The near absence of any discussion of the environment in the presidential debates has led me to think about the state of the U.S. environmental movement. In one sense, conservationists in the U.S. should be proud of all that we have accomplished in cleaning up our air and water, restoring fish and wildlife, and increasing consumer demand for environmentally sound products. On the other hand, climate change, ocean acidification, biodiversity loss and other key indicators of environmental (and economic) health are worsening, and the environmental movement has not succeeded in elevating these issues to the top of the national priority list. We in the movement simply need to wield our power more effectively if we are going to achieve needed societal change.
Much has been written on how this might be accomplished. Rather than summarize the literature, I’d like to focus on an exciting development that offers great promise for movement building: the explosion of hands-on habitat restoration and wildlife gardening being carried out in urban and suburban communities around the nation.
Redefining our base
In Fayetteville, Arkansas (USA), for example, community volunteers and local officials have committed to provide habitat for wildlife on over 250 sites, including city parks, school yards, backyards, businesses and even wastewater treatment plants. The mayor attends the dedication of every Schoolyard Habitat® and educates school kids about the importance of conserving wildlife. As a result of these volunteer-driven efforts, the National Wildlife Federation has certified Fayetteville as a Community Wildlife Habitat.
Fayetteville volunteers and officials celebrate the city’s certification as Community Wildlife Habitat.
I anticipate that many readers of this blog will wonder why I would bring up hands-on neighborhood improvement efforts in a discussion of the environmental movement. After all, the term “movement” implies collective political action, doesn’t it? A search of the 150 most recent U.S. news articles using the terms “environmental movement” and “conservation movement” reveals that this indeed has been the connotation: 91 percent used the term in a political or policy context.
I wonder whether by defining itself in political and policy terms and excluding community cleanups and other hands-on volunteer work, the movement has understated its scope and influence—and perhaps even turned people away. A March 2010 Gallup poll found that the proportion of Americans who were either active in, or sympathetic to, the environmental movement had declined from 71 percent to 61 percent between 2000 and 2010. Those who were neutral toward the movement rose from 23 to 28 percent and those unsympathetic went from 5 to 10 percent. Gallup attributed these changes in part to increased political polarization.
Historian Christopher Sellers reminds us that environmental causes were “extraordinarily popular” in the 1960s and 1970s. Inspired by Rachel Carson’s landmark book Silent Spring, environmentalists rallied suburbanites around excessive pesticides and other direct threats to their personal well-being. Sellers argues that for the environmental movement to regain widespread acceptance, it must return to its suburban roots and refocus on local concerns. According to Sellers, even climate change can be placed in a local context.
Easy steps with concrete outcomes lead to increased engagement
I mostly agree, except I think it would be naïve to believe that many of the people who are currently uninvolved with conservation issues will immediately leap into the political fray once global issues are reframed as local ones. A key lesson from the behavioral research is that education on the issues, by itself, rarely stimulates action. Many people fail to take action on the environment despite being both knowledgeable and concerned. Behavioral change typically comes about after an individual completes small first steps and sees positive and concrete outcomes.
Virginia volunteer displays oysters he helped to grow for the benefit of Chesapeake Bay
This is one of the reasons why I am so excited about the volunteer habitat restoration and wildlife gardening projects that are now proliferating across the country. The actions are very manageable and they produce very tangible outcomes that benefit local quality of life.
One project that impresses me is the recent effort to restore a nature education facility in Atlanta led by the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance, with support from the National Wildlife Federation’s Earth Tomorrow program. The Outdoor Activity Center, sited in one of the largest urban forests in Atlanta, was falling into disrepair when WAWA and Earth Tomorrow volunteers stepped in to remove invasive plants, prepare wildlife gardens, install bird feeders and repair trails and foot bridges. The facility is now providing a site for science-oriented field trips for Atlanta public schools as well as serving as a nature oasis for the local community.
Volunteers plant trees for nature center in West Atlanta.
Positioning ourselves for success with wildlife and habitats
As volunteer efforts proliferate, a key challenge for local leaders and their partners in conservation organizations will be to design projects that measurably improve the condition of imperiled wildlife species and habitats. One example of how this might be accomplished comes from the Chesapeake Bay watershed, near Washington, D.C. where I live. In the Oyster Gardening Program, volunteers in Maryland and Virginia sign up with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) to grow oysters in rivers and streams in their communities. Volunteers place seed oysters into cages and install the cages at private docks, community piers and marinas. After a year and inch or two of growth, the volunteers return the oysters to CBF, which then plants them in a sanctuary (non-harvestable) reef. As the reef grows, CBF will be able to quantify the oysters’ role in filtering the bay and restoring it to health.
A key focus for the National Wildlife Federation is finding ways to achieve similarly measurable and achievable gains for species and habitats in cities and suburbs. As is the case around the globe, metropolitan areas in the U.S. are generally located in biologically rich locations, with roughly 60 percent of the nation’s imperiled species found there. The urban and suburban residents who are willing to get their hands dirty to improve local parks, school yards and other open spaces will be key to our success in conserving imperiled wildlife.
Over time, as more citizens become engaged in stewarding their local land, water and wildlife and become better connected with conservation organizations, the clout of the environmental movement will grow. For some citizens, a degree of engagement with politics will flow from hands-on stewardship work, since politics can so easily jeopardize hard-won progress. Others may want to focus solely on achieving on-the-ground progress and will want to steer clear of politics. In fact, given the political context in which many people in the U.S. and around the globe operate, this may be the only feasible way to have an impact in the near term.
Conservation organizations should be willing to accept these volunteers and work with them on their terms. If they do, and legions of local stewards become better integrated into the broader environmental movement, the cause of conservation will greatly benefit.
“What I like about this landscape is that it’s not painted….I can move around into it and feel it. I think about all the things I can find there. But, after I leave this picture, something always changes, and I do too.” —Gabriela Villate, 7 years old.
“This is my drawing. I watch as the mountains come up close and then move back.” Photo: Fundación Cerros de Bogotá
People see a face in the landscape, one which is directly related to their daily lives, to their well-being and to their sense of belonging to a place. This is the idea of the landscape as a “face, or geographical form of space” (Fernandez-Rodriguez, 2007).
What happens when we “freeze” the landscape on pieces of paper? To find the answer, for the past eight years our foundation, Fundación Cerros de Bogotá, has been inviting children from Bogota and the surrounding region to paper our walls with their landscape drawings. (Bogotá is a humid tropical city located at 8,700 feet above sea level, on a highland plateau in the eastern range of the Andes.)
Last year alone, children from diverse backgrounds sent us more than 2,000 drawings of Bogotá’s mountains and their surroundings. Some of the drawings are included in this essay, but you can see many of them in the video below.
In pondering all of these children’s drawings and listening to their stories about their interests, we began to realize that these children would be our greatest allies in bringing about the changes we have been dreaming about.
Their drawings interpret the landscape from a multitude of perspectives, including the aesthetic, the spontaneous, the experiential, the critical and the residential. They reveal how the landscape plays a permanent role in forming children’s awareness of their habitat, how it lends meaning to their world while acting as a mirror of their psychological states of well-being or despair, serenity or anxiety, safety or danger, happiness or sadness. Through these drawings it is clear that the landscape possesses intangible values that influences everything from a city dweller’s sense of self-identity to their cultural expression (Zuluaga, 2015).
Mountains are not the limit because we live on the other side. Everything occurs both sides. Drawing by Eloisa Murillo. Photo: Fundación Cerros de Bogotá
Why should children’s drawings be taken into account when making decisions about the city’s future?
Children’s landscape drawings often include members of their immediate circle: teachers, parents, friends, classmates; which means that a child’s representation of the landscape can go beyond being just a simple portrait of a piece a land. It can also include “the formal representation of emotional relationships among individuals and societies…shaped by social, economic, environmental and cultural factors” (European Landscape Convention, 2000).
It is “any part of a territory perceived by the local population, the character of which is the outcome of actions and interactions produced by natural and/or human factors” (European Landscape Convention, 2000).
Miguel Reales, 4 years old, Category: Hummingbirds, Claustro Moderno School. There is water both above and below the landscape. Adults tend not to see all the water, which in fact that involves everything. Photo: Fundación Cerros de Bogotá
Over the course of many years, Fundación Cerros de Bogotá has advocated for a comprehensive plan by which to guide the development of the city’s mountain border. This plan is based upon community participation, and emphasizes biodiversity as the most important structural component in a socio-ecological pact that links neighboring communities throughout the mountainous corridor. The concept of such a socio-ecological system encompasses a comprehensive perspective of the ecosystem, including the cultural component. Therefore, when the social value of an ecosystem is measured, humankind’s perspective and participation in it must be included.
However, to date, our efforts have only slightly influenced public decision-making, due to the fact that the mountains’ cultural and environmental importance barely registers among local politicians. Such is the case, even though a November, 2013 Colombian Council of State ruling decreed “that unoccupied areas surrounding building sites are to be given priority use as ecological public spaces to compensate the residents of Bogotá for any ecological damage that may have occurred on said building sites, thereby guaranteeing the public right to recreation.”
Because city governance is highly complex and involves a wide variety of actors, each of whom has specific political interests, and because local public policies are generally executed at a sluggish pace, the city’s mountain border, with its enormous potential to improve residents’ daily lives, remains widely overlooked.
So, in pondering all of these children’s drawings and listening to their stories about their interests, we began to realize that these children would be our greatest allies in bringing about the changes for the city we have been dreaming about.
“I was dreaming that my school have the mountain for play and grow.” Conversations from childrens’ meetings. Photo: Fundación Cerros de Bogotá.
Because Bogotá’s eastern mountain range is so vital to the city’s environmental, social, and cultural development, the Colombian Council of State, in a 2013 ruling, ordered a number of public institutions to carry out programs that would compensate the city’s inhabitants for the years of ecological damage that has been done to the city’s mountainous border.
In the frame of a proposal made by this author: “The Eastern Mountain Ecological Corridor”, also known as the “City Border Pact” (see Note below), recognizes that the city’s incomparable eastern mountain border must be protected through civic agreements that will ensure biophysical restoration and the public’s right of use and recreation within the designated Green Belt.
This Pact involves three major strategies: the social, the biophysical and the spatial, all of which are based upon regenerative planning and social inclusion. The Pact’s overall aim is to restore the area’s biodiversity while at the same time ensuring that the local community participates in territorial appropriation for the benefit of the entire region. This project was created in an effort to halt the ecological degradation and fragmentation of the city’s eastern mountain range; to this end, it has established guidelines, objectives, regulations and designs for the development of the mountain socio-ecological corridor.
Landscape of Bogotá, began with the color of the sunset. Photo: Fundación Cerros de Bogotá
We began to understand that effective change could only be brought about by forging a long-term pact with the actors and neighbors who live in and around the city´s mountain range; and that this pact that would also have to actively include the area´s children and young people both in and out of their schools.
Approximately 74 private and public schools and 13 university campuses are located along the 36-mile Bogota mountain border. Some of these educational facilities can occupy up to 150 acres of private property. On the basis of this data, it was clear that the more than 11,600 mountain school students, as well as other students from elsewhere in the city, would have to play a major role in protecting this ecological corridor.
Landscape books for children, at the Escuela El Manantial, 2018. Photo: Elizabeth Barragan
The future of Bogota and its mountains depends upon local children becoming eco-citizens and agents of change
In order to provide greater scope to the annual exhibit of children’s drawings and narratives that fill our Foundation’s headquarters every year, we decided to set up a Bogota Mountain Schools Network. This strategy includes Bogota schools in the management of the city’s mountain range. Students are encouraged to hone their knowledge of ecological sustainability through the study of local geography and environmental resource management.
We can talk about eco-representatives: children as eco-civic citizens and managers of change in the future of the landscape and biodiversity at the region of Bogotá.
Why have we called upon students to become eco-representatives?
Children’s landscape drawings provide an unassuming means for them to express themselves. During the past eight years, as we have collected thousands of such drawings, local politicians have produced few, if any, tangible programs to protect Bogota’s Mountain Reserve. Therefore, we founded a transversal education task force, The Bogotá Mountain Schools Network, to focus on promoting eco-education as the basis for long-term nature conservation. This task force now includes, in addition to the Fundación Cerros de Bogotá, Opepa, the Gimnasio Femenino (a private campus on the mountain border), and other partners: the Bogota Botanical Garden and the Instituto Humboldt.
The individuals who guide these institutions, with their tireless commitment in time and energy, have made it possible for us to reach a number of our goals.
The Bogotá Mountain Schools Network gives private and public school children the chance to participate in important environmental initiatives that will affect their surroundings in the future.
Our task force has invited a number of children from diverse backgrounds to attend our meetings where they are designated as “important urban naturalists”.
Meeting of Important Urban Naturalists sponsored by the Bogota Mountain Schools Network and held at the facilities of the Institute Humboldt for children from “Redcerros” (www.redcerros.org)
Meeting of Important Urban Naturalists sponsored by the Bogotá Mountain Schools Network and held at the facilities of the Instituto Humboldt.
“My father told me that when he was a student, the school had to take everybody to visit the Sumapaz Paramo, or some other place high up in the nearby mountains”—the Sumapaz Paramo, or high mountain meadow lands, is a rural area within Bogota’s city limits; at 44,000 acres, it is the largest paramo in the world—”but, nowadays, kids don’t know very much about local geography. These drawings show how students who walk to school at the foot of the mountains see them, as well as how students who live far away are only able to see the mountains’ profile at the edge of the city.”
Drawing by Sara Carbonell, an 8 year old who lives inside the city. In her drawing, the city and the mountains are clearly divided. Photo: Fundación Cerros de BogotáDrawing by Alanis Murillo, a 4 year old who lives at the foot of the mountains. In her drawing, life goes on non-stop. Photo: Fundación Cerros de Bogotá
Getting children involved in activities and decision-making within their own surroundings contributes to their tapestry of relationships and nurtures better citizens capable of transforming the cities they live in. The jointly-sponsored process we have described recognizes children’s perceptivity of their surroundings as well as their relationships with neighbors; it aims to transform consumer habits by making them more eco-friendly; and, in the long-term, it aims to influence public policy, education and child-rearing. Moving beyond being mere representatives of an ideal or of being critics of the current situation to being active participants among residents in micro-territories will hopefully serve to unite every Bogotá neighborhood in creating a more equitable urban environment, where nature’s spirit will reside in every home.
The landscape of the future is child’s play.
Diana Wiesner
Bogotá
Translated by Steven William Bayless
References:
Carmen Fernandez-Rodriguez. 2007. Landscape Protection, IN A Study of Comparative Spanish Law. Madrid, Editorial Marcial Pons y Ediciones Jurídicas y Sociales, p. 58.
European Landscape Convention. 2000. Article 1, Sec. from Florence, Italy, October 20.
Fernandez-Rodriguez,Carmen. 2007. Landscape Protection, from A Study of Comparative Spanish Law. Madrid, Editorial Marcial Pons y Ediciones Jurídicas y Sociales, p. 58.
Zuluaga, Diana Carolina. 2015. The Right to the Landscape in Colombia, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Bogotá.
Note: “The Eastern Mountain Ecological Corridor”, also known as the City Border Pact, recognizes that the city’s incomparable eastern mountain border must be protected through civic agreements that will ensure biophysical restoration and the public’s right of use and recreation within the designated Green Belt. This Pact involves three major strategies: the social, the biophysical and the spatial, all of which are based upon regenerative planning and social inclusion. The Pact’s overall aim is to restore the area’s biodiversity while at the same time ensuring that the local community participates in territorial appropriation for the benefit of the entire region. This project was created in an effort to halt the ecological degradation and fragmentation of the city’s eastern mountain range; to this end, it has established guidelines, objectives, regulations and designs for the development of the Mountain Recreational and Ecological Corridor.
Faced with the growing threat of extreme heat, cities everywhere need to plan for urban heat resilience — proactively mitigating and managing heat across urban systems and sectors. Here are seven key principles and eight strategies or urban heat resilience.
Cities everywhere are getting hotter. Globally, every year from 2013 to 2021 ranked among the 10 hottest on record due to climate change. Urban areas are generally warming at a faster rate than rural or natural areas due to the urban heat island (UHI), a phenomenon whereby the built environment and waste heat lead to increased temperatures.
Risks of both chronic heat and extreme heat events (e.g., heat waves) are growing and negatively impacting communities in a variety of ways. First and foremost, heat kills. In the United States, it is the number one weather-related killer. It also affects quality of life, local economies, energy and water use, ecosystems, infrastructure, and agriculture. In a recently published study, we surveyed a diverse sample of planners in cities across the United States about heat. Over 80% of planners reported experiencing some heat impact and a majority of planners were at least somewhat concerned about heat.
It is also clear that heat exposure and vulnerability are inequitable. Heat disproportionately affects marginalized communities and intersects with other systemic inequalities related to environmental quality, workplace safety, housing, energy, transportation, and healthcare.
PAS Report 600: Planning for Urban Heat Resilience cover (American Planning Association 2022)
Faced with the growing threat of extreme heat, cities everywhere need to plan for urban heat resilience – proactively mitigating and managing heat across urban systems and sectors. Yet, compared with other hazards like flooding, heat governance, or the actors, strategies, processes, and institutions that guide decision-making for mitigating and managing heat as a hazard are underdeveloped. Our research suggests that few studies have examined heat planning and governance. In most cities, it is unclear who is responsible for addressing heat. But this may be changing, as a few cities, including Phoenix, Arizona, and Miami-Dade County, Florida, have recently appointed heat officials.
In order to help elevate awareness of heat risk and inform heat planning in cities, we recently published a new Planning Advisory Report for the American Planning Association entitled Planning for Urban Heat Resilience. This report, which is freely available to download thanks to a grant from the NOAA Extreme Heat Risk Initiative, explains the complexities of heat and outlines an actionable framework for holistically planning for heat resilience.
Breaking down the components of urban heat resilience, including heat contributors, impacts, and strategies (Ladd Keith and Sara Meerow)
A framework for planning for urban heat resilience
In our framework, planning for urban heat resilience means setting clear goals and metrics of success for both heat mitigation (cooling communities with vegetation and design of the built environment) and heat management (preparing for and responding to chronic and acute heat risk that cannot be mitigated). This requires a comprehensive “fact base” of information on current and future heat risk. Cities then need to develop a diverse portfolio of heat mitigation and management strategies, which should reflect future uncertainties. These efforts should be coordinated across different departments, sectors, and plans. And these strategies need to be implemented, monitored, and evaluated over time since heat planning is new in most communities.
When it comes to selecting heat resilience strategies, cities have a variety of options. We group these into eight categories, half of which are focused on heat mitigation and half on heat management.
Framework for urban heat resilience, with seven principles in the center and the eight categories of strategies (Ladd Keith and Sara Meerow)
When it comes to heat mitigation, the most commonly used strategy in the United States is urban greening, including urban forestry, green stormwater infrastructure, and other vegetation. But there are many other strategies that could mitigate heat including land use, urban design, and waste heat reduction. For example, efforts to enhance walkability and reduce vehicle use and building energy efficiency upgrades can also reduce waste heat.
Heat management strategies include policies and programs that focus on energy, particularly ensuring that residents have access to reliable and affordable indoor cooling, strategies geared towards reducing personal exposure to heat, public health, and emergency preparedness. Many communities are preparing for heat emergencies with early warning systems and cooling centers where people can shelter and seek assistance. Still, more emphasis may be needed on regulation to limit exposure and ensure that everyone can afford and access reliable indoor cooling.
Coordination is key
Effectively planning for urban heat resilience and implementing strategies will require that cities coordinate efforts across different disciplines and sectors, including planning, hazard mitigation, emergency management, public health, public works, parks and recreation, the energy sector, and many more.
Heat should also be addressed in all of the different community plans that shape the built environment and urban services — the network of plans. Thanks to the same NOAA grant that made it possible for the PAS Report to be free to download, we are also leading the development and piloting of the Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard for Heat (PIRSH) methodology. PIRSH will allow planners to spatially analyze how different plans would affect heat risk and to identify policy inconsistencies. For example, one plan may call for additional vegetation to cool a particularly hot neighborhood, while another plan increases surface parking lots which could increase heat risks. We will publish a PIRSH guidebook and the Baltimore, Boston, Ft. Lauderdale, Houston, and Seattle pilot reports soon.
Visualizing the network of plans: Different types of community plans affect heat risk by shaping the built environment and waste heat (Ladd Keith and Sara Meerow)
Time to act
All heat deaths are preventable, yet heat impacts will continue to increase unless cities around the world plan for urban heat resilience. Although heat governance remains fragmented and is still in its early days, we see promising signs that more communities are beginning to acknowledge heat as a hazard and take action.
Ladd Keith, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning at The University of Arizona. An urban planner by training, he has over a decade of experience planning for climate change with diverse stakeholders in cities across the U.S. His current research explores heat planning and governance with funding from the NOAA, CDC, and National Institutes for Transportation and Communities.
Cape Town sprawls beneath the majestic Table Mountain in the heart of the mega-diverse Cape Floral Kingdom. With 3.74 million inhabitants, it is South Africa’s second most populous city. Despite the obvious ecological stressors resulting from the city’s high metabolism and rapid expansion (ca. 1.4% per year), a spectacular richness of biodiversity survives within and around the city limits.
Early European settlers of the Cape quickly denuded the region’s small patches of native forest. To compensate for this loss, they undertook several waves of planting, primarily for timber, fruit and shade but also for aesthetic beauty and defence (see tree No. 11 below). Consequently, many of the heritage trees found in Cape Town today have been introduced, typically from Europe or other distant parts of the world with historical trade links to the Cape. Yet even non-native trees can be valuable, especially in terms of ‘cultural ecosystem services’.
This article is a sequel to an earlier installment, entitled, Trees as Starting Points for Journeys of Learning about Local History, published on 1 September 2013. In that article, I explored the historical, cultural and spiritual dimensions of a selection of remarkable trees found in the vicinity of Cape Town, South Africa. I suggested that such trees have distinctive personalities, reflected in the various anecdotes that we attach to them; that they shed light on the cultural value systems and economic priorities of bygone generations; and that they provide excellent starting points for journeys of learning about a city, journeys that have no fixed route or endpoint.
I argue that such trees deserve greater recognition and protection for their part in enriching the urban landscape.
Here follows a selection of additional Capetonian Heritage Trees
9. Van Riebeeck’s Hedge
Africa is the cradle of humankind. There is evidence of modern humans living 130,000 years ago in the Western Cape and at least 30,000 years ago in what is now Cape Town. Comparatively recently, in the late 1400s, European explorers began foraying into the Cape coming face to face with the region’s indigenous people: interconnected communities of San (hunter-gatherers) and Khoikhoi (nomadic pastoralists), collectively known as Khoisan. Each summer, the Khoikhoi would bring herds of cattle across the Cape Flats to graze on the slopes of Table Mountain. Delighted to find a reliable supply of fresh meat, the Europeans quickly established trade with the Khoikhoi, exchanging metal for livestock. The first transaction is recorded to have taken place in December, 1497, in Mossel Bay.
In 1652, when Jan van Riebeeck of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) arrived at the Cape with orders to establish a victualing station, relations with the Khoisan took a turn for the worse. Essentially nomads without a written culture or bureaucratic governance system, the Khoisan did not have written title deeds. Accordingly, van Riebeeck contrived to deny the Khoisan their traditional land rights, provoking a revolt and ultimately bringing an end to a long period of reasonably friendly association (with some notable exceptions e.g. see No. 1, in Trees as Starting Points for Journeys of Learning about Local History). Cattle theft and bloody skirmishes became increasingly common. In 1660 Van Riebeeck ordered new defences to be built, including the planting of a Wild Almond (Brabejum stellatifolium) hedge around the perimeter of the settlement, encompassing an area of about 6 miles by two.
The Wild Almond is a member of the Protea family and closely related to the Australian Macademia Tree. It grows as much horizontally as it does vertically, posing an almost impassable barrier to cattle. Its wild fruits were harvested, specially prepared and eaten by the Khoisan. Today one can find remnants of Van Riebeeck’s Hedge on a leafy ridge in Kirstenbosch National Botanic Garden. There, a plaque reads:
For many, this hedge marks the first step on the road to Apartheid and symbolizes how white South Africa cut itself off from the rest of Africa, dispossessed the indigenous people and kept the best of the resources for itself. Our challenge in South Africa today is to dismantle the barriers erected in the past, share the resources equally and build a home for all.
10. The Namesake of the Palm Tree Mosque
A raucous collision of colour where old meets new, tourists meet pickpockets, businessmen meet prostitutes, and drunkards meet drug-dealers: Long Street — the ‘beating heart’ of Cape Town — is not a savoury place. Yet skirting this canyon of intemperance, tucked among the busy restaurants, clubs and stores are architectural gems of great antiquity including one of the city’s most enduring and historic spiritual spaces: the Palm Tree Mosque.
Also known as the Dadelboom Mosque, it is the second-oldest place of Muslim workshop and one of the oldest substantially unaltered buildings in Cape Town (constructed c. 1780; second story added c. 1820).
Two tall palm trees (species unidentified) once towered above a small garden in front of the mosque. The garden is now pavement and only one of the original trees remains; the other fell victim to the fierce ‘south-easterly’ presumably in the early 1960s, as a framed photograph inside the mosque, suggests that a replacement tree was planted in 1965. Segments of the deceased tree’s trunk are seemingly used as stools inside the mosque.
In Islamic culture, palm trees are deeply symbolic: they appear around oases to signal water as a gift of Allah; they are said to grow in the Islamic paradise of Jannah; Muhammad built his home and the first ever mosque out of palm trees; the first muezzin would climb up palm trees to proclaim the call to prayer; and in the Quran (19:16–34), Jesus was born under a palm tree.
Under Dutch rule of the Cape, Islam could not be practiced in public. They banished one of the founders of Islam in the Cape, Tuan Guru (‘Mister Teacher’), to Robben Island where he famously wrote his own edition of the Quran from memory. Restrictions were relaxed when the British took control in 1795 and the free Tuan Guru soon established the Auwal Mosque (the city’s oldest mosque).
In the early 19th century, two freed slaves, Jan van Boughies and Frans van Bengalen, turned their backs on the Auwal Mosque after the former failed to succeed as imam. In 1807, they purchased the building which they would fashion into the Palm Tree Mosque. Records suggest that Van Boughies eventually owned 16 slaves, although some sources suggest that he only purchased them to set them free. Van Boughies died in 1846 at the age of 112, bequeathing the property to his wife under the condition that it would continue functioning as a mosque.
11. The Money Tree in Kalk Bay
Money may not grow on trees, but it often changes hands beneath their branches. In the sleepy fishing village of Kalk Bay in the southern suburbs of Cape Town, the Money Tree — a Monterey cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa) — is said to have sheltered countless transactions.
From the late 1600s to 1850s, Kalk Bay — as its name would suggest — supported a lime industry burning locally abundant seashells in kilns. With the demise of that industry, fishing emerged as the village’s economic staple. After each day at sea, it was under the Money Tree, safe from driving rain or blistering heat, that fishing boat skippers would dispense wages to their crews. So too, traders known as ‘langgannas’ — a Malay word reflecting Capetonian ancestry — would gather around the Money Tree to purchase cartloads of fish. These they would lug some 30 km north to Table Bay, blowing traditional fish horns at way stations to announce the arrival of their commerce.
Many of Kalk Bay’s ‘coloured’ residents survived the abhorrent Group Areas Act of 1966, receiving dispensation from forced removal. As such, Kalk Bay enjoys a cultural continuity unknown to other parts of Cape Town. However, decades of overfishing have dramatically reduced the size of the fishing fleet and the Money Tree now hangs rotting by the roadside, devoid of leaves, a skeleton of its former glory.
12. The Kindergarten Giant
A century-old Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla) — indigenous to the east coast of Australia — radiates from a kindergarten in the University of Cape Town. Scores of children find magic and adventure in the deep boughs and buttresses of its roots. With a girth (trunk circumference) of 16m and a crown of 41m, it is also known as the Big Friendly Giant. However this giant is dwarfed by its sibling living just a few miles away in Claremont’s Arderne Gardens (see No. 13).
13. The Colossi of Arderne
In the southern suburb of Claremont an extraordinary garden is home to some of South Africa’s most colossal trees.
The Arderne Gardens were established in 1845 by the Englishman, Ralph Arderne, who had amassed a considerable fortune as a timber merchant. His trade enabled him to collect plants from all over the world and soon his garden became famous for its exceptionally-beautiful collection of exotic trees. Ralph Arderne died in 1885, but his son, Henry, continued to develop the garden well into the 20th century. When Henry died in 1914 on the eve of the Great War, it is said that one of the original Norfolk Island Pines which is father had planted, synchronously withered and died. The garden then passed to a property developer who threatened to divide up the land into building lots. However, much of the garden was salvaged when, buoyed by a public outcry, the City’s Director of Parks and Gardens, Mr. A. W. van den Houten, persuaded the City Council to purchase the most important part. For the following 27 years, the garden was curated by M. A. Scheltens, who is said to have forgone several promotions in order to stay with the trees he so loved.
Today, the Arderne Gardens remains one of Cape Town’s most popular green spaces, drawing sunbathers, picknickers, joggers and dog-walkers. Over weekends dozens brightly-coloured wedding parties pose for photo-shoots in the garden. One of the garden’s huge Norfolk Island Pines (Auraucaria heterophylla) features so regularly as a backdrop, that it is now colloquially known as the “Wedding Tree”. Of the many impressive trees in the Arderne Gardens, some are particularly huge. For instance, the world’s largest Aleppo Pine (Pinus halepensis) — native to the Mediterranean region — forms a giant corner-post of the garden, not far from the largest individual tree in the Western Cape and possibly South Africa: the Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla).
Sydney is in heritage crisis mode. Ancient Aboriginal campsites are being dug-up and destroyed. Low-income residents are being forcibly removed from their long occupied, heritage-listed, city-centre homes and apartments. Magnificent and much-loved trees are being uprooted from their parkland settings. These actions are having emotional affects for individuals and communities, undermining people’s feelings of well-being, and changing the livability of the city. So what the heck is going on?
As Sydney is demonstrating, heritage in the form of objects, structures, or people’s feelings for place, is a litmus test of change.
The International Council on Monuments and Sites (or ICOMOS), a global network of heritage professionals that work for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage places, has shown that heritage can be a driver of development. ICOMOS has implemented a series of initiatives and actions over many years that promote a development process that incorporates tangible and intangible (or non-material) cultural heritage as a vital aspect of sustainability, and gives a human face to development. Despite this work, governments such as the New South Wales (or NSW) State Government are undermining heritage by re-enacting an old but pervasive binary—population growth and infrastructure improvement versus amenity and heritage. This is a long-held and artificially constructed political opposition that positions heritage as an inhibitor of development.
In this essay, I consider recent cases of loss of Sydney’s significant heritage items—stone artefacts, buildings, and trees—and the consequence these losses are having on peoples’ lives. In these examples the NSW State Government’s decisions are reversing long-fought-for gains across social justice matters and severing community connections to important places. Such losses, it seems to me, are happening even faster than global warming can erode Sydney’s coastlines. I argue for a return to an ethics of respect and care in urban planning and change management so as to better marry heritage, development and community well-being.
I have been a resident of Sydney for over 16 years. I love this city (though clearly I have issues with it). By training and experience, I am an archaeologist-heritage practitioner and academic. My interests centre on the ways that material remains and community practices affect peoples’ everyday lives. Work in the fields of psychology and heritage studies has demonstrated the ways in which people develop emotional attachments to special things, such as inherited objects or important places—for example, people’s homes and gardens, particular plants and trees or urban open green spaces. I am not an urban planner, but my interests are in the emotional-sensuous landscape of urban dwellers and how feelings as much as urban fabrics permeate the contemporary cityscape.
Are you Sirius?
The Sirius Building, a brutalist-style structure located adjacent to the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge, is slated for demolition. The building is a public housing complex designed in 1979 by NSW State Government Housing Commission architect Tao (Theodore) Gofers. The design was influenced by Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67 building in Montreal, Canada. The Sirius Building is a series of concrete boxes that together provide 79 apartments capable of housing 200 people. The structure is also notable for its green credentials—plants sit between the occupied spaces and surround the base of the building.
In March 2014, the NSW State Government announced plans to sell the Sirius Building site and, in 2015, tenants of the public housing complex were relocated. In 2015—albeit somewhat late in the game—the Heritage Council of NSW unanimously decided to recommend the Sirius Building for state heritage listing based on two key criteria—aesthetics and rarity. Surprisingly, they omitted the “key” criteria of “social value”, a phrase encompassing the significance of places to contemporary communities. Regardless, the Heritage Council’s recommendation was submitted to the NSW Minister for Environment and Heritage. The Minister declined to heritage list the building, citing economic rationalist reasons (heritage listing would reduce the site value by approximately AUS $70 million, a figure equivalent to 240 social housing units). It would seem that in this case, money has spoken, and the residents and communities of interest have wielded little influence or power.
To my mind, there are several disturbing aspects to this process and decision. First is the State Government’s rejection of the expert perspective of the Heritage Council of NSW, a body established to advise the government on such matters. In refusing to list, the Minister avoided adopting an ethical and courageous position of accepting the heritage value of the building based on expert and community viewpoints and then arguing for its demolition. The Minister’s decision making shows that he does NOT respect expert and community viewpoints. Second, the value of the building to its residents, many architects, and the wider City of Sydney were “overlooked” in the decision not to list the building. City of Sydney Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, has expressed support for the retention and heritage listing of the building, stating: “The original design and use of the Sirius building for apartments means it is capable of reasonable and economic use for housing. Its retention will continue to contribute to the character and housing diversity of The Rocks and Millers Point.”
A decision to demolish the Sirius Building is, in my view, an act of meanness. The decision ignores the personal impacts on recent and long-term residents. It also reflects an attitude antithetical to ideas of trust, humility, and integrity that many of Sydney’s residents, including me, want to see practiced by government.
Out with the trees
In early 2016, roughly 40 mature Moreton Bay Fig trees (some more than 130 years old) were removed and/or slated for removal from in and alongside Moore Park in Sydney. The Park, dedicated in 1866, has a long history of use for recreational activities (such as picnics) and outdoor sports. It is also renowned for its landscaping and functioning as an urban green open space. In May, public protests against the ongoing removal of trees led to the arrest of one person. Local resident and campaigner Annie Hargue has spoken of the loss of trees as a “very emotional issue”.
The removal of the trees is associated with the State Government’s development of an extended light rail system, itself a much-lauded project by those supporting improved public transport schemes. However, the issue is one of community engagement at a sufficiently early stage in the project planning. It would seem that community consultation, itself a rather cynical exercise when it is not undertaken in a truly collaborative spirit, was an abject failure. The State Government simply did not determine the social and community value of the trees. Instead, there is a sense of tree removal by stealth, which is not uncommon in governmental decision-making practice, but which is also at odds with the idea of transparency and accountability so often touted in government strategy and public declarations.
A subsequent “offer” to replant “significantly more” trees by the State’s Premier seems to have come too late and in an effort to compromise rather than out of generosity. This replacement option might have been acceptable to the majority of community members if a respectful process of civic engagement had been undertaken. In this failing, I see echoes of the meanness associated with the Sirius Building decision.
Trampling spirits
A further impact of this same light rail development project, but this time in the Sydney suburb of Randwick—several kilometres from Moore Park, has been on Australian Aboriginal (or Indigenous) cultural heritage. Heritage investigations undertaken in advance of the project resulted in the excavation of large numbers of Aboriginal stone artefacts. The exact numbers of artefacts are disputed, though a figure of 20,000 is commonly cited in the media. Nevertheless, and regardless of the exact number, such artefacts are taken to be markers of Aboriginal presence by present day Aboriginal people, representing a mix of settlement activities and ritual ceremonial practices. They are evidence of Aboriginal peoples’ occupation at the find location in the period prior to the 19th century, and likely many thousands of years previous. Aboriginal Elders have called for the protection of the artefact site because of its importance to contemporary Aboriginal people.
Stone tools (“backed artefacts”) from sites in the Sydney region. These example artefacts were not recovered from the Randwick site. Image: Dictionary of Sydney
For many Aboriginal people, stone artefacts, whether formal tools or the waste products of tool manufacture and use, have come to represent the presence of real and spiritual ancestors. Furthermore, for some, stone artefacts act as agents with a capacity to channel the power and spirituality of ancestors and the place itself. I am not familiar with the excavated site referred to above, nor do I know the people for whom it evokes powerful feelings. However, Aboriginal peoples’ emotional attachment to such places is a vital expression of reconnection to urban landscapes, from which Aboriginal owners and custodians were dispossessed following the non-indigenous invasion and occupation of Australia from 1788.
Despite such connections felt by contemporary Aboriginal people to the stone artefacts and the place, the Federal Environment Minister, responding to a call for protection, has expressed the opinion that “I am not satisfied that the area …is a significant Aboriginal area as defined” (in relation to relevant legislation). There are echoes here of a long-standing colonial position that Aboriginal stone artefacts are of the past and are not relevant to contemporary Aboriginal people who are, in this instance, urban dwellers. This is a false presumption and reflects an attitude that urban Aboriginal people are not “traditional”, and are therefore incapable of reformulating and renewing their cultural connections to place.
Meanness, lack of generosity, and ongoing dispossession
Sydney’s expansion of its light rail system, though not a bad thing in itself, is coming at an emotional cost to communities, just as the proposed removal of the Sirius Building is undermining a sense that government actions respect civil rights. Such actions have become more common, rather than less so, over the last decade.
Australian heritage practitioners have a global reputation for their work in recognizing and documenting community values for special places. These skills have been developed since the early 1990s and offer workable approaches to engaging communities in identifying and managing important places and landscapes. Such work is typically characterized in heritage terms as “change management”, a phrase that talks to the dynamic and negotiated nature of heritage. Such skills should be regularly called on when discussing the values of public housing structures, Aboriginal cultural heritage, and long-standing trees. To be fair, much is already done in this regard. However, more recently, the balance between positive and negative outcomes for much-loved places is shifting toward the latter. The consequence is that community values and connections to special places are being increasingly sidelined in the processes of change in Sydney’s inner city environment.
Thus, Sydney is demonstrably moving toward a less-civil civil society. Heritage, whether as objects, structures, or people’s feelings for place, is a marker or litmus test of change. What is emerging is a growing tendency towards meanness or lack of respect for community views, a lack of generosity to the less-wealthy parts of society, and an ongoing practice of destruction of Aboriginal heritage. Not only are these things happening, but people are being deeply hurt in the name of a “better” society: an uncivil, civil society.
But I remain an optimist and a believer in the power of peaceful civic action and the capacity of government’s to respect expert and community viewpoints. Skill sets, tools (such as cogent planning based on community impact studies) and political processes exist for building closer ties between governments, heritage professionals, and those communities with intimate connections to special places. It is inspiring to see, for example, the recent placing of a “green ban” on future redevelopment of the Sirius Building site by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Engineering Union (The Herald Sun, 18 September 2016, page 2). At a rally held on Saturday 17 September, Jack Mundey, renowned for coining the term “green ban” during urban heritage campaigns of the 1970s, told the crowd, “It’s a great pleasure for an old 87-year-old-bloke to be here. Let us resolve to keep the fight going.”
As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us. ― Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Nature of Cities was launched 10 years ago, in June 2012. I believe it has been a success, with over four million reads and around 1,000 contributors. I believe it has been valuable in framing and propelling dialogue in its promotion of collaboration and transdisciplinarity that are essential to cities that are better for both people and for nature; cities that are resilient, sustainable, livable, and just.
It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed. — Charles Darwin
All four.
Not just the one or two we might pursue from the confines of one discipline, but all four, which can only achieved by reaching beyond the edges of our knowing to engage with someone else’s. Indeed, the wicked problems we so often talk about these days would seem to logically demand similarly rich approach to solutions — that is, transdisciplinary solutions that are as complex and nuanced as the problems.
The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in. — James Baldwin
The three quotes you see to the right knit together, for me, a sense of we can achieve if we (1) seek inspiration in nature; (2) share, collaborate, and innovate with each other; and (3) are fierce with ourselves about the imperative of progress. These ideas have been driving forces in the ongoing evolution of TNOC.
We have published almost 1,300 essays and roundtables in these 10 years, and worked on a variety of projects. I believe that all work at TNOC has great value; the 30 pieces highlighted here represent a selection that were particularly widely read, singular, or key in some way. There are many others that could easily have made this list.
Onward and upward, we can hope. In our work we continue to seek the frontiers of thought and action found at the fizzy boundaries of science. practice, community, design, planning, infrastructure, and art.
Thank you for participating with us over 10 years. Let’s continue to collaborate and act for progress.
* * *
Ten years ago, the birth of TNOC was fired by conversations with many people, but two in particular: Mike Houck in Portland, and Erika Svendsen in New York. From Houck, I received his passion about fierce activism in service of a nature that was right outside the door; an urban nature that wasn’t many miles away, accessible to only a few, but right outside. The idea of accessible nature nearby is foundational to any concept of urban environmental justice. From Erika, I was moved by the idea of people working together in community to create and steward the natural work around them. An urban environment that centers both nature and people is key to any real progress in green and livable cities. Erika, Lindsay Cambell, and Liza Paqueo of the the US Forest Service are among TNOC’s greatest friends.
There are many more people I appreciate for influencing what TNOC has become, growing from 12 writers to over 1,000. First to mention is our board: Mike Houck (Portland); Martha Fajardo (Bogotá); Mark Rowe (Toronto); Marcus Collier (Dublin); Siobhán McQuaid (Dublin); Chantal van Ham (Brussels); Gilles Lecuir (Paris); Pippin Anderson (Cape Town); and Huda Shaka (Dubai) — plus former board members Thomas Elmqvist (Stockholm); Rodolpho Ramina (Curitiba); Valerie Gwinner (Washington/Vaison du Romain); and David Tittle (London). A million thanks also to remarkable core TNOCers M’Lisa Colbert, Patrick Lydon, Carmen Bouyer, Claudia Mistelli, Karen Tsugawa, and Emmalee Barnett.
Finally, thank you to all our sponsors and partners. You can see who they are at the footer of this page.
Donate to TNOC
TNOC is a public charity, a non-profit [501(c)3] organization in the United States, with a sister organization in Dublin (TNOC Europe). We rely on private contributions and grants to support our work, and to demonstrate grassroots support to our organizational funders. No pay-wall exists in front of TNOC content. So, if you can, we could use your help. Click here to donate.
The Nature of Cities Festival
We have presented three large global events at TNOC, starting with TNOC Summit in Paris in 2019. Two versions of an entirely virtual TNOC Festival followed in 2021 and 2022. The common thread in the three was a commitment to having many different ways of knowing and modes of action all at the same meeting. We also, especially in the virtual Festivals, tried to make sure that everyone could participate to disrupt the notion that international urban meetings were only available to the people who can afford them. Key to us is lowering barriers to participation.
Graffiti and street art can be controversial. But it can also be a medium for voices of social change, protest, or expressions of community desire. What, how, and where are examples of graffiti as a positive force in communities?
In many cities, graffiti is associated with decay, with communities out of control, and so it is outlawed. In some cities, it is legal, within limits, and valued as a form of social expression. “Street art”, graffiti’s more formal cousin, which is often commissioned and sanctioned, has a firmer place in communities, but can still be an important form of “outsider” expression.
Corridors have been promoted by conservation biologists to restore connectivity of habitats and to facilitate the movement of plants and animals. The exchange of genetic material between spatially distinct communities has a fundamental impact on ecological processes such as diversity-stability relationships, ecosystem function, and food webs.
Urban green corridors are a good example of where we jump ahead to solutions before defining the problem. Before calling for the establishment or protection of corridors, it’s important to consider what kinds of ecological and social objectives we want in our cities. I think that green corridors have great potential because they can perform multiple functions. However, exactly what these desired functions are needs to be clearly defined first before guidelines for their design can be set.
We asked a collection of scientists and artists, each actively engaged in some form of art-science collaboration, how they approach it. Some are artists, some are scientists, some are both. All are interested in exploring a fizzy boundary of expression at the intersection of artistic and scientific approaches to storytelling.
Key to the question of this roundtable: can we be changed by interactions with other ways of knowing, changes in ways that would enrich both useful knowledge and our interdisciplinary practice?
A farmer took this picture of her son to talk about how proud she was to be a farmer and to train her children to be self-sufficient. Photo: Photo voice project
Sustainability is key to our future, and, as urbanization steadily grows, keys to increased global sustainability must be found in cities and how they use and are provided with resources. In this area there has been much excitement about urban agriculture, which for our purposes here we will define as the production of food in and near cities at scales larger than home or community gardens.
There are many potential benefits to such efforts, including the support of social movements; economic development; creation of local businesses and jobs; environmental education; community building; and local food security. But does urban agriculture have the potential to contribute significantly to urban sustainability by reducing cities’ dependence on food grown at great distance from the city? Can it produce enough to address food insecurity?
Are cities ecosystems in the senses in which we think of classic natural and ecological areas outside of cities? After all, urban spaces are connected mosaics of green space, biodiversity (including people), non-biological structure, biophysical processes, energy flows, and so on. That sounds a lot like a natural ecosystem.
But perhaps more importantly, does thinking explicitly about cities as ecosystems help us? Does it offer us any insight into urban design? For example, are our goals for cities—sustainability, resilience, livability, and justice—advanced by an urban ecosystem concept?
Many of the benefits of green roofs are appreciated and increasingly well-studied: stormwater management, mitigation of heat islands, insulation, biodiversity, increased longevity of the waterproof membrane, green space for enjoyment, and so on.
With all these benefits, why don’t more buildings—especially large ones—have green roofs? Shouldn’t they? Should all public buildings and large new construction be required to have green roofs?
Answering these questions obviously requires complicated technical and political calculations about the real and perceived values of green roofs, what they cost to build and maintain, and whether greens roofs are “worth it”.
Necklace, by Ligia Ceballos de Wiesner. Photo María José Velasco.
We are all confined to our homes—if we are lucky. Which is something, since most of us are “outdoor types”, “people types”. Can we find meaning, motivation, and renewed spirit for action in this contemplative but deeply strange time? We find ourselves wondering, doubting, planning our next steps or perhaps second-guessing our last ones. We are trying to keep all the parts of lives still stuck together and not flying apart.
Now that we have seen how our cities around the world truly function at their most vulnerable, what possible excuse do we now have to not emerge solely committed to fixing it? Maybe in searching for a new post-Covid “normal”, we need to act on the idea that the old normal was a big part of the problem.
In the creation of better cities, urban ecologists and landscape architects have a lot in common: to create and/or facilitate natural environments that are good for both people and nature. Mostly. Some may tilt toward the built side, some to the wild. Some may gravitate to people, others to biodiversity, form or ecological function, or social function, or beauty.
There are a lot of shared values. And yet, they are still two distinct professions, ecology and design, and so there are ways in which we may say similar sounding things but mean something different. What is something your partner in environmental city building, the other profession, just doesn’t get about you? And what would it take it fix it?
“Ice Receding/Books Reseeding” projects. “Cleo reading TOME II.” 300-pound ephemeral ice sculpture embedded with native riparian seeds. Photo: Basia Irland
As human beings who inhabit bodies made mostly of water, connecting to water as an element means connecting to a large part of who we are. Yet more than this, the artists in this roundtable teach us that if we pay close attention, water can help us connect in profound and useful ways to the environments around us.
Water is vital, spiritual, and restorative. It is a common that connects us all, to each other, and to our biosphere. The conversations here take various forms, from the performative to the media-based, from poems to sculptures to design, and from community and civic engagement, to methods of collaborative caring for water and for each other. We are pleased to have you discover these conversations with us, and invite you to further enrich them by responding to the work and perspectives together.
Jane Jacobs and Elinor Ostrom were both giants in their impact on how we think about communities, cities, and common resources such as space and nature. But we don’t often put them together to recognize the common threads in their ideas.
Jacobs is rightly famous for her books, including The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and for her belief that people, vibrant spaces and small-scale interactions make great cities—that cities are “living beings” and function like ecosystems. Ostrom won a Nobel Prize for her work in economic governance, especially as it relates to the Commons. She was an early developer of a social-ecological framework for the governance of natural resources and ecosystems. These streams of ideas clearly resonate together in how they bind people, economies, places, and nature into a single, ecosystem-driven framework of thought and planning
We have assembled a list of 90 must-reads on cities from a diverse group of TNOC contributors—a nature of cities reader’s digest. The recommendations are as wide-ranging as the TNOC community, from many points of view and from around the world. They are a reflection of the breadth of thought that cities need. And, as my grandmother would have said: “This will keep you off the street and out of trouble”.
The prompt seems easy, but it turns out to be difficult to recommend the one thing everyone should read on cities, and what we have created here is a remarkable and diverse reading list. You will likely think of other essential works yourself, and when you do, leave them here as a comment.
There has been a growing belief in the need for “equity” in how we build urban environments. The inequities have long been clear, but remain largely unsolved in environmental justice: both environmental “bads” (e.g. pollution) and “goods” (parks, food, ecosystem services of various kinds, livability) tend to be inequitably distributed. Such problems exist around the world, from New York to Mumbai, from Brussels to Rio de Janeiro to Lagos. Indeed, among many there is a sense that “equity” is not enough. Perhaps we need a more active expression of the social and environmental struggles that that underlie issues of equity and inequity in environmental justice and urban ecologies: one that is explicitly “anti-racist”, and which recognizes and tries to dismantle the systemic foundations of the inequities.
The Just City Essays
The Just City Essays: 26 Visions for Urban Equity, Inclusion and Opportunity was a collaboration of the J. Max Bond Center on Design for the Just City at the City College of New York, The Nature of Cities, and Next City; funded by the Ford Foundation. It has been among the most widely read publications at TNOC, and among other things, was the required reading of all freshman at Stanford University in 2019.
Art and Exhibits
Science does not know its debt to imagination. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
As COVID-19 began, The Urban Ecological Arts Forum at The Nature of Cities, sometimes known as FRIEC, started bringing to life virtual exhibition spaces, highlighting current exhibitions on urban ecological themes that would otherwise be impossible to experience due to the closure of cultural facilities. We have expanded this idea of a regular series or “installations” that traverse the shared frontiers of art, science, and practice. This commitment to art engagement has expanded to fiction, poetry, comics, graffiti, and, in collaboration with the US Forest Service, artist residencies.
This is our second volume of short fiction about current and future cities. We wanted to explore how to imagine cities. We asked authors to be inspired by an imagining, an evocative phrase: “City in a wild garden.” In this volume, there are stories of transformation, loss, and despair, and also stories of great beauty and hope, with nature and people that emerge from trials, in which people and the wild have merged in fundamental ways. Forty-nine stories from 20 countries are in this book, including the six that we judged to be “prize-winners,” by authors from the United States, India, and Brazil.
SPROUT is an eco-urban poetry journal that curates space for trans- and multi-disciplinary collaborations between poets, researchers, and citizens with a focus on geographical diversity, polyvocality, and translation. For the first volume, in inviting new work to reflect expansively about space, the contributors took up the call to carve out space(s) for themselves. The collected product reflects a multitude of poetic practices. What brings them all together is a particular attentiveness to the liminal, the in-between, the beingness of being-in-space, and acts of seeing out (or, indeed in) wards, into space.
@mohamedali_nizar_saleh | In Kintambo township, a porter who rites his rickshaw to pull it out of a large puddle full of trash.
The hidden flows exhibition emerged out of a need to enrich current conversations about resources, infrastructure and services in African cities. There is ongoing research, through the lens of urban metabolism, to measure and track how resources flow through our cities, in order to support decision making and policy generation. Traditional urban metabolism research approaches rely on extensive quantitative data. Gathering these data accurately is difficult in most cities and even more so in African contexts because of the way resources move – not through typically piped and cabled network infrastructures – but in ways which are reliant on decentralized systems and on private [informal] individuals and organizations.
Beaver Village from Undiscovered City, 2018- ongoing. Courtesy Julia Oldham.
This exhibition was originally mounted at the Queens Museum in September 2019, and highlights the stories, geographies, and impacts of diverse civic stewards across New York through art, maps, and storytelling. The virtual iteration which you are about to experience is provided through a collaboration between the Forum for Radical Imagination on Environmental Cultures (FRIEC) at The Nature of Cities, and the USDA Forest Service, NYC Urban Field Station.
The show features artists whose work aligns with the themes of community-based stewardship, civic engagement, and social infrastructure: Magali Duzant, Matthew Jensen, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, and Julia Oldham. Through photography, drawing, book arts, and performance, these artists reflect upon, amplify, and interpret the work of stewards and the landscapes and neighborhoods with which they work.
Photo Credit: Edith de Guzman, Rosamaria Marquez, Genaro Molina, Los Angeles Times
To tackle the issue of urban heat, a group of 18 artists and activists in Los Angeles’ vibrant Highland Park neighborhood raised awareness of shade as an equity issue in an outdoor public art installation called Shade in LA | Rising Heat Inequity In A Sunburnt City.
In a warming world, shade equity is an issue that disproportionately affects low-income and working-class communities, people of color, and communities in developing nations who are more likely to work outdoors, rely on public transportation, and live in denser neighborhoods with a lack of trees and shade.
The Underground Sound Project, featured on CBS Mornings, is a collection of underground sound recordings made by artist Nikki Lindt over the course of the past year in the five boroughs of NYC and in rural Cherry Valley, NY. The recordings are made by placing microphones underground, underwater and even inside trees.
The Soundwalk is experienced along the trail in Prospect Park, NY. Along the path you will encounter features, such as a stream, old growth tree, soils, wildflowers, and many more. Via a sign with a QR code at designated locations along the walk, you will be able to experience the corresponding subsurface sounds. The soundwalk can also be experienced remotely with headphones.
Essays
Sense of Place Jennifer Adams, New York. David A. Greenwood, Thunder Bay. Mitchell Thomashow, Seattle. Alex Russ, Ithaca
A place may also conjure contradicting emotions—the warmth of community and home juxtaposed with the stress of dense urban living. Sense of place—the way we perceive places such as streets, communities, cities or ecoregions—influences our well-being, how we describe and interact with a place, what we value in a place, our respect for ecosystems and other species, how we perceive the affordances of a place, our desire to build more sustainable and just urban communities, and how we choose to improve cities.
Inner green areas. Photos: Maria Ignatieva and Per Berg
Hammarby sjöstad (Hammarby Lake City) is an urban development project directly south of Stockholm’s South Island. This is no doubt the most referenced and visited spot among Scandinavian examples of implemented eco-friendly urban developments. Today, the Lake City offers a more sustainable framework for everyday life compared to the average Swedish city but hardly challenges its inhabitants to lead a more resilient life.
Urban garden in Manhattan, New York City. Photo by David Maddox.
Vacant land has been overlooked for far too long. If cities were to invest in the social-ecological transformation of vacant land into more useful forms, they would be creating the potential to increase the overall sustainability and resilience of the city. Depending on the kinds of land transformations urban planners and designers dream up, vacant land could provide increased green space for urban gardening and recreation, habitat for biodiversity, opportunities for increasing water and air pollution absorption and many other regulating, provisioning, and cultural ecosystem services.
A 134 ha remnant native Plains Grassland reserve located 20 km from Melbourne’s Central Business District. Photo: M. J. McDonnell
The actions we undertake under the banner of “creating biodiversity-friendly cities” are about more than just conservation, they are about managing urban biodiversity in a broader sense. Frequently in our discussions of this topic, two distinct but interdependent ideologies tend to emerge. First, we begin by talking about how to preserve the area’s unique plants, animals and ecosystems, which is largely the foundation for the conservation objective in managing biodiversity. However, discussions are increasingly incorporating a second notion, which centres on our motives for managing biodiversity, and in urban areas these are largely expressed as a desire to manage biodiversity for the multiple benefits it provides to people.
The Green Cloud Project. Photo Credit: The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy (TNC), along with other key partners, launched an innovative pilot projec—Green Cloud—on an old building in Gangxia village, transforming its rooftop into a “living sponge” space. The project utilizes three-dimensional light steel structures that are simple to construct and have the capacity to hold over 420 plant containers filled with plants mostly native to Southern China. The original concrete rooftop is transformed by vegetation, which is capable of absorbing and preserving rainwater, creating a nature-based stormwater management system for the residential building, achieving a 65% of run-off control rate. As a result, a living “green cloud” is formed on a rooftop of Gangxia village.
Nature in View, Nature in Design: Reconnecting People with Nature through Design Whitney Hopkins, London
Poorly conceived design visibly divided us in urban areas from our wilds and contributed to our recent ability to see nature as something isolated from us. Yet reinvigorating our bond with nature is a challenge architecture and urban design are well placed to address. Architects and designers have control over our built environment; by changing the way we design cities and buildings to connect to rather than disconnect from nature, we can change our proximity to nature and shift our physical relationship to the environment.
In rapidly growing Indian cities, change seems like the only constant. Heritage buildings are torn down, roads widened, lakes and wetlands drained, and parks erased to make way for urban growth. Nature is often the first casualty in a constant drive towards development. Yet the street tree stubbornly survives across Indian cities. The lives of street trees are emblematic of the multiple entanglements that characterise the nature-society dialectic animating the ever expanding urban in the global south—entanglements that knit together the past and present, the secular and sacred, and the global and local.
Landscape-like eco building; Monterey Bay Shores Ecoresort. Designed by Thomas Rettenwender and Brent Bucknum for Rana Creek Habitat Restoration and BSA Architects.
During modern era of human development, growth of towns and cities displayed a separation between nature and human activities. This was not the case in premodern times, when human settlements either integrated or co-existed peacefully with the nature. The realization that nature embraces the city has powerful implications for how cities are built and maintained and for the health, safety, and welfare of each resident. Social factors are a key component of a viable and healthy eco system.
I believe, indeed fear, that until we are happy to really acknowledge the value of each other’s method, any real transdisciplinary engagement, so critical to urban ecology and more broadly global sustainability, will continue to elude us. Simon Lewis (quoted in Zoe Corbyn’s piece “Ecologists shun the urban jungle”), commenting on the failure of ecologists to engage in the social really, calls us on it when he attributes this to the fact that it helps make complex systems more analytically tractable.
In other words, when upacking a complicated multidisciplinary problem, we often have more fealty to the method that to understanding.
Colorful houses at the base of the Rocinha Favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Image shot 2010. Source: Alamy.com
Recognized as a global phenomenon, no country can claim to be free of informal settlements, although the numbers of people suffering can vary largely depending on the region: these problems now affect up to 60 percent of the world’s population—or even more—in some Sub-Saharan African and Southeast Asian cities, and the number of people affected in these locations is expected to double over the next two decades. Neither informal nor irregular, these are, above all, human settlements. Or even better: they are the city produced by the people: the people who claim their rights to live, build, and transform the city.
While figuring out the intricacies of our own body’s metabolism is no simple feat, doing a holistic assessment of something as complex as a modern industrial city, with all its physical and cultural microcosms, can seem daunting. With citizen-generated maps and diagrams based on real-life conditions and structured around a holistic framework, the patterns that emerge allow for both residents and planners to ask questions that can lead to both local and regional ecological improvements.
The same broad categories of infrastructure, environment, equality and access to amenities apply to all urban centres, almost irrespective of scale. Yet there’s something in—or of/about—The African City that defies easy categorisation. African cities, to paraphrase Soja above, are places where “everything comes together,” in an almost dizzying panoply of contradictory binaries. Black/white; rich/poor; chaotic/controlled; hi-tech/lo-tech, as though there is no space or appetite for the nuance, the in-between, or the subtleties that make up any urban narrative in which most citizens somehow locate, negotiate and recognise themselves.
A shared garden lot in Kazan (Russia). Photo: Nathalie Blanc
These are times of crisis. One might even think that the COVID-19 crisis looks like a an alternative expression of crises that are already building, especially ecological ones. Neglecting gender and the unequal dimension of access and decision-making rights would doom environmental movements to failure. Let us be imaginative. What does it mean to revisit what the promise of equality means in terms of integrating the importance of gender in socio-environmental inequalities?
41% of the total land area in the densely built city of Mumbai must be reserved as open spaces. A change in the mindset, along with not so radical changes in the development plan, can make this city very eco sensitive and a sustainable urbanized centre to live in. The ‘Open Mumbai’ plan takes into consideration the various reservations in the existing development plan of the city. The recreation grounds, playgrounds, gardens, parks, rivers, nullahs, hills are already marked in the development plan; we are recognizing them and linking them with marginal open spaces and pavements along roads.
Crow family conversation. Credit: Ifny Lachance(CC BY-SA 4.0)
One of Metro Vancouver’s greatest spectacles is its twice daily crow migration that occurs every dawn and dusk, 365 days a year. Whereas biophilia is a popular meme for urban and ecological design, rarely is biophobia addressed. Perhaps it’s easier to pretend the “undesirables” don’t exist, but that’s just not realistic. The “crows of Vancouver” posed a reality check on the consistency of my narrative. In this era of biodiversity loss and the rising consequences of an over-engineered world our most common species represent an opportunity to reconnect with the dwindling wildness of the Anthropocene.
As an artist, having the opportunity to develop a project at the scale of a city has been a remarkable experience. WaterMarks has grown out of a three-year engagement with the city of Milwaukee. City government, academic institutions, and many nonprofits have been essential contributors to the development of this urban-scaled project. Focusing on water, the project has three important goals in mind: address environmental issues as a gateway to sustainable development; engage communities as active partners; help identify Milwaukee as a global water center. Call and response is a means of dialogue: Physical interventions call out some aspect of the natural systems and infrastructure and, through community engagement activities, the people of Milwaukee respond to and activate the sites.
Fundación Cerros de Bogotá has been inviting children from Bogota and the surrounding region to paper our walls with their landscape drawings. Last year alone, children from diverse backgrounds sent us more than 2,000 drawings of Bogotá’s mountains and their surroundings. In pondering all of these children’s drawings and listening to their stories about their interests, we began to realize that these children would be our greatest allies in bringing about the changes we have been dreaming about.
Before becoming India’s information technology hub, Bengaluru was known for its numerous lakes and green spaces. Rapid urbanization has led to the disappearance of many of these ecosystems. Those that remain face a range of challenges: residential and commercial construction, pollution and waste dumping, privatization, and so on. Today, Bengaluru’s lakes are principally seen as garbage dumps and sewage ponds that can have either of two fates: one, be transformed into recreational oases to suit the needs of wealthy residential neighborhoods, or two, be encroached upon until none of the original shapes and functions can be traced. But how does this affect the lives of the people living at the very margins of Bengaluru’s beloved yet contested lakes?
I frequently lead natural history walks around the 160-acre Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, Portland’s first official urban wildlife refuge that lies on the east bank of the Willamette River, not far from the city center. The mural overlooks the refuge and the tale of its origins invariably intrigues my guests. I certainly learned a lot by working with muralists, artists, building owners, foundations, and the public while helping create the 55,000 square foot wetland mosaic. When it comes to community murals, nothing substitutes for persistence and perseverance. But the results are worth the effort.
I live in a country that lives the dream of conquering the desert and building new cities. Cairo is the second largest city in Africa with a booming population crossing 23 million over an area representing less than 5 percent of the whole country’s land. New ideas such as green roofs could add a decent amount to Cairo’s green spaces, given the huge amount of abundant flat concrete roofs. The idea has triggered the government’s attention in the form of two national campaigns.
There is now a huge and growing body of evidence that green infrastructure or green-blue infrastructure (soil, vegetation, and water) that provides the setting for our cities, provides us with a range of benefits (also described as ecosystem services), including reduction in flooding, purification of air and water, summer shade and cooling, better health and wellbeing, places to relax and mingle, as well as food and habitat for wildlife. Having begun to appreciate the benefits of putting green infrastructure onto buildings, architects, engineers, horticulturalists, and others have developed techniques to do this.
Floating cities. Flying cities. Domed cities. Drowned cities. Cities that flip over once a day to expose different populations to sunlight. Cities underground, in the oceans, or in orbit. Cities on moons, asteroids, or other planets. Cities of memory, of surveillance, or of violence.
Speculative fiction in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has offered an enormous range of urban visions of the future, many of them dystopian, a few utopian, and quite a few somewhere in between.
For good reason: Cities have taken on a new centrality for human futures.
What is the essence of a city? What is the kernel of urban civilisation, which, as we know, is engulfing the planet? Urban life is spreading from a minority’s lifestyle to be the predominant fate of human and increasingly nonhuman beings. As I thought in a first glimpse, being stopped at that glowing traffic island, the essence of a city is a constant immersion of everything and everybody in human affairs.
Saint-Henri, June 2020. Lucie Lederhendler (2020) Acrylic, gouache, and graphite on paper. 20″ x 16″.
I have been working on a mind map of emptiness, inspired by an old Wiccan meditation practice of gazing into a bowl of water and trying to see the middle of the water. In the middle of a large sheet of newsprint, I encircled the word “emptiness” and build outwards with interlocking shapes. This is the experiment design phase of my practice, so it is yet to be seen if it will become a work of art, writing, or exhibition.
When commuters once again gather at the metro station, they will join the sound of fauna and the fragrance of flora in an atmosphere of palpable connections. Perhaps we may insist on sharing that space with a revived sense of the need for a radical redistribution of resources and care.
We can imagine sustainable cities—ones that can persist in energy, food, and ecological balance—that are nevertheless brittle, socially or infrastructurally, to shocks and major perturbations. That is, they are not resilient. Such cities are not truly sustainable, of course—because they will be crushed by major perturbations they’re not in it for the long term—but their lack of sustainability is for reasons beyond the usually definitions of energy and food systems. So, here’s my vision of the just city. It’s green. It’s full of nature’s benefits, accessible to all. It is resilient, and sustainable, and livable, and just.
Today’s post celebrates some of the highlights from TNOC writing in 2020. These contributions—originating around the world—were one or more of widely read, offering novel points of view, and/or somehow disruptive in a useful way. All 1000+ TNOC essays and roundtables are worthwhile reads, of course, but what follows will give you a taste of 2020’s key and diverse content. Which is not entirely about Covid, although it could have been.
2020 was difficult. Heartbreaking. I am sure everyone reading this has been battered by COVID. We all have lost people. So much of what we love about cities—performing arts, restaurants, diverse communities, employment…life—has been gutted. I hear us talk about nature coming back, and the value of parks, and yet…and yet there has been so much human devastation. Now that we have seen how our cities around the world truly function at their most vulnerable, what possible excuse do we now have to not emerge solely committed to fixing it? Maybe in searching for a new post-Covid “normal”, we need to act on the idea that the old normal was a big part of the problem.
But COVID is not the only story of 2020. In many ways the “normal” work of the TNOC communities gains some new impulse.
Onward. In essays, roundtables, and reviews we continue to seek the frontiers of thought found at the boundaries of urban ecology, community, design, planning, and art. The Nature of Cities advanced in a number of ways in 2020. The number of contributors has grown to over 900, and we published 100+ long-form essays, reviews, exhibits, and global roundtables. Importantly, we’ve attracted more and more readers: over two million people have visited TNOC. And in 2020 we had readers from 3,500+ cities in 150+ countries.
Thank you. We hope to see you again in 2021.
The Banner photo is Necklace, by Ligia Ceballos de Wiesner. Photo by María José. I choose this image because for me, in addition to being beautiful and the work of our dear friend Diana Wiesner’s mother, it suggests a sense of deep and rich connectivity.
Donate to TNOC
TNOC is a public charity, a non-profit [501(c)3] organization in the United States, with sister organizations in Dublin (TNOC Europe) and Paris (TNOC France). We rely on private contributions and grants to support our work, and to demonstrate grassroots support to our organizational funders. No pay-wall exists in front of TNOC content. So, if you can, please help support us. Click here to help.
The Nature of Cities Festival
TNOC Festival pushes boundaries to radically imagine our cities for the future. A virtual festival that spans 5 days with programming across all regional time zones and provided in multiple languages. TNOC Festival offers us the ability to truly connect local place and ideas on a global scale for a much broader perspective and participation than any one physical meeting in any one city could ever have achieved. The TNOC festival will take place from 22-26 February 2021. You can register. You can propose sessions. Join us.
Roundtables
Necklace, by Ligia Ceballos de Wiesner. Photo María José Velasco.
COVID. We are all confined to our homes—if we are lucky (more on that later). Which is something, since most of us are “outdoor types”, “people types”. Can we find meaning, motivation, and renewed spirit for action in this contemplative but deeply strange time? We find ourselves wondering, doubting, planning our next steps or perhaps second-guessing our last ones.
How do we pick up the pieces? What pieces are even still available to us? Which pieces should we cast aside, and leave on the ash heap? There are a few key threads in this collection of 58 people from 24 countries, and many hopeful responses.
Now that we have seen how our cities around the world truly function at their most vulnerable, what possible excuse do we now have to not emerge solely committed to fixing it? Maybe in searching for a new post-Covid “normal”, we need to act on the idea that the old normal was a big part of the problem.
After a workshop held at “The Nature of Cities Summit” (Paris 2019), a group of TNOC contributors committed to meeting regularly in order to establish an ethical basis for water use and management.
This document is a preliminary draft of our understandings, hopefully a basis for many conversations and policy discussions as more and more stakeholders address the principles laid out. The document also represents a simple guide for ethical actions with regard to water.
Art and Exhibits
During COVID-19, The Urban Ecological Arts Forum at The Nature of Cities, sometimes known as FRIEC, is bringing to life virtual exhibition spaces, highlighting current exhibitions on urban ecological themes that would otherwise be impossible to experience due to the closure of cultural facilities. We did five such exhibits in 2020. All are remarkable. Here are two.
This exhibit draws upon the USDA Forest Service’s Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project, which is a dataset of thousands of civic stewardship groups’ organizational capacity, geographic territories, and social networks. The show features 4 artists whose work aligns with the themes of community-based stewardship, civic engagement, and social infrastructure. Through photography, drawing, book arts, and performance, these artists reflect upon, amplify, and interpret the work of stewards and the landscapes and neighborhoods with which they work.
The exhibition emerged out of a need to enrich current conversations about resources, infrastructure and services in African cities. The images and stories shared here portray the diverse ways in which we resource our cities, the unique cultures that emerge because of this, and the value that private actors contribute to our societies. The dialogues which accompany this exhibition seek to invite more perspectives into the conversation on urban resources, to connect quantitative and qualitative understanding of our cities, champion the value of creative expression in meaning making, and reflect on internal and external portrayals of African cities.
We launched “Stories of the Nature of Cities 1/2 Hour” in 2020, a monthly series of readings from TNOC’s collection of very short fiction about future cities. Each episode is 30 minutes and features two readings and then a conversation between the authors and an urban practitioner. You can catch them live the first Thursday each month, or you can watch and listen to the recordings.
David Barton, Oslo. Dagmar Haase, Berlin. André Mascarenhas, Berlin. Johannes Langemeyer, Barcelona. Francesc Baro, Barcelona. Christopher Kennedy, New York. Zbigniew Grabowski, Millbrook. Timon McPhearson, New York. Norun Hjertager Krog, Oslo. Zander Venter, Oslo. Vegard Gundersen, Oslo. Erik Andersson, Stockholm.
Using Google mobility data, Urban resilience researchers in New York, Barcelona, Berlin/Halle, Oslo, and Stockholm provide local perspectives on the importance of access to greenspace. While we hope the pandemic and its suffering soon will pass, understanding the importance of greenspace for urban resilience must continue with renewed force.
Humanity will not and should not abandon our cities because of coronavirus. Rather, we should view this horrible pandemic as a spur to improve upon, to make universal, and to include nature in humanity’s amazing invention of the Sanitary City.
Taking lessons from Singapore seems difficult as cities in each have their own strengths and legacies. What seems safer to say, however, is that Singapore’s long history of urban ecological experiment can inspire others in the region and around the world.
A sustainable ecology of cities is possible when we successfully combine environmental and socio-economic dimensions equally in our plans and actions. In fact, it is the extent of their integration and inclusion that should form a criterion by which we evaluate our success.
White Elephant: 2. figurative. A burdensome or costly objective, enterprise, or possession, esp. one that appears magnificent; a financial liability. The history of green infrastructure implementation in Baltimore shows that what communities care about and care for has been co-opted into practices of maintenance for others. The current state of many facilities demonstrates this approach is not effective. It is time to experiment with a new way forward.
Neglecting gender and the unequal dimension of access and decision-making rights would doom environmental movements to failure. Let us be imaginative. What does it mean to revisit what the promise of equality means in terms of integrating the importance of gender in socio-environmental inequalities?
When commuters once again gather at the metro station, they will join the sound of fauna and the fragrance of flora in an atmosphere of palpable connections. Perhaps we may insist on sharing that space with a revived sense of the need for a radical redistribution of resources and care.
On the opening day, The Nature Conservancy invited politicians from Water, Urban Administration and Housing Construction divisions, press, and professionals across sectors of the city to bear witness to this innovative project. The green rooftop became not only a living space for nature, but also a living space for communities.
On 29 January 2019, New York City Council held a hearing on a trio of bills collectively known as “Renewable Rikers”. Rikers is currently home to the most infamous prison in New York City—the Rikers Island correctional facility an island penal colony with one lone bridge connecting it to the rest of the City. Renewable Rikers is an opportunity to end an old, but ongoing wrong. For too long, New York City has disproportionately sited its polluting infrastructure in low-income communities and communities of color.
What does anti-racism mean for my profession, the science of ecology? We must identify how ecology as a science—which is itself in part a social system of researchers, teachers, and practitioners—can rise to the extraordinary crises that 2020 has highlighted so distressingly.
This work is long and has not been easy. Sometimes we are discouraged by lack of resources and understanding, by violence, by increases in poverty, by politics, by the realities of Colombia. But our hope is still alive, and we remain motivated to contribute our little piece of peace to the life of this beloved corner of the hills of Bogota.
City leaders and urban planners should use COVID-19 recovery strategies and associated resources to enhance existing green spaces, and to support those who are already motivated to maintain their physical activity into the future.
More people are changing how they use green and open spaces in New York during COVID-19, but we found the perception of access to these spaces remains unequal, and reduction in funding further compromises the ability of parks managers and city officials to manage these significant shifts in use.
Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had. — Italo Calvino
When we read unexpected and remarkable things, we smile, even laugh out loud, and think: yes, this makes sense; and I didn’t think of it before now. In this spirit, let us celebrate some of the highlights from TNOC writing in 2021. These contributions from around the world were some combination of widely read, especially innovative, and/or disruptive in a useful way. All 1100+ TNOC essays and roundtables are good and useful reads, of course, but what follows will give you a taste of 2021’s key content.
We are now into two years of Covid — amazing, no? — and I know everyone reading this has suffered loses. So much of what we love about cities—performing arts, restaurants, diverse communities, employment — has been gutted and perhaps changed forever. Now that we have seen how our cities around the world truly function at their most vulnerable, what excuses do we have left not emerge solely committed to fixing it? Maybe in searching for a new post-Covid “normal”, we can grasp the idea that the old normal was a big part of the problem.
Fizzy boundaries all around. Let’s seek them out.
Onward and upward, we can hope. In our writing we continue to seek the frontiers of thought found at the fizzy boundaries of urban ecology, community, design, planning, infrastructure, and art.
Thank you. We hope to see you again in 2022.
Donate to TNOC
TNOC is a public charity, a non-profit [501(c)3] organization in the United States, with sister organizations in Dublin (TNOC Europe) and Paris (TNOC France). We rely on private contributions and grants to support our work, and to demonstrate grassroots support to our organizational funders. No pay-wall exists in front of TNOC content. So, if you can, please help support us. Click here to help.
The Nature of Cities Festival
TNOC Festival pushes boundaries to radically imagine our cities for the future. A virtual festival that spans 3 days with programming across all regional time zones and provided in multiple languages. TNOC Festival offers us the ability to truly connect local place and ideas on a global scale for a much broader perspective and participation than any one physical meeting in any one city could ever have achieved.
Key to us is lowering barriers to participation. Barriers of all sorts: the costs of travel and lost time at work, language, registration costs (are are very inexpensive and often free). And the the program is largely crowd sources to reflect the kinds of conversations you want to have.
Plus, we have a remarkable format and engagement platform. Likely something you have never experienced in a professional meeting.
This year, TNOC festival will take place 29-31 March 2022. Registration opens 1 February, along with a full program announcement. Join us.
There has been a growing belief in the need for “equity” in how we build urban environments. The inequities have long been clear, but remain largely unsolved in environmental justice: both environmental “bads” (e.g. pollution) and “goods” (parks, food, ecosystem services of various kinds, livability) tend to be inequitably distributed. Such problems exist around the world, from New York to Mumbai, from Brussels to Rio de Janeiro to Lagos.
There is a logical resonance of this idea to a wide variety of identities, histories, prejudices, and processes that systematically exclude and discriminate among people, including (but sadly not limited to) colonialism, social caste, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, and indigeneity.
So, let us try to imagine approaches beyond the mere basics of equity. What would an anti-racist (or de-colonial or anti-caste, and so on) approach to “urban ecologies” be? How would it be accomplished? Is it an approach that would create progress? How would it integrate social and ecological pattern and process? How would we as professionals and concerned urban residents engage with it?
We must be fiercely honest with ourselves by shining lights into the patterns and limitations — yes, the stubborn prejudices — of our own professions. What can we do as individuals? How can we nudge our disciplines — ecology, or planning, or architecture, or policymaking, or educations, or civil society, or whatever — in better directions?
Nature-based solutions provide an overarching framework embracing concepts and methodologies such as biodiversity net-gain, ecosystem-based adaptation, mitigation, environmental disaster risk reduction, green infrastructure and natural climate solutions to name a few. While much focus to date has been on the environmental or social benefits of nature-based solutions, less attention has been paid to their economic potential and their role in contributing towards more sustainable and just societies.
Indeed, modern economies are not generally build around nature and nature-based solutions — other than extracting from nature. The dire predictions of our climate changed future, now in many way already our present, tell us that this must change. Business as usual is not a prescription for human survival.
Art and Exhibits
As COVID-19 began, The Urban Ecological Arts Forum at The Nature of Cities, sometimes known as FRIEC, started bringing to life virtual exhibition spaces, highlighting current exhibitions on urban ecological themes that would otherwise be impossible to experience due to the closure of cultural facilities. We have expanded this idea of a regular series or “installations” that traverse the shared frontiers of art, science, and practice.
Transmutation Study Collection installation view Marguerite Perret and Bruce Scherting. 2019—present
In this exhibit, science and art are used side-by-side, allowing us to peer deeply into both sides of this human dichotomy through our relationships with water. After multiple years of interdisciplinary research and production, artists Robin Lasser and Marguerite Perret find that we certainly have some work to do in order to live up to our potential as an earth-bound species. This experience is a curated tour of three selected galleries from what is an extremely far-reaching exhibition produced by Lasser and Perret. The selected works here relate intimately to our human relationships with water in cities.
This is our second volume of short fiction about current and future cities. We wanted to explore how to imagine cities. We asked authors to be inspired by an imagining, an evocative phrase: “City in a wild garden.” In this volume, there are stories of transformation, loss, and despair, and also stories of great beauty and hope, with nature and people that emerge from trials, in which people and the wild have merged in fundamental ways. Forty-nine stories from 20 countries are in this book, including the six that we judged to be “prize-winners,” by authors from the United States, India, and Brazil.
SPROUT is an eco-urban poetry journal that curates space for trans- and multi-disciplinary collaborations between poets, researchers, and citizens with a focus on geographical diversity, polyvocality, and translation. For the first volume, in inviting new work to reflect expansively about space, the contributors took up the call to carve out space(s) for themselves. The collected product reflects a multitude of poetic practices. What brings them all together is a particular attentiveness to the liminal, the in-between, the beingness of being-in-space, and acts of seeing out (or, indeed in) wards, into space.
Having begun to appreciate the benefits of putting green infrastructure onto buildings, architects, engineers, horticulturalists, and others have developed techniques to make it real. Cities and buildings, in particular, are designed and maintained in ways where vegetation is omitted, removed, or simplified so that the benefits of having vegetation close by are limited or lost.
Good commons meets the bad commons. Benches to rest amidst the trash. Photo: Praneeta Mudaliar
We need to reimagine the institutional landscape of urban disputed commons governance to accommodate diverse goals and management practices that simultaneously produce good and bad commons.
On one hand, practices of good commoning produce bad commons. On the other hand, if disputes were to be resolved, the land would likely be privatized, halting the practices of good commoning.
The Broadway Temple AME Zion Church sits at a major intersection in a traditionally Black part of town. Photo: Robert L. Pickett
The history of building and space is richer than we usually think. So are the visions of a less racist future, motivated in part by many Black voices and gazes. Reconstruction in America worked briefly in the past, ending not in failure but in its active repression. Black ecologists and architects teach us not to be limited by one’s discipline and, in the words of the creators of the MoMA exhibit, to enact a practice of refusal.
With a watchful eye and sensitive ear Kingfishers can be commonly encountered along the BRL. Photo: Paula Fleischmann
By shining a light on the many urban avian dramas along the Bath River Line, I reveal the amazing behavioral adaptations of birds to our highly human-modified world. Moreover, I suggest that there are as many opportunities for city-dwellers to connect with fabulous wildlife and, in particular, birdlife, as there are for their rural counterparts.
A green wall displayed in Melbourne’s Science Museum, Melbourne Australia, 2021. Photo: Niki Frantzeskaki
Putting nature at the heart of recovery thinking is an argument we read and hear since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Will we act on this argument? If not, it is just a new greenwash. Collaboration is catalytic for co-design and co-create nature-based solutions with social innovators and citizens including Indigenous communities and not-easy-to-reach groups to make recovery just, equitable, and inclusive.
Ecological City, one of many imaginative designs by this Paris architect. Image: Vincent Callibaut
The world is rapidly urbanizing, putting our natural resources under increasing pressure to meet demands for infrastructure, land, water, food, and other crucial needs. Building greener cities for a more sustainable future is possible, but requires action and redirecting investment by both the public and private sectors. To take the conversation about investment for redesigning cities where nature is part of the solution and results in no net harm to biodiversity, ICLEI organized and hosted a virtual seed session at TNOC Festival 2021. In French and English.
We urge urban forestry advocates to not forget about the suburbs when planning tree planting actions to increase tree equality. Suburban neighborhoods that are low-income or with many people of color may be important places to focus efforts to increase tree canopy if we are to aim for a city in which all households have adequate nature nearby. Urban trees and their canopy cover provide many benefits for urban residents, reducing air pollutant concentrations, mitigating stormwater runoff, maintaining water quality, encouraging physical recreation, and improving mental health.
City of New York vaccine posters and Citi Field vaccination site. Photos by Michelle Johnson
Since 13 March 2020, our team of social science researchers has been keeping a collective journal of our experiences of our New York City neighborhoods, public green spaces, and environmental stewardship during COVID-19. Overall, we found that all stewards—civic and public—responded to the novel conditions of the pandemic. Some adapted more nimbly than others, but the question remains: whose practices will most fundamentally be transformed and how in order to help enable more resilient and inclusive cities and greenspaces?
The list of the birds of Cali has been the basis for a new illustrated field guide of the city and its promotion as an ecotourism destination. Photo: Ruben Dario Palacio
Cali has 562 species of birds; more than all of Europe. Key reasons are that its boundary spans an elevational range between 950m and 4,100m, going through wetlands, grasslands, and dry forests, climbing up to cloud forests and the high Andes. The city lies at the crossroads of three major biogeographic regions. And Cali also has a remarkable number of protected areas. Cities have a long list of duties to become global environmental leaders, and I contend that a humble bird list is a great way to start.
A concept imagination of a new greenspace in the centre of Nottingham. Credit: Influence Architects and Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust
There is a wealth of scientific evidence showing that urbanisation has been, and continues to be, a global driver of habitat loss and ecological transformation, but that cities can also be places of rich biodiversity. Knowledge production can be elitist and exclusionary, with important voices omitted. Further, the knowledge produced by current knowledge systems is often disconnected from action. We need to diversify the kinds of knowledge available to support NBS.
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, edible gardens have seemed to become an even more critical practice for cities experiencing lockdown, as food supply chains are upended and an edible garden plot close-by residents could enhance food security and mental health. It is also an important time for urban planning to rethink the human-nature relationship while designing the legal mechanisms for not only land use zoning, but also a possibility for nearby residents to suggest a rezoning.
The city’s iconic Majestic bus station, and formerly the Dharmambudhi lake. Photo: Hita Unnikrishnan
Urban planning has historically been iniquitous and geared towards improving the lifestyles of the already privileged. During our long term research conducted into the socio-political and ecological changes driving the loss of lakes within Bengaluru—capital of the south Indian state of Karnataka—we found that certain groups of people have been historically marginalized and continue to remain vulnerable to pressures posed by ongoing urban change.
I go to nature every day for inspiration in the day’s work. — Frank Lloyd Wright
Cities should be collaborative creations, no? Various professions, ways of knowing, modes of action, governments, and the people that live there, work together (we hope) to build their city from their shared and often contested values. And we need to find greener routes to built cities for them to be sustainable. This mixing of different ways of knowing into shared visions toward cities that are better for both people and nature is the core spirit of TNOC. In this spirit, let us celebrate some of the highlights from TNOC writing in 2022. These contributions from around the world were some combination of widely read, especially innovative, and/or disruptive in a useful way. What follows will give you a sampling of 2022’s remarkable content.
In 2022, TNOC continued to lean into the arts — and specifically art-science collaboration — as a productive route to innovation. Such art-centered projects are reflected in these highlights. We also presented our third major event, The Nature of Cities Festival 2022. We continue all of these efforts.
In addition to our projects, we have grown to over 1,000 contributors. We welcome new collaborators and contributors. If you would like to join us in a project, as a support, or as a contributors, visit here.
In our writing we continue to seek the frontiers of thought found at the fizzy boundaries of urban ecology, community, design, planning, infrastructure, and art. Onward and upward, let us hope.
Thank you. We hope to see you again in 2023.
Donate to TNOC
TNOC could use your help. We are a public charity, a non-profit [501(c)3] organization in the United States, with a sister organizations in Dublin (TNOC Europe). We rely on private contributions and grants to support our work. No pay-wall exists in front of TNOC content. So, if you can, please help support us. Any amount helps. Click here.
The Nature of Cities Festival
TNOC Festival 2022 pushed boundaries for a new form of meetings: one that is more inclusive and less carbon consumptive. Check out various outputs of TCOC Festival 2022 and out other events here.
Key to us is lowering barriers to participation. Barriers of all sorts: the costs of travel and lost time at work, language, registration costs (we are very inexpensive and often free). And the the program is largely crowd sourced to reflect the kinds of conversations that you want to have.
Future events are in the works.
Roundtables
Patricia Johanson’s Fairpark Lagoon, Dallas, Texas. Photo by Michael Barera, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What if scientists and artists worked together to co-create knowledge? This could be in active co-production, or even just in sharing ideas about shared objects of inquiry. This kind of sharing happens relatively rarely — most people in art and science tend to work squarely within their disciplines — but more and more of us are trying to create useful spaces in which artists and scientists interact. As land care and ecosystem regeneration become increasingly paramount, more artists and scientists, and practitioners are dedicating their efforts to participating in such practices together. We are one, with multiple shapes. In the same logic, collaboration between knowledge bases is crucial to addressing problems that haven’t been solved by monolithic thinking, and may have been created by it.
As urban and environmental practitioners and change-makers, whether in the public, private or NGO sectors, we work to respond to the global imperative to bring more nature into our cities, with a seemingly clear understanding of the science that underpins the urgency of the current moment. We know full well that nature provides many benefits which sustain our increasingly urban lives. We also know that this nature is diminishing at unprecedented rates and needs to be protected, conserved, and even restored as a matter of priority. Acknowledging the need to act now is an easy message to promote, and at the strategic planning level, awareness, and advocacy of the need for action are at an all-time high. But do we know what this action entails at a practical level?
Politicians discussing climate change. Montreal, Canada (2015). Isaac Cordal
What will spur action? Recently some climate activists have taken to gluing themselves to or throwing food on famous paintings. There have been quite a few examples. Several activists were recently fined. (Apparently, no paintings have been seriously damaged yet.) “The adults aren’t listening”, say many young people, and it is hard to say they are wrong.
Are such shock tactics useful? Can they change their opinion (in either direction)? Are they directed at the wrong targets? This is a prompt that asks us to reflect on the value of contentious and activist dialogue at intersection of art, science, ecology, activism, cities, and public opinion. A common theme among many of the responses included here — across the YESs, MAYBE, and NOs — is a deep exasperation at our failure to move climate action forward. One thread is that such activism aims at the wrong target. Another is that, well, it may be absurd, but at least it gets people talking about climate change.
As societies and individuals, we only overcome such a system of oppression by recognizing it and dismantling it. Dismantling might require a kind of reverse engineering. Is that too slow? If so, is the approach to figure out where the wrenches are best thrown into the gears? Making us all look away from the larger machinery of racism is one of the racialized machine’s most insidious strategies for its own perverse resilience.
Of course, such oppressive systems do operate all over. The gigantic social-environmental system of racism has dimensions of colonialism at global and within-nation scales. In traditions where race doesn’t provide the operative hierarchy, colorism often stands in. Oppression has other dimensions too: religion and sect, gender, class, migrant status, and access to training and education, among others. Research on such things as the global extent of segregation, or the deep, lasting legacies of colonialism in both the “periphery” and the “mother country,” demonstrate the virtually universal importance of a structurally inequitable system that affects access to nature’s benefits.
Art and Exhibits
One of the things I learned [as the first artist-in-residence at NASA] was that artists and scientists have a lot more in common than you think because scientists don’t know what they are looking for either. — Laurie Anderson
In recent years TNOC has greatly expanded out investment in and comment to art and art-science-practice collaboration. This has taken the broad forms of poetry, fiction, exhibits, comics, graffiti, and residences of artists working with science teams. In every expression, we design to mix voices from artists, scientists, and practitioners together in the joined conversations about the issues we face. Here are a few examples.
The Urban Field Station Collaborative Arts Program is a virtual, community-centered artist residency brought to you by the USDA Forest Service, The Nature of Cities, and local partners. Selected artists engage with land managers and researchers to better understand, represent, and communicate about urban social-ecological systems through works of art and imagination. The program’s mission is to promote understanding of and engagement with urban ecology through art. The Urban Field Station Network understands cities as social-ecological systems, and this year’s call for artists focuses on the theme of connectivity.
Photo Credits: Edith de Guzman, Rosamaria Marquez, Genaro Molina, Los Angeles Times
To tackle the issue of urban heat, a group of 18 artists and activists in Los Angeles’ vibrant Highland Park neighborhood raised awareness of shade as an equity issue in an outdoor public art installation called Shade in LA | Rising Heat Inequity In A Sunburnt City.
In a warming world, shade equity is an issue that disproportionately affects low-income and working-class communities, people of color, and communities in developing nations who are more likely to work outdoors, rely on public transportation, and live in denser neighborhoods with a lack of trees and shade.
The Underground Sound Project is a collection of underground sound recordings made by artist Nikki Lindt over the course of the past year in the five boroughs of NYC and in rural Cherry Valley, NY. The recordings are made by placing microphones underground, underwater and even inside trees.
The Soundwalk is experienced along the trail in Prospect Park, NY. Along the path you will encounter features, such as a stream, old growth tree, soils, wildflowers, and many more. Via a sign with a QR code at designated locations along the walk, you will be able to experience the corresponding subsurface sounds. The soundwalk can also be experienced remotely with headphones.
As a way of looking at the intersections between people, nature, and cities, for SPROUT’s second issue we invited poets to think about the edges of the eco-urban. Specifically, we were interested in how poets interpreted what constitutes the edge (or edges) of city life with its marginalia, liminality, and transitional spaces. The contributions that make up the issue offer us a window through which to view the edge(s) as places of (re)invention and (dis)comfort—where the edge can synchro- nously signal endings and beginnings. In the in-between, the edge offers up a fresh, creative space—a space where things overlap and push us to consider new ways of working, seeing, and being in the world.
Essays
Devastating floods in Mumbai on July 26, 2005. Source: PK Das & Associates
With over 140 km of coastline and 480 sq.km land area, Mumbai is one of the most vulnerable cities to climate change-induced hazards such as sea-level rise, storm surge, and urban flooding amongst many others. With significant climate change impacts already affecting us, we need to go one step further than to simply suggest methods of mitigation and focus more on radical adaptation and change the way we look at development in our cities.
Governments and communities around the world are embracing Nature-based Solutions (NbS) as a major climate adaptation strategy. In order to address the challenges of the 21st century, we cannot rely on 20th-century managerial paradigms and must embrace new multi-scalar governance arrangements centering beneficial human relations with nature and reduce our dependence on technological extractivism.
View of Soi Ratchawithi 6, still from walk-through video shot by Bung, one of the students in the workshop (January 2021).
Video data gathering captured the spatial and temporal distribution pattern — the flux/flow — of the ecology of small lanes in Bangkok. We present this distributive architectural system of local urban ecological data gathering as fundamental in collectively addressing the twin crises of social justice and climate change. It suggests that we should stop seeing cities in terms of centers and peripheries, a residual concept of colonial metropolitanism, but as patchy distributive ecological systems, where every point in the system has value.
Maranna the majestic peepul tree Illustration: Neeharika Verma
Historically, thopes have been an integral part of the rural landscape, planted with fruit and timber yielding trees, and cared for by the local community. But, in recent times, there have been transformations to these thopes, especially in the peri-urban interface of cities such as Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka. Our story is about one such thope that transformed from a grove of towering mango (Mangifera indica) and jamun (Szyzygium cumini) into a landscaped park with lawns and ornamental plants.
Breaking down the components of urban heat resilience, including heat contributors, impacts, and strategies (Ladd Keith and Sara Meerow)
Faced with the growing threat of extreme heat, cities everywhere need to plan for urban heat resilience — proactively mitigating and managing heat across urban systems and sectors. Here are seven key principles and eight strategies or urban heat resilience. Yet, compared with other hazards like flooding, heat governance, or the actors, strategies, processes, and institutions that guide decision-making for mitigating and managing heat as a hazard are underdeveloped.
As the clearly expressed will of the people vis-à-vis environmental rights, Section 19 will both constrain and guide legislative action. The amendment provides a floor below which environmental protections cannot sink, and all laws will have to take account of that environmental floor. Going forward, Section 19 offers important guidance to New York’s legislature as it debates a wide range of new legislation across a host of topics including eliminating structural racism, criminal justice reform, public education, transportation and energy needs, housing and development, and climate change.
As urban practitioners, it’s important to understand the significance of these city rankings and indices, how they may or may not be useful, and be clear and mindful of their limitations. In this post, we present the preliminary findings from our research on city rankings and indices, exploring who are the users of city rankings, and how they use rankings in practice. We also identify the limitations of city rankings and propose future prospects and recommendations.
One of the author’s favorite lunch spots, overlooking the northeastern edge of Seoul city.
The images in this series were taken over a period of seven years, during which I made frequent visits to Bukhansan. This is what a sustainable ecological culture means: It is not about sustainable materials or sustainable economics or sustainable political laws themselves—these all change with the winds—but rather, about figuring out an underlying cultural mindset that helps us to understand who we are, and how we relate to each other and to this living earth.
Singapore is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Photo: Lincoln Garland
While urbanization certainly has had many very negative impacts on the natural world, is the hostility that environmentalists and the wider public hold for it justified, or is there a much more important factor driving biodiversity loss? The impact of urbanization needs to be kept in perspective compared with the much greater threat to biodiversity coming from our unsustainable global food system. If we were to dismantle major urban centers and spread their populations over the surrounding countryside, far more pastoral paradise would be consumed and carbon footprint per capita would rise dramatically.
Distribution of home prices in areas within and outside of the 2030 annual flood zones. Data by Urbanmetry
As millions and billions are being spent on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) innovation investments, my thoughts are swimming toward not letting our weakest drown in the coming floods. A fundamental dilemma of Climate Tragedies in old cities is the memories and history that will undoubtedly sink with it. Our institutions and leaders have a moral obligation to exercise their resources to assess the risks at hand and generate a response plan to minimize the impact to its citizens.
I go to nature every day for inspiration in the day’s work. — Frank Lloyd Wright
Cities should be collaborative creations, no? Various professions, ways of knowing, modes of action, governments, and the people that live there, work together (we hope) to build their city from their shared and often contested values. And we need to find greener routes to built cities for them to be sustainable. This mixing of different ways of knowing into shared visions toward cities that are better for both people and nature is the core spirit of TNOC.
In this spirit, let us celebrate some of the highlights from TNOC writing in 2023. These contributions from around the world were some combination of widely read, especially innovative, and/or disruptive in a useful way. What follows will give you a sampling of 2023’s remarkable content.
In 2023, TNOC continued to lean into the arts — and specifically art-science collaboration — as a productive route to innovation. Such art-centered projects are reflected in these highlights.
In our writing, we continue to seek the frontiers of thought found at the fizzy boundaries of urban ecology, community, design, planning, infrastructure, and art. Onward and upward, let us hope.
Thank you. We hope to see you again in 2024!
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Oxbow lake, Yamal Peninsula, Russia. Photo: katorisi
There has been great enthusiasm among NbS professionals for “mainstreaming” NbS into urban practice. We generally mean one of two things when we say mainstreaming NbS: (1) making NbS more widely known in the general public (like, say, “climate change” is…maybe); and (2) making NbS the default or common practice among urban professionals. The two are perhaps related, but the audiences for such social change are not exactly the same. Plus, NbS professionals are often a little vague about which element of “mainstreaming” they are talking about. What are the wicked problems for which we need “solutions”? They are found embedded in both social and environmental challenges, which are difficult to disentangle. Maybe they should remain entangled, so we can seek and find complex solutions.
The Palaver Bench. Made by WXY Studio, New York City. Installed at The Giardini, Venice, in conjunction with the 2023 Bienale. A public conversation with Ethel, a US-based contemporary string quartet. Photo: Mary W Rowe, October 2023
How can we create and maintain communities that people need and deserve; cities that are better for both nature and all people; that are beautiful, liveable, healthy, sustainable, resilient, and just? The New European Bauhaus (NEB) aims to “co-create beautiful, sustainable and inclusive solutions for neighbourhoods across the EU”[1] that “deliver on Green Deal objectives”. The Horizon Europe Work Plan for 2023-24 emphasizes mainstreaming biodiversity and Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in society and the economy.[2] Integrating transdisciplinary knowledge-building along with creatively co-productive engagement and implementation at local scales propels the core aims of both NEB and Horizon Europe. Weaving together art, science, land management, and public perspectives through transdisciplinarity — especially when it is grounded in place — strengthens stewardship and produces new knowledge that we would not otherwise create.
There are five key elements to just about every story: plot, setting, characters, point of view, and conflict (that is, a tension that presents itself). We typically use all of these when we recount a story or event to our family and friends, at least subconsciously. But we don’t use such techniques in science. Why not? What if we explored a rich storytelling approach to knowledge from science and practice? Human-scale stories. Stories with emotional resonance. Dare I say it? Even entertaining stories. Stories that connect to people who perhaps are not “experts” in whatever field, but nevertheless have a real stake in the decisions and outcomes, and so deserve to have access to the knowledge that supports (or does not) decision making.
Can we tell better and more engaging stories about our environmental and social challenges? Can we widen the circle of people who read such stories and take action? Can we use them for education and engagement? Can they create good and entertaining and useful stories? Yes, we can. Although the comics landscape is dominated by superheroes doing classic superhero things, there is a growing movement of comics that have environmental and social justice aims. Comics offer a unique and effective platform for addressing social and environmental challenges through storytelling. The combination of visuals and narratives in comics provides a dynamic and engaging medium to convey complex issues in a compelling manner.
Art and Exhibits
In recent years TNOC has greatly expanded our investment in and comment to art and art-science-practice collaboration. This has taken the broad forms of poetry, fiction, exhibits, comics, graffiti, and residences of artists working with science teams. In every expression, we design to mix voices from artists, scientists, and practitioners together in the joined conversations about the issues we face. Here are a few examples.
TNOC’s latest project in collaboration with NetworkNaturePlus, funded by the European Commission, Nature-based Solutions (NBS) Comics empowers comic creators to combine science and storytelling, re-imagining how people and nature might thrive together. We invite comic creators from all over the world — using any comic style, various approaches to storytelling, and many languages — to imagine comics about nature and her benefits. One of our hopes for this series is to tell good stories about nature that are both intelligent, entertaining, and change-making; from new voices; stories that reach more people. We want to create dialogue and raise awareness about nature and what essential role it plays in our daily lives.
For SPROUT’s third issue, the editors were inspired by The Nature of Cities’ (TNOC) recent art exhibition, Shade, and invited contributors to draw on the exhibition’s virtual installation as a conceptual springboard to contemplate the theme of shade through a poetic lens. We asked poets to reflect on the role shade plays in the built environment, particularly focusing on shade equity—i.e., how shade can make more inclusive spaces in the city, or, conversely, how the lack thereof can create inhospitable, hostile spaces. We were interested in soliciting work that considered shade from ecological, architectural, and environmental justice points of view.
We invite you to embark on an artistic journey framed like a short tale, narrated by the artist Carmen Bouyer and made possible by The Nature of Cities team. This story bridges the urban and the rural in a quest to create art forms that connect us with the larger landscape. The story is an invitation to imagine our own very personal ways to listen and connect with the places we inhabit. Here we will follow the artist’s story of coming home to the Paris region in France after years of living abroad in cities. As many urbanites in Western European cities, Carmen had the feeling that the cultures of relating with the land there were lost since a long time.
Helga Jakobson built a synthesizer system that reads the bioelectric impulse of the plants, and would clip alligator clips onto their leaves. Then the system reads the bioelectric impulse of the plant. More than figuring out what the plants sound like, Helga had to figure out who was singing. In just three months, she collected over 500 hours of plant song and, for the past five years, she has been composing these sounds into a symphony. Information on the final product, Entropic Symphony, can be found on her website.
The phenomenon of water scarcity and access to safe drinking water as a life-saving resource is a significant concern for human survival and should be recognized as such. Though not sustainable, the increased production and consumption of sachet water as a primary source of drinking water is an inescapable reality in rural and urban communities of Ghana today, irrespective of households’ differential experiences with accessing this product.
Although there is a clear move by many cities to recognize that nature is essential to enhance their resilience to face climate challenges, there is still a lack of a wider understanding of the immense benefits they may bring to urban environments. Climate crisis is impacting cities all over the world, and in Brazil, the outcomes are especially dramatic. Nature-based Solutions are gaining more relevance once the decision-makers understand their potential to build urban resilience and offer a better quality of life and well-being to their residents.
We need to defend the general conception of objective facts and be willing to publicly mock those who, for political purposes, would reduce every discussion to a subjective balance of wills. Without science and the belief in the possibility of it guiding us to wiser choices, the environmental movement does not meaningfully exist. As an ecosystem service scientist, I have come to realize that the future of urban nature will not be determined by ecosystem service valuation and rational planning. It will be determined by whose vision of our urban home is more compelling.
The way in which we imagine and understand cities and define their boundaries influences how we think about governing the city, and planning adaptation and resilience strategies, which become increasingly important in the era of the climate crisis. Thus, viewing the city not as a bound entity based on economic definitions, but as a spatially fluid, dynamic distribution of people, processes, and activities connected with ecological systems, which then leads us to consider a city as an interconnected entity.
Several weeks ago, I was startled when taking a typical morning walk to find that a large and majestic white oak tree had been cut down and lay in the front of a neighbor’s yard. It was a shocking and sad sight, a tree I had admired almost daily, reduced to a pile of sawed-up and lifeless segments on the ground. The benefits of trees are irrefutable, but they are not widely understood and don’t seem to change behavior much. This suggests we need other approaches to convince people trees really matter. There are several promising directions.
The question is how can we have a broader vision for our cities that can incorporate urban ecosystems into urban policy and planning? We need nature-based solutions to not be relegated to being a buzzword but be seen as a standard when it comes to planning cities. And we need applications in the Global South to be context-specific, not a copy-paste of what is done in the Global North. Perhaps the greatest challenge continues to be in building acceptance of nature-based solutions in urban planning and policy in the context of cities in the Global South.
In Argentina, as a long weekend arrives many people living in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires flee from the concrete and asphalt in search of Nature. There are many destination possibilities, but one that is undoubtedly a favorite is a garden city, 370 km south of Buenos Aires, which receives a million tourists in summer. Its name Pinamar — pine + sea — describes the cultural landscape where sea and forest meet, following the vision of an urban architect 70 years ago.
Walking is not just about moving from one place to another. It also engages our senses. Such an experience forges affective bonds between pedestrians and their city by immersing them in urban ambiances. Ambiances are shared by any city inhabitant: they are a common treasure upon which urbanity takes root. The fact is that the walkability of a city is primordial to foster urbanity. It is long overdue to explicitly make walkability the cornerstone of urban design.
A team of practitioners and researchers at the Central Park Conservancy Institute for Urban Parks, NeighborSpace, Borderless, and USDA Forest Service – Northern Research Station met from September to November 2021 to discuss research on social infrastructure and urban green spaces. There is not one magic framework that will tell the true story of community gardens, but it is crucial that we pay attention to the profound work occurring in community-managed garden spaces, and tell the story that does these efforts justice.
If you asked someone if they could imagine growing a forest from scratch, they would most likely say no. Yet, this is exactly what the non-profit organization formigas-de-embaúba is doing. Formigas-de-embaúba carries out environmental education programs to plant native mini-forests in public schools together with school communities. Students become active citizens, inspired to act and take small steps towards collective and transformative futures.
Thanks to the cooling function of the vegetation, urban parks offer cool, pleasant places in cities during hot summer days. The results of the measurement campaigns impressively showed how important urban green spaces are for the provision of the cooling function as a regulating ecosystem service. In particular, urban parks still provide cooling under drought and heat conditions but also the vegetation in gardens or backyards reduce local air temperatures and contribute to heat mitigation.
Interior-forest specialist birds are reported to primarily require large, undisturbed forest areas in which to breed (Archer et al. 2019). Why do these species need interior forest conditions? We do believe that with enough vegetation in a yard and neighborhood, these species will breed in or near your yard in cities located in the southeastern United States. Probably the limiting factor is the vertical height structure. Re-wild certain areas of your yard!
Cities are ecological spaces. But only relatively recently has this new vision of ecologically sophisticatedcities gained momentum. Today, in increasing numbers, scientists, designers, and practitioners create useful knowledge about the nature of cities through study and research that can inspire public debate and decision makers. Thinkers imagine how to conceptualize urban nature; ecologists study its patterns and processes; sociologists demonstrate its importance to and for people; stewards devise ways to manage it; public health researchers reveal the relationships between healthy ecosystems and population health; designers and architects integrate human, green and blue with grey; and elected officials and city managers formulate and implement green policy.
And, importantly, more citizens are becoming more engaged in the conversation about urban nature – a conversation that directly relates to today’s critical debates about the livability, sustainability and resilience of human settlements. across the globe.
But let’s also be candid: there is a long way to go. Thought-leading dialogue in urban nature needs to be broadened and democratized. While there are a few dozen fantastic examples of cities leading the way on urban nature, there are about one million sub-national government entities in the world. Only a fraction of these have the interest, not to mention the tools and resources, to integrate nature and green thinking into their urban planning.
We want this blog to be at least one small part of the expanded and enriched conversation about urban ecosystems that our increasingly urbanized world requires. The Nature of Cities collective blog on cities as ecological spaces launched in June 2012, nearly six months ago. Since then we’ve had over 27,000 views from over 800 cities and 80 countries. And we have grown to 40 contributors from around the world. A million thanks for your support and interest.
To celebrate the new year here are excerpts from some popular posts at The Nature of Cities in 2012.
Walk through any major city and you’ll see vacant land. These are the weed lots, garbage strewn undeveloped spaces, and high crime areas that most urban residents consider blights on the neighborhood. In some cases, neighbors have organized to transform these spaces into community amenities such as shared garden spaces, but all too often these lots persist as unrecognized opportunities for urban improvement. In densely populated cities with sometimes few opportunities for new park or green space development, small vacant lots could provide green relief, especially in low-income areas with reduced access to urban parkland.
And yet, few cities are taking advantage of these underutilized spaces to improve urban biodiversity and provide additional ecosystem services. What’s even more surprising is the vast amount of urban land that is categorized as vacant. Take New York City for example: in this urban metropolis there are 29,782 parcels designated by the city tax code as vacant within the city boundaries, not counting vacant land in the surrounding suburbs and exurbs. This totals more than 7,300 acres of land that could be providing important social and ecological benefits for urban residents. Read more…
There are 29,782 publicly owned (red) and privately owned (orange) vacant lots in New York City. When combined they represent a sizable opportunity for urban improvement. NYC Parks are shown in green for reference. Image credit: Peleg Kremer.
I have long been a believer in E.O. Wilson’s idea of biophilia; that we are hard-wired from evolution to need and want contact with nature. To have a healthy life, emotionally and physically, requires this contact. The empirical evidence of this is overwhelming: exposure to nature lowers our blood pressure, lowers stress and alters mood in positive ways, enhances cognitive functioning, and in many ways makes us happy. Exposure to nature is one of the key foundations of a meaningful life.
How much exposure to nature and outdoor natural environments is necessary, though, to ensure healthy child development and a healthy adult life? We don't know for sure but it might be that we need to start examining what is necessary. Are there such things as minimum daily requirements of nature? And what do we make of the different ways we experience nature and the different types of nature that we experience? Is there a good way to begin to think about this?
Here at the University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA USA), my colleague Tanya Denckla-Cobb has had a marvelous and indeed brilliant idea. Why not employ a metaphor and tool similar to the nutrition pyramid that has for many years been touted by health professionals and nutritionists as a useful guide for the types and quantity of food we need to eat to be healthy. Call it, as Tanya does, the Nature Pyramid, and we have something at once novel and attention-getting, but potentially very useful in helping to shape discussion about biophilic design and planning. Read more...
Urbanisation is spreading across the face of the planet at an unprecedented rate. Most of it is opportunistic; ad hoc development and shanty towns rather than master plans. Virtually none of it, planned or otherwise, incorporates the elements of natural capital that are needed to create sustainable cities. Every time a new piece of urban fabric is created, or an existing piece is patched up and reworked, it may add to the value of the real estate but subtracts from the ecological health of the urban area. As each conurbation grows it diminishes the biological wealth of its region. Globally, the entire urban system trends towards becoming increasingly dysfunctional.
But what if it were different? What if, every time we added to the weave of this great human construct, we constructed pieces of urbanism that not only provided good shelter for people but also increased biodiversity and enhanced the value of natural capital?
For some time I have been intrigued by the idea that one might be able to identify patterns in urban systems that could provide a systematic model for developing cities that can always and simultaneously incorporate the essential characteristics of ecologically sustainable urbanism – and that this might be applicable across the spectrum from eco-village to metropolis. Read more…
Urban systems are largely unplanned with only incidental (though crucial) relationships to the bioregions on which they are ultimately dependent. [credit: Creative Commons license http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1_rocinha_favela_panorama_2010.jpg]
It is an irony that despite the magnificent natural beauty of Rio de Janeiro, the city itself is largely devoid of functioning nature. It is now time for Rio to not only to host global events such as the World Cup and Olympics, but to host its primary nature, not outside the city, but in the middle of its streets, plazas and buildings. This blog discusses a case study – the greening of the Carioca River watershed that emerges from Tijuca National Park – as an example of what we could accomplish for the good of all Cariocas (which is what residents of Rio are called).
The presence of nature is decreasing in the daily life of Rio due to the expansion of the impervious area at many scales, from street to district scale, architectural models of arid constructions and street tree plantings that are getting old. Slowly the nature is being “expelled”, transforming the city in an hot and arid landscape. Read more…
Many entries in this collective blog about the nature of cities will focus your attention on the nature that remains in cities, defined in terms of those patches of semi-natural habitat, the green bits, which are found in all cities, and which can be encouraged or discouraged by human action. Consider for example Celicia Herzog’s recent post delighting in the green landscapes in and around Rio de Janiero, connecting fragments of the famously-biodiverse Atlantic Forest in which Rio is emplaced. Or consider Mike Houck’s paean to the nature nearby, and within, Portland, Oregon, where his organization seeks to make Pacific Northwest cities both livable and loveable for people and other critters. Lovely pieces both, well worth your time.
I want to write about something related, but different, something which I think is both more encompassing and less well understood: that is, the total nature of cities. I want us to conceive of cities in their entirety as ecological places (more precisely, as ecological landscapes), where buildings, streets, boardwalks, sidewalks and parking lots, ball fields, basketball courts, fountains, and power plants, as well as the green bits, participate in a complex and evolving mosaic, where natural things happen. By nature I mean the interactions of soil and rock, air and water, energy and life, that characterize our verdant planet, and by natural, I mean the qualities of everyone and everything that participates in the great congress of life on Earth, including you and me. Those interactions and those qualities do not disappear when we build a city. Rather they take on new, idiosyncratic forms, which contrast in many, ordinary and extraordinary ways, with the ecological mosaics that formerly filled the place where the city now stands. Read more…
It helps when thinking about the nature of cities to remember the nature that was there before the city, as in the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Mannahatta and Welikia Projects. Credit: Markley Boyer / The Mannahatta Project / Wildlife Conservation Society; Yann-Arthus Bertrand / CORBIS. Originally published in Eric Sanderson’s Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City (Abrams, 2009)
I started my research as a landscape architect and urban ecologist in St. Petersburg, Russia. My home town is one of the biggest European cities and it is famous for numerous historical landscapes. In that time (1990’s) investigation of urban biotopes was a novelty. Passion for the history of landscape architecture resulted in my concentration on biodiversity of historical parks and gardens.
With a dramatic turn in my life I had a chance to research UK, US and then New Zealand urban flora and vegetation. One of the first striking surprises in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, where I moved in 1997, was the similarity of urban floras. I could easily identify almost 90% of plant material! Urban landscapes, traditions and way of life in New Zealand were so similar to “motherland” England and to general Anglo-American culture. In this particular moment I felt myself a “global” person and started my research on unification of urban global landscapes and searching for alternative sustainable landscape design solutions. I saw as my goal to use knowledge of landscape ecology processes and match them with landscape design practice. Why the rest of the world so easily accepted British picturesque and gardenesque thinking even when this is not sustainable at all. How we landscape architects and environmentalists can convince ordinary citizens, as well as politicians and even our own professionals, to accept a new way of thinking — biodiversinesque — which gives a way and space to nature in our cities and not only “tidy” gardens with colourful flowers and lawns? Read more…
Typical “global” flowerbed with Petunia, Shanghai, China. Photo by Maria Ignatieva.
The world is losing its biological diversity – or biodiversity – at an alarming rate. The primary force driving this is habitat degradation. When the places where animals, plants, fungi, and the myriad other organisms live are converted to other uses, conditions change and the prior residents often move on or die. The two major causes of this habitat degradation, or the extreme of wholesale habitat loss, are agriculture and urbanization. And it is certainly true that converting forests or wetlands to corn fields or apartment buildings changes the land cover, vegetation, soils, hydrology, and other environmental factors in drastic ways. We all expect that many of the kinds of organisms found in those “natural” environments will be missing from the “manmade” environments. And it stands to reason that, as more of the world is converted to “manmade” habitats, the space left for wild organisms diminishes and many are lost from the earth. [I’m using quotation marks around the words “natural” and “manmade” since these are rather gross oversimplifications of the range of human impacts – but that’s a topic for another day.]
While this narrative is true in the broad sense – there is abundant evidence of biodiversity loss resulting from human modification of the environment – it is too simple. It’s not just a case of cities (or farms, but this a blog about cities) replacing other kinds of ecosystems – there are some important nuances to this process. Many elements of nature – the rocks, soils, sunlight and water, but also many organisms – persist even as a city grows up around them. The kinds of species and their abundances will change after urbanization, but some wild life will remain from the previous community. Urban environments also encourage other kinds of organisms by providing habitats that were not present before. And urban environments are sometimes recolonized by species that were originally lost. Read more…
The author leading a field trip in an urban wetland. Photo by Hara Woltz.
For all of us working in the field of “cities and biodiversity”, it is well worth reflecting on our achievements. We can take personal satisfaction knowing that we contribute to a meaningful cause with tangible results. Every scientific paper, policy-brief and newsletter, every side event, meeting and presentation, every phone call, email and letter, even the brow-raising intensive travel regimes, collectively have contributed to a proliferation of projects, programmes, initiatives, tools and resources. Collectively they are driving a positive movement – that is, the movement to bring nature back into urban areas, sensitize citizens to its importance, reduce ecological footprints, and secure ecosystem services.
…or are we failing?
Although many local governments are making commendable progress in managing biodiversity, the vast majority are visibly struggling with a lack of expertise, funds and capacity. To bring this lagging peloton up to speed will require an up-scaling of technical support, an expansion of learning networks and a strengthening of performance incentives. Read more…
The Venetians built a remarkable city made up of close-knit island neighborhoods within a briny lagoon, centered on fresh ground water cisterns in the middle of sand filled public plazas called campi. There are few cities where one feels so in touch with nature, in the stone of the buildings, the light bouncing off the remarkable reflective water of the lagoon and canals. This is the special nature that envelops one’s body moving through that great city.
New Yorkers built a grid of reflective towers, which offer residents the pagan delight of “Manhattanhenge,” when the sun sets directly at the perspective endpoints of its 155 parallel cross-town streets. On ordinary days, light bounces mysteriously from high towers blocks away into narrow airshafts of old-law tenements. Its grid slopes to two arms of the Hudson/Raritan estuary, and a bike riding tenement dweller knows how to escape the seasonal extreme heat or cold precisely according to a local knowledge of the glass-canyon microclimates.
Nature loving Bangkokians believe all things are alive, and offer food, flower garlands and incense to the ghosts that inhabit their city. As part of their animist roots, nature is an invisible force only partly felt through sensations of hope, dread or fear. Buddhist practice places nature in a realm beyond form and sense, but manifest in temples designed as models of the cosmos.
What all three of these cities face is the uncharted future of dramatic shifts in climate. Traveling between Venice, Bangkok and New York in 2011, I have seen the plight Venetians face with the high water of each high tide, a devastating flood in Bangkok that crippled a global industrial supply chain, and a ‘what if’ collective breath holding in New York as Hurricane Irene approached. Clearly urbanists and naturalists need to immediately address the dual challenges of rapid urbanization and climate change from a diverse range of cultural practices globally. In order to meet these pressing challenges we need to get beyond the ways we mentally separate nature and culture. Read more…
The Gwynns Falls Watershed, stretching from the City of Baltimore to the outer fringes of Baltimore County where every household in the region is part of a watershed continuum. Courtesy of urban-interface.
Much of the fabulous writing on The Nature of Cities blog site to date has focused on integrating the built and natural environment, erasing, or at least softening the lines that separate the natural and the manmade. I would like to shift focus a bit and explore the intersection between people and wildlife and suggest that we would also be wise to consider how we integrate animals into our urban stories, poems, art, culture and collective narrative. We need to bring the same level of creativity and imagination that we are currently investing in transforming our physical landscape into repopulating our mental landscape with the diversity of life that surrounds us.
In short, we need to do a better job telling animal stories — urban animal stories.
I am not talking here necessarily of ecology, biology and natural history, although ecological literacy is of critical importance. I am taking at least one step further back into the realm of mythology, legend and folklore, about how we tell and retell our own story in a way that truly recognizes wild beings as fellow travelers on our urban landscapes.
For many years I ran Portland Audubon Society’s wildlife hospital. There we treated upwards of 3,000 injured wild animals and responded to more than 15,000 wildlife related phone calls each year. The vast majority of both calls and animals emanated from the urban and suburban landscape. Read more…
Souvlaki Coyote on the prowl in downtown Portland, Oregon. Photos by Bob Sallinger.
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) currently has 193 Parties. It is indeed a challenge for each of the Parties, as a nation, to implement their commitments to an international convention like the CBD. How can each Party know how successful it has been in fulfilling its obligations to the CBD? In April 2002 at 6th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP6) to the CBD, the Parties committed themselves to achieve a target of reducing significantly the rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level by 2010.
If we cannot measure quantitatively what biodiversity we have how can we manage and protect it? If we do not evaluate our biodiversity conservation efforts, how do we know that they are achieving what they were set to do? These were the questions that Singapore pondered over and we would like to share what we have done to help us meet our international commitments through local action. Read more…
Aerial view of part of Singapore. Photo by Wong Tuan Wah.
Environmental traumas are here. Global climate is a reality that is bringing extremes in weather as we have seen recently with the devastating impacts of Hurricane Sandy in the northeast of the USA. And in the last several years there have been massive earthquakes that have devastated cities in Japan, Haiti and New Zealand. To manage the effects of these traumas on the urban environment, we first must identify the socio-ecological drivers governing the urban ecosystems and then ascertain the degree of departure of the “new-normal” state from the pre-trauma conditions. Individual and institutional responses set the trajectory of recovery and subsequently create a “new-normal” not only for ecological but also social systems.
The Christchurch earthquakes that began in September 2010 provided a unique opportunity to address the impacts of traumas on the urban environment and in particular, identifying “resilient” components of coupled ecological-social systems. In this blog I will outline a study focussing on urban vegetation succession post-earthquakes. In later contributions I will update the findings of this study based on further data analysis and discuss other aspects, such as the effects on urban fauna, and implications and options for future urban greening thru ecological design. Read more…
Map of Avon-Otakaro Network urban woodland proposal Credit: http://www.avonotakaronetwork.co.nz/
Who doesn’t love a list? The 100 richest people in the world. The best guitar players of all time. The most beautiful beaches in the world. The world’s “greenest cities”. The USA’s most livable cities. The most resilient cities. For people interested in the particular theme of the list, the lists are fascinating. We can compare them against our own ideas and experience. We can debate and complain about the order. (I personally agree with Jimi Hendrix at number 1 in Rolling Stone’s list of guitar players, but think that Ry Cooder at #31 is scandalously low.)
Some lists are based on simple and easily understood data, such as the Forbes list of 2012’s richest people in the world. Let’s accept as correct Carlos Slim Helú’s valoration ($69 billion) and agree he has the most scratch. Among the swells, Mukesh Ambani, whose personal skyscraper towers above Mumbai and has a green wall, is a laggard and in the (relative) poorhouse at #20. A list of the most beautiful beaches, like the guitar players, is much more subjective, but nevertheless is grounded in a set of attributes, such as the beauty of the physical setting, the soft whiteness of the sand, and so on.
The critical thing to keep in the front of one’s mind when pondering all such lists is that they are based on values, which are in turn based on concepts of what is important. Read more…
A conceptual model for the elements of critical green in a “green” city. Graphic by David Maddox.
A new vision of ecologically sophisticatedcities has been gaining momentum. Today, in increasing numbers, scientists, designers, and practitioners create useful knowledge about the nature of cities through research and action that inspires public debate and decision makers. More citizens are becoming more engaged in the conversation about urban nature — a conversation that directly relates to today’s critical debates about the livability, sustainability and resilience of human settlements across the globe. The Nature of Cities is about people, social and ecological processes, the “space between buildings”, and even about the buildings themselves.
But let’s also be candid: there is a long way to go. Thought-leading dialogue in urban nature needs to be broadened and democratized. While there are a few dozen fantastic examples of cities leading the way on urban nature, there are almost 5,000 cities in the world with over 100,000 inhabitants — and the footprint of these cities is broader still. Only a fraction of these have the ability, tools and resources to integrate nature and green thinking into their urban planning. What we need is more sharing of the good ideas, solutions, and momentum among cities, especially solutions that can be adapted to suit local requirements.
This blog is at least one part of the expanded and enriched conversation about urban socio-ecosystems that our increasingly urbanized world requires. The Nature of Cities platform on cities as ecological spaces launched in June 2012. Since then we’ve had over 100,000 visitors from over 1,900 cities and 140 countries. And we have grown to 60 contributors from around the world. We launched a new Global Roundtable to convene and gather conversation around specific questions every month.
A million thanks for your support and interest.
To celebrate the new year here are excerpts from a few highlight posts at The Nature of Cities in 2013. We published 86 essays over the course of the year, so these represent just a taste of the wealth of diverse thought and discussion that can be found at TNOC. There are many more just as good, about bicycles, soundscapes, mapping tools, street trees, parks…you name it, from all over the world. Here are just a dozen.
Whether for protest, art, comment, or signaling, as an illegal activity graffiti always challenges hegemony. An examination of nature-related graffiti in Cape Town shows a number of emergent themes around the imaginings and recalling of rural nature in cities, political statements around conservation concerns of African mega fauna, nature as beautiful and aesthetically improving and informative of a better way of life, and simply bringing depictions of nature into cities where it might be otherwise absent to soften and beautify. Graffiti in Cape Town presents cities as counter to a rural idyll, the aesthetic form as non-nature, or aesthetically requiring the remediation which natural scenes can provide, as the site of the greatest populace where ‘armies’ can be called on to take up causes, in particular in the South African context, for conservation concerns.
So if we need to listen to people about their perceptions and views on nature in cities, in order that we better promote the idea and value of nature in cities, what does this graffiti tell us? It tells us there are voices of dissent out there, personal views not captured by popular media, or standard urban form, and a desire for more nature both in cities, and beyond cities. Read more…
We had a “wicked problem” on our hands when Hurricane Sandy struck the US eastern seaboard on 29 October 2012. Sandy was dramatic, destroying 72,000 homes, causing tens of billions of dollars in infrastructural damage, displacing thousands of residents (many of whom are still displaced), and completely disrupting one of the largest regional economies in the world. However, the wicked problem Sandy posed for New York City was not the magnitude of the storm damage or any particular local disaster. The wickedness of the problem lay in exposing the sensitivity and vulnerability of the city’s complex social-ecological system, where a single storm event simultaneously decimated multiple components (and connections between components) of the city system. Read more…
In Africa, and particularly Kampala, where we have undertaken research on various aspects of urban development, we are increasingly confronted by a realization that urban built up components are only conveniently “detached” from the urban nature on which these sit. In fact the combination of the built up and urban ecosystems is creating a unique urban form that is a fusion of interacting parts of the city as whole. Cities in other parts of the world that have benefited from long standing planning have the urban form which, to a degree, separates built up from nature areas as nature parks and recreation areas (Grimm et al. 2008). The design and planning has also reserved multi-purpose green parks, as seen in recent urban development, to respond to the environmental change challenges. In contrast, cities in Africa, as is the case of Kampala, can be described as ‘runaway’ cities by nature of the sprawl and fragmentation of natural ecosystem interwoven with built up land. This is a different worldview of urban nature with implications on how to maintain ecosystem functions. Read more…
Public open spaces as the basis of planning are an effective means to achieve critical social objectives in cities — an approach that engages citizens, leads to better quality life and ensures a more ‘democratic’, more equitable city. By achieving intensive levels of citizens’ participation we wish to engage and influence governments to devise comprehensive plans for public spaces and re-envision the city with open spaces being the basis for planning including the vast natural assets of the city. Read more…
Our comic book, Mayah’s Lot, challenged students to translate their grade-school civic lessons into a real-world appreciation for how to use law to achieve environmental justice. The environmental justice curriculum built around Mayah’s Lot, helped these students cultivate not only an understanding of how public policy decisions are made, but also a keen appreciation for the points at which citizens can fruitfully intervene in that process. It taught them to use citizen science to generate data, and to make their interventions as persuasive as possible. Students began identifying environmental problems in their neighborhoods. Read more…
In our current efforts to create green, healthy and resilient cities and towns we (I include scientists, conservationists, architects, designers, planners, engineers, landscape architects, land managers, decision makers and teachers) have an obligation and the ability to create urban ecosystems that will support a diversity of organisms that can help preserve our natural heritage at local and regional scales. As a result of the research conducted by the staff and students of the Australian Research Centre for Urban Ecology (ARCUE) over the last decade, I believe we can move beyond living with a fairly common and limited pool of urban adapted species in our cities by explicitly creating urban ecosystems that provide habitat and resources for a diversity of organisms, including threatened species. Read more…
Where will children learn about nature? There has been so much building and development in Japan that we have lost open space and natural areas. So, where will children learn about nature? Where do they engage with the nature world? To solve this problem, we wanted to design biotopes within school grounds. These spaces would serve as both play and engagement areas. They also serve real ecological functions as natural areas. Read more…
Architecture is the profession of designing the built environment. But we architects should include the contributions experts in related fields like landscape architects, urban design and planning, permaculturalist, and policy makers. Each has a significant role in restoring balance between buildings, cities and our biological / ecological inventory. Surely ecological urbanism without ecological architecture is impossible. How can architects utilize ecological science to design cities and buildings which are in harmony with ecosystems? Read more…
Fortunately, the life sciences have indeed come to our rescue in urban dialog, over time out-jockeying the mechanistic, linear-ists, persuading us in many aspects of living to look at what is generative, organic, connected to the whole. Jane Jacobs observed city life as inter-connected with the natural and built environments, and her ideas have prompted a contemporary approach to urbanism that integrates uses and users, green architecture and design, local economies (even currencies!), adaptive reuses, and ecological infrastructures. These reflect Jacobs’ recognition that cities — when permitted to — evolve naturally, adding form and function as needed. Jacobs’ method was a simple scientific one: to observe the particular, and extract from it her observations about how cities actually work. Read more…
Nairobi is a bustling city of over 3 million people, many of whom are stuck in traffic for hours each day. One effort to mitigate these wasteful jams involves construction of additional motorways. But with little space specifically reserved for these new arteries, their proposed routes involve some delicate tradeoffs. One such road, the proposed Southern Bypass, is planned to run along the eastern boundary of Nairobi National Park. As presently designed, 150 acres of park land would need to be degazetted (i.e., lost) to accommodate the new road. Several nature conservation organizations have joined together to oppose the project, and a pending legal action has provisionally halted all construction. One might understand this story as a tale of local conservation organizations banding together to “hold the line” — protecting a parcel of wilderness from the bulldozers of urban expansion. But in an urban system as complicated as Nairobi, context truly matters. In fact, the project presents a rare opportunity, if leveraged aggressively, to expand and strengthen the integrity of Park while letting the Bypass go forward. Read more…
I visited Austin, Texas to participate in the SXSW Eco conference. Staying across the street from Austin’s large and beautiful convention center, I was astonished to discover a green ravine immediately adjacent to the mammoth building, at the bottom of which was a slow moving creek full of small fish and a large turtle sunning on a rock. I soon learned that this was Waller Creek, a relatively short urban stream in a very highly developed area. I also learned that the stream is currently the focus of an ambitious public-private partnership to restore the stream and connect its banks with neighboring parks, creating both a recreational amenity and an ecological improvement. Read more…
We are living extremely intense and interesting days in Brazil, as in several other countries. People want to be heard and to be part of the game! In this historically peaceful country, suddenly masses gathered in the streets with more than 1 million citizens marching in one single day! And the protests continue. The problems are complex and quite intricate, but in my view, there is an important factor that is not being considered: people want to live in cities that are livable. Livable cities are those in which people matter and in which nature matters. During the last years I have seen how urban dwellers praise their trees and green areas, and how they are trying to protect them against creating cities “business as usual”, based on car-centric transportation and sprawl. I love when I go to urban parks and they are packed with curious and happy families, with people of all ages enjoying trees, birds, monkeys, squirrels, and flowers… and life! Read more…
Somehow it seems fitting that a one-eyed eagle calls West Hayden Island home. By all rights, the island should have been paved over long ago. Despite the odds, it somehow survived, decade after decade as the landscape around it developed. The odds are against it now too. The big money and conventional wisdom say development is inevitable — we need to prepare for the future. But sometimes the conventional wisdom is wrong; sometimes we need to think beyond the experts or perhaps seek out different sources of wisdom. Sometimes the path forward is written not in technical reports, but on the side of a canoe and in the stories of our fellow travelers, the stories that usually don’t make it into technical reports.
A one-eyed eagle is still a long shot. Not every bird survives. Not every story has a happy ending … but if she can fly, let her go. Let her have her freedom. Read more…
It’s been a great year at The Nature of Cities. The number of contributors has grown to almost 170, and we published 100+ blogs, long-form essays, and global roundtables. Most important, we’ve attracted more and more readers: in 2015 we had 170,000+ visits from 2,812 cities in 140 countries. Thank you.
New things are coming in 2015: a complete site redesign and additional types of content, including book reviews and podcasts. We’re embarking on a couple of new projects: concepts of justice for green cities and urban nature-themed graffiti. Plus some things too fresh to talk about yet. And of course, 100 new essays and roundtables.
Today’s post is offered as a celebration of some of the content from 2015—a taste…a combination of TNOC writing from around the world that was some combination of widely read, a novel point of view, or somehow caused a stir. All 100+ TNOC essays and roundtables are great reads. What follows is a sample of some of the highlights.
The Rise of Resilience: Linking Resilience and Sustainability in City Planning
by Timon McPhearson
Cities around the world are making plans, developing agendas, and articulating goals for urban resilience, but is urban resilience really possible? Resilience to what, for what, and for whom? Additionally, resilience is being used in many cases as a replacement for sustainability, which it is not. Resilience and sustainability need to be linked, but with care and clarity. Read more…
The ‘Equal Streets’ Movement in Mumbai
by P.K. Das
How do we deal with this complex web of conflicts and contradictions for the achievement of more humane and environmentally sustainable streets, and in place of highly unequal roads in favour of cars? How do we make cities and their streetscapes more livable? Reclaiming some of the street space for pedestrians and trees is part of the answer. These spaces need to be planned to be more amenable for people and nature; that is, more livable. A significant movement presently under way in Mumbai called “Equal Streets”. Read more…
The New is Well Forgotten Old: Scandanavian Vernacular Experience on Biodiverse Green Roofs
by Maria Ignatieva and Anna Bubnova
In the last two decades, the technology of creating green roofs has become standardized. The most popular today are extensive green roofs with a thin substrate layer and several succulent drought tolerant species such as Sedum and Sempervivum. But the most recent trend in ecological design is creating biodiverse green roofs that can be seen as a valuable urban biotope and substitute of the lost terrestrial habitat during building construction process. In this sense the Scandinavian vernacular experience of green roofs can be a very valuable foundation for modern researchers and designers. Read more…
The Nature of a City Economy: Towards an Ecology of Entrepreneurship
by Vin Cipolla and Mary Rowe
There is an ecology to the city, a pattern of reciprocal connections that underpin its resilience. We see this in the landscape and topography that (hopefully) informs the constructed city, and then in the design of human-made services of city-life, like transit and street grids, public spaces that serve as recharge areas (in all sorts of ways), and in the ways that water and energy and food are transmitted through the city. Read more…
It’s Not Only City Design—We Need to Integrate Sustainability Across the Rural-Urban Continuum
by François Mancebo
In the minds of many people, sustainable urbanization is identified with the historical model of European cities, with their dense center and their suburbs. Thus, “compact cities” are often perceived as the universal model of urban transition to sustainability. I’d like to ask two very simple questions, however incongruous they might seem: Is it feasible? Is it desirable? Read more…
A Values-Based Approach to Urban Nature Research and Practice
by Chris Ives
I believe that understanding what people value in urban environments, and why, is fundamental to achieving sustainable and biodiverse cities. However, much of the work on urban ecosystem services has failed to explore the breadth and depth of the concept of values. Read more…
Natural Parks Define American Cities
by Adrian Benepe
I was recently surprised to learn an astonishing fact. In American’s largest cities, more than half contain park systems that are more than 50 percent “natural.” In fact, in America’s 10 largest cities, all but one (Chicago) have park systems where more than half are natural. Read more…
We Should Look at Urban Nature More Through the Eyes of Children
by Ana Faggi and Jürgen Breuste
The world we perceive is a world created by ourselves through our experiences, which reflects our expectations, needs and goals. Gibson, in his environmental perception theory, asserted that objects are perceived according to the meaning, action and behaviour involved and not according to the physical characteristics they possess. All of this influences how we plan, design and manage our cities. Read more…
The UN in the Urban Anthropocene
by Oliver Hillel and Jose Puppim
Certainly we need a global legitimate organization like the UN to support the coordination of global efforts. But this is not enough. Global efforts will have impacts on the ground only if we have good local governance in a significant large number of localities. Thus, understanding the mechanisms governing urbanization, arguably as the largest human movement in history, is key to protecting the global environment, and for global politics and governance systems. Read more…
Sweet by Nature: African Cities and the Natural World
by Lesley Lokko
The relationship in most tropical climes between the natural and the manmade (for want of better terms), is profound: heat and humidity combine to ensure a fecundity that is fierce, almost fearful. Inert matter—concrete, glass, metal, wood—must fight nature in order to survive, maintain, remain. Things rot, disintegrate, weather and decay at a rate that far exceeds anything more milder climes contend with. Nature’s vitality is evident everywhere. Yet we speak little of nature, even less about it. It seems to me that there’s a missed opportunity somewhere to think deeply and creatively about what nature means to us, and to translate those narratives into built/grown/planted/managed form. Read more…
Driving Social and Ecological Change: My Experiment with Guerrilla Gardening
by Pippin Anderson
Spurred on by some students who asked me earlier in the year what sort of personal activism I pursue in relation to my views around the importance of forwarding and preserving functioning urban ecologies, I decided to embark on a bit of guerilla gardening in the form of a seed bombing exercise. Read more…
Forget the Damned Motor Car
by Eric Sanderson
What do cars have to do with the nature of cities? Cars are Enemy #1 for the nature of cities. Not only do gas-propelled vehicles pollute the environment and contribute to climate change, the roads they require take up space, robbing room from us and from nature at large. Read more…
Inviting You to Collaborate with Nature to Transform Your City
by Janice Astbury
In the many current discussions about how to make cities more resilient, the potential roles of citizens and urban nature are largely overlooked. There are exceptions, but the level of interest seems disproportionately small given the tremendous opportunities for citizens to steward nature in cities—or to ‘collaborate’ with nature. Read more…
Graffiti on the Path and the Nature of Public Space
by Paul Downton
The nature of cities is inextricably tied to the nature of public space and this blog is about just a small part of that ‘nature’. It was inspired by what appeared to be graffiti on a public footpath that runs along the street where I live, in sunny Semaphore, South Australia. Read more…
Today’s post is offered as a celebration of some of the content from 2015—a taste…a combination of TNOC writing from around the world that is a combination of diverse, widely read, a novel point of view, or somehow disruptive in an useful way. Certainly all 350+ TNOC essays and roundtables are great reads. What follows is a sample of some of the highlights.
2015 has been a transformational year at The Nature of Cities. The number of contributors has grown to over 350, and we published 100+ long-form essays, reviews and global roundtables. This year began a new format—collections of essays as an eBook. The first was The Just City Essays, a collaboration with the Max Bond Center for the Design of the Just City and NextCity. We will continue to do two of these collections a year on topics important to TNOC’s mission. Most important, we’ve attracted more and more readers: in 2015 we had 200,000+ readers from 3000+ cities in 145 countries. Thank you.
New things are coming in 2016, including:
New focus on green cities and social justice.
The Nature of Graffiti gallery of nature-inspired urban graffiti and street art.
An new effort to recognize and reward on-the-ground Champions of the Nature of Cities.
And of course, over 150 new essays, reviews and roundtables.
Donate
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Highlights of 2015
All 26 of the Just City Essays were highlights. Check them out. http://www.thenatureofcities.com/the-just-city-essays/ Over the past decade, there have been conversations about the “livable city,” the “green city,” the “sustainable city” and, most recently, the “resilient city.” At the same time, today’s headlines—from Ferguson to Baltimore, Paris to Johannesburg—resound with the need for a frank conversation about the structures and processes that affect the quality of life and livelihoods of urban residents. Issues of equity, inclusion, race, participation, access and ownership remain unresolved in many communities around the world, even as we begin to address the challenges of affordability, climate change adaptation and resilience. The persistence of injustice in the world’s cities—dramatic inequality, unequal environmental burdens and risks, and uneven access to opportunity—demands a continued and reinvigorated search for ideas and solutions.
Roundtables
Taking “resilience” out of the realm of metaphor. How do you measure resilience in cities? How would you know if your city or your community was resilient? http://bit.ly/1dhNPK7 In a time of gathering stresses from climate and ecological change, economic stress, and the persistent challenges of sustainability, justice and livability, resilience is a key area of thought with enormous potential. We must continue to work to bring it down from the 10,000 meters of metaphor to functional concepts on the ground. As we build and improve the cities of world, how can we act on the core ideas and promise of resilience? Of the 21 respondents to this roundtable, some are working on direct or indirect metrics. What makes them relevant and validated? Some are measurement skeptics. If it can’t be measured then how can we construct resilience (in an adaptive management sense)? Some are actively engaged in city building and policy. How is resilience an actionable concept? …with contributions from: Keren Bolter, Boca Raton; Cesar Busatto, Porto Alegre; Lorenzo Chelleri, Milan; William Dunbar, Tokyo; Thomas Elmqvist, Stockholm; Antoine Faye, Dakar; Richard Friend & Pakama Thinphanga, Bangkok; Lance Gunderson, Atlanta; Tom Henfry, Bristol; Dan Lewis & Patricia Holly, Barcelona & Nairobi; Shuaib Lwasa, Kampala; Timon McPhearson, New York; Franco Montalto, Philadelphia; Luciana Nery, Sao Paulo; Henk Ovink, The Hague; Elisabeth Peyroux, Paris; Catherine Sutherland, Cape Town; Claire Weisz, New York; Dan Zarrilli, New York
Is there such a thing as a “bird friendly city”? What does it look like? What does it not look like? Why bother? http://bit.ly/1zQWc8U
Two key issues determine whether a town or city is ‘bird-friendly’. One is the range and quality of habitats that prevail, together with opportunities for food and nest sites. The second is the culture of the place: whether birds are protected, encouraged, tolerated or shot. So to be truly bird-friendly, a city needs to have citizens who value biodiversity and influence both bottom-up and top-down decisions on how to manage the urban environment. …with contributions from: Tim Beatley, Charlottesville; Luke Engleback, London; Dusty Gedge, London; David Goode, London; Madhu Katti, Fresno; John Marzluff, Seattle; Bonghani Mnisi, Cape Town; Glenn Phillips, New York; Kaveh Samiei, Tehran; Ken Smith, New York; Yolanda van Heezik, Dunelin; Maxime Zucca, Paris
Urban water fronts have typically been sites of heavy development and often are sites of pollution or exclusive access. But they have enormous potential benefits. How can we unlock these benefits for everyone? Are there ecological vs. social vs. economic tradeoffs?http://bit.ly/14sr2ai
Cities are necessarily heterogeneous and multiple: they are sites where we encounter difference and where humanity and nature come crashing up against each other. Cities both embrace and abrade nature in the same turn. Urban waterfronts are no different in that they serve as the point of contact between the ‘wilderness’ of the open sea or river and the city that lines its shore. Waterfront developments have an opportunity to reconnect cities to their marine or riverine ecologies, but also run the risk of being neither ecologically sound nor socially inclusive. They may become segregated urban spaces just like so many others that turn their backs to the cities where they are situated, or they may become the centrepiece of the city itself, engaged as a powerful tool to attract citizens and visitors to the aquatic urban edge. …with contributions from Mitchell Chester, Miami; P.K. Das, Mumbai; Ana Faggi, Buenos Aires; Andrew Grant, Bath; John Hartig, Detroit; Roland Lewis, New York; Joe Lobko, Toronto; Robert Morris-Nunn, Hobart; Rob Pirani, New York; Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Miami; Andréa Redondo, Rio de Janeiro; Bradley Rink, Cape Town; Hita Unnikrishnan, Bangalore; Jay Valgora, New York; Mike Wells, Bath
Essays
Ways Forward from China’s Urban Waste Problem
Judy Li, Beijing http://bit.ly/1D7hAWS
It is important to consider the human element of China’s urban waste system to understand how it affects the livability of Chinese cities. In addition to poor waste collection infrastructure, investment, and enforcement, the current waste system in China perpetuates social inequalities for rural-to-urban migrants. Landfills and incubators are pushed to the outskirts of the city where poor migrants live. This leaves the wealthier inner city areas relatively clean, but their waste is exported to small towns and poor communities that are socially, politically, and economically marginalized. Wiser resource utilization can help Chinese cities become more sustainable, and address environmental injustices of the current waste system.
Democratizing Conversations on Sustainability to Create Resilience from the Soul
Diana Wiesner, Bogotá http://bit.ly/1JHGugu
There are multiple proposals revolving around the discourse of sustainable cities, in which green infrastructure systems are implemented and natural resources are protected to guarantee ecosystem service supply. This discourse, however, is concentrated among scholars, specialized professionals, and a limited percentage of the population. As a result, city planning and its corresponding sustainability proposals are far removed from the people who are building their spaces in terms of trends, as other groups that have settled in these territories have done before them, without taking into account water, vegetation, or open space. This has to change.
Karachi and the Paralysis of Imagination
Mahim Maher, Karachi http://bit.ly/1mgMqrM
You want to read about a vision of a just Karachi? The contract killer ($50 a hit) ripping up the road behind Disco Bakery on his Honda 200CC and the secret service colonel cracking skulls in a Clifton safehouse will both cite one vision: Dubai. This happens to also be the vision of the one-armed Afghan refugee selling Beijing socks off a cart in Saddar bazaar and the unsexed Karachi Port Trust shipping agent waiting for shady clients to cough up cash so he can escape to Phuket. To borrow from an old Urdu election rallying cry: Chalo, chalo, Dubai, chalo. Come, come, let’s go to Dubai.
London: A National Park City
by David Goode, London http://bit.ly/1NlYwJH
Over the past 18 months, a movement has been growing, drawing together Londoners who want to apply National Park principles to the whole of Greater London. The aim is to turn traditional attitudes to the city inside out, ensuring that nature has a place in every aspect of London’s fabric and making it accessible to every Londoner. The idea has gained huge support from many different sectors of society. It’s a people’s movement that is gaining momentum by the day and, last month, a draft charter was launched for public consultation.
Making the Measure: A Toolkit for Tracking the Outcomes of Community Gardens and Urban Farms
Phil Silva, New York http://bit.ly/1Cq05yK Community gardeners and urban farmers across North America are using an innovative research toolkit developed in New York City to measure and track the impacts of their work. The toolkit is made up of sixteen different methods for collecting data about things like the number of pounds of food harvested in a community garden or the number of children who develop a taste for fresh vegetables after hanging out at a neighborhood farm. Gardens around North America have started using the toolkit and its accompanying online data-tracking site, “The Barn”. The toolkit is freely available for anyone to download, use, and repurpose. The Barn data-tracking site is also free and open to any community garden or urban farm throughout the world.
Micro_Urban: The Ecological and Social Potential of Small-Scale Urban Spaces
Timon McPhearson and Victoria Marshall, New York and Newark http://bit.ly/179wVdq Small-scale urban spaces can be rich in biodiversity, contribute important ecological benefits for human mental and physical health, and overall help to create more livable cities. Micro_urban spaces are the sandwich spaces between buildings, rooftops, walls, curbs, sidewalk cracks, and other small-scale urban spaces that exist in the fissures between linear infrastructure. What if the micro_urban were the missing piece to solving the connectivity puzzle in our fragmented urban ecologies? How might micro_urban habitats, networked throughout our built and social infrastructure, make a difference in the social and ecological well-being of a city?
Nature in View, Nature in Design: Reconnecting People with Nature through Design
Whitney Hopkins, London bit.ly/1DCcRbM
Poorly conceived design visibly divided us in urban areas from our wilds and contributed to our recent ability to see nature as something isolated from us. Yet reinvigorating our bond with nature is a challenge architecture and urban design are well placed to address. Architects and designers have control over our built environment; by changing the way we design cities and buildings to connect to rather than disconnect from nature, we can change our proximity to nature and shift our physical relationship to the environment.
Why We Need Design Guidelines for Urban Non-Humans
Paul Downton, Adelaide bit.ly/1KUcSPc
Every city, every town and human settlement, should have a set of urban design guidelines for non-human species. The development and application of these guidelines would form the core of a new adventure in urbanism that has transformative potential and the capacity to lay the groundwork for a truly ecological civilisation—in which taking care of non-human species will, in turn, enhance the capabilities and conditions of the human animal.
Count Me In: Urban Greening and the Return of Primates in Kampala
Shuaib Lwasa, Kampala http://bit.ly/1IDK1uI
Kampala plans to plant 500,000 trees, a greening activity that is part of the effort to build climate resilience in the city. It has been envisaged to have multiple benefits. Green cover would enhance aesthetics, reduce common flash floods through increased infiltration, and sequester greenhouse gases. But one unforeseen possibility of the greening program is the return or increase of the primate population in the city as habitat is re-created. To this end, it is important for planners and practitioners of urban space re-creation in Kampala to think about tree species that would attract the return of primates, whose persistence has continuously communicated that they will not be left out of the city. If there is appreciation of urban spaces that create harmony between nature and built forms, how can the greening activity be utilized to improve habitats and return primates to Kampala? What would be the motivations for increased biodiversity in the city?
Encountering the Urban Forest
Lindsay Campbell, New York http://bit.ly/1wWt1uM
For all the critical scholarship that is written about the harnessing of volunteer labor in caring for urban trees, it never squared with my experience of engaging in stewardship. I came to realize that my leisure practices were missing from my research accounts. I was writing myself out of the story. I’ll share three stories of my engagements with street trees and reforestation sites to explore affective experiences between me and the trees. I believe that these vignettes offer windows into why and how we create and maintain relations of care with the urban forest. How can we build bridges between such emotional experiences and our management practices and cultivate attachment and stewardship; that allows attachment to inform management, decision-making, and priority-setting?
The Secret Life of Bees: Using Big Data and Citizen Science to Unravel…What Bees Are Saying about the Environment
Jennifer Baljko, Barcelona http://bit.ly/1APt5jN Bees can act as a biosensor for cities, and give a signal that could be easy to understand. If the bees are all right, we are living in a good environment. If the bees are suffering or the colony is dying, it could be a sign that the environment is having serious problems. Recent studies, for example, suggest that bees are sensitive to pollution, and small fluctuations in ozone levels can affect their behavior. Researchers behind a Barcelona project hope that insights generated from data on beehive temperature, humidity, and weight, might provide clues to creating healthier and sustainable environments for bees, for humans, and for cities.
Marriage Therapy for Ecologists and Landscape Architects
Steven Handel, New Brunswick http://bit.ly/17JYkSQ Ecologists and Landscape Architects can have a rocky and unsteady relationship; improving it is going to take some time. I can’t promise a happy ending, of course, but ask you to remember three things: First, your goals for a sustainable, healthy landscape are parallel, not divergent. Keep that in mind when you seem to have momentary troubles communicating. Second, you are both driven to improve the landscape, not watch it continually degrade; remember you’re soul mates, at least in that way. Third, we live in a rapidly changing world, climate, sea levels, movement of species, and mixing of biotic communities. These are all spinning fast towards a future that is hard to predict. Ecologists and designers are our only real protection against the troubles ahead. We need you to work together. Don’t let us down.
Let Streams of Linear Open Spaces Flow Across Urban Landscapes
PK Das, Mumbai http://bit.ly/1L99Md0
Can we re-envision our cities with a stream of linear open spaces, defining a new geography of cities? Can we break away from large, monolithic spaces and geometric structures into fluid open spaces, meandering, modulating and negotiating varying city terrains, as rivers and watercourses do? This way, the new structure of open spaces would relate to and integrate with many more areas and provide access to more people across neighborhoods and the city.
Cities in Imagination
David Maddox, New York http://bit.ly/1Pvy4yR
These are the cities of our dreams: resilient, sustainable, livable, just. Let’s imagine. We can imagine sustainable cities—ones that can persist in energy, food and ecological balance—that are nevertheless brittle, socially or infrastructurally, to shocks and major perturbations. They are not resilient. We can imagine resilient cities—especially cities that are made so through extraordinary and expensive works of grey infrastructure—that are not sustainable from the point of view of energy consumption, food security, economy, or other resources. We can imagine livable cities that are neither resilient nor sustainable. And, it is easy to imagine resilient and sustainable cities that are not livable—and so are not truly sustainable. Easiest of all is to imagine cities of injustice, because they exist all around us. The nature of their injustice may be difficult to solve or even comprehend within our systems of economy and government, but it’s easy to see.
Biocultural Diversity and the Diverse City: A Model for Linking Nature and Culture
William Dunbar, Tokyo http://bit.ly/1KVlP8b
The concept of biocultural diversity— the coming together of biological and cultural diversity—is receiving more attention recently along with an awareness that elements of cultures all around the world are deeply rooted in the nature, or biological diversity, around them, and that greater cultural diversity comes with greater biological diversity. It seems intuitively true that richer biological diversity leads to richer cultural diversity if you think about the wide variety of art, rituals, traditional knowledge, etc. that are related to nature and are integral to indigenous peoples and local communities around the world. Empirically as well, greater cultural diversity has been shown to correlate with biodiversity hotspots.
Reviews
Trees of Life and Fruitful Relationships
Patrick Lydon, San Jose & Seoul A review of Arboreal Architecture: A Visual History of Trees, an exhibition at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University http://bit.ly/1O6chKU The show’s curator, George Philip LeBourdais, has shoehorned a global collection of artworks from the Cantor Center’s collection into the room. Spanning about 1,500 years, the collection is impressive not only for the time it covers, but because all of the works concern the trees and our ever changing cultural relationships with them. The exhibit offers a deep and powerful display of cultural relationships to trees over such a great cultural timespan that it’s impossible not to be affected by it. The works speak of trees in city and countryside, of trees in in ritual and for utility, and, perhaps most importantly, of trees as part of us and, ultimately, as works of art themselves.
What Makes a “Great” City Park? The Beholder Sees
Adrian Benepe, New York A review of “Great City Parks”; Second Edition, by Alan Tate with Marcella Eaton http://bit.ly/1XHrubm
Park geeks and urban nemophilists, not to mention the “designers, administrators, planners and politicians with current and future responsibilities for city parks” that the author cites as the primary target audience, have reason to celebrate and pore over this lovingly detailed volume, richly illustrated with photographs (most of them by the authors) and simple plans of the parks, and heavily annotated with quotes, citations, and footnotes. But what is a “great” park? Alan Tate offers this: “There is no easy answer. Well, there is. It’s like being in love. You know when you’re in it and that gels with Burke’s definition of beauty as ‘that quality or those qualities in bodies by which they cause love.”
How Tactical Urbanism “Adds Up” Sarah Bradley, Montreal A review of Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-term Change, by Anthony Garcia and Mike Lydon http://bit.ly/1CSiCsi
Tactical Urbanism: it’s one of the buzz words in the emerging people-centred planning paradigm. If you do a Google News search of the term, you’ll find articles from all the news sites beloved by urbanists. These many meanings are captured in the new book by American urban planners Anthony Garcia and Mike Lydon, both leaders in civic advocacy and principals of The Street Plans Collaborative. By clearly laying out what tactical urbanism is—the authors define it simply as an approach to neighbourhood building and activation using short-term, low-cost, and scalable interventions and policies—the groundwork is laid to build on this theory of change by providing successful examples and providing guidance for making it work in practice.
Complex and Useful, Green Is Infrastructure
Ana Faggi, Buenos Aires A review of Green Infrastructure: A Landscape Approach http://bit.ly/1DrPVCw
Green Infrastructure: A Landscape Approach, in line with the current principles of sustainability, discusses green infrastructure (GI) as the visible expression of natural and human ecosystem processes that work across scales and contexts to provide multiple benefits for people and their environments. It gives the reader a framework for a sustainable urban and regional future, how can it be implemented, and how planners and designers can play leading and responsive roles in addressing these issues. Although this report was intended for planners, landscape architects, architects, civil engineers, scientists, and others interested in the spatial structure, functions, and values (environmental, economic, and social) of natural and built landscapes, its simple and enjoyable writing makes it useful for educators, students, citizen groups and conservationists. While all case studies were drawn from communities within the United States, implementing the mentioned principles through green infrastructure initiatives, the variety of contexts and scales make them applicable worldwide.
The Myths of Alien Species: An Alternate Perspective on “Wild”
by Divya Gopal, Berlin A review of The New Wild: Why Invasive Species Will Be Nature’s Salvation, by Fred Pearce http://bit.ly/1KaSh8V The New Wild is an intriguing book that looks at non-native species and nature in new light, challenging popular notions of ‘nativism,’ ‘wild’ and nature’s ‘fragility.’ Although the author, Fred Pearce, has taken on a controversial topic, his sources show that he is not alone as an increasing number of ecologists and scientists are questioning the “good natives, bad aliens,” narrative. As an ecologist who works in cultural landscapes, I found this book is refreshing. ‘Wild’ to me means spontaneous and not domesticated or cultivated. There is something magical about seeing what nature has to offer. Many of the spontaneously growing plants, often considered weeds elsewhere, add character to the city. Some are natives, some aliens. It doesn’t matter—these spontaneous species are the new wild.
Photo Essays
The banner photo is from the photo essay Photo Essay: Untold Stories of Change, Loss and Hope Along the Margins of Bengaluru’s Lakes, byMarthe Derkzen, Amsterdam, with photos by Anoop Bhaskar and Arati Kumar-Rao http://bit.ly/1OwJ8wJ Before becoming India’s information technology hub, Bengaluru was known for its numerous lakes and green spaces. Rapid urbanization has led to the disappearance of many of these ecosystems. Those that remain face a range of challenges: residential and commercial construction, pollution and waste dumping, privatization, and so on. Today, Bengaluru’s lakes are principally seen as garbage dumps and sewage ponds that can have either of two fates: one, be transformed into recreational oases to suit the needs of wealthy residential neighborhoods, or two, be encroached upon until none of the original shapes and functions can be traced. But how does this affect the lives of the people living at the very margins of Bengaluru’s beloved yet contested lakes?
Imaging the Urban Wild: Fourteen Photographers and Artists Show and Talk About their Work http://bit.ly/1cVEsQ0 Photography, and art in general, can help us see. See in new ways. Indeed, it helps us be better at looking. One of the main themes of The Nature of Cities is the idea of “nature nearby”—that cities are not barren of nature, but rather teem with life, both human and non-human. Yet many people in cities don’t see that nature around them, though they may sense it as part of the nature, or character of their city. Can we learn to look more thoughtfully, and therefore see more fully the natural vibrancy that is all around us in cities? And also along the way see what vibrancy our cities may be lacking? It is a vibrancy that weaves—or should weave—together nature and people and built form in ways that make cities rich—rich in biodiversity, human society, sustainability, resilience, and livability. So in the spirit of looking more deeply, more finely in ways that can help us see, this is the first of what I hope will be many roundtables on artistic and creative expression on the nature of cities. As is TNOC’s way, the 14 represented here take diverse routes to seeing and sensing the city. What details do they find to make the city more vivid? …with contributions from: Joshua Burch, London; Emilio Fantin, Bologna; Mike Feller, New York; Andrés Flajszer, Barcelona; Mike Houck, Portland; Chris Jordan, Seattle; Robin Lasser, Oakland; Monika Lawrence, Bemidji & Erfurt; Patrick Lydon, San Jose & Seoul; David Maddox, New York; Christopher Payne, New York; Eric Sanderson, New York; Jonathan Stenvall, Stockholm; Benjamin Swett, New York
Today’s post celebrates highlights from TNOC writing in 2016. These contributions, originating around the world, were widely read, offer novel points of view, are somehow disruptive in a useful way, or combine these characteristics. Certainly, all 550+ TNOC essays and roundtables are great and worthwhile reads, but what follows will give you a taste of this year’s key and diverse content.
2016 has been an important year at The Nature of Cities. The number of contributors has grown to almost 600, and we published 150+ long-form essays, reviews, and global roundtables. We launched the The Nature of Graffiti, a crowd-sourced gallery of street art from around the world that includes themes from nature and the environment. We partnered with Jenn Baljko as she walks from Bangkok to Barcelona over three years, reporting on the cities and communities she encounters. We published a pre-publication of 10 chapters from an urban environmental education book that will appear in its full form in 2017. In essays, roundtables, and reviews we continued to seek the frontiers of thought found at the boundaries of urban ecology, community, design, and art. Importantly, we’ve attracted more and more readers: in 2016 we had over a half million readers from 2,500+ cities in 150+ countries. Thank you.
A collaboration with Ray Cha, funded by the Transit Center, to produce education modules for better utilization of open data produced by cities;
A new book addressing the justice and equitable access imperatives of the benefits of ecosystem services;
As an outgrowth of our Nature of Graffiti project, we will embark on the beginning stages of an interactive, creative exhibit of art on social-environmental themes in urban “vacant” lots, generously funded by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts;
And of course, over 150 new essays, reviews and roundtables.
Donate
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Roundtables
Can cities save bees? How can urban habitats be made to serve pollinator conservation? How can that story be better told? bit.ly/2h7F1uP
Bees and pollinators have always been a part of the city landscape, but increasing interest in urban conservation, agriculture, and gardens, has made their presence more noticeable—and more important. Bee and pollinator conservation is a key concern outside of cities too, with habitat loss, indiscriminant insecticide use, and other issues threatening bee species and pollinators generally. What role can cities play in bee and conservation? How can this role be supported, by both public and private actors? And how can the story of urban pollinators be better told to propel the conversation about urban pollinator conservation and their critical services?
…with contributions from: Katherine Baldock, Bristol; Alison Benjamin, London; Sarah Bergmann, Seattle; Mark Goddard, Newcastle; Damon Hall, St. Louis; Tina Harrison, New Brunswick; Scott MacIvor, Toronto; Denise Mouga, Joinville; Matt Shardlow, Peterborough; and Caragh Threlfall; Melbourne.
Visions of resilience: Eighteen artists say or show something in response to the word “resilience” bit.ly/1WbnLV1
“Resilience” is the word of the decade, as “sustainability” was before it. A challenge with both words is that while they exist so well in the realm of metaphor, they are more difficult in reality. The same can be said for “livability” and “justice”. In this roundtable, we aimed to strike out in possibly new metaphorical directions. We invited 18 artists and designers of various types to respond—in words, images, or other works—to the word “Resilience”.
This Roundtable was a co-production with Arts Everywhere, where these responses are also published.
…with contributions from Juan Carlos Arroyo, Bogotá, Katrine Claassens, Cape Town; David Brooks, New York City; Rebecca Chesney, Preston; Emilio Fantin, Bologna; Ganzeer, Los Angeles; Lloyd Godman, Melbourne; Fran Illich, New York City; Todd Lanier Lester, São Paulo; Frida Larios, Washington; Patrick Lydon, San Jose & Seoul; Mary Mattingly, New York; E. J. McAdams, New York City; Mary Miss, New York; Edna Peres, Johannesburg; Caroline Robinson, Auckland; Finzi Saidi, Pretoria; Keijiro Suzuki, Yamaguchi & Nagoya
Common threads: connections among the ideas of Jane Jacobs and Elinor Ostrom, and their relevance to urban socio-ecology bit.ly/2hZm2Uv
Jane Jacobs and Elinor Ostrom were both giants in their impact on how we think about communities, cities, and common resources such as space and nature. But we don’t often put them together to recognize the common threads in their ideas. Yet, their streams of ideas clearly resonate together in how they bind people, economies, places, and nature into a single, ecosystem-driven framework of thought and planning—themes that deeply motivate The Nature of Cities. In this roundtable, we asked 16 people to talk about some key ideas that motivate their work, and how these ideas have roots in the ideas of either Jacobs or Ostrom, or both.
…with contributions from Paul Downton, Melbourne; Johan Enqvist, Stockholm; Sheila Foster, New York City; Lisa Gansky, San Francisco; Mathieu Hélie, Montreal; Mark Hostetler, Gainesville; Michelle Johnson, New York; Marianne Krasny, Ithaca; Alex Russ, Ithaca; Harini Nagendra, Bangalore; Raul Pacheco-Vega, Aguascaliente; Michael Mehaffy, Portland; Mary Rowe, New York City; Laura Shillington, Montreal & Managua; Anne Trumble, Los Angeles; Arjen Wals, Wageningen; and Abigail York, Tempe
What, how, and where are examples of graffiti as a positive force in communities? bit.ly/2hbr5Qz
Graffiti and street art can be controversial. But they can also be a medium for voices of social change, protest, or expressions of community desire. In many cities, graffiti is associated with decay, with communities out of control, and so it is outlawed. In some cities, it is legal, within limits, and valued as a form of social expression. “Street art”, graffiti’s more formal cousin, which is often commissioned and sanctioned, has a firmer place in communities, but can still be an important form of “outsider” expression. Interest in these art forms as social expression is broad, and the work itself takes many shapes—from simple tags of identity, to scrawled expressions of protest and politics, to complex and beautiful scenes that virtually everyone would say are “art”, despite their sometimes rough locations. What, how, and where are examples of graffiti as a positive force in communities?
This roundtable was a co-production of The Nature of Cities and Arts Everywhere, where these responses are also published. Also check out The Nature of Graffiti, a gallery launched in 2016 that illustrates some of these ideas from an environmental perspective.
…with contributions from: Pauline Bullen, Harare; Paul Downton, Adelaide; Emilio Fantin, Milan; Ganzeer, Los Angeles; Germán Eliecer Gómez, Bogotá; Sidd Joag, New York City; Patrick Lydon, San Jose & Seoul; Patrice Milillo, Los Angeles; Laura Shillington, Managua & Montreal
Urban agriculture has many benefits. Is one of them a contribution to urban sustainability? bit.ly/2ifOwKk
Sustainability is key to our future, and, as urbanization steadily grows, keys to increased global sustainability must be found in cities and how they use and are provided with resources. In this topic, there has been much excitement about urban agriculture—the production of food in and near cities at scales larger than home or community gardens. Does urban agriculture have the potential to contribute significantly to urban sustainability by reducing cities’ dependence on food grown at great distance from the city? Can it produce enough to address food insecurity? In this roundtable, we asked respondents to address the potential for urban agricultural production to make cities more sustainable, and how such potential could be realized.
…with contributions from Jane Battersby, Cape Town; Katrin Bohn, Brighton; Christopher Bryant, Montreal; Easther Chigumira, Harare; Evan Fraser, Guelph; Kelly Hodgins, Guelph; Patrick Hurley, Collegeville; François Mancebo, Paris; Idah Mbengo, Harare; Innisfree McKinnon, Menomonie; Leslie McLees, Eugene; Geneviève Metson, Vancouver; Navin Ramankutty, Vancouver; Kristin Reynolds, New York City; Esther Sanyé-Mengual, Bologna; Shaleen Singhal, New Delhi; Kathrin Specht, Müncheberg; Naomi Thur, Jerusalem; Andre Vijoen, Brighton; and Claudia Visoni, São Paulo
Read this! 90 recommendations for the one book about (or relevant to) cities that everyone should read bit.ly/2ig2Zpu
In this roundtable, we assembled a list of 90 must-reads on cities from a diverse group of TNOC contributors—a nature of cities reader’s digest. The recommendations were as wide-ranging as the TNOC community, from many points of view and from around the world. They are a reflection of the breadth of thought that cities need. The list could serve as a wonderful primer for courses or other gatherings. You can download the entire list as a PDF.
…with contributions from 90 of TNOC’s authors, who also happen to be artists, urban planners, conservation biologists, architects, and much more.
Essays
Confronting the Dark Side of Urban Agriculture
François Mancebo, Paris bit.ly/22jcKio
Some people praise urban agriculture as a kind of panacea that could help reconfigure more sustainable cities by bringing people together and, eventually, reshaping the whole urban fabric. But it is misleading to greenwash, without caveats, conventional or high-tech agriculture in the city as sustainable. All urban agricultures are not sustainable, and some may even produce deleterious effects on city inhabitants, as well as on the city itself. In this essay, François Mancebo sets out to distinguish between the types of urban agriculture and to denounce those which, under the disguise of promoting agriculture in the city, promote practices that are absolutely unsustainable.
Market-Based Solutions Cannot Forge Transformative and Inclusive Urban Futures
Richard Friend, Bangkok bit.ly/2hh2RpM
Richard Friend uses an analysis of a Dhaka advertisement to assess what a classic neoliberal response to environmental degradation could mean for Asia’s city dwellers as the effects of climate change worsen and the New Urban Agenda remains absent from the discussion. “It seems that even while the combined effects of climate change, environmental degradation, and social injustice are more in evidence now than ever,” he writes, “the overall direction of responses is a toxic combination of individualist, market-based solutions, alongside growing, heavy-handed political oppression. The calls for solutions to the challenges of climate change uncertainty and risk to embrace participation, innovation, and informed dialogue amid polycentric, multi-scalar governance mechanisms seem all the more distant”.
Why Conserve Small Forest Fragments and Individual Trees in Urban Areas?
Mark Hostetler, Gainesville bit.ly/1TX6IEq
For many developers and city planners, it takes time and money to plan around trees and small forest fragments. Often, the message from conservationists is that we want to avoid fragmentation and to conserve large forested areas. While this goal is important, the message tends to negate any thoughts by developers towards conserving individual mature trees and small forest fragments. Mark Hostetler demonstrates how fragmented landscapes have value for a variety of species—and why stating that fragmentation is unequivocally bad can only lead to lost conservation opportunities.
Viola Has an Acorn in Her Pocket
Stephan Barthel, Stockholm bit.ly/2evX4JP
Stephan Barthel’s daughter, Viola, age 4, is curious about the nature that surrounds them on their father-daughter walks in Stockholm. Her questions prompt her father to muse on a wide ranging of subjects, from the importance of ecological memory, to the possible impact of the Smart City paradigm on future development and education, to the gentle wisdom of singer-songwriter Nick Drake.
They are Not “Informal Settlements”—They are Habitats Made by People
Lorena Zárate, Mexico City bit.ly/1YRQpaY
According to the UN, at least one third of the global urban population suffers from inadequate living conditions. Lack of access to basic services, low structural quality of shelters, overcrowding, dangerous locations, and insecure tenure are the main characteristics normally included in the definitions of so-called informal settlements. In this essay, Lorena Zárate argues that words matter: changing the words means changing the concepts; changing the concepts means changing the way we understand (or not) complex phenomena and are able (or not) to transform them in a positive way. These “informal settlements” are neither informal nor irregular— they are, above all, human settlements.
Climate Adaptation Plans Can Worsen Unequal Urban Vulnerability
Linda Shi, Boston; and Isabelle Anguelovski, Barcelona bit.ly/2hjAeqm
To date, few studies have asked: who actually benefits from urban adaptation plans and projects? Do projects prioritize the vulnerability of the most disadvantaged and marginalized groups? Do projects succeed in reducing vulnerability and, if so, for whom? In this essay, Linda Shi and Isabelle Anguelovski argue that there is an urgent need to find examples where climate adaptation and resilience projects have moved towards more equitable outcomes and to identify specific normative principles, design strategies, and evaluative outcome metrics for alternative adaptation strategies that highlight equity and justice.
Sense of Place
Jennifer Adams, David A. Greenwood, Mitchell Thomashow, and Alex Russ; New York, Thunder Bay, Seattle, and Ithaca bit.ly/2i3LiH5
Different people perceive the same city or neighborhood in different ways. While one person may appreciate ecological and social aspects of a neighborhood, another may experience environmental and racialized injustice. Jennifer Adams, David A. Greenwood, Mitchell Thomashow, and Alex Russ explain how sense of place—including place attachment and place meanings—can help people appreciate ecological aspects of cities. This is a chapter from the book Urban Environmental Education Review, which will appear in 2017. TNOC published ten chapters as a pre-publication.
Closing the Gap Between Girls’ Education and Women in the Workforce
Jenn Baljko, Barcelona bit.ly/2dR5LiL
While traveling through Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, Jenn Baljko meets young women who are “compassionate, generous, enthusiastic, observant, smart, funny”—but who have limited opportunities to continue their educations or to remain unmarried. What does this mean for the future of cities? “It’s the kind of conversation that raises more questions than answers.” This essay appeared as part of TNOC’s featured series with Jenn Baljko, who is journeying from Bangkok to Barcelona on foot. For more about the project, click here.
Small Rain Gardens for Stormwater and Biodiversity in the City: Learning from Traditional Ways
Keitaro Ito, Fukutsu City bit.ly/22Hsrpo
“These days, especially in summertime, we have heavy rain in Japan,” writes Keitaro Ito. In response to the increasing frequency of flooding, he has turned to Sado, a traditional tea ceremony, to inform the biocultural design of small rain gardens that can provide an important ecosystem service: stormwater management.
From Reactive to Proactive Resilience: Designing the New Sustainability
Nina-Marie Lister, Toronto bit.ly/22gbWQF
Long-term sustainability necessitates an inherent and essential capacity for resilience—the ability to recover from disturbance, to accommodate change, and to function in a state of health. In this sense, sustainability typically means the dynamic balance between social-cultural, economic, and ecological domains of human behavior necessary for humankind’s long-term surviving and thriving. As such, long-term sustainability sits squarely in the domain of human intention and activity—and, thus, design. This should not be confused with managing “the environment” as an object separate from human action, which is ultimately impossible. Instead, the challenge of sustainability, says Nina-Marie Lister, is very much one for design, and specifically one of design for resilience.
Urban Nature that Reduces Risk in Kampala
Shuaib Lwasa, Kampala bit.ly/2hncXUp
Kampala’s urban landscape has been largely fragmented, just like the landscapes of many other cities. In fact, this is the common character of urban development. But it isn’t the only way. In this article, Shuaib Lwasa illustrates the urban risks that Kampala faces—especially those related to natural hazards, such as flooding—and demonstrates how these risks can greatly be reduced through greening and restoration of nature in lowland and hilltop forests.
Wouldn’t it be Better if Ecologists and Planners Talked to Each Other More?
Diane Pataki, Sarah Hinners, and Robin Rothfeder; Salt Lake City bit.ly/2iwFt3Y
At first glance, one might think that the fields of ecology and planning communicate regularly with one another. But they don’t—at least, not enough. The contact between these disciplines rarely occurs as a direct collaboration between practicing ecologists— whose job is to generate new scientific understanding—and practicing planners, whose job is to envision and plan better cities. If planners and ecologists found more ways to work together, would cities look different? Would they be better? Yes, they would, say Diane Pataki, Sarah Hinners, and Robin Rothfeder as respond to this question with a case study from Salt Lake City.
The Forgotten Rurality: The Case for Participatory Management in Bogotá and its Surrounding Countryside
Diana Wiesner, Bogotá bit.ly/2hHS842
We often think of the city and the country as separate, and that development planning and urban sustainability ends at the city boundary. But this isn’t true—in a planning and sustainability sense, the city and the surrounding rural areas are deeply linked. With this in mind, Diana Wiesner discusses a plan for the sustainable coexistence of a section of forgotten rurality near the megacity of Bogotá, Colombia, and how a civic response is being molded to draw attention to the issues involved.
Designing Ecologically Sensitive Green Infrastructure that Serves People and Nature
Christine Thuring, Sheffield bit.ly/2hrFgmg
Green infrastructure is expanding and gradually softening a proportion of our planet’s increasingly urban surface. Yet, from her perspective as a plant ecologist, Christine Thuring argues that many green infrastructure installations miss their full ecological potential. While monoculture is better than concrete, diversity is generally better than monoculture. The ideal of green infrastructure, she says, is two-fold: it must be multi-functional and it must express ecological sensitivity.
Photo Essay: Life and Water at Rachenahalli Lake
Sumetee Gajjar, Bangalore bit.ly/2invheE
Rachenahalli, one of the few living lakes of Bangalore, India, is an example of a thriving social ecological system. As documented in Sumetee Gajjar’s photographs, it provides natural resources to people living around it, acting as a sink for fisher folk cleaning fish or for women doing Sunday laundry and receiving treated sludge from new residences around the lake, as well as from an upstream sewage treatment plant. In these ways, the lake continues to live and to support life.
Justice and Geometry in the Form of Linear Parks
David Maddox, New York City bit.ly/1Tib32u
Here at The Nature of Cities, we write a great deal about the benefits of “green” cities, widely construed. Green infrastructure is good for human health and quality of life, it reduces the carbon footprint of cities, it increases resilience by insulating us from storms, it helps create foci of community building, and so on. Furthermore, green cities are good for nature in the form of conservation. But in cities around the world, everyone does not currently enjoy these benefits. If we ask how to increase access to ecosystem services via parks, then linear parks are a good answer, writes David Maddox.
Reviews & Podcasts
Knowing vs. Doing: Propelling Design with Ecology
Anne Trumble, Los Angeles A review ofProjective Ecologies, edited by Chris Reed and Nina-Marie Lister bit.ly/2ho8TmR
If we cannot get our most innovative and challenging ideas out of books and into real landscapes, we will squander an opportunity to determine a proud future. Projective Ecologies turns to ecology for new ways to think beyond the old nature/culture split. Offering up the insight that we may not be making the most of a diverse and complex concept of ecology, is, perhaps, the greatest success of Projective Ecologies.
What Should We Make of Jane Jacobs’ Critique of Parks in The Death and Life of Great American Cities?
Podcast produced by Philip Silva, New York bit.ly/2hhZ9Y2
While it’s true that Jane Jacobs changed the way we think about cities, relatively little is ever said about her views on urban parks. In honor of the 100th anniversary of Jacobs’ birth, we took a moment to revisit her views on “the uses of neighborhood parks” as she laid them out in The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
The idea that material and thread can communicate so much about our human relationships with our urban and natural environments isn’t so wild. If we’re working to save anything, whether it’s a forest or a culture, one can’t help but think how much easier it is to save that something when one has a personal relationship with it. In this way, much of what Earth Stories accomplishes is in bringing enough familiarity to the gallery wall that we might more easily re-establish these relationships.
The Cheonggyecheon restoration. Photo: David Maddox
How Did Seoul’s Cheonggyecheon River Restoration Get Its Start?
Podcast produced by Philip Silva, New York http://bit.ly/2ifowMw
A casual chat on a bus nearly thirty years ago led to the improbable removal of a major elevated highway and the restoration of a beloved river in the old city center of Seoul in South Korea. Dr. Soo Hong Noh, a professor of environmental engineering at Yonsei University, became a champion for bringing back the Cheonggyecheon River in his home city after listening to a colleague fancifully muse about the river’s restoration while they sat together on their evening commute.
The High Line. Foreseen. Unforeseen.
Adrian Benepe A review of The High Line. By James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofido + Renfro bit.ly/2ix0wqT
New York City’s High Line Park, once a rusting relic of abandoned freight rail transportation infrastructure, has become arguably one of the world’s best-known urban parks, and possibly the single most visited park in the United States—and perhaps the world—on a visitor-per-acre basis. The High Line—the book recording the process of bringing the park to fruition—is, in the end, a sensual experience reflecting the High Line’s creation, design, and current reality.
Poetry Produces the Novel Language of Future Cities
Laura Booth A review of Urban Nature: Poems About Wildlife in the City bit.ly/1Ttzt7q
How can poems advance our understanding of nature in cities? Poetry, with its capacity to invert the lexicons of “nature” and “culture” so that they are not artificially divided per our current paradigms, is uniquely positioned to play a role in visioning future cities.
Nature in Chicago: Surprisingly Wild, Surprisingly Human
Chris Hensley A review of City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness, edited by Gavin Van Horn and Dave Aftandilian bit.ly/2ho9S6L
A collection of stories, poems, drawings, and photographs contributed by numerous Chicago artists, scientists, and residents, City Creatures whisks the reader through the streets, parks, and history of the Chicago region, giving a perspective on the city’s relationship with nature that is at once complete, nuanced, detailed, entertaining, and surprisingly intimate.
Today’s post celebrates highlights from TNOC writing in 2017. These contributions, originating around the world, were widely read, offer novel points of view, are somehow disruptive in a useful way, or combine these characteristics. Certainly, all 1000+ TNOC essays and roundtables are great and worthwhile reads, but what follows will give you a taste of this year’s key and diverse content.
2017 has been an important year at The Nature of Cities. The number of contributors has grown to over 650, and we published 150+ long-form essays, reviews, and global roundtables. We have conducted an ongoing survey of reader desires for types of context and we’ve been planning new efforts. We launched the Stories of the Nature of Cities 2099 prize for Flash Fiction. We began a collaboration with Ray Cha, funded by the Transit Center, to produce education modules for better utilization of open data produced by cities. We had the first physical meeting of TNOC writers, in Portland, where we discussed the possibilities for a global TNOC meeting.
In essays, roundtables, and reviews we continue to seek the frontiers of thought found at the boundaries of urban ecology, community, design, and art. Importantly, we’ve attracted more and more readers: in 2017 we had over a half million readers from 2,500+ cities in 150+ countries. Thank you.
New things are coming in 2018, including:
We are working toward incorporation in Ireland, creating an organization foothold in the European Union;
We hope to announce soon a series of international transdisciplinary TNOC meetings;
As an outgrowth of our Nature of Graffiti project, we will embark on the beginning stages of an interactive, creative exhibit of art on social-environmental themes in urban “vacant” lots, generously funded by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts;
And of course, over 150 new essays, reviews and roundtables.
(Banner drawing by Richard Register.)
Donate
TNOC is a public charity, a non-profit [501(c)3] organization in the United States. We rely on private contributions and grants to support our work, and to demonstrate grassroots support to our organizational funders—so, if you can, be a part of the movement for more livable, resilient, sustainable, and just cities by making a donation. Click here to help.
Are cities ecosystems in the senses in which we think of classic natural and ecological areas outside of cities? After all, urban spaces are connected mosaics of green space, biodiversity (including people), non-biological structure, biophysical processes, energy flows, and so on. That sounds a lot like a natural ecosystem. Many of these contributors say, yes, certainly, cities are ecosystems. Not all, though. A few more are skeptical that an ecosystem concept is central to planning better cities. The more common belief among this group might be that a socio–ecological and landscape approach to cities is more important, and one that is imbued with values.
…with contributions from: Marina Alberti, Seattle | Erik Andersson, Stockholm | Sarah Dooling, Austin/Boston | Paul Downton, Melbourne | Thomas Elmqvist, Stockholm | Nancy Grimm, Phoenix | Dagmar Haase, Berlin | Dominique Hes, Melbourne | Kristina Hill, Berkeley | Madhusudan Katti, Raleigh | Francois Mancebo, Paris | Clifford Ochs, Oxford | Steward Pickett, Poughkeepsie | Stephanie Pincetl, Los Angeles | Rob Pirani, New York | Richard Register, Berkeley | Eric Sanderson, New York | Alexis Schaffler, Berkeley/Johannesburg/Cape Town | Vivek Shandas, Portland | David Simon, Gothenburg | Jane Toner, Melbourne | Yolanda van Heezik, Dunedin | Ken Yeang, Kuala Lumpur
Do we truly believe in the benefits of ecosystem services? If so, then who should enjoy these benefits? The answer is self-evident: everyone. But do all city residents around the world currently enjoy these benefits? No. What is the answer to this challenge? Is it just about building more green infrastructure? Building smarter? Being clear about “ecosystems for whom?” Or perhaps something more radical is needed—a fundamental reinvention of our economies?
…with contributions from: Isabelle Michele Sophie Anguelovski, Barcelona | Georgina Avlonitis, Cape Town | Julie Bargmann, Charlottesville | Nathalie Blanc, Paris | PK Das, Mumbai | Marthe Derkzen, Amsterdam | Maggie Scott Greenfield, New York | Fadi Hamdan, Beirut | Nadja Kabisch, Berlin | Jim Labbe, Portland | Francois Mancebo, Paris | Harini Nagendra, Bangalore | Flaminia Paddeu, Paris | Steward Pickett, Poughkeepsie | Andrew Rudd, New York City | Suraya Scheba, Cape Town | Marcelo Lopes de Souza, Rio de Janeiro | Hita Unnikrishnan, Bangalore | Diana Wiesner, Bogota | Pengfei XIE, Beijing
In the creation of better cities, urban ecologists and landscape architects have a lot in common: to create and/or facilitate natural environments that are good for both people and nature. And yet, they are still two distinct professions, and so there are ways in which they may say similar sounding things but mean something different. How can we get them better integrated in the service of better cities?
…with contributions from: Gloria Aponte, Medellín | Ana Luisa Artesi, Buenos Aires | Jürgen Breuste, Salzburg | Mary Cadenasso, Davis | Danielle Dagenais, Montreal | Susannah Drake, New York | Vero Fabio, Buenos Aires | Ana Faggi, Buenos Aires | Andrew Grant, Bath | Amy Hahs, Victoria | Steven Handel, New Brunswick | Marcus Hedblom, Stockholm | Sarah Hinners, Salt Lake City | Mark Hostetler, Gainesville | Yun Hye HWANG, Singapore | Maria Ignatieva, Uppsala | Jason King, Seattle | Nina-Marie Lister, Toronto | Ian MacGregor-Fors, Veracruz | Jala Makhzoumi, Beirut | Diane Pataki, Salt Lake City | Kevin Sloan, Dallas | Christine Thuring, Sheffield | Anne Trumble, Los Angeles | Mike Wells, Bath | Peter Werner, Darmstadt
As a design imperative, biophilia indicates that cities are more livable when they have more nature. But is biophilia an actionable driver of design in cities? If so, what should cities have as targets or goals for biophilia? If the aim is to create a “biophilic city”, how would you know when it was achieved?
…with contributions from Pippin Anderson, Cape Town | Tim Beatley, Charlottesville | Lena Chan, Singapore | Ian Douglas, Manchester | Paul Downton, Melbourne | Dusty Gedge, London | David Goode, Bath | Bram Gunther, New York | Chris Ives, Nottingham | Tania Katzschner, Cape Town | Steve Maslin, Bristol | Peter Newman, Perth | Phil Roös, Geelong | Eric Sanderson, New York | Jana Soderlund, Perth | Fleur Timmer, London | Chantal van Ham, Brussels | Mike Wells, Bath | Ken Yeang, Kuala Lumpur
Urban sites get planned, designed, and built. Many are called “sustainable” or “ecological”. Are they so? And who makes the evaluation? We gathered 15 designers and ecologists to talk about ecological design certifications. They were invited to celebrate or criticize existing systems, if they cared to. Mostly they were prompted to discuss key principles and metrics that would make the phrase “ecological design” harmonize the words ecological and design.
…with contributions from: Ankia Bormans, Cape Town | Katie Coyne, Austin | Sarah Dooling, Austin/Boston | Nigel Dunnett, Scheffield | Ana Faggi, Buenos Aires | Sarah Hinners, Salt Lake City | Mark Hostetler, Gainesville | Jason King, Seattle | Marit Larson, New York | Nina-Marie Lister, Toronto | Travis Longcore, Los Angeles | Colin Meurk, Christchurch | Diane Pataki, Salt Lake City | Mohan Rao, Bangalore | Aditya Sood, Delhi
Who decides what happens to city spaces of nature? Is it the community that lives closest to the sites? The entire city? Conflicts between these two different conceptions of to whom the “goods” of urban nature belong are fundamental to many urban contestations. Fourteen TNOC contributors describe examples of urban nature as public goods, as commons—or, most often, as intermingling of both.
…with contributions from: Amita Baviskar, Delhi | Lindsay Campbell, New York | James Connolly, Barcelona | Sheila Foster, New York | Phil Ginsburg, San Francisco | Jeff Hou, Seattle | Marianne Krasny, Ithaca | Mary Mattingly, New York | Oona Morrow, Dublin | Harini Nagedra, Bangalore | Raul Pacheco-Vega, Aguascalientes | Michael Sarbanes, Baltimore | Phil Silva, New York | Diana Wiesner, Bogotá
How has Singapore created itself as a “city in a garden”? As a Manila planner, my trip there was eye-opening. I live in a metropolitan area that favors a built-up environment, and always viewed green spaces as isolated areas for beautification, or as something held aside until a developer decides to use for more profit. Singapore shows that my everyday normal could be so much more.
Ten years ago, we began to explore the governance of the urban commons as a separate body of study—how different kinds of urban assets could be reconceived as urban commons, and later to conceive the whole city as a commons. Where there is a network of urban commons, we begin to see the transformation of the city into a commons.
An ecocity is about ecological health. It is conceived in aspirational terms because we don’t yet know even half of what we need to know to make the concept real. But the assertion of the ecocity is an article of faith: the idea is strong enough to set development and political agendas, and can be understood by the wider community. Only then can people engage with it and live the idea.
Stockholm, is a famous “green” city. But, ordinary urban landscapes in Stockholm and other Swedish cities were mostly created during an period of fascination with lawns. Research suggests that Swedes like lawns, but many also desire a more biodiverse landscape. So, how can we design “wild” nature in urban environments?
Volunteers. Exotics. Aliens. Weeds. Cities are full of novel ecosystems. Should we include them in our definitions of “urban resilience”? A growing body practice says yes. Indeed, new modes of engaging with the urban landscape will not be based on superficial aesthetic concerns or sentimental rear-view thinking, but a celebration of the messy complexities of novel ecosystems, and the active role they will play in the nature (and future) of our cities.
Designers and scientists are different. We think, communicate, and interact with the world in vastly different ways. The challenges are immense, but to expand the potential of projects we need to mediate the disconnect between science and design, building on positive strategies by ecologists and designers to increase collaboration and success.
It is crucial for municipalities in African countries and beyond to tap into millennials to achieve the SDGs. Millennials have the capacity and energy to engage their peers, younger and older generations who look up to their innovative energies, aspirations, and commitment to rebooting environmental wellbeing and welfare. At MR CITY Lab, our approach is practical. University student millennials make contact with communities and introduce tree species into neighborhoods with tree toponyms.
Cities in developing countries have many challenges—poverty; deficiency in infrastructure; high risk to climate-induced. Less literature or practice views these cities as sites of opportunities for enhancing ecological processes that have local as well as regional and global benefits. Here are five reasons why Kampala’s nature, if conserved, can enhance ecosystem services.
Dryland settlements were historically established along flowing rivers, where freshwater bodies sustained the communities for centuries. But this is changing. In most arid regions of the world, cities are growing and rivers are running dry. Global warming and misuse of water resources increasingly leave dry riverbeds in their wake. Rapid urbanisation has left little room for creating new public open spaces, but could urban riverbeds that remain dry for an extended period of time provide potential for new public parks?
A painted essay with text. Excerpt: When you drive at night from Cape Town city centre into its suburbs, there’s a scent that hits you as you get to Kenilworth, a sweetness in the air that spills from our gardens into the street. Kenilworth is pretty established, but I remember in Johannesburg, in the 80s, when we lived in the new suburb of Sunninghill. A place where the wildness was not quite bred out yet. The lawns were were still being coaxed out from the veld and paper thorns were a feature of any barefoot venture.
Two years ago, South America was swept up in a public health crisis that affected hundreds of thousands of women across the continent. In Brazil, more than 2,600 children were born with the microcephaly and other health complications resulting from the viral infection Zika. But the end of Zika doesn’t begin with the eradication of a mosquito: it requires a systemic, intersectional analysis to help identify how social, economic, urban, health and other structures shape women’s lives, power, and their vulnerability to climate impacts and access to resources.
In the weeks prior to the writing of this article, the city of Bengaluru was reeling from torrential rainfall. Effects of this downpour were felt in many ways—flash floods, trees uprooted, lives lost, and traffic standstills. Several lakes breached their banks, while minor rivers like the Vrishabhavati, which have not held water within city limits for decades, came back to life. It made people realize the faulty infrastructural planning of the city. The story of the Dharmambudhi lake serves as a reminder of the fact that disrupting the connectivity of a waterscape can have serious implications.
In pondering the question, “Who should have access to the countless benefits and services that urban ecosystems provide?”, we put together a collection of eight first-person accounts that portray city dwellers’ dreams. These sketches of life explore both individual and collective human experiences as participants narrate their lives and reveal their innermost thoughts. These acts of remembrance provide a key to human identity and give meaning and substance to daily life.
As yet, there are no smart cities, although plenty of people and organizations are working hard to create them: initiatives, policies, strategies, and some projects, but no examples of cities where it all comes together. In addition, most of us are still wondering what is meant by the term “smart city”. Smart cities are coming… eventually. When they do, it is important that they be as much about nature, health, and wellbeing as traffic flows, crime detection, and evermore efficient provision of utilities.
As I opened the handsomely large Nature and Cities: The Ecological Imperative in Urban Design and Planning, I was pleased to see a quote from Ian McHarg near the front. Through a conference and now this book, Nature and Cities has successfully advanced the urban nature literature—even for a McHarg disciple like me!
It would be hard to imagine the world’s great cities without their iconic parks. Large Parks, edited by Julia Czerniak and George Hargreaves, helps readers understand the complexities inherent in designing, planning, and managing these often contested public spaces, and I have a greater appreciation of the challenges that they face now and into the future.
Tim Beatley brings us a useful primer on incorporating biophilia into planning and design in his new Handbook of Biophilic City Planning and Design. Based in part on case studies from The Biophilic Cities Network, the handbook moves the biophilic city concept an additional step in the direction of an integrated approach to urban design.
Reading Painting Central Park, by Roger Pasquier, convinced me that, although a term usually reserved for ornamental architecture that is out of place, parks in cities are all follies to an extent. Through being out of place they insist we confront difference. Artists who paint the landscape inside of the city are drawn to these differences. With a preface by Amanda Burden—asserting a human necessity to engage with flora amidst urban life—Roger Pasquier writes and shows an homage to Central Park.
Graciela Arosemena’s intruiging book “Agricultura Urbana – Espacios de Cultivo para una Ciudad Sostenibles / Urban Agriculture – Spaces of Cultivation for a Sustainable City” (with facing pages in English and Spanish) not only considers the merits of urban agriculture, it also provides insight, knowledge and techniques to make urban agriculture an activity accessible to everyone.
Today’s post celebrates some of the highlights from TNOC writing in 2018. These contributions—originating around the world—were one or more of widely read, offering novel points of view, and/or somehow disruptive in a useful way. All 1000+ TNOC essays and roundtables are worthwhile reads, of course, but what follows will give you a taste of 2018’s key and diverse content.
The Nature of Cities advanced in a number of ways in 2018. The number of contributors has grown to over 700, and we published 150+ long-form essays, reviews, and global roundtables.
We founded a sister Charity registered in Ireland—The Nature of Cities-Europe—in order to collaborate more with our colleagues in the European Union.
The Stories of the Nature of Cities 2099 prize for Flash Fiction attracted 1200 entries from 116 countries. We awarded seven top prizes (all seven were women, from the U.S., Canada, and India), and in February 2019 we will publish a book of 57 stories from 21 countries. The top story, by the way, is called “Neither Above Nor Below”, by Claire Stanford of Los Angeles. We’ll run a second edition of the prize in 2019, with theme “Set in a City Park”.
We began serious planning for The Nature of Cities Summit, to be held in Paris in June 2019. Join us there for a really innovative meeting focused on transdisciplinarity and collaboration in green cities.
In essays, roundtables, and reviews we continue to seek the frontiers of thought found at the boundaries of urban ecology, community, design, planning, and art. Importantly, we’ve attracted more and more readers: in 2018 we had over a half million readers from 2,500+ cities in 150+ countries.
Thank you. We hope to see you again in 2019.
(Banner photo is by Georgina Avlonitis.)
Donate to TNOC
TNOC is a public charity, a non-profit [501(c)3] organization in the United States. We rely on private contributions and grants to support our work, and to demonstrate grassroots support to our organizational funders. No pay-wall exists in front of TNOC content. So, if you can, please make a donation. Click here to help.
We are also creating a travel scholarship fund for practitioners practitioner and Global South travel to TNOC Summit. If you, please help people get to the Summit, who otherwise might not be able to attend.
Roundtables
The High Line in New York City. Photo: David Maddox
In November 2017, Nature Ecology and Evolution published a major review of the field of ecology, titled “100 articles every ecologist should read” (behind a paywall, unfortunately)—a product of an extensive survey of ecologists. In addition to a lack of gender and racial diversity among authors, and its general lack of inclusivity, the list also includes nothing of how urban ecology has contributed to our understanding of our urban planet. So, we asked a diverse group to create a list of some of the most important contributions from urban ecology for advancing the field of ecology. (We asked them to suggest a reading also—a start on a reading list.)
…with contributions from: Pippin Anderson, Cape Town | Erik Andersson, Stockholm | Marc Barra, Paris Nathalie Blanc, Paris | Marcus Collier, Dublin | Paul Downton, Melbourne | Ana Faggi, Buenos Aires | Niki Frantzeskaki, Rotterdam | Dagmar Haase, Berlin | Steven Handel, New Brunswick | Nadja Kabisch, Berlin | Timon McPhearson, New York | Harini Nagendra, Bangalore | Steward Pickett, Poughkeepsie | Philip Silva, New York | Mike Wells, Bath | Weiqi Zhou, Beijing
Urban planning (and the city plans that express it) is typically focused on coherently organizing city systems, flows of people and resources, where things are and should be. While parks, green and open spaces are usually part of urban plans (but there are unfortunate exceptions), ecology and ecological processes are on the sidelines. Much of the writing at TNOC addresses the essential ecological and social values that flow from ecosystem services, green spaces, and biodiversity. So, should not a greater ecological sophistication be embedded within urban planning? Should there not be ecologists at the center of urban planning teams in cities? Of course, this requires that ecologists get involved, learn about planning and its methods, and invest in the tradeoffs that are inevitably involved in planning something as complicated as a city. Where are the examples ecology embedded in urban planning? How can it be done?
…with contributions from: Will Allen, Chapel Hill | Juan Azcárate, Bogota | Amy Chomowitz, Portland | Katie Coyne, Austin | Georgina Cullman, New York City | PK Das, Mumbai | David Goode, Bath | Mark Hostetler, Gainesville | Elsa Limasset, Orléans | Ragene Palma, Manila | Diane Pataki, Salt Lake City | Gil Penha-Lopez, Lisbon | Lauren Smalls-Mantey, New York City
Bonneville Power Administration 905 Building – Habitat Roof. Deswign & Photo: Jason King
The word biodiversity is one of those words that lives happily in metaphor. But in detail, it is all over the map. Ask 10 people, you’ll get 13 definitions. Even ecologists use diverse definitions, that sometimes make distinctions between native and non-native species, but sometimes not; that alternate between indicating species or ecosystems and their services; and sometimes in the same conversation. And then there is the subtle and not so subtle distinctions between definition, meaning, and action. Landscape architects are the practitioners of biodiversity’s meaning through their acts of shaping nature into “spaces”. They have their hands on definitions of biodiversity that they use in their work, and that we experience in the landscapes their create. But they aren’t necessarily the same definitions as a scientist’s. Or even a regular person’s. So, how do landscape architects view the word “biodiversity”? How does it find meaning in their work?
…with contributions from: Gloria Aponte, Medellín | Ana Luisa Artesi, Buenos Aires | Andrew Grant, Bath | Yun Hye Hwang, Singapore | Maria Ignatieva, Perth | Jason King, Portland | Victoria Marshall, Singapore | Daniel Phillips, Detroit | Mohan Rao, Bangalore | Sylvie Salles, Paris | Kevin Sloan, Dallas/Fort Worth | Diana Wiesner, Bogotá
For this, our second roundtable in the series “Artists in Conversatuion with…”, we invited eleven artists to present their conversation with water in cities. Coming from seven different countries—Czech Republic, France, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, and the United States—these artists inspire our own experiences with water in cities. They engage with water in the shape of fog, rain, ice, restored wetlands, urban rivers and creeks, city fountains, and reclaimed urban spaces. To them, water is an inclusive moving matter that when listened to, can serve as a conduit to larger understandings.
…with contributions from Antonio José García Cano, Murcia | Katrine Claassens, Montreal | Claudia Luna Fuentes, Saltillo | Nazlı Gürlek, Istanbul & Palo Alto | Basia Irland, Albuquerque | Robin Lasser, Oakland | Marguerite Perret, Topeka | Mary Mattingly, New York | Bonnie Ora Sherk, San Francisco | Nadia Vadori-Gauthier, Paris | Aloïs Yang, Prague
Engagement is the first step toward active acknowledgment, inclusion, and stewardship of the environment. Nature Atlas provides a rich tapestry of options for engaging with urban nature. The purpose of Nature Atlas is to invoke diverse ways of perceiving, understanding, and engaging nature by actively and consciously interacting with our environments through various practices across disciplines, inclinations, expertise, and capacities.
Jane Jacobs’ final chapter of Death and Life of Great American Cities, titled “The Kind of Problem a City Is”, remains its most misunderstood. The principal ideas of the book have become the mainstream of urban know-how and helped the triumphant turnarounds in the fortunes of American cities, most notably for New York City. But the last idea in the book—that the scientific foundation that is the basis of the planning profession is founded in error—has not had the same impact. The debate over the scientific basis of urban planning was set aside. The non-linearity of neural networks provides a useful illustration of how details can matter in complex systems, but also of the importance of iteration for adaptation. Is it possible for our cities to learn and adapt as neural networks do?
Mankind may have left the savannah some million years ago, but the savannah never quite left us. It makes sense that since we co-evolved with nature, our need for it is hardwired into our brains and our genes. Urban nature and public art can help to break down barriers both mental and physical, sparking imaginations, catalyzing placemaking, forging new connections, and bringing people together. In a GreenPop project, disused public corners in two African cities—Livingstone, Zambia and Johannesburg, South Africa—were transformed using public participation, mural art, public seating, sculpture, and indigenous plants into spaces of connection and of conversation around the incredible biodiversity that makes each city so unique and special.
In rapidly growing Indian cities, change seems like the only constant. Heritage buildings are torn down, roads widened, lakes and wetlands drained, and parks erased to make way for urban growth. Nature is often the first casualty in a constant drive towards development. Yet the street tree stubbornly survives across Indian cities—beleaguered by gasoline fumes, besieged by construction, but still tenaciously gripping the sidewalk. The lives of street trees are emblematic of the multiple entanglements that characterise the nature-society dialectic animating the ever expanding urban in the global south—entanglements that knit together the past and present, the secular and sacred, and the global and local.
Vancouver B.C. MetaFlow Diagrams for energy (left) and food (right). Credit: Dr. Philip Mansfield/Graphical Memes
Like the human body, cities are living, ever-evolving organisms. Just as diet, exercise, sleep, or laughter can be seen as indicators of our personal physical and emotional well being, the ways in which goods, water, commuters, or food move through the urban ecosystem determines a city’s health and sustainability within larger regional and global natural systems. With citizen-generated maps and diagrams based on real-life conditions and structured around a holistic framework, the patterns that emerge allow for both residents and planners to ask questions that can lead to both local and regional ecological improvements.
I am very much a practicing research scientist and not a humanist, but sometimes our traditional methods simply fall short of the questions that need to be answered. When it comes to the intersection between ecological processes, the built environment, and the experience of living in modern cities, this problem is both acute and urgent. If there is a chance that the arts, literature, philosophy, and other humanist disciplines have something to offer our understanding of what urban ecosystems are and can be, then I think we should explore that chance, and quickly.
Often described as Europe’s greenest city, Sheffield is reputed to have more trees per capita than any other, with over 100,000 trees spread across parks and open spaces, 10.4 percent woodland by area, and approximately 36,000 street trees. However, a public-private partnership is dramatically altering Sheffield’s urban forest. Sheffield exemplifies the worst-case scenario when private companies are contracted to finance and deliver public goods, and a noteworthy example of creative and resilient community activism.
“This is my drawing. I watch as the mountains come up close and then move back.”
What happens when we “freeze” the landscape on pieces of paper? To find the answer, for the past eight years our foundation, Fundación Cerros de Bogotá, has been inviting children from Bogota and the surrounding region to paper our walls with their landscape drawings. (Bogotá is a humid tropical city located at 8,700 feet above sea level, on a highland plateau in the eastern range of the Andes.) Last year alone, children from diverse backgrounds sent us more than 2,000 drawings of Bogotá’s mountains and their surroundings. In pondering all of these children’s drawings and listening to their stories about their interests, we began to realize that these children would be our greatest allies in bringing about the changes we have been dreaming about.
Re-wilding is a new area of interest in landscape architecture concerned with making landscapes that are as close to the original ecology of a place as possible. Not limited to only planting installations, re-wilded landscapes can also exist to attract, reconstitute and/or re-introduce wildlife to heighten biodiversity. Re-wilding beckons landscape architects to embrace a logical next step…to release artistic conceits altogether and replace them with the actual landscape type naturally intended, as much as is realistically possible.
What are the types of childhood experiences that instil a lifelong value for nature and promote stewardship behaviour later in life? It turns out that the sense of wonder that children experience in nature is a crucial factor. Over 60 percent of children around the globe live in cities where they face substantial barriers to regular and direct experience of nature. In addition to the numerous implications the absence of nature-based experiences has for the health and development of children, an increasing proportion of children are exhibiting a limited understanding of common plants and animals, as well as a biophobia (“fear” or ambivalence) towards the natural world.
Conventional wisdom tells us that deliberative democracy works best at local scales thanks to superior and immediate access to decision-makers, the tightness of feedback loops for citizens, deciders, and third parties (expressed by the notion that disgruntled citizens will “vote with their feet”), and the importance of local places to self-identity. But where it is presumably easiest to engage in deliberative democracy, it also seems most challenging. Even when full-blown deliberative democracy is not possible in complex societies, we can strive for a more modest goal: “civic coproduction”, which concerns the many grassroots initiatives that we now see in cities and landscapes. Even where the complex needs and desires of diverse publics must be conjugated with scarce resources, people and civil society are participating and making a difference.
For better or worse, 2017 was a historic year for both Mexico and Mexico City. This can be summed up in two numbers: 100 and 32. The first number celebrates the one hundredth anniversary of Mexico’s Constitution, approved on 5 February 1917, and renowned as the first Constitution in the world to incorporate social rights. The second number, 32, marks the remembrance of the deadly earthquake that killed more than 30,000 people and devastated Mexico City on 19 September 1985. Two very different anniversaries, of course. One, but distant and hardly provoking any popular emotion; the other one random and unforeseen, but still very present in the memories of at least three generations. Struggles for spatial justice, human rights, and democracy are interconnected and have a long history in Mexico City. As the previous official slogan claimed, this is a “City in Movement”. So let’s get inspired and keep going.
The stack of the water treatment plant is repurposed as a beacon to communicate rain events to the public. The stack and its vapor are blue if the weather is clear; red the night before rain to alert citizens to reduce their use of water and reduce pressure on the storm water system. Stacks become part of the city’s “green infrastructure”. Credit: Mary Miss Studio
As an artist, having the opportunity to develop a project at the scale of a city has been a remarkable experience. WaterMarks has grown out of a three-year engagement with the city of Milwaukee. City government, academic institutions, and many nonprofits have been essential contributors to the development of this urban-scaled project.
Focusing on water, the project has three important goals in mind: address environmental issues as a gateway to sustainable development; engage communities as active partners; help identify Milwaukee as a global water center.
Call and response as a means of dialogue: Physical interventions call out some aspect of the natural systems and infrastructure and, through community engagement activities, the people of Milwaukee respond to and activate the sites.
In her book Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present, and Future (OUP, 2016), Harini Nagendra suggests we draw on the “cultural imagination and capacity for coexistence” demonstrated through the long history of the city of Bengaluru as we strive for sustainable and resilient modern cities. This call for considered and creative action is an appropriate directive in an age of rapid and dynamic urbanization. Her book is fascinating in that it simultaneously meets the directive of contemporary urban ecology in addressing the social and the biophysical, and also shares a personal lived experience of a city.
John Cary’s Design for Good comes at a time when it is so important to re-instill the hope that design brings to people—both designers as well as the people designed for. It sheds a ray of light into the design world by demonstrating how, through incorporating public dialogue and involvement, we can achieve end results that are hugely successful. If two young postgraduate aspirants from MIT have the drive and urge to explore beyond their comfort zones to eventually help communities in Rwanda—as did the MASS Design Group in the case of the Butaro Hospital project—then established professionals in the field can certainly take up the mantle and attempt to do the same.
New Integrated and Actionable Urban Knowledge for the Cities We Want and Need
Thomas Elmqvist, Stockholm. Xuemei Bai, Canberra. Niki Frantzeskaki, Rotterdam. Corrie Griffith, Tempe. David Maddox, New York. Timon McPhearson, New York. Sue Parnell, Cape Town. Paty Romero-Lankao, Boulder. David Simon, Gothenburg. Mark Watkins, Phoenix.
Urban Planet draws from diverse intellectual and practice traditions to grapple with the conceptual and operational challenges of urban development for sustainable, resilient, livable, and just cities. The aim is to foster a community of global urban leaders through engaging the emerging science and practice of cities, including critiques of urbanism’s tropes. We hope that ideas about global urbanism that situate the city at the core of the planet’s future will provide pathways for evidence-based interventions to propel ambitious, positive change in policy and practice.
Today’s post celebrates some of the highlights from TNOC writing in 2019. These contributions—originating around the world—were one or more of widely read, offering novel points of view, and/or somehow disruptive in a useful way. All 1000+ TNOC essays and roundtables are worthwhile reads, of course, but what follows will give you a taste of 2019’s key and diverse content.
The Nature of Cities advanced in a number of ways in 2019. The number of contributors has grown to almost 800, and we published 150+ long-form essays, reviews, and global roundtables.
A key event for TNOC in 2019 was The Nature of Cities Summit in Paris. Attended by almost 400 people from 60 countries, TNOC Summit was a major undertaking to model a new collaborative spirit in urbanism. We continue to publish outputs from Summit. You can see them here, along with the Summit report. Planning for the next Summit is underway, and will be announced soon.
The Stories of the Nature of Cities 2099 prize for Flash Fiction attracted 1200 entries from 116 countries. We awarded seven top prizes—women from the U.S., Canada, and India—and in May 2019 we published a book of 57 stories from 21 countries: A Flash of Silver Green. The 2020 version of the prize has just completed accepting submissions—over 1,000 from 99 countries—and we will produce a new book of collected stories early in 2021.
In essays, roundtables, and reviews we continue to seek the frontiers of thought found at the boundaries of urban ecology, community, design, planning, and art. Importantly, we’ve attracted more and more readers: over a million people have visited TNOC. and in 2019 we had readers from 3,500+ cities in 150+ countries.
Thank you. We hope to see you again in 2020.
(Banner photo is by Paris architect Vincent Callibaut.)
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The Nature of Cities Summit
The Nature of Cities (TNOC) Summit, held in Paris from 4-7 June 2019, brought together a unique diversity of thought- leaders and practitioners to catalyze a cross- disciplinary movement for collaborative green cities. The Summit convened diverse voices and actors, designing interactive sessions to build new connections and propel change—both on an individual and organizational level. Participants ranged from artists, writers, and activists to people working in academia, urban planning, policy, and practice.
A Flash of Silver Green
We asked people to imagine future cities, in the form of a flash or short fiction contest. Our original prompt read like this: What are the stories of people and nature in cities in 2099? What will cities be like to live in?
Of 1,200 submissions from 116 countries, 57 from 21 countries were collected in this book, including the seven that we judged to be prize-winners, authored by women from the United States, Canada, and India. You can get a copy of A Flash of Silver Green directly from the publisher.
This roundtable was inspired by “seed session” workshop “Talk, Map, Act” at the TNOC Summit where we gathered diverse stories of engagement with stewardship from all around the world. To continue this journey we explore the words people use for the constellation of activities suggested by the English word “stewardship”. So, we asked 25 practitioners—scientists, activists, artists, planners, practitioners—from five continents: in your context and experience, what is the word or phrase used for the concept of “actively taking care of things, such as the environment”? The answers are all over the map. In many languages, there is no direct translation to the English word “stewardship”. But there are many phrases that convey the activity of care—activities that in many countries are newly developing and advancing.
This Roundtable was curated by Lindsay Campbell, Erika Svendsen, and Michelle Johnson of the U.S. Forest Service.
With contributions from: Nathalie Blanc, Paris; Lindsay Campbell, New York; Zorina Colasero, Puerto Princesa City; Kirk Deitschman, Waimānalo; Johan Enqvist, Cape Town; Emilio Fantin, Bologna; Artur Jerzy Filip, Warsaw; Carlo Beneitez Gomez, Puerto Princesa City; Cecilia Herzog, Rio de Janeiro; Michelle Johnson, New York; Kevin Lunzalu, Nairobi; Patrick Lydon, Osaka; Romina Magtanong, Puerto Princesa City; Heather McMillen, Honolulu; Ranjini Murali, Bangalore; Harini Nagendra, Bangalore; Jean Ferus Niyomwungeri, Kigali; Jean Palma, Manila; Beatriz Ruizpalacios, Mexico City; Huda Shaka, Dubai; Erika Svendsen, New York; Abdallah Tawfic, Cairo; Diana Wiesner, Bogotá; Fish Yu, Shenzhen
There is a feeling among many that in broad brush, at least, we know what we need to do to make cities better for people and nature. Yet, cities often, even typically, lag in their efforts to be more resilient, sustainable, livable, and just through greening. Why?
There are four threads in the responses: (1) research and data, and perhaps even “knowledge” is, by itself, insufficient; (2) while we mostly have enough research knowledge to act, it doesn’t necessarily apply everywhere, as we lack knowledge applicable to the global south; (3) we all, including scientists, have to become activists for change toward better cities; (4) we need transparency and engagement across sectors of the public realm.
With contributions from: Adrian Benepe, New York; Paul Downton, Melbourne; Ana Faggi, Buenos Aires; Sumetee Gajjar, Cape Town; Russell Galt, Edinburgh; Rob McDonald, Washington; Huda Shaka, Dubai; Vivek Shandas, Portland; Phil Silva, New York; Naomi Tsur, Jerusalem
When I first encountered “urban ecology”, and urbanism generally, what attracted me was the essential collaborativeness of cities and their design—that cities are, or at least should be, collaborative creations. Indeed, this is the fundamental (and ideally fun) and foundational idea of TNOC: let’s put different types of people into the same space and see what emerges. So, we asked a collection of TNOC contributors—scientists, artists, planners, designers, engineers, policy makers—about their own experience with collaboration. It is a rich vein of response, and some threads stand out about the collaborative experience: It challenges us to trust. It is often surprising. It is often difficult. Sometimes there is tension. It takes time. It demands personal growth. It requires acknowledgment of others. It asks us to question our own points of view. It thrives in the in-between spaces. There is no one way. It is an act of transformation.
With contributions from: Pippin Anderson, Cape Town; Carmen Bouyer, Paris; Lindsay Campbell, New York; Gillian Dick, Glasgow; Lonny Grafman, Arcata; Eduardo Guerrero, Bogotá; Britt Gwinner, Washington; Keitaro Ito, Kyushu; Madhusudan Katti, Raleigh; Jessica Kavonic, Cape Town; Yvonne Lynch, San Sebastian; Mary Mattingly, New York; Brian McGrath, New York; Tischa Muñoz-Erikson, Río Piedras; Jean Palma, Manila; Diane Pataki, Salt Lake City; Bruce Roll, Portland; Wilson Ramirez, Bogotá; David Simon, Gothenburg; Tomomi Sudo, Kyushu; Dimitra Xidous, Dublin
London’s communities have recognized and celebrated the role of the network of green and blue spaces in the life of the city in the form of a grassroots campaign to make London the first National Park City. The six year campaign saw London National Park City launched in 2019. Other cities will follow. Can this idea be applied in other cities? How? We asked a variety of people involved in parks and open space around the world. Some are in cities actively contemplating such a national park city approach. For others, it was a new idea. The London National Park City idea is both a formal recognition of the scope and benefits of the macro-park that is all London’s open spaces, and also a call for London’s population to see and get engaged with their myriad green spaces.
This Roundtable was curated by Daniel Ravel-Ellison and Alison Barnes.
With contributions from: Méliné Baronian, Versailles; Maud Bernard-Verdier, Berlin; Ioana Biris, Amsterdam; Timothy Blatch, Cape Town; Aletta Bonn, Berlin; Geoff Canham, Tauranga; Samarth Das, Mumbai; Gillian Dick, Glasgow; Luis Antonio Romahn Diez, Merida; Ana Faggi, Buenos Aires; Eduardo Guerrero, Bogotá; Sue Hilder, Glasgow; Mike Houck, Portland; Sophie Lokatis, Berlin; Scott Martin, Louisville; Sebastian Miguel, Buenos Aires; Gareth Moore-Jones, Ohope Beach; Rob Pirani, New York; Julie Procter, Stirling; Tom Rozendal, Breda; Snorri Sigurdsson, Reykjavík; Lynn Wilson, Victoria
Essays
Ecological City, one of many imaginative designs by this Paris architect. Image: Vincent Callibaut
Vision A—The Smart City: The city is an intricate network of digital communications, computations, and connections. Vision B—The Ecological City: The city is an intricate network of living systems interacting with one another, with built structures, and flows of water, materials, organisms, and information. These alternative visions are not necessarily mutually exclusive, of course, but in my experience they are rarely combined in the same conversation or planning process.
A biosolar roof in full bloom. Photo: Stuart Connop
As we homogenise and sterilise our rural landscapes with intensive agriculture, and disconnect our populations from nature in shining metropolises, it is more pressing than ever to maximize the potential for urban areas to support wildlife. Innovative urban greenspace design also needs innovative management if our nature-based solutions are to sustain diverse populations of biodiversity in urban areas.
While the suburban mega city is largely the product of unbridled real estate speculation, their existence establishes a new starting point for urban design—hopefully one that produces cities by nature. “Form follows performance” may replace the industrial preoccupation of the twentieth century and its priority for “function” that is damaging to the environment. It will take the effort of many, if not everyone’s, hands to get a grip on all the solutions that are needed. It is a purpose and priority on which all should agree.
Urban metabolism is not only a powerful metaphor for better understanding our urban systems, but also the fundamental framework we need for accelerating the transition to sustainable cities. Like human bodies, cities require resources to function. They import or stock up on what they need, consume the resource, and then dispose of what is left over in the form of different types of waste. But one widely accepted definition of urban metabolism does not (yet) exist. Over the course of several generations, different disciplines and schools of thought have used this term to frame a range of findings.
It’s possible that many planners and civic leaders continue to undervalue parks as key pieces of a city’s ecological and social fabric. This is evidenced by how one in three in the United States lack access to a park within a 10-minute walk, leaving more than 100 million Americans deprived of easily accessed green space, creating a cascade of impacts on mental and physical health, and even economic opportunities for these cities. This is why The Trust for Public Land, in partnership with the Urban Land Institute, and the National Recreation and Parks Association, launched the 10-Minute Walk to a Park Campaign.
Campaigning and working for sustainability is a difficult and dangerous job. While various challenges already seem burdensome in the Philippines, especially for a developing country, we continue to face environmentally-damaging threats from “done deal” projects between our government and the Chinese government. As an environmental planner, I am very concerned about sustainability of our resources. Three advances are needed: more effort on environmental assessments, improved legislation, and inclusive planning.
Floating cities. Flying cities. Domed cities. Drowned cities. Cities that flip over once a day to expose different populations to sunlight. Cities underground, in the oceans, or in orbit. Cities on moons, asteroids, or other planets. Cities of memory, of surveillance, or of violence. Speculative fiction in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has offered an enormous range of urban visions of the future, many of them dystopian, a few utopian, and quite a few somewhere in between. For good reason: Cities have taken on a new centrality for human futures. This essay is the Introduction from TNOC’s new book—A Flash of Silver Green—on very short fiction about future cities.
This story begins on a grey afternoon in January 2018. Twenty-six 9 and 10 year-olds were nervously wobbling on their chairs in their classroom on the 1st floor of a primary school in the town of Ede the Netherlands. The sound of low whispers and hushed giggles, heads curiously turning to the door. We have come to realize that a greener, safer and healthier world starts at a young age and that the schoolyard is the perfect place to provide urban nature for everyone, regardless of any children’s home situation. The movement for green schoolyards is on!
Despite the success of some of these pioneering projects, the rise in popularity of lightweight green roofs in Europe and North America and the podium gardens of the high-rise cities of the Far East, the practice of establishing trees on taller buildings remains a curiosity and is still unusual. But that may be changing. Although there are some difficulties associated with growing trees and certain vegetation types on tall buildings, the success enjoyed by Hancock, Hundertwasser, and Boeri highlighted in this essay, shows that it is possible.
The May Tree, by Jean-Baptiste Pater, early 18th century / Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts
Any exhibition that starts with an 18th century tree hugger has me on a hook. If we learn anything from an exhibition such as “Masterpieces of French Landscape Paintings”, it might be that French landscape painters have a thing or two to teach us about urban nature over the centuries. Despite their lush depictions of natural scenery, French landscape painters were primarily Parisian urban dwellers. Biophiles, the lot of them too.
Melbourne has long been at the forefront of sustainable stormwater management through WSUD. WSUD, in formal definition, is “the design of subdivisions, buildings and landscapes that enhances opportunities for at source conservation of water, rainfall detention and use, infiltration, and interception of pollutants in surface runoff from the block”.
This story won 1st prize in TNOC’s flash fiction contest., It begins: A flash of silver-green in the water. That is all Hasan sees, but it is enough. He runs after, alongside, his small legs propelling him across the planks and platforms that crisscross the city. The wood once scratched underfoot, but it has gone smooth with time and wear, just as the soles of Hasan’s feet have grown thick and hearty, able to withstand all but the sharpest of splinters…
Cairo’s share per capita of green spaces—1.7 m2/capita—is much lower than the international norms and standards. More than half of the city’s population only have 0.5 m2/capita; 70% of the population experience less than the city average of 1.7 m2/capita. In other words, the little green and open space there is concentrated in just a few neighborhoods. New ideas such as green roofs could add a decent amount to Cairo’s green spaces, given the huge amount of abundant flat concrete roofs. The idea has triggered the government’s attention in the form of two national campaigns.
Behind the two fracture points of modern planning, NIMBYs and gentrification, is one fundamental question: should neighborhoods change? NIMBYs and anti-gentrification activists agree that they should not. The modern planning system was invented to enforce that agreement. If you wonder whether a struggle to add a few permissions allowing property owners to build studio rentals on their properties is worth the pain, realize what this change implies; it shifts the fundamental question of planning from should our neighborhood change to how should our neighborhood change.
Less than an hour cycling out of central Manchester along the Bridgewater Canal takes you into a green and blue landscape. It only becomes clear that this is a post-industrial area when the infrastructure of a coalfield pithead rises up behind the trees. The vision for the Carbon Landscape? “It would have to be a thriving place, a green place, a place for people, for wildlife, for recreation, for health, all of those things.”
The TNOC content most read in 2019 was from 2016
(TNOC’s content tends to have a long shelf-life, and many older essays remain actively read.)
In many cities, graffiti is associated with decay, with communities out of control, and so it is outlawed. In some cities, it is legal, within limits, and valued as a form of social expression. “Street art”, graffiti’s more formal cousin, which is often commissioned and sanctioned, has a firmer place in communities, but can still be an important form of “outsider” expression. Interest in these art forms as social expression is broad, and the work itself takes many shapes—from simple tags of identity, to scrawled expressions of protest and politics, to complex and beautiful scenes that virtually everyone would say are “art”, despite their sometimes rough locations. What are examples of graffiti as beneficial influences in communities, as propellants of expression and dialog? Where are they? How can they be nurtured? Can they be nurtured without undermining their essentially outsider qualities?
With contributions from: Pauline Bullen, Harare; Paul Downton, Adelaide; Emilio Fantin, Bologna; Ganzeer, Los Angeles; Germán Eliecer Gómez, Bogotá; Sidd Joag, New York City; Patrick Lydon, San Jose & Seoul; Patrice Milillo, Los Angeles; Laura Shillington, Montreal
I was lucky to be born in St. Petersburg, Russia, the city of museums and parks. My first scientific passion was exactly historical imperial gardens. Traditionally gardens have been seen as very special places, as paradises where people can enjoy sounds of water and birds, can rest their eyes on green grass and bright flowers and delight in the fragrance of roses. At the same time gardens are places of botanic practices and symbolic narratives of philosophy, art and history. Gardens are places where the Nature meets Art. Today, historic gardens play a very unique role in urban environment and need to be managed thoughtfully, with principles in mind.
Peterhof Gardens in St. Petersburg, Russia. Photo: Maria Ignatieva
Urbanisation and globalisation resulted in homogenisation of urban landscapes and the loss of the sense of place – “genius loci”. Historical parks and gardens always play a very special role in urban landscapes because of their cultural and landscape values. Especially when it concerns the most recognised monuments of park and garden art, which hold a status at the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. At the moment the World Heritage List includes 962 properties forming part of the cultural and natural heritage. There are at least 20 sites which are historic parks and gardens.
Summer Palace, an Imperial Garden in Beijing, one of the UNESCO Heritage Sites. Photo: Maria IgnatievaSummer Palace, an Imperial Garden in Beijing, one of the UNESCO Heritage Sites. Photo: Maria IgnatievaVersailles Park, France. Photo: Maria IgnatievaIlm Park is part of the ensemble of ” Classical Weimar ” (UNESCO World Heritage List). Photo: Maria Ignatieva
Over the two decades heritage parks in Europe have been re-evaluated and have begun to be seen as highly valuable urban biodiversity hotspots. Historical parks are not only witnesses of different historical art periods but also are refuges for rare flora and fauna. Very often they contain important fragments of natural landscapes. One of the classical examples of such a garden is Pavlovsky Park in St. Petersburg. The foundation of the park was a local mixed conifer-deciduous forest. This particular park was created by thinning and cutting these natural plant communities.
Pavlovsky Park (600 hectares) in St. Petersburg. Photo: Maria Ignatieva
Parks are also unique living examples of horticultural practices and skills from previous centuries. In the era of unification and using material from “global” nurseries with genetically modified plants, historical parks contain unique genetic material that could help to preserve national and cultural identity. One of the best examples of such practices can be found in the Swedish historic park of Grönsöö. Here the parental material for linden alleys is the old Tilia tree (Queen Christina’slinden–tree), which was planted here in 1623 during the visit to Grönsöö of King Gustavus Adolphus’s mother.
Queen Christina’s linden-tree in Grönsöö. Photo: Maria IgnatievaLinden alley in Grönsöö. Photo: Maria Ignatieva
In the Garden of Villa Castello in Florence, the research and practical enthusiasm of the chief gardener allowed to reconstruct the unique Medici collection of Citrus species. He also discovered that inside the formal, very geometrical parterres many of local plants from surrounded forests, pastures and meadows were allowed to grow. In the 16-17th centuries there were no grass lawns here. Gardeners were very practical and sustainable.
Villa Castello in Florence. Photo: Maria IgnatievaParterre of Villa Castello with native herbaceous species. Photo: Maria Ignatieva
Most of the shrine and public gardens in Japanese cities are truly last remnants not only for some indigenous vegetation but also for sacred old trees. Wildlife here has a refuge in densely built urban environments.
One of urban gardens in Nagoya, Japan. Photo: Maria Ignatieva
I dedicated seven years of my research to studying historical and ecological aspects of 18 historic parks and gardens of St. Petersburg (most of them are part of the UNESCO World Heritage system — Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and related Group of Monuments: Summer Garden, Mikhailovsky Garden, Peterhof gardens, Pavlovsky Park, Oranienbaum parks, Tsarskoye Selo etc.). This research emphasized biological diversity, the connection of certain design styles to different practices of management and maintenance and the value of these heritage parks for biological conservation. Studies were based on field observation, mapping of rare plants and different types of plant communities, archive and literature research and interviews of garden keepers and landscape architects involved in the process of garden restoration.
Case studies – St. Petersburg suburban historic parks and gardens. Credit: Maria Ignatieva
We created distribution maps for rare herbaceous species and spring ephemerals in St. Petersburg historical parks. These maps were used during the garden restoration and management process as an important tool for biodiversity protection in historic parks.
Hepatica nobilis is a protected plant in all St. Petersburg historic parks. Photo: Photo Ignatieva
Summer Garden in St. Petersburg is one of the biggest and the most expansive restoration projects (finished in May 2012). It is also one of the most controversial projects. The creators of the project decided to restore some of the garden elements, which were destroyed by the disastrous 1777 flood in St. Petersburg. For example, the main fountains were reconstructed. The formal hedges along alleys changed the “usual” appearance of the garden.
Many citizens were not happy with the garden’s new look. However the designers gave a lot of emphasis to the biodiversity issues. Now all spring (vernal) plants such as Garea lutea, G. minima, G. granulosa, Anemone ranunculoides and Ficaria verna are well protected and all garden bosquets (groves) are fenced in by tall hedges.
New look of Summer Garden. Photo: Maria Ignatieva
Reconstruction of bosquets was accompanied by planting numerous species of native and exotic shrubs (Viburnum, Berberis, Lonicera) which attract wildlife (including many birds).
Nesting boxes were attached on tree trunks. Historical plant material — indigenous Vaccinium vitis-idaea which is resistant to cold St. Petersburg winters — has been planted in broderie parterres. Our case studies of St. Petersburg parks provide an example of how floristic and vegetation analyses can help identify historical and post restoration pathways of succession in plant communities.
Summer Garden before restoration. Photo: Maria Ignatieva
Research of past park management and maintenance can give navigation for sustainable design practices in modern green areas. One of the aims of this study in St. Petersburg was to propose guidelines for garden restoration that could be used in maintaining, protecting and reinforcing particularly valuable biodiversity components of park’s ecosystems (plants, insects and birds). While modern urban design implements a simplified version of the British Picturesque-Gardenesque landscape architecture principles in all cultures around the world (which generally ignore climatic and cultural differences), our study shows that historical parks can be good demonstration sites for keeping regional identity and biodiversity in highly urbanised environments.
Summer Garden after restoration, which in part serves to protect the trees. Photo: Maria IgnatievaNew planting in one of the bosquests (groves) in Summer Garden. Photo: Maria IgnatievaVaccinium vitis-idaea with the author in the Summer Garden, planting of 2011. Photo: Maria Ignatieva
I particularly remember a wonderful morning in Boboli Gardens in Florence where we watched heron in the Isolotto Pond. Later we discovered that Boboli Gardens has a special wildlife protection policy. We bought several popular brochures on “The Birds of the Boboli Gardens” and even “The mollusks of the Boboli Gardens”. This Garden, designed in the mid-sixteen century, is one of largest parks in Florence and has incredible diversity of wild fauna.
Boboli Gardens, Florence. Photo: Maria IgnatievaHeron in Boboli Gardens. Photo: Maria Ignatieva
These positive examples show the pathway of how historic gardens — oases of culture and nature — can be true hotspots for urban biodiversity.
Based on our experience of working in St. Petersburg historic parks and gardens we can recommend the following guideline for preserving biodiversity in historic gardens:
Inventory and analyze existing plant communities and wildlife.
Map rare (for garden and parks) and endangered species.
Educate the park’s administration and mangers about biodiversity peculiarities and the benefits of maintaining biodiversity for park’s ecological and cultural identity.
Protect biodiversity during any park reconstruction or restoration to be sure that rare species and plant communities are preserved and not destroyed or damaged.
Be sure that distribution maps of important plants and plantings are available for the authors of design projects and contractors who are responsible for restoration works.
Write education brochures for the public on different aspects of biodiversity in parks.
Organize special routes through the park that highlight the park’s biodiversity.
Biodiversity should be part of the display in parks similar to museum and sculpture collections.
Poor urban planning situations can often be attributed in large part to a lack of understanding of and/or interest in the history, heritage, and community attachments to urban green spaces by management authorities.
Urban public parks are under constant siege; and the issue is an increasingly global matter. Typically created as public recreation spaces and local community green spaces within cities and towns, urban parks are increasingly impacted by incremental changes to original designs brought on by, for example, overshadowing by tall buildings, the addition of new structures and billboards and, on occasion having green areas hard surfaced to satisfy increased demands for parking. Increased traffic noise, garish lighting, removal of original plantings and the loss of vistas and views are further diminishing the restful and tranquil character of these places.
The entrance to the Meilahti Park (Helsinki, Finland) is besieged by sandwich boards and disparate signage vying for the attention of visitors and impacting the simple aesthetic of the park entrance. The small wooden pavilion was designed by amateur architect Fabian Steinheil, a previous Governor of Finland (1810–1824). Photo: Eeva Ruoff
I am not suggesting that urban public parks should not change (replacing original trees with those better adapted to changing climate and reduced water availability, for example), but rather it is not unusual that actions are being implemented in ways that are not cognisant of the histories, community values or non-commercial purposes of these places. This poor urban planning situation can be attributed in large part to a lack of understanding of or interest in the history, heritage and community attachments to urban green spaces by management authorities.
A traditional garden bed is filled with plants that are commonly available from garden centres rather than with historically appropriate plantings in keeping with the character of the park. Photo: Eeva Ruoff
In this blog, I outline work by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) to bring these issues to the fore and provide guidance concerning the care and safeguarding of historic urban public parks. (The blog is based on a forthcoming paper in Australia ICOMOS’s journal Historic Environment). ICOMOSis a global non-government organisation dedicated to promoting the application of theory, methodology, and management techniques to the conservation of all forms of heritage (such as buildings, historic cities, cultural / urban landscapes and archaeological remains). ICOMOS has over 10,000 individual members and 320 institutional members. One of the roles of the organisation is to develop, disseminate and implement “doctrinal texts” that advocate for good heritage policy and practice.
What are doctrinal texts?
Doctrinal texts comprise a position statement, a set of beliefs or actions, or good practice guidance advocated by a knowledgeable group (governments or non-government organisations, for example). With regard to the field of heritage, they can be issued in a range of forms; and for ICOMOS these comprise charters, principles, guidelines and documents. Indeed, ICOMOS was founded on a doctrinal text—International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites(The Venice Charter 1964).
In December 2017, ICOMOS adopted the ICOMOS-IFLA Document on Historic Urban Public Parksas a doctrinal text. Both ICOMOS and the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) have approved the Document. It was developed over a nine-year period (2008-2017) by the ICOMOS-IFLA International Scientific Committee on Cultural Landscapes (ISCCL), one of 28 technical advisory committees established within ICOMOS.
ICOMOS-IFLA Document on Historic Urban Public Parks
On 29 October 2013, the ISCCL Annual Meeting held in Canberra, Australia, adopted the ISCCL Canberra Declaration for Historic Urban Public Parks. The declaration, which was specific to the work of the ISCCL, had been a long time in the making. It had been proposed in 2008 with an initial draft document prepared by Eeva Ruoff (Finland), Stéphanie de Courtois (France) and Sonia Berjman (Argentina) presented to the ISCCL 2009 Annual Meeting (Tokyo, Japan). Subsequent revisions, coordinated by Eeva Ruoff, were presented to the ISCCL annual meetings in Istanbul, Turkey (2010), Paris, France (2011), and Hangzhou, China (2012).
A cyclist enjoys the informal park alongside West Basin, adjoining Lake Burley Griffin (Canberra, Australia). This public space has been targeted for high-rise unit development. The proposal will involve the infilling of the lake for 45 metres beyond the end of the jetty shown in the image. Photo: Juliet Ramsay
The purpose of the Declaration is to emphasise, and provide guidance on, the safeguarding of historic urban public parks—a sub-category of designed cultural landscapes in the World Heritage system—as heritage places created or adapted for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. This concern arose because it was the experience of various ISCCL members (many of whom are landscape architects) that rapidly growing and changing urban landscapes were increasingly eroding the amenity of and access to public parks. In particular, the concern was with the impacts of incremental change on the heritage values of such places.
A key point of discussion in developing the Declaration was the concept of an “historic urban public park” and its cross-cultural meanings in a global context. That is, what is meant by “historic”, by “urban”, by “public” and by “park” and how are these terms relevant and applicable in different cultural contexts—including those of Indigenous nations? For the ISCCL representatives of non-European countries, and countries not previously colonised by European nations (China and Japan, for example), these terms are problematic and their framing Eurocentric. There was, I think, no satisfactory resolution to this matter, except to recognise the issue and to propose that ISCCL members using the Declaration define concepts in culturally relevant ways in footnotes to it. Nevertheless, the conversations were invaluable because they enabled different disciplinary, national and individual perspectives to be shared, scrutinised and discussed.
Installed as part of a temporary garden exhibition, the “boxes” overwhelm the tranquil views within the park (Nancy, France). The permanent lighting fixtures have the same detrimental effect. Photo: Eeva Ruoff
The journey from the Canberra Declaration to the ICOMOS-IFLA Document on Historic Urban Public Parks(the Document) began by using the text of the Declaration. The process of revising, progressing and finally adopting the Document by IFLA and ICOMOS involved the circulation of the draft text (in August 2015 and January 2016) to the 110 National Committees and 28 International Scientific Committees of ICOMOS (in order to reach over 10,000 individual members world-wide). Comments were received from seven National Committees (Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland and Spain), as well as from two individuals and were the basis for the final revisions to the text.
The final version of the document(available in English, French, Spanish and Chinese) is short (less than four pages) and is comprised of a Preamble and five sub-headings with a total of 21 articles. The sub-headings are: Historic Urban Public Parks – Definitions (articles 1-5); Historic Urban Public Parks – Values (article 7); Special Character-Defining Elements of Historic Urban Public Parks (articles 8-16); Historic Study, Preservation, and Management (articles 17-20); and Universally Accessible Design Adaptations (article 21).
It is fair to say that there was much discussion within the ISCCL on the value of focussing on the specific category of historic urban public parks rather than on designed landscapes more broadly. For some ISCCL members, designed landscapes could encompass a wide range of heritage places (private gardens, public parks, cemeteries, urban green spaces, etc.), many of which face the same issues and challenges encountered in historic urban public parks. However, for landscape architect Eeva Rouff, the initiator and force behind the document, the specific focus was essential because it was her experience that historic urban public parks in Europe and other regions (the Americas and Australia, for example) faced increasing pressures and threats to their original design intent and public amenity resulting from cumulative change. The point here is that passion and commitment—either via an individual (such as Eeva Ruoff) or a small group—can be a powerful force driving the multi-year and arduous administrative and consultative process of creating universal heritage doctrine. In the instance of the ICOMOS-IFLA Document on Historic Urban Public Parks, I applaud Eeva Ruoff for her dedication and persistence.
Conservatory plants were commonly used over the summer period in 19th century public parks in Europe. The plants were often displayed in their pots, but in such a way that the pots were not visible. Photo: Eeva Ruoff
A call for assistance
It is one thing to travel the arduous journey of creating and having adopted a doctrinal text, but it is not where the journey ends. Work now on the ICOMOS-IFLA Document on Historic Urban Public Parksrequires that it be disseminated (including via translation into different languages) and promoted to the heritage conservation community and to appropriate park management authorities. This latter work has been taken on by the ISCCL. I would urge all readers of this blog to take a look at the Document and to utilise it where relevant in their work; and also circulate it to relevant professionals, community groups and activists. The impact of the document will ultimately be measured by the changes and differences it makes on the ground.
Equally, the Document has a mechanism (based on the resolutions of adoption voted on by ICOMOS and IFLA) that requires it be revised in 2022. The intention here is to review, refine and revise the document based on its application in the field of heritage conservation practice. Feedback can be provided to the author of this blog and will in turn be provided to the appropriate organisations.
Although the Document is confined to historic urban public parks, incremental change that is detrimental to original design intent and historical context, as well as contemporary community use and amenity, is an issue for the diversity of urban green spaces more broadly. Consequently, vigilance by local and concerned communities is essential if the ambience of, feelings for and stories about local community spaces are to continue to be valued, respected, safeguarded and cared for. It is my view that all citizens have a role in this regard.
Also known as the Dadelboom Mosque, it is the second-oldest place of Muslim workshop and one of the oldest substantially unaltered buildings in Cape Town (constructed c. 1780; second story added c. 1820).
From the late 1600s to 1850s, Kalk Bay — as its name would suggest — supported a lime industry burning locally abundant seashells in kilns. With the demise of that industry, fishing emerged as the village’s economic staple. After each day at sea, it was under the Money Tree, safe from driving rain or blistering heat, that fishing boat skippers would dispense wages to their crews. So too, traders known as ‘langgannas’ — a Malay word reflecting Capetonian ancestry — would gather around the Money Tree to purchase cartloads of fish. These they would lug some 30 km north to Table Bay, blowing traditional fish horns at way stations to announce the arrival of their commerce.
13. The Colossi of Arderne
The 
Can we tell better and more engaging stories about our environmental and social challenges? Can we widen the circle of people who read such stories and take action? Can we use them for education and engagement? Can they create good and entertaining and useful stories? Yes, we can. Although the comics landscape is dominated by superheroes doing classic superhero things, there is a growing movement of comics that have environmental and social justice aims. Comics offer a unique and effective platform for addressing social and environmental challenges through storytelling. The combination of visuals and narratives in comics provides a dynamic and engaging medium to convey complex issues in a compelling manner.
TNOC’s latest project in collaboration with 
For SPROUT’s third issue, the editors were inspired by The Nature of Cities’ (TNOC) recent art exhibition, 
We invite you to embark on an artistic journey framed like a short tale, narrated by the artist Carmen Bouyer and made possible by The Nature of Cities team. This story bridges the urban and the rural in a quest to create art forms that connect us with the larger landscape. The story is an invitation to imagine our own very personal ways to listen and connect with the places we inhabit. Here we will follow the artist’s story of coming home to the Paris region in France after years of living abroad in cities. As many urbanites in Western European cities, Carmen had the feeling that the cultures of relating with the land there were lost since a long time.
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Open Mumbai: Re-envisioning the City and Its Open Spaces
A Comic Book Sparks Kids Toward Environmental Justice
Cities as Refugia for Threatened Species
“Growing Place” in Japan—Creating Ecological Spaces at Schools that Educate and Engage Everyone
Architecture and Urban Ecosystems: From Segregation to Integration
Urbanophilia and the End of Misanthropy: Cities Are Nature
Re-imagining Nairobi National Park: Counter-Intuitive Tradeoffs to Strengthen this Urban Protected Area
Up the Creek, With a Paddle: Urban Stream Restoration and Daylighting
It Is Time to Really “Green” the Marvelous City
Lessons from a One-eyed Eagle
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The Rise of Resilience: Linking Resilience and Sustainability in City Planning
The ‘Equal Streets’ Movement in Mumbai
The New is Well Forgotten Old: Scandanavian Vernacular Experience on Biodiverse Green Roofs
The Nature of a City Economy: Towards an Ecology of Entrepreneurship
It’s Not Only City Design—We Need to Integrate Sustainability Across the Rural-Urban Continuum
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We Should Look at Urban Nature More Through the Eyes of Children
The UN in the Urban Anthropocene
Sweet by Nature: African Cities and the Natural World
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Forget the Damned Motor Car
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Graffiti on the Path and the Nature of Public Space
All 26 of the Just City Essays were highlights. Check them out.
Is there such a thing as a “bird friendly city”? What does it look like? What does it not look like? Why bother?
Ways Forward from China’s Urban Waste Problem
Karachi and the Paralysis of Imagination
Why We Need Design Guidelines for Urban Non-Humans
Count Me In: Urban Greening and the Return of Primates in Kampala
Encountering the Urban Forest
Marriage Therapy for Ecologists and Landscape Architects
Let Streams of Linear Open Spaces Flow Across Urban Landscapes
Cities in Imagination
Biocultural Diversity and the Diverse City: A Model for Linking Nature and Culture
What Makes a “Great” City Park? The Beholder Sees
How Tactical Urbanism “Adds Up”
![Email sent from: "Dundas, Deborah" ddundas@thestar.ca Subject: FW: Science, Arrivals, April 19 new wild cover Date: 13 April, 2015 10:36:03 AM EDT the new wildEmail sent from: Sarah Murdoch [mailto:smurdoch49@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, April 10, 2015 1:27 PM To: Dundas, Deborah Cc: Sarah Murdoch Subject: Science, Arrivals, April 19 new wild cover](https://www.thenatureofcities.com/TNOC/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/the-new-wild-798x560.jpg)
The banner photo is from the photo essay Photo Essay: Untold Stories of Change, Loss and Hope Along the Margins of Bengaluru’s Lakes, by Marthe Derkzen, Amsterdam, with photos by Anoop Bhaskar and Arati Kumar-Rao
Can cities save bees? How can urban habitats be made to serve pollinator conservation? How can that story be better told?
Visions of resilience: Eighteen artists say or show something in response to the word “resilience”
Common threads: connections among the ideas of Jane Jacobs and Elinor Ostrom, and their relevance to urban socio-ecology
What, how, and where are examples of graffiti as a positive force in communities?
Urban agriculture has many benefits. Is one of them a contribution to urban sustainability?
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Confronting the Dark Side of Urban Agriculture
Why Conserve Small Forest Fragments and Individual Trees in Urban Areas?
Viola Has an Acorn in Her Pocket
They are Not “Informal Settlements”—They are Habitats Made by People
Climate Adaptation Plans Can Worsen Unequal Urban Vulnerability
Closing the Gap Between Girls’ Education and Women in the Workforce
Small Rain Gardens for Stormwater and Biodiversity in the City: Learning from Traditional Ways
From Reactive to Proactive Resilience: Designing the New Sustainability
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Wouldn’t it be Better if Ecologists and Planners Talked to Each Other More?
The Forgotten Rurality: The Case for Participatory Management in Bogotá and its Surrounding Countryside
Designing Ecologically Sensitive Green Infrastructure that Serves People and Nature
Photo Essay: Life and Water at Rachenahalli Lake
Justice and Geometry in the Form of Linear Parks
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Intertwining People, Nature, and Place with Quilts and Thread
The High Line. Foreseen. Unforeseen.
Poetry Produces the Novel Language of Future Cities
Nature in Chicago: Surprisingly Wild, Surprisingly Human 
You say po-TAY-to. What ecologists and landscape architects don’t get about each other, but ought to.
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