If all planning is local, how are we going to save tomorrow? Ten pragmatic lessons from the field

This monograph presents practical lessons learned from more than 40 years of professional and academic experience in ecological and community land use planning within the New York’s Adirondack-Champlain-Catskills Regions, the Northern Forest of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and New York, and the Northern Appalachian/Acadian Ecoregion. The intention is to share catalytic, synergistic, and interdisciplinary field lessons from the author’s firsthand experiences for the benefit of renaissance communities, researchers, and practitioners seeking new beginnings and stimulation of new thinking beyond their sightlines. Lessons are presented in ten areas [1] integrating legal, ethical, and natural considerations; [2] recognizing diverse types of land ownership; [3] discovering shared ethics and values; [4] modernizing planning practice; [5] using Participatory Action Research (PAR); [6] working with limited access to science, technology, and planning resources; [7] using science to inform and enlighten the planning process; [8] riding the coattails of popular movements; [9] recognizing human relationships with natural environments; and [10] educating and informing citizens as a force for nature. These ten lessons, contextualized within Critical Theory and Participatory Action Research (PAR), lead the author to an “inflective” PAR paradigm for land use planning that links planning, participation, and science. Perhaps, just perhaps, through a shared context of place—tomorrow can be saved.