7

The Countryside

Opening context:
The Distribution of Towns, City Country Fingers, Agricultural Valleys, Lace of Country Streets, Country Towns

Conflict

I conceive that land belongs for use to a vast family of which many are dead, few are living and countless members are still unborn.

Resolution

Define all farms as parks, where the public has a right to be; and make all regional parks into working farms.

Create stewardships among groups of people, families and cooperatives, with each stewardship responsible for one park of the countryside. The stewards are given a lease for the land, and they are free to tend the land and set ground rules for its use — as a farm, a forest, marshland, desert, and so forth. The public is free to visit the land, hike there, picnic, explore, boat, so long as they conform to the ground rules, With such a setup a farm near a city might have picnickers in its fields every day during the summer.

Closing context:
House Cluster, Green Streets