Retaining agricultural activities under urban pressures: A review of land use conflicts and policies

From a national perspective it is unclear whether the continued expansion of urban development seriously affects America's potential food production over the long run. Yet there are clearly regional biases toward conversion of farmland to urban uses and locally important changes in the appearance of the landscape at the rural—urban fringe. Urbanization also generates spillover effects causing the idling of farmland and the shifting from one type of agriculture to another.Land use controls aimed at directly addressing the use of the land may be effective in preventing some conversion of farmland to urban uses but the methods are costly and possibly very complex. Incentives to farmers to keep land in agriculture are generally too weak to be effective in retaining agricultural land in the face of strong urban pressures.This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Research Applied to National Needs) to the Regional Science Research Institute.