McHarg’s appeal lay in promising environmental fixes without wrenching social change

Evidence

At a time of deepening anxiety about the fate of the planet – Design with Nature appeared less than a year before the first Earth Day – his work suggested that we might solve our environmental problems without wrenching social dislocations. Though he could sound like Jeremiah when blasting “anthropocentric clods” for a multitude of environmental sins, he was no mere chastiser: He was also a skilled problem solver. — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 714

Categorization

• XREF: The promise that environmental problems could be solved within existing growth institutions anticipates the compatibilist framing later criticized by deeper critiques. — connects to: McHarg held that technical planning tools were useless without changed land values — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 716; Environmentally sustainable futures require norm-changing values, not incremental fixes; McHarg’s Design with Nature fused ecological philosophy with applied planning methods — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 712

Broader Connections

• Environmentally sustainable futures require norm-changing values, not incremental fixes #complicates (0.80)
• McHarg’s Design with Nature fused ecological philosophy with applied planning methods #qualifies (0.80) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 712