Comprehensive planning strategies for sustainable development, land use management, and preservation in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Suburban development is sprawling out of America's cities into its rural countryside. In doing so it has degraded the natural environment, decimated cultural landmarks and historical landscapes, and created "Anywhere, USA" where every place in America looks and feels like every other place.; In order to address the problem of sprawl, planners, preservationists, and policy advocates have started a dialogue about sustainable land use. The problem has been how to translate this dialogue into action through which sustainable communities are created. Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, recognizing the tremendous impact that sprawl has had on its unique way of life and valuable agricultural and historical resources, has moved from dialogue to implementation by creating a comprehensive sustainable development land use strategy and planning policy.; In doing so Lancaster County has overcome its divided municipal form of government, built private-public planning partnerships, and established a new set of planning tools that can be used by any community seeking to protect itself from the scourge of sprawl. The findings highlight the obstacles and constraints Lancaster County has faced in its push toward sustainable development, identifies ten keys which have enable the County to create this plan, and establishes ten planning tools that may be used by other communities beseeched by development pressures, and discusses what issues must be addressed in order to successfully implement these strategies.; This study proves that sprawl is not inevitable; it is a determination communities make when they fail to lead the development process and allow suburbia to unduly influence their culture, natural resources, and economic prosperity. The case of Lancaster County illustrates how communities can become wonderful places, stop the influence of suburbia, and become a "Here, USA."...