In 1998, the last farm in Des Plaines, Illinois was subdivided. Seven acres along the Niobrara River in north-central Nebraska sold for 5700 per acre, twenty times the price for agricultural use. Waukesha County, Wisconsin, although still largely in agriculture, has been almost entirely zoned for small lot subdivisions. Nationwide, the cumulative effect of thousands of individual land use decisions is an orgiastic devouring of the countryside that consumes at least 1.4 million acres of rural land each year, and fragments a much larger area. The effects on landscape functions include loss of...
In 1998, the last farm in Des Plaines, Illinois was subdivided. Seven acres along the Niobrara River in north-central Nebraska sold for 5700 per acre,...