Editor’s Introduction

Landscape Journal turns 40 this year. With support from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) and the University of Wisconsin Press, Daryl Morrison and Arnie Alanen coedited Landscape Journal in the early years. Subsequent editors have ably guided the journal over the ensuing decades, creating an impressive body of international scholarship. Research on landscapes—at different spatial scales, in urban and rural contexts, and over different periods of time—is a key theme of the journal’s scholarship. Yet the journal is also a forum for scholarship on teaching and learning as well as the professional practice of land planning, design, and management.

Consider the changes that have occurred over this 40-year period. Academic publishing was an analog process when Landscape Journal was founded in 1982. Typewriters, scissors, and tape were tools of the trade in journal editing. Postal services around the world shuttled manuscripts (in four copies) from authors to editors, who then sent them out to reviewers and subsequently back again to the authors. The physical transport of paper manuscripts, reviews, and correspondence took time. Lots of it. The manuscript review and editing process has evolved over these past four decades. Today, in our digital world, the Internet, email, and word processing software have accelerated the manuscript submission, review, and publication process. How might this process change over the next 40 years?

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed our world. Especially relevant to Landscape Journal is the weakening “friction of distance.” Remote and hybrid work has enabled millions of people to move to landscapes that for logistical reasons were previously infeasible as places of residence. One result is the influx of new populations to landscapes with high amenity value, such as attractive natural areas with oceans, lakes, streams, or mountains. Beautiful scenery and abundant outdoor recreational opportunities are increasingly available to those who are no longer tied to a physical workplace (and daily commute) and now have more choices about the landscapes in which they live, work, and play.

How do people experience these changing landscapes? With amenity landscapes facing rapid development, what placemaking strategies can accommodate growth without destroying a region’s character—its natural and cultural resources? What roles could public policy play in managing this growth? These are important issues to examine in future landscape scholarship.

How should the land-planning, design, and management professions respond? Practice-based research and policy-relevant scholarship are essential for the disciplines and professions engaged in shaping communities and landscapes. Policy considerations surround debates on affordable housing, transportation, economic development, and parks and recreation. Rapidly changing rural regions are often ill-equipped to develop and implement effective land use policies and design standards.

What changes may occur over the next 40 years? In all likelihood, community sustainability, livability, and health will remain pressing societal concerns. Green infrastructure systems will be designed and managed as integrated local and regional networks (just as transportation systems are today). From green roofs to regional greenways, green infrastructure is, fundamentally, nature’s infrastructure. Research can help communities understand that green infrastructure protects local and regional water supplies, moderates microclimates, supports indigenous and migratory plants and wildlife, and provides our human species with the significant health benefits of nearby nature.

Evolving norms were evident in the presentations and panel discussions at CELA 2022. Particularly intriguing were the presentations on practice-based research. A small and growing number of firms is pursuing in-house research to answer practice-relevant research questions. Notably, these firms are investigating issues that academic researchers have often overlooked.

The time is right for collaborative discussions— among scholars, educators, and practitioners—on developing a practice-based research agenda for landscape architecture. Landscape Journal remains a forum for dialogue on salient land planning, design, and management questions. For example, are we creating the evidence-base for 21st-century practice? And are we educating students to be lifelong learners, skilled in evidence-based practice? Research, essays, and systematic reviews on these issues are welcome.