**1. Land-use planning: paradigm changes and future perspectives—a brief overview**

Land-use change has often been one of the main drivers of economic growth, social change and innovations of the government. For this reason, as mentioned by Magalhães [1], the analysis and comprehension of the processes, which throughout time, influenced landscape form and patterns (and thus land use), constitute an essential feature for those aiming to work in and with it. Thus, this subject has been widely addressed considering not only the historical role of cities but also the problem that land-use change had caused throughout time ([2–6]). Still, the analysis of land-use change is generally associated to the impacts of growth, and to the implications it had on environmental, economic and social development dimensions ([7–12]). In fact, the environmental movement marked somehow by the publication of the book *Silent Spring* by Rachel Carson in 1962 may be considered a good example of this association, not only because Carson's book exposed the negative environmental impacts of land-use change considering the unchecked impact of industrial development both on natural ecosystems and human health, but also because the conversion of natural land into urbanized one started to be viewed as a possible threat to future of the planet.

This movement, which had a great impact in terms of land-use planning, gained a special momentum in 1969, the year of the first 'Earth Day', which revealed the environment to be a powerful political issue. It was the year of the formation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which enabled a wide range of laws to control existing and potential threats to the environment, thus affecting land use; and it was the publication year of the book *Design with Nature* by the landscape architect Ian McHarg, which according to Andresen [13] introduced the direct application of ecological principles in planning.

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Since then, several steps were taken in order to mitigate land-use conflicts representing a response to different environmental paradigms*.* Still, according to Saraiva [14], since the beginning of the environmental movement, new concepts have emerged, including different variables into the existing models, enabling the creation of new environmental paradigms which may be divided in three phases (**Figure 1**): the first regarding *Environmental Protection* during the 60s and 70s—in which the imposition of limits to economic growth and to pollution were the main concern; the second regarding *Resource Management* during the 1970s and 1980s—considering the unmeasured consumption of natural resources; and the third during the 1980s and 1990s regarding *Sustainable Development*, and the need to consider social, economic and environmental aspects in development policies, taking into account environmental preservation in a way human needs can be met not only in the present but also for future generations.

These paradigms were and continue to be important steps in order to solve or reduce most of the land-use problems created during the last century.

Commoner ([15], cited by Lyle [16]) argues that the main problem lies in our means of production and that in order to solve environmental land-use problems, we need to change not only the location of certain activities but also the ways of making things. As it has been expressed, understanding this phenomenon is perhaps one of the most relevant consequences of assessing the history of land-use development (especially since industrial revolution), given that it becomes simpler not only to comprehend the current state of the art as it applies to us, but also to envision possible solutions for present and future problems ([17–21]; Loures [22]). In a period when cities have become places of diversity and contrast, of abundant wealth and abject poverty [47], of opportunity and threat [48], places where beauty and ugliness lie in close proximity and where the future collides with the past [23], it is increasingly necessary to understand its processes and the problems inherent to them, which are now substantially different from what they were in the beginning, and which are directly dependent on land-use change and evolution [24, 25], progressively moving from liner planning strategies to circular planning strategies (**Figure 2**) in which land use is defined considering not only present solutions but also landscape resilience, bearing in mind that imperatively, humanized landscapes are all transitional places.

**2. Sustainable land-use planning—from growth to development**

regional planning to individual construction sites.

**Figure 2.** Circular land use management plan—Loures [10].

It is a given that land-use change provides constant new opportunities for those who have the desire and the ability to seize landscape, regardless of their nature [21, 26–29]. In this regard, land-use change and planning are considered to be a significant resource for achieving sustainable development [30–33], contributing as well to improve life's quality. Nonetheless, it needs to be thought in terms of the town-nature reconnection, considering previously developed ecological and sustainability theories and principles. Indeed, future land-use planning needs to be redeveloped in an integrated multifunctional way, emphasizing the fact that envisioned planning alternatives should not only offer different multipurpose uses, in order to be more attractive and viable, but also incorporate sustainability (considering socio-cultural, economic and environmental and aesthetic dimensions) at various levels, from national and

Introductory Chapter: Land-Use Planning and Land-Use Change as Catalysts of Sustainable…

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Land use needs to be thought in terms of *sustainability* and/or *sustainable development*, terms that get used a lot these days, and which since their appearance have been faced as new development paradigms introduced in land-use matters, merging social, economic and environmental 'dimensions' [34], and putting nations to work together in the definition of new

principles and frameworks towards sustainable development (**Figure 3**).

**Figure 1.** Evolution of the environmental paradigms. Source: Loures [10].

Introductory Chapter: Land-Use Planning and Land-Use Change as Catalysts of Sustainable… http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84520 5

**Figure 2.** Circular land use management plan—Loures [10].

Since then, several steps were taken in order to mitigate land-use conflicts representing a response to different environmental paradigms*.* Still, according to Saraiva [14], since the beginning of the environmental movement, new concepts have emerged, including different variables into the existing models, enabling the creation of new environmental paradigms which may be divided in three phases (**Figure 1**): the first regarding *Environmental Protection* during the 60s and 70s—in which the imposition of limits to economic growth and to pollution were the main concern; the second regarding *Resource Management* during the 1970s and 1980s—considering the unmeasured consumption of natural resources; and the third during the 1980s and 1990s regarding *Sustainable Development*, and the need to consider social, economic and environmental aspects in development policies, taking into account environmental preservation in a way human needs can be met not only in the present but also for future

These paradigms were and continue to be important steps in order to solve or reduce most of

Commoner ([15], cited by Lyle [16]) argues that the main problem lies in our means of production and that in order to solve environmental land-use problems, we need to change not only the location of certain activities but also the ways of making things. As it has been expressed, understanding this phenomenon is perhaps one of the most relevant consequences of assessing the history of land-use development (especially since industrial revolution), given that it becomes simpler not only to comprehend the current state of the art as it applies to us, but also to envision possible solutions for present and future problems ([17–21]; Loures [22]). In a period when cities have become places of diversity and contrast, of abundant wealth and abject poverty [47], of opportunity and threat [48], places where beauty and ugliness lie in close proximity and where the future collides with the past [23], it is increasingly necessary to understand its processes and the problems inherent to them, which are now substantially different from what they were in the beginning, and which are directly dependent on land-use change and evolution [24, 25], progressively moving from liner planning strategies to circular planning strategies (**Figure 2**) in which land use is defined considering not only present solutions but also landscape resilience, bearing in mind that imperatively, humanized landscapes

the land-use problems created during the last century.

4 Land Use - Assessing the Past, Envisioning the Future

**Figure 1.** Evolution of the environmental paradigms. Source: Loures [10].

generations.

are all transitional places.
