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Can Broad Land Use Policies Maintain Connections Between Protected Green Spaces in an Urbanizing Landscape?

Green space protection is often used to counteract the ecological impacts of urban development. There is growing evidence, however, that protecting patches of green space will not ensure long-term sustainability of ecological conditions unless connections between patches are also maintained. In North America, very few residentially dominated regions have management plans that explicitly seek to maintain green space connectivity, short of purchasing land. The absence of such policies is likely due to the difficulty of devising and enforcing regulations that create discrete connecting corridors across private properties. This paper examines whether an alternative, and potentially more feasible, approach using broader land use policies can maintain green space connections across private property through the modification of residential development patterns. The potential of three land use policies (downzoning, cluster development, and water and wetlands buffers) is explored in detail through an analysis of policy simulations for two watersheds in New Jersey, USA. The scenarios’ green space connectivity was measured using two metrics designed to highlight the relationship between protected green space patches and conditions on the surrounding land. The results of the analysis suggest that none of the policies would be able to maintain protected green space connectivity if current development trends continue.