Preservationist defense of nature was a negative stance unfit for the urban growth challenge

Evidence

But McHarg’s target was not simply the developers – “the despoilers.” He criticized planners and conservationists, too. In different ways, he argued, each group had failed to respond to the environmental challenge posed by urban growth. Planners typically knew nothing about environmental science, nothing about the value of natural processes. But conservationists also were to blame. “The proponents of nature emphasize preservation,” he wrote, “a negative position, one of defense, which excludes positive participation in the real and difficult tasks of creating noble and ennobling cities in fair landscapes.” To stop the despoliation of the countryside, he concluded, conservationists needed to widen their field of concern “to include, not only wild environments, but those dominated by man.” — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 711

Categorization

• XREF: Links preservation-as-passive-defense to the conservation-versus-preservation distinction running through the polyad’s environmentalism courses. — connects to: The core environmental question became where to site growth, not whether to stop it — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 715; Conservationist ideas carried into environmentalism through an urbanized land ethic — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 44; Environmentalists’ rural ideal of nature hindered building an urban land-use vision — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 987

Broader Connections

• Environmentalists’ rural ideal of nature hindered building an urban land-use vision #expands (0.92) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 987