Changing rural landscapes: A need for planning and management

This article explains how recreational subdivisions convert large tracts of rural land in the USA into ‘potential vacation homesites’. Much subdivision has occurred in areas where land use regulations are weak or non-existent. All too often developers have implemented an operational framework without a master plan, have not adhered to local environmental constraints, and failed to provide the most basic services needed for human habitation. Many of these so-called ‘planned new communities’ qualify as neither communities nor planned and end up as ghost subdivisions with vast acreages of unused, vacant land marked by an elaborate network of bladed roads. Specific developmental guidelines are suggested to assist governmental officials in reducing the negative impact associated with the premature subdivision of land years prior to its expected use.