Landscape prospects of the next millennium

The shape and health of the landscape legacy that we have inherited and that we will pass on to future generations is a subject of critical concern. In imagining the landscapes of the next millennium, we have chosen not to construct a set of possible future scenarios nor to predict emerging catastrophes nor idyllic arcadias. Rather, we ask a few questions as to how we might reinvest the landscape with meanings that extend beyond the strictly utilitarian to embrace the poetic nature of the landscape. We are concerned with the need to develop imaginative strategies to manage the continuing urbanization of the landscapes of the third planet from the sun. We are concerned as well with the loss of the ‘public landscape’, the sense of shared places and purposes that build convivial communities. These are only a few of the many issues that need to be addressed, if the nature of landscape architecture and other allied practices concerned with the maintenance and management of our landscape is to remain relevant in the next century.