Soil-conservation agencies reframed sprawl problems as soil-science failures

Evidence

One of the first signs of the new thinking came in the 1963 Yearbook of Agriculture, which included several essays on land use at the rural-urban border. In a piece entitled “Planning for Conservation in the Suburbs,” an SCS official argued that a variety of environmental problems in fast-growing areas – septic-tank failures, flooding, landslides, and erosion – all stemmed from inadequate attention to soil science. As a result, the nation’s soil conservationists had a chance to improve the quality of the suburban environment by showing developers and planning officials how to work more successfully with nature. — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 826

Categorization

• XREF: Ties together the book’s earlier chapters (septic tanks, landslides, flooding) under one institutional reframing—connects to ch49, 51, 60 threads. — connects to: Scientific framing of sediment as pollution drove the definitional shift leading to regulation — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 822; Government wildlife experts could influence sprawl only by entering the development process directly — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 849

Broader Connections

• Government wildlife experts could influence sprawl only by entering the development process directly #expands (0.75) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 849