Project Overview 

The parcelization process is highlighted as a critical step in the transformation of rural communties from places that rely on the landscape's perennial yield of raw natural resouces to places that package and sell the landscape itself for consumption and development. Parcelization and the changes it protends represent a largely unidirectional change in the economic base of rural communities that undermines the incentives for long-term investments in traditional resource-based economies.

The process of rural parcelization also provides ongoing challenges for planners targeting habitat, forest, and farmland preservation. An understanding of which landscape features influence parcelization can help planners create more nuanced land division and zoning ordinances. We used Geograrphic Information Systems (GIS) to reconstruct a historical parcel database for six towns in rural Wisconsin and then developed a statistical model to determine the extent to which landscape features and parcel characteristics infuence parcel subdivision. Our results show that proximity to water, roads and agricultural areas were the strongest variables over the 65 year study. Parcel size and topography were also influential, but to a lesser extent.

This project was supported by the National Research Initiative of the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service, USDA, Grant #2005-35401-15924.