From swamp to ridgeline: Exploring exurbia in Southeastern Pennsylvania and the Sierra Nevada foothills of California

Abstract

Communities around the world face similar pressures for change when experiencing the transition from rural to exurban, but they deal with these pressures in very different ways. As discussed in the Introduction, economic shifts on a global scale result in the decline of productive activities, such as agriculture and forestry, and in places with great natural beauty, local actors turn to amenity real estate development to capitalize on existing natural resources in new ways. This chapter continues the discussion about the application of a comparative political ecology framework begun in the Introduction to further illustrate the analysis of similarities and differences in the experience of exurbanization considered across different contexts in this volume. Two divergent exurban communities are explored in detail to highlight the effects of socioeconomic change, environmental management regimes, and the role of land-use planning in the negotiation of environmental imaginaries. In the case of Quakertown Swamp in southeastern Pennsylvania, political negotiation over environmental imaginaries within the land-use planning regime resulted in a contemporary exurban landscape of very fragmented nature conservation. By comparison, Nevada County in California’s Sierra Nevada foothills is the site of intensive site-level engagements by exurban actors over the aesthetics and material configurations of a rural landscape traditionally associated with agriculture and forestry but more recently transformed through low-density development. Through these case studies we specifically illustrate key dynamics of competing rural capitalisms, environmental management, and planning, and introduce important analytical questions for examining exurbia in other parts of the U.S. and beyond.