Managing agricultural resources at the urban–rural interface: a case study of the Old Mission Peninsula

Despite the vast landmass of the United States, resource managers, landscape architects, and planners are becoming increasingly aware of the difficulty in protecting natural resources at the urban–rural interface. Because of the legal framework of the United States, individual states retain the rights to regulate and manage the affairs of land use within their jurisdictions. Each state, in turn, has transferred portions of this right to county and local bodies of government through “enabling legislation”. Because each of these layers of government has different agenda, oftentimes, a coordinated, effective land use planning effort that could protect natural resources, especially at the urban–rural interface, is impossible to develop. This paper examines one local community’s effort to preserve farmland and open space at the urban–rural interface. As a case study, it presents some of the historic land use management tools in Michigan that have been used to protect farmland. It also discusses the political and economic factors that determine the success or failure of these tools. Because of the inadequacies of some of the tools to protect open space and farmland, the township adopted an alternative land use planning strategy. It appears that this strategy has successfully integrated the best of the old planning tools with some of the newer alternatives to curb urban sprawl in a rapidly growing area in Michigan, USA.