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William R. Freudenburg’s work contributes to an understanding of how local and external factors influence environmental quality through land-use planning and growth management. A recent Adirondack planning study (Ruzow Holland, 2010) explores and analyzes, through the methodological lens of Participatory Action Research (PAR), how the town comprehensive planning process evolved within the community of Willsboro, New York (2010 Population 2025). Access to knowledge, technology, and deliberative decision making reduces the power of the “Privileged,” including external influences, to control the rate and type of local land development. The analysis illustrates the conversion point(s) of Freudenburg’s sociology of knowledge, power, and natural resources with the lessons learned from a place-based PAR, land-use planning project.

As population grows, industries blossom and demand for space increases, cities become the centre point for myriads of challenges for urban administrators. This chapter investigated challenges of urban development, land use changes and environmental impacts resulting from pressure on urban land. The study was primarily qualitative in nature and adopted a case study approach. The city of Ndola was selected for this purpose. Four institutions, namely, Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA), Water Resources Management Agency (WARMA), Kafubu Water and Sewerage Company (KWSC) and Ndola City Council (NCC), were used for data collection. At each institution, one official was purposively selected by management based on their knowledge and experience on the subject. The primary data were collected mainly through semi-structured questionnaires in face-to-face interviews. The chapter concludes that pressure for development land has resulted in increased demand for change of use, allocation and construction in environmentally vulnerable areas such as the Kafubu and Itawa River basins and their tributaries. This has further resulted in serious threats to the environment due to pollution of water sources from domestic and industrial waste. The chapter though argues that tools for overcoming these challenges are already provided for in the legislation, it is the implementation and effective coordination among agencies charged with planning, land allocation, water distribution and protection of the environment, such as ZEMA, WARMA, KWSC and NCC, which is lacking. Considering the foregoing, it is recommended that land and water administrative systems should be improved through among other things, effective consultation between various agencies involved in environmental management, zero tolerance to illegal land allocation and effective implementation of statutes.

Over the last 30 years, despite immense and increasing expenditures by the federal government for disaster preparedness and relief, both catastrophic and chronic losses from natural hazards have continued to increase at an alarming pace. Although earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes account for the largest portion of these natural hazard losses, wildfire increasingly represents significant disaster losses of well over a billion dollars annually. There is considerable concern that losses from wildfires will only increase in the U.S. as some of the highest growth rates in the nation, both metropolitan and nonmetropolitan types of growth, are projected to continue in states with extensive wildland fire hazard areas. The land development patterns associated with that growth are problematic because so much of the development in the last 30 years (and that is still occurring) is not being steered away from the highest wildfire hazard settings, nor are adequate steps being taken to ensure that when development occurs in high wildfire hazard zones appropriate mitigation is used to reduce the vulnerability of people and property to loss. Fortunately, those anticipated future wildfire losses have a great potential to be reduced provided state and local governments take the initiative to create partnerships to ensure “safer” and “smarter” patterns of land development occur in and near wildland–urban interface areas. This chapter explores wildfire mitigation planning as an integral component of “safe smart growth” for wildland–urban interface communities.

Regionalism implying some form of city-region or metropolitan-level planning and governance has long been promoted for multiple reasons albeit with varied success. Experiencing a resurgence in 1990s, regional coordination and cooperation has proven effective in pursuing economic development and bolstering competitiveness. Unfortunately, other voices, such as those promoting regional scale land use planning and management to cultivate more sustainable urban form and settlement patterns became comparatively crowded out. With climate change-related environmental and ecological pressures mounting, the chapter suggests it is time to frame regions as socio-ecological rather than mere socio-economic spaces, thereby placing greater emphasis on ecosystems and ecological land management and a circular, regenerative economy. Using the city-region of Stuttgart (Germany) as exemplar, our contribution initiates an exploration into whether statutory regional planning in combination with various informal tools and a multi-level governance framework allows actors to begin to embed and implement these emerging ecological sustainability concepts.