About Island Press Island Press is the only nonprofit organization in the United States whose principal purpose is the publication of books on environmental issues and natural resource management. We provide solutions-oriented information to professionals, public officials, business and community leaders, and con cerned citizens who are shaping responses to environmental problems. In 1998, Island Press celebrates its fourteenth anniversary as the leading provider of timely and practical books that take a multidisciplinary approach to critical environmental concerns. Our growing list of titles reflects our com mitment to bringing the best of an expanding body of literature to the envi ronmental community throughout North America and the world. Support for Island Press is provided by The Jenifer Altman Foundation, The Bullitt Foundation, The Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The Vira I. Heinz Endowment, TheW. Alton Jones Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Andrew W. Mel lon Foundation, The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, The Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation, The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, The National Science Foundation, The New-Land Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The Surdna Foundation, The Winslow Founda tion, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and individual donors. To Heal the Earth To Heal the Earth Selected Writings of Ian L. McHarg Edited by Ian L. McHarg and Frederick R. Steiner Foreword by Robert D. Yaro ISLAND PRESS Washington, D.C. + Covelo, California Copyright© 1998 by Island Press All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Con ventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher: Island Press, 1718 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 300, Washington, DC 20009. Acknowledgment of permission to reprint previously published material appears on pages 361-362. ISLAND PRESS is a trademark of The Center for Resource Economics. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McHarg, Ian L. [Selections. 1998] To heal the earth : the selected writings of Ian L. McHarg I edited by Ian L. McHarg and Frederick R. Steiner : foreword by Bob Yaro. p. em. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 1-55963-573-8 1. Landscape ecology. 2. Land use-Planning-Environmental aspects. 3. Landscape design-Environmental aspects. I. Steiner, Frederick R. II. Title. QH541.15.L35M38 1998 98-3337 577.5'5-dc21 CIP @ Printed on recycled, acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 54 3 2 1 Contents Foreword by Robert D. Yaro ix Preface xm Introduction by Frederick R. Steiner 1 Part I. Changing the Nature of Design and Planning: Theoretical Writings 5 Chapter 1. Man and Environment 10 Chapter 2. The Place of Nature in the City of Man 24 Chapter 3. Ecological Determinism 39 Chapter 4. Values, Process and Form 57 Chapter 5. Natural Factors in Planning 72 Part II. Planning the Ecological Region 85 Chapter 6. Regional Landscape Planning 94 Chapter 7. Open Space from Natural Processes 108 Chapter 8. Must We Sacrifice the West? 132 Chapter 9. Ecological Planning: The Planner as Catalyst 139 Chapter 10. Human Ecological Planning at Pennsylvania 142 Part III. Form and Function Are Indivisible 157 Chapter 11. The Court House Concept 163 Chapter 12. Architecture in an Ecological View of the World 175 Chapter 13. Nature Is More Than a Garden 186 Chapter 14. Landscape Architecture 188 Chapter 15. Ecology and Design 194 Vll viii Contents Part IV. Revealing the Genius of the Place: Methods and Techniques for Ecological Planning 203 Chapter 16. An Ecological Method for Landscape Architecture 212 Chapter 17. A Comprehensive Highway Route. Selection Method 219 Chapter 18. Biological Alternatives to Water Pollution 234 Chapter 19. A Case Study in Ecological Planning: The Woodlands, Texas (with Arthur H. Johnson and Jonathan Berger) 242 Part V. Linking Knowledge to Action 265 Chapter 20. Plan for the Valleys vs. Spectre of Uncontrolled Growth (with David A. Wallace) 271 Chapter 21. An Ecological Planning Study for Wilmington and Dover, Vermont (with Wallace, McHarg, Roberts, and Todd) 278 Chapter 22. Ecological Plumbing for the Texas Coastal Plain (with Jonathan Sutton) 325 Chapter 23. A Strategy for a National Ecological Inventory (with John Radke, Jonathan Berger, and Kathleen Wallace) 341 Prospectus 357 Acknowledgment of Sources 361 Index 363 Foreword When historians in the next millennium look back at the second half of the twentieth century, in all likelihood the wars, revolutions, and internecine struggles of this violent period will fade in significance. But one revolution ary movement that emerged in this century, the global environmental move ment, will continue to shape events in the next. The products of this international movement and its underlying ethic have already profoundly changed the way the world manages its environ ment, as witnessed by the 1992 Rio conference, Agenda 21, and the 1997 Kyoto climate accords. In the United States and other developed countries, national environmental protection agencies and environmental impact review procedures have been established. And in a growing number of coun tries, effective national, regional, state, and local plans, as well as a rapidly expanding legion of environmental advocacy groups now protect landscapes and communities from the destructive effects of urban sprawl. Perhaps most important, polls in the United States and other developed countries show environmental protection to be immensely popular with the general public. Although much remains to be done to heal the planet, at least now we under stand the extent of the environmental threats we face, and we have a growing number of tools to protect them. How did this movement and these tools emerge? They certainly are not inevitable. In 1949 Aldo Leopold proposed a new environmental ethic and a new relationship between people and the land in A Sand County Almanac. In the 1960s Rachel Carson popularized scientific concerns about the destruc tion of the environment in her 1962 classic, Silent Spring. But it was Ian McHarg, a University of Pennsylvania professor and prac ticing landscape architect who, hearing the environmental alarm sounded by Carson and others, brought it home to the general public, and in particular, to the design and planning professions. McHarg made it clear that as a ter restrial species, we homo sapiens have to be at least as concerned about destruction of the land as we were about the destruction of the atmosphere, the seas, and the habitats of other species. McHarg popularized his views through his classic 1969 book Design with Nature and through dozens of professional articles. His CBS television series The House We Live In reached a mass audience and was surely the most ver- lX