The individual influences of the five processes were less important than the interplay between them, and the way they were shaped by the distinctive qualities of the North American landscape. While landscape does not determine human action, it can be as important a factor in influencing decisions as is culture. European emigrants to the New World were confronted with a radically different physical environment than anything previously experienced or even anticipated as will be discussed in Chapter 4. At the least this unexpected landscape forced successful settlers to rethink old habits of land use and creatively solve problems of housing, farming, and transportation. The ways in which colonial Europeans solved these problems created patterns of land use and organization that have constrained landscape development ever since.