Viewing the land from above is among the most effective ways to appreciate its wild areas. … The connected, knit-together nature of the landscape is the most lasting impression of the aerial view. Everything is tied into everything else. The city runs into the suburb, the suburb peters out into the woods. … Once, over the Midwest, I could see factory smokestacks in the distance ahead of me—and out the left window, small ponds that were waterfowl spawning areas, dotted with thousands of birds. The wild areas seemed the more important and the more vulnerable for being so directly connected to the towns.

Gordon Hempton, John Grossmann, One Square Inch of Silence-…, loc. 1640