Recent years have seen mass casualties and severe property damage caused by wildland fires. With increasing housing development in natural-amenity-rich fire-prone areas, human activities not only exert intense pressures on local ecosystems, but also increase difficulties for wildland fire...

Urban decentralization and dispersion trends have led to increased conversion of rural lands in many urban peripheries and exurban regions of the U.S. The growth of the exurban areas has outpaced growth in urban and suburban areas, resulting in growth pressures at the urban-rural fringe. A...

Local governments in the United States use a wide range of tools to preserve rural landscapes. Some of these tools, like the purchase or transfer of development rights, are generally welcomed by farmers and other large landowners. Other tools, like increasing the minimum lot size in a town’s...

Internet use has grown rapidly over the last 15 years and so has its integration into the rural economy. Connecting to the Internet via high-speed technology such as DSL lines, cable, satellite, and wireless networks increases bandwidth and makes the Internet much more useful to businesses,...