Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 111, Issue 12, Pages 4432-4437Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1323995111
Keywords
sustainability science; land-change science; urban ecology; private land management
Categories
Funding
- Macro-Systems Biology Program (US NSF) [EF-1065548, EF-1065737, EF-1065740, EF-1065741, EF-1065772, EF-1065785, EF-1065831, EF-121238320]
- NSF LTER program for Baltimore [DEB-0423476]
- Phoenix [BCS-1026865, DEB-0423704, DEB-9714833]
- Plum Island, Boston [OCE-1058747, 1238212]
- Cedar Creek, Minneapolis-St. Paul [DEB-0620652]
- Florida Coastal Everglades, Miami [DBI-0620409]
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [1027188] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [1237517, 1026865, 1234162] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Emerging Frontiers [1302967, 1065785, 1559611, 1065740] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Emerging Frontiers [1238320, 1065737, 1065741, 1065548, 1065772] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Ocean Sciences
- Directorate For Geosciences [1238212] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Divn Of Social and Economic Sciences
- Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie [0951366] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Changes in land use, land cover, and land management present some of the greatest potential global environmental challenges of the 21st century. Urbanization, one of the principal drivers of these transformations, is commonly thought to be generating land changes that are increasingly similar. An implication of this multiscale homogenization hypothesis is that the ecosystem structure and function and human behaviors associated with urbanization should be more similar in certain kinds of urbanized locations across biogeophysical gradients than across urbanization gradients in places with similar biogeophysical characteristics. This paper introduces an analytical framework for testing this hypothesis, and applies the framework to the case of residential lawn care. This set of land management behaviors are often assumed-not demonstrated-to exhibit homogeneity. Multivariate analyses are conducted on telephone survey responses from a geographically stratified random sample of homeowners (n = 9,480), equally distributed across six US metropolitan areas. Two behaviors are examined: lawn fertilizing and irrigating. Limited support for strong homogenization is found at two scales (i.e., multi- and single-city; 2 of 36 cases), but significant support is found for homogenization at only one scale (22 cases) or at neither scale (12 cases). These results suggest that US lawn care behaviors are more differentiated in practice than in theory. Thus, even if the biophysical outcomes of urbanization are homogenizing, managing the associated sustainability implications may require a multiscale, differentiated approach because the underlying social practices appear relatively varied. The analytical approach introduced here should also be productive for other facets of urban-ecological homogenization.
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