Author’s note: Through TNOC, we are encouraged to take a broad view of how nature can contribute to urban life. “Many voices, greener cities, better cities” is our mantra. Given the recent election of Mr. Donald Trump in the United States, with all that portends for voices, cities, and the green, I thought it might be useful, even comforting, to take the long view. Hence a short excerpt from a book proposal in preparation. Please let me know what you think.
In this Time of Trump, the future, like the past, will not be all good or all bad. The only enduring reality is that the future will be built on top of our dreams.
If we viewed history in cross-section, it might look something like Figure 1. A simple curve shows the trajectory of the human population—since the first farmer thought to put a seed in the Earth during the Neolithic Revolution through to the modern, crowded, crazy Internet Age of the early 21st century. Population—the number of people on Earth—is on the y-axis, and time is on the x. For nearly all of human history, the curve hugged the bottom of the plot, an 11 millennia-long, slow burn to reach an unexpectedly steep slope upwards. Then there is a change, the alteration at the root of all alterations.
Around 1750, the curve tips upward, slowly at first, and then with an inexorable, powerful, careening surge, whips up toward the top of the plot. In fact, the slope between 1900 – 1970 is so steep, the curve verges on the vertical. Although it may not be visible on the full axis of human history, the slope after 1970 starts to fade, minutely coming back to “Earth”. That slight fade (Figure 1a), so important not only to our past and present, but to our future, is known mainly to demographers, the bean counters of the social science world. All most of us see are the crowds—on the expressways, in the shopping malls, in the stacked apartment complexes of the world’s cities and the endless rows of houses in the expanding suburbs; no one can actually see a world population of 7.3 billion souls.
Yet, the demographers know, as everyone needs to know, that in the 21st century, the rate of growth of the world’s population is in decline (Figure 1a); the population, while still growing, will grow at a slower rate this year than last, and slower still than two years ago. The human bean counters quibble about when, but nearly all agree, given current trends, that some time before or shortly after 2100, the world population will stop growing. It will stabilize. It might even fall. We will have reached the greatest height of human population on Earth, arguably the peak of history. What then?
Figure 2 gives another slice through history. It looks a lot like Figure 1, except that the vertical axis is urbanization, not population. Urbanization measures the percentage of people that live in towns and cities rather than in rural localities. As you can see on the second graph, for most of human history, most people lived in scattered agricultural settings; very few people took the chance to move to towns and cities, which were not only dirty but deadly, but tiny as a result, at least by modern standards. Jerusalem at the time of Jesus was inhabited by about 70,000 people, the size of contemporary Bamberg, Germany, or Newport Beach, California. Rome at its height had maybe a million residents, the size of modern day New Orleans or Helsinki. Then, about the same time as the world’s population began to swing upward in the late 18th century, so did urbanization.
Indeed, these two phenomena are tightly interconnected. Whereas with population, it’s unclear what a theoretical maximum might be, with urbanization, the theoretical maximum is 100 percent (since it is a fractional measure.) No society—outside small city states such as Singapore or the Vatican—has ever neared the 100 percent urbanized mark, but many societies have reached 70-80 percent of their populations living in town, including most countries in Europe, Latin America, North America, today. (Different countries do have slightly different definitions of urban, which should be kept in mind, but is not a significant enough factor to materially change the overall trend.) Urbanization, like population, has been on a steep, statistical progression upward, and it too will reach a maximum—most likely during the 21st century, and probably somewhat before the peak of population. The greatest geographic redistribution of people in the history of the world will have finished. What does it mean?
A third curve describes history as a mountain of money. Figure 3 shows the evolution of the size of the global economy, measured as the sum of the monetary value of the trillions of exchanges made in the world each year—in economics-speak, this is called the gross domestic product of all nations. The monetary view of history mimics the population and urbanization curves, but at an even greater extremity,: growing so slowly as to be barely noticeable in modern terms for millennia before, as if by a miracle, zooming upward like a rocket, shooting into the 20th century. Long-term projections of the world’s economic future, like this one from PwC, optimistically imagine that the line will continue to go up for as long as we dare to forecast, though how fast the economy will grow and through what mechanisms, no one really knows. It would be great to know how it could be maintained, because, as Thomas Piketty has shown in his book about 21st century capital, investments made on such a steep slope deliver a mighty return (estimated at 4-5 percent per year over the last 100 years). What lies at the root of such tremendous growth? Economists are keen to point to technology, and there is no doubt that technology has delivered wonders. Politicians are fond of talking about bringing jobs and retraining the work force, and indeed, most folks are happier with a job than without one. These are good and worthy ideas and important ones, but at best they are just decorative fixtures atop the true engines of economic growth over the last 250 years: for at work in the factories at the root of the economic mountain are people living and working in cities. Urban people are creative and more often employed at tasks to which they are particularly suited than their rural colleagues; not the least of the urban agglomerative miracles is the provision of a rich diversity of tasks, specialization made manifest. All of which leads one to wonder: if urbanization peaks and population stabilizes or even declines, whence the economy?
Any modern dissection of world history would be incomplete without a plot describing the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide shown in Figure 4. Carbon dioxide can’t be seen, heard, or smelled, but its concentration has almost doubled in the atmosphere over the last 200 years, after having been relatively stable for some 10,000 years prior, all the way back to the last Ice Age. This graph, like the three others, shows a dramatic increase, after a long equilibrium, in about the same time frame as the other three. Carbon pollution is a wicked and unintended side effect of the Industrial Revolution, when some cleverer-than-average types, and their urban friends with money to invest, figured out that there was energy lying around unused in the ground, especially in the form of coal, but also as oil and “natural” gas.
The rise of the modern, mechanized economies based on fossil fuels parallels the assent of population, the movement of people from fields to towns, and the expansion of exchange. Growing populations have required more food to be produced by industrial processes on ever-larger farms cut from forests and grasslands; growing towns have required liberal applications of material and concrete to expand outward; and growing economies have seized on the consumptive advantages of new sources of energy, largely neglecting the smoky wastes that once covered the widening industrial cities with soot. Hence the relentless trend of the carbon curve, bending upwards toward the sky, with no known natural limit except the feedback nature gives in the form of rising sea levels, more intense storms, shifting species, and ever grimmer prognostications from the prophets of climate change.
In recent times, we have entered into a carboniferous terrain not seen in the last 330 million years. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere—just one of the many signals of the environmental sickness of our time—may peak someday, too, and let us all hope that it is sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, we suffer the environmental damages of the last 300 years with the frogs and the fishes and wonder: how can the Earth carry on?
These are the four figures of the modern Apocalypse: (over)population, urbanization, economic stagnation, and climate change. Or so we are told. People have been worrying about population ever since Reverend Malthus pointed out in 1798 that the number of people grew geometrically, while the production of food grew arithmetically, such that starvation was “inevitable” and feeding the poor “useless”. Jean-Jacques Rousseau presaged many a rural philosopher of later years when he wrote “Les villes sont le gouffre de l’espèce humaine”. (“Cities are the abyss of the human species.”) Economic stagnation was the primary concern for Adam Smith, the great economist, who tried to solve it with his notions of the division of labor and the accumulation of capital; even he predicted that after a good 200-year run, the Invisible Hand would falter, because population growth would drive down wages, natural resources would become scarce, and labor can only be divided so far. Smith’s clock started running in 1776, with the publication of the Wealth of Nations, and expired just as Jimmy Carter, a one-time peanut farmer, became President across the sea in the midst of a recession.
Eighteenth century thinkers looking up at the mountains of history from the low foothills of their time, failed to see the fourth curve in the sky with any clarity, but modern environmentalists have more than made up for their historical oversight with terrifying predictions that would cause Malthus, Rousseau, and Smith to shudder in their wigs. It turns out that the climate—long-term patterns in the weather—is much affected by the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (and related gases), which hold heat. From these tiny gas molecules, we owe the blessedly temperate climate that made life on Earth possible in the first place. Unfortunately, an atmosphere with more than desired molecules holds more heat than we want, stirring more powerful storms and less predictable patterns of precipitation, with concomitant effects on fires, floods, agriculture, the availability of drinking water, and so on. The title of a recent textbook succinctly sums it up: Dire Predictions: Understanding Climate Change.
No wonder that electronic book shelves of the late 20th / early 21st centuries heave with books about ends: The End of Nature, The End of Faith, The End of Reason, The End of Normal, The End of Sanity, The End of Wall Street, The End of Oil, The End of Poverty, even The End of History and the Last Man. We also read of the Sixth Extinction, The Big Short (The Doomsday Machine), and the Apocalyptic Planet: Field Guide to the Future of the Earth. Black Swans paddle unseen in the murky future and here comes everybody. (Personally my preference has long been for Where the Sidewalk Ends.)
If studying history has taught us anything, though, it is that history does not end. Rather it stumbles forward, as much happenstance as plan, good or bad for some, in pain or pleasure for others. The war to end all wars did not end wars (in retrospect, it led to the next one.) Capitalism, for all its excesses, has failed to be destroyed by them (yet). The globalization of liberal democracy, celebrated in the halcyon days at the end of the Cold War, has run straight into the buzz saw of terrorism and sectarian divide. And yet, through it all, up ‘til now, the four curves have continued their upward motion, practically unchanged by all the tumult below, like a ball off the bat of some cosmic game.
My belief is that the reason that dark premonitions have found such fertile ground in early 21st century culture—including in the election of Donald J. Trump—is that they reflect the uncertainty we all share about the future. That uncertainty, at its roots, links back to these four cross-sections of global civilization. Wherever people live on planet Earth today, no matter our income or politics, our language or our religion, we all feel how fast human life is changing and share a sinking feeling that it can’t keep going…up. The dynamics of change are so large, they are difficult to conceive; so profound in their consequences, they are practically unconscionable. As a result, in the popular discourse, there is a lot of finger pointing and a lot of talk, but not a lot of meaning. Most of us don’t have the time or the energy to stand back and look at the tableau in its entirety. As one friend recently said to me, “the extent of my time horizon is tomorrow.” And yet, given recent increases in human longevity, it is nearly certain that someone born today, as I’m typing these words, will live to see the peak of history by the end of this century, a mere 84 years away.
So what does all this mean for the nature of cities? A great deal, and more than I can write about in this forum. I’m hoping to find more space to elaborate in a book, but in the meantime, here are a few teasers:
It is often said that the root of all environmental problems is population. What we are coming to realize is that the solution to population is cities. Modern urban living typically means better jobs and healthier lives and more opportunity than rural forms of life, which is the main attraction, but urban lifestyles also entail less space for kids, less need for kids to labor in fields, and more incentive and greater capacity to invest in the kids we’ve got. That’s why, around the world, urbanization goes hand-in-hand with longer lives and smaller families. Cities are the best form of birth control we’ve yet devised: they induce couples for their own inimitable reasons to choose to limit the population growth rate. For towns and cities to be effective agents of the demographic transition, however, they need to be attractive and satisfying places to be, such that they continue to attract immigrants from the hinterlands and retain the populations they already have. Green spaces are part of what make cities livable. And because cities tend to be constructed in places of high biodiversity in the first place, the nature of cities has the potential to make extraordinary natural habitat for people.
What limits urbanization? Unhealthy environments and unemployment could. One reason why cities existed for so long but hardly grew until the nineteenth century is because they were death traps. Concentrating people also concentrates wastes and bugs, the kinds that spread disease. Once human demands are concentrated, cities depend on virtually uninterrupted flows of resources, especially in terms of water, food, and energy. As I wrote about in a previous book, Terra Nova, the good news is that modern science, urban planning, and a willingness to work with, instead of against, nature, can help diminish pollution, reduce consumption, provide clean air and water, and ensure the timely flow of inward-bound necessities. The bad news is that many cities, especially in the developing world, are not investing in cities or nature enough, with the result that poor rural immigrants become slightly less poor, urban dwellers, living in squalid and dangerous slums, when, with the right investment and less corruption, they could be leading better, longer, more productive lives, and having jobs, too. The good news is we know what to do to make this situation better and the sooner we do, the sooner the demographic (and other) consequences of urban life can kick in.
In the long view, cities face entirely different challenges that are difficult to imagine in our current moment of immense growth. Just think: between now and 2100, we may double the size of the urban footprint on Earth. The population will peak at 9 – 10 billion souls, 70-80 percent of whom live in towns and cities. And then it seems possible, even likely where current trends to continue, that the world population will start to go down. (To assume sustained population growth beyond 2100 is either to assume we live much longer than is currently possible, or find a way to reverse the fertility declines of the last 100 years.) One set of projections suggests that if the whole world obtained the demographics of the Western world today, the global population two centuries further on, in 2300, will only be 2.3 billion. That means we will have approximately 80 percent more urban area than we need, which implies that the cities that we are building with such avidity now will have to shrink in the future. Some—perhaps many—may go away entirely. They will surely compete with each other, but in the coming centuries, the competition will be over maintaining population, rather than gathering it. Detroit and Dresden, where disinvestment and vacancy are widespread, are just our first ventures into the global realities of the 22nd century urban life. That may seem like a distant and unlikely prospect, but so our ancestors could never had guessed that by driving to the movies or warming their homes with a coal stove they could eventually change the climate.
There is a lot more to be said along these lines, but I’ll leave you here with this last thought in this Time of Trump: the future, like the past, will not be all good or all bad. It’s really hard to know what will happen, except to say, that like the past, it will be circumstantial, ironic, funny, tragic, stupid, heroic, and unexpected. The only enduring reality is that the future will be built on top of our dreams: how we imagine the future is how the future is made. That’s why I contribute to The Nature of Cities—so that I can dream, with my fellow visionaries, of many voices calling out for better, greener, saner cities in a better, greener, saner world.
I am the mayor of a legacy city, a city that rose and fell on the fluctuations of an industrial marketplace. Like Detroit, Cleveland, and dozens of other cities that have experienced continuous population and job loss since their peak, my hometown of Gary, Indiana, once provided the backbone of the nation’s economy. These cities led the way in educational innovation, architectural design and cultural development. In the 1920s, Gary earned the nickname of Magic City because of its exponential growth. Seventy years later, one half of the city’s population is gone, leaving an overwhelming inventory of vacant and abandoned buildings, a nearly 40 percent unemployment rate and a 35 percent poverty rate in the rear view mirror.
The creation of a “just city” is neither easy work nor for the faint of heart. It requires that public service remain the focus of political leadership.
Despite the devastating statistics, Gary is home to people who continue to remain faithful after others left. These individuals are raising children, purchasing and maintaining homes, pursuing business opportunities and continuing to invest their time, talent and treasure in a city that some said was not worth the energy. These individuals are my neighbors, fellow church members, former teachers and classmates. My “Just City” is dedicated to these legacy residents. Together, we must retool Gary into a city that better serves all of us. This is undoubtedly a complex proposition that requires vision, planning, faith. resilience and cheerleading.
There are times when older residents long for the “good ole days,” but a vision for the future is also essential. History must be incorporated into a plan forward, and for that reason preservation is an integral part of planning in Gary. The award-winning restoration of Marquette Park Pavilion on Lake Michigan and the planned restoration of the City United Methodist Church are two examples of how historic preservation can work in a city’s future. Building on existing assets such as the lakefront, transportation and the proximity to Chicago also fuel a new vision. But the use of non-traditional economic drivers such as art have the potential to be transformative. Recently, city staff, students from the University of Chicago’s Harris School and Theaster Gates’ Place Lab team developed the concept of ArtHouse, a restaurant incubator built around arts and culture. This addresses the void of restaurants in the city by training entrepreneurs, promoting a burgeoning art scene and encouraging the use of an underutilized facility. Collaborations like this must continue.
A “Just City” requires intentional planning which contemplates the participation of all residents in city growth. Political cycles and a society that feeds on instant gratification sometimes turn mayors into emergency responders. Sustainability dictates a deliberate approach to rebuilding. Through planning we ensure sustainability and inclusion while protecting against the changes of political winds. One of the biggest complaints against our administration is that we spend too much money on planning. While we acknowledge that many plans sat on shelves in the past, the adage that those who fail to plan must plan to fail is even truer with cities—especially legacy cities. Gary has been fortunate to have assistance with planning through the White House Strong Cities, Strong Communities designation and the federal Sustainable Communities program; an ongoing collaboration with the University of Chicago and strong relationships with regional and local organizations like the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority, the Northwest Indiana Regional Planning Commission, the Legacy Foundation, the Urban League, the Miller Beach Arts & Creative District and the Central District Organization. We have learned to place a premium on training and technical assistance, a clear shift in the traditional relationship between municipal government and potential funding partners. Historically, Gary and other municipalities have looked to the federal government to simply write a check. While we still accept checks, we understand the benefits derived from planning. This approach has paid dividends through the demolition of the Sheraton Hotel, a brownfield that cast a shadow over downtown Gary for over 20 years, as well as the successful completion of the once-stalled redevelopment at the Gary/Chicago International Airport. That project included a public-private partnership and unprecedented reinvestment by anchor community institutions like the Methodist Hospital, Indiana University Northwest and the Northern Indiana Public Service Company.
But planning won’t succeed without careful stewardship of our environment. One of the greatest challenges facing legacy cities is the multitude of brownfields that create health hazards and eyesores in our communities. The contamination associated with these buildings or vacant spaces pose a quandary to me and to city planners. But as with many challenges, this presents an opportunity to create a greener Gary through employing innovative tools such as deconstruction, waste-to-energy technology and other advanced manufacturing and construction methodologies. A more just city requires that we embrace practices that preserve the environment for future generations and encourage manufacturers, even those that have enjoyed favored status because of their decision to maintain jobs in the city, to take a similar approach. Community loyalty cannot be viewed as a license to continue practices that are not good for the environment. Steel and other industry must retool to meet regulatory requirements and for the health and safety of residents. At the same time, they should be allowed to do so in a manner that achieves a delicate balance between preserving jobs and continued employment of workers while pursuing environmental health and green development.
A “just city” dictates the use of technology and innovation, a fact also driven by resource challenges. Whether it is the use of graduate students as consultants, the use of computer programs designed for Detroit and Cleveland, or garnering better methods of delivering public safety, solid waste disposal and communication with residents, innovation is allowing the city of Gary to close the gap created by declining financial resources. This creates a more just city because it improves outcomes for all who consume government.
Finally, a “just city” empowers and honors residents. The experience of watching your city crumble before your eyes can be disheartening. One might even argue that there is a form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder associated with the decline of cities like Gary, Detroit, Flint, Michigan, and Cleveland. Citizens become hopeless, cynical, angry and even abusive of the public officials who have a sincere desire to help. This may even lie at the base of the violence that plagues many urban communities. Every effort to rebuild a legacy city must include a robust plan to include residents in the rebirth. This approach is more likely to prevent disenfranchised members of the community from feeling that revitalization is occurring around them and without their input. Communities benefit when all citizens enjoy the fruits of growth and revitalization and from the consideration of diverse ideas.
From our use of 311 technology, frequent public forums, “15 minutes with the Mayor” in city hall, and the use of social media, Gary citizens have been encouraged to raise their expectations of local government. While this can be a double-edged sword in a resource-challenged environment, it also provides a degree of ownership that causes residents to be active participants in the rebirth of the community. At the same time, we must assist residents in their need to address the personal challenges associated with poverty and disinvestment in the city. Traditional workforce development tools must be enhanced and often replaced by an aggressive approach to human development that teaches marketable skills and provides remediation whenever and wherever needed. The creation of jobs and the development of skills in proportion to the need of Gary residents has been the Achilles’ heel of our administration. We will never achieve success as a community unless we institutionalize support for African-American men and boys. To continuously allow such a large section of our community to be marginalized defeats our collective purpose.
The creation of a “just city” is neither easy work nor for the faint of heart. Some even consider it thankless. It requires that public service remain the focus of political leadership. The most well-intentioned service is fraught with criticism, pitfalls and missteps. But on my most frustrating day, the delivery of good government to the legacy residents of Gary, Indiana reaps many more rewards than challenges, and consequentially it is my honor and privilege to serve my hometown. Ultimately my definition of a just city is one that provides good government to its citizens.
If I were to ask you where I could find a healthy population of the endangered San Joaquin Kit Fox, you might be forgiven for not immediately saying, “Why, Bakersfield, of course!” Bakersfield? The Oil Capital of California? Yes, the very same!
As it turns out, the big city is not such a bad place for an endangered San Joaquin Kit Fox to raise a family, or several.
Unlikely as it seems, this oil-town-turned-city sprawling at the southern end of the Central Valley—butt of bad jokes and dark fiction in Hollywood, and home to nearly half a million people—has also become a refuge for a growing population of San Joaquin Kit Foxes.
This subspecies of the Kit Fox, found throughout the deserts of the American Southwest, is named after its native San Joaquin Valley home, which it has mostly lost to farming and urban development over the last century. Its population declined so drastically that it became one of the first species to be officially listed as Endangered by the federal government in 1967. Its cousin, the Southern California Kit Fox went extinct in 1903, and the San Joaquin Kit Fox has been pushed to the outer margins as humans have transformed the Central Valley into the agricultural engine of California. This little canid has seemed like a permanent member of the endangered species list through nearly half a century.
Bakersfield Kit Fox. Photo: Tory Westall
In addition to losing habitat, the subspecies also suffered from changes in populations of other carnivores in California: the big bad Wolf was extirpated from the region, allowing the smaller Coyote and Bobcat populations to grow; this has been bad news for the Kit Fox, as both these mid-sized predators prey on the smaller Kit Fox; the introduction of non-native Red Foxes has also meant greater competition for already diminishing habitat. The case of the San Joaquin Kit Fox has seemed like a classic case of a species being sucked into an extinction vortex by the forces of direct and indirect human impacts. But surely, the most visibly extreme way humans destroy native habitats is by building cities. So, how does a little kit fox manage to live and, indeed, thrive in the middle of this urban sprawl?
By the late 1990s, wildlife biologist Brian Cypher of the Endangered Species Recovery Program at California State University, Stanislaus, knew there were a few foxes in Bakersfield, stragglers he thought, that had somehow managed not to die amid development. Watching them more closely, he started noticing that the same individuals (with visible markers identifying them) were apparently holding down home ranges for long periods. He started noticing pups, which meant these individuals were also reproducing. Were they establishing themselves in the city? Thus began Cypher’s long-term research on these urban foxes, which continues to surprise the veteran conservationist.
Just like the humans who build cities, the kit foxes, it turns out, find urban habitats to be safer and more nourishing than the surrounding countryside. The lack of large urban forest patches or wooded areas means that unlike their Chicago cousins, Bakersfield coyotes avoid the city; so do bobcats. The city also provides an endless smorgasbord for a small omnivorous predator, ranging from junk food in garbage that people toss out to more nutritious dog and cat food intentionally supplied by those who like having kit foxes around in their neighborhoods.
An adult Kit Fox in Bakersfield. Photo: Tory Westall
As it turns out, the big city is not such a bad place for an endangered kit fox to raise a family, or several. And they do just that, in abundance. Cypher’s research indicates that while only one in ten of the pups born in the countryside survive past the first year of life, over half of the urban pups survive in Bakersfield. This drop in first-year mortality is one reason why the kit foxes are thriving in the city, with population densities much higher than outside it. While a single pair may occupy two square miles of countryside, in Bakersfield, Cypher and his team have identified (using camera traps) more than 30 individuals living on the local California State University campus alone. Across the city, he estimates there is a population of 400-500 kit foxes that is growing, making Bakersfield home to their 3rd largest remaining population.
Carnivores generally don’t fare well at high densities. Island Foxes stuck in high densities on the Channel Islands, Cypher tells me, “look always torn up, like they are always fighting all the time”. Mainland foxes prefer to keep their distance from each other, maintaining territories through scent marking, and avoiding direct confrontation whenever possible. One might, therefore, “expect more aggression” among Bakersfield’s kit foxes. “But that is not the case here”, says Cypher. The urban kit foxes turn out to be “quite docile, and not as fiercely territorial or aggressive” toward each other. Instead, surprisingly, they seem to be engaged in more cooperative behaviors, especially when it comes to raising pups.
Kit Foxes born in the countryside tend to disperse from their parents to find their own territories within a year or two. While an older pup may linger past the first year and help raise next year’s brood, helpers at the den are rare. In the city, however, Cypher finds a lot more helpers, possibly because there is a steady supply of food in a saturated real estate market with few open territories for young foxes to take over. Why not stick around at home, then, and help raise younger siblings? However, urban kit foxes seem to be going beyond this increase in sociality, which is predicted by mathematical models of social behavior. Cypher and his students have documented at least two cases where two females shared a single den, seemingly became pregnant at the same time, and successfully raised their respective litters together in the same den. This level of cooperation is unprecedented in our knowledge of the natural history of Kit Foxes.
A Bakersfield Kit Fox in 2015. Photo: Christine Van Horn
In collaboration with geneticists from the Smithsonian Institution, Cypher’s team has discovered that the urban population of kit foxes shows high genetic variation, at levels that may surprise conservation biologists. There is some connectivity of habitat near the eastern edge of town, closer to the foothills. Bakersfield kit foxes, however, prefer to remain in town, and even exhibit some unique alleles, i.e., genetic mutations not found elsewhere, which may play some role in explaining the novel traits seen in this urban population.
There is a different downside to the higher density of foxes: the growing incidence of mange over the past three years. Caused by parasitic mites, this skin disease can, if untreated, eventually kill kit foxes through secondary infection, hypothermia from loss of fur, dehydration, and starvation. Cypher is not sure where the kit foxes are getting infected but suspects the mites may be coming from contact with domestic dogs. “It is unlikely to be coyotes infecting foxes,” he says, because “if a coyote encounters a kit fox, the fox ends up dead!” Domestic dogs are often protected from mange through monthly application of tick and flea prevention medication. Researchers from UC Davis are collaborating with Cypher to determine if the mites on mangy kit foxes are genetically similar to ones found in dogs; if so, the infection may be treatable using similar medication. They plan to test whether over-the-counter mange-preventive collars may also work to protect the kit foxes.
Another potential threat is exposure to anticoagulant rodenticides in the city: accidental consumption has been associated with mange in Bobcats in California. Cypher and colleagues have documented worrisome levels of these chemicals in urban kit foxes, with the anticoagulant rodenticides implicated in at least several known deaths. Whether they also make kit foxes more vulnerable to mange remains to be seen. The recent ban on second generation anticoagulant rodenticides may go some way in reducing this risk of urban life for the kit fox.
On the whole, though, the kit foxes continue to thrive in the urban matrix, even serving as vanguards for new urban development. The threat of coyotes and bobcats keeps kit foxes away from farmland, according to Cypher, “except when the land is allowed to go fallow” resulting in growth of shrubs that provide some cover. Such fallow land at the edge of the city is often a precursor to urbanization, but the kit foxes “don’t seem to get pushed out by development, except in really high-density residential areas. School campuses, golf courses, even commercial areas—anything not residential seems to have foxes in them”, says Cypher. They manage to find nooks and crannies within the sprawl to settle in, so that, counterintuitively, “as development grows, so does the fox population!”
Bakersfield’s kit foxes also thrive because people have grown from merely tolerating them to appreciating their presence in the city. Cypher is applying his team’s research to reconcile urban development with the conservation of this endangered native species by advocating for more thoughtful design of urban landscapes. It is possible to develop the city for humans in ways that also provide the necessities of life for an urban kit fox family, and indeed other wildlife. If the domestic dog is our oldest friend, the San Joaquin Kit Fox may yet be our newest friend, giving us hope of surviving the current extinction crisis with at least some of the native wildlife and wild landscapes folded into our brave new, human-built world.
For systems to change, as many inhabitants as possible have to get in the habit of collaboratively pulling in a new direction.
Cities, like nature, consist of complex organisms that evolve. For most of natural and human history change occurred slowly enough for inhabitants to adapt without impacting the overall health and functionality of the underlying natural systems. However, with the advent of industrial-scale technology turning fossil fuels into climate-heating greenhouse gases, organisms shaped and altered by human activity have gone through such rapid transformations that to simply adapt to the changes in our environment can no longer guarantee sustained well-being for most inhabitants.
With the gap between human demand on nature and nature’s capacity to meet that demand at an all-time deficit, the effects of this imbalance are manifesting all around; from the rapid melting of polar sea ice, to the dramatic loss of coral reefs, to severe wildfire seasons such as the one that devastated California last fall. It is thus incumbent upon us, the human species, who have damaged the organisms upon which all life depends through nonrenewable energy-enabled inefficient design of our living spaces and wasteful patterns of overconsumption, to restore the life-sustaining balance of the planet’s ecological budget.
To operate on a large enough scale to reverse the unsustainable infrastructure patterns that make all of its users into unwilling ecological debtors, the most natural place to focus is the largest, most complex and populated artifacts humans have created: cities. We must do this in a way that not only reacts to a deteriorating environment but also turns our cities into engines of restoration for the bioregions within which they reside. This transformation from an extractive to a regenerative entity can only take place with the input and buy-in from as broad a coalition of stakeholders as possible. In other words, for systems to change, as many inhabitants as possible have to get in the habit of collaboratively pulling in a new direction.
Building a coalition of engaged citizens to transform urban spaces in Medellín, Colombia. Photo: Sebastian Sanchez Osorio
This participatory approach to planning is the premise of Peer-to-Peer Urbanism, a practice that provides citizens access to accurate open-source information and knowledge about their built environments, engaging them in decision-making processes as well as in the design and implementation of local solutions. For the past five years, the model has been piloted in cities around the world through Ecocity Builders’ Urbinsight project, bringing together community leaders, local government, academia, open data, and citizens to re-envision their urban spaces.
Residents and Cairo University students exploring water flow in Cairo’s al-Khalifa neighborhood, using urban metabolism information system tools. Photo: Heba Khalil
Using participatory action research methods, GIS mapping, and urban metabolism tools, the pilots have empowered participating low- to middle-income communities to be involved in their own neighborhoods’ transformation. From the research and data collection stages all the way to implementing on-the-ground changes, the peer-to-peer process has enabled participants from Cairo to Lima and Medellín to analyze and map the material flows that are most relevant to their quality of life as well as the overall health of their local urban ecosystems.
In Cusco, Peru, for example, the collaboration between Team Urbinsight and project participants has yielded new insights into and solutions for the city’s waste and consumption patterns. Implemented under the umbrella of the U.S. State Department Office of the Geographer and Global Issues’ Secondary Cities initiative, the participatory research process between residents of the city’s historic neighborhoods, local university students, and city planners provided the city with unprecedented citizen-sourced layers of data, and ultimately resulted in a composting program built for and by the communities.
While the peer-to-peer approach does, and in fact, is designed to vary from city to city depending on each place’s unique physical and sociocultural conditions, Cusco serves as a great window into how the process can play out successfully and in tangible terms; from the knowledge sharing phase all the way to implementation, as laid out in Urbinsight’s educational compendium, the EcoCompass.
Allow me to provide an illustrated look at the chronological stages of community engagement and holistic planning that has taken place in the historical capital of Peru.
The ten steps in the EcoCompass scope of engagement. Credit: Ecocity Builders
Knowledge sharing phase
Through Ecocity Builders’ previous Latin American project partnerships, developed during conferences and other collaborations, Cusco was identified as a pilot city with a diverse range of academic, government and community stakeholders interested in exploring a peer-to-peer process of urban planning. During an initial scoping tour, academic lead, Santos Mera pointed out that a big challenge the City of Cusco faces in dealing with its garbage crisis is that existing government statistics are often superficial, unclear, and outdated, with quantitative information hard to come by. This makes the proposition of obtaining neighborhood-level data, how much garbage is produced, what materials are used, and where things come from, hugely appealing.
Abel Gallegos, assistant manager at Cusco’s regional department of land use planning and Academic Lead Santos Mera from the environmental engineering department at Universidad Alas Peruanas (UAP) scoping out a neighborhood in historic Cusco. Photo: Joshua Castro
After examining available city data and existing conditions on the ground, the partners determined that the four neighborhoods of San Pedro, San Cristóbal, San Blas, and Santa Ana in the city’s historic center are best suited for inclusion in the initial phase of the project, as they could serve as neighborhood archetypes to be replicated elsewhere at a later stage.
Through scoping sessions and word of mouth, the team was connected with neighbors and community groups to discuss citizen concerns and priorities. Partnerships were formed with community organizers like San Pedro’s Gricelda Pumayali Vengoa and Indira Reyes, who also heads Ingenio Verde, a local organization already involved in greening neighborhoods, and an important liaison with community members eager to participate in the project.
A Cusco resident points to the disposable problem. Photo: Joshua Castro
During initial resident and student-led tours of the neighborhoods to map out existing conditions and assess needs, the piles of overfilled plastic bags in streets too narrow for trash collectors to maneuver emerged as a top concern and a consensus built around using the project’s urban metabolism analysis tools to map out material flows and consumption patterns.
A series of professional workshops were held at Universidad alas Peruanas where the team introduced participating faculty, students, local officials, and planners to the ins and outs of creating a dynamic geospatial mapping platform that visualizes multiple data types, along with the tools and methods of the peer-to-peer approach to data collection. Learning the core concepts of GIS and UMIS (Urban Metabolism Information Systems) with guided tutorials, participants set up a case study of their city and neighborhoods based on UN Sustainable Development Goal 11—urban policy.
Urbinsight project managers Sydney Moss and Ashoka Finley introducing participants to geospatial mapping tools. Photo: Joshua Castro
The next step in the process was to bring together the students—trained in conducting environmental audits—with residents of the neighborhoods selected for study, as part of the leadership roundtable. Since a consensus to focus on waste had been reached during previous meetings, the partners decided that the roundtable should also serve as a boot camp; in addition to discussing the community’s specific concerns and priorities, the student teams also conducted quality-of-life surveys and collected consumption and waste data from residents.
Forty-one residents attended the event and completed the surveys documenting their consumption patterns and identifying their knowledge of the materials that pass through their homes. The students came away with new ideas for trash removal and reduction, including adjustments to collection schedules and routes, centrally located collection points, and special public education programs. However, everyone agreed that the most immediate, impactful, and easy-to-implement strategy for reducing the city’s garbage volume and improving citizen’s quality of life would be a low-cost, custom-designed residential composting program.
Community roundtable and neighborhood materials audit in San Pedro. Photo: Sydney Moss
Implementation phase
Ecocity Design Advisor Stephanie Weyer is listening to vecinos from Cusco’s San Pedro and Camino Real neighborhoods during the Phase II kickoff event. Photo: Sydney Moss
To kick off the project’s next phase, over 50 community leaders, city staff, academics, students, and citizen activists gathered for an event facilitated by Urbinsight Project Director Sydney Moss to discuss the program’s methodology and Phase II goals, timeline, and partnerships. Santos Mera recapped how the research conducted during Phase I had led to the compost pilot, and his student team was poised to start gauging interest in the composting program among community members, and to begin the education process for home owners. Luz Palomino Cori, Deputy Director of the Environmental Engineering Department of Universidad Alas Peruanas, explained how these new partnerships strengthen planning decisions for the city in the years ahead.
Fourteen of the community participants volunteered to be part of a household audit to determine the exact composition of the material flows through their homes and businesses. This participation would yield the type of detailed data needed for deeper material analysis. With the help of the students, the residents went through their solid waste, weighing and sorting materials by type—organics, plastics and glass, and paper and cardboard. The data collected showed that 90 percent of San Pedro’s waste could be recycled, with the organic—and thus compostable—rate at 50 percent.
Map of organic waste averages in San Pedro, San Cristóbal, San Blas, and Santa Ana. Image: Cusco Secondary Cities Project Outcomes Map Book Phase II. Click on the image to expand.
While the need for residential composting has been on the radar throughout the project, these findings generate excitement among community members, not only about reducing waste but about creating nutrient-rich soil to use in their gardens. This is where the peer-to-peer process connects the importance of valuable data and knowledge with the broader goal of realigning human conduct in balance with nature. “Our ancestors, the Incas, used the composting method a lot, but unfortunately it was forgotten”, says Virginia Mendigure Sarmiento, one of the participants from San Pedro. “So to reclaim that knowledge and take care of nature again is very gratifying and inspiring”.
San Pedro resident Beatriz Alegría sorting her household waste. Photo: Stephanie Weyer
To obtain more information on spaces that could support compost models, the team conducted a second survey, including questions about the characteristics of housing construction, housing area types, and the number of inhabitants per dwelling. Coordinated with the leaders of each neighborhood, Ecocity Design Advisor Stephanie Weyer, and Ingenio Verde Director Indira Reyes and her youth go from home to home to gauge the level of commitment within the four communities. They explain to those interested what they would need to do to participate in the project and receive feedback on their preferences in modeling styles, what tools they own, and any ideas or concerns they have.
Participant home and store. Photo: Stephanie Weyer
“These students did so much work”, says Weyer. “We walked around, went to all these different stores, negotiating with different people all the time to make this happen. And the communities allowed us into their homes. They let us borrow their tools”!
Based on the information gathered during the surveys, the community leaders and students gathered to design models for the composting units. They decided on two low cost, easy to build options for residents to choose from—a rotary model or vermicomposting bin. After collecting and buying the materials, joined by the residents and future composters, they assembled ten vermicompost and seven rotator units during the first round of construction.
Students and residents collaborating on constructing a rotator model. Photo: Stephanie Weyer
But the work was far from done. With the units up and running, the students and members of Ingenio Verde stopped by participating households once or twice a week, checking on pH value, temperature, humidity, and size of organic matter, comparing decomposition rates for each model and saving the data for further research. They also attended various public events and street fairs to demonstrate the models and spread the word about the project throughout other communities in Cusco.
The UAP and Ingenio Verde teams demonstrating their composting models at the Wanchaq Green Ingenuity Fair. Photo: Joshua Castro
Within a week of installing the 17 composting models built in the pilot phase, community members reduced organic waste by 95 kilograms (about 200lbs). The team is proud that this 95 kg of materials will not end up in the streets or waterways, but will instead help nourish plants and gardens, and even has the potential to earn people money. They calculate that if the municipality continues to raise awareness of the composting opportunities and the project is replicated and scaled up among the 15,000 residents of Cusco’s historic neighborhoods, over 60,000 kg of organic waste each week could produce positive impacts for the community and the environment, instead of ending up in the dump or the stomachs of rats, flies, and dogs that transmit diseases.
Being able to make such projections through working with the neighborhood level material flow data generated by the household audits and environmental surveys is just one of the benefits of the peer-to-peer process. As Santos Mera points out, a less measurable yet perhaps more valuable asset of the participatory method is the synergy generated between different urban demographic groups that might pass each other by in more conventional approaches to urban planning. “Here we have citizens who know about local problems, needs, and information gaps, collaborating with academics who can help with the research and create a proposal, which is reviewed, refined and approved by city managers who have been connected to the communities and the research from the get-go”.
Academic and community leaders presenting their team report. Photo: Joshua Castro
As for those city managers like Abel Gallegos, getting such detailed, bottom-up, crowdsourced neighborhood data is quite a treat. It enables the city to make informed decisions on where to direct its resources as well as build its capacity to integrate broader underlying parameters like ecosystems or climate change into city management.
“A fundamental outcome of the surveys was to focus our interventions on the separation of materials because that allows us to determine where to reduce, where to reuse, and where to recycle”, says Gallegos. “And knowing that 50 percent of our total stream is organic makes composting into the highest impact intervention to optimize the city’s solid waste management”.
Virginia Mendigure Sarmiento demonstrating her rotating compost model in action. Photo: Joshua Castro
Ultimately, for a large-scale transformation of resource management to take place, engaged citizens will need all the support they can get from their local government. As far as San Pedro composter and activist Virginia Mendigure Sarmiento is concerned, one of the key objectives of the project is to work with the provincial municipality to ultimately insert it into an ongoing process of participatory planning. “With the proof of concept we now have, the only thing we need is the political will to raise environmental awareness among aspiring civil servants and for that awareness to turn into policy at the town hall level”, Sarmiento says.
She is convinced that this kind of focus on education is the most cost-effective way to deal with Cusco’s mounting garbage problem in the long term.
“In order to scale up composting and recycling in the communities, authorities have to do more than just tell people to stop throwing away and start sorting their trash. They have to help them understand that these practices also improve the conditions of our planet”.
If we want to conserve species inside cities, we need to develop better plans to protect larger natural habitats, at scales species need.
How big is your house and property? Is it smaller or larger than you want it to be? Or is it just the right size? Do your house and property give you all that you need? Do you live in a neighborhood with many neighbors or not enough? Are your neighbors at the right distance, or too far or close than you want? The responses to these questions make it clear in several cases that we decide to move from our actual house and neighbor to a new one or to stay where we are. But, why am I asking this to you? It is because animals respond to similar types of questions to decide where to establish a territory (have a house) or if to stay in the established territory. And have you ever wondered how big or small the territories of the animals are? Or if individuals of the same species have territories of similar size? Or if animals living inside cities have smaller or larger territories than animals in natural habitats such as national parks or larger forest areas?
Before I go in-depth on the previous questions and provide some examples, I would like to bring attention to how scientists measure animals’ territory size and why this is so important from a conservation perspective. To measure territory size in animals it is necessary to individually identify the animal. To do this, scientists use marks that allow them to recognize each individual and then follow each individual to determine which is the habitat area they use. For example, radio collars are used to mark large mammals (e.g., bears, lions, hyenas, wolfs, monkeys, or elephants), birds (e.g., eagles, turkeys, geese, toucans, parrots, or ducks), or reptiles (turtles, crocodiles, or snakes). Each radio collar transmits a unique signal to the receptor (an antenna) that follows the area used by each individual. For small animals (beetles, butterflies, frogs, birds, lizards, mice, or squirrels), it is most common that the use of color bands, color rings, or color marks visually allows identifying each individual and mark using a GPS where the animal is. Finally, with the reduction in the size of microchips and their cost (not enough yet), it was possible to develop transmitters that could be detected using cell phone towers or satellites and obtain the position of the individuals in real-time. Actually, these types of studies have increased in importance due to the destruction of natural habitats associated with agricultural or urban development because it produces a reduction of the natural area available to establish a territory. This reduction of natural areas means that animals also reduce their numbers because they did not fit in the available area, consequently reducing the population size of each animal. However, not all animal species are decreasing in numbers since the creation and expansion of urban areas increases the availability of this novel habitat (have less than 6000 years of existence) and the group of animal species associated with this habitat (e.g., mice, rats, pigeons, foxes, sparrows, starlings, raccoons, etc.) increase too.
Coming back to the original questions about territory size, how big is the territory in bird species that love urban areas compared to the territory size in natural habitats? And how big is the territory in bird species that love natural areas compared to the territory size in urban habitats? Well, we expect that urban species have larger territories in urban areas because they are the preferred habitat and smaller territories in natural habitats and because the availability of the right habitat inside natural habitats is reduced. On the other hand, we expect larger territories in natural areas for species that prefer natural habitats to live in compared to the territories they will have inside cities. However, as happens many times in science, things are not as it is supposed to be, at least for three bird species in Costa Rica. The first species is the House Wren (Troglodytes aedon) which, in the tropics, is a very common bird in urban areas with gardens and isolated bushes and trees, and not very common close to natural areas such as forests.
House Wren Troglodytes aedon a species that take advantage of humans to modify habitats inside cities (for example the nest in the wall gap in the picture) and for that reason have smaller territories than in rural or natural areas. Photos: Leandro Arias (adult bird), Luis Sandoval (nest)
The second and third species are the White-eared Ground-sparrow (Melozone leucotis) and Cabanis’s Ground-sparrow (Melozone cabanisi) that prefer very dense vegetation areas (e.g., thickets, young secondary forest, and forest edges) to inhabit and inside cities this is very rare.
Cabanis´s Ground-sparrow Melozone cabanisi an endemic bird species of Costa Rica, that have larger territories in urban areas because the vegetation in those places are open and lack food resources that are more common in its natural habitats as in the picture. Photos: Luis Sandoval
These three species showed larger territories in the less preferred habitats, the House Wren had larger territories in natural habitats, and the White-eared and Cabanis’s Ground-sparrows inside cities, contrary to our expectation. This may happen because, in less preferred habitats, obtaining resources (e.g., enough good food and nesting materials) is harder, because plants they use to eat do not produce enough fruits and seeds and are less common, insects that are part of the diet also decrease because we apply a lot of chemicals to control them inside cities or do not plant the correct plants for them to occur. Therefore, birds need to have larger territories to survive and reproduce.
So, this unexpected result about territory size inside cities for species that occurs previously but, after the city development decreases in number, it is worrying. This is because they are rare (lower abundance) and need larger territories to survive, two characteristics that increase the probability to disappear from the remaining natural habitats inside cities. Therefore, if we want to conserve those species inside cities, we need to develop better plans to protect larger natural habitats or to increase the amount of plants birds need to eat or attract insects they need. Between the things we can do are:
To create or maintain a lower vegetation stratum in parks, because the majority of parks only have grass and trees, and a lot of species need bushes and small trees to survive.
To maintain the leaves on the ground, because those leaves are houses of many insects that are the main food source for birds, lizards, or small mammals; and also produce nutrients for plants.
To promote the creation of natural corridors between natural vegetation patches or parks to allow the animals to move and have access to more resources.
To plan a large variety of natural plants in houses and building gardens, because as larger the plant diversity larger the probability of providing food and refuge to more animal species.
Juárez, R., M. P. Angulo Irola, E. M. Carman & L. Sandoval. 2021. Territory size, population density, and natural history of Cabanis’s Ground Sparrow, an endemic species found in urban areas. Ornithology Research 29:227-239.
Juárez, R., E. Chacón-Madrigal, & L. Sandoval. 2020. Urbanization has opposite effects on the territory size of two Passerine birds. Avian Research 11:1-9.
Every month we feature a Global Roundtable in which a group of people respond to a specific question in The Nature of Cities.
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Hover over a name to see an excerpt of their response…click on the name to see their full response.
Jennifer Adams, New York Collaborative/participatory art is an expression of lived experience and cannot be described separately from the urban green spaces in which it is produced.
Pippin Anderson, Cape Town Nature-related graffiti checks the boxes of art that supports urban nature. We need more though, and to this end we must nurture the artists who produce it and foster a culture of dissidence and provocation with respect to nature in our cities.
Marielle Anzelone, New York PopUp Forest: Times Square will give visitors an immersive natural area experience in the most iconically un-natural place on the planet. We will transform a public plaza in Times Square into a large-scale temporary nature installation.
Stephanie Britton, Byron Bay Trends towards collaborative work where art and science intersect can open up startling new possibilities for artists to influence the thinking of the gatekeepers of public art.
Pauline Bullen, Harare In Harare, Zimbabwe where I have been living for the past year, I have strolled through and driven past community flower, art and sculpture gardens and have had the pleasure of observing much that is astonishingly beautiful
Tim Collins, Glasgow I would like to ask the reader to entertain the idea that urban nature has robust experiential value and can have eco-system authenticity but it primarily serves as a cultural ecology. Its power emerges in dialogue with images and media, narratives, scientific characterization and actual experience with exurban nature.
Emiio Fantin, Milan Artists working in urban public spaces, or in natural contexts, have an innately different approach from those work in the solitude of private studios. Artists working in public spaces must deal with an array of diverse and uncontrolled quantities – with the agency of people, environment, soil, pollution, the weather and so on.
Lloyd Godman, Melbourne By working with plants as a medium and utilizing existing architectural infrastructure, artists can effect change in urban nature and green spaces
Julie Goodness, Stockholm How can we spur our fellow city residents to make their own creative expressions and entreaties about their hopes for the city? One interesting possibility is participatory art.
Noel Hefele, New York Art expands the dialogue between nature and culture from which the world is perceived and understood by gathering senses of alternate value and aesthetic appreciation.
Todd Lester, San Paolo An restaurant-artist collabortation in San Paolo to create community.
Patrick Lydon, San Jose & Seoul I believe it is critically important to also recognize—especially if we are to be mindful of nature and ecological working habits— that physical pieces needn’t always be case and point for urban art.
Elliott Maltby, New York Knowledge + awareness are not sufficient catalysts for change, art must embrace collaboration, embodied participation + the mysterious
Mary Miss, New York Our aim is to advance public understanding of the natural systems and infrastructure that support life in the city. Its strategies are grounded in place-based experience that make sustainability personal, visceral, tangible, and encourages citizen and governmental action.
Lorenza Perelli, Chicago These interdisciplinary projects relate urban planning, art and design to nature. They all support alternative mode of living through an innovative reuse of the public spaces, fostering a new model of participatory practices, such as self organized planning realized by citizens, artists and designers for the common goods.
Stephanie Radok, Adelaide Art is always potentially a bearer of the conscious recognition of sharing the world with other life forms, animate and inanimate, past and present.
Lisa Terreni, Wellington Exhibitions create opportunities for reflection, ongoing debate, and generate ideas for change. Environmental art interventions are often uplifting and inspiring.
Shawn Van Sluys, Guelph The power of sound lies in its potential for displacing the ordinary—its immediacy in our consciousness and its gradual lending of coherence to our understanding of place.
Jennifer D. Adams is an associate professor of science education at Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, CUNY. Her research focuses on STEM teaching and learning in informal science contexts including museums, National Parks and everyday settings.
How can art be better catalysts to raise awareness, support and momentum for urban nature and green spaces? This was a hard question for me to address because of the way art, urban nature and green space are positioned vis-à-vis each other as if they are separate, however both subjugated to some dominant discourse of the role of art and nature in urban contexts. The question seems to position art and nature at the margins of urban life and one is needed to raise the awareness of the other. However, as bell hooks notes, agency is at the margins because it is here that a discourse that is created that is counter to the dominant discourses of power and causes us to rethink the kinds of relationships that we have not only with each other but also with the places in which we enact our daily lives. Urban nature and green spaces are these places. Art happens in these places. These places exist and are in our awareness, however this awareness may not look like what the dominant discourse of environmental awareness dictates.
Embodiment of art and nature
Sunday morning, a circle of grain marks a sacred space. A gentle pulse builds to a strong beat. The pulsing of the Earth resonates in the rhythm of drummers’ hands on skin rising up and filling the space between the trees. Dancing feet pick up dust as moving bodies, twirl and jump, marking time with the rhythms of the Earth. In the sacred circle, “places, memory, experience, and identity are woven together over time.” In this space, time collides, moves and stands still. The expression of it all is in a breath, a breath that circulates carbon and oxygen and connects living and non-living beings.
The art that I describe here is a participatory art that happens in an urban green space. It is a weekly drumming circle that draws dancers, drummers and appreciators into the space to create a collaborative and fluid expression of art. The location of the circle, in a public green space, is essential to the production and is a part of the creation of the art. This art cannot be described separately from the space in which it occurs or the place it creates. “Dancing bodies accumulate spirit, display power and enact as well as disseminate knowledge,” notes dance scholar Yvonne Daniels. These dancing and drumming bodies create a sacred space, in an urban green space, that connects them to the present community and to communities past and future, transcending the time-space continuum. Mos Def describes African art as functional art, “it serves a purpose. It’s not a dormant. It’s not a means to collect the largest cheering section. It should be healing, a source a joy. Spreading positive vibrations.” For Mos Def and many others, art is not a separate product from the culture that produces it but rather it is intertwined with the daily lived experiences of people who come together and participate in its production. It is also connected to the spaces in which it is produced, in fact art, as a process, creates places and some of these places are what we are calling urban green space and urban nature in this roundtable.
Art is how people connect with green spaces. We sometimes take for granted those participatory forms of art—drumming, dancing, singing, cultural rituals—of which green spaces are an important context for them to occur.
I included a vignette of Drummer’s Grove in Prospect Park because it has been a part of my lived experience as a life-long resident of Brooklyn and it is an example of collectively produced art that represents embodied culture and identity and is not separate from the green space in which it is both produced and enacted. Although West African drums and drumming style dominate the circle, you can also find drums that are representative of indigenous people and other diasporas that find themselves connected to this park—Native American, Middle Eastern, Indian and Celtic to name a few. Thus the art is representative of the urban green space in which it is produced and belongs to anyone who visits the sacred circle.
Art reflects who we are and our relationships to place
As a scholar who is interested in understanding the different relationships people form with places and the relationship to identity, I do not view green space and nature as separate from urban life. It sets up a false human/nature dichotomy and positions urban life as something unnatural. It forces us to use language around raising awareness, support and momentum without asking from whose perspective are we speaking; in other words what does this awareness look like in action? Is this along the lines of the dominant discourse of pro-environmental behaviors and preservation of nature (as if it were something to be viewed, like from behind glass and not to be engaged with)? From the perspective of art, is this only the art that is sanctioned, sponsored, commissioned to “catalyze” a particular view of the environment?
As we enter the new age of human impact, that some are calling the Anthropocene, we need to rethink our relationship to the Earth and this includes in the urban spaces that we occupy. We not only need to think about the different kinds of relationships that people have with their environment, but also the different ways that green spaces appears in urban environments—it ranges from large, manicured parks, to wildlife preserves to small patches of trees and grass that dot the sidewalks, and includes the humans and non-humans who interact with and create these range of places. All of these spaces make up the fabric of urban life. And while there may be a taken-for-grantedness towards urban “nature,” because it is all around us, just like certain art forms are all around us, maybe the awareness we need to raise is that of honoring diversity in all of the ways it is present. Urban spaces, grey or green, allow us to do this in authentic ways. Perhaps more attention to the arts as expressions our place-relationships will allow us to broaden our perspectives about the different ways we connect to our world.
Pippin Anderson, a lecturer at the University of Cape Town, is an African urban ecologist who enjoys the untidiness of cities where society and nature must thrive together.
FULL BIO
Caracal cat Salt River, Cape Town. Photo: Pippin Anderson
Graffiti is generally an illicit or prohibited art form, which when combined with the frequently anonymous nature of graffiti, makes it inherently provocative. Graffiti is no gallery-selected piece, or municipal-funded art project, but the work of an individual who feels the need to make some sort of publically visible ‘statement’. The rationale for graffiti are numerous (see here) but true to all graffiti is that it is visible to a broad sector of the public, which, combined with its frequently provocative nature, makes it a very powerful medium.
In the City of Cape Town there is a fair plethora of nature-based graffiti with depictions of wild life, mountain-scape scenes, and commentary on conservation concerns dotted around the walls of the City. Here the need seems to be primarily a drawing-in of nature to the City, and a demand to engage in or be aware of conservation issues. The audience seems to be both the citizens as well as the authorities. There is a call for renewed engagement and energy from the people of Cape Town, and simultaneously a demand for a more accessible, integrated, available, and people-owned nature in the City. It seems to me it is just the kind of art in question here: the sort that raises awareness, support and momentum for urban nature and green spaces.
Man in Zebra costume. Woodstock, Cape Town. Photo: Pippin Anderson
The question of how to make this art form a better catalyst for urban nature is a tricky one and probably comes down to a simple promotion of more of the kind of work already underway. Support in the form of legitimization could detract from the status graffiti has as ‘unsolicited public voice’ and ‘anti-authority’. Nature-based graffiti really takes both nature and art out of the realm of the middle-class and I think this aspect of graffiti is where the power and potential lies in allowing a different voice to enter a realm, certainly in Cape Town, that is often seen as elitist.
Seoul lamp. Photo: Pippin Anderson
Perhaps what is needed is philanthropic support for those artists who work in this space. For example funded global exchange programmes, conversations between artists and ecologists, and nature-based graffiti art competitions, could all boost the scope and capacity of this community of artists. The difficulty here is that the anonymous and often transient nature of graffiti makes it unappealing to most funders who look for ‘bang for their buck’ with the kind of metrics unlikely to be found in an art work that must be anonymous, un-fettered, and might be erased overnight be vigilant anti-graffiti authorities. I think the dividends however in reaching many people are high, but not captured by standard metrics.
Strelitzia flower (South Africa’s national flower) in Salt River, Cape Town. Photo: Pippin Anderson
It would seem that the volume of nature-based graffiti in the City of Cape Town is somewhat higher than in other cities around the word, and it is possible there is something South African going on here. A long history of anti-government sentiment, and an associated disregard for authority, a pride in taking action, the circumstance of a country with significant natural biodiversity, and the process of giving voice to the voiceless might be a combination that is a South African legacy.
So a final note on how to sustain and grow this informative art form would be to foster these elements of civic engagement, especially among the youth where a natural inclination to rabble-rousing could be put to good effect with ongoing exposure to nature to develop a sense of custodianship which would in turn inform creative and artistic outputs.
Marielle Anzelone is an urban ecologist whose work centers on people’s daily connections with nearby nature and the role that design, education, and government can play in fostering this relationship. She is the founder and executive director of NYC Wildflower Week—an organization that produces cultural and educational programming to engage urbanites with the wilds of the Big Apple.
I’d like to be able to say that I was inspired to create a public art project for lofty reasons. To reconnect urbanites with nature, for example. Or to build more habitat for wildlife. And while these elements are fundamental to the project, the actual catalyst was much less prosaic.
The inspiration for my art was frustration.
Our cultural zeitgeist has a design fetish. We swoon over celebrity architects and devote television shows to fashion designers. Anything transformed by human hands is deemed cool and sexy, including built landscapes. Cities are a favorite canvas because they are defined as lacking nature. Here landscape architects, among others, are keen to conjure urban forests, introduce native wildflowers, and restore ecological function. But cities are not a clean slate. Not even New York City.
It is easy to forget that modern New York City exists because of the abundant greenery that once defined it. Early Dutch sailors reported being disoriented by the scent of wildflowers wafting out to sea from Manhattan. Certainly no one has that experience today.
And yet, amazingly, forests, marshes and meadows have survived. Today, natural areas cover nearly one-eighth of the Big Apple, more than any other city in North America. Despite this rich natural heritage, New York City’s iconography is limited to taxi cabs, the Empire State Building, and Jay-Z—all hardscapes and humans. With nature excluded, original green spaces get little funding or attention and worse, are often threatened with development.
New York City’s natural areas consist of wildflowers, insects, soils, trees, sedges, and birds that evolved in situ over thousands of years. That kind of complexity is impossible to mimic in a built park. Red oaks brought in from nurseries in Michigan have different genotypes than our extensive local populations. In the drive to make their mark, designers largely overlook opportunities to support what we already have.
For example, the Red Admiral butterfly is a migratory species and pulses of them flock through New York City every spring. The same is true of other insects and many birds. Large natural spaces provide a mosaic of habitats to sustain a variety of wildlife. The trouble is no one designs with this in mind. When local forests are lost to ball fields or big box stores, all of that is lost too.
The problem is further compounded by location—reserves of open space tend to be far from our everyday lives—and out of sight is out of mind. The lack of civic interest in local conservation issues gave me an idea. To spark the public’s imagination, I needed to introduce ecology into the dialogue of urban design. My solution is PopUp Forest: Times Square.
PopUp Forest: Times Squarewill give visitors an immersive natural area experience in the most iconically un-natural place on the planet. We will transform a public plaza in Times Square into a large-scale temporary nature installation. Filled with towering trees, native wildflowers, and mosses and ferns underfoot, it will bring a piece of wildness to the heart of Manhattan.
The installation will feature guided woodland walks, interpretive signs, and hands-on educational activities. It will provide habitat for migratory springtime warblers and vireos and Red Admiral butterflies. Street noises will be muffled, and wildlife sounds will be piped in live from nearby woods. Then after three weeks—it’s gone.
This full sensory experience will open our eyes to the wild elements that share our urban home. I want this art to not only encourage people to rethink the way we aim to ‘green’ New York City, but also shake up our ideas of what cities ultimately can be.
Click here to learn more about PopUp Forest: Times Square. Or contribute.
Algae hacking, the Plastiphere and living off thin air
Artists who make work dealing with the natural environment do this sometimes in galleries with installations about water use, plants, forestry, loss of habitat, species extinction etc. The context of these installations is crucial to their knock on effect. If they take place in a typical precious white cube space the effect is minimal. If in a regional or less polished space they have more impact as a wider range of people actually see them, and the discussion framework around them is more likely to involve other artists, biologists, gardeners, activists, ecologists and lead to fruitful synergy and collaborations. White cube installations are seen first as a commodity on sale to a collector—whether that be a museum or an individual—and the ecological subject is the secondary message that comes through. Despite the fact that the artworks are laudable and interesting they are all too often limited to being attractive things with plants and water—with or without olfactory or tactile elements—rather than a means of opening up of new awareness and effecting change.
An example of the opposite was Michael Harkin’s piece at Bendigo Art Gallery in the state of Victoria, Australia, which used the town water supply data flow to reveal how much water was being used in real time by the citizens of this medium sized Australian city. The fact that it was created towards the end of one of the region’s longest droughts provided the element of urgency, and the uncomfortable sensation of witnessing the casual waste of the precious water that remained in the dams. Visitors to the Gallery stood spellbound in front of the endlessly changing data display which was sensitive enough to reveal when taps were turned on and off, toilets flushed, washing machines set in motion. The electronic sequences were translated into a work of sound and light playing on elements in the gallery suggesting traditional water tanks.
Guerilla gardens have sprung up in Sydney and Melbourne and other cities, and sometimes these are condoned, even supported by local councils, but often they have a limited life. There are examples of architects working with artists to realise works of public art which incorporate living green, but they are few and far between, and are either so abstracted that they are not perceptible as real plant life, or they are so fragile and vulnerable that they disappear after a short time.
Sustainability is the hallmark of the work of artist Lloyd Godman (who also writes in this collection of essays) who grows bromeliads which only need air to live. He has created large pieces of public art in Melbourne which hang in space or are attached to buildings, made up of these air plants. The difference between this and other attempts at greening the city is that they are designed to last indefinitely. The plants are capable of living for many years, and their slow pace of growth means that they become thoroughly self sustaining. The battle that such artists have to wage to persuade city managers to strike out into these domains of public art, can be daunting for most individuals in the West, where the public domain is massively regulated and controlled by layers of traditional thinking.
Working within a somewhat different set of parameters, Belgian artist Ivan Henriques has created a series of what he calls ‘Symbiotic Machine’ (SM) which engage photosynthesis in an intriguing way.
“SM is the creation of a prototype for an autonomous system that can achieve the basic needs of life: be able to find its own food to have energy to search for food again. This bio-machine hacks the electrons provided by the photosynthetic process that occurs in the algae spirogyra. This specific algae is abundant in the Dutch landscape—mainly found in ponds and canals—a filamentous organism that releases oxygen during the photosynthetic process, in turn creating bubbles which make this filamentous mesh of algae float.
“In order to ‘hack’ the algae spirogyra photosynthesis and apply it as an energy source, the algae cell’s membrane has to be broken. The SM prototype was designed within the disciplines of engineering, biotechnology, art and design to accomplish a condition—to make photosynthesis to continue its life cycle (1), like a plant.” [1]
This kind of work, known as Bio Art, is breaking the boundaries of art and green thinking, where the very matter of biology and the definition of ‘plant’ is opened up so that machine and plant can become one, and not only can life be sustained by a symbiosis of the two worlds, but, in theory at least, this can be used to clean watercourses which have been polluted. Could this new frontier be a way of thinking about how self-sustaining ‘biological design’ could enter the urban fabric? [2]
Another Bio Art practitioner, Pinar Yoldas, (Berlin) proposes that the gyres of plastic that have formed in the South Pacific challenge us to contemplate the coming of a ‘Plastisphere’—an ocean zone in which a new species will evolve from the minute particles to which the world’s trash has been reduced by the action of the waves. This new species will have its own nature parallel to the plant and animal kingdoms.
“Scientists from Brown University and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution recently came up with the term ‘Plastisphere’ to describe the transformation of our marine ecosystems into a human-made plastic soup that generates new organisms and new microbial reefs even on the smallest plastic particles. Pinar Yoldas moves from observation and documentation to speculation to present a colourful future scenario that has its origins in the past and will continue to run its course no matter what.” [3]
One might speculate what could happen if China’s fast tracking of ecocities from the ground up or adapting existing cities like Chengdu, were to take on board the inventive projects of artists working with self sustaining natural elements.
A life cycle with functions was idealised in order to program the machine and activate independent mechanical parts of the stomach: it has to eat, move, sunbath, rest, search for food, wash itself, in loop.
Pauline E. Bullen, PhD, currently teaches in the Sociology and Women and Gender Development Studies Department at the Women’s University in Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe.
I have recently moved from New York City where artists continually reclaim urban spaces marked by age, dust and dirt with dynamic wall art (graffiti or street art), performance art and more and their works are often found side by side with thriving community gardens, parks and playgrounds. Works appearing in varied venues, such as community gardens often facilitate interactions amongst people and between people and spaces, in richer, more spiritual and dynamic ways.
In Harare, Zimbabwe where I have been living for the past year, I have strolled through and driven past community flower, art and sculpture gardens and have had the pleasure of observing much that is astonishingly beautiful, such as the lavender and purple glory of the Jacaranda trees in September and October, and sculpture gardens open to the public such as one that exists on the grounds of the National Gallery which features large and dynamic works by artists like the internationally renowned Dominic Benhura, who captures forms and feelings in ways that are incredibly real. I however, have also noted a great deal of waste and neglect primarily as a result from misuse and divergence of public funds. As a result the majority of individuals and whole families scramble for clean water, not to water the beautifully manicured lawns that some are privileged to maintain but to feed them selves. With better regulation and use of funds, government commitment to provide jobs, accessibly clean water, improved roads and transportation system, more frequent and reliable garbage collection, a community clean up campaign to build awareness and co-operation amongst the people regarding the health benefits of clean and green (less toxic) spaces would perhaps then be impactful. There may then be more respect for areas, including rivers, which become garbage dumps. There might be less frequent fires—fires to burn garbage and fires indiscriminately set that destroy trees, shrubs and grasses but also chase out wildlife in order to feed poverty and hunger in this country with its 90% unemployment rate. Throughout Zimbabwe works of art appear in well manicured front and backyard gardens, in areas deemed to be “high density” and in villages in the countryside and it appears that the general population barely ‘see’ there significance or notice their presence as they scramble to survive.
In the National Gallery of Zimbabwe there are permanent and temporary installations that demonstrate the creative and recreative nature of the people and speak to a number of current issues that trouble the community—gender based violence, child marriages and more. Permanent installations can also speak to a vision of a cleaner and greener urban center. A recent visit to one relatively small gallery in Harare allowed students to view landscapes commissioned by artists who were able to capture the varied nature of lands in particular parts of the country and the students were tasked to think about what scenes they, as artists, would want to highlight in their works—scenes that would not feed racist and voyeuristic ideas of a primitive Africa only suitable for safaris.
Another recent exhibition took individuals on a walking tour of the city to view original art works hung in varied and unexpected sites, a barber shop, the lobby of a hotel or government office, bus depots, supermarkets and more. It was said that, “artists were invited to submit an alternative reality through lens-based media”. In a huge plot next door to a shopping center I frequent, a gazebo was erected from recycled coca cola cans. There, works are developed from stone, wire, rubber, fabric and scrap metal, and all of these speak to a profound connection between the people, their surroundings and their fundamental need to provide even the basics for themselves and their families.
Projects like these and many more, may be adapted to interrogate the reasons for the deterioration of the ‘grey’ areas of the city and to promote the need for co-operative ‘green’ spaces.
The Collins + Goto Studio is known for long-term projects that involve socially engaged environmental art-led research and practices; with additional focus on empathic relationships with more-than-human others. Methods include deep mapping and deep dialogue.
Reiko Goto and I have moved back and forth from urban postindustrial sites to natural exurban sites in our art, ecology and planning practice for over thirty years. As artists we engage the world in cultural terms working with ideas, perception, experience and value. Current work engages plant physiology and the ecology of the human body as well as landscape. I would like to ask the reader to entertain the idea that urban nature has robust experiential value and can have eco-system authenticity but it primarily serves as a cultural ecology. Its power emerges in dialogue with images and media, narratives, scientific characterization and actual experience with exurban nature. The value of intimate daily experience and inter-relationship with nature cannot be minimized.
Living in Scotland these days I feel like Patrick Geddes and Ian McHarg are always nearby; they differ from others involved in landscape, art and planning through an essential interest in embedded and embodied experience rather than a distanced gaze, a visual relationship to the world around us. Below you will find a few thoughts from recent writing after spending a year working with the social scientist David Edwards and a group of scientists, land managers artists, humanities experts and resident community interests, thinking about an ancient semi-natural forest in the Highlands of Scotland.
A few ideas for a critical Forest Art Practice
—Establish a model for art with forests rather than in forests. Considering the process, method and form of art as ephemeral forest interface and as a correspondent image that works across the urban and the rural.
—Experiment with the idea of empathic exchange between people and trees, to consider the ways that trees and forest embody culture and how people embody the forest in daily life, regular practices or celebrations.
—Consider how art might contribute to the potential well-being or prosperity of a tree or forest community in the age of environmental change.
The Forest is Moving: Tha a’ Choille a’ Gluadad’, Collins & Goto Studio with Beathag Mhoireasdan, (2013).
Thinking and being with the Black Wood of Rannoch, Scotland
In 2014, the Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) was selected by the Scottish Government to be the national tree of Scotland, yet the social and cultural relationship to the Caledonian pinewood ecosystem is limited. It is neither an image nor a concept that has much traction in archives and museums or parks and botanic gardens in the cities of Scotland. It is an icon lost in time without a body or image for most urban Scots. As the southern-most large (only one of ten that are more than 1000 hectares) Caledonian pine forest, the Black Wood survived (where others did not) due to isolation and a lack of access. There is one road in and out of Rannoch on its eastern end, and a train line on its western end. Whether one arrives by train, car, foot or bicycle, most will struggle to find the Black Wood of Rannoch.
During the rut, nights in Rannoch resound with the calls of the stags, one quickly realizes this is a place where there are more deer than people (although this was not always trues.) There is one Forestry Commission sign identifying the Black Wood, it is easily missed, as it is set back and parallel to the Loch road. Another can be found a half-mile down a dirt road at the western edge of the Dall Estate. The Black Wood borders the southern shore of Loch Rannoch; between Dall Burn to the east and Camghouran Burn three miles to the west. To get into the forest one follows any one of four trails that move in a southerly direction. One enters the Black Wood moving gently uphill, the forest is alternately open and closed with a mix of birch and pine, and some rowan and juniper, all growing across a range of age classes from saplings to mature trees. The most memorable trees of the Black Wood are the 200-300 year old ‘granny pines’ with their sprawling limbs. One is immediately struck by the forest and its relationship to a curious topography; a mix of small glacial ‘moraine’ deposits or hillocks with a never-ending repetition of smaller hummocks of thick blaeberry, cowberry, bracken and heather. The hummocks are vegetation formed over large rocks and tree stumps, creating an unusual ‘lumpy’ forest floor that adds texture to the rolling mound-and-hollow topography. But it is the granny pines that are worth talking about: why are they here and why so many of them? What is the relationship between these broad branched trees, and the traditional foresters’ ideal of a tall straight trunk?
Moving through the forest along the western-most trails the casual walker will notice changes to topography, the small hills and valleys of the moraine field. This can also be understood as wetter and drier areas. Walking in a southerly direction (towards the summer hill pastures of the transhumance) the forest opens up to the south, where a bog is clearly visible through the trees. Those that explore that area will discover the remnants of an old homestead site on higher, drier ground. Moving further east along the trail, the casual observer will realize that the understory changes significantly with wetland grasses replacing the robust blaeberry and cowberry understory, in reaction to the increasingly wet ground underfoot. Further along the (raised and dry) trail, there are two spots where small open streams are first heard, then seen. These wet/dry transitions do two things. They provide a gradation of microhabitats that support a range of species. But they also provide an aesthetic complexity, which rewards the eye and ear, the nose and the kinesthetic (bodily) senses of those that walk attentively through this amazing forest. The east-west route through the eastern edge of the forest reveals more wet-dry transitions that can be appreciated from a dry trail.
To understand the Black Wood one has to grasp the past, present and future in terms of the 300-year life cycle of a Scots pine tree and its relationship to the use of the land across that period of time. In the historical map above we can see an overlay of edge-to-edge mixed ancient semi-natural forest cover in 1873, 1906, 1947 and 1956; represented through color transparencies. The map tells us three important things. First the Black Wood has been resilient over this period of time, and regenerates despite losses. It establishes that some trails existed prior to 1873, while others were not mapped until 1906. Finally the dark spot at the centre of the forest, an area known as the ‘potato patch’ (by locals and the Forestry Commission ecologist), and attributed to war-related food production in the first part of the twentieth century, was actually cleared by 1906, apparently for some other purpose. The potato patch is notable today for its broad stand of commonly aged trees that reads like a plantation, straight and tall with little understory diversity. It provides an aesthetic counterpoint to the rest of the forest.
Left: A view to the east in the potato patch. Right: Across the trail a view west to a similarly aged area of pine forest with a bit more diversity in its age structure and a more intact understory condition (Collins & Goto Studio, 2013).
What we are trying to establish here is that the Black Wood is a powerful aesthetic presence. We argue that it ‘returns ones gaze’, or that it is woodland of sufficient complexity that it cannot be seen in a day, and indeed evolves in one’s eye and mind as it is visited over seasons and years. The Black Wood contains nested layers of wildlife, plant and microbiological diversity, that starts with the topography and soils, which are then followed by understory plant life, and a wide age-range of trees, some that are less than 100 years old, some that are more than 250 years old. In the layers of organisms, divergent reproduction cycles and ever-changing seasonal conditions lies a complex aesthetic experience that repays attention over time. But what is important here is this is a form that emerges from three centuries of conflict, beginning with the Jacobite rebellion and the forfeiture of the land in 1692, 1715 and again in 1745. In the middle of the 18th century, experiments with sheep would displace people as half the population was forced off the land in Rannoch Glen. Experiments with deer fenced into the forest would further shape the form, as would the eradication of the Gaelic language, which was still dominant in the decade before the dawn of the nineteenth century, and largely lost by the 1960’s and 1970’s. The dominant hill in the area is Schiehallion, or Sìdh Chailleannthe fairy mountain of the Caledonians.
In a recent publication the Edinburgh Landscape Architect John Murray explores the contemporary value and import of the Gaelic language and its relationship to landscape; he talks about ‘ground truthing’ the biotic and the cultural. He says, “…at a fundamental level, the landscape is composed of physical, biological, and cultural elements.” But he also argues that landscape is imaginary and “…shaped in part by our perception and the values prevailing in society and cultures at the time” (Murray 2014, p. 208). Considering Gaelic place names, Murray reveals the fundamental interdisciplinarity that is embedded in knowing a place on foot and in the refinement that emerges during the exchange of everyday life. This is the model of experience and knowing that I want to consider in closing.
With any talk of the future, it is essential to recognize the past. With any talk of urban nature, we must reference the exurban. It has not always been clear that the ancient semi-natural forests of Scotland would survive the industrial age. It is only recently that conservation interests have been able to establish policies and regulations that protect these ancient forests from the mischief of owners, managers and developers. The question that remains unanswered is what can be done to kick start the social and cultural ecologies of places like the Black Wood? How can we create new cultural interface to essential ancient exurban forests and how do win turn, develop meaningful urban forests that reference the larger cultural import of nature? Ultimately, can art and culture serve the long-term interests of the complex of inter-relational living organisms that are Black Wood? I don’t think the problem can be resolved by catalytic agency, I do think the problem may yield to diverse and sustained creative inquiry.
Emilio Fantin is an artist working in Italy on multidisciplinary research.
He teaches at the Politecnico, Architecture, University of Milan, and acts as coordinator of the “Osservatorio Public Art”.
What role does art play in society? What cause does it serve, and why? Let us consider artistic process but also the practice of art in public spaces. Artists working in urban public spaces, or in natural contexts, have an innately different approach from those work in the solitude of private studios. The latter group conceives and realizes works of art work by establishing a bilateral relationship with the canvas (or its equivalent). The inspiration of artists working in this way flows freely from their interiority onto the canvas without being disturbed or modified by the neutral context of the studio. No word or gesture interferes with it. But artists working in public spaces must deal with an array of diverse and uncontrolled quantities—with the agency of people, environment, soil, pollution, the weather and so on. The work is the result of a confluence and a collaboration with external elements that ipso facto imply an interdisciplinary approach. The artist must transcend ordinary boundaries of the discipline in order that his inspiration is not disturbed, but infused and elevated by the externalities of the context in which he or she is working. The circumstances in which the art of public spaces is generated must be assumed by the actuality and vitality of the artistic process if the external, physical world is to be rendered internal and a part of the work. For it is not possible have a sincere relationship with the “external” if the profound quality that links any being to the soil, to the trees, to the city, is unacknowledged. The analytic psychologist James Hillman says that places have a soul. He does not mean, by this, that places are solely defined by their historical, geographical and social characteristics but that each has a further and distinctive essence. Particular places have special qualities so that, for instance, churches and places of worship are frequently built upon themselves—in the same places—century after century. What is in evidence, here, is the correlation of the soul of the place and the purpose of the Church. Thus if I am invited to intervene in an urban or ‘green’ space then it is incumbent upon me to engage with the context of the place. Listening to the voices of the trees, the soil, and the people inhabiting a space is the sine qua non of the creation of meaningful art in public spaces. The recognition and respect of the essence of natural elements is what allows an artist to properly feel and integrate the soul of a place. So, in an urban context, “to see” is to capture the essence of a place through its atmosphere; it is to learn it through the messages and indices of the past, but also the future, that its architecture communicates. To “feel” the history and social configuration of a place is to read across its colors and geometrical forms. Only after having interjected himself into the soul of a place, is the artist able to act. Without compromising the inspiration or integrity of the work, its essence emerges. And as a consequence, whoever looks upon the installation or experiences the intervention will recognize in his or her very being, the inherent quality of the place. This raises awareness. I guess we can call “art,” anything that is able to consolidate the deep legacy of the soul of the place, or that supports the imaginary that emanates from it. Art is work that provides momentum to the humblest invention without prejudice.
The celebration of the living (who reflect upon death). Apulia, Italy 2010. Photo: Emilio Fantin
As a passionate gardener and photo-based artist in 1996 I made the connection that plants are actually a form of photography; both use the magical, mysterious ingredient that is LIGHT! In fact, the largest photosensitive emulsion we know of is the planet earth. As vegetation grows, dies back, changes colour with the seasons, the “photographic image” that is our planet alters. Increasingly human intervention plays a larger role in transforming the image of the globe we inhabit. Imagine foliated land as a photo-sensor (like a digital camera) that responds to light speeding past the planet. When we remove vegetation and replace it with buildings and infrastructure like roads, as in our cities, the materiality of the building becomes a “dead pixel” in the living sensor of the planet.
Supported through a City of Melbourne Arts Grants 2013, Airborne was an acid test installed for 14 months in central Melbourne with no soil or auxiliary watering system. The work consisted of 8 suspended rotating air plant sculptures and withstood prolonged periods of dry and record heat, opening a portal for a new space plants could occupy in the built environment beyond the, roof top, beyond the vertical garden in what I termed Alpha Space.
As Bromeliads (Tillandsia is a Genus within the family) grow asexually, the living art works are super-sustainable, that is over time they can be harvested to provide a bio-resource to create new works. Unlike other artforms which often create more dead pixels in order to present their sustainable themed art, this super-sustainability is one of the truly unique characteristics of creating art with plants, and is especially so with Tillandsias.
As a means of retaining moisture, the highly evolved biology of Tillandasia uses a double photosynthetic pathway, capturing CO2 and releasing oxygen at night. They use tiny silver light reflecting trichome cells to absorb all water and nutrients through the leaf and can actually uptake heavy metals from the urban atmosphere.
At present I am carrying out an experiment with Tillandsia installed on four sites on Eureka Tower, the second tallest building in Australia at levels 56, 65, 91 and 92. If the experiment proves successful a larger project is planned which will open the way for installing plants in a creative but effective manner on super high-rise buildings.
Through the direct use of appropriate plants in their work, artists have the potential to occupy the largest of gallery walls and spaces in both a permanent and super-sustainable way, reach the widest possible audience and effect real change in the urban habitat. The walls, roofs and “alpha spaces” of our cites are the blank canvas of the 21st century, these are the spaces we must invade with our ideas and living green medium. Plants are a new (old) medium and one we must begin to use more often. By assisting plants to colonize the bare surfaces that are our buildings and the sky space between them in an imaginative manner, contemporary artists can evolve a blue print of urban nature and green spaces as fundamental as the discovery of single point perspective. If we turn to art action, future generations will experience this next millennium in a sustainably positive manner.
Julie Goodness has a PhD in Sustainability Science from the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University; her research is focused on urban social-ecological systems, functional traits and ecosystem services, environmental education, design-thinking and design-based learning, social action and community development.
I can still recall my first encounters with street art when I became a New York City resident; these small urban interventions of images or words always seemed like a personal entreaty, an invitation to reengage with an urban fabric made momentarily unfamiliar. I am still struck by the unique energy they generated within me; there was a sudden flash of inspiration to think differently about my role in the city or even take some kind of alternative action. Indeed, as Pippin Anderson details in this roundtable, I likewise think that urban graffiti and street art is one of the more provocative and universally accessible mediums through which we can engage our urban citizens.
Caption: Andelwa, a learner at Ikamva Youth, practices with a camera during the photography workshop. Credit: Julie Goodness
Lately, I’ve grown interested in how to propagate this feeling of inspiration and rousing call to action that I’ve found so satisfactorily embodied in street art. How can we spur our fellow city residents to make their own creative expressions and entreaties about their hopes for the city? One interesting possibility is participatory art, in which people can interact with and/or add to an existing installation, or are provided with instruction and materials to become the makers themselves and carry out their own artistic ventures. This is by no means a new concept, and may range from collaborative murals to data-driven exchanges (a favorite New York City example is Amphibious Architecture, which communicated information about fish presence and water quality in the East and Bronx rivers via SMS conversation).
A learner at BEEP demonstrates what it feels like to reach the summit of Table Mountain as part of an environmental camp excursion. Credit: Zikhona & Qhama, learners at Beyond Expectations Environmental Programme (BEEP)
In my own exploratory attempt at participatory urban engagement, this year my colleague Katie Hawkes and I designed and pioneered Youth Design Studio, a sustainable design class for high school students that leads them through the process of how to research, design, and build projects for their community.
Hosted with groups of students in Cape Town, South Africa, the class was a project of the 2014 Cape Town World Design Capital, a year-long programme dedicated to exploring design as a medium for creative social transformation.
One of our lessons was a hands-on introduction to photography, in which we taught basic technical skills and demonstrated how the artistic medium could be used as a communication and storytelling tool. An ambition to have our students document the challenges in their communities (and therefore begin to explore their visions for possible creative intervention projects), led us to take a step back and give a more straightforward assignment:
Tell the story of your day-to-day life through the people, places, and things that are important to you.
What came back to us was truly powerful: beautifully composed images of family, friends, and objects of importance, but also very interesting depictions of connection to the urban nature of the city: the beach and ocean waves captured through a window of the schoolbus, or the sunset over a wetland in the informal settlement. One of our students expressly told us that his photographs told the story of his connection to nature and township life; a photo of a plant springing from a concrete wall (with the student’s shoe captured in the edge of the frame) spoke both of personal strength and of unexpected green flourishing in even the most challenging of urban environments.
“I chose this picture because I love nature and it also symbolizes nature and township life.” Credit: Athandile, learner at Ikamva Youth Makhaza Branch
With another group, whose prompt was to convey how they felt when they summited Table Mountain in Cape Town on their camp trip, we received images of both victorious exaltation atop tree stumps, and quiet peacefulness nestled amongst vegetation.
While this exercise with our students just began to scratch the surface of what kind of stories they could tell through photography, it was an important proof of concept: even our youngest urban residents can use artistic expression to articulate important parts of their identity, and connection to both people and places in their community. While our students’ images do not explicitly advocate for urban nature and green space, I think they demonstrate the great potential available when we’re given the tools to convey what’s important to us in our urban worlds. I would argue that the first step towards raising awareness, support and momentum for urban nature will start with broader opportunities to equip and empower urban citizens with the tools (particularly artistic ones) to figure out who we are and probe our relationship/connection(s) to our urban environment. It is only through the critical reflection process involved these artistic explorations that we may eventually be inspired to become advocates and perhaps find new ways to communicate our visions for future cities of social and ecological well-being.
Thanks to the learners at Ikamva Youth Makhaza Branch, Muizenberg High School, and Beyond Expectations Environmental Program (BEEP), who shared their experiences through photography!
I find the terms urban nature and green space to be fluid and amorphous. I think the issue is our cultural relationship to nature (in ourselves, streets, buildings, parks, books, and minds) and not necessarily thinking of pockets of green space within urban cities. The boundaries of these terms leak and interact with culture in inextricably intertwined ways. Art definitely contributes to the values, aesthetics and interpretations of such cultural relationships to nature, yet perhaps the question should be flipped—How can we pay more attention and value the ways art supports, awakens, expands and challenges our relationship to nature?
I paint landscapes. Cezanne claimed that “The landscape thinks itself in me and I am its consciousness”, suggesting a temporary merging of subject and object. A painting then becomes more of a collaboration than a representation of the landscape; it does not claim to speak for it, rather, the landscape almost speaks through the artist, giving a visual form to the intangible connections between people and place. Painting is a response to a perceptual experience of encountering a landscape and making it visible through the body.
This appeals to me because it resists further objectification of landscapes and the inherent life and agency of non-human worlds. It opens up lines of participation for these landscapes to enter our cultural ecologies, almost like a tree branch or root growing more complex over time if successful, or dying if not.
Art has no measurable singular end goal; it creates multiplicities of experience and interpretation. It can push at the boundaries of our ideologies. A painting can teach new ways of seeing or what not what to see. A successful artwork can enter the vital flows of a cultural landscape, often seemingly taking on a life of its own, growing and changing over time. Catalysts do not seem to be afforded that same vitality; they are more utilitarian, while art seems to blossom into the world.
I learn as my paintings “find their way”, moving through and highlighting aspects of a previously unseen social fabric as people respond to them. Sometimes people share personal experiences of places I paint, adding depth and richness to my understanding of the landscape. It allows me a degree of awareness and access to a web of relationships that constitute a place. It is a folding in to the cultural and natural landscape that is both humbling and empowering. I paint landscapes that I inhabit and explore as a process of inquiry, never as an authority advocating for nature from a position of expertise.
Urban nature and green space (and Nature, for that matter) are terms defined by the cultural frame we put around them. My painting practice has taught me that the valuable aspects of such places come from tangled knots of perceptions and experience, human and non-human that constitute them.
I am interested in art that can contribute to the development of an ecological aesthetic of connectedness, social responsibility and perceptual tuning to environment. My hope for my own work is that painting and exhibiting landscapes I live in can foster a sense of connectedness within a whole, enhance a sense of place and intimacy, and call to attention a larger web of relations that we live in and among.
All of our interactions with nature are mediated through a cultural lens or transactional membrane. Work within any discipline that chooses to focus on nature or the more-than-human world contributes to the shape, scope and sensitivity of that membrane.
Returning to the question, one way to answer is for artists to recognize that the dominant issue of our time is climate change and all work is produced in relationship to that. But the question can never be answered in full—there is no direct cause and effect.
I frequently walk past a remarkable 142 year old Camperdown Elm in Prospect Park. It is a gnarled, horizontally growing, weeping tree encircled by a fence and held up in places with cables and various support structures. A plaque states that Marianne Moore, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet, captured the public’s attention by immortalizing the tree in a poem. “Moore’s efforts and those of a concerned group of local citizens succeeded in increasing public awareness about threatened and vulnerable elements throughout the park.” I’ve always held the impression that the poem saved the tree.
Is the tree nature, culture, or both? Unique conditions created the poem and the poems reception played a role in saving this tree. The emergent Friends of the Park organization had a role, the Camperdown’s resistance to Dutch Elm Disease also played a role; a series of disparate yet confluent actions all deliver this tree into the present. Perhaps the poem was a catalyst of sorts, taking advantage of a perfect set of conditions to make a difference and raise awareness for this curious tree. And yet, the tree, created through grafting and unable to reproduce on its own, was already dependent on culture for its very existence.
Art can create ( gather and express) a sense of alternate value and aesthetic appreciation for nature and our lived experience in the world. Culture permeates our landscape—we are in and of this world. When dominant value is monetary and context is climate change, the argument for the scientific, the practical, and the engineered necessitate answers from the arts and humanities who focus upon perception and value.
Todd Lester is an artist and cultural producer. He has worked in leadership, advocacy and strategic planning roles at Global Arts Corps, Reporters sans frontiers, and Astraea Lesbian Justice Foundation. He founded freeDimensional and Lanchonete.org—a new project focused on daily life in the center of São Paulo.
When I’m asked how Lanchonete.org is art by a curator, I often feel like it’s a test to see whether I’ll reference Gordon Matta-Clark’s FOOD, a restaurant the artist/ architect and colleagues started in lower Manhattan in the 1970. Sometimes I start my response with what differentiates Lanchonete.org from FOOD, or share the variety of influences—from French cooperative bistros to Welsh pubs, from Fast & French in Charleston, South Carolina made by artists, JEMAGWGA to the 70s Lanchonarte project by Brazilian collective, Equipe 3—that inform and inspire the making of Lanchonete.org. When folks from outside the art world ask the same question, I’m excited … excited to share these examples but also because the project’s personality and aspirations reach into a range of spaces and co-mingle with everyday life. While we are making the container, what happens in that space, and on the broader platform, can be authored by anyone, artist or not.
Used with permission from Cities Without Hunger (cidade sem rome)
Lanchonete.org is the evolving, materializing result of both my artistic practice—one that is both research-based and curious about organizational form—and a process of community organizing by a group of diverse stakeholders, that includes artists yet not as a majority. This dual persona is what makes Lanchonete.org such a dynamic process, and I actually love how it doesn’t have to be understood as art by everyone who encounters it.
Given the topic of urban nature and green spaces, I immediately think of the urban sprawl and congestion of São Paulo, and how the municipal electric company, ElectroPaulo, is the primary holder of remaining green space—the space under power lines—in the city. Lanchonete.org is a five-year project, and in the first two years, our focus is on developing strong partnerships from key sectors and populations, which we feel are foundational to the project. These include both GastroMotiva (culinary vocational training) and Cities Without Hunger (urban gardening), which partners with ElectroPaulo in the East part of São Paulo where unemployment is at the highest level in the city.
GastroMotiva trains at-risk, urban youth to cook and become chefs in professional kitchens. Cities Without Hunger teaches households how to grow produce in urban conditions provides both a healthy diet and income-generating opportunities. Cumulatively the gardens under Cities Without Hunger management produce at a surplus; therefore it is possible for a restaurant to buy directly from producers. It shares a very similar ethos with GastroMotiva, to first improve food preparation and dietary habits at the household level that, in turn, leads to employment opportunities and holistic betterment in families, communities, neighborhoods, business and the city.
We plan to purchase our produce from Cities Without Hunger and hire our restaurant staff from the ranks of GastroMotiva trainees. Furthermore, we have asked the founders of both organizations to be part of an advisory council for Lanchonete.org, and are planning a hybrid ownership model whereby their organizations can serve as anchors within the association’s membership if so desired. Both organizations (whose stakeholders are primarily from the periphery) have expressed an interest in having a central location—or food/food service lab—in the Centro for a variety of reasons; therefore, its makes sense to enter discussions with them now regarding future usage and management of the restaurant facility.
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As you might imagine, I’ve been thinking about food systems a lot since starting the Lanchonete.org project in São Paolo these past years. In the same period, a steady stream of stimuli started coming my way. Over a year ago, the Vera List Center for Art & Politics presented programming entitled Your food is on its way, that focused—in part—on food delivery workers in New York City and how online aggregating services, such as Seamless, can result in longer delivery routes by offering the customer more options yet do not encourage higher tips to the delivery person. So whereas the customer perceives improved services, the delivery people, often informal, immigrant laborers, suffer lower earnings.
A friend told me about the international peasants’ movement La Via Campesina and its Food Sovereignty Principles; and most recently Thiago, a Brazilian friend in NYC, recounted his trip to Queens to visit the office of Tania Bruguera’s Immigrant Movement International, and witnessed some police stopping a food vendor out front and throwing away her food. The food cart generally and Thiago’s experience specifically remind us that we live in a time when the very cultural (by which I mean broader than artistic/creative) reference for a commodity becomes illegal. We’ve seen food cart primacy (foodie hype, rodeos and other gimmicks) literally supplant the middle ground—and important space—of food workers and delivery person rights while at the far end of the agency spectrum, immigrants in Queens who depend on informal labor (selling food) as their sole income can have the product (and representation) of their labor literally destroyed. Food carts and other pop-up notions, of course, play into the speculative real estate (capitalist) force that influences many—even well-meaning—urban plans that give us the new green and pedestrian spaces in NYC’s higher income zones (e.g. Madison Square Park, Prospect Park) where the food carts are allowed, stationed, taxed and begin to atrophy (because in effect they lose their original mobility/flexibility when sequestered in these demarcated zones).
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I’ll stop here without attempting to fully compare and contrast the urban nature and green spaces of NYC and São Paulo. There are many commonalities and many differences, which I look forward to discussing. In the mean time, here’s a survey of projects—old and new that I’ve come across in my research:
Plant Adoption, a project that relocated city plants from areas with a wealth of fauna to poorer neighbourhoods that are often neglected by the city (by Golboo Amani).
Poster-Pocket Plants, a project that integrates nature into the urban setting by creating pockets in existing posters throughout the city to create spaces for plants to grow (by Shawn Martindale in collaboration with landscape architect named Eric Cheung).
Outside the Planter Boxes, a project that focuses on transforming crumbling city planter boxes (by Shawn Martindale).
Patrick M. Lydon is an American ecological writer and artist based in Korea whose seeks to re-connect cities and their inhabitants with nature. He writes The Possible City series, is co-founder of City as Nature (Daejeon). He is an Arts Editor here at The Nature of Cities.
The lasting effects of an artist’s intuition and interactions
Two thoughts come to mind here. These thoughts likely stem from my getting to know artists who have such practices as I develop my own, and from my serving as an Arts Commissioner for the city of San Jose a few years ago, where public art commissions were large, and typically aligned with either ecology or technology as a theme.
The first thought is regarding the role of intuition, and the second is a note on materiality.
Most artists are likely to tell you that when they approach their work, they are not in a state of rational thought, but something we might call ‘intuitive’ thought—intuition is actually a rather poor word for it, but it is the closest most have come in the Western vocabulary.
The meaning of ‘intuition’ for me here, is one of place, earth, and spirit being connected well enough to serve as a primary guide for one’s actions. The luck of the artist’s position—and at times the curse as well—is that they tend to work in this intuitive state of mind as a matter of habit.
It is in this state of mind that the artist, as well the ecologist, the city planner, and others who seek to be truthful to their position as living beings on this earth, can meet and take deep and meaningful action together. This sentiment underscores a general need for development of an ecologically-connected mindset, for everyone.
So how does this help us create nature-awareness-catalyzing art? A primary application would be helping those who are involved in the propagation of a city’s structure—or in patronage of arts within this structure—to see the innate connection between an artist’s socio-ecological intuition, and the development of a vibrant nature-connected city.
Connected to this first point, is the rather difficult process of ridding ourselves of a very constricting requirement we often press to the artist, the requirement that they produce a physical icon.
Of course a great sculptural work situated well can fuel wonderment, connection, and intense depth in our experience of the nature and city which surrounds it, and it can be a catalyst in its own right. The work of James Turrell and his “Skyspace,” such as the urban situated “Twilight Epiphany” in Houston reverberate in my mind here as beautiful, meditative works which help connect us to this expanded consciousness.
Yet, in the shadow of such works, I believe it is critically important to also recognize—especially if we are to be mindful of nature and ecological working habits—that physical pieces needn’t always be case and point for urban art. Works such as the “3 Rivers, 2nd Nature” by Tim and Reiko Goto-Collins provide such an example in their use of community involvement to transform long-term plans for a city’s ailing rivers. In my own experience during a residency last year in Japan, I assembled a team to create a requisite temporary installation, however I think we all considered the legacy of our work to be the forging of long-term relationships between regional sustainable farmers and local community members.
Cities have a need for artists who make it a part of their practice to be change-makers, artists who make it a part of their practice to respond to the city, to its people, and to its built and natural elements. There are artists on this very panel who are exemplars of this, and many more throughout the world from Suzanne Lacy to Newton and Helen Harrison.
If an artist’s intuition and interactions can plant seeds in our minds, then the true importance of the artists’ work may at times lie more in a legacy of actions within the community which grow, shoot, and blossom from these seeds, rather than a tombic legacy of a finished art piece they might leave behind.
Programmer Johann Barbie, showing our work to locals during a regional sustainable farming symposium which we initiated as artists in Megijima, Japan. Photo: Patrick Lydon
In the light of the latest dire UN climate change report, perhaps we should be asking how art can catalyze and be action ; dramatic change in human behavior and our relationship to the environment is a necessity at this point. It should not be the role of the arts to simply weave a more compelling story with the facts that science provides, though there remains a need for that as well. But it is clear that knowledge and awareness alone do not serve as sufficient catalysts for change. I definitely don’t pretend to have the answers, but here a few ideas from my work with thread collective and iLAND*:
collaboration
At its core, the field of urban ecology is multidisciplinary; art can take advantage of this rich condition, developing new ways of researching, communicating, and exploring solutions. Over the years iLAND has developed a specific approach to collaboration across disciplines, rooted in the practices of dance and kinetic understanding. Bringing together movement artists and scientists, visual artists and designers for an intensive two week residency to explore an aspect of New York City’s urban ecology, we support the intersection and invention of different modes of knowledge. Over the years. we have created an adaptable framework for collaborators to participate in each other’s methodologies—and further, to develop new hybrid practices and research strategies that are locally calibrated. Some of the most profound insights have emerged from instances when an expert in one field allows themselves fully the experience of being a beginner in another. This mode of working also breaks down specific hierarchies of knowledge and allows for tremendous cross fertilization.
Deep collaboration requires risk, and the willingness to inhabit odd and unfamiliar situations. This can lead to entanglements, frustrating [but ultimately productive] miscommunications, and slow progress, among other ostensible barriers, but it is the moving out of these entanglements that a creative realignment can happen. Collaborations of this type allow artists to develop new complex processes and research approaches to match the complexity of urban systems and dynamics.
embodied participation
There are very few spaces in our culture where developing new, or experimenting with, collaborative processes is the primary focus of research. iLAND residencies are not structured around the production of a performance, but are required to have a public engagement component. This can take many forms, but must have a kinetic or embodied aspect, and often actively folds public participation into the on-site research. And here is one of many places where my work as a landscape architect and my collaboration with dancers intersects—a strong belief in the power of the physical experience. The body has an intelligence of its own, one that both supports and contradicts cerebral understanding. thread collective’s recent proposal, Gowanus Field Stations, is an exploration of the ecology of the canal, through temporary public space installations dispersed along its length. Each field station creates a dedicated space for people to observe and engage with a distinct aspect of the canal: these discrete experiences create a shifting, composite, and embodied understanding of the area, and demonstrate the intermingling of human and natural systems.
the mysterious
Admittedly, mystery is an odd word in this context, and while I’ve looked around for an alternative, I haven’t yet found one. I want to posit mystery as a counterbalance to the didactic impulse that drives some art in the realm of urban ecology. I am captivated by art that transforms the familiar into the unexpected, and where there are intentional, intellectual spaces, gaps, and fissures for the audience to occupy and explore. Like embodied participation, these kinds of ambiguities allow for critical engagement and the construction of understanding, rather than simple reception of information, that I believe is necessary for action. And while there is much compelling research out there to share with a wider audience, access to information may be less of a challenge than the problems associated with too much information. Art can also uniquely address what is not known, or poorly understood, in relation to our environment—and in doing so, remind us of the limits and fallibility of our knowledge.
* I have also worked with Mary Miss, a panelist in this roundtable, on a number of iterations of her City as Living Lab. I defer to her to describe the successes and insights of this incredible project.
Mary Miss has reshaped the boundaries between sculpture, architecture, landscape design, and installation art by articulating a vision of the public sphere where it is possible for an artist to address the issues of our time. She has developed the "City as Living Lab", a framework for making issues of sustainability tangible through collaboration and the arts.
City as Living Laboratory (CaLL), is a national initiative that we have spearheaded to establish a platform for artists, working in collaboration with scientists, urban planners, policy makers, and the public, to make SUSTAINABILITYTANGIBLETHROUGHtheARTS. CaLL asks: by what means can we foster roles for artists and designers to shape and bring attention to the pressing environmental issues of our time?
CaLL’s aim is to advance public understanding of the natural systems and infrastructure that support life in the city. Its strategies are grounded in place-based experience that make sustainability personal, visceral, tangible, and encourages citizen and governmental action. Ultimately, CaLL’s goal is to establish a FRAMEWORKthat can nurture such multidiscipline and multi-layered teams in processes that bring about greater environmental awareness and envision more livable cities of sustenance.
This FRAMEWORKis a process of inquiry and exchange between artists and designers, research scientists, municipal policy makers, local community groups, and academic partners. Activating the FRAMEWORKare projects and programs that seed sites, with installations, interactive activities, and events. While focused on the unique conditions of specific locales, the projects and programs are designed to set examples that can extend to other cities over time. These activities are conceived to nurture partnerships among disciplines, institutions, neighborhoods, and interested individuals as they work together toward shared environmental and sustainability goals.
There are two major facets to CaLL. One is the continued development of PRECEDENTSby MaryMisssuch as FLOW (2009–2013) and Stream/Lines in Indianapolis (2013-2016), and If Only the City Could Speak in Long Island City, NY (2011-12), and the ongoing Broadway: 1000 Steps. The second is the support of PROGRAMS that promote collaborations by other artist/scientist teams. This is done by identifying an artist’s interests and recruiting an appropriate science (or other expert) partner.
One strategy CaLL uses to advance these collaborations is its signature WALKS where teams engage the public in a dialogue that makes real conditions—past and present—along with speculative ideas for future visceral and tangible through place-based experience. Building on critical concerns that have emerged from its research and outreach for the Broadway project, CALL WALKS invite artists to respond to features and issues along the avenue through place-based dialogues. The outcomes of these walking dialogues are contextualized in panel presentations that include outside experts and observers and are hosted by collaborating institutions.
The WALKSstart with an invitation to an artist or designer to consider a site or location and an issue of distinctive relevance to that site. Once an area of focus has been determined, CaLL works with the artist to find a scientist or expert who can provide a new set of resources—data, methodologies, learning goals, perspectives, applications, etc. The artist-scientist team is tasked to reflect on the appointed issues in public spaces, exactly where their ideas might help increase awareness and accelerate change. This phase of the challenge is purposefully set in places that are accessible and open to all. The initial artist and designer-led WALKShave engendered dynamic exchanges and sparked innovative strategies. The WALKS have been developed as both an interactive public engagement, as well as a means to vet long-term partnerships between artist and scientist team members.
Other steps include nurturing ideas generated by the WALKS or forwarded in community WORKSHOPS, and the commissioning of full-scale PROPOSALS or PROTOTYPES. The WORKSHOPS involve a selected number of artists and scientists who have participated in the WALKS. They are designed to generate ideas and tactics for innovation and change that emerge from community responses and reflections, while building a grass roots support base, for proposed projects.
The development of these PROPOSALS into PROJECTS to be incrementally implemented and to make new ideas about sustainability available in communities at street level as is at the heart of this initiative. The goal is that through these experimental methods, CaLL is building a replicable practice that sparks dialogue and promotes action for sustainable urban life through art/science/community collaboration.
Lorenza Perelli is an art historian, writer and artist living in Chicago. She taught Public art At the University of Architecture in Milan, with the artist Emilio Fantin. She is the author of "Public Art. Arte, interazione e progetto urbano", edited by Franco Angeli in Milano.
The projects I discuss here are part of the recent debate on how art, architecture and design raise awareness to urban and natural habitat. They all are radical in the intention to foster a new reconciliation between nature, the city and the people who inhabits them. Abandoning the opposition between the nature and the city—heritance of some part of the ‘900 art and culture with its nostalgic theme of the ‘return to nature’—these projects work to bridge the human and natural habitats under the aim to make them more sustainable, accessible, and inclusive.
Photo: Daniele Hosmer Zambelli
The City of Turin “saved 30,000 euros by using sheep to mow lawns at three public parks” with the project Pasture in the City, whom also “aerate and fertilize their temporary pasture”; 78th Play Street in Queens, New York, worked with the Department of Transportation to “close a one- block stretch of 78th Street off to cars in order to create a play space.” While the first is organized by the City of Turin in Italy, 78th Play Street is a “spontaneous intervention,” a ‘do-it-yourself’ method of urban planning. It is the new more modern economy of reuse and sharing. In other cases—like WHAT IF: projects Ltd. (Ulrike Steven, Gareth Morris) in the UK and Haye Valley Farm in San Francisco—artists and architect work with the community to reuse interstitial urban spaces for farming and food production. On these direct ‘creative’ use of participating practices, art merge with urban planning and design. Since the late Nineties, artists have worked toward a new paradigm of radical collaboration between the audience and the artist. A new idea of creativity is at stake: one where the artist, the urban planner or the designer is the facilitator or the creator of the connection between the community, the natural landscape and the everyday life in the city.
Art is a space against conformity, rigidity and convention, a space of possibility and discovery, invention and creativity—an ever-renewing starting point for the ongoing development of human culture.
Art is always potentially a bearer of the conscious recognition of sharing the world with other life forms, animate and inanimate, past and present.
One way that art can be a better catalyst to raise awareness, support and momentum for urban nature and green spaces is by being outside or drawing attention to the outdoors of the city.
By being in the world outside galleries and museums and by commenting on daily life.
By taking account of the seasons, the weather and the time of day.
By being casual and ephemeral.
By being free.
By connecting to where it is rather than imagining it lives in no-place.
By connecting to the Earth in big ways.
By separating from the money story.
By being small.
To encounter art when you are not expecting it is to experience surprise and to lighten up, to be delighted. And that delight can be about other lifeforms that we share the city with.
I recall seeing a piece of paste-up art in the street on the post holding the button that people press to cross the street. It consisted of a small image of a pigeon and the text “you walk funny”. Is the pigeon talking to you? Does it have an opinion? A biography? As you cross the street you start thinking about how pigeons and many other birds walk—they sometimes bob their heads as they walk. You try it. You walk funny. You feel lighter. Next time you see a pigeon you see inside it a little.
Weeds of the City, an artwork I made in 2010 for a project called ‘Little weeds: small acts of tenderness & violence’ involved walking in the city of Adelaide every Sunday morning with my dog for a month. While we walked I photographed and then collected weeds from cracks between the pavements and the edges of the gutters. The collection sites and images appear on the website. The weeds are travellers, evidence of botanical diasporas from all over the world. I took them home and then painted images of them on beer coasters, Belgian beer coasters. Fine art is often painted on Belgian linen, in this case the cardboard was from Belgium. At the exhibition the weeds were on sale very cheaply and people were encouraged to buy two and then release one, set it free, in a city pub or café then photograph it and return the image to the city-mapping component of the website of the exhibition.
At the time I wrote: “I am starting to see the city differently from ground level, as both a refuge and a prison. This study of what grows wild and disregarded by the side of the road includes important herbs and edible plants. Among them are some of the seven sacred herbs of the Anglo-Saxons, wattle seedlings, ferns and mistletoe, grain plants, poisonous plants, edible plants. Is it possible that one day the knowledge of what grows disregarded around us may be the difference between life and death? This post-apocalyptic thought is hidden somewhere in the work. Even as the edges of our streets are poisoned so that weeds will not suggest a lack of control so rare plants are found on the verges of roads, escapees from homogeneity.”
Lisa Terreni has been involved in early childhood education for many years—as a kindergarten teacher, a senior teacher, and as a professional development adviser for the Ministry of Education. She is also an artist.
One of the courses I teach at Victoria University of Wellington for first year early childhood teacher trainees, called Well-being and Belonging, includes a module about the conditions that foster optimal learning environments (Terreni & Pairman, 2001). One of the students’ tasks is to participate in a joint photo voice project (Wang & Burris, 1997). Students individually document, with photographs and text, what they like and dislike about their own learning environment (the Faculty of Education campus), and identify ways to improve it. Once data has been gathered, the photographs and comments form the basis of an exhibition that is displayed in the student cafeteria. As it is a participatory exhibition, other students and staff at the faculty are invited to contribute by adding their own suggestions and comments using sticky labels which are added to the work.
The students’ photo voice exhibition in 2013 led me to consider a number of participatory environmental art interventions that could help ameliorate some of the drab greyness of the campus—an area of concern identified by students in their exhibition. Consequently, in 2014 I initiated a yarn bombing art project entitled Knitting the Campus Together. The project was motivated not only by the students’ critique of the campus, but also by a series of staff redundancies at the faculty which badly eroded morale. The yarn art that resulted, made mostly of recycled wool, involved many people—academic and administrative staff, as well as students. It was designed so that staff and students would work collaboratively to create art, but also to foster a sense of community as the work progressed.
Several knitting stations were set up throughout the campus, and knitting workshops were run for students. Once the yarn art was completed, it was installed in many locations around the campus. These added colour and interest to the environment, often complementing some of the buildings’ architectural features and highlighting the campus’s exquisite gardens. Through the process of their involvement in the project participants learned that domestic craft, such as knitting and crochet, can be used to create works of art that amuse, delight, and lift the spirit.
The yarn bombing project also sparked considerable interest from the general public. Children who pass the campus on their way to school were often seen hugging a yarn bombed cabbage tree. One of our administrators recently e mailed me remarking, “the appearance of knitting on poles and tree trunks has been a talking point for many and add pops of colour around the campus … When I was at my gym in Mana last week, someone discovered I worked at the faculty and talked of their joy of seeing the knitting around the campus”.
De Button believes that art, design and architecture “… talk to us about the kind of life that would most appropriately unfold within and around them. They tell us of certain moods that they seek to encourage and sustain in their inhabitants” (2006, p. 72). The students’ exhibition and resulting art interventions have had multiple benefits for the faculty. This work clearly demonstrates that exhibitions can create opportunities for reflection and ongoing debate, as well as generating ideas for change. Art interventions, such as the one described, provide opportunities for individual and collective endeavor that can uplift and inspire those who inhabit learning spaces like the Faculty of Education.
References:
De Botton, A. (2006). The Architecture of Happiness. New York: Pantheon Books.
Pairman, A. & Terreni, L. (2001). If the environment is the third teacher what language does she speak? Retrieved from here.
I want to take a slight detour from the question to talk about urban “blue” space: how art relates to the bodies of water along which our cities are built—especially seas and oceans.
Since 2010 Musagetes has been working in a small, post-industrial city at the top of the Adriatic Sea called Rijeka, Croatia. Rijeka’s waterbreak pier has been shielding the city from the sea since 1888. As property of the Croatian Port Authority the pier enclosed a functioning harbour for ships and fishing boats until it was decommissioned for customs purposes in 2008. As part of a commercial port—one of the largest in Europe up to the turn of the twentieth century—the pier runs the length of the city centre, anchored on the east by a new cargo port and a small cove for ship maintenance; and on the west by silos, a defunct torpedo factory (the weapon was invented there), a rusting INA oil refinery, and a large shipyard called 3.MAJ.
In 2008, the port authority and the City of Rijeka opened the gate where the pier begins and stepped aside to see what would happen with this new almost-public space. As a former industrial site, it had all of the rough intrigue of rust, concrete, ropes, rubbish, and fishnets. Over months it slowly emerged in popular consciousness that this foreign space could now become familiar—as familiar as the ubiquitous lovers snogging nightly in the shadows of the concrete berm. Whereas the pier had once been an icon of productivity, progress, and connectivity, it became a symbol of the city’s transition from being a regional—Yugoslavian—industrial centre to being a small struggling city facing global economic and social crises. This is the context within which Musagetes first visited Rijeka.
As we explored Rijeka we found it to be a city simultaneously nostalgic for the material production that marked its industrial history and aware that a new rhythm, a new pattern, can emerge from the possibilities promised by transition. The pier is a metaphor for a struggling city boldly seeing itself anew—in the words of Canadian poet Ross Leckie: “Metaphor is a form of knowing, a way of seeing-as, and from this everything follows, all of our possibilities for ethical and political thinking and being, and certainly our possibility for grace.”
The pier, as a new public space, is literally a new place from which to view the city and therefore a new way metaphorically to see the city. The storied pier lurks in local consciousness as an object of mystery, as something familiar but with so much yet to reveal. The emergent and abundant creative potential embodied by the pier-as-metaphor became the nucleus of Musagetes’ artistic program in Rijeka in 2011 and 2012.
The first artist we invited to intervene on the pier was Laetitia Sonami, an Oakland CA-based sound-instrument inventor and a creator of immersive sonic environments. She has, and encourages others to have, a ‘sonic curiosity’ in the form of ‘sonic harvesting’—an approach to field recording and an inquiry into the social, historical, and political contexts of the ‘harvested’ or recorded sounds.
Sound Gates (2011) was the first artistic installation to animate the pier in its post-industrial state. Laetitia reimagined the bases of the defunct ship-loading cranes as symbolic gates welcoming residents to the new public space. She installed and camouflaged four homemade speakers—made of aluminum buckets and simple electronics—on each corner beneath the crane structures. An audio player was connected to motion sensors and a random selection of sounds quietly emanated from above when walkers activated the sensors. The volume was subtle enough not to startle but just loud enough for passersby to become vaguely aware of the presence of the sounds. After a moment listeners became fully conscious of, and then transfixed by, the sounds.
The power of sound lies in its potential for displacing the ordinary—its immediacy in our consciousness and its gradual lending of coherence to our understanding of place. The sounds ‘showering’ from Sound Gates were a combination of voices—conversing, singing, laughing—and recognizable sounds of the city—of metal in the shipyard, church bells, the bustle of the Korzo, and the creaking of swings in the playground. Sounds are also strongly connected to memory, reminding us of events in the past that were once familiar.
The pier became a liminal space, reconnecting the city to its urban blue space. An ongoing program of artistic work on the pier opens a new poetic relationship between the residents and their city and their sea.
Laetitia herself observed: “I came to think of the pier as a double-sided mirror, reflecting the city and its rich industrial heritage—its sounds and voices—and also a projection space onto the open Adriatic sea, gazing outwards.” Her second project on the pier, titled Invisible Sea (2011), did exactly that: it was an oculus for sonic ‘gazing’ at the sea.
Every month we feature a Global Roundtable in which a group of people respond to a specific question in The Nature of Cities.
show/hide list of writers
Hover over a name to see an excerpt of their response…click on the name to see their full response.
Doreen Adengo, Kampala In Kampala how can we provide the much-needed affordable housing in a way that is sustainable and in equilibrium with the surrounding ecosystems? Engage in multi-disciplinary approaches to learning and sharing knowledge.
Adrina Bardekjian, Montreal & Ottawa Diverse models of education contribute to more inclusive public policies, build community ties, and help foster a culture of stewardship.
Sadia Butt, Toronto Students gain intricate relationships with each other and trees through collaborative planting and measuring activities building an ethical eye for justice.
Lindsay Campbell, New York City planning is thoroughly political. As cities undergo great transformations, we need case study accounts of how these shifts occur.
Luke Drake, New Brunswick “Vacant land” implies no existing use and a site ready for development. But how do you define vacant? What counts as a use?
Bryce Dubois, Ithaca How people learn about and learn to love urban places through their bodies is an important part of urban ecosystem management.
Johan Enqvist, Stockholm Rapid urbanization and heterogeneous population in Bangalore create challenges too complex to be left in the hands of experts only.
Nate Gabriel, New Brunswick Understanding the history of environmental management can free us from what we silently think, and so enable us to think differently.
Tischa Muñoz-Erikson, Río Piedras How do cities think? Privileging some types of knowledge over other will continue to limit our ability to understand and solve complex problems.
Camilo Ordoñez, Halifax Professional urban ecosystem knowledge can be more valuable when it helps articulate and operationalize the desires of urban ecosystem dwellers
Phil Silva, New York Useful #wisdom for managing #urban #ecosystems may be different from #scientific knowledge of urban ecosystems. Context is key.
James Steenberg, Toronto Applying modern urban ecological theory when modelling ecosystems can be fraught with challenges, but still useful for managing them
For most of my career as an Architect, I’ve taught part-time while I worked in an office. And as a result, I am interested in the interaction between theory and practice. This past summer I taught a Housing Studio at Makerere University’s College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology, located in Kampala, Uganda. The course was part of the university’s practical training program, in which we had a real client, a developer interested in building affordable homes on a 66-acre piece land about 25Km outside of Kampala. The team was multidisciplinary, involving five architecture students from the local university and two international affairs students from The New School, New York, which allowed for a rich and extremely creative design process. On our first visit to the site we found that 11-acres of the land was a wetland—meaning there was a seasonal stream in middle of the land, with two hills on either side. Our main challenge became exploring ways to incorporate the wetlands into the master plan as an essential part of the urban ecology. Inherently, the most challenging task at hand was to convince the developer not to destroy the wetland by filling it with sand and building on it, which is a common practice in Kampala, but rather to see it as an amenity and something that would add value the housing development.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT: Kampala was built on seven hills, adjacent to Lake Victoria. These hills were once lush woods serving as hunting grounds for the King of Buganda, before being transformed, under British colonial rule, into a modern city. In 1945, the British colonial authorities hired the German modernist planner Ernst May to work on an urban plan of the then rapidly expanding Kampala city. The colonial urban planner used the ‘Garden City plan’ as the theoretical framework around which to organize elements of the city. The Garden City movement, as proposed by Ebenezer Howard in 1898, was an approach to urban planning in which towns of limited size would be planned and surrounded by a ‘green belt’ of agricultural land. This new plan was to allow for a doubling of the Kampala’s population to about 50,000.
In a way, the original plan for Kampala took into account the natural landscape and topography, in that each hill became its own ‘satellite city’ surrounded by a green belt of the naturally occurring wetlands. Kampala is right next to Lake Victoria, and the wetlands create a natural filtration system for runoff water as it goes into the lake. It’s therefore really important to respect the wetlands and not encroach on them.
KAMPALA TODAY: Unfortunately what’s happening in Kampala today, because of the growing population, is that people are starting to build structures in the wetlands and disrupting the natural filtration process. Kampala currently has a population of over 3 million people and accounts for over sixty percent of Uganda’s GDP. According to the Kampala City Council Authority (KCCA), Uganda is experiencing a high rate of urbanization averaging 5.6% per year. Currently, because of poor drainage, there is erosion of the roads and flooding. And because the slums are typically located at the bottom of the hill, the inhabitants experience harsh living conditions during the rainy season and are vulnerable to health risks. There is a separation of classes, with the upper and middle class occupying the top of the hills, while the growing urban poor occupy the bottom of the hills and encroach on the wetlands. These are issues that are difficult to tackle separately, because they are all interrelated. And as a result, the city continues to sprawl as the population increases and people look for new areas to live.
Spreading awareness about understanding and managing urban ecosystem in Kampala is therefore an important and challenging task. What is specific to Kampala is that the issue of the wetlands is tied to the housing shortage that the city is currently facing. The government body NEMA (Natural Environmental Management Authority) that is actively involved in protecting the wetlands and evicting the encroachers, does not have an alternate solution, and so the cycle continues.
Therefore, an important question in the case of Kampala is, how does one provide the much-needed affordable housing in a way that is sustainable and in equilibrium with the surrounding ecosystems? One approach to tackling this question is to engage in multi-disciplinary approaches to learning and sharing knowledge, and to work in ways that integrate theory and practice.
Aerial view of Kampala, showing the wetlands and hills adjacent to Lake Victoria. Photo: Doreen Adengo
Dr. Adrina C. Bardekjian is an urban forestry researcher, writer, educator and public speaker. She works with Tree Canada as Manager of Urban Forestry and Research Development. Her current academic research examines women's roles, experiences and gender equity in arboriculture and urban forestry. She is also an Adjunct Professor with Forestry at the University of Toronto.
Narratives and creative collaborations for urban forest education
Much of my childhood was spent outside. My sister and I imagined fantastical storied landscapes and acted these out by playing in parks, running on trails and climbing trees. As children, we traveled frequently between Canada and Europe and lived in different cities across continents. With each move, we changed schools, met new friends, and learned different languages. The only constant in our lives was change and the perpetual flow of our existence and understandings of new beginnings and connections.
I became interested in urban ecologies and the ebb and flow of dynamic stories and their energies that traverse the cityscapes and greenspaces we call home. Urban ecosystems are complex and diverse networks of the human and non-human, the built and un-built, and multiple ways of knowing and producing knowledge are integral to holistic learning. Urban forests and tree places are essential learning environments with opportunities for using and uniting alternative models of education, community outreach and citizen engagement. Different ways of knowing and producing knowledge are becoming more widely accepted (and necessary) in urban forestry. Having a variety of learning tools stimulates various parts of our brains and resonates on different levels—intellectually and emotionally. It helps us shape our ideas better and with broader reflection and contributes to a healthy social ecology that influences more inclusive public policies, builds community ties, and fosters a creative culture of stewardship, effectively planning for more sustainable living communities on all levels. Three examples that are particularly meaningful to me are:
Developing policy
The Toronto Cancer Prevention Coalition’s Shade Policy Committee recently used digital storytelling through film and created a video, “Partners in Action”, about the 12-year journey to develop and implement the City of Toronto’s Shade Policy. These efforts were made possible by engaging a multi-disciplinary team of experts, concerned citizens, and community organizations.
Building community ties
In Ireland, Hawthorn trees are rooted in folklore and cultural tradition. This past summer, while traveling, I learned of a story where citizens mobilized with a local historian to save a Hawthorn tree from being demolished for a freeway.
Fostering stewardship
The Truth about Trees is documentary film series produced by a collection of community partners and the USDA Forest Service that is capturing community stories about trees across the United States (I believe we need this in Canada). The main objective of this project is to raise awareness about the importance of trees, both ecologically and socially.
Over the past ten years I have had the privilege of working as a consultant and researcher with diverse organizations and dedicated individuals. I am continually inspired by my colleagues and mentors who have striven to enhance awareness about urban forestry through their collaborations and initiatives across Canada and internationally. Through my work with Tree Canada and the Canadian Urban Forest Network, we are striving to engage communities across the country and provide much-needed infrastructure for greening communities. We are seeing more in urban forestry that students are driven by transdisciplinary and problem-based learning. Cultivation, curation and connectedness are a large part of this conversation; what people know and don’t know about urban greenspaces and urban ecosystem conservation is dependent on who is doing the teaching and ultimately who is framing and telling the story.
Narrative is integral to our work in urban forestry. It renders our own intellectualizing down to a personal level—if you tell someone a story, it resonates. Shared stories bring in the human dimension—about mentorship, giving youth a voice, making complex ideas simple and accessible. Ultimately, narrative propels the imagination to consider and problematize broader issues. In my own doctoral research, interviews with arborists revealed the desire for more apprenticeships due to knowledge being lost as seasoned practitioners leave the profession.
Exploring the connections between our physical and social urban forests through a creative learning commons empowers communities that their voices, both independent and collective, matter in urban forest issues. Alternative models of education in urban forestry, such as oral history, community art (as explored in the recent TNOC round table), and digital storytelling, are useful because they challenge us to move beyond our confines and comfort levels, and to continue our work more collaboratively, free of siloes and with a broader understanding of affect and emotional resonance and resilience.
Sadia Butt is a PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Forestry at the
University of Toronto, Canada. She has worked in urban forestry for
the last 15 years as a practitioner, researcher and a volunteer in
raising urban forest awareness through environmental education.
We often hear that by doing, we learn. When watching students over a few hours of measuring trees in their schoolyard or planting trees for a climate change monitoring project I have seen transformations in knowledge, understanding and relationships. Through my work and volunteering with ACER, an environmental education group based in Mississauga, Ontario, that is headed by a dynamic educator, there have been many heartwarming sessions with students and teachers. The ACER team arrives at the school to impart a scientific protocol to measure trees in a given area. We provide the tools of the trade and the “why it is important to monitor for climate change” and “why these trees our important to the urban green infrastructure”, as well as, show the students how to collect, record and in turn share the data they produce. In some sessions, the children also plant a combination of trees and shrubs in climate change monitoring plots before they learn to measure…all in one day and in shifts of classes. Later, when these children and young adults (grade 6 to 12) produce a baseline database and maps, you can almost see the lights turn on in their heads and their pride in accomplishing something meaningful. Not only do they learn to use a spreadsheet and GIS (tables and maps for the younger students) but they collectively produce a visual graphic of the baseline information they have gathered to share online with students in their school and other schools.
This transformation of knowledge happens in a tactical and visual manner, as well as, with a profound understanding of the role of trees. In countless incidents, where initially young students are thrilled to be outside, while older grades include a mixture of reluctant part-takers and go-getters, all the students leave with an awareness of the trees, themselves and the space that we all take. They become attached to the trees they measured or planted, wanting to name them and to be able to return and nurture them. Many times, those students, too cool for caring, or portraying themselves as trouble makers show resistance to engaging, end up the most attached, wanting to name “my tree” and wanting to plant more trees, dig more holes and ask more questions. The learning leads to more doing!
Apart from the practical and technical information they learn, such as, digging with a shovel, mulching, watering, using tree mensuration tools, they are understanding how they are part of the group, part of nature and that they are woven into the collaborative task of monitoring nature. They become leaders, observers and teachers, further reinforcing the information we imparted as facilitators and even adding from their experiences. Students build intricate relationships with each other and trees through the planting and measuring activity and develop a sense of environmental ethics. In one incident non-participating students who vandalized planting plots were exposed by their peers, an unprecedented behaviour, for destroying their plots. These students were enraged that others would violate the freshly planted trees.
Thus, the way we learn and subsequently teach is an important aspect of how we gather knowledge to apply to our work tasks. Urban ecosystems being complex may require that those who have the responsibility to manage them need to engage in hands on training, work with the human and non-human actors that dwell in the space that we our trying to conserve and manage. Often knowledge is not understood or respected when the experience of it is minimal. It can be attributed to the lack of doing and the lack of opportunities to learn and share knowledge in an inclusive and holistic way.
Lindsay K. Campbell is a research social scientist with the USDA Forest Service. Her current research explores the dynamics of urban politics, stewardship, and sustainability policymaking.
The ‘science wars’ of the 1990s pitted positivist, quantitative, and realist science against qualitative, post-positivist, or critical approaches. These binaries have become all-too familiar. Some scholars claimed that social scientists suffered from “physics envy” as they tried to emulate methodological approaches from the natural sciences in order to enhance the validity of their claims. Others rejected these attempts and celebrated situated science, where subject and researcher are always already entangled.
Recently, a colleague of mine attended an interdisciplinary conference about humans and nature where the keynote speaker from the public health/active living field called case studies the “dregs” of research. This comment suggests the importance of large sample sizes, precise measurement, experimental design, and control groups to make claims that are scientifically “True” (with a capital T) to inform policy and design.
Clearly, these old lines in the sand are far from settled. Particularly in an era of big data and open data, numbers continue to talk. Quantification, metrics, benchmarks, and targets—these are the ways that ‘sound policymaking’ has come to be understood and framed. This is particularly so in the arena of sustainability planning, which—since the early days of Agenda 21—has emphasized setting and monitoring sustainability indicators as one of the key steps in policy change.
Yet, for all the attempts to be rational or scientific, policymaking is still a political process—and one that is carried out by thoroughly subjective humans. We are swayed by compelling storylines and important constituencies as much (or more so) than the numbers.
We can observe the confluence of these two strains (norms and numbers) shaping decision-making through case study research on the MillionTreesNYC campaign in New York City, where I live. For years, the NYC Parks Department meticulously collected data on the city’s urban forest. Working with researchers at the U.S. Forest Service (where I work), they calculated the ecosystem benefits of street trees. This argument made ‘business sense’ to former Mayor Bloomberg—and city agencies began working toward setting a citywide tree canopy coverage goal as part of PlaNYC2030—the city’s sustainability plan. Simultaneously and separately, Bette Midler, the entertainer and founder of the nonprofit greening group New York Restoration Project proclaimed that she wanted to “plant a million trees in the city”. This claim was rooted in a personal commitment to greening, particularly in underserved neighborhoods. Filled with a showperson’s flair—this goal was pure storyline. Midler reached the ear of City Hall decision-makers and was brought into the planning process. These two halves were woven together to create the MillionTreesNYC public-private partnership that made both scientific claims and normative arguments about the importance of greening. (The program, launched in 2007, has nearly completed the planting of one million trees citywide.)
So, what is the role for qualitative research—particularly the ‘case study’—in our current era of sustainability planning and green infrastructure initiatives? Qualitative methodologies are helpful for investigating processes and mechanisms, for constructing accounts of complex phenomena. While quantitative approaches can show statistical relationships very well, they are limited in their ability to theorize mechanisms. Case studies help us delve further into questions of how something is occurring. Reliance on numeric models obscures both the uncertainty behind their production and the value-laden decision-making in their deployment. Qualitative accounts help make these clear. They uncover the ways in which current modes of science and knowledge production are always already political: we wield our stats, maps, data, and models toward particular ends. Finally, some of our greatest pieces of knowledge about city planning, urban form, and history have been case studies, idiographic accounts of one person or one place—whether it be Jane Jacobs on New York City or William Cronon on Chicago. As cities continue to go through great transformations, including the growth of megacities, the shift from sanitary to sustainable, and responses to climate change, we need to continue our case study account of how these transformations occur.
Understanding complex social-ecological systems like cities requires interdisciplinary teams and many ways of knowing. These teams should span not only the traditionally called-for areas of social and biophysical sciences, but should bring in perspectives from the arts and humanities as well. We need all of our faculties, senses, thoughts, and feelings to understand (and then re-shape and re-define) our urban systems. The first step toward building these bridges is not to trod over the familiar terrain of the science wars, nor to denigrate one side as “dregs”, but to recognize the value and import of multiple approaches and to bring them into conversation with each other.
This past summer, a collaborative research project in Trenton, New Jersey (USA), examined how vacant and abandoned properties might be repurposed to increase healthy food access. The project emerged from the work of a Trenton-based non-governmental organization (NGO), Isles, Inc., to call attention to vacant properties and healthy food access. This project was based in the idea that the existing stock of vacant properties might, in various ways, contribute to a better food environment. Proposed solutions could include food production in community gardens and urban farms, as well as repurposing buildings into other food-related businesses. There was no comprehensive inventory of vacant properties, however. We started out with a few important questions. How many vacant properties are there, and where are they located? What would be the best areas or individual properties to target for food-related projects? What do residents want to see happen to those properties? This blog post focuses on the topic of vacancy, and the way that one’s definition of vacancy can affect the understanding and management of urban ecosystems.
With a diverse group of stakeholders—faculty and students from Rutgers University, NGO staff, and city planners—this project relied on different ways of thinking about urban space. Certainly, urban ecosystems are a complex web of social, built, and natural environments, and it became clear to us that different ways of knowing reveal parts that are otherwise hidden when using only one perspective. Take the term “vacant property”—it implies an empty space that is ready and available to be used by others. What is ready and available, however, is not universally understood. We encountered a range of ways to define vacancy in our study, and we saw how those definitions might be incompatible with each other. For those interested in food production, a community garden is already a thriving part of the city, and for the gardeners, it is indeed not vacant. Yet historically in the U.S. (and in countries across the world), these are often unsanctioned and informal sites, and local authorities have long assigned vacant status to such spaces. For local authorities interested in tax revenues and property values, construction is often preferred to something like community gardens as a long-term solution—although cities increasingly zone such spaces as green space or parks, and agriculture is entering zoning codes in some U.S. cities. An unmaintained lot with overgrowth of plants and weeds may be undesirable from both a food and planning perspective, but it may also represent a valuable site of biodiversity and urban habitat in an environmental science perspective. To clean up that site, whether for a garden or a building, potentially takes away that habitat. Furthermore, residents had transformed other so-called vacant lots into dynamic social spaces—using them as backyards and semi-public green space. These sites did not produce food or tax revenues, and the manicured lawns were likely not as biodiverse as an unmaintained lot; but they served important purposes for neighborhoods.
In a study to create an inventory of vacant properties, the choices of how to define vacancy carry ramifications for public agencies, neighborhood social dynamics, and natural environments. The recognition of multiple ways of knowing, however, is not necessarily cause for inaction. Questions posed by Danish geographer and planner Bent Flyvbjerg are helpful in this regard: where are we going, who gains and loses, is this development desirable, and what should we do about it? In our case, we began from the perspective that we should serve community needs, and therefore we did not want to classify those sites as vacant that were already serving those needs.
Bryce DuBois
I am steeped in a tradition of studying emotions and behaviors having been educated in the discipline of psychology. But I have turned away from the psychological tradition of describing behaviors and emotions from a normative perspective, and toward an environmental psychology perspective of the most interdisciplinary kind that is embedded in the places that I work in and write about. This is what my program at the CUNY Graduate Center calls a critical perspective, mostly because we ultimately have a desire to upend unequal power relations in places. In the management of urban ecosystems, I view unequal power relations as relating to questions of who has access to learn about and act upon what they have learned. For me, the most interesting sites where I can understand this affective experience and potential inequality is in urban public spaces, such as beaches. It is in these spaces where we can understand Henry Lefebvre’s suggestion that urban space reproduces and reifies social relations. An embodied approach stresses that people develop an understanding of places that are mediated by their physical body, and filtered through their affective experience and the society and culture where they live. In urban public spaces, these everyday experiences are often structured by politically motivated configurations that shape how people live in, interact with, and ultimately develop a relationship with these places. Therefore, an embodied approach can speak to power to make visible how everyday experiences are limited by the form of the material space, and the rules and ideas that construct what is appropriate in the space.
As an example, lets use surfers of the urban public beaches in New York City. Visits to these beaches are regulated to ensure the safety of the visiting public and the valued flora and fauna there. One example of this regulatory approach is that up until 2004 surfing was illegal at Rockaway Beach, because of a fear of letting people swim without the presence of a lifeguard. Since that time, surfers have been allotted two 2-block sections of the NYC parks’ 6.2-mile long beach where the bathymetry of the beach creates the best waves to surf on. In interviews that I conducted with surfers in Rockaway before Hurricane Sandy, they spoke of ecstatic experiences while surfing that included intense emotions such as love and fear. These experiences depend on sand and littoral drift to create preferable wave shapes when wave energy moves up the East Coast.
Beginner surfers in Rockaway Beach. Photo: Bryce DuBois
Therefore, it was a logical conclusion for surfers to restore the sand dunes that had been flattened by Hurricane Sandy to restore the wave shape that they loved. In the summer of 2013, Surfrider worked with the NYC parks department to rebuild dunes using Christmas trees.
Dune stewardship volunteers with Surfrider NYC. Photo: Bryce DuBois
Furthermore, Sandy highlighted how polluted the water can get because of combined sewer overflow, so Surfrider members have taken to testing water quality to ensure their own safety and to monitor progress on sewage treatment plant improvements throughout the calendar year. It is because of the affective experience of surfing that these surfers have become active in the governance of the Rockaway Beach ecosystem.
How people recreate plays a role in how people come to know and potentially love urban ecosystems. True not all people that surf become stewards of the dune ecosystem, but all surfers potentially embody a different type of knowledge about the beach than non-surfers. Thus, an embodied approach to the study of how people relate to places makes it possible to understand how people learn about and love urban places through their bodies, a love that is key to urban ecosystem governance.
Johan Enqvist is a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the African Climate and Development Initiative at University of Cape Town and Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University. He wants to know what makes people care.
“In India, you can die from anything but boredom.” This tongue-in-cheek remark was delivered by an Indian man I had joined for a two-day trek in the Western Ghats. Maybe it is a common expression or maybe he was just trying to scare (or impress) me. But he did put the finger on something I came to realize several times in his country: there is always something new to experience, and there is always a different way of knowing it.
The Western Ghats is not only great for hiking but also the source of the Cauvery river, from which most of Bangalore’s water supply is drawn. It is pumped across 100 km and raised over 300 meters, at an immense cost for the city. Why is this needed?
Historically, a network of man-made lakes, or keres, dotted the landscape around Bangalore. Managed by nearby villages, the kere was crucial not only for drinking but also irrigation, domestic needs, religious ceremonies, and fishing. However, with the first connection to Cauvery in 1974 came a new era of rapid demographic, economic and environmental change. Forty years later, most lakes have dried up, been filled with polluted wastewater or simply converted into bus stations or cricket stadiums. Meanwhile, groundwater levels have plummeted and the city has reached the limit of what it can draw from Cauvery to support a population that has grown from less than two to almost ten million.
Framing this situation as a mere failure of lakes management is not telling the whole story. In the exponential growth of the city, every piece of land becomes valuable and the identity of water bodies is highly disputed. Are they traditional keres? Or obsolete pools of wastewater generating malaria and dengue fever? Or potential biodiversity hotspots with havens for birds, fish and amphibians? Or are they recreational spaces, best managed through private-public partnerships to the benefit of the modern city’s amusement economy? Or should they be converted into tanks in a new, decentralized water supply system?
All of these arguments have been made in Bangalore, and several water bodies have been modified to fit with the different ideals. Some citizens prefer idyllic landscaped lakes for their Sunday walks, while others’ livelihoods are crucially dependent on access to water for cattle rearing or open-air clothes washing businesses. There is potential conflict between fishermen and birdwatchers, between gated communities and migrant worker slums, between “localites” living in the area for generations and newcomer techies employed in the booming IT industry.
But amazingly, some inspiring success stories seem to avoid picking sides and instead embrace these differences. Drawing on the knowledge of birdwatchers to rebuild a functioning ecosystem, benefiting from the traditional fisherman’s trained “eyes on the water” for monitoring, acknowledging the traditional custom of idol immersion, and encouraging continued interaction with the restored lake through access for cattle herders and school children, the local community organization mobilizes a multitude of experiences, needs, and ways of knowing. By recreating an urban ecosystem that is intertwined with a broad set of users, legitimacy of the project is strengthened and more people have an interest protecting their common space.
These new bottom-up projects are not solving every problem. Although reports show returning groundwater near restored lakes, the city still faces large-scale water scarcity. But the achievements of these initiatives have motivated dozens of other neighborhood groups around the city to take up similar struggles. By embracing the different types of engagement, experiences, and expertise, Bangaloreans are demonstrating that diversity is not only a great antidote to boredom—it’s also a great asset in urban ecosystem management.
For me, the question posed for this round table—“How can different ways of knowing…be useful for understanding and managing urban ecosystems”—begins with a historical question: How have ways of knowing influenced the management of urban ecosystems, and how have they integrated with particular ideas about the city itself? Understanding these histories and their consequences can, to paraphrase Michel Foucault, help to free us from what we silently think, and so enable us to think differently.
In recent years, there has been increasing interest in urban commons. (For the sake of simplicity, I use the term commons to mean “open-access commons”, which are resources to which access is relatively open and free from restriction.) This trend dovetails with another movement toward thinking of cities as “socio-environmental” entities (rather than as strictly socio-economic ones), where environmental commons like air quality, water resources, and green space are seen as not merely supportive of urban functions, but fundamentally integrated into the urban fabric. This pairing has wide-ranging ramifications for how we interact with and reproduce our cities, since common resources have historically been seen as antithetical to the efficient functioning of cities, where privatization or tight government control have been seen as necessary solutions to potential overuse of resources.
In my research, I use urban green space as way of thinking through the ways urban commons are used and regulated. In the mid-19th century, cities in the United States (and elsewhere) became host to scores of large urban parks whose purpose was to provide sites of recreation for the growing working class. In addition to this important function, many urban parks were established as a means of protecting watersheds from industrial development, which had to some extent already begun to pollute vital water supplies. In these ways, parks were a reconfiguration of commons, direct responses to the anticipated free-for-all that would come with the industrialization of urban life.
On the other hand, parks also incorporated woodlands, farmlands, and open fields that were already under heavy use as de facto commons by urban people for a variety of household purposes (hunting, foraging and farming, logging, etc). Thus, the establishment of parks in the 19th century was also a form of enclosure that limited the range of purposes these spaces could serve for urban people, and was more than a simple matter of drawing borders to conserve undeveloped lands. After de facto common lands were reclaimed by city governments, urban people had to re-learn what they were meant to do with these lands, and that was a lesson that they did not take to readily. My research suggests that urban people have continued to use parks for food, medicine, and other economic purposes throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and into the 21st. (See here and here; also here.)
Nevertheless, such reconfigurations of commons remain a familiar feature of the urban landscape. For example, the Reading Viaduct, a once well-used elevated railway in Philadelphia, was abandoned in the 1990s. Since then, opportunistic organisms have been allowed to thrive there. Thistle, Ailanthus, wineberry, feral dogs and cats, and a few humans have made it their permanent home. Other humans living in homes adjacent to the viaduct have frequently (but illegally) used the site to escape the noisy, fast-paced city. But growing interest in such places, partially the result of the successes of New York City’s High Line and Paris’s Promenade plantée, have resulted in plans to convert the Reading Viaduct into Philadelphia’s own elevated rail park, which will dramatically remake the space into something more akin to other city parks—replacing unruly vines and edible weeds with benches and walking paths—privileging a narrow set of leisure-oriented activities at the expense of all others.
So, what difference would it make to think about urban commons differently? What would it mean to reimagine urban space itself as a commons? How would that change our managerial approach toward urban green space, biodiversity, water, air?
The start of an answer is to recognize that our approach to managing urban commons—for example, the institution of parks as recreational spaces—is a political act that reifies certain notions of the city, nature, and economy at the expense of others. The organization known as Fallen Fruit, which has articulated a vision of urban commons that incorporates edible landscapes, is one good example of an attempt to imagine urban space differently. But the point is that we are always making choices among possible alternatives is inevitable. The question is whether these choices are “silent”, in Foucault’s terms, or spoken so that everyone, including ourselves, can hear them.
Tischa A Muñoz-Erickson is a Research Social Scientist with the USDA Forest Service’s International Institute of Tropical Forestry (IITF) in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico.
How cities think—this was the title of my doctoral dissertation. Not surprisingly, this title provoked a lot of mixed reactions. From those who view cities as physical infrastructures which cannot think, to those who view large social organizations and institutions as having the ability to generate collective thought or worldviews, and therefore the title was nothing groundbreaking. Then there were some that are part of the trend to create Smart cities and found the title to be attractive and intriguing.
Neither one of these views, however, reflected the intention for investigating how cities think. My goal was not to examine what cities think or how they think in a unified cognitive way per se, but rather on the social practices and networks that mediate how different ways of knowing urban systems can co-exist, interact, or conflict. To put it in the context of this blog discussion, I already assumed that different ways of knowing are useful and necessary to understanding and managing urban social-ecological systems. What intrigued me about investigating how cities think were the ways in which those different ‘knowledges’ were managed, integrated, shared, or utilized by different social actors, and therefore how these social relations underlying the production and use of knowledge influence how we envision and design urban systems. In other words, how ways of knowing may or may not be useful.
To illustrate, in the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico, I found that there were multiple types of knowledge, such as scientific, technical, local, and managerial, present and active in the network of actors (organizations) involved in land governance, thus showing potential for the inclusion and integration of diverse ways of knowing into urban ecosystem management. However, deeper analysis of how the network was configured, who the central actors were, and how this knowledge was communicated revealed that there were power asymmetries and fragmentations among actors that kept different ways of knowing from influencing or being used in governance. For instance, state level agencies that relied heavily on technocratic and bureaucratic ways of knowing still dominated the information available about land use and the management approaches towards land governance, even though recent institutional changes towards municipal autonomy demanded more local, bottom up management approaches and information. Thus, even when different ways of knowing existed and should have had the opportunity to influence political opinion and management, social relations and structures kept these alternative ‘knowledges’ from being useful.
My point is that different ways of knowing or of producing knowledge can be useful to the extent that social processes and networks allow their circulation, deliberation, negotiation, and use in decision-making and governance. The utility of different ways of knowing is contingent as much on how the politics of knowledge and expertise (whose knowledge counts) are managed as much as on what they contribute through their content, methods, or theories. Privileging some types of knowledge over others will continue to limit our ability to understand and solve complex problems. From a practical perspective, I propose that capturing the existing configurations, dynamics, and cognitive dimensions of different ways of knowing the city—or how cities think—can help anticipate and assess potential barriers to using different ways of knowing in understanding and managing urban ecosystems.
Camilo is a research associate at the University of Toronto. His interdisciplinary research is about the social and ecological issues of nature in cities. He works in Canada, Latin America, and Australia.
Latin America is the most urbanized region on Earth, demographically speaking. It is of no surprise that the region needs to develop a progressive model for managing its urban ecosystems. Many would argue for such knowledge to be based on previous successes in other parts of the world, by, for example, building massive transport networks and designing new buildings based on the idea of social inclusiveness, as it happened in Bogotá and Medellín, Colombia, in the last 10-20 years. This model of new urban design has been mostly positive and helped transform decrepit buildings and roads into modern, functional, and accessible spaces.
Yet, I can’t help but wonder whether these achievements are mere imitations of what is going on elsewhere or if they conform with Latin America’s own idea of urban ecosystem sustainability. This criticism expresses the notion that rather than using the knowledge we have of urban ecosystem services to influence our interpretation of them, we could, in tandem, cultivate the knowledge of ourselves as a determinant of how we value the urban ecosystem. I always find it hard to articulate this idea. So let me add a bit more to it.
One of the guiding questions behind my research is whether experts can really claim to be in the know of how to manage the urban ecosystem if they have a limited understanding of what it means to urban citizens. My work in the last few years has focused on developing a better understanding of what people value in urban forests, that is, the collection of all the natural and planted trees in an urban area. There is a lot of research out there about urban tree services in terms of cleaning the air, reducing attention deficit and crime, and providing a space for recreation, among many others. In some ways, our idea of the importance of urban forests is mostly based on the physiological reactions people may have when surrounded by urban trees. What I wanted to understand was what kind of things mattered to people about urban forests based on a direct experience with them as a way to express the psychological underpinnings behind their deep connection to this vital element of the urban ecosystem.
Based on my urban forest values research in Colombia I see people associate a diverse range of themes with urban forests, from psychological benefits such as calmness and tranquility, to social issues of inclusion, accessibility, and interaction; the aesthetics of views, sounds, feelings, and smells; and tangible and intangible ideas, such as cleaner air and wildlife habitat, or nature connection and admiration, respectively. One of the implications of this research is that a progressive urban forest management directive is not just about planting more trees to provide more services, but about enhancing people’s natural experience of the urban forest to satisfy their values.
With people’s nature experiences being more and more confined to the city, our knowledge of urban ecosystems is defined not just by our professional knowledge of its services, but the knowledge of the values we hold, as urban citizens, in relation to their them. Professional knowledge becomes even more valuable if it can serve as a vehicle to articulate the desires of urban ecosystem dwellers, helping operationalize their own version of urban ecosystem sustainability from an inclusive and integrative standpoint and reducing value trade-off. This is especially true in Latin America, a region with rapidly transforming urban landscapes, in both its ecological and social dimensions. Bogotá’s initiative to protect its urban wetlands and making them accessible by building cycling routes around them is one of the many examples that could be emulated and even enhanced to bring this idea of enhancing the experience of urban nature instead of just optimizing its services.
A participant of the urban forest values studies in Bogotá in a small wetland in the city, which is surrounded by recent plantings of the local “sauce bogotano”, a local tree species of willow. Photo: Camilo Ordóñez)
Philip's work focuses on informal adult learning and participatory action research in social-ecological systems. He is dedicated to exploring nature in all of its urban expressions.
This question is predicated on the idea that understanding urban ecosystems is a necessary precondition for managing urban ecosystems. What if this isn’t true? What if we can never completely understand urban ecosystems in a holistic way? Every scholar of urban ecology makes a point of emphasizing the irreducible complexity of these systems. They are “wicked problems” that elude the parsimonious cause-and-effect worldview at the heart of almost any consensus definition of science.
How, then, are we to make sound policy and planning decisions that shape the future of urban nature if we can’t fall back on the knowledge provided by scientific inquiry? Two extreme and opposite viewpoints often present themselves. The first involves barreling ahead as if we actually can acquire concrete and incontrovertible knowledge of the holistic workings of urban ecosystems—despite all the ink we’ve spent arguing otherwise. The second swings wildly in the other direction and has us throwing up our hands in the face of complexity, leaving any planning decision to pure chance. We slide down one of two slippery epistemological slopes; one that ends in false surety and another that ends in know-nothing paralysis.
A philosopher like Nicholas Maxwell might look at the choice between these two extremes and urge us to simply leave these questions of “ways of knowing” and “producing knowledge” aside, striving instead to search for useful wisdom about urban ecosystems. Maxwell argues that traditional knowledge production is not compatible with any concern for usefulness or applicability. The aim of knowledge production is, instead, a gradual increase in our storehouse of tested and immutably proven statements about the way things are. Wisdom, on the other hand, is concerned with figuring out how to make things work in the here-and-now. Wisdom is context-bound and value-laden. Wisdom says, “Maybe—we’ll see what happens” where knowledge says, “Definitely—we can predict what happens.”
Urban planners and policy analysts spent much of the twentieth century looking for immutable knowledge to inform the day-to-day management of cities. It turned out that cities—along with the rest of human society—defied the simplifications wrought from social science, and many a big mistake was made under the cover of “rational” or “empirical” planning. Library shelves are lined with books that bear witness to what happens when silver bullet solutions to complex urban problems only end up making matters worse.
Jane Jacobs, the urban planning critic, built her career on a careful analysis of the unforeseen consequences of applying hard-nosed knowledge to the messy reality of urban life. She called cities problems of “organized complexity” and urged planners to search for useful wisdom in the particulars rather than lean too heavily on one-size-fits-all proclamations of scientific fact. Charles Lindblom, writing for an academic audience shortly before Jacobs published her Death and Life of Great American Cities, made more or less the same argument: rational, scientific planning is all well and good when the whole complex system can be processed and understood. Short of achieving that comprehensive understanding of the whole, we shouldn’t seduce ourselves into believing that our insights are anything but time-bound and contextual, liable to be upended by unforeseen consequences at any future moment.
Scholars of rural environmental management have recently come to similar conclusions about the complex systems they investigate. They write of an “adaptive collaborative management” approach for rural ecosystems that uses incremental a “learn-as-you-go” approach to problem solving for forests, fisheries, and even farms across the globe. Local environmental managers, researchers, community members, and government officials work together in an adaptive co-management process to monitor the outcomes of different management strategies, reflect on what they discover, and adapt their practices from season to season, year to year.
One might argue that the knowledge produced by monitoring the outcomes of different urban environmental management programs is not really knowledge at all. Its chief criterion of validity is usefulness rather than explanatory truth and it makes no claims to applicability across different contexts. A philosopher like Maxwell would likely be more comfortable labeling this sort of insight wisdom rather than knowledge—but for most of us, this is just a matter of splitting hairs. Call it wisdom, call it knowledge, or call it just plain horse sense. The insights that come from taking a step back and assessing what just happened are probably best suited for day-to-day management of complex urban ecosystems. A somewhat stable knowledge of urban ecosystems may result in the process, but let’s be clear—this isn’t the stuff of traditional science. It is knowledge that is good enough for now rather than knowledge meant to last in the form of a universal law.
James Steenberg is an environmental scientist focusing on forest ecology and management. He is currently a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow at Dalhousie University’s School for Resource and Environmental Studies.
My current work has me reflecting on models—ecosystem models, that is—and their role in understanding nature in the city. From my viewpoint, anytime an environment, or a system, or a concept, is described in anything but its entirety it becomes a model. This could be through narrative, spatial representation, or ecosystem modelling.
As both researchers and practitioners of and/or in urban ecosystems, we often undertake some form of assumption, abstraction, and aggregation of the real world. We construct a model and therefore omit knowledge. Arguably, the hope is that what has been left behind, whether for the sake of parsimony, practicality, or functionality, does not compromise the model’s utility in describing the ecosystem. This hope is then dependent on what is defined as an ecosystem.
Theoretical discussions on the ecosystem concept no longer view ecosystems as deterministic, stable, or within closed boundaries. They are adaptive, and both scale and context dependent. Importantly, current urban ecological theory now envisions human activities as internal processes that shape ecosystem structure and function, rather than external agents of change and disturbance.
In my own research, I have been attempting to bring this modern urban ecosystem concept from the theoretical to the applied realm. I’m developing a framework for identifying and classifying urban forest ecosystems using quantifiable and spatially explicit variables that represent (i.e., model) their biophysical landscape, built environment, and human population. Ecosystem classification is a form of modelling that attempts to answer the following questions for researchers and practitioners: What does an ecosystem look like? What happened to make it look that way? What will it look like in the future? In such a fashion can they hope to intervene and manage urban ecosystems towards a more desirable state.
However, in the process of ecosystem classification we knowingly ascribe categorical characteristics to continuous phenomena and draw sharp edges around soft boundaries. This latter issue has been long recognized as a caveat of classifying landscapes – as ecosystems or otherwise. Yet, ecosystem classification has still been recognized as a useful tool for modelling and managing complex systems in its hinterland applications where the emphasis is primarily on biophysical ecosystem components.
In the urban landscape, where the influence of densely-settled human populations and their social structures and institutions on ecosystem processes are so evident, can ecosystem classification still maintain its utility? Can it be adapted to account for these theoretical advancements in urban ecology and the ecosystem concept?
These are my research questions, though I will admit to feeling apprehensive in shifting from the theoretical to the applied. Specifically, the quantification and classification of the ‘human component’ of urban ecosystems is fraught with challenges. For example, ecosystem classification is, in part, a statistical endeavour. As illustrated above, people at that tail end of that distribution curve who occupy the space outside two standard deviations will be the most dissimilar ecosystem components. In urban forest management, this population may be at risk of marginalization—or perhaps equally likely, may be a disproportionally vocal and influential subset of the population and ecosystem. In the context of building ecosystem models, is the omission of social knowledge as acceptable as that of ecological knowledge?
As a researcher, I’m as fascinated by the flaws of ecosystem classification as I am by the possible applications. I do think that applying ecosystem classification in strategic urban forest planning and management can be a valuable way of knowing and of producing knowledge about these ecosystems. Rather, I think this dialogue is the result of examining social processes from my own physical sciences perspective, and thus emphasizing the absolute necessity of inter- and transdisciplinarity within the research and management of urban ecosystems.
“Quem é rico anda em burrico
Quem é pobre anda a pé
Mas o pobre vê na estrada
O orvalho beijando as frô…
…Vai oiando as coisa a grané
Coisas que prá modo de vê
O cristão tem que andá a pé…”
—Estrada de Canindé, Luiz Gonzaga
“The rich travel by donkey
The poor on foot
But the poor see on the way
The mist kissing the flower
…Can look at things loosely
Things that can only be seen
If one walks on foot…”
—Estrada de Canindé, Luiz Gonzaga
After decades of “progress” and aggressive, mostly unplanned, growth, the modern city in the “developed world” collapses under the weight of its heavy infrastructure, or because of the absence of such infrastructure. More than ever, the city needs to be understood in terms of its vertical section, where all of the layers of urban reality are considered simultaneously: its natural substrate, infrastructure, buildings, and cultural values.
São Paulo. Photo: Nelson Kon
One of the impediments that prevents us from realizing this approach to our understanding of the city is that infrastructure, even as it shapes our city, is not always visible or obvious to most of its inhabitants. Rainwater management, sewage, water, and the distribution of electricity are all, in the engineered city, “invisible”. And unfortunately, so is nature. In São Paulo it is not different.
Being a Paulista and having lived in São Paulo until my mid-twenties, I was accustomed to a dead river, the smell of carbon dioxide, skies of beautiful orange and pink enhanced by air pollution, and a lack of open green space. My understanding was that to be with nature one needed to leave the city.
But it was in this sprawling metropolis of 20 million people, over 8,000 km2, catering to private transportation with tons of asphalt and concrete, that I discovered the force of sub-tropical nature. It was also where I learned the importance of urban design’s educational and interactive role, the importance of relatively small interventions that could elucidate the complexity of the city and could bring people closer to the understanding of more harmonious and sustainable design solutions.
Not being an ecologist, a biologist, or a landscape designer, I was originally trained to design cities from the perspective of the built environment, reflecting the practice of architecture in Brazil today, where different specialties meet to sustain a fragmented, partial vision: that of the professional who initiates the process. With little prior interaction and discussion that could amalgamate numerous urban facets into a holistic approach, we continue designing in fragments. Every specialty holds to itself its own primacy, its own knowledge. In the same way, in our daily realities, governmental RFPs are launched for engineering firms (or even construction companies) when it comes to infrastructure, with no mention of architecture, urban design, or landscape design.
So it was very exciting when, in 2007, I was invited by a friend to participate in a project in São Paulo involving urban soil contamination. My friend was orchestrating a partnership between the City and a private publishing company to transform the site of an old incinerator into a productive public space. The site, a former medical waste incinerator, was allowed to fester and remained abandoned for many years following its decommissioning. With no precedent in Brazil and hardly any legal support in our laws, the proposed public-private partnership was innovative and courageous.
Eco-Park plan. Image: Dietzsch/Levisky
The preliminary design, though, was non-imaginative, proposing something of a bucolic small-city plaza, with winding paths and benches over a three-foot high cap of new soil. This cap was required by the City’s Sanitation Department, which understood that the contamination needed to be contained before the site could be dedicated to public use.
My first reaction was almost instinctive: why not expose the contamination instead of hiding it? Suddenly, the immensity of the post-industrial city’s scar became very clear and I wanted other people to see it, to make clear what was already obvious, hiding in plain sight.
The new proposed design was a deck of certified Brazilian hardwood, raised one meter above the original site on a steel structure to prevent any contact with the contaminated soil below. Oriented diagonally across the site, the wood deck creates a procession, an approach that emphasizes the site’s natural perspective, inviting the public to a leisurely experience. Like the hull of a ship, it unfolds seamlessly from the horizontal to the vertical plane, defining urban-scaled rooms where a range of activities, such as theater and yoga, can take place.
Theater in the Eco-Park. Photo: Guilherme LemeInformation display in the Eco-Park. Photo: Guilherme Leme
Along the prescribed path, users are invited to read about the different environmentally sustainable systems used and showcased: self-irrigation through the use of a low-tech Brazilian system called “Tech-Garden”, water cleansing through natural filters (wetlands and a pond) and a vertical garden. Originally, what I really was interested in doing was to experiment with phytoremediation, but that was not in the client’s budget or desire.
So I proposed planters that cover the contaminated soil throughout the site as if they were plantation rows in a farm, evoking the relationship between nature and manufacture. The plants were also curated to emphasize this relationship and we chose six groups of plants: medical plants, biodiesel generators, ethanol generators transgenic plants, organic garden plants, and hydroponic garden plants. The built project was officially called “Victor Civita Plaza: Open Museum for Sustainability”. Or, as we call it: the “Eco-Park”.
The finished Eco-Park. Photos: Nelson Kon
After the Eco-Park was opened, I was invited by a well-known journalist in São Paulo to visit a not-for-profit institution he had founded a decade earlier. As an NGO, Cidade Aprendiz works to integrate schools with their neighborhoods, promoting the city as school. We walked through an alley in Vila Madalena, one of the bohemian and artistic centers of São Paulo, in which Aprediz occupied several different rented houses. They had “adopted” the dead-end alley in an agreement with the City to take care of it, and were successful in transforming what was before a dirty and dangerous space into what they called an “educational place”. A basketball court and a playground were surrounded by an open graffiti gallery, today one of São Paulo’s most popular tourist destinations.
The alley in Vila Madalena, prior to a proposed redesign. Photo: Davis Brody Bond Architects.The hidden river in the alley. Photo: Davis Brody Bond Architects
They wanted me to design a door, a portal that would connect a house they had just rented to the alley. So I designed a door, a great big red door that could be transformed into a small stage for performances. To our disappointment we discovered that any opening to the alley was illegal. The alley, as I later found out, was officially called a “sanitary passage” by São Paulo’s zoning laws, meaning it marked the passage of what was once a stream.
Zoning rules decreed that there should be a setback from any water body in the city and that buildings should not have openings facing them. The result was not good. As Jane Jacobs wrote and we have all witnessed, a city with no eyes is a troubled city. Surrounded by tall walls and canalized in the 50s, the Green River Stream was invisible and the paths it carved out amidst the built neighborhood were both dreadful and wonderful.
Intrigued by this invisible stream, I started to search for it in maps. What I found was astonishing: São Paulo has 4,000 linear kilometers of streams and rivers, most of which we can no longer see. The hydrologic map of the city is blue. From reading the map, it’s easy to envision that São Paulo is, in reality, a concrete slab over water—something quite striking for a city that is all concrete and only sees its waters when there are floods.
Soon, I began to envision how leftover spaces and streams could become re-engaged with the city. One of the teams in the City’s Environment Department saw some of the images produced during this work and the Green Stream Linear Park project was born.
A concept sketch for the Green Stream Linear Park. Image: Davis Brody Bond Architects
The new park consists of the redesign of approximately 645,410 sq. ft. among dense urban areas in consolidated neighborhoods in São Paulo. The project area retraces the path of the canalized stream by proposing a new pedestrian and bicycle path which opens up to transform adjacent under-utilized areas into new spaces for cultural, leisure, and educational activities. Along with the City’s Environment Department, the guidelines for the park design were settled:
Incentivize pedestrian and bicycle use;
Create spaces for community, leisure, and cultural activities;
Elucidate the history of the river and its importance to the area;
Make use of alternative drainage and water retention and detention systems;
Use native plants/vegetation;
Incentivize existing and local characteristics and uses;
Inform and educate the public about the urban and sustainable elements of the project.
The program was derived from a series of workshops with residents, property owners, businesses, and the public, as well as some of the several NGOs and institutions housed in the neighborhood of Vila Madalena.
The park was also designed to function as a “drainage machine”. Permeable paving with sub-layers for water retention, rain gardens, water recycling, and reflective pools will help the traditional drainage system to appease flash-floods in the area. As in the Eco-Park project, these systems will be visible and explained to the public, allowing people to reflect about the current condition of our urban waters.
A 2013 flood that affected residents at lower elevations. Photo: Davis Brody Bond Architects
Since its publication, the project has generated a strong, polarized public reaction. On one side, the residents of the neighborhood located at the higher end of the river, where floods are not a problem, claim they don’t want a park, nor the burden associated with the upgrade of the infrastructure, since the City plans to substitute existing rainwater drainage system and build a small-scale modern underground cistern.
On the opposing side, residents at the lower elevations, who historically have been flooded, support both the park and the new “hard” infrastructure. The creative and artistic groups in Vila Madalena have joined the debate to support the park and the strengthening of the neighborhood as a cultural hub. In 2013, a series of independent groups and associations joined the cause to celebrate the idea of the park by occupying the area and a daylong party attracted more than three thousand people.
Revealing the galleries and the partial reintroduction of the stream have given rise to more public debate. On the one hand, some residents are opposed to it, fearing that it will worsen the flooding and cause diseases, reinforcing the “sanitary” view of our traditional infrastructure system. On the other hand, organized activist groups question why the river should not be reintroduced in its entirety. As the City prepares for the construction of the first phase of the project with federal funding, the discussion continues and will have to be monitored to help reshape the final project in a constructive way.
The experience with these two projects, both the Eco-Park and the Linear Park, have taught me the importance of local urban and landscape design in the implementation and discussion of urban infrastructure. They have not solved the large infrastructure problems they tackle, but by “showcasing” environmental issues, have made them a topic for open community discussion. Infrastructure is so far from one’s daily routine, as is nature in and around São Paulo’s urban environment, that the majority of the population has lost its connection to the natural substrate that holds everything together. It really needs to become more present if we want any change in the way we face the challenges of upgrading and building new infrastructure.
Victor Civita Plaza Authors: Anna Dietzsch and Adriana Levisky Coordinator: Renata Gomes Project Team: Casey Mahon, Tatiana Antonelli, Lílian Braga, Luciana Magalhães, Renata Helena de Paula Client: City of São Paulo and Abril Publishing
São Paulo, 130,000 sf
Green Stream Linear Park: Author: Anna Dietzsch. Davis Brody Bond Architects Coordinator: Carolina Bazzo Project Team: Charlie Salinas, Hosung Chun, Clarissa Morgenroth, Alexandre Delfabrio, Patricia Rabelo, Thais Russo, Vinicius Gaio. Client: City of São Paulo
São Paulo, 620,000 sf
Around the world, local governments are experimenting with a range of mechanisms to influence what happens to trees on private lands.
The future sustainability and liveability of cities in many bioregions will depend on retaining established trees, and on planting new trees, including on private lands. While retaining and planting trees in public space has become a familiar feature in many cities, the role of private land areas in a city’s ambitious plans to retain and increase the number of trees and canopy-cover is usually overlooked.
In some ways, this is not surprising. Local governments usually have direct control and responsibility for retaining and planting trees in public spaces, such as parks and streets. However, this control is restricted on private land, such as residential yards, gardens, or commercial and industrial areas.
The default for many local governments is to give out trees for private gardeners to plant or to educate the public about the importance of trees. But others have additional mechanisms at their disposal, ranging from legal protections, to planning strategies, financial penalties, financial rebates, and free services—in other words, both stick and a carrot approaches.
Yet, most of this information on approaches to tree retention and planting on private land lies buried in reports and local legislation. No studies, to our knowledge, have documented and synthesised these initiatives. Below we elaborate on some of the key issues on this topic and use this as a primer for our future conversation at the Nature of Cities Summit, June 4 – 7, 2019.
What’s happening with trees in private lands?
In many world cities, about half of the trees and half of the canopy cover is concentrated in private lands, areas of the cities where the city has limited jurisdiction. Researchers have documented the challenges in US and Australian cities.
The retention and increase of trees and canopy cover in private areas constitutes an important problem for local governments. First, it makes it challenging for them to respond to and meet current sustainability and liveability requirements based on greening, since many tree decisions in private spaces are made by private homeowners or landowners, with little influence from local governments. Second, both the private ownership of trees and their unequal distribution in private spaces makes the services trees provide inaccessible to the public, contributing to justice and equity issues (see for example 1, 2, and 3). Third, because of increasing urban density, aimed at making city more liveable, many cities are losing lots of trees in private lands due to processes such as subdivision, expansion, and consolidation (Figure 1).
If we accept the notion that the services that urban trees provide are to be enjoyed collectively, then local governments have an important role to play in encouraging or regulation what happens to trees in private lands.
Stick and carrot approaches
Figure 1:Illustration of the challenges for privately owned trees in cities (Greater Melbourne Area, Blackburn, Victoria, Australia), including densification driven byincreased house sizes (left) and increased number of dwellings in the same area (right) (Source: The Nature Conservancy, Draft Metropolitan Urban Forest Strategy)
Around the world, local governments are experimenting with a range of mechanisms to influence what happens to trees in private lands. The mechanisms can be categorized in two simple ways: penalties and regulations, or “sticks”, and incentives and promotions, or “carrots”.
Incentives, or the carrots, are specific activities that encourage the retention of existing trees or the planting of new trees in private lands. These include, among many others, providing rate rebates for planting or retaining trees, providing support for tree-care in private spaces, supporting citizen-led activities focused on planting or protecting private trees, awarding prizes for volunteer activities, and educating the public about the benefits of private trees. However, many cities cannot attach specific tree-related goals or targets to these activities.
The above approaches challenge all levels of government to think more creatively around jurisdictional paradigms. At the most fundamental level, they require governments to think about their urban forest as a continuous resource that needs to be managed collectively to maximise its benefits, regardless of ownership. They also require the establishment of strong community frameworks for urban forest governance that can better enable private stewardship.
However, the effectiveness of the stick or carrot approaches can be context specific, so collecting case studies from a range of cities with different characteristics (e.g., size, climate, government styles) requires building a more comprehensive understand of the pros and cons of each activity. Few studies, if any, have been able to document, synthesise, and generalize on the initiatives that cities pursue to influence what happens to trees in private lands, mostly because knowledge about these initiatives is restricted to the jurisdictional and governmental context of each city, region, or nation. This diminishes the ability of cities to learn from each other and facilitate innovation to address the challenge of retaining and planting trees in private lands.
Moving Forward
To fill this gap, we are leading a session at the Nature of Cities Summit in June 2019, where municipal officers, advocacy groups, practitioners, and researchers will meet to share experiences and collaboratively develop a suite of mechanisms to retain and increase urban trees and canopy cover in private lands. In our session entitled A stick or a carrot? – How can cities retain existing trees and plant more trees on private lands?, we aim to guide people in conversation about this topic, and share our own failures and successes. We look forward to hosting people from different cities/countries and disciplines (e.g., local government, industry, non-government, advocacy, researchers, etc.). So please, come join us at the Nature of Cities Summit in June!
Camilo Ordóñez, Judy Bush, Joe Hurley, Marco Amati and Stephen J Livesley Melbourne
Acknowledgements: This project has been funded by Hort Innovation Australia, using the Nursery Industry research and development levy and contributions from the Australian Government. Hort Innovation is the grower-owned, not-for-profit research and development corporation for Australian horticulture. Special thanks to our colleagues Stephen Frank of TreeLogic, Meg Caffin of Urban Forest Consulting, the City of Moreland, and the City of Melbourne, Australia.
Judy is a Lecturer in Urban Planning at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research focuses on policies and governance of urban green spaces in the transition to nature-based cities.
Joe is a researcher in the Centre for Urban Research, Deputy Director of the Clean Air and Urban Landscapes Research Hub, and lecturer in the Sustainability and Urban Planning program at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Marco is an Associate Professor in International Planning at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Marco’s research involves urban trees, urban greenspaces, e-planning, urban agriculture, planning history, and Asian cities.
Stephen is an Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His research investigates soil-plant-atmosphere interactions in natural and managed ecosystems, and the role of urban vegetation in providing environmental and social benefits.
Every month we feature a Global Roundtable in which a group of people respond to a specific question in The Nature of Cities.
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Hover over a name to see an excerpt of their response…click on the name to see their full response.
John Bell, Brussels The potential is huge. However, unlocking full NBS potential will need a massive increase in investment, both public and private and will hinge on a paradigm shift in how our economies are organised and how they value nature and its services. A transformation is needed in our current business model, bringing local actors to the driving seat for changes.
Guilherme Neves Castagna, São Paulo Increased biodiversity, being the very foundation of NBS, can help establishing relevant indexes that support the growth of real nature-based economy. After all, no economy is possible without a sound natural capital in place.
Emre Eren, London With the correct policies that address barriers and drive enabling factors, nature-based solutions include such a wide variation of projects that they provide a strong foundation to achieve a nature based economy.
Susanne Formanek, Wien Working in harmony with nature means to overcome lack of understanding that maintenance is essential, and that the costs of maintenance need to be budgeted for.
Tiago Freitas, Brussels A recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is another chance to bring back nature to the core of our societies. National Recovery and Resilience Plans, which aim to build a more sustainable and resilient economy across Europe are a once in a life-time opportunity for a nature-based recovery.
Rhoda Gwayinga, Kampala Governments, policy makers, experts and private sector need to collaborate and develop Nature-based economic indicators. These could explore factors like urban forestry cover, air quality, blue infrastructure, population growth, green technology. NbE indicators would then be used as a basis for driving key economic policy decisions as opposed to the norm.
Simon Gresset, Freiburg A project to expand canopy in Paris would undoubtedly improve the quality of life of locals, and it could in turn create new investment opportunities, spark new interests among communities for the environment and foster new initiatives, constituting some sort of virtuous circle.
Eduardo Guerrero, Bogotá Some key challenges (and opportunities) of the urban circular economy for a tropical megadiverse country are: (1) Urban metabolism analysis leads to better decisions; (2) Green entrepreneurship creates a culture of sustainability; (3) Local citizen can drive a circular economy.
Mamuka Gvilava, Tbilisi Nature-Based Economic development could indeed be the necessary, not merely sufficient condition for genuinely sustainable development. Any publicly supported project should be providing nature-based solution.
Cecilia Herzog, Rio de Janeiro Brazilian cities are still introducing nature-based solutions as demonstration projects on a slow pace. The landscape transformation must gain scale urgently, bringing nature to all possible places. Taking out cars, planting trees and opening spaces for people close to regenerated urban nature, creating new and sustainable businesses and jobs.
Antonia Lorenzo, Málaga Even though there is a large and increasing number of nature-based enterprises ready to deliver NBS, we still need to understand each other better (public – private collaboration) and work together more, especially in procurement.
David Maddox, New York I am thrilled that some businesses are advancing in this conversation about sustainability. But we need more. We need everyone — all businesses and all people — to be part of the change, which will require sacrifice.
Rupesh Madlani, London The extent to which nature-based solutions can provide a basis for a nature-based economy depends on the coinciding policies, frameworks, and mechanisms implemented.
Taícia H. N. Marques, Lima The design of business models to support and scale up NbS in Peru is challenging once it encompasses a range of actors and sectors that usually are not used to collaborating. To move towards Nature-based Economy there is a need to bring those different actors to the same page of comprehension regarding Nature-based Solutions.
Ana Mitić-Radulović, Belgrade Post-pandemic recovery is the perfect occasion for spatial and urban planners to spark the conversation on grey-to-green transition of the public spaces and infrastructure, and for the governments to accept nature-based solutions and the accompanying economic activities, reskilling and upskilling of workers for green jobs, and adoption of policies which truly embrace nature-based economy.
Hans Müller, Kornwestheim There are two levels of developments concerning a nature-based economy: (1) The NBE (Nature based Enterprise) Startups focusing on NBS; (2) Classic / traditional companies transferring towards an NBE. Both are important and for both I see economic advantages.
Isaac Mugumbule, Kampala Governments, policy makers, experts and private sector need to collaborate and develop Nature-based economic indicators. These could explore factors like urban forestry cover, air quality, blue infrastructure, population growth, green technology. NbE indicators would then be used as a basis for driving key economic policy decisions as opposed to the norm.
David Simon, London While decried by critics as reducing intrinsic values to utilitarian economic value and privileging those services that can be quantified, the inclusion of cultural services and the recognition in the other categories of the value of integrated, multispecies ecosystems is intended to avoid simplistic economisation. In a monetized world, attaching tangible values to ecosystems and the services they perform is the most likely way to conserve them.
Audrey Timm, Chilton When nature-based-solutions become an integral part of city infrastructure, nature becomes woven into the economic support network, providing new business opportunities, jobs and income-generating activities across a broad spectrum of the population.
Ellie Tonks, Amsterdam At present, our economy does not favour a nature-based development agenda. But if a holistic case was built around the climate change adaptation and/or community health co-benefits, we could start to piece together a more compelling nature-based development case.
Naomi Tsur, Jerusalem There is no doubt that nature-based solutions contribute to the economy, but that does not necessarily mean that they can provide the basis for a complete economic framework. But nature in and around cities is gradually earning the right to be recognized as a very significant layer of infrastructure, along with water and food (agriculture). This is, effectively, the infrastructure that gives us life.
Domenico Vito, Milan NBS mitigate and increase land value in all the four dimensions of sustainability: environmental, social, economical, and participative.
Siobhan is the Associate Director of Innovation at the Centre for Social Innovation in Trinity College Dublin where she heads up research and innovation activities under the themes of sustainability and resilience.
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.
So, we ask:
— How do you see nature-based solutions contributing to the sustainable economy of the future?
— How do we go from nature-based solutions to a nature-based economy — where we work in harmony with nature — planning, growing, harnessing, harvesting and/or restoring natural resources in a sustainable way?
— What type of new jobs, new innovations, new enterprises might emerge from a nature-based economy and what are the challenges to uptake of such a concept globally?
These are some of the questions we asked respondents to consider as part of this TNOC virtual roundtable which forms part of a wider consultation on a new White Paper on the Nature-Based Economy.
Is this a discussion simply about assigning monetary value to nature? No, although in a monetized world this is part of the discussion. It is also about creating broad and inclusive discussions about nature and its benefits across the sectors of business, planning, engineering, science, conservation, and community. It is about recognizing the values of nature (in many dimensions) and firmly integrating these values in our economies.
Architect/urban planner (Faculty of Architecture & Urbanism of the University of Sao Paulo). Holds a doctoral degree in landscape architecture and planning (Technical University of Munich). Senior expert on Nature-based Solutions and Biodiversity at ICLEI Europe (ICLEI Europe).
Susanne Formanek is managing director of the innovation laboratory GRÜNSTATTGRAU, initiator of many projects in the green building sector and since 2017 president of IBO, the Austrian Institute for Building Biology and Ecology. This is an independent, non-profit, scientific association that researches the interactions between humans, buildings and the environment. She graduated from the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna in the field of forestry and timber management.
Working in harmony with nature means to overcome lack of understanding that maintenance is essential, and that the costs of maintenance need to be budgeted for.
The environmental and social benefits of NBS are already being recognised as effective measures to combat climate change in the urban regions, whereas the actual value in terms of jobs, innovations, and the economic contribution is not so well known, even by the industry itself.
Based on our GREENMARKETREPORT we know today that 38% of the surveyed companies were founded in the past 10 years. If every other newly constructed building is fitted with a green roof we would generate 33.000 new green jobs in Austria. This means: for every 8,000 m² of additional green roof area, 10 new jobs are created.
Market potential
The direct value chain of greening buildings just in Austria includes 550 companies and 1200 jobs, whilst the sector is quiet young and has great potential to grow. The branch demands productive interdisciplinary cooperation within the market and between other branches. Therefore the greening buildings and NBS sector provides value for other sectors as well as innovations such as the sectors of construction, circular economy, additive manufacturing, digitalisation etc.
Currently, mainly small and medium-sized companies are active in this country along the entire value chain, from technology development and planning to the manufacture of components, execution and maintenance. The industry is also characterized by a high degree of innovation “made in Austria”: The targeted combination of green roofs with other technologies, such as PV, further enhances their impact. These include, for example, solar green roofs in which the cooling effect of the plants boosts the performance of photovoltaics, or the use and purification of gray and service water on roofs.
Traditional grey buildings are exposed to all kinds of weather conditions without any protection and need to be renovated from time to time. Greening buildings in comparison acts as a protection shield against weathering and reduces renovation and maintenance costs. Green and living walls and green roofs provide a natural sun screen and insulation. This saves on air conditioning and less energy is used. Green roofs are low-cost in maintenance and long-lasting. Compared to traditional flat roofs, the service life of the roof sealing of a green roof is extended by at least 10 years.
Green infrastructure in and around properties increases the value of the property and the neighbourhood by an average of 4-8%. Improved living conditions lead to higher satisfaction of the habitants are convincing reasons to inhabit and stay in greener quarters. Environmental improvements such as better air quality and lower temperatures lead to a healthier population. This increases life expectancy of people but also minimizes sick days leading to reduced costs for sick leave for companies.
From nature-based solutions to a nature-based economy
Working in harmony with nature means to overcome lack of understanding that maintenance is essential, and that the costs of maintenance need to be budgeted for. Our funding program “City of tomorrow” promotes demonstration buildings, and monitoring always playing an important role. Thus, growth performance, vitality of the plant and nature and care and Maintenance can be compared with each other and has a consistency. We are raising awareness by realizing these best practice projects.
The multiple benefits of this nature-based asset can be realised, when a long-term strategy is existing. High quality execution of green infrastructure is also very important. For this reason we have developed standards and new qualification program in Austria, which include maintenance concepts in which we compare the overall costs to the expected benefits and advantages.
Our Biodiversity Strategy Austria 2020+ aims to conserve biodiversity in Austria, to stem the loss of species, genetic diversity and habitats and to minimize the causes of threats. The Biodiversity Strategy Austria 2020+ defines goals and measures for the conservation of biodiversity in Austria. These are based on the international objectives set out in the Convention on Biological Diversity and on those of the European Union.
And we are faced by growing ecomplexity in construction — now also including the interfaces to Bulding Information Modelling. Our programme “klima-aktiv building and renovation” implies energy efficiency, ecological quality, comfort and execution quality. Finally our innovation lab GRÜNSTATTGRAU is an instrument of the ministry and funded within City of Tomorrow, and owned by the association of green roofs and green walls in Austria. This is the holistic competence center in Austria for greening buildings focuses especially on the comprehensive benefits of green roofs, living walls and indoor greening. Green infrastructure on buildings provides a broad range of environmental and social benefits and impacts on the building itself, which have great economic value and lead to a sustainable economy.
Green finance
In recent years, the term “green finance” has replaced the term “environmental finance” and defines a spectrum of financial approaches and instruments for environmental and climate protection, for adapting to climate change and for compensation environmental and climate damage. In terms of greening innovations, this approach is important because greening buildings not only benefits the owners, the direct users, but also the surrounding urban landscape and neighbourhood. Therefore, a different financial approach or perspective is needed for climate change measures such as greening buildings. Our program Green Finance 2021 by the “Klima und Energiefond” supports companies and municipalities/cities in carrying out a profitability calculation for planned projects. Innovative solutions and technologies from Austria thus quickly find their way into the domestic and often also international market.
Simon Gresset is a Circular Economy Officer at ICLEI Local Government for Sustainability. Involved on various projects at European level, he supports local governments in enabling and promoting more circular systems. He is also keen on reminding how the circular transition can help in meeting their environmental, social and economic goals. Simon has an academic background in political sciences and urban planning and previous experiences in innovation management as well as in environmental policy at local government level.
A project to expand canopy in Paris would undoubtedly improve the quality of life of locals, and it could in turn create new investment opportunities, spark new interests among communities for the environment and foster new initiatives, constituting some sort of virtuous circle.
Before joining ICLEI, I used to work as environmental policy officer for a local authority in France, for a “départment” located in the Paris region. The area was densely urbanised, with a poverty rate way above national average, numerous environmental issues and poor access to green spaces. I am definitely not an expert in nature-based solutions but I was somehow involved in the making of an ambitious plan aiming at a twofold increase of the canopy cover locally over the 10 following years.
The plan comprised a lot of different conventional actions, such as tree planting and ecosystem restoration, but also the development of support tools, such as a spatial analysis platform to identify areas where renaturation was the most important (based on a set of both environmental and social indicators) and a tool aiming at selecting the most adapted tree for each development based on context and on ecosystemic services it could provide. It also integrated measures aiming to raise awareness among local communities. This plan wasn’t obviously going to substantially boost the local economy or significantly transform the urban environment. Still, since its inception it has been supporting useful research and innovation projects while also directly creating several jobs related to the nature based-economy locally. Over the years, it will positively impact the urban environment, making the air more breathable and less warm in summer, and will strengthen the social fabric, creating bonds between inhabitants through community initiatives such as urban gardening.
Overall this will undoubtedly improve the quality of life of locals, and it could in turn create new investment opportunities, spark new interests among communities for the environment and foster new initiatives, constituting some sort of virtuous circle. This is a small example based on personal experience but I assume that the multiplication and upscaling of such actions at local government level can constitute the basis of a growing nature-based economy with a strong potential for both people and for the environment.
Mamuka Gvilava is environmental sustainability expert at GeoGraphic Ltd., based in Tbilisi, Georgia, experienced with cooperative projects in the Caucasus and Black Sea regions. His expertise includes environmental and strategic impact assessments, earth observations, green procurement, and nature-based solutions, latter gained within the European Connecting Nature project, co-founding the NBS UrbanByNature Caucasus hub together with the colleagues from the region.
Nature-Based Economic development could indeed be the necessary, not merely sufficient condition for genuinely sustainable development. Any publicly supported project should be providing nature-based solution.
It is time to promote Nature-Based Development
A paradigm shift is required in development financing. Project appraisals by international (and national) funding institutions (IFIs) currently are based mostly on economic grounds and technical cost-benefit analysis after political funding decisions are made through country strategies etc., while nature, environment and even social factors are considered as second thoughts through so called environmental and social safeguards, such as environmental impact assessments and resettlement frameworks. As for health and safety, it is believed that they can be “controlled”.
In order for the development to become nature-based and contribute into nature-based economy, political and technical decision-making should be substituted by nature-based decision making: whenever the sectoral project is not nature-based as a priority, expect unexpected.
Luckily there is some experimentation by IFIs putting nature and environment at the front-end of the decision-making. A good example of this is the EBRD’s Green Cities initiative. There are plenty of examples even in my city of Tbilisi, Georgia, in the Caucasus, demonstrating how beneficial projects developed under the Tbilisi’s Green City Action Plan are, and how much damage can be self-inflicted when they are not.
Nature-Based Economic development could indeed be the necessary, not merely sufficient condition for genuinely sustainable development. In a sense, any project publicly supported should be providing nature-based solution.
Not convinced? Then just think how intrusion into bat habitats by transportation schemes and humans settlements resulted in our global pandemic stalemate . Who would think about bats seriously?
Cecilia Polacow Herzog is an urban landscape planner, retired professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. She is an activist, being one of the pioneers to advocate to apply science into real urban planning, projects, and interventions to increase biodiversity and ecosystem services in Brazilian cities.
Brazilian cities are still introducing nature-based solutions as demonstration projects on a slow pace. The landscape transformation must gain scale urgently, bringing nature to all possible places. Taking out cars, planting trees and opening spaces for people close to regenerated urban nature, creating new and sustainable businesses and jobs.
Let’s invest in human incredible capacity and imagination to regenerate planet Earth
Yes, we urgently must adopt a nature-based economy worldwide. We need a radical shift in the indicators we measure value and wealth, and switch to an ecological economy. Georgescu-Roegen, Daly, Elkington, Klein, McKibben, Piketty, Raworth, Mazzucato, among so many others have been proposing and advocating for this essential transformation during the last century, especially in the last decades. The collapse we are now was foreseeable long time ago. The present trigger is climate emergency showing that our environmental, social, and cultural predatory economy led us in a wrong direction. Countless concomitant climate impacts worldwide are happening. It is undeniable that time urges to transition to a new nature-based economy that fits in the planetary boundaries and reverse the abyssal social disparities, besides respecting social-cultural, ethnic, and gender distinctiveness of all people.
Climate is global and is affecting rich and poor countries, real people in the real world, destroying our biosphere on an unthinkable speed.
New green deals emerging in wealthy countries must take a tangible turn when NATURE and PEOPLE must be THE PRIORITY!
Brazil has a huge role to play in this scenario, where the AMAZON and other precious biomes collapse must be taken extremely seriously. At the Federal level things are going from bad to worse, to unimaginable catastrophic magnitude.
At city level, Brazilian cities are still introducing nature-based solutions as demonstration projects at a slow pace. The landscape transformation must gain scale urgently, bringing nature to all possible places. Taking out cars, planting trees and opening spaces for people close to regenerated urban nature, creating new and sustainable businesses and jobs.
Ecological education is key to everyone, introducing nature-based solutions in urban areas is an excellent way to enable urbanites to learn about ecological processes and our intrinsic relationship with all forms of life and how ecosystem services are essential to our own survival. We are in the decade of biodiversity, the protection of remnants and regeneration of degraded areas must be prioritized in all scales: gardens, ecosystems, biomes…
Multilateral banks are already focusing on NbS, inducing their investments to projects that are environmentally and socially oriented (e.g. World Bank, IDB), as well as the World Economic Forum. Many corporations are also at high risk, most of them depend on nature to produce their goods, sell their services and so on, and many are taking the questions seriously (e.g. insurance companies).
The concentration of wealth in the hands of very few people while the vast majority of the humanity tries to survive until the next meal, has to be addressed. In my view, there is no way we will overcome the disaster unless the economy, politics, and decision makers find a way to redistribute capital in a fair way, so every person on earth will be able to be concerned with our collective good and invest on nature-based solutions.
The transformation of the way the economy functions must lead to innovative and creative ways to regenerate nature wherever possible, using our incredible capacity and imagination here on our planet Earth. For this to be achievable, it is also urgent to enlighten people to value nature (biodiversity, ecosystems, clean water bodies, oceans…) more than exploring other planets and buying superfluous consumer goods. We must innovate, educate, and create new jobs that restores ecosystems; produce heathy foods; build and prepare cities to be resilient to climate impacts; shift to clean and active mobility in comfortable and safe ways; adopt (incentivize) renewable energy (and divest on fossil fuel); value and invest in local production; besides developing technologies that enables recover ecological functions that are desperately needed.
I believe we will see a shift on the way we relate to nature so we can remain living on this wonderful planet that is our only home. This has been said so many times that all humans should be eager to contribute to enhance all forms of life, protect existent ecosystems (terrestrial an aquatic) and be trained to live and work on this new regenerative paradigm of nature-based economy.
Antonia Lorenzo is Bachelor of Agricultural Chemistry and specialist in Environmental Engineering and Technology, and currently doing her PhD in Economic evaluation of the use of reclaimed water in agriculture at the University of Córdoba, Spain. Antonia is founder, CEO and R&D director at BIOAZUL. She has worked for 20 years in the management and implementation of more than 60 national and international projects, mainly related to blue infrastructures for the sustainable water management - treatment, water reuse, ecological sanitation, nature-based solutions – as well as circular economy and resources sustainability.
Even though there is a large and increasing number of nature-based enterprises ready to deliver NBS, we still need to understand each other better (public – private collaboration) and work together more, especially in procurement.
I believe the role of nature-based enterprises is essential in the transition towards a nature-based economy.
Stimulating and supporting the growth of these enterprises specialised in NBS will contribute to accelerate the development of more sustainable economic systems. In this sense, it is important to establish incubators and mentoring programmes to entrepreneurs, including capacity building activities oriented to NBS, not only technical but also training in business and finance mobilisation to ensure success and business continuity. At the same time, there is a large number of small and medium enterprises already established, with wide experience, that have the capacity to adapt their technologies, services and business lines and shift them towards a NBS-oriented market. Supporting and guiding existing companies and organisations in this adaptation process, as change agents, will add to the transition to a greener economy.
In fact, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), together with the International Labour Organization (ILO)[1], have recognised the importance of protecting and preserving natural systems in supporting employment, with currently around 1.2 billion jobs in sectors such as farming, fisheries, forestry and tourism, highly dependent on the effective management and sustainability of ecosystems. They conclude that half of the world’s Gross Domestic Product is, to a greater or lesser degree, dependent on nature.
This analysis is also supported by the World Economic Forum[2], that has identified a wide range of professions of the future emerging from a greener economy and provides a list of jobs which are to some extent related to NBS, such as sustainability specialists, water resource specialists, or water/wastewater engineers. These professions will require distinctive skills and additional learning, for instance in geographic information systems (GIS), global environmental management and water resources management and policy.
However, even though there is a large and increasing number of nature-based enterprises ready to deliver NBS, we still need to understand each other better (public – private collaboration) and work together more. In collaborating with the public sector, there are difficulties in terms of procurement of NBS and the problem of silo-thinking. NBS are still complex to implement, and policies need to be harmonized to enable implementation. Public procurement can be a powerful driver for NBS and thus nature-based enterprises, but it is rather challenging to find opportunities and see how NBS are included.
Doctor of Sciences on Landscape and Environment- FAU-USP, Associate Professor and Concytec researcher in the Department of Planning and Construction- UNALM. Especially interested in researching the designing and installation processes of Green Infrastructure and Nature based Solution in cities. Partner at PERIFERIA, an organization which works with different stakeholders and the community to increase nature in Peruvian cities.
The design of business models to support and scale up NbS in Peru is challenging once it encompasses a range of actors and sectors that usually are not used to collaborating. To move towards Nature-based Economy there is a need to bring those different actors to the same page of comprehension regarding Nature-based Solutions.
How do we go from nature-based solutions to a nature-based economy?
This is maybe one of the trickiest questions we must answer, and I am sure there is not only one fine response. Climate change is already a motor of change, or at least, a motivator of transnational discussions and pacts of changing since quite some time now. Nevertheless, I have the impression the pandemics of Covid-19, recently reinforced by the last IPCC publication, made us, or at least some of us, more connected and aware of the urgency with which we must act. Somehow it shows up a possibility to “re-start” on a much more natural way. On the other hand, the financing of NbS actions to face Climate Change during the recovering from the pandemics is still low. That was/is the moment Nature-based Solutions started to pump up on diverse publications and began gaining more attention in South America, including Peru. This umbrella concept, proposed to put under a common term a bunch of already known techniques and ecosystem approaches, opens new possibilities to different experts and sectors, who normally work focused on one issue, to cooperate and recommend integral solutions for complex problems.
Peru is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, what makes it one of the most vulnerable areas regarding climate change impacts. Besides that, it faces political and socioeconomical challenges that increases environmental disasters risks and its consequences. During the past decade the country has been closely involved on global and regional pacts for climate, assuming it has an important role to play. Environmental policies in the country are novelty once the Ministry of Environment was only created in 2008 focused on nature conservancy. Nature and economy had traditionally taken different paths, as well as social inclusion, but a possible shift of the business-as-usual model is being recently proposed here.
Currently the country defined two ways towards the sustainability and resilience. The National Policy of Competitivity and Productivity, approved in 2018 by the Ministry of Economics and Finance, incorporates strategies of circular economy to achieve sustainability. It is being complemented by specific roadmaps designed by the Ministry of Environment (MINAM), to guide each one of the most representative economic sectors of the country (industry, agriculture, fishing, and aquaculture), on closing its looping. In parallel, also very fresh, policies and regulations focused on Climate Change mitigation and adaptation are being launched by MINAM. From that, 154 National Determined Contributions are planned, among them Ecosystem based Adaptation (EbA), Natural Infrastructure (IN) actions and different approaches to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions to target 2050 neutrality. Together the two groups of policies settle the bases for Nature-based Solutions in the country and open precedents for a Nature-based economy to be developed. Even though this terminology is very new here, the NbS is already cited on official documents referencing the planned NDC.
Due to the freshness of those policies, together with the institutional debility that affects the country and the commitment it demands to re-think the current economic model, its effectiveness is still unknown. However, it can be a great possibility to impulse Nature-based Solutions and Nature-based Economy together in Peru. What can be current observed is that local EbA and IN interventions have succeed on empowering communities to work with nature to benefit themselves by improving small economies in rural areas, while conserving, restoring, or creating new ecosystems. Yet, the design of business models to support and scale up NbS in Peru is challenging once it encompasses a range of actors and sectors that usually are not used to collaborating. Urban areas also represent a gap of action that should be taken. To move towards Nature-based Economy there is a need to bring those different actors to the same page of comprehension regarding Nature-based Solutions potential and application on different areas of the territory.
Ana is a founder of the Centre for Experiments in Urban Studies (CEUS) from Belgrade, local coordinator of the CLEVER Cities project on urban regeneration via nature-based solutions, and PhD candidate in Spatial Planning.
Post-pandemic recovery is the perfect occasion for spatial and urban planners to spark the conversation on grey-to-green transition of the public spaces and infrastructure, and for the governments to accept nature-based solutions and the accompanying economic activities, reskilling and upskilling of workers for green jobs, and adoption of policies which truly embrace nature-based economy.
Nature-based economy may be the critical window of opportunity
In the moment of absolutely obvious climate and environmental crisis — the summer of 2021 — the emerging concept of nature-based economy may be the critical window of opportunity for reversing the negative impacts of the current economic system, offering possible solutions for coping with the indispensable change ahead of us. Although nature-based solutions are perceived as enablers of “sustainable economic growth within the contexts of the climate change and biodiversity crises” (from Nature-Based Solutions to the Nature-Based Economy, a draft White Paper for Consultations, June 2021), today there are many reasons to question if “sustainable economic growth” is an oxymoron by itself. Nevertheless, the economy that “encompasses all production, exchange and consumption processes related to activities concerned with the protection, conservation, restoration and sustainable use of natural resources by consumers, industry and society at large” is by far the best option we can advocate for.
One can argue that economic system which is sustainable cannot impose perpetual accumulation of the surplus capital. The encouraging news is that younger generations (Y and Z, millennials and post-millennials) seem to be aware of it and ready to give up on it, in return for natural and environmental protection, more social justice, human dignity, and preserved mental health.
Many environmental activists from these generations also refrain from opportunistic and anthropocentric monetizing and pricing of ecosystem services and from considering nature as an asset, claiming that nature is invaluable. However, underlining the economic potential of nature-based solutions and natural capital is indeed critical for their timely uptake and upscaling by governments and the private sector, necessary for the positive environmental impact we desperately need.
Efforts to promote a nature-based economy, in order to triple the investments in nature-based solutions by 2030, must be twofold. To reach the targeted increase of 120 billion euros of private nature-based investments — from the current 15 billion (UN Report on the State of Finance for Nature, 2021) — it is inevitable to communicate, collaborate and co-create with powerful and impactful stakeholders. This stream of action can bring technical shifts and quicker quantitative results, valuable for the current moment and the post-pandemic recovery actions.However, the profound value of nature-based economy and its potential for paradigm shift lies in the activities of the rising number of small, eco-social enterprises, that are not driven by necessarily creating the extra profit, but operating not-for-profit and environmentally responsible. This radical change of perception regarding satisfying, or even optimal business opportunities between the older generations (baby-boomers and Gen X) and the younger ones hopefully will bring qualitative, long-term transformation, serving as a cornerstone of restoration of our planet and protection of the organized human life on Earth that we know.
Social perspective of ecological transition is highly important: nature-based economy allows for new jobs, often less complex and more enjoyable, which can lead towards healthier and more just communities.
In the context of the Green Agenda for the Western Balkan, there is a strong potential for various sectors of nature-based enterprises in the EU Candidate Countries. Community landscape and biodiversity restoration has become fairly popular, as well as agritourism, regenerative agriculture and beekeeping. Demand for biomaterials for construction, green roofs and walls, as well as nature-based urban regeneration for urban green commons, green space management, and natural flood & surface water management are expected to develop in the near future. Challenges to uptake the nature-based economy in this area lie in the strong traditional engineering matrices and institutional impedance towards less technically-intensive, nature-based solutions.
Hemp home in Homolje Mountain, Serbia, Architects: Ljubica Arsić & Daniel Fuchs, Concept designer: Predrag Milosavljević; retrieved from hemplicity.co, on August 31, 2021.
Nevertheless, integrating urban perspective and the values of nature has never been more important. Post-pandemic recovery is the perfect occasion for spatial and urban planners to spark the conversation on grey-to-green transition of the public spaces and infrastructure, and for the governments to accept nature-based solutions and the accompanying economic activities, reskilling and upskilling of workers for green jobs, and adoption of policies which truly embrace nature-based economy.
Master gardener and managing director. Owner of three agricultural production horticultural businesses and managing partner of Helix Pflanzen GmbH and Helix Pflanzensysteme GmbH. Vertical greening has been part of Hans Müller's entire horticultural career. For about 15 years there has been a clear strategic corporate orientation to harness ecosystem services from vertical vegetation. Hans Müller and the company Helix Pflanzen GmbH have since worked in various national and international research consortia. In 2017, Hans Müller received the Taspo Award in gold as horticultural entrepreneur of the year 2017
There are two levels of developments concerning a nature-based economy: (1) The NBE (Nature based Enterprise) Startups focusing on NBS; (2) Classic / traditional companies transferring towards an NBE. Both are important and for both I see economic advantages.
How can nature-based solutions (NBS) provide the basis for a nature-based economy?
One important key is monetizing the ecosystem services provided by nature. Without doing this, without giving an economic value to NBS there will be no significant and natural development for a nature- based economy.
Why is that?
Economic processes are based on the principle of cost and value of goods and services. Also, the principle of opportunities and risks.
What is the cost of pollution, what is the cost of missing green, missing trees and shrubs in urban areas? It just started to price the Co2 emissions. It is well known, that taxes on cars per year does not match the hidden cost of pollution and health risk on man per year and car. This need to change!
The other perspective: Studies have shown that the timespan patients stay in hospitals is shorter, when their hospital room facing into a lush green space. Patients locking into a Park or green area shortens their stay in hospital and the heath system safes money. This money should be made available to the owner of the Park for their maintenance budget.
Politics has to have a close look at that and need to prepare fair rules to enable the development of nature- based economy. To value, the cost of pollution and the value of ecosystem services of NBS need to get visible, and the bill needs to be paid. Then there will be budgets for NBS and also for the transformation towards an NBE
Market- based mechanism will then boost the nature-based economy.
Maybe this sounds too simple for you — you are right — it is not. It is far more complicated, I know. Anyway, the roles to the economic playground needs to be sharpened by politics.
To me there are two levels of developments concerning a nature-based economy
The NBE (Nature based Enterprise) Startups focusing on NBS
Classic / traditional companies transferring towards an NBE
Both are important and for both I see economic advantages.
To me, there are already many signs towards a nature-based economy:
Public demand for NBS is visible and not many companies can provide goods and services at the moment. The public awareness towards the climate crises and lack of biodiversity leads to NBS. Cooperate Financing will get harder without a CSR report including environmental aspects. The Fridays for future generation is highly sensible for the eco aspects, and they are the future employees and CEOs.
Let’s get started and monetize Eco System services on a wide scale!
Isaac Luwaga Mugumbule is the Head of Landscaping at the Kampala Capital City Authority. He holds a degree in Architecture with specialized training in green infrastructure management and urban design and has 12 years experience in the built environment and urban landscape. He led Kampala’s first urban forestry audit and development of an urban green infrastructure ordinance.
Governments, policy makers, experts and private sector need to collaborate and develop Nature-based economic indicators. These could explore factors like urban forestry cover, air quality, blue infrastructure, population growth, green technology. NbE indicators would then be used as a basis for driving key economic policy decisions as opposed to the norm.
The concept of Nature-based economy (NbE) is new to the City of Kampala and to most cities across the globe. In the past, we have had a lot of dialogue around Nature-based Solutions (NbS) and Impacts of Climate change on a country’s economy but never on the same platform. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), it defines Nature-based Solutions (NbS) as “actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits”. This umbrella of NbS creates the opportunity to incorporate other urban actors in the discussion on NbE.
Kampala City is the Capital City of Uganda and is located next to one of Africa’s largest natural asset, Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa. Another major natural asset in Uganda is the longest river in Africa, River Nile, which also originates from Lake Victoria. Unlike most cities, Kampala has two population figures, that is a night population (residents) of 1.65 million people and day-time population of 4.0 million people (UBOS, 2019). This large disparity in the two population figures shows the urbanization pressures this city faces. However, if the city fails to protect the ecosystem around Lake Victoria, then this will have devastating effects not only on the economies of countries within the Lake Victoria basin but also the countries served by the River Nile all the way up to Egypt in Northern Africa. It should be noted that these two large natural assets have been critical in guiding economic discussions within Africa and have led to the formation of key economic groups, that is the East Africa Community (EAC) which consists of six partner states and the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) which consists of eleven partner states. More than half the global population now lives in towns and cities.
By the year 2050, UN-Habitat research projects that the figure will rise to two-thirds. According to the Kampala Physical Development Plan (KPDP), it is projected that by 2040, a population of 10 million people will be living in Kampala. In order to mitigate the pressures of urbanization, Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) developed a 5-year strategic plan (2020-2025) aimed at addressing the challenges of urbanization in a holistic approach. This strategy incorporated the KPDP, Disaster Risk and Climate Resilience strategy, the Kampala Drainage Masterplan and the Kampala Climate Change Action Plan (KCCAP). According to the Disaster Risk Resilience strategy, an integrated approach has been set out in managing disasters in the city. This includes avoiding creating risks, reducing existing risks, responding more efficiently to disasters and mitigating the effects of climate and building climate resilience. The resilience strategy will inform KCCA’s Investment planning and operations for the strategic plan, as well as sectoral plans and Investments. KCCAP aims at mainstreaming climate change response in all city services in order to put the city on a low carbon development path.
NbE essentially looks at how cities will effectively utilize the existing resources in a sustainable way while building resilience and maintaining a balanced ecosystem amidst the threat of climate change. Governments, policy makers, experts and private sector need to collaborate and develop Nature-based economic indicators. These could explore factors like urban forestry cover, air quality, blue infrastructure, population growth, green technology. NbE indicators would then be used as a basis for driving key economic policy decisions as opposed to the norm. All governments need to closely monitor these NbE indicators and any negative change should trigger a warning that will translate to an appropriate response to mitigate the looming crisis.
Rhoda Gwayinga is a Supervisor Risk Management at Kampala Capital City Authority(KCCA). She holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics, a post graduate diploma in financial management and a certified fraud examiner. Rhoda has 13 years’ experience in risk management and has worked in the banking sector, international NGO and with government entity(KCCA)
David Simon is Professor of Development Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London and until December 2019 was also Director of Mistra Urban Futures, an international research centre on sustainable cities based at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.
While decried by critics as reducing intrinsic values to utilitarian economic value and privileging those services that can be quantified, the inclusion of cultural services and the recognition in the other categories of the value of integrated, multispecies ecosystems is intended to avoid simplistic economisation. In a monetized world, attaching tangible values to ecosystems and the services they perform is the most likely way to conserve them.
Although the term “nature-based solutions” (NBS) has become widely used and recognised only fairly recently, the value of natural areas and biodiversity to human wellbeing and sustainability has long been recognised. Various forms of national park, nature reserve, botanical garden and other protected area have been created around the world for well over a century, while the shift of emphasis from saving individual endangered species to the need to conserve them as part of threatened habitats, ecosystems and ecobiomes began several decades ago.
A — and perhaps the — key value of NBS and the closely related concept of ecosystem services (ESs) lies in their focus on problem solving and the services provided by the environment. ESs go one stage further in seeking to quantify the value of four principal categories of such service (provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural). While decried by critics as reducing intrinsic values to utilitarian economic value and privileging those services that can be quantified, the inclusion of cultural services and the recognition in the other categories of the value of integrated, multispecies ecosystems is intended to avoid simplistic economisation. Underpinning that perspective is the argument that in this capitalistic and increasingly monetised world, attaching tangible values to ecosystems and the services they perform is the most likely way to conserve them.
The oldest and most-established forms of nature-based economy exist in predominantly rural areas. These include schemes to pay farmers to retain uncultivated areas (known as Set Aside by the European Commission), and conserve biodiverse features such as hedgerows and reedbeds on wetland margins. Such payments recognise the economic value of ‘natural’ and uncultivated areas and their ecosystem services. Rural afforestation schemes are also increasingly moving away from monoculture forestry plantations towards more biodiverse mixed species areas, and sometimes paying owners not to fell native forests in the first place as a precursor to establishing plantations.
Another example is nature-based tourism, a massive growth area in many countries and regions, where nature reserves, national parks and private resorts experience development of activities from skiing to watersports, hiking, survival courses and wildlife safaris. The unsustainability of many large-scale conventional schemes has spawned rapid growth of ‘eco-tourist’ initiatives with lower impacts, greater local integration and employment and hence supposedly greater lasting local economic benefit.
In and around urban areas, high-density nature-based leisure and recreation areas like country parks, lakes and reservoirs and coastal resorts often combine diverse activities that comprise important economic assets, albeit of varying local embeddedness and sustainability. There is important scope to upgrade, enhance and expand these in various ways, including (a) expanding and linking isolated “natural” areas like pocket parks to develop more integrated green-blue infrastructure that has far higher ecological value and opens nature to residents in all areas, especially poorer neighbourhoods which usually fare badly on local green space; and (b) by environmental restoration/(re-)wilding and increasing their use of indigenous vegetation and adapting them for climate change resilience.
Large-scale commercial peri-urban agriculture is an important contributor to urban food supply and security in Cape Town, South Africa. Photo: David Simon
Sustainable urban and peri-urban agriculture at both micro and commercial smallholder scales has substantial development potential in many regions, providing livelihoods to poor and low-income people and contributing to reducing food miles and greater city-regional food supply resilience (see photo above). Replacing exotic vegetation in urban parks, roadside beds and embankments with native/indigenous species that are more climate resilient and have greater urban biodiversity value is an increasingly urgent nature-based economic activity in its own right, not least through commercial scale plant/tree nurseries.
Other forms of urban greening (see photo below) help to reduce the urban heat island effect, make outdoor areas more attractive and hence add value to restaurants, pubs and other facilities, enhance senses of well-being and mental health, hence potentially reducing the cost of mental health and related treatment.
A very biodiverse green wall abutting an outdoor café area at a new cinema in Chiswick, London, England. Photo: David Simon
Dr Audrey Timm is a horticultural scientist specialised in ornamental horticulture. Since joining International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH) as Technical Advisor in early 2019, Audrey leads their Green City initiative with the purpose of increasing the quality and quantity of living green in urban environments, and of nurturing a strategic shift in city form and function.
When nature-based-solutions become an integral part of city infrastructure, nature becomes woven into the economic support network, providing new business opportunities, jobs and income-generating activities across a broad spectrum of the population.
The key to answering this question is in the word “solutions”. Nature-based-solutions need to solve a problem that challenges our quality of life in a way that makes them indispensable to our future.
In a broad conservation context, nature-based-solutions are very much about restoring natural systems to recover from or avert disasters. In a city context, we need to emulate natural systems. We need to understand how they work, and how this therefore provides the solution that we seek.
For example, trees capture rainfall, slow it down, and drip around the canopy fringe to support their own growth. By doing this trees protect the soil, both from reducing the impact of individual droplets that could compact the soil, and by preventing erosion from flooding. Leaf texture plays a role in rainfall interception, as does plant shape. Nature-based-solutions that aim to prevent flooding need to recognise this knowledge and use it to their advantage. Replacing hard, impermeable surfaces with planted and semi-permeable space doesn’t stop heavy rainfall incidents occurring. It stops them from being a problem. The same is true with planted swales that are designed correctly and have suitable plants established. Other examples include hedges to buffer against noise pollution, green roofs and walls as thermal insulation, vegetation to attenuate local air pollution, and trees and greenery to reduce the urban heat island effect. All of these require an understanding of the characteristics of plants that deliver specific solutions, and of the selection and placement of plants in relation to the urban fabric to achieve success.
Nature-based-solutions in the urban environment go beyond simply providing an opportunity for reconnecting people and nature. They work in tandem with the built infrastructure, providing solutions that hard, engineered systems cannot deliver on their own. Implementing successful nature-based-solutions is driven not only by knowledge, but by an understanding of how the knowledge contributes to the solution. From this perspective, no single sector can drive a nature-based economy. When nature-based-solutions become an integral part of city infrastructure, nature becomes woven into the economic support network, providing new business opportunities, jobs and income-generating activities across a broad spectrum of the population. Nature-based-solutions cannot be motivated as part of the future of our city economies because nature needs our help; they are part of the economy because we need to mobilise the help of nature for our future.
Ellie Tonks brings expertise in designing and delivering impact orientated climate innovation projects. As Programme Lead of EIT Climate-KIC’s Resilient Regions programme Ellie has worked with four European regions over the past 2 years, to design portfolios of climate-resilient adaptation innovations. Ellie has an MSc in Ecological Economics from The University of Edinburgh and a BSc in Ecology and Conservation from St Andrews University.
At present, our economy does not favour a nature-based development agenda. But if a holistic case was built around the climate change adaptation and/or community health co-benefits, we could start to piece together a more compelling nature-based development case.
As an ecological economist the notion of a nature-based economy should come easily to me. However, it still sits oddly in my stomach. It sends me back to the conversations I would have with peers in ecology and conversation over my decision to study ecological economics. To discussions on their hesitation, resistance and worries towards concepts like “natural capital”, “green growth” or “ecosystem services”. The challenge with these concepts and narratives is the dichotomy between their sub-parts. When considering a response to the question of “How can nature-based solutions (NBS) provide the basis for a nature-based economy?” I am again confronted by the contract between what I associate as nature-based and as an economy. Therefore, I will try to address my discomfort head-on by setting out a vision for a nature-based economy, followed by why we must look past only the economic potential of NBS.
My vision for a (global) nature-based economy, is an economic system that is embedded within our social system, which is in turn is embedded within our ecological system. In other words, a nature-based economy is operating within our planetary boundaries, working mutually towards net-zero and resilience efforts. It is an economy in which the production and consumption of nature-based goods and services are used to meet the needs of the communities they serve, whilst regenerating and building resilience in the (eco)systems they rely on. For example, timber sustainably harvested from local mixed-species forest is used to substitute carbon intensive materials like cement or steel in construction efforts; meeting housing needs, whilst supporting local labour markets via the new jobs needed to process and build with wood. This example, however, sets out the fragility of the nature-based economy as it is an economy that must be deliberate and purposeful. The forests, for example, if not planted and managed to regenerate soils, promote biodiversity, and build resilience to future climate scenarios, can further lock-in vulnerabilities to our systems. As a result, the increased use of timber in construction, though it would realise quantifiable carbon benefits via carbon storage in wood-based produces in addition to providing new local economic opportunities, could jeopardise the ecological system in which it lives. Nature-based economies must therefore be designed deliberately.
The NBS that are the constitute elements of our nature-based economy can help realise whole system scale impacts, and not just economic benefits. Considering these systems scale benefits can support new business models and financing schemes, whilst creating the enabling conditions to grow new nature-based businesses and start-ups. For example, vacant and derelict land in cities represents a very physical opportunity for the nature-based economy to thrive within urban areas, however, the redevelopment of this land falls short in the development case when landowners hold off in the hope that land value will increase in the future. In other words, at present our economy is favouring a different development agenda. Whereas, if a holistic case was built around the climate change adaptation (e.g. water retention or urban cooling benefits) and/or community health (e.g. improved mental health and wellbeing or pollution reduction) co-benefits we could start to piece together a more compelling development case. This development case will never represent the full systems benefits of NBS (e.g. cultural, heritage or ecological values), however, it will support the growth of our nature-based economy, and in turn help the realisation of these multifaceted benefits.
In summary, we need to be purposeful when designing both the NBS that constitute our future nature-based economies, and the future nature-based economy itself. Both need to be net-zero, resilience building, and regenerative in their design.
Domenico Vito, PhD engineer, works in European projects on air quality in Italy. He has been an observer of the Conferences of the Parties since 2015 - the year the Paris Agreement. Member of the Italian Society of Climate Sciences, he is active in various environmental networks and has been active participant in YOUNGO, the constituent of young people within the Framework Convention of Nations Unite.
NBS mitigate and increase land value in all the four dimensions of sustainability: environmental, social, economical, and participative.
The European Commission defines nature based solutions as: “Solutions that are inspired and supported by nature, which are cost-effective, simultaneously provide environmental, social and economic benefits and help build resilience.”
This definition contains several elements that resumes the main features and benefits related to nature based solutions. Nature based solutions (NBS) are forefront strategies for mitigation greenhouse gas emissions. Besides the best complex human technology, NBS collects with astonishing simplicity the benefits and the efficacy of act WITH nature rather than force nature against its rules. The impact of NBS is more holistic rather than reductionistic, as typical of the ones just technical or technological.
If these last ones are only acting on some of the sides of a problem that are intelligible by a model or a framework designed by humans, NBS are able to influence also ecological interactions, in a more integrated way. Compared also to just technological solution NBS bring a more pronounced participatory dimension. If technology is usual proprietary, market-based, owned, held by a company or entity, nature based solutions are collective, cooperative and community based. Just thinking to collective three planting. For these reasons NBS can be inserted into a context not only for their mitigation function, but also to regenerate lands on a social and economical dimension.
A clear example of such assumptions stands in agroforestry solutions. Agroforestry pushes to integrate agriculture with the local landscapes and biodiversity profiles. It is based on the principle of ecological succession, which wants to recreate the same relationships among plants , trees and grasses that persist in a vital forest. The added value is that together also food species are inserted. A case study of a virtuose agroforesty, that also provide economical and social benefits is the project “Milano Porta Verde” (see the images).
Sky Vision of Milano Porta Verde
In this project, 8 hectares of abandoned peri-urban land has been restored in collaboration with local association “Cascinet” and SoulFood Forest Farms Hub Italia”. The area has been planted by the volunteers and local neighbours of Parco della Vettabbia with the agroforesty technique and a Community Supported Agriculture initiative with a partner farmer has been started.
Collective Replanting of 8 hectars at Vettabbia Milan
So beside the ecological restoration, this area acquired a social and food chain value.
Such an example is a clear demonstration of the second part of the definition of Nature Based Solutions, given that the EU that states “Such solutions bring more, and more diverse, nature and natural features and processes into cities, landscapes and seascapes, through locally adapted, resource-efficient and systemic interventions”.
Indeed, we can assume NBS mitigate and increase land value in all the four dimensions of sustainability: environmental, social, economical, and participative.
Rupesh spent a decade at Lehman Brothers and Barclays in equity research in sustainability and clean technology, ranking first in the Institutional Investor survey. Prior to this, Rupesh worked at PwC in the corporate finance practice. Rupesh has a degree in economics from the London School of Economics, is a chartered accountant and Freeman of the City of London. Rupesh is an expert reviewer in various publications with the World Economic Forum, the OECD, Prince of Wales Sustainability unit and the United Nations relating to sustainable development.
The extent to which nature-based solutions can provide a basis for a nature-based economy depends on the coinciding policies, frameworks and mechanisms implemented. With the correct policies that address barriers and drive enabling factors, nature-based solutions include such a wide variation of projects that they provide a strong foundation to achieve a nature based economy.
Nature based solutions can only provide the framework and foundations of a nature-based economy if these solutions are accompanied by strong overarching policy recommendations that ensure barriers to scale are addressed, and enabling factors are enhanced. For example, in order to have a nature-based economy, nature-based solutions such as urban forestry and others that provide carbon sequestration need to be scaled immensely. However, these nature-based solutions find it difficult to attract private investors due to a lack of direct revenue streams that can be used to provide economic incentives to the private sector. Hence nature-based solutions such as urban forestry need to be accompanied with policy amendments that address barriers such as providing more confidence in future revenue streams through greater certainty around carbon prices through for example a minimum price policy or framework for carbon. These policy amendments will increase confidence in commercially viable models and cash flows for nature-based solutions which in turn can help achieve scale and a transition to a nature-based economy.
Also, in addition to policy amendments that address barriers such as long-term revenue streams and commercially viable models, instruments and mechanisms that enhance the enabling factors at scale and incentivise nature-based solutions are essential. For example, BwB has worked closely with developing countries to develop and utilise KPI bonds (as well as SDG bonds found here: https://www.bwbuk.org/post/bwb-partners-with-undp-to-issue-first-sdg-bond-for-uzbekistan) that incentivise proceeds to be used for country-specific nature-based solutions that prioritise issues in each country. These KPI bonds, alongside a robust MRV (Monitoring, Reporting and Verification) mechanism allow for NBS projects to be implemented at scale given the significant coupon and principal reductions that can be achieved based on targets, hence the wider adoption of these instruments can have a more notable impact in terms of a nature-based economy. Another key enabling factor for achieving a nature-based economy will be mechanisms or frameworks put in place that correctly value NBS. BwB has developed a centralised mechanism named Green Neighbourhoods as a Service (found here: https://www.bwbuk.org/post/green-neighbourhoods-as-a-service) which utilises the co-benefits that arise from these projects to address the mismatch between ownership of the capital spend and of the value of benefits, tackle the fragmentation issue, overcome barriers to entry, allow aggregation of projects and matching of different types of finance that will be needed. Such a centralised mechanism that brings change on a neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood basis in the long-term can have a significant impact in achieving a nature-based economy.
Furthermore, in order for nature-based solutions to provide the basis for a nature-based economy, there needs to be greater transparency around the frameworks used to identify nature-based activities and ensure funder capital is directed to the correct coinciding projects. For example, the IUCN Global Standard provides clear parameters for defining nature-based solutions and a common framework to help benchmark progress. This is essential to increase the scale and impact of the NBS approach, prevent unanticipated negative outcomes or misuse, and help funding agencies, policy makers and other stakeholders assess the effectiveness of interventions. This will allow financers to invest in NBS with confidence that the standard provides a benchmark, minimising risks and adding assurance. Such a standard also allows for the wider stakeholder groups in society to get involved and engage with the governance structure of the standard.
In conclusion, the extent to which nature-based solutions can provide a basis for a nature-based economy depends on the coinciding policies, frameworks and mechanisms implemented. With the correct policies that address barriers and drive enabling factors, nature-based solutions include such a wide variation of projects (including green and blue infrastructure, ecosystem services, ecosystem-based adaptation, ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction, blue-green infrastructure, low-impact development, best management practices, water-sensitive urban design, sustainable urban drainage systems and ecological engineering), that they provide a strong foundation to achieve a nature based economy, but not standalone.
Emre has acquired experience in multiple projects at BwB working on the innovative finance structures required to fund projects, covering a wide list of sustainability linked subjects including energy, biodiversity, debt restructuring, circularity, green infrastructure and retrofit. Emre holds a BSc Hons Accounting and Finance degree from LSE having achieved a First-Class Honours. He is also an entrepreneur having established his own start-up.
Guilherme Neves Castagna is a civil engineer, ecological designer, and integrated water management specialist based in São Paulo, Brazil. Guilherme is also a founding partner at Fluxus Design Ecológico, a multi-awarded engineering and ecological design firm that designs integrated water management infrastructure for clients ranging from traditional and vulnerable communities to industries, commercial development projects and municipalities. Fluxus advocates for water literacy, offering courses and workshops, and produce educational materials in multiple media for both general and technical public, strengthening a new culture of mutually beneficial relationship with water.
Increased biodiversity, being the very foundation of NBS, can help establishing relevant indexes that support the growth of real nature-based economy. After all, no economy is possible without a sound natural capital in place.
No longer regarded as experiments, NBS are being implemented across the world in challenging situations while providing a multitude of beneficial functions, whether for the built, or the natural environment. As it gains momentum, and wide scale recognition of its benefits, successful NBS implementation offer tangible results that can be measured, scrutinized, and actually sensed by those able to accompany its impact. The fresh air and pleasant microclimate produced by a newly planted forest in the heart of a densely occupied city is easily perceived (and welcomed) by anyone that has had the experience of walking through the same place under the scorching sun; in that sense, the actual benefits felt by one’s senses are enough to perceive its positive impact.
The consequences of such perceptions are long and far reaching. Bringing its positive impact to our senses help changing one’s perspective to a very practical level, where solutions deemed as complicate and out-of-reach appear somewhat closer to us, and no longer dependent upon the sole discretion of high-ranked public managers. Lay people are able to understand that small-scale, decentralized solutions can, and do play an important role in improving lives, and start demanding like-minded solutions in other areas. It is just natural then that one starts to ask, what implications derive from our very daily choices on transport, banking, health-care, and many other components of our economy, and how can these choices support the creation of similar benefits in their daily operations? Yes, businesses need to be part of the solution!
In larger scale projects, whether public or private, direct experience is not always accessible and so further measurements are necessary. The use of consolidated metrics, like ROI, however, tend to be quite limited and demand a new approach — one that encompasses benefits that go beyond limited financial metrics and delve into human and natural capital, whose valuation, although complex, allows for checking on real progress. Increased biodiversity then, being the very foundation of NBS, can help establishing relevant indexes that support the growth of real nature-based economy. After all, no economy is possible without a sound natural capital in place.
Eduardo Guerrero is a biologist with over 20 years of experience in projects and initiatives involving environmental and sustainable development issues in Colombia and other South American countries.
Some key challenges (and opportunities) of the urban circular economy for a tropical megadiverse country are: (1) Urban metabolism analysis leads to better decisions; (2) Green entrepreneurship creates a culture of sustainability; (3) Local citizen can drive a circular economy.
Circular economy as a nature-based solution for green and sustainable cities in a megadiverse country
Circular economy is actually a nature-based solution, in which business and productive activities emulate an ecosystem’s efficiency regarding the use of water, raw materials, biomass and energy. So, the main contribution of this concept is the link of economy and nature encouraging an evolution of the conventional economic view about nature as if it were an external factor and an endless spring of resources. In fact, economic and ecological cycles are closely interlinked, so dichotomies that confront economy and environment are more than ever unwise.
Akin to related concepts such as bioeconomy, biotrade, climate economy, green growth, and green business, the circular economy model is generating a new paradigm pointing to a sustainable economy aligned with a global energy transition and biodiversity conservation urgency.
Urban metabolism analysis as a basis to circular economy solutions should be systemic integrating urban biodiversity and ecosystem services. Photo: Eduardo Guerrero
Circular economy in a megadiverse country
In terms of economy-nature synergies, the ecosystemic context and economic emergent dynamics of a country with a high biodiversity such as Colombia offer important opportunities, and challenges related to circular economy implementation.
Cities and metropolitan areas in the Caribbean, Andean, Pacific, Amazon and Orinoquia regions have an enormous space for improvement and the generation of new ventures associated with regional nature advantages.
Circular economy links ecosystem cycles and services, so that the potential of the exceptional Colombian biodiversity is better utilized. And there, clearly, an urban-regional territorial approach is required in which cities are the leveraging nuclei of productive activities and nature conservation, at the same time.
Colombia is a regional leader in terms of public policies promoting circular economy. The National Strategy of Circular Economy was launched in 2019 involving a strong partnership among public and private stakeholders. Moreover, the new stage of the environment policy for cities includes urban circular economy as one of its strategic focuses.
Urban circular economy
Within the global current transition scenario towards a sustainable zero-carbon economy aligned to a halted biodiversity loss, cities are fundamental spaces. Likewise, sustainable cities require a strong development of circular economy schemes, since they are home to a good part of the productive activity and, in addition, the largest population of consumers.
In a city evolving towards sustainability, nature should be an integral part of the urban planning, so that infrastructure, buildings, and mobility corridors are articulated with ecological networks, which are the natural support base for economic production cycles.
Economy and ecology find an opportunity for synergy in urban areas, inspired by the common benefit and pointing to integrated goals of environmental sustainability, economic competitiveness, and social inclusion.
From the perspective of a tropical megadiverse country, some key challenges (and opportunities) of the urban circular economy to consolidate green and sustainable cities are:
Urban metabolism analysis to make better decisions both economic and environmental
To approach the planning of a city in the perspective of the circular economy, one must begin by understanding its metabolism, i.e., the balance between inputs and outputs of water, energy, materials, and biomass. Urban biodiversity and ecosystem services should be an integral part of the analysis.
And we must not forget the social and economic dynamics. Therefore, the analysis of urban metabolism must be systemic, integrating ecological, economic and social flows.
Therefore, it would be advisable to carry out studies and analyses of urban metabolism for each of the country’s city-regions, identifying these particularities, comparative advantages and opportunities for entrepreneurship.
Green entrepreneurship articulated with a culture of sustainability, circularity, innovation, and competitiveness
There are multiple opportunities for the development of enterprises based on the bioeconomy with circularity criteria that articulate existing capacities in urban centers with the comparative advantages of the biodiversity of each city-region.
Rainwater harvesting at home is a good example of citizen-driven circular economy. Photo: Eduardo Guerrero
Businesses based on technologies for water reuse, biotechnology, urban agriculture, nature tourism on an urban-regional scale, bio-commerce with an emphasis on local products (with a low carbon footprint), improved production and marketing of natural medicines and nutraceuticals. These and other green business can be integrated into circular economy models with a greater efficiency in the use of resources inspired on ecological cycles.
Local and citizen-driven circular economy
In addition to public policies and private sector commitment regarding circular economy, a key decisive challenge is to achieve a solid appropriation of circular habits by citizens.
At a local and neighborhood scale, strong education, training, and participation initiatives should be supported dealing not only with concepts but mainly with best practices. Rain harvesting, home composting, source separation, reuse of packaging and discarded objects, including their creative transformation into toys, ornaments, costumes, boxes, homemade tools, among others, must be disseminated and expanded.
Naomi Tsur is Founder and Chair of the Israel Urban Forum, Chair of the Jerusalem Green Fund, Founder and Head of Green Pilgrim Jerusalem, and served a term as Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, responsible for planning and the environment.
There is no doubt that nature-based solutions contribute to the economy, but that does not necessarily mean that they can provide the basis for a complete economic framework. But nature in and around cities is gradually earning the right to be recognized as a very significant layer of infrastructure, along with water and food (agriculture). This is, effectively, the infrastructure that gives us life.
It has taken many decades for the issue of climate change to gain center stage in the global conversation, and even now that has been achieved, who knows how much longer it will take for the necessary steps to be taken to re-establish the balance between man and nature that is essential for our civilization to survive?
As the conversation develops, so do the misunderstandings that arise in the course of any discussion. Particularly acerbic is the superfluous argument between the teams set on protecting biodiversity (the root problem), and the teams working to achieve the goal of zero emissions. These last are often so focused on their task, that they sometimes seem to forget why they are doing it.
Meanwhile nature in and around cities, historically viewed as the “leftovers” of urban development, is gradually earning the right to be recognized as a very significant layer of infrastructure, along with water and food (agriculture). This is, effectively, the infrastructure that gives us life.
Parallel to the painfully slow increase in awareness of the simple fact that it is we who need nature and not the reverse, it is now understood that nature itself can provide some of the best means of defense for the other kinds of infrastructure that we hold so dear, such as transport systems, buildings of all kinds, in short our urban fabric.
I have been following the course of urban and peri-urban nature for the last 25 years, and it has been, and continues to be a fascinating journey. In my own city, Jerusalem, I am familiar with the details of every step in the journey, but I see similar processes in many other cities around the world. These are the steps I have followed closely in Jerusalem:
The discovery of natural areas within cities that have not been built on or developed as neatly sculpted gardens.
The understanding that these areas have cultural, educational and recreational value for the local urban community.
The realization that these areas have been guardians of various species, and indeed enabled their survival.
The appreciation that nature within the city can be part of the broader picture, in that ecological corridors do not end at the city boundary, but in fact run through the city, a reality that needs to be incorporated into urban planning.
The grasp of the potential contribution of urban nature to mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. For example, we all know the importance of trees in our cities, the contribution of well-managed community gardens to the restoration of damaged habitats and local food-growing is well-known, and many cities have used natural areas to protect their drainage basins from catastrophic flooding.
More recently, the value of nature-based solutions has gained greater recognition, along with the understanding that such “solutions” can have enormous economic value, especially when it comes to preventing floods, ensuring that run-off from rainwater is safely filtered before flowing back into underground water reserves, or harvesting rainwater for use in drier seasons, in the case of arid climates.
There is no doubt that nature-based solutions contribute to the economy, but that does not necessarily mean that they can provide the basis for a complete economic framework. If I take as an example one of the famous case studies from Jerusalem, the Gazelle Valley Park, I believe it is entirely possible to quantify the economic benefit of the initiative, independent of the clear social and environmental benefits.
It is a nature park, designed to cater for the herd of gazelles that live there. There are therefore no electric lighting installations, so as not to disturb the gazelles’ natural cycle. Result: a lot of money saved.
It is a nature park, so the gardening required is minimal and low maintenance. Result: a lot of money saved.
The park is designed as part of the Soreq drainage basin. The lakes in the park are formed from winter rainfall, and supplemented in summer with tertiary treated sewage water. No tap water is used. Result: a lot of money saved.
The park covers 65 acres, in the heart of the city. There is enormous demand for housing near the park. Result: a lot of money in city coffers from successful urban renewal initiatives.
The Gazelle Park has become a tourist attraction, apart from having become a global bird lovers’ destination. Result: income for the city, when tourists add a day to their schedule to include the park.
These points illustrate the economic significance of one urban nature park in Jerusalem. There are many additional projects, and many more potential ones. I would posit that in Jerusalem, as in almost any other city, nature-based solutions can and should play an integral role in the urban economy, alongside other significant urban sectors.
David loves urban spaces and nature. He loves creativity and collaboration. He loves theatre and music. In his life and work he has practiced in all of these as, in various moments, a scientist, a climate change researcher, a land steward, an ecological practitioner, composer, a playwright, a musician, an actor, and a theatre director.
I am thrilled that some businesses are advancing in this conversation about sustainability. But we need more. We need everyone — all businesses and all people — to be part of the change, which will require sacrifice.
I worked for The Nature Conservancy in the late 1980s, and at that time significant money came to TNC from large corporate donations, with as car companies. A former president of the organization was asked if it was appropriate to use money to conserve land that was “tainted” by environmental damage by the donor in other sectors of the economy, especially extractive industries. He was famous for his answer, in American slang: “Tainted money? T’ain’t enough”. His meaning was that if we did good with the money, then its provenance was not a concern.
I and others were uncomfortable with this approach.
Our — meaning the world’s — issues of sustainability, resilience, livability, and social justice are so vast that the answers cannot be found in corporations donating to green causes, thus providing political cover. This is greenwashing. A coverup that simply happens to look green. Buried deep in our problem is that we are better at appearing to be green-virtuous that making fundamental changes that often are inconvenient or seem to “cost more”. This is for regular people too, not just businesses. Recycling comes to mind, when we recycle at higher rates, but consume even faster. We get a bigger car that has marginally better gas efficiency, but we drive more and don’t use public transportation. We buy organic food without worry that is was grown half way around the world.
These problems have roots in economies across sectors, from businesses themselves to people (i.e., consumers). Businesses, people, and governments will have to demand more of each other.
In the global north, where economies are largely grounded in an unsustainable demand for growth, we need to reassess our values, and both businesses and regular people will have to adapt and sacrifice by putting effort and money into change. Governments must help by creating real incentives to reward our efforts and regulations (such as planning and zoning codes and requirements for nature-based solutions) with bite.
In the global south we face a different but related challenge. It is that around the world millions of people need their standard of living raised. This will require greater consumption of food and energy, and will result in increases in factors that cause climate change. Many of us who read TNOC — most, I imagine — believe that raising living standards for the world’s underserved is moral, just, and right. Will we in the global north be prepared to sacrifice for this just cause? Maybe. Maybe not. For their part, all these new cities in the south are an opportunity to not repeat the same planning mistakes of current cities. We’ll need imagination, and resist the temptation of the easy solution that has a big development company (often from the north) get paid to recreate an old-fashioned solution.
I was one of several editors on a book on about sustainability. It contained chapter by a journalist in Karachi, who wrote that the debates about sustainability and economies that occur in London and New York and Paris seem to occur on another planet, with no relevance to a city in which drinking water is sold on the street by organized crime. I shared the stage once with an indigenous (Mapuche) and women’s right activist from Patagonia, hoc was also part of the aforementioned book. She recounted how she was challenged in Europe by a person with one child, who said the five children that the activist had were “immoral and unsustainable”. The activist responded that her five children in Patagonia consumed many fewer resources that the accusor’s one in Europe.
Fair enough. These are conversations that require action and often sacrifice. But whose sacrifice? They will be difficult conversations. They will require a willingness to acknowledge our own roles in the problems that face us.
For me, several imperatives are clear, although I am not sure people are ready for the political battles they would require. (I mean, we cannot seem to even agree that getting a vaccine is a good idea during a global heath crisis.)
We need to abandon economic growth as a de-facto good
We need to root out greenwashing
We need to accept the idea that sustainability will cost all of us something
We need to understand and act on (i.e., be responsible for) the true environmental costs and “footprint” of our actions
Nature-based solutions should be required of all companies (and individuals when it makes sense), not just as a region-wide goal; and they can’t just be another aspect of greenwashing
We must achieve not carbon neutrality, but a carbon negative; this is the only way to sustain increased livability in developing nations
I am thrilled that some businesses are advancing in this conversation about sustainability. But we need more. We need everyone — all businesses and all people — to be part of the movement.
Dr John Bell is the ”Healthy Planet” Director in DG Research & Innovation. He is responsible for leading the Research and Innovation transitions on Climate Change within planetary boundaries, Bioeconomy, Food Systems, Environment and Biodiversity, Oceans and Arctic, Circular Economy, Water and Bio-based innovations.
The potential is huge. However, unlocking full NBS potential will need a massive increase in investment, both public and private and will hinge on a paradigm shift in how our economies are organised and how they value nature and its services. A transformation is needed in our current business model, bringing local actors to the driving seat for changes.
Europe’s Green Deal Missions is to make peace with nature. Research and Innovation needs a greater level of ambition to set direction for this transition.
Our livelihoods, well-being and our chance to meet the global warming challenge all depend on Nature. Nature provides all sorts of essential services to humanity: clean air and water, food and pollination, it sustains tourism and leisure activities, it contributes to mental and physical health and delivers many other functions.
Nature, in many instances, is also the most effective insurance policy – protecting us from floods, landslides, fires or extreme heat. The tragic natural disasters that have hit Europe and the world this summer have all been a stark reminder of how much we need this protection. Natural capital stocks per capita have declined by nearly 40% between 1992 and 2014 and one million plant and animal species now face extinction. All this while roughly half of the world’s GDP is moderately or highly dependent on Nature.
This is a serious threat to our future welfare and calls for the development of an Economy that is more respectful of Nature.
At the centre of this paradigm shift are Nature-based Solutions (NBS). They are increasingly recognised internationally as a fundamental part of action for climate and biodiversity. A UNEP report issued last May states that investments in NBS need to triple by 2030[1] if the world is to meet its climate change, biodiversity and land restoration targets.
A growing number of businesses is making the case for NBS already, but it is time to move from niche to a broader movement. Hence, while NBS are already being delivered, are visible and credible, we need a greater uptake, including through the supportive policy framework offered by the European Green Deal.
A recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is another chance to bring back nature to the core of our societies. National Recovery and Resilience Plans, which aim to build a more sustainable and resilient economy across Europe are a once in a life-time opportunity for a nature-based recovery.
The potential for local job creation is tremendous, comprising both highly technical green jobs but also other jobs that are low-skilled, offering a chance to reach those who have been hit hardest by the pandemic.
The potential is huge. However, unlocking full NBS potential will need a massive increase in investment, both public and private and will hinge on a paradigm shift in how our economies are organised and how they value nature and its services. A transformation is needed in our current business model, bringing local actors to the driving seat for changes.
We need to move towards:
An Economy that puts Nature at its heart and acknowledges that biodiversity is absolutely essential to secure long-term sustainable economic growth;
An Economy that is aligned with Nature and Climate goals, including through incentive structures, fiscal and budgetary policies;
An Economy with more holistic objectives and measures of progress that look beyond economic growth/GDP
Such an Economy would create opportunities for viable, large-scale NBS across various sectors, while creating a win-win for nature, climate, and the people.
We have mobilised research and innovation to support policy here: 28 projects are underway worth EUR 240 million on demonstrating how to deploy NBS. Additionally, large-scale ecosystem restoration projects on land and at sea from our Horizon 2020 Green Deal call (mobilising EUR 86 million) will start this autumn.
NBS also feature prominently in Horizon Europe’s Work programmes for 2021-2022, in the Biodiversity Partnership as well as in Horizon Europe’s Missions, notably the one on Adaptation to climate change and Oceans.
In a nutshell – we are not short of ideas. Science is clear on what needs to be done, but it is time to deliver innovation, demonstration of NBS – across policy, business and civil society.
Opportunities are plentiful and it is entirely in our hands to move to a greener, safer and more equitable economy that leaves no one behind, now that the world grapples with unprecedented climate and biodiversity emergencies.
Tiago Freitas lives in Brussels and is a policy officer at DG Research and Innovation of the European Commission, focusing on biodiversity and Nature-based Solutions. In the past, he has worked at the European Parliament (2004-2010), first as policy advisor and then as research analyst in structural and cohesion policies.
Faith communities have great potential to act as a force for urban sustainability—urbanists need to engage with them.
Increasingly, urban nature is viewed not only as a scientific, technological or design issue, but a moral one. The recent TNOC roundtable “Ecosystems for everyone” rested on the assumption that provision of and access to ecosystem services and urban nature is a “moral imperative”. Indeed, Steward Pickett began his contribution with the statement “The availability of ecosystem services for everyone is an unarguable moral stance”. Yet with all this discussion of morals, ethics and justice, there is a conspicuous absence of discussion on the place of religion in sustainable and ecologically-flourishing cities. Roger Gottlieb argues in the Oxford Handbook of Ecology and Religion that religion is the “arbiter and repository of life’s deepest moral values”. If this is the case, then surely anyone who is compelled by moral arguments to pursue ecologically-flourishing cities must consider the role of religion. In this blog, I will attempt to answer some key questions around the relevance of religion for sustainable cities and outline why I think religion might be a “sleeping giant” in this endeavour.
The potential for religious institutions to promote urban sustainability has been vastly overlooked. Photo: Photo by Daniel Tseng on Unsplash.com
First, how compatible are religious beliefs with visions of ecological flourishing? A common (if antiquated) view is that religion—particularly monothetistic faiths in the Judaeo-Christian tradition—are responsible for peddling an anthropocentric and exploitative paradigm that is the root cause of the environmental crisis. This view was argued 50 years ago by Lynne White in his famous essay titled “The historical roots of our ecological crisis”. While many faiths may not have been moral leaders in highlighting humanity’s unsustainable exploitation of resources since the industrial revolution, the rise of environmentalism has caused religious scholars to dig deeper into the teachings of their respective traditions. What has emerged is a wealth of moral resources, grounded in scripture, affirming the sacredness of nature and humanity’s responsibility to care for it. Indeed, Bill McKibbin concludes that “only our religious institutions, among the mainstream organizations of Western, Asian, and indigenous societies, can say with real conviction, and with any chance of an audience, that there is some point to life beyond accumulation”[1]. This “ecological awakening” of religious faiths can be seen in the emergence of organisations such as the Alliance for Religion and Conservation and in explicit teachings such as Pope Francis’ recent Encyclical on the environment (summarised here). The potential for religions to be allies for the environmental cause is increasingly recognised by secular conservation organisations, with the Society for Conservation Biology recently establishing a conservation and religion working group.
Pope Francis’ teachings have emphasised the moral imperative of environmental stewardship. Photo: Wikimedia commons
But how does this potential alignment between religion and conservation translate to an urban context? First, urban sacred sites (such as churchyards, mosques, cemeteries) are often rich in biodiversity and provide myriad cultural ecosystem services to urban residents. A recent study in Cape Town, South Africa, found that sacred sites functioned as places for rich and meaningful spiritual experiences, and that aesthetic appreciation was correlated with the species richness of woody plants. In many cities, parks and grounds owned by religious organisations are important green infrastructure features. This has led the Christian conservation charity A Rocha to establish a “churchyard conservation” initiative whereby churches are equipped to encourage wildlife onto their grounds.
Churchyards can be important sites for biodiversity within cities. This is a picture of Cloister Garden, Priory Church of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, London. Photo: Photo by Julian Osley.
However, I suggest that religion has potential to go beyond promoting biodiversity in urban churchyards, to contribute to wholesale transformations towards sustainable and flourishing cities. I discussed in a previous blog post how connecting urban dwellers to nature might help promote sustainability. I suggest that religion might be another powerful vehicle for transformations personally and at a societal scale. In his study titled “Does religion promote environmental sustainability”, Jens Koehrsen suggested three pathways by which religion might contribute to such a shift. First, religious communities might help “materialise” sustainability aspirations through activities like the use of renewable energy or recycling consumables; second, they might campaign for change in the public sphere; and third, they might contribute to the dissemination of values and worldviews that support pro-environmental attitudes and actions. Although Koehnsen did not find strong support for the second and third pathways in his German case studies, I believe these pathways are nonetheless useful for considering how religious organisations might feasibly contribute to sustainable cities.
These categories align well with the notion of “leverage points” for sustainability transformation, which my coauthors from Leuphana University Lueneburg and I have written about recently. Leverage points are places within or attributes of complex systems (e.g. cities) at which interventions can be targeted. These leverage points include parameters (attributes such as amount of green space or amount of energy consumed), structures (the arrangement and behaviour of infrastructures, actors, institutions, etc.) and goals/paradigms (the underlying drivers of system behaviour such as efficiency, growth, well-being). I would argue that religious groups and faith communities have immense potential to effect change at all these leverage points. Using Koehnsen’s examples, materialising aspirations is about parameters, and includes initiatives to promote biodiversity in churchyards. Campaigning for change is about shifting structures via political means. Disseminating values is related to the goals of the system. It is religion’s capacity to combine all three that gives religious groups so much potential. Faith communities have many members and physical assets, which can be used to promote nature. But they also are characterised by strong social capital, and typically are networked with other communities around the world and with other (religious and secular) organisations in their cities. Finally (and most importantly), they affirm values such as empathy, compassion, justice and generosity, which often radically oppose paradigms such as materialism and consumerism.
Faith-based engagement and implementation of the New Urban Agenda
The New Urban Agenda, adopted at the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in Quito in 2016, will guide international efforts concerning urbanisation for the next 20 years. One key commitment of the New Urban Agenda is to pursue
“Environmental sustainability, by promoting clean energy, sustainable use of land and resources in urban development as well as protecting ecosystems and biodiversity, including adopting healthy lifestyles in harmony with nature; promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns; building urban resilience; reducing disaster risks; and mitigating and adapting to climate change.”(14c)
To date, there has been virtually no formal engagement with the New Urban Agenda on the part of religious communities. Given the potential for religion to act as a force for sustainability in cities, there is an urgent need to engage faith communities in this pursuit. In November, this is precisely the objective of the first World Urban Campaign Faith-Based Urban Thinkers Campus: a forum to facilitate a multi-faith dialogue on the cities we need, in line with the UN New Urban Agenda.
The Faith-Based Urban Thinkers Campus will be held in Singapore from 13-15 November. Photo: chuttersnap on Unsplash.com
The Urban Thinkers Campus will be hosted by the World Evangelical Alliance, along with other organisations such as the Alliance of Religions and Conservation. To be held in Singapore from 13-15 November, delegates will come from around the world and represent many faith traditions. Over the course of three days, they will develop supporting statements, commitments and practical action plans for the implementation of the New Urban Agenda. There will be a focus on how religion can help enable Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 (sustainable and resilient cities), and how this relates to other SDGs such as eradicating poverty, enhancing health and wellbeing, and working for peace and justice. This meeting is an exciting first step in engaging the potential of religious communities in urban sustainability. Once activated, their contribution has potential to transform the future of urbanisation and embed ecological and spiritual values of nature firmly within cities.
If you are like me, when walking in some neighborhoods, you see the endless yards of turfgrass and exotic plants and you think to yourself, “How can I reach people to change their landscaping practices?” Or you may see natural areas impacted by nearby urban areas, such as ATV vehicles and trails running through natural areas and/or perhaps invasive exotic plants escaping from nearby yards and spreading into natural areas. You think to yourself, “How can I reach residents to change behaviors that are impacting natural areas?”
While ATV vehicles are appropriate in areas designated for ATV vehicle use, ATV trails can spontaneously appear in natural areas that are not meant for ATV traffic. Photo: www.atv.com
In particular, I think that green developments need informed and engaged residents in order to retain the biodiversity value of a site. Even in green developments that are designed to conserve biodiversity through native landscaping and conservation of natural areas, homeowners are no different than homeowners of conventional developments in terms of environmental attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors; all tended to score low (Youngentob and Hostetler 2005). There is always a potential to compromise the biological integrity of a green development (Hostetler 2010; Hostetler and Drake 2009). Imagine residents removing native landscaping and putting in turfgrass or planting invasive exotics in their yards.
The good news is that landscaping practices in yards can improve both native flora and fauna diversity. For example, a study in Chicago found that the cumulative impact of individual yards that contained greater amounts wildlife habitat (e.g., native trees, vertical height structure, and plants with fruits and berries) had increased native bird diversity, especially for migrants (Belaire et al. 2014). Other studies have indicated that the characteristics of yards can improve the biodiversity measures in neighborhoods and cities (Hostetler and Holling 2000; Daniels and Kirkpatrick 2006; Lerman and Warren 2011).
I do not think that people want to harm the environment. It is just that they do not have information readily available that increases their awareness and empowers them to change behaviors. In this essay, I will discuss how signs installed in neighborhoods can be a technique to inform residents about conservation issues and engage residents to adopt new practices.
How can we foster the adoption of conservation practices that both improve the biodiversity value of neighborhoods while minimizing impacts stemming from residential neighborhoods?
How do we move urban landowners from yards dominated by exotic plants and turfgrass to native landscaping? (Photos: Front lawn—www.hickoryhollowlandscapers.com; Native front yard—Mark Hostetler)
Creating a new norm: using signs to inform residents about conservation issues
One technique to engage and inform residents about biodiversity conservation is to install educational signs into common spaces of neighborhoods. These signs could discuss a variety of conservation issues pertaining to homes, yards, and neighborhoods such as biodiversity conservation, water and energy conservation, and even information about particular wildlife species. Below, I will discuss my experiences with creating and installing such educational signs.
I. Design and management of signs
About 15 years ago I started to think about using signs, which I have seen in national parks, to reach homeowners in neighborhoods. In national parks, people only see these signs a few times. In neighborhoods, people would encounter neighborhood signs multiple times and the information would feel repetitive. My idea for neighborhood signs was to create a sign that allowed educational information to be easily updated. I have found that interchangeable education panels that insert into the “sign”–technically called a graphic display unit–were critical for several reasons. First, because the same content that people see day-to-day becomes boring or even outdated, I wanted the ability to keep information fresh and to allow educational topics to rotate. Also, in Florida and elsewhere, the panels eventually fade (or are even damaged by vandals) and I wanted a cheap way to replace them. If you use a sign that is not interchangeable, if it gets damaged or content fades over time, one has to replace the whole unit. This is very expensive! Switching out panels is more cost effective because the panels are easier to reproduce.
Where does one get a graphic display unit that allows educational panels to be switched out? We tried several models, but I like the one below the best (see below images). The top of the display unit can be taken off and an educational panel slid into place. To learn more about this type of graphic display unit and educational panels, see this example from Pannier Graphics. I am not endorsing this company as there are others out there, but it took me a while to find a display unit that was durable and interchangeable.
In a Gainesville, FL development, this graphic display unit was installed near a sidewalk where foot traffic is high. The panel discusses water-wise landscaping. Photo: Mark Hostetler
In this graphic display unit, the top “bar” of the frame comes off with three screws and the slot to slide the panels is open to insert the educational panel. Photo: Mark Hostetler
The panels are usually printed on a hard media (e.g., aluminum backing) with a clear overlaminate to protect from fading and scratches. We went with a local sign company that agreed to print full color (35” X 23”) panels on 3mm aluminum backing with a clear overlaminate for about $100 each. Once printed, the panels are endlessly interchangeable. For this neighborhood in Gainesville, we had one display unit near a pool (see photo below) and the other by a sidewalk along a road where children are picked up by a school bus (see photo above). I would recommend allocating the “switching” responsibility to a local neighborhood club, the homeowner association, or to a diligent homeowner. We have found that turning over responsibility of the upkeep of the signs to the neighborhood helps to foster ownership of the signs (not to mention that it reduces the number of trips you have to make to a neighborhood!). Further, panels need to be reprinted and new ones made; thus, I would have a long-term funding source, such as homeowner association dues, set aside for sign upkeep.
In a Gainesville, Florida development, this graphic display unit was installed near a pool where foot traffic is high. The panel discusses native plants and how to install natives into a yard. Photo: Mark Hostetler
Printing posters that just have overlaminate on them and are not “hard” is also an option, but one can bend these panels easily. These work OK, but they do tend to “bubble up” and warp just a bit under the hot sun (over time). I recommend getting a sturdy backing, such as aluminum or some hard plastic composite, which will resist buckling and warping. If you do print on thinner media, you will need to place some hard backing behind the thin panel to make the space “tight” in the slot so that the panel does not slide around.
This panel will be installed near a stormwater pond in a Gainesville, Florida development. It discusses the natural history of and how to live with alligators. Alligators are common in neighborhoods with stormwater ponds in Florida. This “35 X “23 panel slides easily into the graphic display unit and is stiff, just like a slim “board.” It is about 3/16 inch thick. Image: Meryl Klein and Mark Hostetler
You can organize content the way you like, but we found that information organized in three sections seems to offer a variety of information in a readable way. The first section is usually a little background information about the topic; the middle section highlights an interesting fact or goes more in depth about an issue, and the third section is usually a “What You Can Do” or “Tips” section. The alligator panel above gives background information (left section) about alligators and the issue of them living in urban areas. The middle section highlights some interesting facts about alligators (courtship and nesting), while the right section talks about what people can do to reduce conflicts with alligators.
We also printed QR codes for people to scan to access more information on a Web site. On the alligator panel, the lower right area has two QR codes: one for a Living Green Web site and the other for a Florida-Friendly Landscaping Web site. We wanted to count the number of visits to these Web sites as a result of people scanning the signs in the neighborhood; there is a procedure for this. Instead of describing this process in detail, instructions can be found here. We made different QR codes for different developments so that we could track where the site visits were coming from.
As for the graphic display unit itself, we had tried some wood backing and wood posts, but I would encourage folks to install an all-aluminum graphic display unit. It is much more durable and sturdy. A couple of signs that we installed with a wood backing are beginning to break down after 7 years (not bad though!). The all-aluminum framing versions are very sturdy. I recommend installing more than one graphic display unit in different areas of a neighborhood in order to display more information. In the Town of Harmony, Florida, we installed 7 signs and each one tended to have a theme (e.g., water, energy, wildlife, landscaping, insects/pollinators, lakes, and natural/human history). Readers may wonder whether these neighborhood signs were vandalized; rates of damage appear to depend on the neighborhood. We had signs in the Town of Harmony for over 8 years with no significant damage from residents.
Still, I cannot stress enough the importance of turning over the “responsibility” of the signs to the neighborhood. Extra panels need to be stored somewhere and I recommend finding one or two local homeowners to watch the display units and to switch out the education panels. Also, any local landscaping companies need to be informed and aware about upkeep of the signs. Weed whacking around the base of these signs can cause significant damage, as can lawn care procedures around the signs. In particular, the example I showed above (the water-wise landscaping sign) has been significantly “soiled” by a pair of northern mockingbirds. They have taken to perching on the sign and defecating on it at will. When a lawn care person comes by, it is a simple matter of wiping the bird poop off the sign every now and then. Ahh well . . . . at least the mockingbirds like the sign!
A homeowner helped me to install this sign in the Gainesville, Florida development. He is also taking the extra education panels and will switch them out periodically. It was a hot day! I recommend using a post hole digger to get down at least 21 inches to create a sturdy base. You can install with cement, but I did not in this case because we may want to move the sign to another location. Photo: Jeanette Hostetler
II. Highlighting a Local Steward
One twist on the signs is to find a resident in the neighborhood that has implemented conservation practices and to highlight these on the panel, inviting people to contact this homeowner or to visit their yard. The trick is to find that maverick homeowner that has done something different and is willing to talk with neighbors.
In this panel on Florida natives, we highlight the landscaping of a homeowner that contains muhly grass and coontie plants, both of which are native. The photo on the bottom right is the raised landscaped bed with these natives installed. The text just to the left invites people to contact the homeowners by email. Click on image to enlarge. Image: Meryl Klein and Mark Hostetler
We have just installed this educational sign and will follow-up with the homeowners to see if anybody has contacted them about their yard and have whether any neighbors have begun to install native plants. The hope is that a local, knowledgeable homeowner can encourage change much better than outside experts coming in and talking with only a few residents.
III. Do these signs work?
Is all this effort having a positive impact in terms of improved environmental attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors? In a study with my graduate students, we evaluated the impact of a new environmental education program installed in a green community, Town of Harmony, Florida. The study implemented educational signs, a website, and a brochure; after installation, we evaluated whether Harmony residents’ environmental knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors improved when compared to residents of a conventional community. After two years of exposure to the program, Harmony homeowners did show some improvement in environmental knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors and the control community did not (Hostetler et al., 2008). In particular, we found that most residents saw and read the educational signs and relatively fewer homeowners visited the website and/or read the brochure. Such signs can help homeowners understand ways to manage their homes, yards, and neighborhoods in a more sustainable manner. To see more examples of these signs, visit http://www.wec.ufl.edu/extension/gc/harmony/documents/wildsidewalk.pdf.
IV. Conclusions
As we move forward with attempts to adopt biodiversity conservation designs in urban communities, we must not forget the need to engage the local populace. The ecological function of urban natural remnants and the long-term viability of conservation design and management practices in homes, yards, and neighborhoods are contingent on how engaged and accepting residents are within cities. I encourage municipalities to create policies that require or provide incentives to install such educational signs, particularly in “green developments” that have intentions to conserve natural resources. Also, these informative signs should be installed in neighborhoods and city parks that are immediately adjacent to critical natural areas, informing users on behaviors that could have both positive and negative consequences.
I do understand that these educational signs may be only one step down a path towards a sustainable community, and signs may not be enough if there are significant barriers in city policies and even in deed restrictions placed on homes in a neighborhood. For example, some deed restrictions require that 60 percent of land in the front of a home is lawn, a condition monitored by a homeowner association. The signs may raise awareness and confidence for homeowners to implement conservation actions (e.g., planting natives), but if significant barriers exist in city or in homeowner association oversight, actions may be limited.
I hope I have highlighted some important steps to take in order to install a successful and long-lasting sign/education program to help engage residents to conserve natural resources. If you would like more information or want to collaborate on implementing such a program, please contact me, as we have streamlined the process and it is adaptable to most urban situations.
Belaire, J.A., Whelan, C.J., and E.S. Minor. 2014. Having our yards and sharing them too: the collective effects of yards on native bird species in an urban landscape. Ecological Applications 24(8): 2132-2143.
Daniels, G. D., and J. B. Kirkpatrick. 2006. Does variation in garden characteristics influence the conservation of birds in suburbia? Biological Conservation 133:326–335.
Hostetler, M., Swiman, E., Prizzia, A., and Noiseux, K. 2008. Reaching residents of green communities: Evaluation of a unique environmental education program. Applied Environmental Education & Communication 7(3):114-124.
Hostetler, M.E. 2010. Beyond design: the importance of construction and post-construction phases in green developments. Sustainability 2:1128-1137.
Hostetler, M., and C. S. Holling. 2000. Detecting the scales at which birds respond to structure in urban landscapes. Urban Ecosystems 4:25–54.
Lerman, S. B., and P. S. Warren. 2011. The conservation value of residential yards: linking birds and people. Ecological Applications 21(4):1327–1339.
Widows, S.A. and D. Drake. 2014 Evaluating the National Wildlife Federation’s certified wildlife habitatTM program. Landscape and Urban Planning 129: 32–43
A review of the book Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life, by Eric Klinenberg. 2018. 290 pages. Random House. Buy the book.
In Eric Klinenberg’s 2018 book, Palaces for the People, he argues that investing in social infrastructure (the assets that shape our social interactions) is investing in healthier, safer, more equitable, and less polarized communities. It is an appealing promise, especially in today’s reality of increased social isolation—a topic which Klinenberg, the director of NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge, has researched extensively. The book is full of beautiful stories of human connection and examples of how improving public spaces has benefitted communities socially and economically. The solution presented, to treat social infrastructure with equal import as physical infrastructure, is straightforward and hard to dispute. The why of social infrastructure is argued clearly and strongly. Where the book falls short is in the how. With limited public resources and some of our leaders more interested in building border walls that divide us (what Klinenberg calls “antisocial infrastructure”), it is often up to the civic realm to build and foster social infrastructure.
How can we improve social infrastructure? We must take it upon ourselves to improve our public spaces and prioritize forming connections with our neighbors and community members.
Klinenberg loosely defines “social infrastructure” as the physical elements of community that act as a conduit to bring people together and build social capital. According to Klinenberg, everything from parks and libraries to public transportation and retail corridors has the potential to serve as social infrastructure. He casts a wide net so as to include all places where people can assemble, whether in public space (playgrounds, courtyards, outdoor markets), or private (coffee shops, churches). Despite this rather broad definition, Klinenberg makes clear that not all social infrastructure is created equal. Gated communities, for example, might be full of gathering spaces and resources like shared pools and gardens, but their exclusive nature limits the impact they have on the wider community. Social infrastructure at its best is accessible to all, regardless of race, language, or ability to patronize a local business. The example that is clearly Klinenberg’s favorite is the public library. In his observation of the daily goings-on in neighborhood libraries across New York City, the reader is reminded that public libraries are quite radical spaces that offer unique resources to everyone, from the affluent to the homeless. Libraries can of course be spaces to get free books and research support, but they also often serve as senior centers, offices for freelancers, after school homework clubs, spaces for social service benefit fairs, public bathrooms, free movies theaters, cooling centers, and just places to sit and get some quiet without having to pay for a cup of coffee. Above all, Klinenberg credits libraries as spaces where social connections are formed. These connections are what makes social infrastructure most valuable. They can counter feelings of isolation and loneliness, create common ground between individuals with wildly different backgrounds, and form the basis of a larger sense of belonging and collective life.
Klinenberg also dedicates space in the book to discuss how investing in shared spaces can improve public safety. He dissects the popular, but disputed, “broken windows” theory and how it has shaped policing, and uses multiple examples to demonstrate that investing in social infrastructure like green spaces and community gardens has more benefits than many traditional crime prevention programs. Rather than thinking about how lack of maintenance of shared spaces leads to crime, he asserts that if residents feel a sense of ownership of their community, they are more likely to invest their own time and energy in maintaining it. These spaces will then be frequented by community members, leading to more of what Jane Jacobs calls “eyes on the street”, increasing accountability and therefore decreasing crime. Klinenberg draws on examples such as the Pruitt-Igoe public housing failure and research from the University of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Horticultural Society on greening vacant lots to show how these programs and policies impact people on the individual, family, and neighborhood level. He also draws a line connecting green space and public health, pushing community gardens and walkable streets as solutions, and criticizing alternative efforts like replacing corner stores (key social infrastructure in many neighborhoods) with “bodega” machines. Finally, he presents the crucial role of social infrastructure in disaster response and recovery, looking primarily at a church in Houston which organized post-Hurricane Harvey to provide members and non-members alike with housing, food, baby supplies, and other necessities. At times, Palaces for the Peoplereads as though Klinenberg is simply listing hot-button societal challenges and presenting social infrastructure as the solution. But the end result is the realization that improving social infrastructure is in fact a key ingredient in addressing any issue. If nothing else, improving the spaces where we gather and encouraging more social interaction and civic engagement can’t hurt.
The question that remains at the end of the book is what we can do to support the building and improving of social infrastructure. Currently, investing in failing physical infrastructure is one of the only things that politicians on both ends of the spectrum agree on, but getting leaders on the right excited about investing in public resources and social services is a longshot. We can and should be pushing our local elected officials to recognize the importance of social infrastructure—many already do—but we cannot expect the government alone to turn around the trajectory of our declining social infrastructure. Nor can we expect the private sector to solve everything. Although many tech companies claim to be looking into tools for building social capital, online platforms cannot replace face-to-face interactions. Further, as Klinenberg notes, many of these companies are themselves guilty of building private infrastructure like fancy campuses for employees-only that cut across communities and enforce existing divisions.
The Bronx is blooming. Photo: IOBY
The only way forward, I contend, is to take it upon ourselves to improve our public spaces and prioritize forming connections with our neighbors and community members. Recognizing the local environment as a shared resource and taking care of it is a powerful act, and a way of connecting to the community and even the entire city. Author Jami Attenberg recently wrote for Curbed, about her move from New York City to New Orleans, and the social connection and accountability she felt living in a smaller city. She writes, “My awareness of public issues has increased exponentially because they impact me and my neighbors on a day-to-day basis. Local politics is everything here…I try to participate in this community as best I can, whether through contributing time or money. I even clean the catch basin on my street before it rains. The smallest of gestures reverberates in a city this size”. Of course it is possible to find this kind of concentrated care in larger cities as well—even New York City has hyper local governing bodies like community gardens and block associations—but their work is often hard to see if you don’t go looking. Klinenberg does indeed recognize civic engagement as a key form of social infrastructure, noting that civic groups “provide physical places where people can assemble, programs that bring people together on a regular basis, and local leaders who become advocates for the community” (p. 163). What he fails to mention is that when civic groups make it a part of their mission to improve their local environment, thereby improving social infrastructure, the effect is doubly impactful.
In New York City alone, there are over 800 civic groups actively caring for the local environment. Half of these groups are informal, operating without nonprofit status, and many are entirely volunteer-run with no budget at all. The work of these civic stewardship groups often goes unrecognized, but it is nonetheless important. When a group of neighbors get together to clean and mulch the tree-pits on their street, or to advocate for turning a vacant lot into a community garden, they are both improving social infrastructure and reaping the benefits of it.
Sustainable Flatbush healing garden. Photo: IOBYNew York City Park Slope Civic Council. Photo: IOBY
These groups also play a key role filling in the gaps of government support. Recently, in the longest government shutdown in US history, civic groups are stepped in to clean National Parks and maintain other shared resources that normally rely on federal labor. Civic environmental stewardship groups provide space for people to get to know one another and beautify their community in the process, creating a sense of social connection and a feeling of ownership and place attachment. Klinenberg lays out a strong argument for the importance of social infrastructure, but does not presently address who is responsible for creating and maintaining these resources. It is one thing to focus on the physical places that make up social infrastructure, but it is perhaps even more critical to understand, visualize, and support the social organizations that care for these places. By recognizing the important work of existing stewardship groups and encouraging others to emulate their efforts, we can take the matter of building social infrastructure into our own hands and create the places where we want to live.
Every month we feature a Global Roundtable in which a group of people respond to a specific question in The Nature of Cities.
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Hover over a name to see an excerpt of their response…click on the name to see their full response.
Simone Borelli, RomeStrategically communicating the value of urban green spaces should keep the message simple and ensure that people understand that they can turn their “space” into a “place”.
Sarah Charlop-Powers, New YorkAs the benefits of nature grow more visible, we’ll see an increase in the value placed on urban natural areas.
Hastings Chikoko, JohannesburgUrban green spaces are not made safe after they are created; safety starts from their design, and this includes understanding social dynamics.
Marcus Collier, DublinBringing green infrastructure to urban communities is about winning hearts and minds.
Sven Eberlein, OaklandOld habits die hard. However, they can be kicked to the curb if greener ones are visible, available, and within reach.
Niki Frantzeskaki, RotterdamTo connect with nature, seeing, listening, and being alert for all the experiences the city offers are paramount.
David Goode, BathUrban nature may be visible, but the processes are not. The vital functions of ecosystems are not readily appreciated until things go seriously wrong.
Leen Gorissen, AntwerpThe framework provided by Biomimcry can help us start to create conditions conducive to life.
Cecilia Herzog, Rio de JaneiroCollaboration is a key word for translating new social behaviors that are driving people to rethink their lifestyles, patterns of consumption, and waste production.
Seth Magle, ChicagoDoes nature want to be visible? Much of it clearly does not. Nature’s “invisibility” is part of what helps it persist on an urbanizing planet.
Polly Moseley, LiverpoolBridging the gap between research, innovation, art, and science is a collective responsibility.
Jean Palma, ManilaUrban design elements, such as bio-walls, vertical gardens, and urban agriculture, can help make nature visible in Filipino cities.
Jennifer Sánchez Acosta, San JoseCombining strategic planning with educational activities can help people recognize both tangible and intangible benefits of natural areas in cities.
Richard Scott, LiverpoolUltimately, green spaces in cities are about being kind, to nature and ourselves.
Chantal van Ham, BrusselsThe more people experience, connect with, and share their love for nature, the more support there will be for its conservation in the future.
Mark Weckel, New YorkAt the American Museum of Natural History, students think NYC nature needs a good publicist and a travel agent.
Mike Wetter, PortlandMessaging is unique in cities. Diversity, unconventional messengers, and creative combinations of urban and natural amenities are key.
David loves urban spaces and nature. He loves creativity and collaboration. He loves theatre and music. In his life and work he has practiced in all of these as, in various moments, a scientist, a climate change researcher, a land steward, an ecological practitioner, composer, a playwright, a musician, an actor, and a theatre director.
People like parks of all sizes—clean and safe ones anyway. They like trees and birds, even street trees and house sparrows, as they walk to work. Perhaps they are curious about the occasional dragonfly. Or at turns thrilled or alarmed by a coyote down the road. Enjoy the tranquility of a water course in a busy downtown. People like protection from storms too.
But do people see parks and birds and trees and the rest of urban nature (and its benefits) clearly enough to value them as elements of a well planed city? Do they appreciate the tree pits that suck up storm water? Do they celebrate the wetland that moderates storm surge and is a hatchery for game fish? Do they recognize cities as important sites of conservation?
Is the rich value of urban nature and its services—including economic value, social value, biophilic value, and conservation and biodiversity value—appreciated by citizens and policy makers enough to place them as co-equals at the planning table with transportation, sanitation, housing, and economic development? Do they understand nature as a key element of a city—their city—that is resilient, sustainable, just, and livable?
That’s where we need to be.
But most cities, and most people, aren’t there yet. What information or communications efforts or actions will it take to achieve an urban nature that is truly valued and visible to everyone?
Everybody likes a good story and, at the end of the day, communication is telling a good, simple, clear, and truthful story. The difficult part is to ensure that you are telling the right story to right people and in the right way. Again, people love trees. There is no doubt that, when asked if they like trees and forest, everybody will answer “yes” without any hesitation. So, why is context critical, when you are trying to communicate and make sure that the community gains a better understanding of the value of the forest and trees that can be found in the cities in which they live?
Involving volunteers and both formal and informal community groups in tree planting and tree caring in public spaces can help raise awareness of the importance of urban forests, while also increasing community capacity.
The relative importance, both real and perceived, of the benefits that derive from green spaces deeply differs from city to city, and even within cities. It is intimately related to cultural, social and economic conditions. Basic resources such as food and fuelwood will normally be valued more in poorer districts of cities in less developed countries, while aesthetic and recreational values of nature and green spaces will be more of a priority for richer neighbourhoods. The choice of species to be planted and their management are often based on a ”luxury gradient”, from the more utilitarian to the more visually appealing.
Regardless of the context, having the benefits provided by nature recognized by the local communities is a key step towards their maintenance over time. Most urban dwellers, however, lack awareness of the key contribution that green spaces provide to their daily life. People living in cities, become progressively less familiar with natural processes and come to give for granted the services that the “invisible” natural environment provides. This is exacerbated by the fact that local communities are seldom engaged in the planning, design and management of urban green spaces. As a result, urban dwellers feel less involved and are less aware of the role that they could and should play in setting priorities for the place in which they live and ensuring that it becomes a “place” that they can call and feel their own.
So, how can we increase the awareness among urban and peri-urban dwellers, other stakeholders and policymakers of the roles and benefits of urban forests and other green spaces? How can this concept become an integral part of their lifestyle and encourage them to be “owners” of their green spaces?
There are many different narratives that have developed in various conditions and that could be included in an effective communication strategy. A powerful tool is that of creating green spaces in degraded areas of the city. In many situations, this has stimulated citizens to actively engage in the management and maintenance of these spaces. In Nairobi, Kenya, for example, a tree planting campaign launched in 2010 by the community of the slum of Kibera led to the planting of 10 000 new trees. The action was strongly supported by the local community, which saw in this action a first step towards an improvement of the conditions of their neighbourhood, making a space into a place for the first time.
This, of course, is not only true in extreme situations such as slums. Involving volunteers and both formal and informal community groups in tree planting and tree caring in public spaces can help raise awareness of the importance of urban forests, while also increasing community capacity in urban forest management (potentially reducing the cost of forest management in the longer term). Some of the better-known campaigns such as the MillionTreesNYC, in New York, were very successful in mobilizing urban dwellers to participate in volunteer group plantings in parks and other open spaces, or to actively engage in tree pruning, education, and advocacy programs. Providing free trees to citizens to plant in their own gardens has also proven to be an inexpensive and effective way of bringing attention to urban forests and trees, as well as other green spaces.
A different but also successful approach is that of certification schemes that has proven to be a very effective means for publicizing the environmental services provided by well-managed urban forests. In Celije, Slovenia, in 2005, the urban forest service and the local municipality launched the “Mestni gozd Celije”, a non-commercial brand aimed to raise local community awareness on the values of the urban forest for the city and to promote local sustainable tourism.
Social media, of course, are being used extensively and have helped sustain very successful awareness campaigns such as the Big Trees Project in Bangkok, which has played a crucial role in supporting the efforts to defend the remaining heritage trees around the city.
As a final consideration, it is always simple direct messages that seem to work best. A simple cartoon on the Benefits of Urban Trees that was produced by FAO has already been viewed by almost 400,000 viewers (in the 4 different languages).
Sarah Charlop-Powers is the Executive Director of the Natural Areas Conservancy, with a background in land use planning, economics and environmental management.
There has been a sea change in public expectations for urban parks. The Olmsteadian ideal of pastoral landscapes comprising rolling meadows interrupted by lakes and fountains has shifted to a broader vision of urban nature that includes wilderness areas, green streets, and community gardens.
As the benefits of nature grow more visible, we’ll see an increase in the value placed on urban natural areas.
Many policymakers have come to expect that our urban parks should provide residents with a broad suite of services above and beyond recreation—including flood protection, clean air and water, biodiversity, and respite from the pressures of urban life. The impacts of climate change, including sea level rise, changes in precipitation patterns, and increased temperature serve as a reminder that our human experience is deeply intertwined with the natural world. In the face of these shifting expectations, it is worth reexamining the importance of nature in the urban environment and the diverse and significant benefits that urban nature provides for residents.
Our natural landscapes shape our cities
New York City frequently evokes images of skyscrapers and subways, but the legacy of natural landscapes continue to shape the city. Nature literally serves as the bedrock of human development. While geology has allowed for the construction of tall buildings in some neighborhoods, our coastal areas are characterized by glacial deposits, lending themselves to low-rise construction. Our historic wetlands, located along 500 miles of coastline, provided a historic buffer from flooding. Residents who lived through Superstorm Sandy experienced severe flooding along the coast, especially in areas where wetlands have been filled and altered.
Horseshoe crab monitoring by the Natural Areas Conservancy in Brooklyn.
Natural Areas Conservancy student researchers in Jamaica Bay.
Urban residents need nature
We know empirically that nature in New York (and other cities) is incredibly important for making cities cooler and more flood resistant; there are also many opportunities for urban residents to enjoy positive experiences in nature. Our recent research also shows that urban parks and the nature that they contain is incredibly valuable from a social perspective. In partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, the Natural Areas Conservancy conducted a survey of visitor perceptions of natural areas. In response to a question about where they recreate, more than half of the 1,600 people interviewed reported that they either spend time only in the park where they were interviewed (19.8 percent), or in another public park (36 percent). These findings support the idea that urban open space provides a much-needed outlet for residents, especially those who are less able to travel to suburban and rural locales for a break for urban life. Municipal parks departments and NGO partners are increasingly focused on expanding public programming and creating trails and other amenities that provide opportunities for safe exploration of forest and wetland areas.
A Natural Areas Conservancy trail crew in the Bronx.
Wildlife can thrive in city parks
Research increasingly shows the unique value that urban areas have as biodiversity hotspots, serving as key stopovers in long-range migration routes, as well as providing year-round homes for a surprising diversity of flora and fauna. In 2014, the Natural Areas Conservancy completed an ecological assessment that revealed incredible natural diversity within New York City’s forests and wetlands. Urban centers are frequently located in areas that are historically rich in natural diversity. In the case of New York City, the unique natural features that made the city’s location appealing for human habitation included a compelling combination of northern and southern species, ample game, and a mix of terrestrial and aquatic habitats, which continue to result in a high level of natural diversity. Our inventory of 10,000 acres of city-owned parkland revealed more than 750 plant species and over 60 unique habitats.
Looking forward
As we look to the future, we see that urban parks, especially those that are located in city centers, are frequently overcrowded, experiencing unprecedented levels of visitation. Luckily, less developed parks, frequently near residential neighborhoods, provide a meaningful alternative to overcrowded parks, and provide unique opportunities to spend time in nature. As we look to the future, I believe that we’ll see an increase in the value placed on urban natural areas, where people can engage in a broad range of recreational activities, and also appreciate the quiet and calm of time in nature.
Fighting urban “green” criminals in African cities
In October 2015, a gang of 12 people murdered two men and raped a woman at Rhodes Park in Kensington, in the city of Johannesburg. The City of Johannesburg responded swiftly with initiatives to curb criminal elements in the city’s recreational facilities to ensure that the value of urban green spaces is not undermined. This has seen End Street North Park in the same city bringing residents to use the park for games, tournaments, and learning exercises.
The value of urban spaces in African cities is sometimes concealed by safety concerns. The fear of urban green spaces defeats the notion of social cohesion that most public spaces are intended for. In my life, I have had two encounters where my personal safety has been threatened at knifepoint. Both encounters happened in different urban green spaces that were created with good intentions—to provide recreation and leisure for people while addressing some ecological goals. My nasty experiences in these two urban spaces justify some reflection on crime in recreational facilities and what needs to be done to make urban green recreational facilities offer good life and not strife.
Design urban green spaces alongside the communities that the spaces are intended to serve.
Some urban spaces have quickly become homes to the homeless and unemployed and also a hub for drug dealers and gambling. However, we cannot sacrifice the immense ecological, social, economic, and aesthetic value that urban green spaces provide because of criminal elements. Given the knifepoint threat to my safety, there are a number of things that I—as a member of the community—believe urban planners and designers in African cities should consider before copying-and-pasting designs from overseas.
Urban green spaces are not made safe after they are created, so the solution to criminal elements in urban spaces does not lie in policing alone. The safety starts from people-centred designs of urban green spaces; this includes the understanding of social dynamics of the communities that the spaces are created to serve. There is a holistic package that needs to be considered in addressing public safety issues in urban green spaces and this package is wrapped in an envelope of community ownership and social relevance. This underscores the need to design the urban green spaces in a participatory manner with the communities that the spaces are intended to serve.
For me, a good urban planner is the one who locates an urban green space in an area where help is accessible. To me an urban green space should not be isolated from where the people are. It should be at the centre of the settlement and not adjacent or in the periphery of a settlement. That way, I still feel connected to the community even when I am engaging with the natural aesthetics of the urban green spaces. I also know that should my safety be threatened, help is only a shout away.
Linked to this is the absence of concealment. Designers should be able to include all the features of the park—including the shrubs and bushes without concealing my visibility for more than 10 minutes. Besides the shrubs and bushes, the landscaping and sloping of the park matters to me, too. Unless one is a professional mountain climber, it is not easy to run for safety in an urban green space that is predominantly steep.
Planned lack of concealment should also consider the possibility of my being audible to the community surrounding me. While a waterfall is a relaxing feature in an urban green space, a deafening waterfall does not guarantee safety, as my shouts for help will be obscured.
The number of people using the green space at any particular time minimizes concealment and creates a constant, visible presence. Increasing social and public activities in urban green spaces increases the number of “eyes-watching-over-me” factor, and makes me feel safe in the green space.
Green space designers should also know that I will not step into any “dark” forest just because it is located in a city, unless, of course, I have bodyguards. The placement of lighting in the park and the visibility the lighting provides (whether natural lighting or electricity lighting) informs my decision to use an urban green space.
To achieve all these, municipalities need to adopt an inclusive governance approach that goes beyond the parks, recreation, and environment departments. Different departments must be brought together to deliver every aspect necessary to enable the urban green spaces meet the social, economic and environmental needs, including safety.
Marcus is a sustainability scientist and his research covers a wide range of human-environment interconnectivity, environmental risk and resilience, transdisciplinary methodologies and novel ecosystems.
Recently, during the final meeting of the TURAS project, I was interviewed for a national newspaper. I was asked my opinion on a plan to pedestrianize a part of Dublin in front of Trinity College, known as College “Green”. Online public consultation documents have the usual mock-up of what this pedestrianization might look like, yet, despite its name, the images show only a large grey, open area. Not a shrub in sight!
Bringing green infrastructure to urban communities is about winning hearts and minds.
Our conference had highlighted new urban transition strategies that we developed in the project. One of these strategies presented was a demonstration of a novel, nature-based solution which we call a “green comfort zone”—an outdoor green “living room” that is also high in biodiversity; absorbs noise, particulates, and CO2; and looks great too. In the resulting newspaper article, the journalist led with a remark I made about the plan being an example of old-fashioned thinking: grey, instead of green, infrastructure. The pedestrianization plan is flying in the face of resilience thinking, contrary to the nature-based solutions that other cities are scaling up. For many years now, collaborative research and demonstration projects have produced ample evidence for the efficacy of nature-based solutions such as urban green infrastructure; it does just seem so old fashioned to ignore this.
To say the least, there was a lot of public reaction to the article. Amid all the palaver, it became clear to me that a sizeable number of people do not always value urban parks or trees in the way we imagine. It seems that these people do not “see” the same diverse social and ecological values as researchers and practitioners do. Greenery and trees can be threatening. So, how do we convey, or make visible, the tangible and intangible values of urban green infrastructure? One way is to follow the ecosystem service and natural capital route, such as moving to green roofs or sustainable urban drainage systems, which are capable of illustrating in real time how green infrastructure values can be economic and even aesthetic. Another way is through collaborative, co-created processes that draw on social capital networks, build new ones, and have an element of social learning. This can bring the message to a wider, less aware, perhaps less understanding audience. Focussing on the social values of green infrastructure, though, is very difficult to convey without a longer, more involved process.
Perhaps we should return to another “old-fashioned” technique that can be called on to illustrate values—show, don’t tell! When we demonstrated our new green living room in Ludwigsburg, and recently created a mobile version (currently touring Europe), people could directly observe the value of nature by seeing, touching, and smelling it. Nature-based urban comfort zones can fulfil multiple objectives, especially on a hot and noisy day in the city where users can immediately appreciate the relative calm of a green comfort zone. Couple that with beautiful and creative design as well as diverse plant species, and values increase. Urban dwellers really appreciate value when they can experience it for themselves—and frequently begin to demand nature-based solutions of their local authorities as a result.
Thus, it is on us, the academics and the practitioners, to take our curious findings—our working examples, our long-term case studies, and our strange, novel designs—to package them creatively and imaginatively, and to take them onto the road, literally. Bringing green infrastructure to urban communities is about winning hearts and minds, and can make nature-based solutions fashionable instead of intrusive.
Sven is a San Francisco-based solutions journalist and whole systems thinker committed to the advancement of ecologically healthy cities and a livable planet. He is currently the publisher and editor of The Art of the Green New Deal, a next generation journal of creative culture shift.
Why is it such a challenge to bring more trees and birds and parks into our urban environments when we know that most humans enjoy trees and birds and parks in their lives? Why is there so much resistance any time a major public infrastructure project is proposed that would daylight a creek, green a median, or turn a congested street into a butterfly sanctuary when nobody ever said they hated creeks, plants, and butterflies? Why are we so attached to an outdated, drab, and fossil-burning industrial-age concrete jungle when solutions are readily available to simplify, beautify, and green our existence?
Old habits die hard. However, they can be kicked to the curb if greener ones are visible, available, and within reach.
The answer, you guessed it, is habit. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know, as the saying goes. Or, as in this case, the angel you don’t know. I’ve heard merchants fight tooth and nail for a single storefront parking spot in the face of gaining countless new customers from increased foot traffic through a proposed, canopied pedestrian boulevard. I’ve witnessed my entire city’s bicycle infrastructure plan come to a grinding halt for four years because of a single resident’s meltdown over the effect it would have on the flow of auto traffic.
Fear of change is a powerful emotion. Unfortunately, it takes only a few vocal people with strong attachments to the status quo to stonewall any kind of movement, no matter how beneficial it could be for the common good. The antidote to this fear of the unknown is to make the unknown visible, if just for brief moments and in small doses. This process is like turning on a flashlight in a cave to catch a glimpse of the beautiful paintings all around—once you’ve experienced a snippet of their beauty, you can imagine what it would be like if the whole space were illuminated. And being the social animals that we are, once we know how to shine a light on something new and inspiring, we want to share it with others.
The way to most effectively stage such a natural “interruption” of the regularly scheduled, dreary asphalt programming may vary from country to country and culture to culture. In the United States—a decidedly individualistic society with an innate distrust of government and authority—the most effective way to “change the program”, in my experience, is for individuals or a small group of creative and determined citizens to simply flick on the light switch.
For example, the wildly successful Pavement to Parks program in my adopted hometown of San Francisco did not originate in the city’s planning, public works, and transportation departments that currently jointly administer it. The seed for Pavement to Parks, which is intended to facilitate the conversion of underused spaces in the street into publicly accessible open spaces, was planted over a decade ago by urban visionaries at a small art and design studio (Rebar) who decided one day to convert a single metered parking space into a temporary public park on a plighted downtown street. Feeding the meter its maximum allowed parking time, they created a two hour green space and called it Park(ing).
The original PARK(ing) installation by Rebar. San Francisco, 2005.
As the photo of the intervention traveled across the Internet, Rebar began receiving requests to create the PARK(ing) project in other cities. However, rather than replicate the same installation, they decided to promote it as an open-source project, empowering others to create their own parks in their own cities and neighborhoods. This turned into PARK(ing) Day, an annual global event where citizens, artists, and activists collaborate to temporarily transform metered parking spaces into temporary public places. By 2011, there were 975 parks in 162 cities in 35 countries on 6 continents. In San Francisco, there are now over 50 permanent parklets, with new proposals being filed all across the city.
So what was it that broke San Franciscans’ old habit of assuming curbsides to be reserved for cars only, leading them to accept a new and officially sanctioned reality in which these spaces could be redesigned into public parks? For one, it took a small group of creative thinkers to re-envision a public space and boldly act on it. Secondly, a number of early adopters spread the idea, creating a necessary critical mass for accepting a new reality. Next, the installations needed to be localized, temporary, and fluid, giving the general public just enough of a sampling to inspire them, without feeling imposing. And finally, city agencies needed to step in at just the right time, seizing the momentum of maximum public support to enshrine the new vision into city policy and to normalize what had previously been unthinkable.
Ciencia Publica, a parklet holding exhibits on the theme of sustainable water use, was co-developed by Exploratorium’s Studio for Public Spaces and community-based organizations in San Francisco’s Mission District. Photo: Sven Eberlein
Old habits die hard. However, in urban planning, just as in our personal lives, they can be kicked to the curb if greener and healthier ones are visible, available, and within reach. Change is possible if we enact it together—creatively, and one step at a time.
Niki Frantzeskaki is a Chair Professor in Regional and Metropolitan Governance and Planning at Utrecht University the Netherlands. Her research is centered on the planning and governance of urban nature, urban biodiversity and climate adaptation in cities, focusing on novel approaches such as experimentation, co-creation and collaborative governance.
It is a warm summer in Europe, and it is rather impressive to see how Rotterdam city looks during a heat wave. Experiencing 32 degrees C during August and 28 degrees during September, we are living more than 10°C of the average seasonal temperature. How does the city look? Booming with life: there are people everywhere enjoying the sun, enjoying the socks-free days. Walking in the city, people finally sit on the parks, rather than only walking through them or focusing on how to cut down walking time from home to work through them. But is this really a first opportunity to appreciate nature in the city?
To connect with nature, seeing, listening, and being alert for all the experiences the city offers are paramount.
Remember that it is “just” a park—or is it? The connection of people with nature can start in parks. But what is the first connection we make? We get on the ground, we touch the grass; we get the perspective from the ground up, not from a sovereign position looking down to the ground. Making this as the first step, and getting “grounded” is the first connection with our nature in cities. Connect with the hidden nature, the soil, that in most parts of the city is covered by a carpet of infrastructure, and feel the temperature of the earth. But this connection requires that we slow down, that we stop from rushing and stop to have time to connect.
Give time to connect with nature and get “grounded”—a view of Rotterdam’s Museumpark. Photo: Niki Frantzeskaki
At least in my city, Rotterdam, many people still romanticize nature as a picture from a Monet painting. Beyond the planned and planted perception for what parks are (Buchel and Frantzeskaki 2015), urban parks exist and thrive with biodiversity to be loved by many people in Rotterdam. But to realize what urban nature is about, you need to also “release” the small kid we all have inside us. Wanting to connect with nature, wanting to touch nature in its simplest “form” in cities, people wander in parks, meet in parks, and play in parks. In the sizzling summer we are having, I saw hedgedogs in the Warande of Brussels; I saw kids try to touch and hug seagulls in the Park (Het Park) in Rotterdam, rabbit families in Kralingse Bos in Rotterdam, and yellow snails in Zartpark in Breda; and I listened to crickets during the evening in Park Pwostancow Slakich in Katowice, Poland. For connecting with nature, time to connect is the first requirement, but you also need to give your attention: you need to listen, you need to see, to discover. In our overly communicative world, how many hours are we attached to our screens of all sizes, maybe missing the life that happens around us in the city? To connect with nature, seeing, listening, and being alert for all the experiences the city offers are paramount.
Is this an excuse to just be lazy? Maybe it is, maybe it is a way to find inspiration, to give time for nature, for inspiration, and for discovering the unseen sides of your city. Instead of queuing for a visit to a zoo, to see animals that do not even belong to the continent on which you live, maybe dedicate time to discover the open and often undiscovered urban habitats of life you have around the corner of your house.
Fox in motion in Berlin. Photo: Niki Frantzeskaki
Brown squirrel in Washington Park, Washington, D.C. Photo: Niki Frantzeskaki
Put time into making nature! Many people find gardening therapeutic, but it also goes beyond that. Get your hands dirty, have the passion to change your own land from emptiness to a green patch, to be excited when mockingbirds, parrots, and even owls come by. These represent investments in inviting nature, connecting with nature with your own hands. It is a welcoming act for a more “personal” connection.
But it is not just to make a personal connection with nature that is important; “making” nature in urban gardens established by communities goes beyond the personal and gets into the social. It is about finding new meanings of urban life, making sense of change and connecting with people and place simultaneously. Urban agriculture and urban community gardens are the places of socialization and political activation of urban communities. It is about considering how the actions of today connect with how we can change the future; it is about transforming today to shape the tomorrows of cities. So when you see the community gardens happening in your city, think of them as places to meet, to learn, and to connect with a pulse of change in your own city.
Birds hiding in plain site, Central Park, New York. Photo: Niki Frantzeskaki
How can you broaden connections with nature? Inspire others by sharing your experience, by changing the stories of what quality time in cities can be. Set the example for those who work with you that discovery and time for connecting with nature and others is not time lost, but time well invested. And for those working closely with urban planners and decision-makers, simply bring them to nature in the cities, allow the connections to work for them and with them, show what the smart city strategies cannot buy and that nature in cities is the greatest investment and inventor of them all.
David Goode has over 40 years experience working in both central and local government in the UK and an international reputation for environmental projects, ranging from wetland conservation to urban sustainability.
Understanding the role of nature goes far beyond its visibility
Talk to anyone in my town about nature in their neighbourhood and you can be sure that they will mention gulls, foxes, and probably badgers. Some see them only as a problem— things that intrude into their lives that need to be controlled. Others enjoy having wild foxes and badgers visiting their gardens and set up night vision cameras to record their activities.
Urban nature may be visible, but the processes are not. The vital functions of ecosystems are not readily appreciated until things go seriously wrong.
Someone will inevitably mention our local pair of Peregrine Falcons that nest on the church. They have provided a good-news story that has captured people’s hearts. Thousands now log on to the live webcam to experience the domestic activities of these birds. Some have even become seriously addicted. In the digital age, the falcons are visible as never before.
Britain is known as a nation of gardeners and nature lovers. Membership of the Royal Society for Protection of Birds and the numerous regional Wildlife Trusts totals nearly 2 million. Local communities are involved in a vast number of projects to protect endangered species and habitats. But ask them about the issues and hardly anyone mentions green infrastructure or natural capital. These are words from a different language.
Where I live, people know that the city suffers from periodic flooding. Marks on the river wall record past flood levels together with dates. But I doubt whether most who stop to look will make any connection between these catastrophic events and the gradual loss of the natural flood plain as the city has become more and more built-up. River engineers are aware of the problems and there are plans to create a small flood alleviation scheme in the city centre. But the amount of land available to absorb floodwater is extremely limited. The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are both predicted to rise as a result of climate change. We are already experiencing such episodes in the U.K., as evidenced by disastrous flooding of many towns and cities, where river levels have risen to heights never known before. Despite the colossal impact on homes, businesses, and local economies there are still immense political and economic pressures for local decision-makers to allow new developments and many of these will lie in flood plains. This is wilful blindness on a massive scale.
Designing cities to make optimum use of natural capital requires ecologists, planners, architects and engineers to work together to find sustainable solutions. Green roofs, living walls, and rain gardens are now well established as a new form of ecological architecture that makes sustainable urban drainage a real possibility. But this goes way beyond our everyday perception of nature; it requires an understanding of urban ecology—what makes things work and how we can make them work better.
Making the underlying ecology of a city visible to the wider public is far from easy. We can see Peregrines, and by watching we can begin to understand their story. But seeing the benefits of city green space and nature as an infrastructure supporting economics, health, and human well-being is far more complex. It requires evidence from all these fields. We, the professionals, have that evidence. It is for us to make the case. But we have a problem. Urban nature may be visible, but the processes are not. The vital functions of ecosystems are not readily appreciated until things go seriously wrong. In the meantime, when crucial elements are missing from ecosystems, their absence is rarely understood by decision-makers. We have to make use of every opportunity to publicise the value we gain for free from the natural world.
What will it take to persuade people to take nature seriously? Some opportunities arise in the wake of environmental disasters, when politicians are keen to take credit for new initiatives. Restoration of peatlands on British uplands to reduce the incidence of catastrophic floods many miles downstream is just one example. We can create our own opportunities too. This week there was a major public event in the Royal Festival Hall promoting London as a National Park City. It was packed full of reasons why nature is of value to Londoners. Dr. William Bird, a pioneer advocate of green spaces for health, argued that, “If we were able to connect people to nature in London and have increased access, it would have a bigger health benefit than almost any other intervention in public health.
Yes, we need to use both catastrophe and celebration, and with all the evidence that now exists there is no excuse for wilful blindness.
Leen Gorissen, PhD, is an Innovation Biologist and Sustainability Transitions Expert. She is the founder of Studio Transitio. By imitating & emulating nature, businesses and governments can design more efficient, effective and life-friendly innovation strategies that support rather than deteriorate life.
On August 8, 2016, we began to use more from nature than our planet can renew in the whole year. The date at which human consumption passes this marker each year is now called Earth Overshoot Day, and it illustrates the alarming rate at which we extract resources from the Earth. We are exploiting nature to such an extent that we are undermining our life support systems by overfishing, overharvesting, and through deforestation—nature’s regeneration capacity cannot keep up with our pace of consumption. This mismatch in regeneration ability highlights the dramatic disconnect that has arisen between humans and nature, a disconnect that is reinforced by the trend that more people now live in cities than in rural areas, and by our design of urban habitats as concrete jungles crowded with technological distractions that imply we do not need nature to succeed.
The framework provided by Biomimcry can help us start to create conditions conducive to life.
We have forgotten that our urban habitats need constant flows of ecosystem services, such as water, oxygen, biomass, and pollination, to thrive. We have become so busy consuming resources that we have overlooked how to safeguard the production of ecosystem services—or, even better, how we as a species can contribute to the production and regeneration of life supporting services.
However, we are not the only ones that build skyscrapers and cities. Termites, for instance, learnt to build high-rise buildings accommodating thousands of residents without overexploiting their environment. Instead of using vast amounts of energy to keep the inside temperature comfortable, they have designed a smart system of ventilation tunnels, a system that is far more energy efficient than our technological air conditioning systems. Coral reefs have developed underwater cities that use carbon as a building block instead of emitting it, thereby sequestering carbon in their building structures. Forests house an extraordinary variety of species and communities while producing benefits that are exported far beyond their borders, such as air production, climate control, and water regulation.
If we as a species want to endure and thrive on this planet, we will have to learn to develop solutions that work for instead of against life. Luckily for us, a new transformative and interdisciplinary field has emerged that is devoted to learning from nature and consciously emulates nature’s solutions to solve our problem of unsustainability. This field is called Biomimicry, after the words bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning imitating (Benyus, 1997). This discipline builds on the logic that nature has already solved many of the problems our societies are struggling with: energy, food production, climate control, benign chemistry, transportation, collaboration, and more. Mimicking these proven and lasting designs can help humans implement sustainable technologies.
Emulating nature’s organizational forms, processes, and systems can help accelerate our transition to sustainability (e.g. Baumeister et al., 2013). As Benyus so compellingly writes: “The organisms that surround us surf the opportunities in their habitat while respecting the limits, and in that frame, they perform what seem to us to be technological miracles. These tightly knit forests, prairies, coral reefs, tundras, and grasslands are the envy of all of us who thirst for a sustainable and equitable world. As a community, they not only create but continually heal and enhance their places. Our places, too. What better models could there be?” In other words, Biomimicry complements learning about nature with learning from nature. If we embed this new framework of inquiry in our educational, design, development and planning programs in cities, it can reconnect and re-align us with nature and offer us a new set of lenses to look at and value nature so that, like natural systems, we can start to create conditions conducive to life. Urban green spaces can thus be regarded not only as place to relax, but also as libraries of smart solutions that work on a finite planet.
References
Baumeister D, Tocke R, Dwyer J, Ritter S, Benyus J. 2013. The Biomimicry Resource Handbook: A Seed Bank of Best Practices. Biomimicry 3.8: Missoula. 280 p.
Benyus, J. 1997. Innovation inspired by nature. HarperCollins, NY.
Cecilia Polacow Herzog is an urban landscape planner, retired professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. She is an activist, being one of the pioneers to advocate to apply science into real urban planning, projects, and interventions to increase biodiversity and ecosystem services in Brazilian cities.
Safer, healthier, and more socially active urban spaces for all
Certainly people all over the world love parks, squares, and other open green spaces. But there are some essential factors to attracting and maintaining social use of these areas: they must be safe, comfortable, and filled with plenty of people (who attract more people). Many are not beautifully designed, but the ambience created by large trees, pleasant gathering sites, and nice pathways close to dense urban areas make those places a neighborhood magnet.
Collaboration is a key word for translating new social behaviors that are driving people to rethink their lifestyles, patterns of consumption, and waste production.
But if this is true, why it is so difficult to keep green areas from becoming occupied by other uses? In Rio de Janeiro, in the path of the preparation for the Olympic Games, many tree covered areas were taken and transformed into lawns and subway stations; even a biological reserve was replaced by the controversial Olympic golf course (native animals retook their places during the Games).
Once, I did a research project in one of the most attractive open spaces of Rio de Janeiro—Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon front—and when I asked why people loved to use the space, they responded that it was the beautiful scenery of the surrounding hills, the statue of the “Christ the Redeemer” on the top of one of those hills, and the water view. In spite of being simultaneously underneath a tree’s shadow hearing birds sing and beside degraded and eroded lagoon banks, with sewage smell emanating from the contaminated waters, and the noise of the heavy nearby traffic surrounding them, the park users noticed neither the good things coming from the local biodiversity, nor the bad things coming from of all types of pollution.
I was intrigued to know why they couldn’t see, feel or understand the multiple factors producing that local landscape context. I was concerned: if the park’s users liked things as they were, why would we need to change and improve the quality of their environment? To address this lack of public understanding, I, together with some fellows, founded the NGO Instituto INVERDE, which aims to educate and promote green infrastructure and urban ecology locally. We organized monthly lectures in one of the most beloved parks of Rio de Janeiro, Parque Lage. During more than four years, we invited myriad scientists, landscape architects, public officials, and researchers from many fields of knowledge related to the urban landscape. It was a great experience, and the response was really unexpected.
Then we started giving lectures and INVERDE gained recognition, becoming part of the Environmental Committee of the City of Rio de Janeiro. Together with some local public officials, I had the opportunity to organize seminars to educate and raise awareness about the work that was already being done by the Mosaico Carioca. Ultimately, our actions culminated with the first Green Corridor of Rio de Janeiro, under the leadership of Silma Santa Maria (head of the Conservation Units of that region), the design of EmBya Lanscapes and Ecosystems, and DeF, an urban design studio. The local residents became aware of the treasure they had next to their homes and became engaged, supporting and fighting to take the project forward. It was a process built from a win-win situation, even against the negligence of the city administration.
Social media is key in the process of education and raising awareness to protect and enhance urban nature. In the last few years, my writings for TNOC have focused on how people are falling in love with nature and natural processes via bottom-up movements that focus on urban food production, pocket forest planting rallies, urban trees planting and protection, and the reinsertion of hidden rivers and creeks in the tissue cities, and urban agroforestry, among others. Those movements are increasing in scale and expanding in Brazil. Lawns in parks are becoming targets of these ecological regenerative actions, and people are learning why they need nature in their urban front yards, local parks, squares, streets, or any residual space. These community members are developing new social skills. Collaboration is the key word that translates this new social behavior, which not only encourages people to praise natural features, but drives them to rethink their lifestyles, patterns of consumption, and waste production in all forms. Gradually, people are changing the very foundation of the money-oriented societies they live in. As a consequence, new forms of economy are rising, such as Instituto Chão (an NGO) in São Paulo, which successfully implements a solidarity economy focused on organic, locally grown, fresh food, which employs local people in its store and has became a staple in a trendy neighborhood of São Paulo.
As a result of these movements, a new ecological aesthetics is transforming not only public spaces, but residential gardens as well. For many people, cleaning is not an obsession anymore—they care for the leaves that fall and cover the soil, they compost organic residues to feed their plants naturally, they protect water springs in parks. As a landscape designer, I love these outcomes of working with nature and people to transform our common places with rich biodiversity—whether native or non-native, but productive—that attracts more and more people to this beautiful, life-based-movement. The consequence is safer, healthier, and more socially active urban spaces for all.
Seth Magle is the Director of the Urban Wildlife Institute at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois. He has studied wildlife in urban areas for nearly twenty years.
We are asked to consider the notion of a “truly visible” urban nature. I’d like to pose a glib question in response to this one, a question that simultaneously anthropomorphizes and oversimplifies the topic, and thus would probably give my scientific colleagues a collective heart attack. Does nature want to be visible?
There is ecological theater happening around us every day—it does not need to be visible to inspire.
I ask because much of it clearly does not. In studying animals, and particularly mammals, in the urban sphere, one is struck by the care they take to avoid detection by us. We can all point to the exceptions—the tree squirrels that chatter away from the safety of a tree, bounding here and there without evident concern for the silly primates below, the indifferent pigeons, and the like. But in North America, the coyotes, the rats, the foxes, the raccoons clearly do not want our attention. They go to great lengths—adapting to be more nocturnal, finding the least occupied portions of the city, watching carefully before crossing the streets—to avoid human notice. It is estimated that thousands of coyotes roam around Chicago, but in the very rare cases when one generates a conflict with humans, it’s worthy of local news coverage. The city is their home, and they will happily eat our leavings. But us? No, they have no apparent interest in being seen by us.
In fact, we have created evolutionary pressure on these species that ensures they remain concealed. A raccoon that makes a habit of scratching at people’s doors or tipping over trash cans is more likely to be the target of a call to animal control. The outcome of that call, in turn, will probably render that raccoon much less likely to pass his or her genes on to the next generation. Humans have generated a crucible that rewards invisibility, and so each new generation of wildlife gets a little bit better at evading us, even as they make their homes where virtually all of us are.
An urban coyote in the city of Chicago. Animals like these persist in huge numbers despite being rarely detected by people. Image: Urban Wildlife Institute at the Lincoln Park Zoo.
But clearly, the question posed to this roundtable isn’t about visibility in a crude sense. We are instead supposed to consider how to make people more aware of the animals that share their neighborhoods, invisible or not. But here, as well, we have a conundrum or two.
People call me frequently when they spot an opossum, or a coyote, or something else they didn’t expect moving through their yard. “What do I do?” they often ask. “Not a thing”, is my usual response. But they rarely find this satisfactory. Someone, they usually inform me, needs to catch it, move it. They have to do something. It does not belong here is a refrain I hear often. “It does, though”, I usually gently reply. “If you really want to do something, get a picture. Put it on Facebook.”
Sometimes this advice is received well. More often it is not. We are not always comfortable with the notion of visible wildlife intruding into what we see as a humans-only domain. It’s not just visibility we’re seeking. It’s not enough to simply know that we aren’t alone in the city. We need to accept it, to celebrate it, and then, perhaps, to carefully engineer it.
How do we create an urban nature that people are not only aware of, but rejoice in? This task is somewhat easier for wildflowers and oak trees than it might be for prairie dogs and little brown bats. People are not excited about the raccoon that makes a den in their attic, and with good reason. But what made the raccoon choose to do that? What is it about attics that attract raccoons? How many raccoons can an urban area support, what will they eat, and how do the answers to all of these questions impact hundreds or thousands of other species that interact with those raccoons? It takes more than just scientists to grapple with these issues; we need economists, sociologists, city planners, architects, and more.—not to mention much more space than is allocated for this thinkpiece.
From the science side of things, we work to generate this new urban nature through complex monitoring and analyses designed to understand urban wildlife behavior, and by so doing, determine how to build urban green space that both maintains wildlife and reduces human-wildlife conflict. This is what my colleagues and I spend rather a lot of our lives working on.
But from a psychological, and perhaps deeper, viewpoint, my hope is that we build this urban nature by inspiring a sense of place—an awareness that we all live in a form of nature, one with myriad unseen connections and interactions. There is ecological theater happening around us every day—animals are in a desperate hunt for shelter, for mates, for food, within a hundred yards of you, no matter where you are. It does not need to be visible to inspire.
Polly Moseley is a producer and PhD candidate at Liverpool John Moores University, working on applied research on social and cultural values underpinning urban ecological restoration work in North Liverpool. Her first degree was French & English Literature from Oxford, and she is interested in linguistics and place-based narratives. Highlights of her career involve intercultural exchange with Grupo Cultural AfroReggae and street art with Royal de Luxe, and land artists in Nantes. Her current projects include building the Scouse Flowerhouse movement and preparing a public campaign for the restoration of a beautiful, heritage Library building. Polly has spent a total of 22 years on kidney dialysis and has dialysed in 180+ centres. She plays fiddle and loves wild swimming.
Until last November, I lived on the shores of Crosby Beach, which since 2006 has become synonymous with “Another Place”. This is the name of the artwork comprising 100 bronze sculptures conceived by Anthony Gormley and scattered over the 3km of sands and mudflats, with their foundations sunk into the depths of the earth and their heads rising above the waves at high tide. They cover a stretch which bridges the cranes and containers of the superport, with the far-reaches of Formby’s detached estates and red squirrel reserve.
Bridging the gap between research, innovation, art, and science is a collective responsibility.
No doubt, many people brought up in the city think of it as wild, though the dunes and the marina were constructed when Liverpool’s port was moved north to accommodate larger vessels. Whether you see this artwork as a soothing presence, an egoistic luxury, a mass suicide, or a sci-fi lunar landscape, (and I have walked it with people who have projected all of these things), it has become an iconic part of the landscape and draws people to the mouth of the Mersey.
Fernando Pessoa’s statement that “the function of art is not to be pleasant; art’s purpose is to elevate” seems all the more important when populism is masking, debasing, and corrupting public opinion.
Granby4Streets is a Community Land Trust in Toxteth, the ward up the hill from where I now live. Toxteth, like many areas of northern England, has undergone dramatic change involving demolition of many historic streets, and has lost many of its vibrant shops. Residents of several streets in the area resisted eviction and stayed and stayed for many years. Eleanor Lee is one of these residents, whom I had the pleasure of meeting this year, and who described two clear factors in bringing about the positive change which has gathered momentum over the last few years. The first of these changes is the street planting; the second was the market. The street planting came first and it is ad hoc and sprawling, humourous and joyful mixed with a hint of anarchy.
Last year, Assemble, a collective of architects from London, won the Turner Prize—the U.K.’s most coveted fine art prize—for a Winter Garden concept within 2 of the terraced houses on Eleanor’s street. This concept is to conserve a public space, which will also be an artists’ residence space within the street, which is now being refurbished. Eleanor’s dream is for this handful of streets to become the greenest triangle in Liverpool and she is on her way to realising it. When questioned by national media, Assemble don’t claim the responsibility for this work. They credit the energy of the residents they worked with and, unusually, they even smile at the definition of being labelled as artists.
The French have never drawn lines between artists, gardeners, or chefs, and in a recent national poll, 15 percent of people equated culture with agriculture. Nantes, which was European Green Capital in 2013, has had a 20+ year trajectory with a civic leadership which prioritises arts, particularly street art. This has, in recent years, accelerated the popularity and importance of environmental policy and visibility of green spaces. From labelling plants growing out of cracks in pavements, to courgette mountains on roundabouts, a massive open-air cantine where you pick your own herbs, and the “stations gourmands” dotted along the river bank, Nantes has blended iconic artworks with inviting greening interventions, and has let the public take the lead in activating them. Lending frames through which people can take a different view and provoking action rather than prescribing it is surely a more sustainable way of making nature visible.
The work pictured above was a first move to reconciling the redundant shipyards on the Île of Nantes to the Loire Estuary. Reconciliation can be a function of art, though the timing and pacing of work is as critical as it is for conductors, choreographers and comedians.
The time it takes to build public-private sector coalitions has been vastly underestimated by the U.K. government. In Nantes, the duty of care for public space remains a clear public responsibility. The success of artworks to elevate debate about energy, about environmental issues, about adaptive environments and urbanism will only breathe if it is not prescribed, and if we harness the technologies available to artist innovators to fly with their dreams. I see in the hangars of Airbus the same creative forces at play as in the workshop of Royal de Luxe or the drawings of Jules Verne. Bridging the gap between research, innovation, art, and science—between human interventions and the outer realms of what is possible—is a collective responsibility.
Ragene Palma is a Filipino urbanist currently studying International Planning at the University of Westminster, London, as a Chevening scholar. Follow her work at littlemissurbanite.com.
Shades of green are medicine to the eyes and lungs in a congested, smoke-filled metropolis such as Metro Manila. A highly dense, built-up environment; millions of inhabitants; and a busy atmosphere require breathing spaces and green parks.
Urban design elements, such as bio-walls, vertical gardens, and urban agriculture, can help make nature visible in Filipino cities.
Nature is visible in metropolitan areas primarily because of urban design. Planned estates and commercial districts incorporate foliage along sidewalks, malls, and other design components within view of pedestrians.
An interesting approach to integrating nature with design comes from one of the Philippines’ top estate developers. Ayala Land uses the biophilia hypothesis in landscaping, taking into account how people and nature thrive together. This is evident in how they use a variety of natural elements, from fishponds to flowering vines atop walkways. The firm’s use of native plants and trees better fits the local ecosystems, allowing nature to flourish without the need for adaptive maintenance.
The Ayala Triangle Park provides visibility of nature in the country’s financial district, contrasting a highly urban environment with greeneries.
Small vertical gardens along footbridges are refreshing to see in fast-paced, built-up areas.
Other efforts to make nature visible include bio-wallsand vertical gardens along tunnels, footbridges, and arterial roads. These green elements are refreshing to look at against solid, cemented areas.
Landscaping, government initiatives, and legislation are very important in incorporating nature into any urban setting. But transitioning it into a cultural norm goes beyond the aforementioned pieces. The appreciation for nature and efforts of a household or community to incorporate greeneries and gardens into its environment go a long way towards putting urban nature on a pedestal close to issues such as resettlement, livelihood generation, and solid waste management, which are much-discussed issues in the Philippines.
While Filipinos are a people that are generally in touch with nature because of the archipelagic setting and the vast agricultural lands of the Philippines, a highly urbanized environment and the economic challenges of a developing country restrict communities from easily including plants and animals in their residences. Limited spaces, such as units as small as 18 m2 in condominiums, are dedicated to more practical house needs than creating pocket gardens that people find difficult to maintain, for example.
Community vertical gardens promote a sense of understanding and belonging.
Awareness about the benefits of having nature as a standard element in urban areas—better health, less costs for infrastructure, and scientifically-based improvements in emotions and moods—should be encouraged. Initiatives to create “visibility” at a personal level may be small, but in a collective state, they create a sense of understanding and belonging among those who champion urban greeneries. Such projects also influence those who do not practice urban gardening because of the curiosity green spaces induce, and the aesthetics they display.
Best practices to increase green spaces should be encouraged in urban planning. These include urban agriculture, increased area allocations for garden parks in land use plans, and greenery programs in communities, among other strategies. The integration of these practices in land use and development plans, which are translated to tools of implementation at local levels, is critical to achieving visible elements of nature.
Jennifer works at Universidad de Costa Rica as a professor and at Parque La Libertad, an urban project from the Ministry of Culture as environmental educator.
Working in an urban park to make visible the benefits of this kind of place is an actual part of my work. I can say that using this area to involve school students in outdoor sustainability education activities helps to make manifest one of the main social contributions that natural spaces bring to cities: raising awareness about the importance of sustainable development, and, more importantly, engaging students in projects and individual actions towards eco-efficiency.
One key action to making nature more “visible” is to bond people to their urban parks.
Bringing school groups to the parks is a great way to make “visible“ the benefits of an urban park, since it indirectly brings families and organizations closer to the parks. It also helps other authorities (such as the Culture and Education Ministry in Costa Rica) to take notice of the activities being developed there.
Costa Rica is highly regarded as a green country; it is famous for its protected areas and its biodiversity, which our kids learn about at school. Children from both urban and rural parts of our country learn about the importance of conservation to ensure great benefits for our country and the world. However, in the urban areas, the importance and benefits of conservation seem to be invisible, since there is no “apparent” nature to be preserved. That’s why, recently, many NGOs and some other civil organizations have been working in introducing urban residents to the natural environments found within cities.
People care about the history of the parks; they like to know how old the trees are and to hear about the conservation objectives of the place. They need to be taught about the direct benefits of having such places as part of the city. We work hard to rescue and recreate the natural environment of San José and to encourage citizens to engage in practices that are being forgotten, such as growing one’s own vegetables, taking care of one’s garden, and rescuing communal areas to turn them into natural places that the whole community can enjoy.
I’ve learned that one key action to making nature more “visible” is to introduce people to the spaces—not just building or preserving “green places“, but getting people to relate to the place. To achieve this, we need to bond people to the parks by incorporating elements in the parks that help people bond to them, while planning the design of new spaces into which we can incorporate historical and social elements that appeal to users’ interests, and, in spaces that have already been built, by implementing strategies to increase their appeal.
I think parks and other natural areas in the cities need to speak directly to people. We need to work face-to-face with groups of people interested in learning more about these spaces and letting them help us to engage more and more people in the use of our parks. The immediate benefits are tangible: I often hear people saying that being at the park makes them feel relaxed, helps them to connect to nature, and that they enjoy their time outdoors. It should be easy to incorporate into those feelings an appreciation for all the benefits that nature gives our cities.
Richard Scott is Director of the National Wildflower Centre at the Eden Project, and delivers creative conservation project work nationally. He is also Chair of the UK Urban Ecology Forum. Richard was chosen as one of 20 individuals for the San Miguel Rich List in 2018, highlighting those who pursue alternative forms of wealth.
We live in challenging times for green space. The U.K.’s Green Belt, which rings our cities, is up for grabs, and is gradually being picked over. We find ourselves having to straddle fences to make a stand. Our green spaces are becoming globalised like High Street fashion, as experiences are standardized and our world is dumbed down—or they just get built on. As in evolutionary theory, it’s order out of chaos, seeking ways to build landmarks to change mindsets and raise aspirations.
Ultimately, green spaces in cities are about being kind, to nature and ourselves.
For Landlife, the organization for which I work, wildflowers have proven to be a great platform and a connecting force for a new kind of cultural ecology, which brings nature into people’s lives, using wildflower species as the spark. Great green space (in all its many colours) should have a place in our lives; it should be in close proximity to where people live. It is about personality and dignity, respect and hope; it’s about daydreaming and thinking big and thinking small, or thinking small in big enough ways to make a difference. Creating themes and stories, and finding a resonance with the way you react to place and people. It is about imagination and energies and champions, and it is about resources and connections, and having systems in place that can recognise these attributes as strengths, lending the momentum to carry them forward. It’s also about the joy and cussedness of swimming against the odds, and not being swallowed. This is Resilience.
Princess Parkway split, Manchester and Liverpool.
It is important to pass energies between places and build real collaborations, rather than just sharing logos. Recently, we have made some headway on this, with our own Tale of Two Cities flagship project in Liverpool and Manchester. These areas, which suffered mass demolition and mass transit, have witnessed major social upheaval and have huge stories, from the potato famine and the decline of the docks, to the origins of Rolls Royce and post-industrial change.
The best bits are the things you really remember. The seed sowings, when we heard the songs for the first time, or the simple exchange of wildflowers between a Liverpool and a Manchester School. The smiles, moments of laughter, embarassments, heroic failures (occasionally), and real success stories. It’s about life stories, and sharing them, and adding them up to link to other people who can do the same. This way, you can dive deeper into ecology and its complexity from a simple seeding.
When we met and were influenced by “Landmarks” author Robert Macfarlane, we saw that making nature visible is clearly about a magical way of responding in language to ideas of nature, place, and landmark in respect to conversation and surroundings, inspiration, and self-pilgrimage. It’s a playful thing for children or just anyone feeling free enough to reflect and observe the world and dare to invent a new word, rather than just accepting the world as frozen—as we can easily do, through the notion of seed banks and collections, which are important, but which touch few, or don’t grow anything.
Building a Northern Flowerhouse.
Building a Northern Flowerhouse.
This links back to a Time of Gifts, when the gift was the beginning of a journey, and reflection on where this can take you. The idea of generosity of spirit and sharing that places and people bring together is an enormously strong mechanism to make things happen, and ignite the imagination. It’s extraordinary what people can gain from knowing the name of a plant and telling its personal story and being fascinated by that. Ultimately, green spaces in cities are about being kind, to nature and ourselves.
It is often healthy to try and grasp what made something fresh and important in the first place, to remind ourselves of that whilst working to stimulate others. Often, it is the delight of a transforming moment which gives people the feeling of being part of the world, like a fleeting moment reflecting with a rare animal or butterfly. These indefinable, enabling moments hold the power to define the way individuals respond and react to green space in a way that transcends normal experience.
As the world leaps urban, it’s the urban places that have the key to the future. This is why it’s so important to connect the hot spots of energy and talent. Tale of Two Cities has been so important because it has reached more people as active participants and passers-by than any other work we have done. By drawing on the assets of two proud neighbours, with their wealth of trade, sports, and cultural links, the flowers have enabled us to orchestrate exchanges between large organisations, grass-roots charities, and individuals with flair.
The sparks can fly, and suddenly personal connections we made with China are informing a new Wildflower Centre in Chengdu, which has grown 54 species of wildflowers released from Kunming Institute of Botany to enable similar creative projects in one the world’s fastest growing cities.
In the future, fewer will have the countryside on their doorstep. We need to both play with nature and take it seriously. We all too often contain and bottle ideas rather than running with them. The most inspiring places are where people have been able to do that for a long time, like Nantes and Amstelveen, places which ratchet up work to set real gold standards.
Most importantly, it’s about the warmth of connections and the way we make our days count, without being discouraged or distracted, and the need for individuals and organisations to work flexibly to collaborate and deliver. We just produced a seed packet for an arts project in Liverpool called The Liverpool Perennial, with artwork by artist Jamie Reid, who produced the iconic sleeve for Anarchy in the UK by the Sex Pistols.
We have to make nature visible if the world’s wilder places are to have a chance and society to reap joy from the benefits. As we build a new Northern Flowerhouse here in the Northwest, it is about creating movements, and taking the Flowerhouse principle to the Northern Hemisphere.
Chantal van Ham is a senior expert on biodiversity and nature-based solutions and provides advice on the development of nature positive strategies, investment and partnerships for action to make nature part of corporate and public decision making processes. She enjoys communicating the value of nature in her professional and personal life, and is inspired by cooperation with people from different professional and cultural backgrounds, which she considers an excellent starting point for sustainable change.
With a growing urban population, the benefits of nature both for quality of life in cities and to respond to challenges such as climate change, drinking water supply, and health are becoming clearer and clearer. Not many cities and their citizens are truly aware of the values of nature for their futures. What sets the cities that do make the connection with nature from those to whom nature is invisible?
There’s a clear, yet often-overlooked connection between nature, culture, and development that is essential to finding common ground.
IUCN just hosted its World Conservation Congress, Planet at the Crossroads, a gathering of over 10,000 leaders from government, the public sector, non-governmental organizations, business, UN agencies, and indigenous and grassroots organizations to discuss and decide on solutions to global environment and development challenges.
Some of the messages I took home are that there is a clear connection between nature, culture, and development that is all too often overlooked, and which is essential to finding common ground in a spirit of partnership and collaboration.
Green roofs, bird-friendly building design, natural landscapes that work with indigenous plant species, urban trees, and urban agriculture are all equally valid ways to attract attention to the valuable services that nature provides to cities. However, to attract attention to the services of nature, there is a need for a broader perspective that connects the urban landscape with the ecosystems surrounding it, integrates nature within planning and decision-making, and gives a voice to the ideas of citizens.
In the context of severe water scarcity in Brazil, São Paulo state has committed to restoring an ambitious 300,000 hectares of degraded land by 2020. As part of the restoration programme, the government is working to improve water quality, to increase access to water by restoring 20,000 hectares of riparian forest in the state, and to recover springs. This initiative demonstrates how a political decision that unites different actors, such as public and private companies, public power, and civil society can lead to effective investments in natural solutions, bringing multiple benefits to water-stressed cities.
Urban parks are at the heart of connecting citizens with nature in cities. Chapultepec Park is to Mexico City what Central Park is to New York, with 18 million visitors annually, 60 percent of which are families. A citizens group, together with city officials and park administrators, set themselves the goal of creating a master plan to preserve, restore, and remodel the park. In a unique effort for Mexico, half of the funding for restoration was collected from individual donations, including one million donors at metro stations and supermarkets. This shows clearly how much citizens value nature in their cities and what their participation in urban planning and development processes can lead to.
One more example related to the world’s water crisis that I would like to highlight is a new conservation and impact investment model developed by The Nature Conservancy called Water Sharing Investment Partnerships (or WSIP). Sustainable water management will mean reducing consumptive use without compromising economic returns or crop production. This will require strong government leadership and a well-functioning water market. Such a market can provide financial incentives for improving water’s productivity by enabling those willing to use less water to be compensated by those who need more water, or those who want to return water to the environment. Such a system can only work if there is a good understanding of the value of nature and a willingness to act to give water back to ecosystems in order to ensure the sustainability of water supply.
NatureForAll is IUCN’s new global movement founded on a simple idea: the more people experience, connect with, and share their love for nature, the more support there will be for its conservation in the future. I hope this will provide some new inspiration and collaboration to make nature part of everyone’s life, bringing together different worlds, as only jointly can we create more visibility for nature.
Gavin Van Horn is the Director of Cultures of Conservation for the Center for Humans and Nature, a nonprofit organization that focuses on and promotes conservation ethics.
“There! There!” Every summer now in Chicago, my son and I tune into the otherworldly buzz of cicadas. They play built-in tymbals on their bodies, marking the season with courtship crescendos that rise and fall through waves of humid air. It would be hard not to hear them in my neighborhood when they reach their symphonic peak. Seeing them is somewhat trickier. But once you put your nose close to a trunk, get eye-level with an exoskeleton still fastened with a pincer-like vise to the underside of a tree limb, you probably won’t be able to stop seeing them. “There! There!” my son shouts, and we marvel at the world abuzz over our heads and the many lives active under our feet, where the next round of cicada nymphs will quietly bide their time until summer returns.
Making urban nature visible and valuable depends on storytelling.
Cicadas are one of many busy urban critters that forcibly remind me that the city is alive. Our creaturely neighbors—adapters, migrants, residents—live and thrive without our permission, sometimes because of us, sometimes in spite of us. Annie Dillard remarks, “Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.” How can we “be there” more often, more present to the grace and beauty of the lives that enfold us?
This gets to the heart of the question of visibility, which is a matter of more than what is within eyeshot. For anything—any person, any other creature—to have value, we must first be able to “see” this being as a subject, something that has its own interests, its own claims on our shared place. Visibility is drawing what is otherwise inconspicuous to us into the sphere of our moral attention. This simply means “seeing” something as a member of our community—not just just as background noise, but as an important voice in our decision-making. Not just as background scenery, but as a visible character within our story.
Making urban nature visible and valuable depends on storytelling. Writer John Tallmadge captures this understanding well with the following observation: “So much of the quality of our lives depends on relationships, which can’t be weighted, measured, quantified, or even directly observed. We use stories to make them visible” (p.24, in The Way of Natural History). Stories, at their best, crystallize what is most meaningful to us. They orient us and hold up a vision of the world—an ethic for how to live well. They make the unquantifiable visible.
I’d like to share a pair of maps that demonstrate how stories of urban nature can change. When my friend and illustrator Keara McGraw moved from the suburbs to Chicago, she brought with her a fairly common set of assumptions about the relationship between nature and the city. In one of her illustrations, she captures a number of presuppositions many people have about the city, whether or not they are conscious of this.
Keara McGraw, Chicago Map Before (2015).
As you can see, the outline of Chicago’s city limits serves as the container for a lot of emptiness, other than the “cement,” “smoke,” “buses,” “trains,” “pollution,” and “smog.” In this depiction, you need to get away from the city to find “lots of nature and stuff.” Without a proper counter-story, I’m afraid this is the mental map of urban nature that many people continue to carry in their minds.
To Keara’s credit, she was open to seeing new things. Perhaps because she’s an artist, she knew how to “be there,” present to the grace and beauty that was once obscured by or absent from her mental map. Once she began learning about the plants and animals that make this city such an exciting, life-affirming habitat for so many, her map changed.
Keara McGraw, Chicago Map After (2015).
Keara’s new—and by no means final—map reveals a completely different understanding of the city. The central figure in the map may be familiar to those who know their birds. Black-crowned night herons are a state endangered bird in Illinois. They once nested on the far southeast side of Chicago, but now have moved their colonial nesting arrangement to the heart of Chicago, a mere 2.5 miles from downtown. By all accounts, they are thriving. By the hundreds. Their rattling qwawks and croaks fill the urban tree canopy every spring through fall as they hatch and fledge their young. The herons are living reminders that nature can flourish in our cityscapes.
Just like Keara, we all have mental maps. Our stories draw the lines on them, tell us what to expect, what’s possible. Where nature can be found.
In a book I co-edited, City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness [reviewed at TNOC here], one of our goals was to further a re-storyation of Chicago. We invited our readers to see Chicago, and all urban areas, as multispecies communities. If we perceive our own stories as entangled with the lives of other creatures in the city, we’re more likely to consider their needs, bear witness to their struggles, and take them into account in decision-making, whether that involves planting milkweed for monarch butterflies, designing buildings in a way that discourages bird strikes, or restoring large habitats with other species in mind. Stories may be our most ancient and possibly best means of fostering empathy. They engage our imaginations, creating a space in which we can consider the living realities of others.
A final point: from visibility and value emerges voice. Stories of place that reveal urban areas as lifeworlds—as valuable shared habitat populated by multiple unique and curious subjectivities—can change our mental maps. The show goes on with or without us, whether or not our mental maps are attuned to urban nature. But if we do want a more comprehensive story of place, one in which other species are central to our mutual thriving, this requires not only telling stories—making visible—but listening. Voice. I hear the cicadas again. The voices are all around us.
City kids’ perspectives on making the green more visible in the gray: equal parts media and education, and a dash of force
I would imagine that for many us—readers of and contributors to TNOC—we think about how to make urban green nature more obvious and relevant all the time. But we are both the preacher and the choir. We are the converted. Whether it is innate or learned, we accept the idea that nature humming through our cities is as normal as the rumble of its subways (and in both cases, we always want more!).
At the American Museum of Natural History, students think NYC nature needs a good publicist and a travel agent.
I am a true believer: a conservation scientist born, raised, educated, and living in NYC. Growing up, I always dreamed about studying the big wildlife and remote vistas that, in my Brooklyn childhood, only the TV could provide. After landing my dream job studying jaguars in Belize, I realized that I was truly inspired by finding solutions to challenges at the intersection of human and wildlife communities, and I wanted to engage with those issues in a community where I was more than just a researcher. So, I came home to ply my trade. Fortunately for me, urban white-tailed deer and coyotes were becoming a growth industry in NYC metropolitan areas.
Today, I am a conservation scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, where I manage the Science Research Mentoring Program (SRMP). Each year, 60 NYC high school students have the opportunity to join the lab of one of the Museum’s researchers. As an initiation into SRMP, the class spends a week at Black Rock Forest, just north of the city in the Hudson Highlands, hiking (a lot), turtle trapping, star gazing, and bird watching. It’s new, scary, and tiring. It’s also the best damn thing they’ve done all summer. The only complaint I get—every year—is that they only get to go once as part of the program.
So, using my captive audience of city kids, I did a little research to help me answer this round table’s question: how can you sell green nature to an urban audience? How can you make the public need more of something that many didn’t know they wanted? After our trip to Black Rock, I asked all of the kids if their experiences had changed their perception of nature, and what they thought could be done to make green nature more visible to their friends and families back home. Here’s what they had to say:
A bigger and wilder Central Park: Central Park occupies the premier spot in the Pantheon of NYC parks. And for good reason: we are still looking to Vaux and Olmstead’s 19th century visionary masterpiece for 21st century solutions to the Anthropocene. While there are many other parks to learn about and love, Central Park will always be a flagship—and therefore a symbol—of our ideals. My kids wanted to really push the envelope: make it bigger and “wilder” to showcase urban biodiversity, big and small.
1Million Trees is not enough: Although students were familiar with NYC’s successful afforestation effort, they wanted more regular opportunities for observing biodiversity. A few of them of suggested sidewalk meadows (Million Meadows project, anyone?) replete with habitat for butterflies and grasshoppers.
The Need for a Media Blitz: Several students gave suggestions that are already in place (e.g. NYC bird walks, or hiking trails through “Forever Wild” areas). Perhaps that’s why they also pointed to the need for more PR highlighting NYC’s natural wonders. Students suggested signage similar to those you’d see on nature trails, but along sidewalks highlighting facts about street nature. Subway ads might be a good way to go, too. Perhaps the ubiquitous green and red stick figures that tell New Yorkers that poll dancing is not acceptable subway etiquette could teach us about quirky NYC natural history, from our once famed (and now rebounding) oysters to our Gotham whales.
DOE: Put NYC Parks in your curriculum – So many of my students wished that they knew more about NYC nature as children. They argued that visiting parks and observing their flora and fauna should be part of the Department of Education’s core curriculum for elementary schools. Students should not just learn about ecology; they should learn about NYC’s ecology. And it should be immersive. As one student said, “Hiking for four days, staring at the night sky, setting your feet on the bumpy rocks, and jumping through streams . . . I was interacting with nature closely, not just observing it.”
Resort to force – Somewhat unexpectedly, several students said we need to find ways to force people out of their comfort zones because Black Rock had forced them out of theirs (Disclaimer: we don’t force our student to do anything! Picking up a millipede or wading through muck to check a turtle trap is all voluntary). Said one student, “Despite the fact that I’m still not keen on insects, I feel that being in the forest and surrounded by them for a few days, I’ve grown more accustomed to them and I can only imagine how I’d feel after more time in the forest.”
These suggestions came from students still on the high of their week at Black Rock. As with my experience in Belize, leaving the city interrupted their normal life and provided the distance, stimulus, and discomfort necessary to reflect. Hopefully, they will bring some of this newfound appreciation back to NYC. However, as close as Black Rock is to NYC, it’s not feasible to lead transformative disruptive excursions for 8.5 million residents. Whether my students’ ideas are practical is debatable; however, we will need more of this creative brainstorming from New Yorkers from all walks of life as we look to bring micro-transformative disruptive excursions to their everyday existences.
Mike Wetter is Executive Director of The Intertwine Alliance, where he leads a coalition of 112 organizations working to integrate nature into the Portland-Vancouver region.
Lessons from an urban alliance: three ways messaging about nature is different in cities
As a coalition of more than 150 organizations, resident engagement with nature is fundamental to our mission. Here are three things we’ve learned in our ten years of work on this topic:
Effective messaging in cities requires diversity, unconventional messengers, and creative combinations of urban and natural amenities.
1. Start with what they already value
People think about, relate to, value, and enjoy nature in remarkably different ways. Not everyone is going to join a conservation group or learn bird calls. At The Intertwine Alliance, we’ve created a campaign called “Our Common Ground” that uses animals as a way to represent different perspectives on nature. As people, we are different in age, geography, race, ability and interests, but we share these spaces—parks, trails and natural areas—in common. They are our common ground.
Do-Gooder Doe is one of several “spokespecies” for the Our Common Ground Campaign developed by The Intertwine Alliance and Frank Creative.
The Our Common Ground campaign is a celebration of diversity. Rather than encouraging people to value nature, we recognize and celebrate the different ways they already value it.
For some young people in our city, nature is a pathway to a job. Gerald Deloney, director of program advancement for Self Enhancement Inc., a nonprofit organization serving thousands of at-risk youth in the Portland area, notes that people of color are not getting their share of nature-related jobs. He says, “A lot of our kids want to be hip hop artists. But there are a lot more park managers and conservation scientists than there are hip hop artists. We’re giving our young people an introduction to those jobs”
I recently had a former U.S. Treasury Secretary, a Republican, tell me, “I don’t give a damn about sustainability, I care about the outdoors.” People value nature in different ways; they also use different words for it.
Some are interested in nature for its health benefits, as more and more medical research is showing correlations between being in nature and physical, emotional and mental health, which brings me to my second point.
2. Use unconventional messengers
Sometimes, pharmaceuticals aren’t the answer to what ails us. With “prescription play” programs, physicians prescribe physical activity to those that need more of it. The Intertwine Alliance is working to establish this program region-wide, underwritten by multiple health providers.
Many are under the impression that being in nature is good for their health because they associate being in nature with being physically active. As part of our expansion of RxPlay, we are introducing the idea that spending time in nature has its own intrinsic health benefits.
With prescription play, the message that you need more nature in your life doesn’t come from some anonymous billboard; it comes from your doctor. Physicians carry enormous credibility and influence.
3. Combine the best of the urban and the natural worlds
We will soon launch our own app, called Daycation. Daycation introduces the idea that being outdoors isn’t just something you do on weekends, it is something you can do every day, right outside your door. Plus, urban regions have an added bonus that you don’t get when you are trekking deep in the boreal forest: urban amenities! Daycations are personalized adventures combining parks, trails, beaches, waterways, coffee shops, brewpubs, art, history, and other fun waypoints. Daycations are about nature, but also about enjoying the best that our metropolitan region has to offer.
The Daycation app plays to the unique strengths of cities by offering adventures combining urban and natural amenities. Each Daycation is as unique as the Portland-area resident that created it.
Daycation gets people out of their cars and off their couches. It is designed to get children out of virtual battlefields and into treehouses. And to make sure our app is relevant and irresistible, we are enlisting the most effective salesforce on the planet: kids. Who better to carry the message that it’s time to get out and have more fun?
The Cheonggyecheon “River” then, covered up by a highway.
Story Notes: 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 idea stuck, and after a research sabbatical at Ottawa University in Canada, Dr. Noh came back to Seoul intent on finding a way to replace the four-lane Cheonggyecheon Highway with the hidden river from which it got its name.
The daylighted and restored Cheonggyecheon today. Photo: David Maddox
In this podcast, produced by Philip Silva, Dr. Noh recounts his work to restore the Cheonggyecheon River, a tale that begins with that fateful bus ride in 1989 and continues through to the present day with similar highway removal efforts around the world drawing inspiration from South Korea. Dr. Noh recently delivered a presentation on the Cheonggyecheon restoration at TransitCenter, a think tank and philanthropic foundation based in New York City.
We caught up with him before his lecture and included some of his public remarks in this podcast.
The Cheonggyecheon restoration. Photo: David Maddox
An art installation on the Cheonggyecheon. Photo: David Maddox
Dr. Noh speaking at Transit Center in New York. Photo: Philip Silva
While resilience has become a central feature of urban research and policy discourse, it remains a fuzzy and contested concept. We need to understand the different ways that cities interpret and apply resilience into plans and policies, and how this will help them grapple with future challenges.
Record-breaking disaster losses, unprecedented storms and heat waves, and stark warnings in the most recent IPCC report all point to an urgent need for local governments around the world to prepare for climate change impacts. Consequently, many cities have developed climate change adaptation plans that outline projected climate change impacts and response actions (Woodruff & Stults, 2016). In the last few years, a growing number of cities have shifted the framing of their planning efforts from adaptation to resilience. This may be driven, in part, by high profile funding initiatives, like the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities program, which support cities explicitly in resilience planning. This trend is mirrored in the academic literature, where work on urban resilience has proliferated in recent years (Meerow et al. 2016), as well as in discussions at The Nature of Cities.
While adaptation plans focus specifically on climate impacts, the scope of resilience planning is often broader. This makes city resilience plans in some ways more like comprehensive or sustainability plans. Nevertheless, more cities are now opting for resilience plans instead of stand-alone adaptation plans. This begs the question: What are the implications of this shift for local climate change preparedness?
In a recent study published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research, my colleagues Sierra Woodruff, Missy Stults, Chandler Wilkins, and I examine whether resilience plans in the United States appear to be substantively different than adaptation plans. In doing so, we contribute to a broader debate about whether resilience is simply the latest buzzword or a truly more integrated and flexible approach for preparing for future challenges (Davoudi et al., 2012;Coaffee et al., 2018).
To address this question, we use established plan evaluation methods to analyze the first ten US city resilience plans released through the 100 Resilient Cities program and compare them to a sample of 44 climate change adaptation plans. (See map below). We score each of the plans based on 124 criteria that relate to seven plan quality principles: (1) goals; (2) fact base; (3) strategies; (4) public participation; (5) inter-organizational coordination; (6) implementation and monitoring; and (7) uncertainty. We supplement this quantitative plan analysis with semi-structured interviews of officials in seven of the cities that are part of the 100 Resilient Cities program.
Figure 1: Map of the United States showing cities whose resilience or adaptation plans we evaluated, Credit: Woodruff et al., 2018
Our plan analysis shows that when the seven principle scores are combined, the average quality of the adaptation and resilience plans are similarly low (scoring less than half the possible points). This suggests that there is considerable room for cities to improve how they are planning for climate change impacts. Moreover, when we break down the average scores for resilience and adaptation plans by the seven principles (see the graph below, in Figure 2), there are some important differences.
Resilience plans do a better job of clearly articulating goals, engaging a broader set of organizations, agencies, and the public in the planning process, and acknowledging the linkages between different threats and systems. Our interviews support the idea that resilience planning encourages cities to prepare not just for climate change, but a variety of interconnected shocks and stressors. But we find that the resilience plans score worse than the adaptation plans on the Fact Base principle, meaning that fewer resilience plans include data on baseline climate conditions, future projections, or risks. It seems that there may be a tradeoff between added breadth (in terms of threats) and the depth of analysis. This supports earlier work by Lyles and colleagues (2017) that suggests that narrow-scope adaptation plans are more integrated and do a better job directing development away from hazardous areas than broader-scope ones.
The fact that resilience plans tend to score better on Public Participation and Coordination principles seems to support the idea that resilience encourages collaboration and breaks down silos, but in this study we cannot determine whether this stems from something unique about resilience planning per se or the 100 Resilient Cities program. I recently launched a research project — in collaboration with Sierra Woodruff and another researcher at Texas A&M, Bryce Hannibal — to examine this question by analyzing flood resilience planning networks in four U.S. coastal cities.
We find that adaptation plans, on the other hand, have a stronger fact base. For example, they are more specific about climate impacts and more likely to reference IPCC and other models. Adaptation plans also score significantly higher than resilience plans in how they acknowledge and address future uncertainties (e.g. through robust or no-regret strategies), although this is the lowest scoring principle for both types of plans. We found this surprising, given the focus in the literature on adaptive management and flexibility as characteristics of resilience (Meerow & Stults, 2016). There was no significant difference in the Implementation and Monitoring principle scores, but both plan types scored quite low.
Figure 2: Comparison of adaptation and resilience plan principle scores and aggregate plan quality. Error bars indicate standard error. Credit: Woodruff et al., 2018
We recognize that some of these results may be specific to the plans produced through the 100 Resilient Cities program and may not be generalizable to all resilience planning efforts. Cities were selected for the program because they were already doing innovative work and then they were given additional guidance and support that likely influenced how they conceptualized and planned for resilience. Other cities might not have the same level of capacity. Nevertheless, the 100 Resilient Cities initiative has been so instrumental in shaping the broader urban resilience agenda that we think it is worth examining these plans.
Our findings suggest that resilience and climate change adaptation planning have different strengths and weaknesses. Across the board, plans need to focus more on identifying robust strategies that work under a wide range of future scenarios and provide more details on how these strategies will be implemented and monitored.
Because the meaning of resilience is itself contested, we also look at how the different plans define resilience. Unsurprisingly, climate change adaptation plans generally define it more narrowly in terms of withstanding climate impacts. The resilience plans generally conceptualize resilience in broader terms, considering a wide array of shocks and stressors. Even though the 100 Resilient Cities program has its own definition of resilience, cities often modify it. For example, some cities make equity or justice an explicit part of their definition. Boston’s plan, for example, states: “Achieving citywide resilience means addressing racial equity along with the physical, environmental, and economic threats facing our city.” Other cities focus less on equity. Some plans define resilience as an outcome, others a process. These differences show that resilience is still a malleable concept.
In short, while resilience has clearly become a central feature of urban research and policy discourse, it remains a fuzzy and contested concept. As one of the first studies to systematically analyze multiple city resilience plans, I think our paper can help us begin to understand the different ways that cities interpret and apply resilience into plans and policies, and how this will help them grapple with future challenges, but we still have much to learn.
If you have been following the global, regional, and local-level conversations about the Sustainable Development Goals (or SDGs) and their implementation—for example, UN’s Habitat III meeting, held in Quito, Ecuador—you have probably heard of or participated in providing clarity on the role of the private sector in achieving SDG 11, which calls on us to “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”.
Co-designing the situation of refugees and their information-access strategies in urban markets yielded imaginative solutions for sparking private sector action on SDG 11’s targets.
You may have come across the United Nations Global Compact-Cities Programme[i], a platform that was created for the private sector to find ways of contributing to the attainment of SDG 11. But there is almost no consensus, particularly in Africa, on how the private sector can reinvigorate its practices to deliver on SDG 11. In this article, I suggest crossovers between disciplines and institutions, so that the private sector can build coalitions of new and old agents of change, enabling it to walk the walk on the SDG for cities.
Crossovers between disciplines and institutions are needed for SDG 11!
Burundian national: Photo: Buyana Kareem
“Crossovers” between disciplines and institutions is a system of thinking which argues that breakthroughs to sustainable modes of urban transitions become more likely when the institutional layers that distance researchers from the private sector, policymakers, and urban authorities are cut. If architects, engineers, and urban sociologists are to collaboratively work with construction firms and real estate companies—to create commercially viable developments that enhance tenants’ well-being while using scarce, precious metals sparingly—property owners in the city need ideas on how to manage properties in ways that reconcile the often conflicting means to economic, environmental, and social viability. Policymakers at municipal and central government levels on the other hand, would be compelled to participate if their experiences were used to design a cohesive policy for the affected sectors. In such a scenario, crossovers would eventually co-create a sustainable urban design (an infographic or other design form), as a boundary object for learning a methodology that relies on fewer natural resources to design buildings for the same economic output and lifestyle for tenants. The academics would come up with scientific and socially urgent questions that can guide the co-generation of evidence, on which interventions would be capable of changing the dynamics in buildings in ways that “leave no city behind”.
Periodic market day. Photo: Buyana Kareem
Harness the creativity of crossovers to enable the private sector to “walk the walk” on SDG 11
We need to be aware of the competing visions and rationalities connected to alternative processes of re-making the city and finding breakthrough solutions to complex urban issues. For many corporations, messaging and the image it portrays makes them reluctant to acknowledge the biases that underlie their business ethics and organizational performance measurements. One such bias is the popularization of corporate social responsibility programmes as a mechanism for demonstrating their commitment to and support towards sustainable and inclusive human settlements in cities. For-profit entities usually work with non-profits that guarantee media-visibility in slum upgrading projects, thereby identifying with urban sustainability issues in the marketplace as opposed to starting with changes at the workplace. Other firms cannot openly say to “outsiders” that their business models are based on conventional financial wisdom, which holds that: i) urban sustainability and profitability of the company are not prerequisites for each other; and ii) recyclable use of metals and natural resources in the city only makes business sense if your company relies on organic techniques to lower production or waste management costs.
Crossover workshop. Photo: Buyana Kareem
Urban authorities on the other hand, are usually hesitant to pass and enforce ordinances that require robust change in corporate practices. The rationale is that the private sector is an indispensable player in liberalizing markets, generating municipal revenue, creating jobs, and widening the national tax base; therefore, any “restrictions” on firms would attract pressure from central government agencies. Thus, being forced to repeal the ordinances or face budget cuts would eventually undermine delivery on political promises made by mayors and other city administrators. Conversely, researchers are still operating in university cultures that are devoid of the search for sidesteps that can lead to crossovers between disciplines and institutions. This keeps academics in knowledge-production cubicles that have the least opportunity to initiate experiments and new thinking that initiates working with other disciplines and collaborating with societal agents.
Such competing visions and rationalities imply that there is need for innovative methods that can enable the private sector to adopt a different mindset about cost. This conflict of interests also requires new forms of knowledge production that cut through institutional layers to shorten the distance between researchers, policymakers, and urban authorities.
Mixed classroom. Photo: Urban Futures Studio, Utrecht University
Re-imagine city markets with the private sector through crossovers
At the Urban Action Lab Makerere University Uganda[ii], we are exploring the feasibility of “crossover workshops”, a form of education that is similar to the mixed classroom courses initiated by the Urban Futures Studio at Utrecht University[iii], whose aim is to bring policy makers and industry partners together to develop an understanding of the techniques for researching and anticipating urban futures in connection to SDG 11. Our first edition of crossover workshops focused on the participation and integration of refugees in local markets in Kampala city, with a view that NGOs, the private sector, and city administrators have got to overcome the welfarist thinking of giving handouts to refugees as a measure of dealing with urban humanitarian crisis. The change we want to see is a private sector that collaborates with urban authorities and researchers to understand and support refugees and to get in touch with the elements of the urban informal economy. The School of International Development at the University of East Anglia partnered with the Urban Action Lab of Makerere University in Uganda to co-convene the crossover workshop with representatives from the Ministry of Urban Development in Uganda and Market Vendor Associations.
Vendors on the northern bypass operate an evening periodic market. Photo: Buyana Kareem
We were all interested in the opportunities and challenges that markets provide to refugees from Congo, Somalia, and Southern Sudan in Kampala. Students’ presentations on periodic and informal markets, and the diversity of trading activities they offer to refugees and host communities, were the launch pads for our imaginaries about what inclusivity and safety means for a refugee in a city market. Comments by the managers of the markets on the presentations gradually shifted our focus from markets as trading landscapes to markets as information landscapes. We learnt that inclusivity of a market is seen in the form of designated spaces for sharing trading information through trusted mediators, who assist refugees with navigating the information landscape using visual clues and non-formalized networks, mainly of transporters of merchandise, local omnibus taxi drivers, and motorcycle taxi operators. For the students, the theories and principles of social inclusion and social capital had been at the core of their research, but there was an acknowledgement that understanding the information seeking behavior of refugees requires closer examination of the role played by informal information service providers in the social integration of non-Kampalans into Kampala city’s trading landscape.
Although the crossover workshop did not yield a scalable methodology on how to get the private sector adopt a different mind-set about cost in the context of SDG 11, we were able to initiate a collaboration with new agents of change. The Ministry of Urban Development, Market Vendor Associations, Kampala Capital City Authority, the School of International Development at the University of East Anglia and the Urban Action Lab of Makerere University are co-researching information provision and access strategies that enable social inclusion of refugees into the social fabric of urban markets in Kampala, with support from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)[iv]. This collaboration also intends to support “research-by-design” for students from Visual and Creative Arts at Makerere University, to work with architects of the markets and produce tangible images and or animations of what markets as information landscapes might actually look like. We believe that co-designing the urban situation of refugees and their information-access strategies in urban markets can result in imaginative solutions that can become embedded in Kampala’s policy processes around the targets of SDG 11.
Why do we plant what we do in our personal gardens? It turns out it’s driven by a complicated mix of personal philosophy and social posturing, which sometimes are at odds. And, it turns out, in South Africa and many other countries, we don’t even plant our own gardens. This is done by “unskilled” and immigrant laborers. We talk a lot about gardens in the nature of cities, but what of gardeners, especially as part of the labor force?
Plantings in one interviewee’s garden.
In South Africa, most middle class homes will have a gardener. Gardeners in this country are nearly always men and, reflecting the apartheid history of our country, are nearly always black. Gardeners are generally paid as unskilled labor at shockingly low rates. Shamefully, gardeners in South Africa are still often referred to as garden ‘boys’. One can only speculate that making grown men feel diminutive in this way arose as a function of historic issues around race, gender, and hierarchy, where the garden is traditionally the domain of the woman of the house and having a ‘boy’ working for a woman, in her space and taking her orders, was somehow more socially acceptable than having a man working for her.
Origins aside, the term persists today, suggesting that little has changed in relation to race and power in this particular arena in South Africa in the last 20 years. South Africa’s unemployment rate is measured conservatively at over 25 percent (Statistics South Africa, 2014). Gardening is an entry point to the job market for supposedly “unskilled” labor. A graphic example of the dire need for work and the role of ‘gardener’ as a catchall entry point is given by Kingdon and Knight in their 2001 paper on unemployment in South Africa, which reported a staggering 39,000 applications for 35 permanent jobs advertised for gardeners and cleaners at the University of Cape Town (Kingdon and Knight, 2001). Many gardeners do find themselves in more permanent positions, but must often juggle a number of gardening jobs on rotation through the week. In addition to local South African men, gardening has become a common occupation for migrant labor in South Africa.
Gardener Samson Malunga.
The men who tend these gardens make large contributions to the overall ecology and ‘nature’ of our cities. Interested in the dynamics between those directing their garden desires (garden owners) and the implementers of these desires (gardeners), I decided to speak to some gardeners in Cape Town. What brings them into this field of work? How do they view their roles as the ‘enactors’ of other people’s views of nature and greenery? For the purposes of this essay, I only spoke to a handful of gardeners, but this marks the start of a larger project and more interviews will be necessary to confirm the preliminary views noted below. Out of respect for concerns around privacy, in particular for those foreign nationals working in South Africa who expressed concerns about legitimacy and xenophobia, the names used here have been changed. However, interviewees were mostly happy to have their photographs taken and shared.
With the exception of one migrant gardener from Malawi who is a professional teacher, all the gardeners I spoke to consider themselves skilled workers with a deep understanding of plants, nature, seasonal cycles, and soil. Several of the gardeners I interviewed voluntarily shared photographs with me by mobile phone of the gardens in which they work: their desire to share pictures of their work is indicative of pride in that work. All the garden photographs shared in this blog are courtesy of Isaac Mgedezi and Samson Malunga. The universal willingness to be interviewed and the enthusiasm with which gardeners approached the interview gave me the impression that this was a group of people who had never been asked about their jobs in a professional manner and were delighted to have the opportunity to share their views and insights. I make particular reference to this as I am confident that this is not how these men are perceived by most people that employ them. The first ‘discomfort’ I will note emerges here, around perceptions of ability, understanding, and professionalism.
Gardener Isaac Mgedezi.
“We are farming people”
All the gardeners I interviewed had grown up in rural neighborhoods and gardened alongside parents or grandparents as children. All had fond memories of these childhood spaces or ‘first landscapes’ and were confident that these early experiences had informed their interests in nature and gardening. The Malawian gardeners all looked somewhat dumbfounded when I asked where they learnt their gardening skills, and while they noted that they grew up in family gardens, the much more emphatic response was generally: ‘I am Malawian, we are farming people’.
With the exception of one gardener who sometimes takes his son to work with him when he helps out in a community food garden close to his home, none of the gardeners was currently raising his children with the same degree of exposure to gardens and gardening that he had in his own childhood. While the gardeners have confidence and pride in their role in molding the gardens of our cities, the lowly pay and lack of professional recognition and security are all aspects they do not wish for their children. Their repeated references to very low wages, persistent poverty, the constant need to search for extra days of work here and there, and the relief expressed by those who have permanent jobs, all speaks to the very difficult emotional and economic space occupied by gardeners in South Africa.
One interviewee’s favourite garden. Photo courtesy of the gardener.
Another apparent discomfort emerges around issues of power and autonomy. Gardeners expressed deep frustration at not having their views and understanding of the workings of plants and soil taken seriously. This is a consistent theme: gardeners feel the garden owners who, in their view, have less understanding about gardening, should be more willing to listen. Isaac said, ‘I get frustrated when my expertise is not respected … I really understand soil and what can grow in different soils’.
Potted plants from one of the gardens.
There are, of course, references made to particular garden owners who do consult their gardeners, who open opportunities for discussion, and—in one instance—who even allows the gardener to accompany them to the nursery and on the odd shopping trip. However, these cases were certainly the exception. One gardener expressed irritation at having to share his workspace with another gardener who comes on a different day. Andrew Makwena says, ‘I don’t like to work with others. I speak to the seeds and flowers I plant and don’t want someone else interfering with that’.
In addition to not liking the interference of others in the work of the garden, Andrew gave a fascinating insight into the frustrations of working in space owned by others. He talked of pruning roses and then watching buds emerge and going every day to see how a single bloom is coming along, only to arrive at work one day to find the flower ‘gone, cut off and taken away into the house’; his immense disappointment and irritation at this aspect of working in other’s gardens was apparent.
Gardener Andrew Makwena.
Dream garden
I asked each gardener what their own dream garden would look like. Most called for more order, less mock wilderness; all desired an element of productivity, with a food garden included. All wanted a lawn on which to ‘lie in the sun’ and ‘play with the kids’. On the whole, they wanted flowers, too, with a particular preference expressed for Agapanthus africanus flowers. Only the teacher, Devout Masuso, an economic refugee currently working as a gardener, expressed impatience over the planting of flowers, saying he would not waste his time with flowers but would plant his favorite Malawian fruit and vegetables such as ‘impiru’, a leafy green which he described as quite delicious. One gardener drew a blank in response to my question, responding, “I really don’t know. I can’t imagine. I think you need money to be able to dream like that.”
Most of the gardeners acknowledged sharing information on plants and gardening techniques with other gardeners they know. Several agree that they move plants around, in particular from the gardens they work in to those of their rural homes. Isaac says the last time he went back to the Eastern Cape to see family, he took several cuttings of flowering plants home with him. The gardeners’ homes in Cape Town are generally too small to allow for any gardening. Spaces are shared, overcrowded, and not owned by the gardeners themselves.
Gardener Devout Masuso.
My interviews suggest that gardeners in South Africa occupy a shadowy space where they seldom fall under the direct gaze of anyone in their professional lives. They all relished the opportunity to speak of their work and expressed frustration at being under-recognized in their professional capacity. Discomforts are evident around recognition and autonomy. My interviews reveal a community of interested and engaged gardeners with a keen understanding of the plants, seasonal rhythms, and soil; they are hungry for professional recognition. These men operate in networks where they share ideas, information, and plants with each other. They are working in multiple gardens in our cities and green spaces in our broader landscapes. These are the people who tend the 20–30 percent green cover that our gardens represent in the ever-increasing footprint of the cities of the world. I think there needs to be greater social acknowledgement, greater engagement with these critical players in our urban ecological space. The informing role of gardeners certainly warrants further investigation.
Just as in real life, the representation of gardeners in literature is few and far between. Where reference to gardens abound, the gardeners are largely overlooked. A quick inventory gives us little more than the foolish, two-dimensional gardeners in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, old Ben Weatherstaff in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s TheSecret Garden, and Michael K in J. M. Coetzee’s The Life and Times of Michael K. [picture of the Alice in Wonderland Gardeners] Michael K demands the most attention, and ideas around gardening and being a gardener are threads that weave their way throughout the book. K gives us the best plea for the gardener, suggesting the gardener’s role as knowledge broker between the earth and those that live on it:
‘… enough men had gone off to war saying the time for gardening was when the war was over; whereas there must be men to stay behind to keep gardening alive, or at least the idea of gardening; because once that cord was broken, the earth would grow hard and forget her children, that was why.’
“The gardeners in Alice in Wonderland are out painting the flowers. ‘Would you tell me,’ said Alice, a little timidly, ‘why you are painting those roses?’ Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low voice, ‘Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know.”
I find myself choosing the title for this contribution at a time of personal, public, and professional dilemma. Strangely, the dilemma stems from the need to vindicate the question itself.
Food grown in local urban settings can reduce the negative impact of conventional agriculture on natural resources and contribute to the restoration of habitats for local flora and fauna.
While it is perfectly acceptable to ask how green, how healthy, how prosperous or how popular a city is, the concept of a sustainable urban food cycle is not yet officially established on most city agendas.
In many cities, food-growing community gardens, urban farms, and rooftop vegetable gardens are perceived as “nice to have”. Yet, in spite of the knowledge that there are many benefits in locally grown food, which are frequently mentioned by contributors to TNOC, urban and peri-urban agriculture are not yet perceived as a “must have” on the required menu for sustainable cities.
In my city, Jerusalem, I established the “Food for Jerusalem” forum just two years ago. We began to seek out and to convene the many stakeholders in and around the city who deal with local food, who are involved either in growing it, supplying it, consuming it, cooking it, or educating children and adults about its importance. The Jerusalem Bioregion Center, working through the Jerusalem Green Fund, had begun to address the issue of community-based urban and peri-urban agriculture after realizing that conventional agriculture constitutes one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, given the way it fills up extensive areas with monoculture crops and encourages the use of pesticides to destroy insects and other threats to the crops. Conventional agriculture poses a threat to consumer health, since a lot of the pesticides that farmers apply are absorbed into the crops and then constitute part of the meals we eat. Genetic engineering of crops is another troubling aspect of large-scale conventional agriculture. While it is true that the jury is still out on genetic engineering, it is undoubtedly not proven to be beneficial. Still, these are the systems that currently provide the enormous amount of food needed to feed the world.
We began to realize that the diverse ways in which food can be grown in an urban setting can not only reduce the negative impact of conventional agriculture on natural resources, but can also contribute to the restoration of habitats for local flora and fauna, if maintained according to the principles of organic farming. Moreover, although we had originally entered the world of local food production through the portal of biodiversity, we soon discovered the many other ways into this arena, which many hope will take center stage in the global conversation about sustainable urbanism, to take place in Quito, Equador, in October 2016 (HABITAT III). The Quito meeting, twenty years on from HABITAT II, will try to serve up the magic formula for sustainable urbanism, and urban food production will be on the agenda for the first time.
Intensive commercial roof-top vegetable-growing in a Jerusalem suburb. Courtesy of the Jerusalem Bioregion Center.
The list of benefits from local food production is a long one, but here are a few of them:-
War, natural disaster, or a failed economy can cut off cities from their food supplies, leaving local communities without food or water. Local food production can contribute to food security.
Transportation of food into cities accounts for some 30 percent of the emissions of most cities. Local food production can contribute to reducing the city’s ecological footprint.
Locally grown organic food can be free of pesticides and, therefore, much healthier. Nutrition experts have tested this out and as a result many of them are joining the urban food- growing coalition.
Kids who learn to grow vegetables at school will be happy to eat them and to focus less on junk food. This is an interesting case of the proof of the “pudding” being in the eating, and there are interesting statistics from schools that have thriving vegetable gardens, where the students are keen to eat what they themselves have grown, admitting that it gives them great pride to take ownership of the vegetable growing process in their schools.
Neighborhood initiatives such as community gardens not only provide healthy food, but also strengthen community solidarity.
In many contexts, local food production, together with local hospitality, provides a sound basis for sustainable tourism. This works best when bolstered with local arts, crafts, and music, and of course the local scenery and landscape.
All of the benefits listed above add up to increased urban resilience
As the “Food for Jerusalem” forum has developed, it is truly remarkable how diverse our stakeholders are. We have schools that are incorporating food-growing in the curriculum of grades 4 and 5, a variety of community gardens, an urban farm that employs youth at risk, senior citizens’ daycare centers, commercial use of roof space for vegetable-growing and “edible neighborhood” initiatives, to mention only a few. It has also become apparent that food growing has the potential to generate cross-boundary collaboration as well, and Israeli and Palestinian communities are beginning to meet and learn best practices from each other.
Food grown in community gardens in Jerusalem. Courtesy of the Jerusalem Bioregion Center.
We have taken the time to meet and argue about the goals of our work in growing food in and around our city. All the stakeholders agreed on the goals, while each one contributes to achieving different aspects of them. The Jerusalem Municipality is a member of the forum, but not its convener. The role of convening the stakeholders in the Food for Jerusalem forum was undertaken by the Jerusalem Bioregion Center, which works throughout the region, regardless of municipal or geopolitical boundaries.
Major goals of the “Food for Jerusalem” initiative, as agreed on by member stakeholders
Establish and regularly convene a stakeholder forum of food-growing initiatives and foster cooperation among the diverse projects
Promote national legislation to facilitate rezoning of local land for urban food growing, while fostering cooperation among all levels of government—local, regional and national
Integrate food production into urban planning in Jerusalem, by means of a development policy that relates both to food growing and biodiversity as part of the ecological infrastructure of the region
Map and catalog existing initiatives. Identify and develop additional food-growing areas in and around the city
Investigate the potential for alternative food growing environments (roofs, walls, indoors, etc.)
Introduce new technologies that are economically and environmentally sustainable for the urban environment.
Identify, analyze, and quantify the economic, health, and social benefits of developing a local food system
Strengthen the local economy by promoting initiatives based on the food cycle
Incorporate the food cycle and healthy eating in the curricula of formal and informal educational frameworks, including active engagement in food-growing
Establish sustainable water sources for food-growing initiatives in and around Jerusalem
The above goals are admirable, representing a concerted community effort to make the local food cycle sustainable, healthy and secure; that can surely not be faulted. However, if sustainability is really the goal, then what we are doing barely scratches the tip of the proverbial iceberg. As an avid follower of the Food for Cities contributions, I am aware that what is happening in our city is no different from other parts of the world. In the Global North, it is the environmentalists who are preaching urban food-growing and developing all kinds of technologies to grow food horizontally on roofs, vertically on walls, to mention only a few of our antics. In the Global South, dire poverty, and lack of fresh water mean that local food-growing could be the difference between surviving and starving. In fact, both are right, since the environmentalists are aware of the impact of the global food market on emissions, whereas people in survival mode do what they must.
Kids grow their own vegetables in a Jerusalem School. Courtesy of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel.
At the HABITAT III global meeting in October, 2016, one of the main focuses will be on how to provide healthy food and clean water for a rapidly increasing world population, most of which will be concentrated in urban settings. All the right decisions and declarations will be made, but they will, of course, be “non-binding”.
This leads me to question the wisdom of the title of this piece, even though I chose it myself. The question that needs to be asked is not “How Edible is My City?”, but “How Can we Brand the Local Food Cycle with a Positive Image?”, thereby ensuring this issue is positioned firmly, securely, and center stage when discussing the ingredients of SDG number 11, the Sustainable and Inclusive Cities goal. We have to think of ways to make cities all over the world vie with each other over the question of where more local food is being produced and consumed. This is going to be a long and difficult haul, but of course it must be noted that the process has already effectively begun, as is evidenced by the increasing number of local food-growing initiatives in and around cities today. It is now up to all of us to help the process to accelerate and to prove the efficacy of a thriving local food cycle in strengthening urban resilience.
On 14 June 2018, Isabelle Anguelovski participated in the panel Designing, Planning and Paying for Resilience at Rice University Kinder Institute for Urban Research, where she and other leading experts discussed flood mitigation strategies such as low impact design, green infrastructure and urban-scale greenspace preservation, and how they interact with a community’s broader planning efforts. These are Isabelle’s insights from the panel.
Many public officials seem to have their hands tied because of developers’ influence on decision-making. Real estate development is at the core of Houston’s economic development, together with the petrochemical industry, and perhaps explains why you have entire low-income minority communities sitting right next to a refinery.
What kind of reconstruction and greening initiatives are we seeing post-Harvey in Houston that are raising social equity concerns?
It seems to me that one of the most controversial green resilience planning initiatives post-Harvey has to do with the buyout program. Buyout programs are sponsored by the Flood Control District from Harris County, where Houston is located, and financed by federal grants as well as local funds. They consist in buying out houses and other types of properties to address potential flood damages. The land in which those properties is located is then often turned into green infrastructure and.or green spaces. From the meetings and discussions I was part of, residents in African-American and lower-income communities showed concerns about this approach because of displacement and relocation issues and their fear of not being able to afford anything in a nearby community with the money they’d receive, even if the buyout program would pay them a fair price for their house. Those fears also stem from long-term trauma related to housing segregation and discrimination. Lastly, residents also seemed concerned about the loss of community ties as a result of this displacement.
A buyout lot in Independence Heights. Photo: Isabelle Anguelovski
Independence Heights. Photo: Isabelle Anguelovski
How do these programs affect residents, more specifically?
A lot of these fears seem to be manifested in neighborhoods like Independence Heights and Kashmere Gardens, the former being the first incorporated city in Texas in 1915 and still mostly African American. Residents claim that elevating homes would be “resilient enough” and cost less (50% less than a buyout), but this “preservation” approach is not a commonly used strategy in Houston, where a more common approach has been about tearing properties down, replacing them, and/or greening. Also, many lower-income flood victims don’t have the funds to rebuild or elevate their homes and FEMA won’t insure them, which means that many of them leave their neighborhood. So, there are new forms of insecurization in those neighborhoods linked directly or indirectly to Harvey, infrastructure planning, and green resilience.
What is the role of local real estate developers in this process?
When residents walk away and the land is not part of the buyout program, developers come in quickly and flip the lots. This can be a goldmine for them. Many even seem to be encouraging residents to sell and/or leave their property to be able to access land considered as prime location for their investment strategy.
Neighborhoods like Independence Heights will also likely have a substantial proportion of its edges being taken over by the expansion of highway I45, along which there will also be new townhouse developments. Residents perceive this as a move to remake their neighborhood for upper income residents whose new homes will be the gate of entry to the community and who will have direct access to new highway ramps and be very close to the business district and midtown. All of this process means that the historic black commercial corridor—and the jobs that go with it—will be torn down, which is of course creating deep concerns of displacement for residents.
Displacement is also social and cultural because developers and other investors, like Whole Foods, contemplated changing the name of the neighborhood to “Garden Oaks” as they announced new businesses or projects, and thereby erasing its historic African-American identity and significance. As everything in Texas happens without having to deal with governments, developers can run their business without governments, and activists don’t often have the power to respond to developers. This was basically the bottom line of people’s analysis. And there is no political system responding to community organizing, which makes organizing a really daunting task. Another complexity in Houston is that there is also a lack of a Master Plan or Resilience Plan in which community activists could take part, but are not.
Highway expansion and townhome constructions in Houston. Photo: Isabelle Anguelovski
Despite the relative absence of historic community organizing, are there any grassroots movements contesting displacement and gentrification?
Activists in Houston neighborhoods repeatedly pointed out at the lack of community organizing capacity in Houston beyond what researcher Dr. Kyle Shelton calls “infrastructure citizenship”, or when residents organize for or against roads, transit, and other mobility-driven projects. Houston was not highly active during the civil rights movement, unions were crushed very early on, and churches never seem to have played the organizing role they played in other places such as Alabama or Georgia. One activist I met said: “People don’t organize residents at the base of power.” Many members of Black congregations have moved out, so there is a cultural and spatial disconnection there that prevents present-day organizing through churches. Churches also don’t seem to be used to organizing in their congregation.
There is, however, a fantastic group called EEDC working in the historically black Third Ward neighborhood of Houston, where people have engaged in community planning since 1985. They work on building community wealth through partnerships with anchor institutions, mobilize residents towards political and community action, strengthen community ownership and housing choice, revitalize Emancipation Avenue as a dynamic and safe business corridor, support preservation efforts, and mobilize faith for spiritual health. Among their fights has been the preservation of and community access to Emancipation Park, the first public park in Texas, which just reopened in 2017 after a $38M high-end renovation. Despite incorporating design features from the neighborhood architecture, EEDC and its constituency have been particularly concerned about its green gentrification potential due to new nearby development interest. They were also critical of a $10M budget dedicated to new bike trails, feeling that this money could have been used for much more immediate needs such as housing and health.
What particular tools do you see communities using to resist displacement in Houston?
There’s been some success with the community land trust (CLT) model. At first, residents pushed back against MIT Colab’s proposal to put up a CLT. Many residents were afraid that a CLT would mean redevelopment of lots into townhouses, which have been criticized for spurring gentrification—attracting suburban residents back to the center in search of more dense neighborhoods and housing—and that Black residents would not own the pieces of land they had fought for decades and centuries ago.
Activists talked a lot about “free slaves” having fought to buy land, about those that had not been able to participate in the Great Migration and had had to stay in areas like the Third Ward where, later on, Black residents had been forced to move after being redlined from other neighborhoods. Now, a few generations later, Black residents are afraid of seeing their history being taken away again. For them, CLTs don’t always deal with history very well. Eventually, however, the model of CLT for the Third Ward was supported by residents as a way to resist gentrification, and is embraced by EEDC. And now the city of Houston has adopted a city-wide community-land trust model. This is an important evolution to follow.
What other strategies are being used in the Third Ward to address gentrification threats?
There seem to be two see two camps in the neighborhood: the arts and preservation groups that fight for affordable housing and the presentation of existing housing stocks, and the redevelopment groups that, among others, push for parks as an amenity for residents and newcomers. As part of the anti-gentrification movement, EEDC has also worked on dynamizing community-owned and driven economic development through main street businesses, small businesses, and creating workers’ cooperatives around needs in the local economy such as construction. Supported by Project Row House, a community platform empowering residents and enriching community through engagement, art, and direct action, EEDC folks are mapping and identifying who lives where and is doing what, connecting people to jobs, to each other, and to the political apparatus. Part of their focus is lobbying the city to literally pay and compensate residents to attend planning meetings so that residents can have a meaningful contribution to planning processes in their neighborhood. They try to address unfair burdens on residents and avoid reinforcing inequalities. For them, robust community engagement has to factor in inequality, and thus pay low-income residents to attend planning meetings.
A key challenge for EEDC is how to secure lots and key properties adjacent to newly redeveloped parks like Emancipation Park so that they don’t get rebuilt into townhouses. There are lots next to the park that were previously “affordable housing” (private affordable housing) and that are now for sale. Here, activists that fail to support greening initiatives are faced with the possibility of losing their seat at the table, and thus their chance at addressing these issues.
Residents express their concerns over the new botanic garden in Houston. Photo: Isabelle Anguelovski
You often warn of green gentrification. Could you give us some other examples of how this and other types of green inequalities are happening in Houston?
Park Place is a minority neighborhood where the city is building a highly controversial Botanic Garden to replace a public golf course which was also used as a connection through the community. It will be a fenced-off, fee-based space that obliges residents to make a detour in order to access a local school and community center. It is also destroying natural wildlife growing on the edges of the golf course. Despite the huge uproar, the private developer and city are moving ahead with it, as Prof. Susan Rogers well explains here and here.
In another instance, a municipal program called Spark Park, which aims at sharing school parks and open spaces with local residents, excludes most low-income neighborhoods in which school play and green areas remain locked up after hours. Nevertheless, the City counts them as new accessible green space for residents as a way of improving statistics on acres of green space per resident in lower-income areas of the city.
In addition, while there are several programs to revitalize Bayous (local rivers), including Bayou Greenways 2020), and open up new bike lanes and trails, some residents find that more privileged neighborhoods benefitted first. One of the trails started from center of Houston outwards. Why would you not start with more outer bayous where lower-income residents also have less access to green space?
What are the more structural issues that prevent green gentrification and other environmental inequalities from being addressed by state agencies or municipal decision-makers?
First, developers have a huge power in Houston. Many public officials seem to have their hands tied because of developers’ influence on decision-making. It’s a historic issue. Real estate development is at the core of Houston’s economic development together with the petrochemical industry. This also explains why you have entire low-income minority communities, like Manchester, sitting right next to a refinery or another contaminating plant.
Second, inclusionary zoning, or the dedication of a portion of new residential buildings or new developments towards affordable homes, is illegal in Texas. Developers are given a free ride throughout the city and development can go run rampant. However, some Texas cities are finding creative ways to go around this restriction. For example, Austin, is allowing for inclusionary zoning in “Homestead Preservation Districts”, which are seen as an important tool to fight gentrification.
A playground in the Manchester neighborhood, near a power plant Photo: Isabelle Anguelovski
Manchester neighborhood, near a power plant. Photo: Isabelle Anguelovski
Are there other ways to address displacement in Houston?
Another program that addresses displacement is the Major Activity Corridor (MAC). In areas designated as MACs, while developers have the right to densify and build housing townhomes and taller buildings, regulations on building heights are much more stringent just outside those corridors, which provides guarantees for the preservation of historic homes. It has also been fascinating to read about the development of a campaign called the “minimal lot size campaign” to prevent developers from turning lots into townhouses. Townhouses seem to have this terrible connotation of being ivory towers parachuted into low-income neighborhoods, as they are usually fenced in, have no ground floors, and where homes are placed above garages to create a sense of seclusion from the rest of the neighborhood.
There is an interesting municipal program called Complete Communities to write up community plans and pilot projects for lower income neighborhoods and integrate health improvements, affordable fresh food access, open and green space, and overall neighborhood revitalization into local development efforts. There are five Complete Communities through the city. The program is derived from recommendations from the Mayor’s Equity Task Force. However much of the funding for it seems to be shifting towards resilience planning. Bringing the two together could work well if you consider all those issues as part of long-term community resilience without reducing resilience to climate disaster preparation, but I am not sure if this is what local officials have in mind.
Funded by the State of Texas, there is also a parallel program called the Opportunity Zones Program to use tax deferrals to steer capital towards more economically and socially fragile communities, some of the targeted communities being in Houston. The funds would serve to invest in business equity, housing, infrastructure. In this case, however, much attention will need to be paid to ensure inclusive redevelopment and build on existing community-driven comprehensive or small-area plans in order to avoid new displacement threats.
How can Houston learn from similar experiences in other cities?
I’ve recently started to conduct field work in Boston, where I did much of my previous research on community organizing and environmental justice in the United States. There are powerful groups and networks there, such as the Center for Cooperative Development and Solidarity (CCDS) or the solidarity economy network/initiative, which mobilize around alternative economic development models and political and economic transformation. This kind of transformation is essential so that residents and groups that have historically been left behind can also propose and build new pathways for the city and themselves. Boston also has a Greater Boston community land trust network, which is another transformative model for land control and development for and by residents, on which to further build.
I am the mayor of a legacy city, a city that rose and fell on the fluctuations of an industrial marketplace. Like Detroit, Cleveland, and dozens of other cities that have experienced continuous population and job loss since their peak, my hometown of Gary, Indiana, once provided the backbone of the nation’s economy. These cities led the way in educational innovation, architectural design and cultural development. In the 1920s, Gary earned the nickname of Magic City because of its exponential growth. Seventy years later, one half of the city’s population is gone, leaving an overwhelming inventory of vacant and abandoned buildings, a nearly 40 percent unemployment rate and a 35 percent poverty rate in the rear view mirror. 
In the National Gallery of Zimbabwe there are permanent and temporary installations that demonstrate the creative and recreative nature of the people and speak to a number of current issues that trouble the community—gender based violence, child marriages and more. Permanent installations can also speak to a vision of a cleaner and greener urban center. A recent visit to one relatively small gallery in Harare allowed students to view landscapes commissioned by artists who were able to capture the varied nature of lands in particular parts of the country and the students were tasked to think about what scenes they, as artists, would want to highlight in their works—scenes that would not feed racist and voyeuristic ideas of a primitive Africa only suitable for safaris.
This FRAMEWORK is a process of inquiry and exchange between artists and designers, research scientists, municipal policy makers, local community groups, and academic partners. Activating the FRAMEWORK are projects and programs that seed sites, with installations, interactive activities, and events. While focused on the unique conditions of specific locales, the projects and programs are designed to set examples that can extend to other cities over time. These activities are conceived to nurture partnerships among disciplines, institutions, neighborhoods, and interested individuals as they work together toward shared environmental and sustainability goals.
The yarn bombing project also sparked considerable interest from the general public. Children who pass the campus on their way to school were often seen hugging a yarn bombed cabbage tree. One of our administrators recently e mailed me remarking, “the appearance of knitting on poles and tree trunks has been a talking point for many and add pops of colour around the campus … When I was at my gym in Mana last week, someone discovered I worked at the faculty and talked of their joy of seeing the knitting around the campus”.
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As we explored Rijeka we found it to be a city simultaneously nostalgic for the material production that marked its industrial history and aware that a new rhythm, a new pattern, can emerge from the possibilities promised by transition. The pier is a metaphor for a struggling city boldly seeing itself anew—in the words of Canadian poet Ross Leckie: “Metaphor is a form of knowing, a way of seeing-as, and from this everything follows, all of our possibilities for ethical and political thinking and being, and certainly our possibility for grace.”
The pier, as a new public space, is literally a new place from which to view the city and therefore a new way metaphorically to see the city. The storied pier lurks in local consciousness as an object of mystery, as something familiar but with so much yet to reveal. The emergent and abundant creative potential embodied by the pier-as-metaphor became the nucleus of Musagetes’ artistic program in Rijeka in 2011 and 2012.
Sound Gates (2011) was the first artistic installation to animate the pier in its post-industrial state. Laetitia reimagined the bases of the defunct ship-loading cranes as symbolic gates welcoming residents to the new public space. She installed and camouflaged four homemade speakers—made of aluminum buckets and simple electronics—on each corner beneath the crane structures. An audio player was connected to motion sensors and a random selection of sounds quietly emanated from above when walkers activated the sensors. The volume was subtle enough not to startle but just loud enough for passersby to become vaguely aware of the presence of the sounds. After a moment listeners became fully conscious of, and then transfixed by, the sounds.
However, in the process of ecosystem classification we knowingly ascribe categorical characteristics to continuous phenomena and draw sharp edges around soft boundaries. This latter issue has been long recognized as a caveat of classifying landscapes – as ecosystems or otherwise. Yet, ecosystem classification has still been recognized as a useful tool for modelling and managing complex systems in its hinterland applications where the emphasis is primarily on biophysical ecosystem components.
These are my research questions, though I will admit to feeling apprehensive in shifting from the theoretical to the applied. Specifically, the quantification and classification of the ‘human component’ of urban ecosystems is fraught with challenges. For example, ecosystem classification is, in part, a statistical endeavour. As illustrated above, people at that tail end of that distribution curve who occupy the space outside two standard deviations will be the most dissimilar ecosystem components. In urban forest management, this population may be at risk of marginalization—or perhaps equally likely, may be a disproportionally vocal and influential subset of the population and ecosystem. In the context of building ecosystem models, is the omission of social knowledge as acceptable as that of ecological knowledge?
Not being an ecologist, a biologist, or a landscape designer, I was originally trained to design cities from the perspective of the built environment, reflecting the practice of architecture in Brazil today, where different specialties meet to sustain a fragmented, partial vision: that of the professional who initiates the process. With little prior interaction and discussion that could amalgamate numerous urban facets into a holistic approach, we continue designing in fragments. Every specialty holds to itself its own primacy, its own knowledge. In the same way, in our daily realities, governmental RFPs are launched for engineering firms (or even construction companies) when it comes to infrastructure, with no mention of architecture, urban design, or landscape design.
The experience with these two projects, both the Eco-Park and the Linear Park, have taught me the importance of local urban and landscape design in the implementation and discussion of urban infrastructure. They have not solved the large infrastructure problems they tackle, but by “showcasing” environmental issues, have made them a topic for open community discussion. Infrastructure is so far from one’s daily routine, as is nature in and around São Paulo’s urban environment, that the majority of the population has lost its connection to the natural substrate that holds everything together. It really needs to become more present if we want any change in the way we face the challenges of upgrading and building new infrastructure.
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