As geographers have noted for years, the cultural landscape defines the physical landscape and must be taken seriously in pursuing sustainable landscape management. After discussing various ways in which culture influences land use, this article discusses two subcultures of property that have developed in the United States, one public and one private, which shape the physical landscape and define appropriate behaviors. It reviews nineteenth-century influences on these property cultures and investigates how they bound the land, its uses, and its values. Property cultures, often viewed as static and slow to change, are highly dynamic and portend momentous changes in the form and substance of landscape-level conservation.
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