You are here:
Perceptions of Natural Social Landscape Characteristics Between Cities and Across Scales
Citation:
Morzillo, A., B. Kreakie, N. Netusil, A. Yeakley, AND S. Duncan. Perceptions of Natural Social Landscape Characteristics Between Cities and Across Scales. Urban Water and Flood Risk Management: The Blue-Green Advantage, Ningbo, CHINA, June 15 - 18, 2015.
Impact/Purpose:
This workshop will facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experience on the advantages of using integrated drainage systems, best practices and green infrastructure provide sustainable urban water, flood risk and environmental management. The event is hosted by the University of Nottingham and brings together scientists, engineers and planners from the City of Ningbo with leading academics from the UK and USA.
Description:
As the global population becomes increasingly urban, there is greater attention toward human-natural resources interactions in urban areas. Multiple disciplines have explored synergies and dynamics between community characteristics and individual preferences that vary across scales and determine what urban landscapes “look like” over time. We pursue this notion using a broad-scale comparative approach and survey of residents within the Portland (Oregon)-Vancouver (Washington) metropolitan area, USA – two states with diverse land use planning histories that have helped shape regional urban development. Based on a suite of 15 urban natural resource and social landscape characteristics, we hypothesized that Portland respondents would reveal more overall importance of natural resources than Vancouver respondents across three scales of analysis: property-level (“at or near my house”), neighborhood (“within a 20-minute walk from my house”), and metro-level (“across the metro area”). At the metro-level scale, nonmetric multidimensional scaling revealed that the two cities were quite similar; neither collectively favored natural versus social landscape characteristics. However, further analysis revealed fidelity for particular landscape characteristics among respondents from each city. Portland respondents illustrated fidelity for large mature trees, tree-lined streets, public transportation, and stores and services. Vancouver respondents illustrated fidelity for plentiful accessible parking. We focus on three explanations, and assume that the explanations are not mutually exclusive. First, Portland and Vancouver respondents may be seeking an urban versus suburban experience based on particular amenities such as convenience versus commuter needs. Second, economics may influence decision-making based on land use and tax policies. Third, environmental worldview may influence desire to produce environmentally friendly outcomes. Our results are a first step toward understanding feedbacks between ecological and social dynamics of the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area.