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- Info
Farming in an urbanizing environment: Agricultural land use conflicts and right to farm
| Author: |
Lisansky, Judith |
| Date: |
1986 |
| Periodical: |
Human Organization |
| Abstract: |
This paper examines one of the lesser known components of current constraints on American farmers, namely, the dynamics of land use conflicts under conditions of increasing urbanization. Throughout U.S. history, the main direction for migration was from rural to urban areas. However, starting in the late 1940s and 1950s, this trend reversed and urban-rural and urban-suburban migration began to predominate, in what analysts now call the population turnaround (Beale 1978; Berry 1978; Brown and Warwell 1980). One of the only anthropologists to investigate the significance of the influx of nonfarmers in rural-urban fringe areas was Solon T. Kimball (Arensberg and Kimball 1972). In 1949, Kimball specifically examined the impact of the urban exodus on the surrounding countryside in southeastern Michigan. He called the rural-urban fringe a "new frontier" and described the exurbanites as an "irresistible tide" which "engulfs farm after farm, breaking up rural neighborhoods that have had decades of stability" (Arensberg and Kimball 1972:138). The most direct effect of urbanization on agriculture is the conversion of land from rural to urban uses. Prior to actual land conversion, however, there are a variety of indirect effects of urbanization which include: the loss of critical mass (when the number of farms is no longer sufficient to support the agricultural service sector); the impermanence syndrome; spillover effects such as land use conflicts and vandalism; and various forms of land speculation (Berry 1978; Coughlin et al. 1981a, 1981b; MSM 1980). All of these contribute to the decline of farming in an area. This paper examines agricultural land use conflicts currently occurring in New Jersey, the most densely populated and highly urbanized state in the nation (State Data Center 1983). It also examines the state-level responses to such conflicts, generally referred to as "right-to-farm" policies, and the potential roles for anthropological research in providing basic information and helping resolve agricultural land use conflicts. |
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