Planning with the Land

Abstract

In the development of the man-modified landscape, it is a basic fact that the natural ecological communities of plants, animals and soil-life of a region do not support sedentary human communities, except in unusual conditions. In the ecological “constitution,” man, like many other animals, is mostly a migrant. Since man first began to strive for a sedentary way of life, a large proportion of his efforts accordingly to be invested in orderly planned activities, aimed at changing his environment and maintaining fertility and habitability by continued interference — both destructive and constructive — in natural processes. To support sedentary communities, the ecological balance of natural regions first had to be disturbed and next to be artificially re-established on a new basis which favoured the existence of man. Villages and houses offering a protection against climatic and other exterior changes had to be kept in a state of habitability by continuous work.