Landscape ideology in the Greater Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt Plan: Negotiating material landscapes and abstract ideals in the city's countryside

• Published in: Journal of rural studies Vol. 32; pp. 307 - 319
• Main Authors: Cadieux, Kirsten Valentine, Taylor, Laura E., Bunce, Michael F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2013
• Subjects: Anti-sprawl policy; Collaborative environmental management; Cooperation; Critical landscape studies; Cultural geography; Environmental Protection; Exurbia; Growth management; Ideologies; Ideology; Land Use; Landscape; Ontario; Peri-urban fringe; Policy Making; Political ecology; Property; Resource Management; Toronto; Urban–rural interface; Values; Collaborative environmental management; Urban–rural interface; Exurbia; Critical landscape studies; Political ecology; Peri-urban fringe; Growth management; Anti-sprawl policy; Toronto; Cultural geography
• ISSN: 0743-0167; 1873-1392
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2013.07.005

We analyze the role of landscape ideology in the recent Ontario Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) Greenbelt Plan. Focusing on the “Protected Countryside,” the major land-use designation in the Plan that structures the Greenbelt framework, we explore tensions between abstract ideals of countryside used by policy makers to elicit support for the Plan and people's lived experience of material landscapes of the peri-urban fringe. Approaching “countryside” from the combined perspectives of landscape studies and political ecology, we show how the abstract ideals used to build support for the protection of countryside in the high-level political arena are in tension with existing material landscapes as people experience them. When implementing the Greenbelt Plan, the abstract ideals have to be applied at the landscape level through negotiation with municipalities, property owners, and other interests. In addition to drawing upon more conventionally legitimate explanations for landscape protection based on environmental science and land-use planning principles, the designation of Protected Countryside and the strategies used to implement the Protected Countryside designation at the local level suggest a tentative commitment to recognizing landscape values and collaborative environmental management processes in policy-making. As with any such normative land-use plan, the success of the Greenbelt Plan hinges on the long-term agreement between planning agencies and diverse publics. We demonstrate the usefulness of approaching environmental management challenges at the urban–rural interface by bringing the perspectives of landscape studies and political ecology into implementation processes for land-use management strategies like the Greenbelt. We argue that public participants deserve legitimate collaborative roles in negotiating just and desirable land uses based on their experiences, and provide observations on ways to bring contested goals and tools for achieving them into reflexive negotiations about how landscapes are and should be produced. •Landscape studies and political ecology engage gap between abstract and material landscapes.•Planning framework supports rapprochement between land use policy and participant understandings.•Growth management challenge: landscapes do not conform to planning designations or abstract ideals.•Greenbelt plan suggests negotiating implementation via collaborative management, but faces constraints of planning regimes.•Inclusion of diverse environmental goals help create more resilient and representative management regimes.