{"id":60994,"date":"2026-06-11T14:10:04","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T18:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/?p=60994"},"modified":"2026-06-11T16:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T20:44:11","slug":"the-world-is-a-garden-of-edges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/2026\/06\/11\/the-world-is-a-garden-of-edges\/","title":{"rendered":"The World is a Garden of Edges"},"content":{"rendered":"
The edge is where systems meet, where tensions are visible, and where the work of translation happens. \u201cLiving on the edge\u201d isn\u2019t a warning, but an ethic\u2014a call to stay close to where systems meet, where contradictions are sharp, and where possibilities begin.<\/blockquote><\/figure>\n

One of my former political ecology teachers, Robert Biel, has had this incredible ability to use political theories to connect the deeply theoretical with the banal everyday, the micro with the macro, and the natural with the social sciences. He would use simple threads to link geopolitics with music and ecology with architecture. One day in class we listened to a song called “The Edge<\/a>” by the band Formidable Vegetable<\/a> \u2015 a small song with a wide claim. It goes like this:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ‘fringes’ of any system are often where the most interesting, innovative and productive things take place. If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

That was my door into one of Holmgren\u2019s twelve core permaculture principles: what lies in margins holds overlooked potential.<\/p>\n

In ecology, some ecosystems have identifiable cores, for instance a forest interior vs its edge. The \u201ccore\u201d is where microclimate, soil, and species interactions are least disturbed by external influences. The permaculture principle of valuing the edges relates to the understanding that they are spaces of exchange between systems, and they are most productive. Hence the spiral in permaculture, the snail\u2019s curl design to maximize edge and invite life where boundaries touch.<\/p>\n

In social sciences like human geography, the core-periphery framework is used to describe how power, capital and resources concentrate in certain places or groups while others are marginalized \u2015 a pattern produced by historical, social and political processes (think world systems theory). In this context, those at the core wield greater influence and benefit from the system\u2019s structure, while those at the periphery<\/em> experience exclusion. With the phrase \u201cif you\u2019re not living on the edge, you\u2019re taking up much space<\/em>\u201d, the song amplifies this notion that those at the core have more power and live well.<\/p>\n

Cities around the world are often organized through hierarchies of a \u201ccore\u201d and a \u201cperiphery\u201d. The peri-urban<\/em> is typically described as a dynamic interface\u2015sometimes a grey zone\u2015between the rural and the urban, where land-use shifts, where infrastructure and services are limited, and where low-income or newly migrated populations often reside. Informal settlements in these areas are frequently portrayed as sites of vulnerability due to cumulative risks and exclusion, yet many also see them as places of opportunity, precisely like in the song lyrics stating that edges are often where most interesting, innovative, and productive things take place.<\/p>\n

\"Aerial
The favela of Para\u00edsopolis in close proximity to a luxury condominium in Morumbi in S\u00e3o Paulo, a clear symbol of marginalization with a visible edge. Photo courtesy of Tuca Vieira.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Edge-thinking gave me a way to read green infrastructure in S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s periferia<\/em>: not as a checklist of fixes, but as contested choreography where space, water, and rights try to share a stage. In my research on \u201cgreen infrastructure at the edge<\/a>\u201d in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil, I built on these notions to better understand the implications of building green infrastructure in favelas<\/em>, and more specifically in two so-called favelas<\/em> \u2015or pereferias <\/em>(peripheries)\u2015to demonstrate the enormous challenges of implementing such projects in places where space and land-use are highly disputed.<\/p>\n

I conceptualize green infrastructure on edges in 3 main ways:<\/p>\n