### Problem >I conceive that land belongs for use to a vast family of which many are dead, few are living, and countless members are still unborn. > -- a Nigerian tribesman ### Solution >Define all farms as parks, where the public has a right to be; and make all regional parks into working farms. >Create stewardships among groups of people, families and cooperatives, with each stewardship responsible for one part of the countryside. The stewards are given a lease for one part of the land, and they are free to tend the land and set ground rules for its use -- as a small farm, a forest, marshland, desert, and so forth. The public is free to visit the land, hike there, picnic, explore, boat, so long as they conform to the ground rules. With such a setup, a farm near a city might have picnickers in its fields every day during the summer. ### Related Patterns ... within each region, in between the towns, there are vast areas of countryside -- farmland, parkland, forests, deserts, grazing meadows, lakes, and rivers. The legal and ecological character of this countryside is crucial to the balance of the region. When properly done, this pattern will help to complete [[The Distribution of Towns (2)]], [[City Country Fingers (3)]], [[Agricultural Valleys (4)]], [[Lace of Country Streets (5)]], and [[Country Towns (6)]]. Within each natural preserve, we imagine a limited number of houses -- [[House Cluster (37)]] -- with access on unpaved country lanes -- [[Green Streets (51)]] ... --- > [!cite]- Alexander, Christopher. _A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction_. Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 36. > #APL/confidence/medium > > #APL/Town-Patterns/Regional-Policies