Urbanization and Land Use Change: A Sociological Study of Deforestation Across New England, 2001-2006

• In Event: 046 - Section on Environment and Technology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 17. Environmental Degradation and Conservation

Abstract

Drawing from theories in environmental and urban sociology, the present study sheds light on the ways in which urbanization drives deforestation at the local level across the region of New England in the United States. Using county-level data from the National Land Cover Database and other US governmental sources, the area of forest cover lost to the built environment between 2001-2006 is regressed on changes in multiple measures representing different dimensions of urbanization. Controlling for other factors, estimates from fixed-effects models show that while net-migration and urban (versus rural) residence result in more hard deforestation, an increase in population density may actually slow down the loss of forest cover to the built environment. Based on these results, urbanization has multiple dimensions with independent, countervailing effects on changes in the natural environment, represented by the concept of urbanization's ecological dualism.

Author

• Matthew Thomas Clement, University of Oregon