Suburban Encroachment Era (c. 1970-present)

Policies and incentives that encouraged sustainable forest management continued to emerge during the latter 20th century. In the 1970s, however, the growth of urban and suburban areas began to play an increasingly prominent role in driving changes in southern forest quantity and quality. As in a previous era, many forests were being valued for the land that lay underneath, but this time the land was for development.

Two factors in particular underpinned this “suburban encroachment” era. First, the region’s population grew dramatically during this period, from approximately 56 million people in 1970 to approximately 103 million people in 2008—an 84 percent increase that outpaced the national population increase of 50 percent over the same time period. Second, low density development became a prominent feature of the southern landscape (Figure 3.8).

By 1984, suburban encroachment had surpassed agriculture as the leading cause of forest loss in the South.¹ Nevertheless, the reversion of southern farmland to forest that had begun in the previous era continued during the latter half of the 20th century and provided somewhat of a countervailing force. The late 1980s and early 1990s, in fact, was a period in which the South gained forest acreage faster than it was being lost.

In the decade that followed, however, forest conversion once again outpaced reforestation. From 1992–2001, an estimated 15 million acres of land converted out of forest, while under 6 million acres of land converted into forest. Areas of forest gains and losses were dispersed throughout the region (Figures 3.9 and 3.10), although concentrations of forest loss occurred in the outskirts of major cities. During this decade, the South was a hotspot for forest conversion to development. Of the U.S. states that lost cropland, forests, and other open spaces to suburban development during the 1990s, six of the top ten were southern states: Texas, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, and South Carolina.²

The net effect of these drivers of change is that southern forests started to retreat once again during the surburban encroachment era. From the previous era’s peak in the early 1960s, southern forest extent declined a net 14 million acres to 214 million acres by 2007 (Figure 3.1). Forest cover retreated where population centers grew, particularly along the eastern foothills of the Appalachians, the Atlantic coast, and the Gulf coast. The extent of dense forest cover declined once again (Figure 3.11).

These trends in southern forests, particularly in terms of forest extent, highlight an important distinction between the two eras of the 20th century. Forests that were converted to agricultural land may one day become forest again, since farming is often a transitory land use influenced over time by economics, landowner goals, and other factors. Natural, contiguous forests that are converted to urban and suburban uses, however, are generally impacted for a longer period. Unlike corn and cotton, houses and highways are permanent crops.