Rethinking Global Land Use in an Urban Era

Strüngmann Forum Reports, MIT Press (2014)

Seto K C and Reenberg A (eds)

408 pp

Abstract

Today, global land use is affected by a variety of factors, including urbanization and the growing interconnectedness of economies and markets. This book examines the challenges and opportunities we face in achieving sustainable land use in the twenty-first century. While land resources remain finite, the global population is projected to reach ten billion by the end of the century, bringing issues of ethics and fairness to center stage. Who should decide how land is used? Where does competition for land occur, and why? Moreover, accelerating globalization, increasing demand for animal protein in our diets, the need for new sources of energy, and the global scarcity of land have led to a decoupling of land use and local control, which raises issues of governance. The contributors, from a range of disciplines and countries, present new analytical perspectives and tools for understanding key issues in global land use.
The chapters consider such topics as food production and land use; case studies of urbanization and agriculture in Brazil and China; telecoupling and connections to distant places; emerging institutions of land-use governance; public and private regulation of land use; uniquely urban issues of land use; and future steps to sustainability.