Changing Landscapes, Shifting Values: A Political Ecology of the Rural-Urban Interface

Different perspectives of rural life are evident along the rural-urban interface, especially in those places on the urbanizing fringe. Such divisions exist even in places like Calaveras County, California, which virtually all stakeholders would label as "rural." Calaveras County is situated in central California and stretches from the floor of the Central Valley of California into the alpine reaches of the Sierra Nevada. As such, the landscape is both heterogeneous and dynamic. The county is rural by conventional descriptions, but it rests along the urban edge in the sense that much of the county remains within commutable proximity to two large metropolitan centers, the capital of California, Sacramento, and another large regional hub, Stockton. Given its relative proximity to urban centers and its amenity-rich character, Calaveras County, like other Sierra Nevada foothill counties, is experiencing population growth and attendant land use change. Such in-migrants, whether framed more broadly as amenity migrants or more specifically as exurbanites, are characterized in the literature as hailing from urban locales in search of an idealized rural lifestyle and landscape. These idealized notions can at times run counter to prevailing and/or historically predominant uses and value systems. As such, the rural-urban interface represents a changing environmental context and is a locus of political, cultural and economic activity.;My project methodology has three main features: a political ecological framing, a "phronetic" approach, and case-based methods. My methods include: in-depth, semi-structured interviews; a written demographic and political/ideological survey; participant observation; and document review. Using a regional political ecology and actor-oriented approach, situated in the region of the American West, I examine the discord and cooperation present in land use decision-making using three case studies of very different land use outcomes in Calaveras County, California. I examine these cases as "defining moments" in both physical-environmental as well as sociopolitical terms, demonstrating that there are a range of perspectives present along the rural-urban interface which impact the public perception of land managers and the activities pursued on their land. Each case represents a different outcome, a different way of dealing with changing landscapes and lifestyles along the rural-urban interface. One, a historical cattle ranch (Garamendi Ranch), has weathered the times to remain in the ranching business. Another, which transitioned its operations to tap into the booming California wine economy (Ironstone Vineyards), mainly let go of its cattle ranching and orchard growing history. And the third, very controversially, transformed an idle sheep ranch into an exclusive golf resort (The Ridge at Trinitas) with little to no adherence to land use guidelines or environmental planning protocols. Using these cases, I investigate the values various rural residents embrace and how they mobilize those values and ideologies to influence, enact, and, at times, contest land use change.;The goal of this project is to gain insight into the interests and motivations of rural land users and stakeholders and the rationales used in land use decision-making as landscapes are transformed by social, political and economic transition. The kind of environmental and social contestation described in this dissertation demonstrates that although there has been debate about the utility of separate conceptualizations of "rural" or "urban," the concepts continue to hold relevance on the ground in terms of the lifestyle and policy choices made by residents and stakeholders. This has significant implications for the study of difference and the function of boundaries between distinct settlement and social forms, especially as the rural-urban interface and the identities of those therein are ultimately defined by conflict.;Based on three cases of divergent land use outcomes in Calaveras County, California, I argue for a re-conceptualization the rural-urban interface to encompass both the physical-material and the sociopolitical, situating contrasting people and places in an ongoing negotiation of place and environmental meaning. The rural-urban interface serves not only as a boundary between two distinct spaces, but also acts as a conduit, a place of exchange, and a flux point between them. The rural-urban interface serves simultaneously as meaning, model and metaphor for the ongoing negotiation of contested viewpoints and preferences. The rural-urban interface has a literal meaning, that place which bridges the difference between "rural" and "urban"; it offers a model of interactions in that the form and function of the boundary can vary across time and space and this variation can impact how urban and rural interact; and it serves as a metaphor between imagined differences between two places, that which is "rural" and that which is "urban," representing the ongoing negotiation of difference between plural perspectives.;In a time when rural places seem to ever be in flux, as lifestyles change and landscapes shift, attention to the interface, to the edge, of rurality can be highly informative about rurality as a whole. Moreover, rural-urban linkages are growing stronger as the spatial elements separating them wane and the socio-cultural connections binding them grow stronger. Attention to these linkages, and attendant contestation along the rural-urban edge, will be critical to forging effective and long-lasting solutions to contemporary social, economic, and environmental problems.;Chapter 1 presents essential background information, the project approach and methodology, a site description and a summary of research methods, and descriptions of the three cases that make up the study. Chapter 2 examines the rural-urban interface, shifting perceptions of rural land use, and the dichotomy between rural residents, framed as insider versus outsider or "been-here" versus "come-here," concluding that rural conflict is driven more by differing environmental imaginaries and political ideologies than by tenure in residence. Chapter 3 presents a deeper analysis of the ideologies present in the study site, examining both the substantive differences in ideological preferences of respondents as well as investigating the significance and implications of these differences. Chapters 4 and 5 revisit this idea of perceived differences between rural stakeholders, first investigating the contested ecologies present in the cases (Chapter 4) and then linking respondents' various ideological positions and views of private property rights with the concept of a spectrum of (in)visibility in land use decision making (Chapter 5). Chapter 6 then offers a reconceptualization of the rural-urban interface as meaning-model-metaphor to encompass and explain the myriad issues raised by the study. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...