1. Introduction Landscape ecology may be taken in a strict or in a broad sense. The strictinterpretation, most popular in the International Association of Landscape Ecology and its associated organizations, focuses o
8、n habitats and population dynamics of plants and animals at the scale of landscapes. The papers in this special issue cross the edge of this strict interpretation and engage in a broad approach of the classical definition of ecology: the interaction between living organisms and their environment. Th
9、is broad view places economy, sociology and ecology at the same level as complementary approaches to the study of manenvironment interactions. As the papers in this issue demonstrate, the broad approach offers meaningful context studies, both to social and economic researchers and to landscape ecolo
10、gists sensu stricto. First of all, however, the need for a broad approach emerges from local and regional practice, where planners are challenged by the dynamic nature of urbanrural interactions. The papers in this issue were presented at a workshop on urbanrural interactions during the 1997 confere
11、nce of the Dutch Association for Landscape Ecology and this explains the emphasis on the Ramstad Holland and other Dutch issues in most, but not all, of the articles. The issue opens with two reflections on basic discourses framing theory and practice of town and country planning. The following thre
12、e papers are based on analytical research and explore biological, psychological and economic aspects of urbanizing landscapes. In the third and last part of this issue, three planning and design studies deal with plans at different scales: house and garden, built-up and green areas in a city and, fi
13、nally, infrastructure planning at a regional scale. A more prominent role of ecology is becoming self-evident in planning and design of urban and rural areas. By no means evident, however, is the meaning of ecology. To some, the presence of green areas is the central topic, to others managing flows
14、and recycling is the heart of the matter and yet others think the lifestyle of actors is the real issue. To architects and to many others, the first question about ecology is, perhaps: is it form or function? The focus of this paper is on the edge of the city and, in general, on urbanrural interacti
15、ons. Here, the central question is: what does ecology have to offer to the local planner? More precisely: how useful is ecological knowledge in the context of accommodating and steering 指导 urbanization processes and rural development? The situation is far from clear. Does an ecological approac
16、h to planning lead to compact central cities, as the Commission of the European Communities (CEC) states in its Green paper on the Urban Environment (Commission of the European Communities, 1990)? Or is the real message of ecology “that the city must be unmade by the unmaking of its boundaries,” imp
17、lying both, greening the cities and urbanizing the countryside (Nicholson Lord, 1987: p. 211)? In search for answers to these questions, I will first turn to an underlying layer of ecology interpretations and describe two ecology discourses. First, the focus is on the traditional, and still dominant
18、, discourse on ecology, in which town and country are considered as expressions of the culturenature polarity. In this view, nature is taken as an object, an area or a species. Then, an emerging alternative discourse is introduced, that may be called ecological modernization and takes natural proces
19、ses as its point of departure. If nature is an object, then nature is something to possess. If nature is a process, then nature is something that acts. I describe the two approaches as discourses, to elucidate the conceptual 概念的 and practical context of different ways of seeing that lead to co
20、ntrasting actions. In modern sociology and planning theory, discourse analysis is developed to unravel the ideas, concepts and categorizations contained and reproduced in language (Hajer, 1996: 44). The approach is rooted in the work of Foucault, Giddens and others and is based on the assumption tha
21、t our understanding of the material reality is constructed discursively (Jacobs, 1999: p. 203). Recently, discourse analysis has become an important instrument in research on urban change (Hastings, 1999) and on urbanrural interactions (Hidding et al., 2000). In Hajers approach (Hajer, 1996: pp. 586
22、5), typically, different actors who may support a collection of ideas for different reason form discourse coalitions. These coalitions may change, as discourses are susceptible to change. In this view, on the one hand, discourse is not merely a function of power； it is not a passive tool in the hand
23、s of vested group interests. On the other hand, discourse is neither a fixed language linked to deeply held belief systems such as convictions about the role of the market or the state. Discourse construction and reconstruction results from the interaction between human agency and social structures
24、in a changing world. The two ecology discourses have different potentials both for problem and solution finding. Subsequent sections of this article will illustrate this with a number of current issues in urban rural interaction, and with a number of plans and projects from the Randstad and Ruhr met
25、ropolitan areas. As I will demonstrate, the ecology discourse that takes nature as an object is deeply rooted in institutional structures, but its potential to address fundamental issues is limited. The process-oriented discourse, however, has promising prospects, but its institutional base is weak.
26、 After these examples I discuss two conceptual tools aiming at improving the institutional structure for a process-oriented approach to regional planning. The forumpilot-project strategy focuses on the structural basis for a prominent role of learning from projects and plans. This comprises the stra
27、tegy of the two networks. This strategic concept takes the water and traffic networks as carrying structures for the zoning of functions usually called urban and rural. In Section 6, I will return to the questions raised at the start and make some general recommendations on the role of ecology in ur
28、banrural planning and, more specifically in planning the edge of the city. 2. Ecology discourses 2.1. The traditional discourse: nature as an object According to a common view, nature starts where the city ends. Here, on the edge of the city, lies the boundary between culture and nature, between red
29、 and green, that is: between the built environment and untouched landscape. Of course, there are trees and parks in the city, and, of course, the countryside is not as wild as it used to be, but these observations do not seem to affect the dominant view: the city is the enemy of nature and the front
30、-line is the edge of the city. In this line of thinking, all building is bad. If urban nature has a meaning, it could only refer to the study of wildlife in some less densely built urban environments. This way of thinking has practical advantages for those who share it. Politicians are attracted by
31、the idea that paying attention to ecology means creating a concrete nature reserve near the city. Architects like to think in the polarity between the wild and the beautifully designed and it seems logical to discuss it as the polarity between nature and culture. Biologists are attracted by the idea
32、 that they are the professional ecologists with nature as their object. Environmentalists are inclined to use this language to defend the countryside against urbanization. In this traditional discourse, ecology is tied to the nature of protected areas and wildlife species. In this interpretation, ec
33、ology is object-oriented. In operational planning too, the object character of nature is an advantage. Nature areas can be bought and fenced and budgets for maintenance can be allocated. Wild species can be protected by specific measures, proposed by specialists working in special departments. The division of labor is clear: the sector departments for social affairs, economic affairs, housing and nature have different specialists, who defend their territories. Thus, in this context nature is part of a spatially and functionally separated world.
