Gerhard Larsson – författare

Land Management as Public Policy discusses goals, plans, and implementation means concerning public interference in land management after a more principal discussion of how far this ought to stretch itself and to what degree market forces and inputs of individuals predominate. The book begins with an introduction, definitions, and background information, followed by a more general discussion concerning goals, objectives, and different aspects on planning and implementation methods. The next section focuses on rural areas, discussing their development and problems concerning goals, planning, and plan implementation in terms of housing, agriculture, forest, water, recreation, and conservation. In a third section, urban areas are treated similarly. Finally, a postscript follows with some viewpoints and recommendations concerning future handling of these problems. The target groups for the book are college and university students at different levels within the subject, as well as professionals and practitioners who wish to complement their own specialties with a broader background.

A general trend in our modern society is a growing complexity. It is therefore logical that in most countries there has been a definite tendency to give weight to issues of adapting also the physical space to this complexity and to find methods to do this in an efficient way, giving satisfactory use of land and other natural resources. During the twentieth century we have seen a very active development of legal instruments for this purpose, aimed at steering spatial planning and plan implementation according to the objectives and policies chosen.This book tries to present basic information of how different countries within the chosen area have tried to solve the problem of establishing suitable systems of steering spatial development by means of planning and implementation measures. For this purpose summary descriptions of the connected formal regulations in each country are given in an appendix while a comparative presentation and discussion forms the main text. This will give the interested reader an overview of the current systems in Western Europe, how they have influenced each other but still in many parts differ from each other.