Landscape dynamics at the public–private interface: A case study in Colorado

The Growth of Ranchettes in La Plata County, Colorado, 1988–2008

“…The subsequent private costs decrease, but the cumulative effect of many private decisions to develop the rural landscape eventually damages the overall public good and social benefits. These findings were further confirmed by Leinwand et al (2010), who found that exurban residential development between 1995 and 2005 was most likely to occur where road infrastructure already existed.…”

“…An exurb is generally thought of as a discrete subdivision located far enough beyond the frontier of suburban development that it will not be engulfed by the expanding city within the foreseeable future (Patel 1980). Exurbs usually are functionally tied to the nearby urban area and remain within its commuting zone (Berube et al 2006;Clark et al 2009); Leinwand et al (2010) found that 80 percent of exurban land use was within twenty-five minutes of a city or town. But whereas exurbs can be any housing at densities from one-acre lots up to small ranches, much ranchette development occurs as dispersed, isolated housing in an otherwise rural landscape.…”

Extent of fragmentation of coarse-scale habitats in and around U.S. National Parks

“…Results for both parks suggest that only certain habitat types are at risk while others remain insulated from change by ownership or accessibility. In the case of Rocky Mountain, front-range Colorado foothills that are adjacent to public lands are being developed for residential uses due to the natural amenities that they provide (Leinwand et al, 2010). A similar amenity-based population migration is underway in the Sierra foothills as is detailed by Walker (2003) and Oeffler and Steinicke (2006).…”

Spatio-temporal trend analysis of long-term development patterns (1900–2030) in a Southern Appalachian County

“…There are a variety of methodologies for analyzing development patterns at landscape to regional scales that emphasize exurban development and the ability to differentiate development types. These methods include using aggregated and disaggregated census data to map development trends (Berube et al, 2006;Clark et al, 2009;Hammer, Stewart, Winkler, Radeloff, & Voss, 2004;Radeloff, Hagen, Voss, Field, & Mladenoff, 2000;Theobald, 2005); evaluating spatial characteristics using satelliteimage derived classifications and spatial indices (Compas, 2007;Irwin, Cho, & Bockstael, 2007); interpreting current and historic aerial photography to map trends of building locations (Kline, Azuma, & Moses, 2003;Leinwand et al, 2010;Martinuzzi, Gould, Ramos, & Ramos Gonzalez, 2007;Wear & Bolstad, 1998); extracting data from government sources such as county parcel records or permitting programs (Aspinall, 2004;Carlson & Dierwchter, 2007); or analyzing the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the inhabitants (Crump, 2003;Fernandez, Brown, Marans, & Nassauer, 2005). These differing approaches are often defined by the data availability and geographic scale of analysis.…”