Size Doesn’t Matter—Really!

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

I admit it, I’m obsessed with a small created wetland in NW Portland’s Pearl District. When it comes to urban greenspaces size is often overrated, meaning even a small created 200 x 200 foot faux wetlands can be both biologically and socially meaningful in intensely development urban neighborhoods. Tanner Springs is one of those sites.

In my last piece, Biodiversity Planning: Finally Getting It Right In the Portland-Vancouver Metro Region, I described The Intertwine Alliance’s newly released Regional Conservation Strategy and Biodiversity Guide for the Greater Portland-Vancouver Region that will allow our region to prioritize areas of high conservation value across the 3,000 square mile urban-rural continuum. These products are a vast improvement over past efforts to map fish and wildlife habitat and areas of special ecological concern. One of the most important features of the new mapping was its five meter pixel resolution that is intended to assist park and natural area planners and restoration ecologists to prioritize their work at every scale, from the 3,000-square mile landscape to individual neighborhoods and the streetscape.

The Intertwine Region
The Intertwine Region
Powell Butte Nature Park
Powell Butte Nature Park. Photo: Mike Houck.

Over the past thirty years we have made impressive strides in the city of Portland and the urbanizing Portland-Vancouver region with regard to protecting large natural areas such as 5,000-acre Forest Park, 800-acre Powell Butte Nature Park and other large natural areas within and just outside the region’s Urban Growth Boundary.

Aerial photo of Forest Park. Photo: Mike Houck
Aerial photo of Forest Park. Photo: Mike Houck

On the acquisition side, we have passed two bond measures totaling $363 million with which our regional government, Metro, and local park providers have added thousands of acres of natural areas to the public land base. Most of those acquisitions, however, have been sites of several hundred to more than 1,000 acres. Another significant recent success was the recent passage of the region’s first ever natural areas management and restoration levy, a $50 million five year funding source that will provide Metro with funds to manage is 16,000 acres of natural areas.

While these accomplishments contribute mightily to the region’s efforts to protect biodiversity across the regional landscape, what of the small, interstitial greenspaces, the left over bits of nature that play an oversized role in providing access to nature in the everyday lives of urban dwellers? They have historically been overlooked, undervalued, and viewed as throw away habitats, discarded in the name of “compact urban form.” If we hope to create livable and lovable cities where urbanites have access to nature where they live, work and play our next big challenge is protecting, restoring and, where necessary, designing and creating, small but ecologically and socially significant patches of urban greenspace. Without diminishing the importance of large “anchor” habitats in maintaining biodiversity, the scraps and threads of urban greenspaces that provide connectivity throughout the city and into the surrounding rural landscape are equally important. Size matters alright…at every scale, from the streetscape to large regionally significant nature preserves.

Osprey with fish. Photo: Mike Houck
Osprey with fish. Photo: Mike Houck

What these small pieces, embedded in the urban matrix, lack in biodiversity they often matter most vis a vis their proximity to the majority of urban residents and ensuring people have access to nature—often in more dramatic ways than a wilderness experience. This is especially true in park and nature deficient neighborhoods. One expects to see an osprey land a fish in the Columbia or Willamette River in Portland.

But, when an osprey snags a koi ten feet away from a shallow pond or a great blue heron walks through a created wetland in one of the city’s densest neighborhoods it’s a transformational experience for a five-year old. It’s possible to design such experiences into the urban landscape, in even the smallest parks and natural areas.

 

Heron at Tanner Spring. Photo: Michael Abbate
Heron at Tanner Spring. Photo: Michael Abbate
Child with Great Blue Heron at Tanner Springs. Photo: Mark Wheaton
Child with Great Blue Heron at Tanner Springs. Photo: Mark Wheaton

Creating wild in the city: Portland’s park triptych

A triptych is a work of art that is divided into three sections, or three carved panels which are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. Something composed or presented in three parts or sections; three canvases forming one image.

With the recent dedication of The Fields park a new work of art, a park triptych, was unveiled in Portland’s Pearl District.

The Fields Park. Photo: Mike Houck
The Fields Park. Photo: Mike Houck
The Pearl District. Photo: Mike Houck
The Pearl District. Photo: Mike Houck

The Fields, an expansive greensward, is the third in a series of parks in one of Portland’s densest neighborhoods, The Pearl District. The other two parks, the hardscaped water park at Jamison Square and the faux wetlands and spring of Tanner Springs Nature Park were dedicated in 2002 and 2005 respectively. Each park represents a unique urban design serving widely divergent, but complementary functions.

 

Jamison Square. Photo: Mike Houck
Jamison Square. Photo: Mike Houck
Tanner Springs from the Sitka. Photo: Mike Houck
Tanner Springs from the Sitka. Photo: Mike Houck

In June 1999, Peter Walker & Partners landscape architects provided Portland Parks and Recreation concepts for three new parks that have become critical to the success of what has been a dramatic transformation of an industrial and manufacturing center and transportation hub of rail yards to a new high density, mixed use neighborhood with multi-family residences, offices, and commercial development. What I admire most about these parks is that their designs reflect the philosophy espoused by landscape architect John Charles Olmsted in his 1903 master plan for Portland, which called for the creation of a comprehensive, interconnected park system.

Olmsted's plan and map
Olmsted’s plan and map
Ipe wood boardwalk
Ipe wood boardwalk. Photo: Mike Houck

Olmsted developed a park typology, from urban squares that would function as public gathering places to large scenic reservations like Forest Park. Walker’s vision for the Pearl District included three parks that would serve specific functions and be knitted together with an ipe wood boardwalk.

Jamison Square Park, the first to be developed, was named to honor William Jamison, art gallery owner and early advocate for the Pearl District. The park’s main feature is a fountain with a shallow wading pool that ebbs and flows throughout the day. On a regular basis water flows between and over a rock wall, filling a shallow basin. What was conceived of as a neighborhood park has, in fact, become a regional attraction. On a hot summer day there may be several hundred children and their parents playing in the water or lounging under the birch trees.

Jamison Square Entrance. Photo: Mike Houck
Jamison Square Entrance. Photo: Mike Houck

The Fields, a large grassy ellipse three blocks north of Jamison Square, was designed for kite flying, throwing Frisbees, sunbathing, and other informal recreation. The park features an off-lease dog area, rain garden, and children’s play area.

The Fields. Photo: Mike Houck
The Fields. Photo: Mike Houck

Tanner Springs Park

A couple years ago I was driving north, adjacent to Tanner Springs Park, when a black and white blur flashed across my windshield. I looked to my right and a woman stood, mouth agape. She’d clearly seen the same thing I had. As I jumped out of my car an Osprey arose from the park’s shallow pond, a koi clutched in its talons.

Osprey in Tanner Springs Park. Photo: Mike Houck
Osprey in Tanner Springs Park. Photo: Mike Houck

It carried its prey to the roof of a nearby condominium and consumed the tiny koi after which it returned to its nest on the nearby Willamette River. I asked the woman whether this was unusual and she replied no, that it had become fairly common since someone in the surrounding condos had, illegally, started dumping koi in the pond. She provided me with a photo of the osprey which I immediately sent to Herbert Dreiseitl at Atelier Dreiseitl in Germany and Mike Faha, at Portland’s GreenWorks landscape architects who collaborated on Tanner Springs design to inform them that they had just been paid the highest praise for their design work. Great blue herons, too, visit Tanner Springs Park, attracted by koi. Great Blue Herons also frequent the nearby Chinese Garden in old town Portland.

Chinese Gardens in Portland's Old Town. Photo: Mike Houck
Chinese Gardens in Portland’s Old Town. Photo: Mike Houck

What was once a stream, a natural wetland, and lake system in the Willamette River floodplain is now a native plant-dominated one-square block nature park. What’s amazing about this small urban greenspaces is the wildlife it has attracted into the newly created Pearl District. The original plan for the park was to daylight Tanner Creek. That turned out to be impractical, given the stream now flows more than twenty feet below the park. The Dreiseitl/GreenWorks design was developed from several charettes that were conducted in 2003 that revealed the public’s desire to have a water feature and access to nature in the city.

Dreiseitl Plan for Tanner Springs Nature Park. Image: Atelier Dreiseitl
Dreiseitl Plan for Tanner Springs Nature Park. Image: Atelier Dreiseitl
Visitors with Great Blue Heron, Tanner Springs Park. Photo: Mike Houck
Visitors with Great Blue Heron, Tanner Springs Park. Photo: Mike Houck
Great Blue Heron and reflection in Tanner Springs. Photo: Mike Houck
Great Blue Heron and its reflection in Tanner Springs. Photo: Mike Houck
Mother and daughter at Tanner Springs. Photo: Mike Houck
Mother and daughter at Tanner Springs. Photo: Mike Houck
Camas, Tanner Springs Park. Photo: Mike Houck
Camas, Tanner Springs Park. Photo: Mike Houck
Railroad Track art wall, Tanner Springs. Photo: Mike Houck
Railroad Track art wall, Tanner Springs. Photo: Mike Houck

An “artwall” runs along the east edge of the park consisting of 368 railroad tracks set on end with almost one-hundred blue “Bulls Eye” fused glass which was produced by a Portland glass art company. Each of the rectangular glass panels has images of dragonflies, and other aquatic invertebrates native to local wetlands. The images were hand-painted by Herbert Dreiseitl directly onto the glass panel, which was then fused and melted and inset into the tracks. One of Dreisitl’s panels is dedicated to the “lost wetlands” the park is intended to evoke. The New York Times ran a piece on Tanner Springs, describing it as “a sort of cross between an Italian piazza and a weedy urban wetland with lots of benches perched besides gently running streams.” Tanner Springs also provides a quiet, contemplative space for tenant in the nearby Sitka Apartments, an affordable housing project that sits catty-corner to the park.

Aquatic Insect art. Photo: Mike Houck
Aquatic Insect art. Photo: Mike Houck
In Remembrance of Lost Wetland. Photo: Mike Houck
In Remembrance of Lost Wetland. Photo: Mike Houck
The Sitka from Tanner Springs Park. Photo: Mike Houck
The Sitka from Tanner Springs Park. Photo: Mike Houck

Heron Pointe Wetlands

While Tanner Springs represents an example of created nature, a second small wetland is a case study in the preservation and restoration of a less than one-acre wetland on the west banks of the Willamette River. In 1984 the Heron Pointe condominium development proposal would have filled the postage stamp wetland.

Heron Pointe Wetlands. Photo: Mike Houck
Heron Pointe Wetlands. Photo: Mike Houck
Heron Pointe Wetlands view downstream. Photo: Mike Houck
Heron Pointe Wetlands view downstream. Photo: Mike Houck

The argument used to request the wetland fill was one all too often invoked when developers seek wetland fill permits—the site was so small that it had little ecological value and that nearby Ross Island complex was more significant. After a protracted fight the wetland was retained as an amenity to the adjacent condominiums.

Ross Island. Photo: Mike Houck
Ross Island. Photo: Mike Houck

Today, not only has the wetland been restored in a cooperative effort with the home owners association and city’s Bureau of Environmental Services and Park Bureau, but it is one of very few refugia for Chinook salmon and steelhead trout, both of which are now listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act. While it’s true that, compared with nearby 350-acre Ross Island complex the wetland is comparatively unimportant from a region’s biodiversity perspective, it serves as one of only two sites for the local neighborhood.

In the end, small seemingly unimportant areas like Heron Pointe are treasured by local residents not for their contribution to the city’s biodiversity, but because they bring wildlife to their very doorstep. We installed an interpretive sign twenty years ago which we situated next to the Willamette Greenway Trail that sees hundreds of people daily on their commute or walking and cycling the greenway on weekend outings.

Heron Pointe Interpretive Sign. Photo: Mike Houck
Heron Pointe Interpretive Sign. Photo: Mike Houck
Anna's Hummingbird female on nest. Photo: Mike Houck.
Anna’s Hummingbird female on nest. Photo: Mike Houck.
Downy woodpecker. Photo: Mike Houck
Downy woodpecker. Photo: Mike Houck
White crowned sparrow at Heron Pointe. Photo: Mike Houck
White crowned sparrow at Heron Pointe. Photo: Mike Houck

Nothing represents the neighborhood’s attachment to this small scrap of wetland more than the tiny bronze beaver that was installed by a local resident in memory of her husband who succumbed to Alzheimer’s. More often than not passersby leave a little memento with the beaver, sometimes a beaver-chewed stick others a more whimsical gift of flowers or other memorabilia. The beaver’s head is worn smooth from the many pats on the head it receives from walkers on the adjacent Willamette River Greenway path.

Mike Houck
Portland, Oregon USA

Heron Pointe Beaver. Photo: Mike Houck
Heron Pointe Beaver. Photo: Mike Houck

Skin the City

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

The skin of the city shifts. Waves of residents come and go; meanings vanish. The longer I live here, the more I feel like I am a creature of many phantom limbs. Hungry, I walk to Jimmy’s hoping for fish and a chair to eat it in, but it is gone. In its place, a bodega expanded into a head shop and a pharmacy. It’s not the worst offense, these changing storefronts. But the churn at the whim of capital is a storm that rages and threatens the living parts of the City, the small human bits.

Rapacious development is churning and devouring neighborhoods. Gathering places are first on the chopping block.

A century of disinvestment and municipal neglect add up to slow motion carpet-bombing. Buildings deteriorate until their removal seems inevitable, and whole communities are replaced with a “new” urbanism. Profit-driven construction, in the wake of orchestrated disinvestment and a legacy of public and private neglect, transforms New York City; neighborhoods once full of social clubs, artists’ spaces, churches, and dances halls become rows of shells for private luxury living. These “investments” leave an eerie emptiness in their wake; there are simply fewer people in the new neighborhoods.

Mural Memorial + Completed Spire alteration July 2016
Mural Memorial + Completed Spire alteration, July 2016. Photo credit: Paula Z. Segal
Silent Barn 2016
Silent Barn 2016. Photo credit: Paula Z. Segal
CumbiaPostcard
Cumbia Postcard, 2013. Photo credit: Paula Z. Segal, 2016

In January 2013, the organization I run, 596 Acres, became one of the first “stewdio” tenants at the then-newly-reopened Silent Barn in Bushwick, Brooklyn, an artist-created-and-run cooperative space. 596 Acres took over a portion of a former car mechanic’s garage, broom-swept, oil stains still on the floor. The Silent Barn had signed a 10-year lease on a live-work space that suggested some kind of permanence, or at least some kind of duration. 2022 seemed an awfully long time away.

Around the corner from our new “office” stood a majestic church with a 190-foot copper steeple, St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, opened in 1892. The building had hosted a congregation for over a century, and a community garden for several decades, and in the more recent past had become the site of parties, artist studios, and, briefly, an indoor velodrome for bicycle races.

The steeple was how everyone told direction in that corner of Brooklyn; it reached dozens of feet above the elevated subway tracks and winked its ever-greener green. A few blocks in each direction, three distinct street grids turn away from each other, relics of the independence of the six towns that became Kings County in New York State and then the City of Brooklyn, which later became one of the five boroughs of New York City. A compass marker here has helped orient residents for over a century.

But the church and its spire have never been formally designated a “landmark,” despite numerous requests for the NYC Landmarks Commission to evaluate the building for a designation under the NYC Landmarks law. These include one made to the local City Council Member and a team of Architecture History students from Columbia University in 2010, but all were ignored by the agency or cast aside with the simple response that the building itself was in too precarious a condition to designate.

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Silent Barn. Photo credit: Paula Z. Segal, 2016

Rapacious development was already churning and devouring New York City’s outer borough neighborhoods. Gathering places are first on the chopping block.

The week we moved to the Silent Barn, the sale of the former church building across the street to Cayuga Capital Management, a private for-profit developer planning a market-rate condo conversion, had just been completed. Architects seeking approval of their plans showed drawings that left the pointy spire intact and described apartments with stained glass windows in its upper reaches. The developers, in their marketing materials, wrote:

text_one

The whole thing was becoming 99 expensive rental apartments.

The Church was designed by Cooper Union-educated architect Theobald Engelhardt a generation after the village of Bushwick was incorporated into the new City (!) of Brooklyn. Mr. Engelhardt located his own architecture office around the corner from the Church site on Broadway while the spire went up. It was in a building he also designed on what was then Brooklyn’s Wall Street, across the street from a German singing society hall the construction of which was paid for by its members, and which he also designed.

One hundred years later, the intricate architecture—created to foster social inclusion, artistic production, and a life of collective endeavor—is rapidly transforming into private residences rented and sold for ever-higher prices on the unregulated market. The singing hall is now the Opera House Lofts and many private developers are buying up churches and converting them to residences for those who can afford their lofty ceilings and bespoke window frames.

brick composite
Bushwick. Photo credit: Paula Z. Segal, 2016
Engelhardt office, July 2016 Broadway side
Engelhardt office, July 2016, Broadway side. Photo credit: Paula Z. Segal

Formal NYC Landmark designation is primarily reserved for architectural artifacts, disconnected from their cultural context or their social import. A landmark designation for a piece of the built environment, with its mercurial meanings bestowed by changing local demographics over many decades, is extremely unlikely, though in 2015, in an unprecedented move, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission designated Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village.

That Commission report begins, “The Stonewall Inn, the starting point of the Stonewall Rebellion, is one of the most important sites associated with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender history in New York City and the nation.” It continues for many pages, describing how the Stonewall Inn operated (“the owners made regular payoffs to the Greenwich Village’s Sixth Police Precinct”) and contextualizing the role of this meeting place in its historic moment (“New York police could arrest anyone wearing less than three items of clothing that were deemed ‘appropriate’ to their sex, and the State Liquor Authority made it illegal for a bar to serve someone who was known to be gay.”). As the New York Times reported, several speakers at the designation hearing pointed out that the buildings that house Stonewall are not architecturally distinguished and “would not earn landmark status on aesthetic grounds.” Yet the designation will protect the physical buildings that house the Inn from future alterations.

This may be a new path to protecting places that matter to our communities for their mattering, but it’s coming late, after one hundred years of redlining, the cut-backs in municipal services of the 1970s and 1980s, “urban renewal,” blight designations and bulldozers. The economic history of our city’s neighborhoods has ripened many for replacement, has forced families and communities to move away from places they loved because the disinvestment turned septic, turned into danger and reduced life expectancies. People who could took their children away to live in more orderly and invested places, stopped attending church, stopped paying fees to the singing club, eventually stopped coming back when their neighbors did the same.

cumbia front view 2013
Cumbia front view, 2013. Photo credit: Paula Z. Segal
esquina fashion 2013
Corner of Bushwick Avenue and Melrose: 2016, 2013, as memorialized. Photo credit Paula Z. Segal.

In 2013, I knew that the architects’ promotional materials were just advertising and nothing in their renderings was enforceable.

Predicting then that the church would not survive its conversion in any cognizable form, Daniel Eizirik, an artist in residence at 596 Acres, and I conceived of a mural: If You Love the Music, Spare the Drummer (a cumbia for Stanwix Street). In it, Daniel captured the world we saw that upside down winter, a tiny corner of a larger world that we knew was vanishing, a tattoo on brick inked to mark a moment.

In it are the fish place, a Spanish-speaking fashion boutique, chain link fences surrounding city-owned land, a flat fix/auto glass joint attached to the gas station. The map is not the territory, and the portrait is not the person, but in some places, under seismic shifts in demographics and geographics, the map and the portrait are our last fixed points.

text_two

I won’t call it graffiti, this practice of making memory by inscribing place onto itself. Our memorial, like the Landmarks Commission’s designation of Stonewall, is not based on architectural distinction, though the building was certainly distinguished; it is the only landmark designation that Mr. Engelhardt’s majestic spire will ever get. The painted version has already outlasted the 190-foot cooper one, which was placed into a dumpster and sold for scrap over the winter. The apartments are nearly ready, and the spire itself has been capped, an echo of itself and of Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche, another nineteenth-century German church with its steeple now lopped off, a memorial to forces of this century and their transformation of urban centers.

flat fix 2013
Auto Glass/ Flat Fix, 2013 & as memorialized. Photo credit: Paula Z. Segal.
flatfix 2016
Auto Glass, 2016. Photo credit: Paula Z. Segal
fence
Fence, 2013 & as memorialized. Photo credit: Paula Z. Segal
626 Bushwick 2016
626 Bushwick, 2016. Photo credit: Paula Z. Segal
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Photo credit: Paula Z. Segal

Paula Segal and Daniel Eizirik
Brooklyn and Porto Allegre, Brasil

On The Nature of Cities

Daniel Eizirik

About the Writer:
Daniel Eizirik

Daniel is an artist living in Brasil. He has collaborated with 596 Acres on several projects that have included telling the stories of places.

Small Civic-Led Indigenous Planting Schemes: Simply Feel Good Stuff or a Real Ecological Contribution?

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

“Because then it becomes a beautiful self-driven machine. Nature driving people driving nature. Where the word is spread and the pride is shared and spread and it spills over (in the community). Everyone wants to feel proud of something that is on their doorstep“.
—Kelvin Cochrane, baker and community-activist,
Bottom Road Sanctuary, Cape Town

This piece sets out to explore whether small-scale civic-led gardening schemes are just feel good stuff or whether they make a contribution to the functioning ecology of our cities.

The simple act of digging your fingers into the soil, pushing a seedling into the ground, nurturing it and watching it grow is a sacred, visceral and beautiful process, which opens the door to a greater respect and sense of awe for nature’s mysteries and treasures. There is no doubt that social gardening initiatives, aside from playing a pivotal role in creating the human connections that help reinforce a sense of community, help to generate biophilia and a greater reverence for and connectedness with nature in cities. These sorts of initiatives assist in integrating urban ecosystems as part of the daily experience of citizens, subsequently aiding in creating a new inclusive way, as opposed to a purely scientific way, of speaking about and carrying out conservation objectives that can include and be understood by the everyday citizen.

Bottom Road Sanctuary. Photo: Georgina Avlonitis
Bottom Road Sanctuary was previously a derelict wasteland of rubble and is now a magnificent indigenous garden constructed by the local residents and open to the general public. Photo: Georgina Avlonitis

The urban ecology literature presents several cases of the importance of the social dimension of these kinds of engagements promoting and supporting sustainable environmental projects and awareness, encouraging social cohesion, and fostering local ecological knowledge. A colleague of ours who works for the Biodiversity Management Branch at the City of Cape Town once noted how humbled and delighted she always is to stumble on pockets of people doing innovative, environmentally-relevant gardening projects in their neighbourhoods. She also noted that these were the best places where urban conservation managers might intervene, where value could be readily added with information on appropriate indigenous plant species or offers of support in kind or through labour, as the energy and enthusiasm of an already-mobilized community is an exciting thing.

However, some conservation managers dismiss small urban patches and civic indigenous gardening projects as nothing more than points of social cohesion and activity on the basis that make no meaningful contribution to greater ecological functioning in the city. We disagree.

Princeess Vlei: Source: www.dressingtheprincess.org
Princeess Vlei

The social value of urban gardens is not news. What is less understood, and what drove us into this particular field of enquiry—this research formed part of a Masters dissertation conducted in 2010 by Georgina Avlonitis—was what the ecological spin-offs of small-scale community endeavors in our cities are. Are these just feel-good hotspots or do these small-scale civic projects actually make an ecological contribution of sorts and what are the likely biodiversity outcomes?

We set out to explore this question by picking a spread of sites to examine ecological outcomes along what we saw as a gradient of engagement and an ecological continuum (ranging from relatively degraded sites, to those that have a high conservation status). Our sites included two civic-led indigenous gardening projects, a vacant lot, and two local nature reserves (one of which is a tiny patch of land conserved by default in the middle of one of Cape Town’s oldest horse race tracks). The two civic-led garden projects are the Bottom Road Sanctuary project and the Princess Vlei garden. Bottom Road Sanctuary is a household neighbourhood project which saw the transformation of a wasteland in a low-to-middle income community. Neighbours, inspired by what they saw over the wall in the first garden, which was catalyzed by community-activist Kelvin Cochrane, decided to physically remove the walls separating their front yards to eventually create (in a little over 10 years) what now stands as a magnificent open-access and indigenous community garden on their doorsteps.

The Rondevlei Nature Reserve presents one of the very few sites for the conservation of Sand Plain Fynbos. Photo: Georgina Avlonitis
The Rondevlei Nature Reserve presents one of the very few sites for the conservation of Sand Plain Fynbos. Photo: Georgina Avlonitis

The second community garden project is in the same neighborhood, but is a school gardening project on what was previously a wasteland adjacent to the Princess Vlei. This project is younger, being only about six years old, but has a much larger public participation component. Both these projects, while driven by the community, were supported with plants and guidance from the local nature reserve, Rondevlei.  The factors driving these gardening projects were informed by a sense of community activism relevant to the post-apartheid urban form, relating to notions of indigeneity, ownership, the ‘good and just city’, and beautification. Our nature reserves were the Kenilworth Racecourse and Rondevlei Nature Reserve. The vacant lot was simply a large empty lot that had no evidence, or any local history, of ever having been developed.

The vacant lot was dominated by an ephemeral layer of annual grass. One rare and endangered species found here reminds us of both the heavy toll of urbanization where fragmentation sees the attrition of biodiversity , but also hints at the opportunity still present in these fragments of land where communities could be nurtured back to a state of ecological functionality. Photo: Georgina Avlonitis
The vacant lot was dominated by an ephemeral layer of annual grass. One rare and endangered species found here reminds us of both the heavy toll of urbanization where fragmentation sees the attrition of biodiversity , but also hints at the opportunity still present in these fragments of land where communities could be nurtured back to a state of ecological functionality. Photo: Georgina Avlonitis

We confined our sites to one original vegetation type, the Cape Flats Sand Fynbos, deemed Cape Town’s most ‘unlucky’ vegetation type as more than 80% has already been transformed and only 1% is statutorily conserved. We measured richness and functional richness among insects and plants (on the basis of the understanding of the causal link between diversity and function) in a series of plots at each site.

Our key findings, drawing on five 9m2 plots at each site, show a consistent pattern of similar plant cover, functional type diversity, and species richness between the conservation sites and the Bottom Road garden (see the Table at the bottom). The Princess Vlei project lags somewhat, but as a younger project much a kin to the Bottom Road project this is likely to be on a similar trajectory. The Vacant lot has lower plant cover, functional richness and species richness. The Princess Vlei project and the Vacant Lot have some similarities in cover and functional richness, but the Princess Vlei site has far greater species richness and greater perennial cover. The Vacant Lot has the greatest richness and cover of invasive alien plant species.

While we acknowledge that it is difficult to identify causal mechanisms in ecology at the best of times and that the urban context is even more complex where ecologies are produced and modified through social, economic, political and cultural processes, some clear trends are evident. What we see is that total neglect, represented by the vacant lot, results in poor species richness and associated ecological functionality outcomes. Without intervention our vacant lots rapidly deteriorate to the ubiquitous urban patch dominated by a relative monoculture of grass and weedy annual species. The presence of high annual cover suggests a seasonally vulnerable site that will have limited cover in the hot dry summer months rendering it open to erosion. The presence of one rare indigenous species on our vacant lot suggests potential; some remnant gems are waiting to be nurtured back to functioning communities.

Kenilworth Racecourse
Kenilworth Racecourse

Without intervention however, these extant species present nothing more than extinction debt, waiting to slip away into obscurity the same way other indigenous counterparts on this vacant lot must have quietly disappeared years ago. This vacant lot reminds us of the heavy toll of urbanization on our indigenous flora and stands in stark contrast to the outcomes of the civic-led indigenous gardening projects where the role of informed activism presents astoundingly different outcomes.

The two gardening projects show a sound trajectory towards sites that have plant richness and functionality similar to the two conservation sites. A correspondence analysis exploring species composition and cover in space show just the trajectory we anticipated with the vacant lot an isolated outlier, and the two gardening projects ‘pulling towards’ the conservation areas, with the older and more established Bottom Road garden lining up more closely with the conservation areas than the younger Princess Vlei garden. There are sampling issues around plot and plant size and associated age, but generally what is evident is that concerned and informed social engagement can see the construction of healthy patches of indigenous garden akin to adjacent conservation areas. In every instance the need to monitor and manage invasive alien plant species is evident. This is a common urban problem that requires relentless attention.

The Princess Vlei garden has been constructed by local school children. Photo: Georgina Avlonitis
The Princess Vlei garden has been constructed by local school children. Photo: Georgina Avlonitis

Consideration of the insect morpho-species richness at each site presents a potentially less clear picture. The Princess Vlei site has the greatest volumes of insects, followed by Kenilworth Racecourse (see the Table). Aside from these two sites the numbers of insects trapped are very low. The Vacant Lot, while low in actual numbers, has a surprising richness in functional diversity. It is possible the results are confounded by the competitive role of actual flowers resulting in lower insect trapping rates in the more diverse and densely vegetated conservation areas. This could also account for the high trapping rate at Princess Vlei which is less well vegetated as a more recently initiated project. The vacant lot presents relatively high morpho-species richness, and this can be attributed to the abundance of annual flowering species where there would be no floral support at this site outside of the spring flowering season. While perhaps less compelling when compared to each other, when considered together in the broader context of the urban setting, and in keeping with previous studies, these vegetated patches contribute to the matrix in providing a diversity and functional diversity of insect morpho-species. The loss of pollinators as an outcome of urban fragmentation is well documented. In the Cape it is believed as much as 83% of our flora is insect pollinated. Without the simultaneous return of pollinators any patch of indigenous vegetation ultimately faces extinction.

Bar graph representing the total number of insect morpho- species, collected from pan trapping
Bar graph representing the total number of insect morpho-species, collected from pan trapping

AvlonitisAndersonTableThere are some conservation managers who would argue that this kind of endeavor, without ever being self-sustaining without fire or spontaneous propagation (certainly for those fire-driven species prevalent in the Cape Flora), can never be counted as a true contribution to conservation across the city.

We feel they are wrong. Surely any effort that provides even small patches of indigenous vegetation with appropriate biodiversity elements and functional richness to the broader matrix of indigenous species across the city and fosters social engagement with nature makes a contribution to the conservation mandate of the city? So while these patches may not achieve what a large-scale conservation endeavour would in terms of sustainability they do have elements of ecological functionality that make a worthy contribution, akin to Timon McPhearson and Victoria Marshall’s notion of the relevance of the micro-urban.

Here we see how socially-informed goals meet those of biodiversity conservation to produce excellent social and ecological outcomes. Local school children have learnt about indigenous plants and experienced the joy of planting, residents have access to a biodiversity-rich public space akin to the City’s Botanical Garden, the gaps in the urban matrix are filling up with plants that can share pollinators and pollen with adjacent conservation areas, and populations of threatened species have been expanded. Our work supports the view that these pockets of civic-engagement present a key opportunity to both restore nature and build respect and an infectious sense of community pride for what is growing ‘on their doorsteps’ with both social and ecological gains.

Georgina Avlonitis and Pippin Anderson 
Cape Town

On The Nature of Cities

 

Pippin Anderson

About the Writer:
Pippin Anderson

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

Small Rain Gardens for Stormwater and Biodiversity in the City: Learning from Traditional Ways

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

“For whom do all the flowers blossom in the spring?”
—A phrase of Zen word in springtime

These days, especially in summertime, we have heavy rain in Japan. Stormwater usually goes into concrete drains and flows into rivers. Most of the land in urban areas in our country is covered with asphalt or concrete, and the water flows into rivers very quickly. This is one of the reasons for flooding in urban areas. In response, we have started to plan and design rain gardens.

Traditional ways of designing are sometimes suited for endemic species.

I usually plan and design large-scale landscapes such as city parks, forested parks, around rivers, and so on. In this essay, I would like to think about small rain gardens. It is good for such rain gardens to be designed with both function and beauty in mind. Since I was first asked to design a Japanese garden, I started to learn “Sado”, a traditional tea ceremony, and have been doing it for 15 years because it is deeply concerned with creating a traditional Japanese garden. “Sado” is based on Zen culture; we learn not only about how to make tea, but also about native plants and flowers, calligraphy, pottery, and sometimes food. So, I tried to design a small rain garden based on Japanese traditional gardens.

Fig1
Part of the rain garden in March 2016. Photo: Keitaro Ito

An opportunity

When I moved to an old house near the sea in September 2013, I found that a roof drain had broken and the water flowed under my old house. That was not good for the house, so I fixed it, changing the flow out to a small space outside. However, it was not so beautiful to see the water coming out from the drainpipe to the small space. The small space was totally covered by weeds.

Fig2
The space with weeds (some exotic species) in 2013. Photo: Keitaro Ito

First stage

In autumn 2013, I took the weeds out (except for the native species) and dug up the soil to around 50 cm deep. Lots of stones and roots came out. I carried them away and brought small stones in, putting them in for drainage in a 20 cm. deep layer. Then, I covered them with sandy soil at 10 cm deep, covering this layer with the soil that used to be there.

Fig3
Dug up the soil. Photo: Keitaro Ito
Fig4
Filled up the stones for drainage and covered by sand and stones. Photo: Keitaro Ito
Fig5
Planted regional plants and flowers bit by bit. Photo: Keitaro Ito

When the stormwater came

After completion of the garden, we had heavy rain that fell at a rate of around 60mm/hour in the summertime of 2015. The water was absorbed into our garden, and we had no overflow, which shows me that the function of the rain garden is enough to cope with stormwater at this scale. It will be interesting to collect the rainfall data and water balance.

Fig6
Under the storm water. Photo: Keitaro Ito

Vegetation and biodiversity

I covered the garden with white stones and mosses, including:

  • Cameria japonica
  • Ardisia japonica
  • Ophiopogon japonicas
  • Acer palmatum
  • Miscanthus sinensis
  • Farfugium japonicum
  • Actinidia arguta
  • Equisetum hyemale
  • Tricyrtis affinis Makino

The white stones align with the water flow. I included plants and flowers that could be used for the tea ceremony. The vegetation has been changing from spring 2014 to spring 2016 bit by bit, and some small creatures came here, like bees, Plestiodon japonicus (Japanese skink), and so on. Does this mean we could find an ecological network even in this small garden?

Nature and people

An interesting aspect of Japanese traditional gardens is the plant species they include. People use endemic species for the gardens. I haven’t seen tulips in Japanese gardens. Why? The gardens try to incorporate original nature, like stones as a mountain, water as a sea and so on. People who build small gardens are trying to find the beauty of nature, and they seem to be learning nature from gardens. Although gardens are changing various ways in this country, if we think about biodiversity and local ecology, the traditional garden is sometimes a good example for me. For instance, bees come to native flowers to take their nutrients and to pollinate, meaning an interaction between insect and local plants is occurring. Traditional ways of designing are sometimes suited for endemic species.

Fig7
After two years (spring, 2016). Photo: Keitaro Ito

Future issues

This is a small example of a rain garden; however, if we create this kind of small (or, if you have a big garden, that would also be good!) rain garden for each house, so that people understand the importance of it, things will change. Maintenance of the garden is one of the ways of learning Buddhism for monks; I learned lots of interesting things from the process of creating this small garden. The garden histories and backgrounds of the associated cultures are different in each country, and I think the way of creating the garden is not only functions but also dependent on each climate, vegetation, religion and so on. We can plan and design functional landscapes, but if we think more about nature and cultures, the garden will become a more interesting place.

Fig8
After the rain. Photo: Keitaro Ito

Keitaro Ito
Kyushu

On The Nature of Cities

Smart cities are coming. Can they be as much about nature, health, and wellbeing as traffic flows, crime detection, and evermore efficient provision of utilities?

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.
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.
Helga Fassbinder, Amsterdam A needed smart city filter: Do smart city measures contribute to a more socially fair good life, without externalising associated costs, spatially and socially?
Gary Grant, London An adequate tranche of smart city investment should be spent on monitoring the environment, so that designers, planners, and managers can invest money to save money, restore nature, and make our cities more resilient to climate change.
Pratik Mishra, London Smart city policies in India could have much value, but are also very much part of India’s post-developmental neoliberal turn in politics that portends either indifference or active harm for the urban poor.
Seema Mundoli, Bangalore Transforming into smart cities that are aesthetically pleasing to a few, while ignoring the role of nature in cities for survival of the many urban poor is a further setback to the development of equitable cities.
Harini Nagendra, Bangalore Transforming into smart cities that are aesthetically pleasing to a few, while ignoring the role of nature in cities for survival of the many urban poor is a further setback to the development of equitable cities.
Vishal Narain, Gurugram When we talk of a smart city, what (and whom) do we exclude and include, on what basis, and for which benefits?[
Eric Sanderson, New York What we truly need to improve the nature of cities are smart and wise people and institutions, who consciously and deliberately use data and information to create natural cities.
Bernhard Scharf, Vienna The smart city community needs intensive exchange and mutual learning to find the best solutions to integrate human needs in urban planning, comprehensively and efficiently.
Huda Shaka, Dubai The first step in creating a smart city is to set holistic, measurable objectives that address the needs and aspirations of its residents.
Shaleen Singhal, New Delhi Smart city efforts will be futile if the current challenges of inequality, poverty, and unsustainable consumption are not addressed.
David Maddox

About the Writer:
David Maddox

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.

Introduction

The “smart city” is still more of an aspiration than a reality, but many cities have initiated programs and projects. The projects themselves tend to lean toward technological outcomes such as energy efficiency, traffic and pedestrian flows, and so on. The public, to the extent that it is aware of the smart city at all, probably imagines the same.

But if our goal is for better cities—cities that are better for both people and nature—what can smart cities do for us? How can the technology of smart cities be specifically directed toward the creation of ecologically sophisticated cities that serve human well-being? Can the benefits they provide be distributed justly and equitably, for everyone and not just a few? Can the services they provide be about more than just technology?

How might we create cities that are not only smart, but wise?

We asked out panel: Smart cities are coming. It is important that they be as much about nature, health, and well-being as traffic flows, crime detection, and evermore efficient provision of utilities. How will this be done?

Helga Fassbinder

About the Writer:
Helga Fassbinder

Helga Fassbinder is an urban planner, political scientist, writer, professor emeritus of the University of Technology Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and University of Technology Hamburg, Germany. She lives in Amsterdam and Vienna. Fifteen years ago, she developed the concept of 'Biotope City - the City as Nature', and started the Foundation Biotope City, which is exploring new urban aesthetics and ethics. The Foundation has produced the BIOTOPE CITY JOURNAL since 2006. Meanwhile the first 'Biotope City' is being built in Vienna. www.biotope-city.net

Helga Fassbinder

To read this post in German see here.

A needed smart city filter: Do smart city measures contribute to a more socially fair good life, without externalising associated costs, spatially and socially?

Smart city as a social-ecological challenge

The term “smart city” is used by actors of the cities—political decision-makers, planners, administrations, companies, housing associations, etc.—in the mood for very different programs and objectives. One gets the impression that “smart” is a label which is often used only to “sell” any upcoming investment/measure, as it calls up the image of technological innovation and progress even if, in reality, the technological innovation is only marginal or its effects are questionable.

First of all, it’s about giving the concept of the smart city a definition.

We may agree that we live in times of global ecological crises, going further: in times of socio-ecological crises. By this I mean that we live in times of a multi-faceted crisis, which in many countries cause or at least intensify a social crisis by reaching or even exceeding the limits of ecological resilience. Thus, one can speak of a global social-ecological crisis. Migration flows and wars give expression to this.

That means as a consequence: if the renewal and transformation of our cities into smart cities is to have a forward-looking positive impact, then they must contribute to solving or at least mitigating these multiple socio-ecological crises rather than to exacerbate global negative ecological and social effects.

To further clarify the definition of “smart city” let’s add the following attributes: sustainable, resource efficient, ecological, nature friendly, and socially acceptable.
But what do these attributes imply in the concrete? This raises the question: How far are we going with sustainability and resource-saving, etc.?

I propose to add, as a sort of “filter” for “smart city” measures in the above sense, by asking the following questions:

  • Do these measures contribute to a more socially fair good life, without externalising associated costs, spatially and socially?
  • Are the smart city measures contributing to a global social-ecological transformation?

Our current Western-style life is largely based on the spatial and social externalisation of the costs of its production: costs of production in so-called low-wage countries, exploitation of natural resources in such countries, export of our waste to such countries etc. This means that our good life is based on the misery of humans and the extermination of nature (mineral resources, biodiversity, water, nature’s ability to regenerate in general, etc.) in these countries.

For this fact the German political scientists Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen have coined the term “imperial mood of living”. A few months ago, they published a book on this subject, subtitled “The Exploitation of Man and Nature in Global Capitalism” (1) The publication has received great attention and recognition and has come on the bestseller list of the magazine “Der Spiegel”.

This great response is pleasing because it shows that many people are aware that their lifestyle is leading to overexploitation of nature and people in a global dimension. Reflecting this, they may also be aware that this “imperial mood of living” in the long run will destroy the very basis of their own well-being: it accelerates climate change worldwide, it is destroying the basis of life of more and more people in these countries and depletes natural resources (e.g., rare earths) at a speed that makes their replacement by technological innovations very questionable.

What does that mean for the concept of the smart city? What does that mean for us, who are involved as experts in the planning and implementation of so-called “smart” measures?

First of all, any measure planned under the “smart city” label should be reviewed not only for its impact on climate and nature at the regional and national level, but it should also be checked as rigorously as possible with regard to the possible global externalisation of effects and costs.

Just a few examples:
This criteria brings into question many small measures currently being touted as “smart”. For instance when small human activities, easily carried out by hand, (e.g., to switch on a light) are unnecessarily are replaced by electronic triggers, and thus now require the consumption of, among other things, rare earths.

Even the conversion of individual vehicles to electric cars, a change now propagated in many countries, and touted as sustainable, comes into question. The decision to convert to electric cars results not only the premature replacement of fossil fuel-powered cars (and thus a destruction of value), justified with gains in energy efficiency and reduced carbon emissions, but it also neglects to account for the resource consumption and carbon emissions made by the production of these new electric cars. It also does not take into account the consumption of raw materials for electric batteries, materials which perhaps do not even exist in sufficient quantities for the scale needed. What is the balance sheet?

In addition, the switch to electric vehicles also requires a new, large-scale infrastructure of charging stations, also associated with an increased consumption of resources, and rare earths.

I do not argue against electric cars in general. But for improving the flow of individual traffic, the more sustainable alternative, instead of subsidising each new electric car, is certainly to give priority to the development of the public transport network, and, for urban traffic and transport, to promote and support the use of human-powered forms of transport, such as bicycles, with safe bicycle lanes and safe parking.

On the opposite side, there are other “smart” measures which certainly do not or hardly have any negative externalised effects. This includes, for example, the comprehensive greening of buildings, urban farming, and urban gardening. These measures contribute to the strengthening of native biodiversity, they reduce summer temperatures, delay the outflow of water during prolonged heavy rain, and can support small-scale corporate structures in gardening and agriculture, with no or minimal externalisation of effects and costs.

Conclusion:
The critical review of any as “smart” planned measure concerning their global spatial and social impacts, could lead, in the end, to a checklist of the social and ecological gains and deficits of “smart measures”. Such a checklist could help planners, critical public, and decision-makers to decide whether or not to carry out what one has in mind and, with regard to minimizing the effects of externalisation of costs, could help us look for better or best alternatives.

Such a checklist would contribute to an efficient social-ecological transformation that could modify and reduce the “imperial mood of life” by transforming our cities.

Notes:
Brand, Ulrich/Wissen, Markus (2017): The Imperial Mode of Living. In: Spash, Clive (ed.): Routledge Handbook of Ecological Economics: Nature and Society. London: Routledge, 152-161.

Brand, Ulrich/Wissen, Markus (2017): Social-Ecological Transformation. In: Noel Castree, Michael Goodchild, Weidong Liu, Audrey Kobayashi, Richard Marston, Douglas Richardson

Görg, Christoph/Brand, Ulrich (lead authors)/Haberl, Helmut/Hummel, Diana/Jahn, Thomas/Liehr, Stefan (2017): Challenges for Social-Ecological Transformations: Contributions from Social and Political Ecology. In: Sustainability 9(7), 1045; doi:10.3390/su9071045

SMART CITY ALS SOZIAL-ÖKONOMISCHE HERAUSFORDERUNG

Die Bezeichnung ‘smart city’ wird von den Akteuren der Städte – politischen Entscheidungsträgern, Verwaltung, Unternehmen, Wohnungsbaugesellschaften e.a. – für höchst unterschiedliche Programme und Zielsetzungen gebraucht. Man gewinnt den Eindruck, dass es sich um ein Label handelt, mit dem vielfach lediglich jeweils anstehende Investitionen/Massnahmen ‘verkauft’ werden sollen, da es das Bild der technologischen Neuerung auch dann aufruft, wenn die technologische Neuerung nur marginal oder selbst in ihren Effekten fragwürdig ist.

Es geht also erst einmal darum, dem Begriff der smart city eine Definition zu geben.

Wir sind uns vielleicht darüber einig, dass wir in Zeiten globaler ökologischer Krisen leben, noch weiter gehend: in Zeiten sozial-ökologischer Krisen. Damit ist gemeint, wir leben in Zeiten einer multiblen Krise, die durch das Erreichen der Grenzen der ökologischen Belastbarkeit in vielen Ländern eine soziale Krise hervorruft oder zumindest verstärkt. Somit kann man von einer globalen sozial-ökologischen Krise sprechen. Migrationgsströme und Kriege geben davon Ausdruck.

Wenn also der Umbau und die Erneuerung unserer Städte zu ‘smart cities’ einen in die Zukunft weisenden positiven Sinn haben soll, dann müssten sie beitragen zur Lösung oder zumindest zur Milderung dieser vielfältigen sozial-ökologischen Krisen, anstatt sie in ihren globalen Effekten noch weiter zu verschärfen.

Fügen wir also zur näheren Bestimmung der Definition von ‘smart city’ die folgenden Attribute hinzu: nachhaltig, ressourcenschonend, ökologisch, Natur schonend, sozial verträglich. Aber was implizieren diese Attribute dann im Konkreten? Hier erhebt sich die Frage: Wie weit geht die Reichweite von ‘nachhaltig’, ressourcenschonend etc. ?

Ich schlage vor, gewissermassen als eine Art von ‘Filter’ für ‘smart-city’-Massnahmen im obigen Sinne die folgende Frage hinzuzufügen:
Tragen diese Massnahmen bei zu einem sozial gerechteren guten Leben, ohne damit verbundene Kosten räumlich und sozial zu externalisieren?

Tragen die Massnahmen bei zu einer globalen sozial-ökologischen Transformation?

Unser heutiges, von westlichen Standards geprägtes Leben ist in hohem Masse basiert auf der räumlichen und sozialen Externalisierung von Kosten seiner Herstellung: Kosten der Produktion in sog. Billiglohn-Ländern, Ausbeutung der natürlichen Ressourcen in solchen Ländern, Export unserer Abfälle in solche Länder. Das heisst: unser gutes Leben ist auf dem Elend von Menschen und der Vernichtung von Natur (Bodenschätze, Biodiversität, Regenerationsfähigkeit der Natur) in diesen Ländern begründet.

Die deutschen Ökonomen Ulrich Brand und Markus Wissen haben dafür den Begriff der ‘imperialen Lebensweise’ geprägt. Sie haben vor einigen Monaten ein Buch zu diesem Thema publiziert, das den Untertitel trägt ‘Zur Ausbeutung von Mensch und Natur im globalen Kapitalismus’. Die Publikation hat grosse Aufmerksamkeit und Anerkennung gefunden und ist auf die Bestseller-Liste des Magazins ‘der SPIEGEL’ gekommen.
Diese grosse Resonanz ist erfreulich, denn sie zeigt, dass doch vielen Menschen bewusst ist, dass mit ihrer Lebensweise Raubbau getrieben wird an Natur und Menschen in einer globalen Dimension. Es wird ihnen in der Reflexion dessen vielleicht auch bewusst, dass diese ihre ‘imperiale Lebensweise’ à la longue auch die Basis ihres eigenen Wohllebens zerstören wird: Sie beschleunigt den Klimawandel weltweit, sie entreisst immer mehr Menschen in diesem Ländern ihre Existenzgrundlage und erschöpft natürliche Ressourcen (zB seltene Erden) in einem Tempo, dass deren Ersatz durch technologische Neuerungen sehr fraglich ist.

Was heisst das nun für das Konzept der ‘Smart City’? Was heisst das für uns, die wir als Fachleute eingebunden sind in Planung und Durchführung von sog. ‘smarten’ Massnahmen?

Als erstes: Jede Massnahme, die unter dem Label ‘smart city’ geplant wird, sollte nicht nur unter der Frage ihrer Auswirkung auf das Klima und den regionalen und nationalen Naturhaushalt überprüft werden, sondern ebenso streng im Hinblick auf mögliche globale Externalisierung von Effekten und Kosten überprüft werden.

Nur einige Beispiele:
Damit werden bereits viele kleine Massnahmen fragwürdig, die als ‘smart’ angepriesen werden, z.B. überall dort, wo unnötigerweise kleine menschliche Handgriffe durch elektronische Steuerung (und damit dem Verbrauch von u.a. seltenen Erden) ersetzt werden. Auch der nun in vielen Ländern propagierte Umstieg des Individual-Verkehrs auf Elektroautos, der als nachhaltig angepriesen wird, wäre noch zu hinterfragen: Er zieht nicht nur den vorzeitigen Ersatz von fossil angetriebenen Autos (und damit eine Wertezerstörung nach sich), wobei dem energetischen und CO2-Gewinn der Ressourcenverbrauch und CO2-Ausstoss bei der Produktion der neuen Elektroautos gegenüber steht, ganz abgesehen von den für Elektrobatterien notwendigen Rohstoffen, die es in diesem Ausmass wohl garnicht in ausreichend gibt. Was ist die Bilanz? Zudem: Es bedarf auch einer grossflächigen neuen Infrastruktur mit Ladestellen, auch dieses ist mit einem gesteigerten Verbrauch von Ressourcen, u.a. den seltenen Erden, verbunden.

Die nachhaltigere Alternative, um den Verkehrsflow zu verbessern, ist wohl, dem Ausbau des Netzes von öffentlichem Verkehr Vorrang zu geben, und für den Nahverkehr den Gebrauch von Verkehrsmitteln mit ‘Menschenantrieb’, sprich Fahrrädern, mit sicheren Fahrradwegen und Unterstellplätzen zu unterstützen.

Andere ‘smarte’ Massnahmen hingegen haben deutlich keine oder kaum negative externalisierte Effekte. Dazu gehört die umfassende Begrünung von Gebäuden und Urban Farming. Sie tragen zur Stärkung der einheimischen Biodiversität bei, senken sommerliche Temperaturen, verzögern den Abfluss von Wasser bei langdauernden Starkregen und können kleinteilige Unternehmensstrukturen in Gärtnerei und Landwirtschaft unterstützen, mit keiner oder nur minimaler Externalisierung von Effekten und Kosten.

Fazit:
Die kritische Prüfung jeder als ‘smart’ geplanten Massnahme hinsichtlich ihrer globalen räumlichen und sozialen Effekte könnte zu einer Liste führen, anhand der PlanerInnen, eine kritische Öffentlichkeit und EntscheidungsträgerInnen entscheiden können, ob diese Massnahme zu verantworten ist.

Eine solche Liste wäre ein Beitrag zu einer effizienten sozial-ökologischen Transformation, die im Umbau unserer Städte den imperialen Charakter unserer Lebensweise modifizieren und verringern könnte.

Fussnoten:
Brand, Ulrich/Wissen, Markus (2017): The Imperial Mode of Living. In: Spash, Clive (ed.): Routledge Handbook of Ecological Economics: Nature and Society. London: Routledge, 152-161.

Brand, Ulrich/Wissen, Markus (2017): Social-Ecological Transformation. In: Noel Castree, Michael Goodchild, Weidong Liu, Audrey Kobayashi, Richard Marston, Douglas Richardson

Görg, Christoph/Brand, Ulrich (lead authors)/Haberl, Helmut/Hummel, Diana/Jahn, Thomas/Liehr, Stefan (2017): Challenges for Social-Ecological Transformations: Contributions from Social and Political Ecology. In: Sustainability 9(7), 1045; doi:10.3390/su9071045

Gary Grant

About the Writer:
Gary Grant

Gary Grant is a Chartered Environmentalist, Fellow of the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, Fellow of the Leeds Sustainability Institute, and Thesis Supervisor at the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London. He is Director of the Green Infrastructure Consultancy (http://greeninfrastructureconsultancy.com/).

Gary Grant

An adequate tranche of smart city investment should be spent on monitoring the environment, so that designers, planners, and managers can invest money to save money, restore nature, and make our cities more resilient to climate change.

Our knowledge of cities is limited. Millions of us take in the sights, but we don’t necessarily understand what we see and how it works. We take the built environment for granted and rarely take the time to analyse it or make plans to improve it. Help is needed from all-seeing and quick-thinking sensors and computer networks. We don’t have a full picture of the biodiversity that occurs in cities. There are maps which show the location and extent of habitats and various green spaces. Trees, especially street trees, are usually catalogued (take for example Singapore’s heritage trees). Knowledge of wild vegetation in cities is incomplete. Urban naturalists record birds in most cities, with specialists looking at particular species, like the swift for example, but investigations of invertebrates are uncommon. The first task for the smart city is to use cameras and sensors, working with artificial intelligence, to complete the mapping and cataloguing of natural features within our cities. This will include soils, watercourses and waterbodies, habitats (both on the ground and on buildings), as well as species. Sound, for example, is being used to identify and map wildlife. An interesting example of this is the monitoring of bat activity in real time in London’s Olympic Park. The description and cataloguing of urban nature need to be completed, so that we can see where it is missing, where it can be enhanced, and where management should be focussed, to restore nature for its own sake and for the well-being of citizens. Smart city technology can be harnessed for this purpose. It will make monitoring more affordable and more effective.

Nature affects and is affected by its physical setting. Surprisingly little is known about the various and changing microclimates in our cities. The phenomenon now known as the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHIE) was first described more than 200 years ago, however, ask city planners about how much of a problem the UHIE is in a particular precinct, chances are they will not know. The permeability of surface cover, evapotranspiration rates, and surface temperatures are inter-related, and these parameters can be measured using infra-red photography. An excess of sealed surfaces can lead to problems with surface water flooding and combined sewer overflows which pollute watercourses. Cameras and digital thermal sensors can be networked in order to monitor the whole city, looking for hot spots, where green infrastructure can be created to fix these problems.

Air quality and water quality are monitored, usually to the minimum standard required by legislation in any jurisdiction. New York City, for example, monitors air quality at 150 stations. Water quality tends to be measured in selected watercourses at particular times in the year or in response to incidents. It is well established that vegetation intercepts and absorbs air pollution, and that soil cleans water, however little is known about how particular combinations of soil and vegetation in urban settings provide these ecosystem services. As the costs of sensors that measure pollutants fall, it should be possible to monitor entire urban areas, to understand where the most serious problems are occurring and how natural features are affected and are reducing the impacts of pollution on citizens. More detailed and wider scale monitoring will reveal more about how polluted cities are but will also help city planners to prioritise expenditure and target interventions and continuing management.

We are told that there will be significant investments in smart city initiatives. 1.2 trillion dollars by 2022 according to one estimate. Without a concerted effort from those of us interested in nature, it is possible that almost all of this investment will be centred on measuring the flows of energy within wires and water within pipes, on smoothing traffic flows, detecting crime, and servicing businesses and government. This is all well and good for the most part. However, an adequate tranche of that investment should be spent on monitoring the environment, so that designers, planners, and managers can invest money to save money, restore nature and make our cities more resilient to climate change. We need to be shielded by more water, soil, and vegetation and this must be added in a smart way, which will require smart city techniques and technologies.

Pratik Mishra

About the Writer:
Pratik Mishra

Pratik Mishra is a PhD Student in Human Geography. His work pursues the urban’s ecological hinterland to find more than just the sheer quantity of resources or waste that the urban expends in its metabolism, and rather the villages and the lives that get entangled in these resource flows. He hopes that these stories will help us understand better the relations between the core and periphery of Indian cities.

Pratik Mishra

The dangers of anti-poor smartness in Indian cities

Smart city policies in India could have much value, but are also very much part of India’s post-developmental neoliberal turn in politics that portends either indifference or active harm for the urban poor.

To be honest, I was disappointed when I found out that “smart cities” existed already as a buzzword in urban governance outside of India. When our Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015 announced the Smart Cities programme to develop 100 cities in India through better core infrastructures, more information technology solutions in governance, and cleaner, greener surroundings, I beleived he would be the one to bring this term into vogue and give it shape. He is known for inventing new terms and conflating one thing to another (This is not a criticism). Recently in celebrating the progress in Ease of Doing Business rankings, he stated that this jump in ranking also represented a growth in “ease of living” for citizens. Why wouldn’t he just use the existing Human Development Index which ranks India 131 out of 188 countries and target attention at improving there? (This is a criticism).

The Smart City programme in India is one-of-its-kind in terms of not laying down standards for “smartness” a priori. The idea was to look at the projects and ideas urban bodies would propose in their bids and then create standards tailor-made for those projects. Even that ambition was set aside as the Ministry set aside benchmark standards instead relying on a fuzzier liveability index to just rank smart cities that were already smart. To me, this attitude of fuzziness is welcome.

It’s very clear that the smart cities, which are designed as retrofitted, renewed, or greenfield satellites to existing cities, are there to attract investments. Traffic flows, crime detection and efficient utilities are the means to this, objectives biased towards certain classes of citizens. In talking about nature, health and well-being, my argument is on how smart cities could be more pro-poor without suggesting the policy be any more welfarist (in the redistributive sense, as I only wish it would be). Such policies are not new in India; very much part of its post-developmental neoliberal turn in politics portends either indifference or active harm for the urban poor. David Harvey speaks of the “spatial fix” where socio-spatial arrangements like infrastructures are reconfigured in limited geographies to reflect the imperatives of capital. Capital perpetually seeks spatial fixes that would address its crises and contradictions through geographic expansion and commodification of hitherto underdeveloped resources. Using Harvey’s analogy, smart cities provide yet another syringe for capital’s addiction to expanding its frontier across space. Niall Brenner’s writing on the rescaling of state space allows us to articulate how smart cities represent uneven legal regimes and infrastructures typical of an entrepreneurial approach to urban governance rather than a welfarist-one.

These discourses obviously deal a bad hand to the urban poor. However, within these neoliberally-oriented regimes, the academic wisdom that urban researchers repeatedly stumble upon is that the policy and practice most meaningful to the poor is often located in the interstitial and residual spaces of policy. This insight is the veritable mother lode that keeps producing high-quality academic research bringing out different versions of the poor’s complex and entangled negotiations with the state. Political society (Chatterjee), insurgent citizenship (Holston), quiet encroachment of the ordinary (Bayat), occupancy urbanism (Benjamin), etc. all state that the poor, so often unfairly finding themselves on the wrong side of legality, find flexible arrangements, negotiations with street bureaucrats and political patronage relations useful. Subverting policy serves a greater good. Obviously, the rich exploit fuzziness and commit illegalities even more ruthlessly but that is not something to get into now.

Finally, just from my fieldwork which looks at drinking and wastewater canals that service the metabolism of Gurugram city, I present a sort-of-related example. The canals chart their way across many villages as they bring water to the city or take sewage away. They are assumed to be largely inert flows with transmission loss only on account of evaporation for drinking canals, and irrigation is allowed for wastewater canals though not regulated. These flows are anything but inert though, as through seepage, irrigation and theft, they radically impact the lives and livelihoods of farmers and residents in peri-urban villages. In the absence of any laid down rules or water user associations, farmers utilize wastewater from the sewage canals drawing on local historical norms of cooperation to regulate sharing and minimize conflicts. Seepage from the drinking water canals alters the groundwater table in nearby fields, reducing productivity on low-lying adjacent lands but also creating opportunity structures for farmers farther away who benefit from the groundwater. Interestingly, farmers pumping out water helps the canal structure as it reduces pressure from the high water table. A lot of unregulated activity takes place in the backwaters of policy which is simultaneously often arbitrary and unjust but also regulative and beneficial. The smart city approach of strongly attacking transmission losses, surveying water use and imposing top-down regulations, entrusting unaccountable parastatal institutions instead of local government with responsibility is just the prescription for doing more harm than good here.

A Smart Cities Readiness Guide produced by an industry body describes a smart city as “one that knows about itself and makes itself more known to its populace”. I don’t think smart cities would necessarily produce the right kinds of knowledge in their statistics. If the harder institutional, democratic changes won’t be invested in, I hope spatial fixes like smart cities partially fail so it may allow constituency-level negotiations, flexible arrangements and limited surveillance, all of which have enabled the urban poor to exercise their democratic agency. A technocratic operationalization of smart city principles devoid of adequate human interfaces and contextual decision-making (even if such practices often appear to be corrupt) would only further limit the spaces of economic and cultural operation for those already immiserated by urban life.

Vishal Narain

About the Writer:
Vishal Narain

Vishal Narain is Professor, Public Policy and Governance, at the Management Development Institute Gurugram, India. His academic interests are in the inter-disciplinary analyses of public policy processes and institutions, water governance, peri-urban issues and vulnerability and adaptation to environmental change.

Vishal Narain

When we talk of a smart city, what (and whom) do we exclude and include, on what basis, and for which benefits?

Smart cities are coming indeed, but how can they be wise and sustainable? I think this requires challenging some of our commonly held views and notions. First, I find it disorienting that in this age and time, we still talk of a “city”, as if it is some well-defined entity, marked out in space and time. Implicitly, the definition of a city assumes some spatial or administrative unit marked out or posited against a boundary. Typically, we think of a city as the opposite of what is not a city; for instance, and typically of what is “rural”. In the emerging context of the Global South, the urban-rural dichotomy is fast disappearing. We need to reimagine what a city is. Focusing on the city narrowly may mean compromising the integrity of ecosystems that support it, or from which the city draws its resources.

So, when we talk of a smart city, what (and whom) do we exclude and include, and on what basis? Is this the city core, the jurisdiction boundary, or also the peripheries whose resources are guzzled by the growing city? I live in Gurugram, and my residential gated colony is right next to a village settlement area, on whose (former) agricultural land my house is built. Is that village also “city”? The institute where I work, Management Development Institute, shares a boundary wall with a village called Sukhrali, which is now under the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon. Just as I leave the main gate of the institute, I see rural folk sitting on cots and playing cards while smoking the hookah. (Hookah is a communal pipe. Village folk collectively smoke tobacco, taking turns.) Among them are former farmers, real estate agents, potters, craftsmen, and transport operators. Is my institute located in a city or a village?

In this age and time, when rural-urban boundaries are blurring in the Global South, programmes targeting “rural” or “urban” areas mean little. I would go for “smart watersheds”, or “smart urban agglomerates”, or “smart aquifers”. We need planning entities and approaches that recognize rural-urban relationships, flows of goods and services between rural and urban areas, dynamic and ever-evolving, or the relationships between social and ecological systems.

Having said that, if smart cities are conceptualized the way that they are right now, how can they be safe and sustainable? Where is the role for technology and infrastructure?

Urban farming is a new trend catching on in modern cities. Using the biodegradable wastes of our homes to grow our own vegetables is catching on. This helps in many ways; the domestic kitchen waste is used, it helps us move towards a circular economy. We consume vegetables whose source we know, and we recognize that they are not contaminated by chemical fertilizers and pesticides. There is a great potential for technology (e.g., through Facebook) to connect people who do this, popularize kitchen gardens and inspire those who would want to be inspired. Technology can help us reduce our ecological footprint and move towards a circular economy.

If we widen the notion of the city to include the surrounds and peripheries that feed it, it may make us see the smart city in a new light. This will then translate into improving rural internet connectivity and strengthening initiatives that foster the use of technologies in rural areas to improve access to information and lower transaction costs; for instance, in the Indian context, such initiatives as e-choupals (which uses information technology to provide information to farmers about market prices). It may mean improving rural-urban connectivity (and not just widening highways and building new expressways). This will improve rural communities’ access to modern health care and education and enable better marketing of perishable produce. It will ensure the safety of rural women and widen their access to urban markets.

We should also use modern technology to generate knowledge on and create greater awareness of the extent and impact of the degradation of natural resources like water bodies that smart cities consume, the loss of forest cover, the increase in built-up area and reduction of groundwater recharge. Expanding infrastructure means creating “more of” something. More for some people usually means less for others; violating the norms of intra-generational equity.

Eric Sanderson

About the Writer:
Eric Sanderson

Eric Sanderson is a Senior Conservation Ecologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the author of Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City.

Eric Sanderson

What we truly need to improve the nature of cities are smart and wise people and institutions, who consciously and deliberately use data and information to create natural cities.

Like many Americans of a certain generation, I spent a portion of my misspent youth hunched around a table playing Dungeons & Dragons. One of the things I liked best about D&D is that at the beginning of each game, we would roll three dice to give our characters a set of defining attributes: strength, intelligence, wisdom, constitution, dexterity, and charisma. I thought it was brilliant that the designers of the game recognized the difference between intelligence and wisdom, which is sorely lacking in most of the 21st century world, and in particular, in the discussions around smart cities. Intelligence, smartness, information is the capacity to know facts about our cities. Wisdom, motivation, justness, is the capacity to act positively and bravely on that information to make the city better. We have many examples of intelligent people who do unwise things; we may know some of those rare people who are wise without being unusually intelligent, but what we truly need to improve the nature of cities are smart and wise people and institutions, who consciously and deliberately use data and information to create natural cities.

A natural city by definition fits seamlessly into its environment, much as forests, grasslands, and waters do; it gives as much as it takes; and it lasts for a long time.

In New York City, my colleagues and I have been trying to generate the smart, wise, natural city that we believe is essential to the future. One part of that is having a shared set of goals for the nature of the city, as Bram Gunther and I wrote about previously here. Nature in our view (and the view of over 40 other institutions) should be seen as fundamental to the functioning of the city as public safety, or education, or health. In New York we have police and fire departments to keep us safe, and departments of education and health to help us be smart and healthy, but the management of nature is scattered across agencies (NYC Parks Department, NYC Department of Environmental Protection, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, National Park Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, etc.), with no clear lines of responsibility that link back to a shared set of goals for the city as an integral and wise whole.

We have also been working hard to give New Yorkers tools to generate and share ideas about the city of the future. As I wrote about here, Visionmaker.nyc is a free online tool for ecological democracy. Anyone with an internet connection can zoom to a neighborhood of interest, see the ecosystems of that part of the city now as well as the historical, pre-development landscape, then reimagine the neighborhood they would like to see in the future. Those scenarios of a future can take into account climate change and/or play around with lifestyles through integrated toolsets. Each change generates a call to a set of models that give comparative and quantitative metrics about the water cycle, carbon flows, biodiversity patterns, and population density, where the user’s vision is evaluated next to that present-day neighborhood and the area as a natural landscape.

Finally, as this brief gloss on Visionmaker suggests, we have found it incredibly useful to contrast New York today with its pre-development, “wild” state, via the Mannahatta and Welikia Projects. Historical ecology provides unique perspectives that speak to wisdom even more than intelligence. Urban historical ecology reminds us that our cities have not always had their current form, despite their monumentality. The past gives us insights into the way nature shapes the land and waters where our cities are built. If the sea level rose 120 meters, as it has in New York City over the last 20,000 years, should we be shocked that it may rise another meter over the next century? Most importantly though, historical ecology inspires. Nature is beautiful and fascinating and robust in ways that speak volumes to our overcrowded and over-busy time. Sometimes one can glimpse that beauty today, in the rustle of leaves in a city park or in the motion of salt marsh grasses as the tides come in, but to realize the former vastness of this landscape and the productivity of its indigenous ecosystems is to open our hearts to the potential of the future and sting us with visions of what has been lost.

Bernhard Scharf

About the Writer:
Bernhard Scharf

Born in Salzburg, I found my way to the University of Natural Resources & Life Sciences Vienna to study landscape planning and architecture. My master thesis already dealt with ecological and economical solutions for turf areas, so called flowering turf. 2006 I started my scientific work at the Institute of Soil Bioengineering and Landscape Construction. The focus from then on was the development of technical solutions to allow the broad application of green infrastructure in the context of urban challenges. In 2014 I co-founded the Green4cities company to close the gap between research and planning praxis. Today I am senior scientist at BOKU and CTO of the G4C company. More details here.

Bernhard Scharf

The smart city community needs intensive exchange and mutual learning to find the best solutions to integrate human needs in urban planning, comprehensively and efficiently.

What is a smart city? Is it a buzzword? Sometimes this impression is created, especially when you look at various real estate projects that are advertised as “smart” because of an info screen at the entrance hall, etc. while being absolutely conventional otherwise.

Is there a clear definition what a smart city is? In the field of research “smart cities” are understood as highly diverse. Most smart city research projects focus on a set of topics relevant to the scientists involved, such as the internet of things, social sciences or new mobility concepts, green infrastructure, etc. Apart from the thematic diversity, there is a common interface to all projects: they address the needs of people today and in the future. What we can observe is a significant change of perspective in how we plan and develop our cities: a human-centered planning approach going beyond the scope of traditional planning. No longer do people have to adapt to the city. It’s the other way around. The city has to deliver what people need.

That means that urban planning and design changes dramatically. Many people, especially investors but also experts, are afraid of the change towards smart cities. They try to keep their routine and patterns. While change is perhaps the only constant there is.

So how can we proceed on this path and create smart cities? I think we have to change attitudes, traditions, patterns, and routines. But most of all the following two aspects:

More resources and time for planning processes

The planning of new urban districts or retrofitting built city areas is highly complex. Thanks to modern technologies such as building information modeling (BIM), etc. the planning is extremely efficient and allows planners to address many aspects in a short time; and almost the same time (and money) for planning as many decades ago, when things were not as complex. Developers and municipalities expect that the planning experts comply with the given time frame and regulatory framework. As a result, we see planning experts struggle to balance the scope of services, time and money, trying to achieve the best results with the available resources.

The role of planning processes, especially concerning smart cities, needs to be much more appreciated. We need to be aware of the fact, that the cities we build today will remain—thanks to high European technical standards—for many, many decades, very likely until 2100 or beyond. At that time different climatic framework conditions, urban density and age-composition of the society will be a given. A smart city needs to account for all of these changes, today. Therefore, the planning process needs to be interdisciplinary including civic participation, allowing for work on interfaces and synergies with fewer budget and time restraints. Planners have to point out their importance in such complex planning processes to define the quality of projects and security of the investment for a very long time. Researchers estimate that, regarding an average planning project, the planners budget accounts for only 3 percent of the total lifetime cost of buildings, while defining the 97 percent of lifetime cost significantly!

Understanding the city as nature

More than 70 percent of Europeans live in a city today. Every weekend people tend to “visit” a piece of nature, a park, a forest, a mountain. Why? There is no regulation or obligation to do so. As proven in many health studies nature experience helps to recreate and relax, improving health, concentration and so forth. Obviously, citizens’ lack of nature experience in their direct vicinities, the urban fabric, leaves them with great desire and demand for nature.

In the history of city development nature has been perceived as a source of danger, out of control and order. As a consequence, cities somehow banned nature or kept it “clean” and under control in pots or parks. “We need to stop war against nature”, claimed Gary Grant at the European Union Green Infrastructure Conference 2017 in Budapest. Ecosystem services reduce urban heat island effects, flash flooding, air pollutants, noise, and increase the attractiveness of the urban fabric, creating healthy and appropriate habitat conditions for people. Nature has to be understood as an essential part of forward-looking and smart cities, as partner and ally to overcome many aspects of urban deficiencies.

Smart cities are coming. There is no doubt about that. There are some remarkable projects realized in Europe, but the process is ongoing and still experimental in a way. The smart city community needs intensive exchange and mutual learning to find the best solutions to integrate human needs in urban planning comprehensively and efficiently.

Huda Shaka

About the Writer:
Huda Shaka

Huda's experience and training combine urban planning, sustainable development and public health. She is a chartered town planner (MRTPI) and a chartered environmentalist (CEnv) with over 15 years' experience focused on visionary master plans and city plans across the Arabian Gulf. She is passionate about influencing Arab cities towards sustainable development.

Huda Shaka

The first step in creating a smart city is to set holistic, measurable objectives that address the needs and aspirations of its residents.

While smart cities may be coming, many of the concepts, technologies, and partnerships that will make them happen are already here today. Some see commercial and property development opportunities in this new world, others see data and privacy risks. A third group is emerging who are advocating for utilizing smart technology to offer entire communities (not just paying clients) healthier, better-connected environments and wider economic opportunities. Ultimately, smart cities focused on nature, health and well-being will also need traffic flow, crime, and utilities data. The difference lies in the ownership, access to, and usage of the data to serve a higher purpose.

As an example, traffic flow data can be used to achieve both smoother vehicular traffic and safer planned pedestrian crossing conditions (location and signal timing) for improved health. As long as the wider community does not have access to this data or an understanding of how it is used, there is a risk that it will be used to maximize benefit for private interests.

To address this issue, a number of factors must be considered. The first step is to set holistic, measurable objectives for a city which address the needs and aspirations of its residents. Next is determining the type of data needed to manage and assess a city’s performance against the objectives. It is often at this step that government departments and officials stumble, as they focus on measuring and reporting what is easily measurable as opposed to what is important to be measured. For example, a public transport department may measure the total distance covered by bus trips, as opposed to the percentage of residents served by buses or the number of car trips avoided. Clearly the latter two indicators are more complex; however, they provide a much better basis for decision making as they link more directly to quality of life from a social and environmental perspective. It is likely that complex indicators may require more creative ways of measurement, including qualitative user satisfaction surveys, cooperation across government entities, participation by the private sector, and engagement with the community. This is all achievable in our age of smart cities.

Finally, there is the process of sharing this information and analysis with all city residents and users, in an accessible way—both from a technology and language perspective, amongst other factors. This a good test of the type of data being collected. Are the data telling community members what they want to know about their built and natural environment? Does it empowering them to make more informed decisions? Or are the data mostly being used to demonstrate that a government is “smart” or that a particular technology is a good investment?

The digital justice principles (access, participation, common ownership, healthy communities) provide insights into what a world of people and nature focused smart cities could look like. It is a city where data are collected and shared for the benefit of all. This is partly about what data are collected but mostly about who has access to the data and technology, and what benefit they bring to communities.

Shaleen Singhal

About the Writer:
Shaleen Singhal

Dr. Shaleen Singhal is a Professor at TERI School of Advanced Studies with 21 years of research and academic experience working on sustainable urban development issues in India and UK. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK and a Visiting Fulbright Fellow for Yale University, US.

Shaleen Singhal

Intangibles for tangible outcomes

Smart city efforts will be futile if the current challenges of inequality, poverty, and unsustainable consumption are not addressed.

A new and enhanced comprehension of smart cities is elemental particularly in the context of cities in emerging economies that display a greater degree of complexities and barriers. Effectiveness needs to take over efficiency! Traditional indicators on outputs relating to investment and infrastructure creation require a shift towards outcomes relating to the quality of life of the city’s inhabitants including the vulnerable population of urban poor. While smartness may ascertain a city’s capacity to mobilize advance technologies including information and communication technology (ICT) in establishing sentient cities with futuristic infrastructure, it should also influence change in a city’s reach and delivery of quality services. To benefit current and future billions that are and will be living in emergent cities, leapfrogging and breakthrough in thinking, strategy, action, and evaluation are needed that must go beyond change as usual. An effective way to realise this is by engaging with young minds and to create a new cadre of professionals with systemic thinking and with an appreciation of the sustainability dimension of urban development. Institutions with a conventional outlook have demonstrated a limited capacity to adapt towards the need for upfront integration of sustainability into all tracks of city development. Globally, this is an apt time for such integration particularly by resurgent cities that are in the process of redevelopment. It is critical for cities to create synergies among smart city strategies, redevelopment strategies, and strategies for resilience to comprehensively enhance competitiveness with enduring sustainability.

For cities in emerging economies such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS), and others, smart city led technological advancements need to fortify redevelopment strategies such as retrofitting of ageing building stock and upgradation of infrastructure for resource efficiency and low carbon development. Such advancements shall also promote a shift from greenfield to brownfield investments while dealing with inherent socioeconomic and environmental challenges of inner cities. Any smart city aligned progressions can be truly effective if they also augment a city’s resilience with the ability to absorb, recover and prepare for future economic, environmental and physical, social and institutional shocks.

It is evident that agile cities such as from the BRICS region are growing in terms of population and gross domestic product (GDP), emerging as important destinations for investments, adopting innovations relating to technology, research and development, and becoming economically competitive. However, these cities also witness numerous challenges such as rising income inequality, growing slum populations, unsustainable consumption patterns, increasing pollution levels, and resource scarcity. Any changes towards being a smart city will be futile without measurable contributions in addressing such challenges and positively influencing the human development index (HDI) alongside economic competitiveness. Real opportunity should not be lost or limited to just intensifying the debate on what and how smart cities should be! Moreover, it should also not just be an unwritten strategy to bail out or prop up the real estate sector! It is imperative that the smart city transformation process adopts a shift in focus from tangible assets, actions and rankings towards important intangible dimensions that are critical to enhancing living standards. Positive changes in dimensions such as but not limited to—culture and heritage sensitive urban management, scalable exemplars of rich governance, and innovative financing mechanisms such as through leveraging a city’s assets, are critical. Others dimensions, such as efficient green infrastructure and unbuilt environment, behavioral change for sustainable consumption and production practices, strategies for inclusiveness, sustainable redevelopment and resilience, connectivity, imageability, and happiness quotient of inhabitants are a few expected outcomes from smartening a city movement.

Conceptual graph for smart and sustainable cities (adapted from Singhal, S. 2018 (in press). Competitiveness of cities in new and emerging economies: case of India. In Urban competitiveness: cities in a global context, Edited by Sobrino, J., El Colegio de Mexico.)

As we advance on a pathway of upgrading our select cities to smart ones, examples of a few inevitable questions are—how far has the city progressed on HDIs? Has social capital of the city increased? Has the city achieved significant improvement in access and quality of services such as education, health, security, and key environmental services? How self-reliant has the rural catchment become? Is the city footprint decreasing while increasing productivity? How in command are the local institutions to further propel the city’s smartness? How happy are citizens from the outcomes? Are outcomes further harnessing cultural uniqueness of the city, its people, assets and resources? This is evidently, a case for rephrasing smart cities as “smart sustainable cities”! This pathway should raise the significance and impact of intangible dimensions as complementary to tangible outputs for smart and sustainable cities in emerging economies.

 

Seema Mundoli

About the Writer:
Seema Mundoli

Seema Mundoli is an Assistant Professor at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. Her recent co-authored books (with Harini Nagendra) include, “Cities and Canopies: Trees in Indian Cities” (Penguin India, 2019), "Shades of Blue: Connecting the Drops in India's Cities" (Penguin India, 2023) and the illustrated children’s book “So Many Leaves” (Pratham Books, 2020).

Seema Mundoli and Harini Nagendra

Transforming into smart cities that are aesthetically pleasing to a few, while ignoring the role of nature in cities for survival of the many urban poor is a further setback to the development of equitable cities.

Spring is in the air—for us, urban residents in the Global South, these are said to be times of plenty. Cities in India, for example, are believed to be the engines propelling economic development and employment generation. There is hardly any product that cannot be bought or service that cannot be accessed in the Indian urban market. If there is a scarcity, it seems to be of thought: thought in planning and vision for our cities. India recently launched an ambitious Smart City Mission that envisages the development of 100 smart cities across the country. Information and communication technology, and high-quality infrastructure are the pillars on which smart cities are to be developed. However, the role of nature in the smart city project to improve the quality of life of urban residents is severely limited in conception. The role of urban nature is envisioned only for the development of open spaces for recreational purposes—and a brief mention of addressing urban heat effects. This, at a time when India is reeling under a host of environmental problems.

As has now become a regular occurrence, New Delhi (India’s capital city), was blanketed with smog in the winter of 2017. Air pollution levels reached hazardous levels that warranted the closure of schools for several days. The “solutions” included short term technical fixes such as deploying water cannons to combat pollution. At the same time, a sizeable chunk of funds was allocated under the smart city project to—yes, you guessed it—to build multi-level automated parking! This beggars belief, since private vehicles contribute considerably to the pollution in the city. The smart city proposal for New Delhi makes no mention of efforts to disincentivize private transport, or increase green cover that can help mitigate air pollution, and urban heat islands.

Nature in cities of the Global South has a very important role to play in supporting livelihood and subsistence needs of urban residents, especially the impoverished. However, the budgetary focus of smart cities on ecological spaces—be it lakes, riverfronts or urban greenery—seems to be on landscaping to promote recreational use. Inequity in urban India is already high, and natural spaces in cities are essential for the resilience of urban marginalised groups who depend on a range of raw materials such as food, fuelwood, fodder, and water that they access for free. While an amount of Rs 70,000 million (approximately 1.1 billion USD) is allocated for riverfront projects and open spaces in 58 cities, there is no mention of incorporating the local needs of communities who have traditionally accessed these spaces. Transforming into smart cities that are aesthetically pleasing to a few, while ignoring the role of nature in cities for survival of the many urban poor is a further setback to the development of equitable cities.

Then there is the wave of recent urban disasters—disasters that could have been averted if we paid attention to the ecological base on which cities are built. Urban floods damaged several cities across India, because of haphazard construction that destroyed the original hydrological landscape of the city. Yet smart city projects are planned without identifying and incorporating environmental risks of disaster. Chennai experienced unprecedented rainfall in December 2015. The situation was exacerbated by large-scale construction on wetlands, and the disruption of a well-working natural drainage system, the resultant flooding caused tremendous loss of life and property. However, the smart city budget for Chennai allocates an inadequate sum of Rs 200 million (approx. 315,000 USD) for disaster management to combat flood and tsunamis.

Clearly, the vision for smart cities is in stark contrast to the reality of urban living. The very basic needs of residents met by nature that contribute to their quality of life: such as clean air for all, natural resources on which many survive, and a safe environment against disasters, are ignored, while technology and infrastructure quick-fixes are being promoted. The House of Stark’s motto “winter is coming” in the fantasy book series Game of Thrones are words of caution about difficult times that lay ahead. We would well be warned about the implications of pushing for data and tech fixes for smart cities while ignoring the less glamorous, every day, irreplaceable role of nature in contributing to the health and well-being of urban residents.

Harini Nagendra

About the Writer:
Harini Nagendra

Harini Nagendra is a Professor of Sustainability at Azim Premji University, Bangalore, India. She uses social and ecological approaches to examine the factors shaping the sustainability of forests and cities in the south Asian context. Her books include “Cities and Canopies: Trees of Indian Cities” and "Shades of Blue: Connecting the Drops in India's Cities" (Penguin India, 2023) (with Seema Mundoli), and “The Bangalore Detectives Club” historical mystery series set in 1920s colonial India.

Smart vs Green: Technology Paradigms Battle it Out for the Future City

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.
A future in which our lives are surrounded by and intertwined with ecological infrastructure systems offers an antidote or balance to the future in which our lives are constantly monitored and informed by digital technologies.
 Vision A—The Smart City: The city is an intricate network of digital communications, computations, and connections. Data are being collected everywhere, at all times, and feed into computing systems that work to coordinate functions like power availability and traffic to optimize efficiency in real time. Autonomous vehicles navigate the streets with a quite electric hum, sensing and avoiding each other and pedestrians. Drones and unmanned delivery bots navigate the air and sidewalks. Individuals are plugged in to an ocean of information via mobile devices, but also they are the ocean, as these devices and ubiquitous cameras track patterns of movement and activity, desires and attention. This city is smart, connected, efficient, safe, responsive, and many would say, resilient. It can detect and repair possible localized disruptions in service, conserve precious resources, inform and meet the needs of its citizens quickly and effortlessly.

Connected Smart City. Image: Jack Moreh

Vision B—The Ecological City: The city is an intricate network of living systems interacting with one another, with built structures, and flows of water, materials, organisms, and information. Urban landscapes, roofs, walls, streetscapes and other outdoor and indoor spaces are seen as opportunities to for nature to provide flood control and stormwater management, wastewater treatment, food production, waste recycling, microclimate moderation, access to nature and recreation, and support biologically diverse ecosystems. Plants grow everywhere, softening the harshness of the urban environment. The urban forest draws carbon from the atmosphere and stores it as wood. Urban waterways flow through the city, supporting aquatic and riparian ecosystems that allow human residents to interact with wildness every day. 

These alternative visions are not necessarily mutually exclusive, of course, but in my experience they are rarely combined in the same conversation or planning process. That is, among those who spend their time envisioning and working toward future cities, most are working with either one vision or the other. My question is, what does daily life look like in a future city under each of these paradigms? 

Ecological City, one of many imaginative designs by this Paris architect. Image: Vincent Callibaut

As we see already, digital technology is increasingly integrated into our daily lives and into the ways in which we receive and consume both products and services. I was thinking about this as I read an article in a recent issue of Planning Magazine, in which an ambitious smart city project in Toronto experienced significant backlash over privacy concerns. The big data that runs smart cities is fed by us, as individuals, by using our phones or even by walking down the street. Cities are about connections. As Bettencourt and West point out in their studies of scaling complex phenomena, the variables that are a function of people coming into contact with one another, such as creative innovation, economic activity, etc. scale superlinearly with city size: As city size increases, these connectivity-dependent phenomena are disproportionately enhanced. (So are less-desirable connectivity-dependent phenomena, such as crime and infectious disease.) 

Similarly, we have the Smart City dilemma: as cities become more and more “wired”, tremendous amounts of data are generated that can be used for positive purposes, like more efficient and responsive infrastructure and services, but the risk of privacy loss is also increased. Furthermore, much of the work of running the city—the provision of services, operations, communications and so forth—is done by computers and robots. So, what do people doin this city?

An article in The Atlantic in the summer of 2015 explored the implications of a “world without work”. It explored the possibilities of leisure, creative work and craftsmanship, and post-wage contingency work. Predictions about the future of work in an automated age vary from dystopian to utopian but it seems clear that the general trend embodied by the Smart City movement is a continuation of the trend that has its roots in the ancient, tool-making, animal-domesticating past of our species itself—to free us from the arduous tasks associated with meeting our basic needs so we can do other things. The Smart City envisions this at the level of the city itself.

If we embrace the ecological city approach, it will, like the digital technologies, weave its fine, often-invisible threads into the fabric of our daily lives at home, at work, and in the public spaces of our cities. Living systems are part of the infrastructure of the built environment and daily life is essentially lived in a complex, multi-storied garden. The garden is planted and tended, the species chosen for their particular characteristics, from removal of metals in wastewater to aesthetics. In other parts of the garden, nature will simply be invited to come in and self-organize. Because it is composed of living things, the city-garden will experience dynamics and disturbances, from chemical stressors to pest and disease infestations. 

To a great extent, we hope the garden will have the capacity to self-organize and self-regulate, but I anticipate there being a significant role for people in tending, managing, and maintaining these green infrastructure systems. For example, in a conversation with an architect about their experience in rehabilitating a building to be a Living Building, he mentioned the need for a building manager—someone who pays attention to the composting toilets, the water harvesting system, and the overall chemical balance of the various interacting systems. I had a parallel conversation with a horticulturist in planning for a demonstration/research landscape revitalization project we are undertaking—the landscape needs a steward, someone who is familiar with the plant communities, soils, scientific equipment, irrigation system, etc. This is a person and who visits regularly to observe what is happening and if an action needs to be taken they know what to do or who to talk to. 

Work in the ecological city involves spending time paying attention to how things are working around us. If buildings or groups of buildings (districts) incorporate living systems such as green roofs or walls, stormwater bioretention ponds (rain gardens), and eco-machines for wastewater treatment, these systems require regular attention from someone who is familiar with that particular system. Ecological systems are complex dynamic systems. While they may be designed, that is, assembled to perform a particular set of functions, each is a unique assemblage of interacting species within a particular chemical and physical environment. While someone trained in working with ecologically designed systems may be able to visit one and offer some insight, only someone intimately familiar with that particular system will be able to recognize behavior of the system that is not within normal parameters, or the effects of specific additions or manipulations. This kind of work involves building relationships. Even in individual residences of an ecological city, there will be some tending to be done; as today we maintain our homes by fixing breakages or leaks, for example, in the future we may need to water and monitor the living elements of our homes. Everyone in the ecological city is a gardener with intimate ecological knowledge of the complex systems that support daily life.  

So, it appears that while the smart city reduces work, the ecological city creates work. However, the kind of work created by the ecological city is the kind of work that city-dwellers are strongly attracted to, as we see in the tremendous popularity of urban gardening and greening in cities around the world. This is work that puts those who feel disempowered by city life in a position to reclaim their individual agency to be self-sufficient, to provide for themselves, and to have a relationship with non-human nature. The smart city, on the other hand, removes what little need currently exists for us to attend to our environments—it is not the responsibility of individuals to pay attention to the workings of the infrastructure around us, nor are we empowered to take action. Instead, our digital environments tend to ourneeds and desires, perhaps before we are even aware of them.

I think that a future in which our lives are surrounded by and intertwined with ecological infrastructure systems offers an antidote or balance to the future in which our lives are constantly monitored and informed by digital technologies. The internet is full of articles about the negative impacts of devices on our relationships and our mental and physical health, while it is also full of articles on the positive impacts of access to greenspace and natural systems on our relationships and mental and physical health. We are looking at future cities that are increasingly technologically complex, but there are two possible forms of that technology: the digital, big data variety and the ecological variety. Perhaps these are inherently complementary paradigms. 

Sarah Hinners
Salt Lake City

On The Nature of Cities

References

Barth, B. (2019). Smart cities or surveillance cities? Planning, March issue.

Bettencourt, L., Lobo, J., Helbing, D., Kuhnert, C. & West, G. (2007). Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities. PNAS104(17): 7301-7306.

Thompson, D. (2015). A world without work. The Atlantic, July/August issue.

A picture of many people sitting in the grass inside painted circles, all six feet apart

Social Infrastructure in a Post-COVID World

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

Mainstreaming mutual aid as a result of the pandemic and compounding crises broadens how we understand the limitations of social infrastructure; these sites are crucial, and they deserve increased investment in the near term as we continue to organize for better options.

Social infrastructure and so-called “third spaces” (the non-work, non-home gathering spaces ― either public or private ― like parks, libraries, houses of worship, and coffee shops where people spend time) are a crucial part of the lifeblood of civic life, particularly in cities. These are spaces where people come together, form relationships, and are in forced proximity with others, regardless of whether or not they come from the same geographic and demographic communities. Much has been written about the importance of these spaces and their unique role in building social resilience and supporting community organizing, particularly after a disaster or disturbance. Examples from past crises, such as Superstorm Sandy in New York City, illustrate how public parks, houses of worship, and community centers can become hubs for donations and distributions of essential supplies. In the quieter times between extreme events, these spaces are activated by civic groups that encourage civic engagement and build greater trust and community cohesion. The unprecedented nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for social distancing shifted the role of social infrastructure in disaster response organizing in multiple ways ― both in how it was activated and how it was framed ideologically. Understanding the benefits and challenges of social infrastructure in 2024 requires looking at its uses and conceptualizations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the civic organizing that emerged.

In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world, government-enforced lockdowns and pleas for social distancing altered our relationships to space and place. Office workers shifted to remote work options and spent more time than ever in their private homes. In large cities where space was limited, many people with financial means bought houses in suburban and rural areas in order to get access to more space. Public parks were initially left empty and then later overwhelmed with visitors as public knowledge about virus transmission trickled out, and many added creative social distance indicators to try to keep people safe.

A picture of many people sitting in the grass inside painted circles, all six feet apart
Social distancing in parks
Photo: Noam Galai/Getty Images

As city dwellers grappled with their new, often smaller, geographies of home, many were also waking up to the extreme disparities in how the pandemic was impacting people based on racial identity, age, and disability status. The “twinned crises” of COVID-19 and ongoing racialized police brutality came to a head in the summer of 2020, and emergent civic groups were a driving force in the response.

Early in the pandemic when many civic groups were pivoting to COVID response and emergent mutual aid groups were forming in droves, online organizing was the only option to keep everyone safe. This offered flexibility for people to participate on their own time, but many organizers and volunteers soon felt the limitations of online spaces acutely. Organizers who had previously relied on physical spaces to gather in person and collect tangible donations adapted quickly to shift to online networks, but missed the home-base of a physical space (Landau et al., 2021). Online organizing events in the early days of the pandemic were primarily held on Zoom. While this allowed people to participate from the safety of their homes, internet access and comfort with technology blocked participation for many, particularly older community members. In-person connections, especially those happening in outdoor settings, allowed members of new civic groups to meet and form connections in person but were still primarily advertised in online spaces and social media. In interviews with mutual aid groups, organizers and participants shared that it could be harder to create deep relationships without in-person, face-to-face interactions. Terra Incognita, a research project from NYU and New_ Public, mapped the “digital spaces” created during the pandemic in New York City and explored the creation and curation of online public spaces including educational programming through public libraries, virtual synagogue services, online exercise classes, and mutual aid organizing. In the organizing example, they found the online space was not sufficient for community building. “For the Brooklyn mutual aid groups, although they formed online, it was difficult to gain access to them without making direct in-person connections, such as volunteering at a neighborhood food pantry. Publicness was in this sense mediated by access online and offline” (p. 41).

As time went on and the COVID-19 vaccine rolled out, gathering in person, including the option to meet indoors during colder months, brought a new layer of community building. Pre-existing civic groups and post-COVID mutual aid groups utilized local churches, community centers, parks, local bars, and community gardens, as meeting and event locations. My own mutual aid group, Crown Heights Mutual Aid (CHMA), formed an essential relationship with a local pastor and his wife, who offered their space for meetings and community parties that included grocery giveaways, a free store, a hot meal, and music to keep the mood lively and social. These events built bridges between long-term residents of Crown Heights, many of them older people of color, and the younger, whiter, group of new residents who started CHMA.

While many civic groups use spaces like churches, parks, and libraries in a similar way, the framing and language around social infrastructure and public space matters. The surge of local mutual aid groups that formed following the pandemic brought anarchist political thinking closer into the mainstream with their critique of the state and emphasis on abolition and networks of solidarity over traditional state and market solutions such as incarceration and charity. Anarchist mutual aid responses offer an alternative conceptualization of social infrastructure and public space, one that views public spaces as having the potential to be emancipatory when they are sites of deliberative democracy ― spaces where various publics of different classes and backgrounds can interact and create governing structures outside of traditional hierarchies. Using this framework, though, sites of social infrastructure run the risk of being reduced to a source of social capital, which can be co-opted by the state to encourage community participation in their own agendas as they defund care for public spaces (Firth, 2022). Thus, these spaces are constantly in a battle between those who want to expand the autonomy of public space through actions like protests and parties, and those who want to restrict it with increased surveillance and hostile design interventions that prevent people from comfortably gathering or sleeping (Springer, 2016). Public spaces are often privatized by neoliberal policies that restrict access and use, and the anarchist response of “creating or seizing them from below” (Firth, 2022, p.140) understands the exercise of reclaiming the commons as its own form of mutual aid. In practice, this can look like anything from organizing mass occupations of privatized public spaces (as in the Occupy Wall Street movement), to setting up neighborhood food services in the local park, which CHMA has recently started doing on a regular basis.

Illustration of bowls of alphabet soup spelling words
Source: Crown Heights Mutual Aid

Mutual aid is often framed as existing outside of traditional aid structures, both state and private. The use of publicly funded spaces by mutual aid groups illustrates the blurriness of the line between state and non-state, but as Dean Spade says, “Being an anarchist does not mean avoiding engaging with the governments we live under” (Spade, 2023). Social infrastructure is not only a tool for current mutual aid organizing, it is a springboard for imagining a more equitable world. Mutual aid infrastructures include public spaces where people can meet to organize or negotiate conflict with some anonymity. But they need to go beyond that as well, as Dean Spade points out:

We need new skills to depart from a system for solving conflict based on a centralized authority that determines who is good and bad. We want to build a decentralized approach to solving conflicts focused on recognizing that everyone is worthy of care and that no one is disposable. What if we all had more skills to solve problems in our communities? Endemic problems like child sexual abuse or sexual assault, gender-based violence—those harms are not going to be solved by a central authority, particularly since the authorities are primary sources of that violence… And so I do think it is infrastructure. It is particularly about building complex, flexible, responsive, decentralized infrastructure. (Spade, 2023)

Thinking broadly about social infrastructure can make room for the skills that community members rely on when they support one another or intervene in a conflict. Community-based interventions that rely on relationships of mutual trust are more effective than carceral systems of punishment, and these relationships, as well as opportunities for new people to gain skills and grow trust, are social infrastructure as well.

The mainstreaming of mutual aid as a result of the pandemic and compounding crises broadens how we understand the limitations of social infrastructure; these sites are crucial, and they deserve increased investment in the near term as we continue to organize for better options. But they are limited without a growing investment in social safety and a loosening of the restrictions that keep them from being free spaces. As Ruth Wilson Gilmore teaches us, abolition is not about absence but about presence ― presence of mutual support, shared resources, and communities of care. Taking these lessons, and the framework of an “infrastructure of mutual aid” (McKane et al., 2023), can offer us a way forward to thinking about social infrastructure as transformative infrastructure in the post-pandemic age of compounding crises.

Laura Landau
New York City

On The Nature of Cities

 

References:

Ansfield, B. (2023, October 30). New Interview about Abolition and Infrastructure in Radical History Review – Dean Spade. https://www.deanspade.net/2023/10/30/new-interview-about-abolition-and-infrastructure-in-radical-history-review/

Campbell, L. K., Svendsen, E., Johnson, M., & Landau, L. (2021). Activating urban environments as social infrastructure through civic stewardship. Urban Geography, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2021.1920129

Firth, R. (2022). Disaster Anarchy: Mutual Aid and Radical Action. (1st ed.). Pluto Press.

Landau, L. F., Campbell, L. K., Svendsen, E. S., & Johnson, M. L. (2021). Building Adaptive Capacity Through Civic Environmental Stewardship: Responding to COVID-19 Alongside Compounding and Concurrent Crises. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, 3, 705178. https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2021.705178

McKane, R. G., Greiner, P. T., & Pellow, D. (2023) Mutual Aid as a Praxis for Critical Environmental Justice: Lessons from W.E.B. Du Bois, Critical Theoretical Perspectives, and Mobilising Collective Care in Disasters. Antipode, n/a(n/a). https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12986

Social Media Sharks and Tell-Tale Vultures—Connecting to Nature in a Digital Age

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

Nature is being lost all around us. It is alarming in its implications for both livability and sustainability. How can we better connect to nature in a distracted digital world? Although it may not be intuitive, these are also promising times because of all the digital tools and technology we now have at our disposal, and the hope they hold to connect us in meaningful ways to the nature around us. Whether technology will make a difference and help to ignite conservation actions or support for conservation, remains to be seen, but there is evidence that these digital connections help to change our point of view in some important ways. Can these digital interactions—while obviously not substitutions for time spent watching, listening to, and enjoying nature “in real life”—add an important element of enjoyment and meaning, especially for urbanites who may be far removed from nature?

Through digital connections, we are extending our innate curiosity and softening our hearts to vultures and sharks, and many other species.

In January of 2016, I had the pleasure of attending the USAID Environmental Officers Workshop, a meeting that brought environmental staff from posts all over the world. On one day, the organizers showed a short video, in Spanish—a public service announcement that described an innovative effort to use GPS-tagged vultures to find illegal trash dumps in Lima, Peru. It was a fascinating story and sent me on the search to find out how this initiative came about and what its impact has been.

The story partly intrigued me because of a longstanding affection I’ve had for vultures, mostly Turkey Vultures, which I got know when I was a glider pilot in my youth. We used to watch them spiralling and aimed our sailplanes in their direction in hopes of catching the thermals they intuitively knew were there. Not many other people, I discovered, had much affection for Turkey Vultures, and of course many them ugly; some see these “nature’s-cleaner-uppers” as downright revolting. For me, they have remained most majestic creatures, creatures that have perfected the art of soaring with nary a movement of wings. Their effortless ability to stay afloat, and their graceful movements, have been nothing less than miraculous to me, and an endless source of wonder and joy to watch.

Many of the details of the story of the Lima vultures (American Black Vultures, Coragyps atratus) I learned from Lawrence Rubey, the USAID official in Lima who helped to initiate this unique program. In partnership with ornithologists at the University of San Marcos and the Lima Natural History Museum, the idea was to use GPS-tagged vultures to raise awareness about environmental issues, especially the problem of clandestine garbage dumps, a major problem in Lima. Their team eventually tagged 10 vultures, and they can be tracked in real time online. One can visit their website and watch the blinking icons of vultures to locate their current positions and where they have traveled and visited. Two of the vultures were, for a time, outfitted with Go-Pro cameras, which generated some impressive footage of what it might be like to be a soaring vulture. Each of the vultures was given a distinctive name—there were Grifo and Elpis, and Captain Higgin (the vultures were grouped into three teams, each with a captain!). The vultures have indeed been used to identify garbage dumps, leading to the next step, the organizing of community-based cleanups.

An American Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus) in Lima.

Lima’s Black Vultures contribute to waste reduction.

A recent collaboration between ornithologists at the University of San Marcos, the Lima Natural History Museum, and USAID allows scientists to track individual vultures to illegal dumping sites.

The initiative was seen as a way to educate about the broader issues of climate change and the environment. USAID and the Peruvian Ministry of the Environment viewed learning about garbage through the creative lens of vultures as a broader “gateway” to environmental awareness and local action.

Remarkably, the vultures seem to have captured the imagination of many in Lima, and the story has become as much about how the initiative has changed the ways the public sees this oft-maligned species as about pollution. Rubey tells me there have been some 4 million social media interactions—including Facebook, Twitter, and video views. Most telling has been the ways in which human hearts seem to have softened for these vultures. The whole idea, Rubey told me in a recent phone conversation, “was to draw people into the website through social media and then leverage that into community action.” This has certainly happened, leading to a number of neighborhood-based garbage cleanup events.

The campaign does seem to have improved the local view of vultures, Rubey tells me, from what was a negative view. “But you read through on Facebook and Twitter and you look at the comments and people are saying “how cute, how sweet,” because each of the vultures has a persona and a name and would ‘make’ its own posts. The response that came back was very, very positive about them as individuals, and people have favorites…” The initiative has personalized the vultures in a way that makes it hard to feel disgusted by them.

Exchanging tweets with a Great White Shark

Similar digital connections are being made in the marine realm, and to similar effect. The nonprofit Ocearch, for instance, has been tagging sharks and providing real-time information online about their whereabouts. These tagged sharks include a great white shark named Mary Lee, who has a Twitter account that now has more than 100,000 followers. Mary Lee (it was recently discovered that the real author of her tweets is a reporter for the Raleigh News and Observer) tweets and her followers tweet her back, sending a variety of personal messages, from wishing her a happy Mother’s Day, to encouraging her to return soon to their state or region. Along the way, followers appear to be learning about the shark—there are images, there is information about weight and distance traveled, and, in the end, perhaps there is a sense of something familiar: a digital friendship that helps to overcome the remoteness, the strong sense of “otherness,” that a creature such as a great white shark engenders.

I spoke recently to Ocearch founder Chris Fischer, who discussed the ways in which his shark tagging has helped people to overcome the perhaps understandable disconnect (or aversion) that they feel towards sharks. Fischer and his Ocearch crew have tagged some 300 sharks, including about 80 great whites (Mary Lee is named after Chris’s mom). The tagging trips are usually collaborations with marine scientists, including from Woods Hole and the Mote Marine lab. Fischer points to the value of this more public-inclusive mode of science, and notes the many biological insights the trips and the tagging have generated.

capecod
Beachgoers in Cape Cod attempt to save a 14-foot Great White Shark. Digital campaigns to raise awareness about species have helped soften the reputations of historically maligned species, such as the Great White.

Fischer argues that most of the fear of sharks stems from a fear of the unknown. “The only time we heard about a shark was when something bad happened and now we’re talking about, ‘Could Mary Lee be pregnant? Where is she giving birth? Where is the mating site?’” Facts, curiosity, and wonder replace fear. The secret to these successes seems to involve engaging the public—getting their attention and interesting them in caring about these creatures.

“And we’re having thousands of ongoing conversations throughout every day of the year,” says Fischer, “instead of just the odd shark attack story really driving how people feel. We’re replacing this fear of the unknown with the first facts and information that people can see and be a part of. That’s allowed us to engage them in not only solving the problem of where they’re [the sharks] mating, giving birth, and migrating, but also to help them then understand why sharks are important.”

Including the public in science gives provides people with different avenues for contact and connection “by allowing people to find their way into the project, whether it’s communicating with the shark on Twitter or tracking a shark on the tracker and then Tweeting or Facebooking a scientist with a question, and connecting all these dots for people in real time, in the now,” Fisher says. The Ocearch Facebook page now has more than 440,000 likes, so its content and photos are clearly being seen.

These modern digital tools are also proving to be helpful in the classroom, where elementary school students are following sharks in real time, learning about their biology, writing in journals about these subjects, and generally replacing fear with fascination. Fischer tells me they have been working with a dozen schools to integrate a K-12 educational curriculum focused on the sharks, and to use this information in teaching other subjects, from math to physics.

To understand the impact of this programming, take, for example, the case of the first grade class at the Highlands Elementary School in New Jersey, which has been keeping track of Mary Lee. They have made a 16-foot paper replica of her that adorns the front wall of their classroom. According to their teacher, Colleen Acerra, these students—who write about Mary Lee in their journals—are quite fond of the Great White Shark, ”They love her,” said Acerra, who was quoted in the Asbury Park Press. “They love tracking her. They love learning all about her and they’re wondering if she’s pregnant…Some people think she’s pregnant and some people think she’s just following the tuna run up and down the coast.”

Fischer sees real change happening in the way sharks are being perceived, pointing to a recent episode in which Cape Cod beachgoers worked frantically to save a 14-foot great white shark. The image of people digging in the sand, passing buckets of water, pulling together a rope in an effort to get the shark back to open water is impressive to see, although it ended up being futile (you can watch the video here) While the behavior of people in Cape Cod may not be the direct result of Mary Lee tweets, these social media connections are likely quite helpful to sharks.

Such efforts can lead to real and significant scientific insights, and can result in more effective management and protection. The GTOPP—Global Tagging of Pelagic Predators—has also tagged and tracking marine organisms, including sharks. Barbara Block, of Stanford, has been a leading force behind this effort, tagging sharks as well as Bluefin tuna, elephant seals, and California sea lions, among other species. Some species, such as the Pacific Bluefin tuna, are doing poorly, with populations estimated at only about 5 percent of what they had been before extensive commercial fishing. How to protect and manage this species is a real challenge, which motivated Block and her colleagues to organize a recent Bluefin Futures Symposium held at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Tracking has led to an understanding of where essential feeding grounds are located, including the area off the northwest coast of the U.S., where nutrient uplifting happens every spring. Block has called this area our “Blue Serengeti” (in a compelling illustration of the power of language to help us connect with and understand the importance of this essential piece of seascape). Can tracking this species ignite a level of engagement with and concern for tuna, and perhaps create the political space and cover for the tough management and conservation decisions necessary to ensure that Pacific Bluefin tuna doesn’t, as Block says, “go the way of the cod”? It is hard to know, but the new ways that technology may allow us to “wire the ocean” through a network of WiFi buoys and wave gliders are promising.

There are many other creative ways, of course, that our modern digital technologies can foster nature connections. Our iPhones and tablets provide almost unlimited opportunities to record the natural world around us and to effortlessly share these images, observations, and experiences with friends and family. We are able prod, induce, and incite with our Twitter posts, and Twitter and social media campaigns have proven to be effective methods for encouraging more nature-full lives.

The Wildlife Trusts in the U.K., offer one recent example of this power to motivate in the form of a social media campaign encouraging participants to engage in “random acts of wildness,” at least one per day for a whole month. Through the nationwide 30 Days Wild challenge, some 25,000 participants signed up to participate, including thousands of students. Some 2,000 schools around the U.K. participated. Participants in the challenge received an info packet via email with ideas for engaging in wild acts, stickers, and a wall chart for tracking progress over the month. Participants were encouraged to take photos of these acts of wildness and to tweet them using the hashtag #30DaysWild, as well as to post them to Instagram and Facebook. From bug hunts to food foraging, to mapping the wildlife in one’s neighborhood, citizens expressed their wildness in many different ways; people wrote many blog posts (and even received awards for the best blogs), snapped photos, and recorded videos. The challenge was a huge success—20 days into the month of June, there had already been more than 1 million “random acts of wildness.”

In these ways, we are beginning to shift from seeing social media, and the emerging digital tools and technologies through which we navigate it, not only or primarily as distractions, but also as tools for nature reconnection. While we are still collectively learning how to harness the power of the digital realm, these examples provide at least some positive counter-story, demonstrating that the same tools by which we are stitching together a global human commons might also be useful in helping to craft an even more inclusive global commons of life. These tools, from Twitter to Facebook, offer benefits of immediacy and, for many, sheer fun.

Anything we can do to overcome the cognitive and emotional gulf that exists between humans and the many other species we share the world with is helpful. We live in a world where ubiquitous technology, including iPhones and handheld devices of various kinds, offers the opportunity to instantly learn about and connect with nature. This technology provides the chance to see and experience nature and to follow it in real time—both nearby (the black vultures above, the great white shark just offshore), and far away (the Bluefin tuna swimming in the middle of the Pacific ocean). These connections are fleeting, and the digital bonds feel cursory and shallow. But through them, we are extending our innate curiosity and softening our hearts to vultures and sharks, and many other species—which suggests that we are laying some foundations for the development of a deeper sense of understanding and caring.

Tim Beatley
Charlottesville

On The Nature of Cities

Social Practice Artwork: A Restaurant and Garden Serving up Connections to Urban Nature

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

Can an urban garden help us remember what it means to be human?

Three months ago, we opened a slightly audacious restaurant and garden in a working-class suburb of Osaka, Japan with the intent of connecting people more deeply with food and nature in their neighborhood. Experimental and temporary in nature, the project was approached not as a business or social enterprise, but as what might be called a “social practice” artwork.

A parking lot does not make life worth living, nor does an apartment tower.

When this restaurant opened for dinner, we seated guests and took their orders as most any restaurant would. Then we kindly let them know that their dinner would be ready to eat in six weeks, explaining that we would first have to grow it in the garden down the street.

realtimefood-00
Final Straw co-director Suhee Kang serves wild herb tea to guets at the opening of our REALtimeFOOD restaurant. Image: Patrick Lydon, Final Straw

The project was called “REALtimeFOOD: the world’s slowest restaurant” (http://www.finalstraw.org/our-worlds-slowest-restaurant-serves-dinner-finally/) and although we were met with a few seriously raised eyebrows, most of the participants left that first night with smiles on their faces, almost all of them returning six weeks later to eat what they had ordered.

When the dinner finally arrived six weeks later, guests were treated to a rice dish made by friend and macrobiotic chef Kaori Tsuji, topped with greens, radish, and a spicy mixture of eggplant, onion, cucumer, and herbs from the garden, similar to Korean ‘bibmbap’, if you are familiar with it.

My personal favorite, though, was the dessert, a cool tomato jelly with whipped soy cream, garnished with mint. Surprisingly refreshing and delicious.

realtimefood-01
Our chef Kaori Tsuji serves desert to REALtimeFOOD customers in Osaka, after the six week wait. Image: Patrick Lydon, FinalStraw

So what was the point of making customers wait six weeks? And how did it help cultivate relationships between people and urban nature?

Cultivating compassion and relationships

Outside of the restaurant, most of the action happened during the weeks in between the ordering and serving of the food.

To grow the food, we built a garden in an unused dirt lot. This wasn’t a typical organic urban garden, however. It was based on the principal that our design and actions would be rooted in two key concepts 1) connection between people and nature and 2) compassion for all of nature. Whenever we had to make a decision about the direction, we referred back to this principal, asking ourselves: does it cultivate connection with nature, and does it build compassion for nature?

realtimefood-02
Final Straw co-director Suhee Kang works in the herb garden. Image: Patrick Lydon, FinalStraw

For those not familiar with how connection and compassion relate to a garden, this particular kind of garden takes its aim from the ‘natural farming’ tradition in Japan. No tilling, no weeding, no killing bugs, no externally produced fertilizers. Similar in action to permaculture or agroecological practices–which a recent U.N. study believes might be our only way to sustainably feed a growing population – natural farmers see themselves as equals with plants and the rest of the natural world. This relationship, and the compassion which comes from it, are the primary informants for every action in their farms.

realtimefood-03
Natural farmer Kristyn Leach at Namu Farm in the San Francisco Bay Area during an interview for our documentary film. Image: Patrick Lydon, FinalStraw

This is important for us, especially in urban social settings where compassion is sorely needed, yet often difficult to teach and apply. The kind of compassion learned by an individual on a natural farm will travel with them into their lives outside the farm or garden. It permeates their relationships with other people (our social relationships begin mending themselves), with other living things (human relationships to animals and plants become stronger), and even with the built structures of the city (leading to the city being cared for by its inhabitants).

Not only, then, is urban natural farming an ecologically regenerative practice, but the positive social effects are immense as well.

Working with art in the garden

One great difficulty is how to impart such an impossibly idealistic sounding mindset to the urban dweller, how to build and disseminate a deep and complex educational framework across the broad and diverse demographic range found in major urban centers.

In reality, we often make it sound more complex than it is.

What we have found in practice is that although the framework—and a sincere understanding and dedication to that framework—is required, there is not so much difficult ‘instruction’ as one might think. The process of developing such a mindset is largely one of giving people the place and permission to find this mindset of compassion and connection for themselves.

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Kaori and Yasu taking part in one of our nature art workshops, using soil and plants as paint. Image: Suhee Kang, FinalStraw

In our little Osaka garden, tucked between half-century-old homes, warehouses, and small factories, we helped individuals cultivate relationships between themselves and the plants and living things in the soil. With these relationships in mind, they grew food and created artworks using natural materials, always with a base of connection and compassion in their actions.

Art making is a key for us here too, not only because it uses and reinforces myriad connections to the environment at its very root, but because it gives participants a personally expressive output and a record of their relationship with the soil, the plants, and the other natural living or growing things in their city.

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Patrick’s workshop on painting with soil in the garden. Image: Suhee Kang, FinalStraw

By example, during one such “soil art” workshop, we began with exploring how there are millions of living things in each square inch of soil and how all of these living things work together to provide a nurturing home for other life to grow. Together with the participants, we then asked these living beings with a sincere respect—again, the instructor’s understanding, attitude, and sincerity is an absolute requirement here—to lend us their color and texture, so that we might share their beauty through our artwork.

At this point, paintbrushes were dipped directly into the moist soil, and some deeply expressive and meaningful artworks emerged.

Along with the artworks came new perspectives from participants. A visitor from Tokyo told us that she always had a fondness for flowers and for how beautiful they are…but that it was a kind of common or easy beauty to appreciate. “Now for the first time in my life” she said “I can finally see how amazingly beautiful the soil is, too.”

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Mayu records soil and flower color samples during one of our garden workshops. Image: Suhee Kang, FinalStraw

Another participant, an undergraduate design student from Thailand, decided to change his thesis project after seeing how strongly nature could help direct his design. One also noticed, of her own accord, how the colors that the plants produce changed radically based on her intentions and how she approached using the plant. She demonstrated by gently and gracefully rubbing a white flower on paper, producing a beautiful ocean blue hue, and then again, more violently rubbing the same petal and watching as the hue started out blue and then quickly turned brown while the other stayed blue.

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A workshop participant named Put creates a composition using color directly from flowers and plants. Image: Suhee Kang, FinalStraw

These kinds of discoveries and reactions weren’t prompted or dictated by us, but found by the individual participants as they more deeply connected with the garden itself. Nor are they uncommon reactions.

It seems that simply giving people the ‘permission’ to work with respect with nature, and to cultivate meaningful relationships, can offer such an amazing release for them. All of a sudden, their connectedness, acceptance, and creative mindsets blossom in ways they would each have thought were radical or impossible before.

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Participants in Suhee’s flower workshop examine the works created by them and the children. Image: Suhee Kang, FinalStraw

We were lucky to have participants from the age of 5 to the age of 70, and most all of them had relatively little trouble flipping this mental switch  to engage their surroundings in deeper ways.

Aiming for the long term

The REALtimeFOOD project was a hub for compassion, creativity, and well being for locals and visitors from around Japan and internationally. It was a project that we think created a positive ripple of compassion and well being in the small neighborhood of Kitakagaya and beyond.

That’s all warm and fuzzy.

The other reality is that this was a short-term project funded by the grant-making arm of a real estate firm that owns most of the land in this ailing neighborhood.

We know the reality of this situation is that the story typically ends in higher property values, higher rents, higher incomes, gentrification, and the removal of the creative class and the gardens which are on land that is suddenly far too ‘valuable’ for agriculture and silly creative deep ecology projects and the millions of tiny creatures in a square inch of soil.

The question is always, how do we make it economically viable? And ends with discussions along the lines of: how does a parking lot compare with an active community garden in terms of economic value?

It doesn’t, of course, and the first answer of those working in this space is generally something like “we need to get it through our thick heads that such projects offer value far beyond the economic. There’s social and ecological value too, and we must measure it!”

Let’s not stop the conversation here, though. The result of urban ecological features and programs which bring depth, relationships, and relevance to these natural features, offers value far beyond any social or ecological valuations that we can calculate and graph.

The value of a useless hole in the ground

What is the value when an office worker stops his stride and takes a deep breath while admiring a garden on his way home from work? What is the value when a gardener shares flowers with a local restaurant every week to brighten up the tables, or when a child stops by a garden to enthusiastically dig holes in the soil—even if they are not needed—with a smile so big it’s as if it’s the most joyful thing he’s ever done?

Not only do these values elude economic justification, they can not even be properly calculated with any type of measurement or categorization we might come up with, economic or not; yet, they are absolutely the kinds of values that make life true, beautiful, and good.

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Our chef Kaori Tsuji helps one of our young neighbors, Qenji, dig holes without destroying too much of the garden. Iimage: Patrick Lydon, FinalStraw

The end result of an active urban garden is not a number, whether that number is reduction in crime or a point rise in the quality of life index. The end result is the re-connection of human beings with an immeasurable, intangible, essential part of what makes life worth living.

A parking lot does not make life worth living, nor does an apartment tower.

Does a relationship with the natural world make life worth living? Of course, a relationship with nature is life in no uncertain terms. Our personal understanding of this relationship is a part of being human which has been omnipresent in our species for millions of years not just for the nearly invisible space on our historical timeline occupied by the industrial age.

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Patrick leads a workshop on ‘feeling’ nature with some of the project’s local team members. Image: Suhee Kang, FinalStraw

With respect to human and nature relationships, a few understandings about our current social attitude towards nature have come out of these workshops, including that:

  • Our connection to nature is a part of life that our culture has either lost or seriously devalued, and ironically much of this devaluation has recently come through our earnest efforts to put a value on it in the first place!
  • Our efforts to value nature are clear signs that we have no idea what the value of nature is.
  • Our rejection of a compassionate relationship with nature as an invaluable and integral part of life hurts us humans as much as it hurts the rest of our natural world.
  • Our mental and physical disconnection from nature hurts all of earth’s beings, socially and ecologically, without discrimination.

Establishing a new value system

It is important that active community gardens, and natural spaces in general, should be seen as long-term public services because they offer a foundation for social and ecological well-being which is necessary for strong, happy, and economically productive communities. Establishing such a mentality might sound impossible given today’s political and business climate, yet the secret is that we know it is not nearly as impossible as most people think.

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Talking with an office worker who stopped by to let us know how much he appreciated the new use of the empty lot … and that he was looking forward to dinner! Iimage: Suhee Kang, FinalStraw

Even though our relationship with nature has been devalued and brushed away by most city dwellers, the surprising results of our own efforts to reignite this relationship indicate that human beings are quite easily able to connect with nature on some more meaningful level. We just need a little help.

From our perspective of doing REALtimeFOOD and other similar projects, the requirements are maddeningly simple.

We need to provide:

Ample opportunities (places) to connect with nature – these needn’t be big, but they must contain growing things that are easily accessible, where people are allowed to touch and interact with them, not just look at them from behind a wall

A bit of guidance and social permission – through a combination of sincerely led workshops, signage, and public education, guiding people to use their own capacity for connection and creativity and letting them know that yes, it’s okay to hug that tree, it’s okay to talk to that plant, it’s okay to say thank you to the soil.

Once we try it, we remember quite easily. We remember our part in the world. We remember the power of compassion and connection.

When we re-connect with nature—in the most remote mountains or in the most dense city—we can remember, in no uncertain terms, what it is to be human.

If we truly see ourselves as a part of nature, then the value of this understanding must be seen as a core value of life itself, and a value that no other interest, political, economic, or social, should be allowed to trump, and for which I would step out on a limb to say, the bulk of our human efforts at this point for our species and this planet must be given to fully and freely.

Plus, the tomato jelly is just amazing. Honest.

Patrick Lydon
San Jose & Seoul

On The Nature of Cities

Social-Ecological Urbanism and the Life of Baltic Cities

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

Jane Jacobs critiqued modernist city planning in the now classic book The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961). This book is now inspiring an urban renaissance. Jacobs proposed that a city must be understood as a system of organized complexity—in other words, as an ecosystem—and that any intervention in the urban fabric with a lack of such understanding is bound to result in unexpected surprises. Trained in zoology, Jacobs viewed the city much like a coral reef, where co-evolutionary dynamics between the coral organisms (the people) and the coral reef (the built environment) result in the emergence of a socio-spatial logic that can support various kind of functions and opportunities for people.

First line of urban scholarship based on ecological thought

Blueprint planning based on ideals such as Le Corbusier’s “The Shining City,” or Sir Ebenezer Howard’s “The Garden City,” Jacobs argued, is likely to fail since it lacks the critical understanding of the city as a complex socio-spatial system. Spatial morphology thinking (Hillier and Hanson, 1984) provided a precision and an analytical depth to the insights of Jane Jacobs. Density, accessibility and diversity are outlined as the main features of spatial capital for people in cities (Marcus, 2010), which are akin to insights in ecosystem ecology, where species diversity, species abundance and ecological connectivity are critical features.

Social-ecological urbanism is a scientific upgrading of landscape urbanism concepts.
I call this ecosystem-based understanding of the city the “first line of thinking,” since it has quite a historical lineage. It comes originally from the Chicago School of urban scholars that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s (Wirth, 1938), which was inspired by the thinking in systems ecology at that time (Clements, 1916). This first line of thinking coincided with major innovations in transportation technology. Chicago had just become an important hub in the U.S. railroad network in the 1850s, enabling transportation of natural resources for urban consumption over great distances. Harvey (1990) has shown how industrial-era technological innovation catered to the first wave of space–time compression, which refers to those socioeconomic processes that accelerate the pace of time and reduce the significance of distance. Those socioeconomic processes included technological innovations (telephones, telegraph), cheap and efficient travel (steam rail and boats), and the global economy’s opening of new markets, thereby speeding up production cycles and reducing the turnover time of capital (Harvey 1990).

During that historically transformative era, the first line of ecological urban thinking emerged; it focused on human-technology relations in the search for an understanding of the city as an organism, or as a ‘living artifice,’ that would enable humanity to take off into a bright, humanistic future. Jane Jacobs based her thinking on this first line of thought, but enhanced it considerably by incorporating a much more advanced understanding of complexity. She also departed from an inductive understanding of a spatial scale in cites, choosing a scale that instead makes sense based on how people perceive their daily lives.

2016 is the 100th anniversary of Jane Jacob’s birth, yet her work continues to hold promise for finding solutions to many current sustainability challenges. For instance, it provides cognitive tools for analyzing the spatial logic that lies behind the production of socioeconomic inequalities in cities (Legeby, 2013), as well as design solutions to reduce the number of car trips, to increase walkability and to enhance energy efficiency in cities.

Jacobs’ work does not, however, adequately address complex social-ecological systems relations of urban sustainability. Many global environmental challenges have emerged since Jane Jacobs wrote her classic book. It is safe to argue that most urban populations, at least in the Global North, are more cognitively distant from their life support systems—such as agriculture—than they were in 1961. Urbanization is now in a second wave of space–time compression driven by the Internet, jet travel, and the global economy (Harvey, 1990). The accelerating pace at which urban life proceeds and the decreasing importance of geographic barriers and distances are qualitatively different in terms of their intensity and scope compared to the 1960s (Sassen, 1991). Space–time compression is an outcome of a surplus of fossil fuel energy of diminishing returns (Tainter, 2011), which enables cities to sequester natural resources and ecosystem services from the farthest reaches of the planet (Deutsch et al., 2013; Seto et al., 2012).

Urban thought’s second line

A second line of thought that is also based on systems ecology emerged in the 1990s, with the concepts of ecological footprints (Rees 1992), extended versions of urban metabolism (Newman, 1999) and urban ecosystem services (Bolund and Hunhammar 1998). This line offers an important alternative perspective, since it assumes that humans are part of an intricate and complex web of life that goes far beyond the borders of any city. In just a few decades, this social-ecological lens has been used to argue that cities must offer better stewardship of ecosystems inside and outside their borders (Krasny and Tidball 2012; Enqvist et al., 2014) and must improve the capacity to cognitively reconnect city inhabitants with the biosphere (Andersson et al., 2014). Scholars of this kind of thinking also came to argue for the missing role that urban ecosystems, such as urban agricultures or wetlands, hold as technologies for building urban resilience towards extreme external disturbances (McPhearson et al., 2015; Barthel et al., 2015; Lewis 2015). The world’s ecosystems are gradually being eroded, with a subsequent loss of both ecosystem services and social-ecological resilience (Berkes et al. 2003), not only due to rapid urbanization per se, but also due to other global drivers such as climate change, population growth and tele-connected consumption behaviors (Seto et al., 2012), which ultimately will be shaped by environmental attitudes among city people (Grimm et al., 2008).

In 1961, the plethora of benefits that ecosystems in cities provided for human well-being in cities were simply not known (McPhearson et al., 2015; Haase et al., 2014). While Jacobs’ thinking is based on ecosystem logic, it does not see the benefits humans obtain by sensory interaction with other species and with diverse ecosystems. She viewed urban life to be an essentialist reality separated from such social-ecological relations, and from their role in shaping learning, meaning-making and cognitive dimensions in humans (Bendt et al., 2013; Colding and Barthel, 2013). For instance, Jacobs saw urban form as a cognitive artifact, where physical space also interacts with the way we think and feel, but she did not adequately address the role that nature environments in cities play in the development of attitudes, health and cognitive performance (Hartig et al., 2014; Bratman et al., 2015). For instance, Giusti et al. (2014) showed that pre-school children that experience nature environments in their daily routines develop significantly stronger environmental attitudes than those that do not. Nevertheless the socio-spatial dimensions of the work of Jane Jacobs cannot be underestimated in urban scholarship.

Social-ecological urbanism: aligning the two lines of thought

There is a need to align these two lines of thinking, because even if both build on our understanding of complex ecosystems, they are actually producing different urban systemic pictures, and they solve different kinds of challenges in urban sustainability.

Few, if any, attempts have been made to link urban social-ecological systems thinking with Jane Jacobs’ understanding of the city as an ecosystem. But in 2009, these two lines of thought met during the creation of a vision for a new campus area in Stockholm. This campus is called Albano.

The Albano site is situated just north of the inner city of Stockholm on formerly industrial land and has long been the subject of conflict and controversy. In 2009, the old industrial area was used primarily for temporary parking and as a storage area. However, this strategic location right at the edge of the dense inner city fabric, in between two of the major urban development areas and at the intersection of the three major universities in Stockholm, made it interesting from an urban morphology perspective. The Albano site is also located within the limits of the world’s first national urban park, Stockholm National City Park, protected by law since 1995. This double strategic perspective makes the site not only the subject of extraordinary development potential, but also a strategic link in Stockholm’s landscape ecology. This urban park is protected as a national interest with high levels of biodiversity and cultural value. The park is huge; the area is 27 square kilometers, including vast and diverse areas of meadows, forests, lakes and streams. It is also associated with a motivated network of civic associations that played a pivotal role in obtaining the protective laws for the park (Barthel et al., 2005; Ernstson et al. 2008).

The design work of this campus area came about in collaboration between researchers at the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the Royal School of Architecture in Stockholm, and with practicing architects (Barthel et al., 2013). Civil society organizations and other stakeholders took part in the participatory design processes as well. In 2010, colleagues and I presented an alternative vision for the site to the city planning office, to local politicians, and to the university leadership. The vision won support from all those actors. It was carried all the way into a detailed plan, which was co-designed with the city architect in Stockholm. Further investigations, reports and alterations were undertaken until 2012, when the City Council of Stockholm approved this detailed plan. The construction work of Albano started in November 2015.

It includes 100,000 square meters of buildings, including apartments for students and researchers. It attempts to support ecological connectivity in the wider landscape, as well as social and spatial accessibility to the street network of the urban fabric. Our designs accommodated local conditions for energy production and approached the greening of buildings with vegetation selected in relation to the surrounding landscape. We designed new habitats to support such landscape ecological processes of species migration, pollination and seed-dispersal. The design also involved development of institutional designs related to urban green commons (Colding and Barthel 2013), by which local civil society organizations, students and scholars can become managers and stewards of habitats and green spaces in the area (from wetland ponds to allotment gardens).

The project is expected to make a positive contribution towards a low-carbon economy. Designs focus on social-ecological resilience (such as adaptations to climate change) and mitigation measures to reduce carbon consumption for Stockholm’s Albano Campus. For instance, the integrated campus development plans will include better mobility solutions between the city and the campus and within campus (walking, bicycling and public transport), and also includes novel energy solutions that will be continuously updated parallel to technological innovations. The climate adaptation designs include carbon absorbing design elements (nature-based solutions) that simultaneously support the generation of local ecosystem services.

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Vision picture for Albano Campus.

In the design process, one unexpected effect was a theoretical merging of social-ecological urban systems thinking with urban morphology thinking inspired by Jane Jacobs, which gave birth to what we now call Social-Ecological Urbanism (Barthel et al. 2013; Marcus and Colding 2014).

The combination of these two thought lines provides a cognitive step towards the city’s aim to generate an ecosystem-based urban transformation, where cities are seen as embedded in the biosphere, and where social-ecological relations on the micro-scale are considered alongside spatial features for combating social segregation and for creating walkability and safety. From a discourse point of view, Social-Ecological Urbanism can be seen as a second generation following the dominance of the smart growth paradigm, since it deals not only with designs for mitigation of carbon emissions, but also with adaptation measures to enhance adaptive capacities in relation to emerging surprises. It does so by searching for synergies between ecological and sociospatial systems, where resilience is used as the systems’ capacity to absorb shocks, utilize them, reorganize and continue to develop without losing fundamental functions. In this sense, social-ecological urbanism can be viewed as a scientific upgrading of landscape urbanism concepts.

Insights about the design process behind this work include the importance of: (1) respectful interdisciplinary working conditions, including exchanging knowledge and terminology in productive ways; (2) translation of scientific knowledge into physical, institutional and discursive artifacts that both ‘protect’ and communicate the ideas; and (3) respect for how to navigate within the power landscape in which urban planning and design is embedded.

This design process will be used as an example of ‘best practices’ in the building of a science-practice network in the Baltic region that can lay a foundation platform for learning, innovation and friendship. Albano acts as a foundation for the EU-project called LIVE BALTIC CAMPUS – Campus Areas as Labs for Participative Urban Design.

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Cities and Universities around the Baltic Sea in the project LIVE BALTIC CAMPUS – Campus Areas as Labs for Participative Urban Design.

Other collaborations that have emerged directly from this project include several collaborations with non-academic actors within the Stockholm region, as well as a partnership with Urban Mistra Futures at Chalmers in Gothenburg. We hope that aligning these two different lines of thought under the framework of Social-Ecological Urbanism brings novel innovations with interesting repercussions for the international debate on sustainable urban development. We also hope the Albano Campus, as a persistent artifact example, may inspire architects to join the broader quest of sustaining the web of life of which we are all a part.

Stephan Barthel
Stockholm

On The Nature of Cities

Literature

Andersson, E., Barthel, S., Borgström, S., et al. (2014). Reconnecting Cities to the Biosphere: Stewardship of Green Infrastructure and Urban Ecosystem Services. AMBIO. 43: 445-453.

Barthel, S. Parker, J. Ernstson, H. (2015). Food and Green Space in Cities: A Resilience Lens on Gardens and Urban Environmental Movements. Urban Studies. 52(7), 1321-1338.

Barthel, S. and Isendahl, C. (2013). Urban Gardens, Agricultures and Waters: Sources of Resilience for Long-Term Food Security in Cities. Ecological Economics. 86, 224-234.

Barthel, S., Colding, J., Ernstson, H., Erixon, H., Grahn, S., Kärsten, C., Marcus, L., Torsvall, J. (2013). Principles of Social-Ecological Urbanism – Case Study: Albano Campus, Stockholm. TRITA-ARK Forskningspublikationer 2013:3, Stockholm. ISBN 978-91-7501-878-2.

Barthel S., Colding J., Elmqvist T., Folke C. (2005). History and Local Management of a Biodiversity-rich, Urban, Cultural Landscape. Ecology and Society. 105(2), 10.

Bendt, P. Barthel, S. and Colding, J. (2013). Civic greening and environmental learning in public-access community gardens in Berlin. Landscape and Urban Planning. 109: 18– 30.

Berkes, F., J. Colding, and C. Folke. 2003. Navigating social-ecological systems: Building resilience for complexity and change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Bolund, P., and S. Hunhammar. (1999). Ecosystem services in urban areas. Ecological Economics. 29:293–302.

Bratman, G. N., et al. (2015). The benefits of nature experience: Improved affect and cognition. Landscape and Urban Planning. 138: 41–50

Clements, F.E. (1916). Plant succession: an analysis of the development of vegetation. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication No. 242. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC.

Colding, J. and Barthel, S. (2013). The potential of ‘Urban Green Commons’ in the resilience building of cities. Ecological Economics. 86: 156–166.

Deutsch, L., Dyball, R., Steffen, W. (2013). Feeding cities: food security and ecosystem support in an urbanizing world, in: Elmqvist, T., et al. (Eds.), Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities: A Global Assessment. Springer, Dordrecht.

Enqvist, J., Tengö, M., Bodin, Ö. (2014). Citizen networks in the Garden City: Protecting urban ecosystems in rapid urbanization. Landscape and Urban Planning. 130, 24-35.

Ernstson, H., S. Sörlin, and T. Elmqvist. (2008). Social movements and ecosystem services—The role of social network structure in protecting and managing urban green areas in Stockholm. Ecology and Society. 13: 39.

Giusti, M., Barthel, S., Marcus, L. (2014). Nature Routines and Affinity with the Biosphere: A Case Study of Preschool Children in Stockholm. Children, Youth and Environments. 24(3): 16-42.

Grimm, N. B., Faeth, S. H., Golubiewski, N. E., et al. (2008). Global change and the ecology of cities. Science. 319, 756–760.

Haase, D., Frantzekaki, N., Elmqvist, T. (2014). Ecosystem Services in urban landscapes: practical applications and governance implications. AMBIO. 43, 407-412.

Hartig, T., et al. (2014). Nature and Health. Annu. Rev. Public Health. 35: 207–28.

Harvey, D. (1990). The Condition of Postmodernity. Blackwell, Malden.

Hillier, B., and J. Hanson. (1984). The Social Logic of Space, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Jacobs, J. (1961). The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Vintage Books, London.

Krasny, M. E. & K. G. Tidball. (2012). Civic ecology: a pathway for earth stewardship in cities. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 10(5): 267-273.

Legeby, A. (2013). Urban Segregation And Urban Form: From residential segregation to segregation in public space. Ph.D. thesis. KTH, Stockholm.

Lewis, J. (2015). Deltaic Dilemmas-Ecologies of Infrastructure in New Orleans. PhD-thesis Stockholm University, Stockholm Resilience Centre. ISBN 978-91-7649-239-0. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-119390.

McPhearson, T., Andersson, E., Elmqvist, T., Franzeskaki, N. (2015). Resilience of and through urban ecosystem services. Ecosystem Services. 12, 152-156.

Marcus, L. (2010). Spatial Capital: a proposal for an extension of space syntax into a more general urban morphology. Journal of Space Syntax. 1 (1).

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Socially Distant Summer: Stewarding Nature and Community to Meet Basic Needs during a Pandemic

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

SUMMER

We started to settle into our “new normal”, with the pace of our journal entries significantly slowing down. Social distancing didn’t feel as novel any more, we weren’t noticing the shifts and changes as much. Or perhaps we were worn down with mental fatigue and journaling didn’t feel therapeutic, it felt frankly depressing. Even the daily, spontaneous 7pm cheer  for frontline workers from city rooftops and apartment windows had faded over time in our corners of the city. At the same time, our worlds were also expanding — ever so slightly. As we went from a complete shutdown through the stages of reopening, we found new and creative ways to socialize: in parks, on rooftops, with outdoor dining in the streets across the city. All of this had to be navigated through our personal understandings and comfort with the risk involved in doing so. We were all trying to think like amateur epidemiologists.

We found that civic groups and public agencies are stewarding nature so that it is providing some of our most basic needs during the pandemic — food, respite, and safety.
Some of us were able to find respite from the monotony and the heat in short trips outside the city, others had not left their neighborhood since March. We are cognizant that we have an enormous amount of privilege to have this mobility — access to private or rental cars, families with homes outside the city, the ability to pay for vacations. For many in the city, the heat of July combined with lack of access to public cooling centers under social distancing presented a deadly threat above and beyond the virus. In response, the city government aimed to distribute thousands of free air conditioners to vulnerable residents and opened up fire hydrants in some of the Open Streets, as part of the Cool It! program.

Research team members meet for a socially distant walk in Brooklyn. From left: Michelle Johnson, Erika Svendsen and Lindsay Campbell. Photo: Lindsay Campbell

Street dining in Brooklyn in the shade of a street tree. Photo: Erika Svendsen

Starting in June we began to conduct interviews with local civic environmental stewardship groups and public agency natural resource managers at city, state, and federal levels as part of our STEW-MAP research effort, to understand how they were adapting to and impacted by COVID-19. All of this trained our eye in new ways to attune to the ongoing changes around us — the radical and subtle shifts in how we are relating to our neighbors and the nearby nature around us. As such, this essay draws on both our personal observations of our neighborhoods as well as some of the emerging themes from interviews with dozens of civic stewards and public land managers. We found that civic groups and public agencies are stewarding nature so that it is providing some of our most basic needs during the pandemic — food, respite, and safety.

FOOD

As the pandemic unfolded and many lost their jobs, struggled to make ends meet, and needed to find a way to pay rent, food insecurity emerged as a growing problem. Recent data from Feeding America suggests that the pandemic could force an additional 17 million Americans into food insecurity, bringing totals from the current 37 million food insecure to a projected 54 million food insecure people nationwide. Mutual aid groups focused on purchasing and distributing groceries to neighbors in need, and the community fridge movement grew. While these grassroots efforts multiplied, many civic environmental stewardship groups asked themselves how they could flex and adapt their missions and programs in order to help.

LEFT: Astoria Community Fridge. Photo: Michelle Johnson
RIGHT: Food distribution project at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Children’s Garden. Photo: Lindsay Campbell

Some of these stewardship groups already worked in urban agriculture and saw an opportunity to redistribute the produce they grew to community members that need it most. One group, an education program that installs and builds curricula around hydroponic rooftop farms in school buildings, was already working with community partners to distribute produce grown in the classrooms. They use their gardens to teach lessons about the food chain, including food access. COVID has further revealed food insecurity within school communities as well, and moving forward they hope to redistribute the produce to school families in need. Another stewardship group that manages an on-site demonstration garden for school groups recently started distributing their produce to community partners. Prior to COVID, the produce they grew would be sent home with students or employees, but staff realized that the 100lbs of produce they grow each week could have an even bigger impact. Now, they are donating at least 20lbs a week to five different local organizations to subsidize fresh produce.

Many community gardens across the city are well set up to grow and distribute produce, but not all of them have the resources to do so. One citywide organization decided to focus their efforts on a new community farm hub program that supports groups looking to get involved in food production. They have made introductions between civic groups that hadn’t previously partnered, distributed seed packets, and conducted online trainings to help kickstart community farming. A few participating gardens have even collaborated to start local farmer’s markets. Another urban farm partnered with existing organizations and emergent mutual aid networks to purchase and distribute free farm boxes to residents who were struggling as a result of the pandemic. In the early days of lockdown, they called neighbors to identify those who didn’t have enough food to get through the week. At the peak, they were giving out roughly 450 boxes weekly, with pick up locations in multiple spots in the neighborhood and a delivery system for seniors and those unable to pick up in person.

Groups with gardens and farms aren’t the only ones pivoting to address food insecurity. One social weaver who founded a stewardship group to address community needs after Hurricane Sandy used her contact list to start a meal distribution program in the neighborhood back in April. At first, she partnered with a food pantry to deliver ready-to-eat meals to neighbors in need, but they weren’t very popular because they didn’t always match the cultural tastes of her diverse community. Now, she is distributing boxes of groceries that allow community members to prepare their own meals. She described packing up her car multiple times a day and driving around asking people if they’d like some food. She shared a story of one particular instance when she saw a mother and child in need, did a U-turn thinking “just maybe they need something,” and the food she offered was gratefully accepted.

In addition to these and many other efforts by civic groups, the NYC Department of Education gave all NYC public schools students a $420 voucher for food as part of the federal Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT) program. The voucher could only be spent by the bearer and not donated. There was an effort by City Council member Brad Lander and others to encourage those with means to spend the voucher and donate the same amount used to food pantries.

These and many other efforts to address food insecurity have helped sustain many New Yorkers through an unbelievably challenging time. And yet, as people return to work and emergency relief slows, it is becoming evident that not all of these responses are sustainable in the long term. Many of the stewards and activists we spoke to shared visions and dreams of moving away from a charity model of distributing free food, and towards true food sovereignty. What would it look like for vulnerable communities to control their own food system?

TRASH 

Throughout shelter-in-place orders and ongoing social distancing rules, parks remained open, accessible, and vital to community health and well-being. While playgrounds, courts, ballfields, and community gardens in NYC were temporarily closed to ensure public health, many of our interviewees steward larger parks that include forested natural areas that provided access for nature recreation and respite throughout the pandemic. Land managers at all levels — federal, state, and local — and civic stewards reflected on how parks, forests, and open spaces were experiencing record levels of use and influxes of visitors. Our interviewees — as well as public health experts, elected officials, and the media — asserted the renewed and vital importance of open green spaces for fresh air, exercise, socialization, and connection to nature during these incredibly difficult times.

At the same time, with this increase in use, there has been an increase in trash left behind from these visits, including both overflowing garbage cans and litter on the ground. The trash issue is exacerbated by the fact that many parks are operating with cuts to budget and staff. According to New York Times reporting, NYC Parks has received an $84 million budget cut. Additionally, a report by New Yorkers for Parks found that the non-profit organizations that provide maintenance, operations and other services for city-owned land anticipate a 60% decrease in revenue for 2020, which will translate into a loss of 40,000 hours of park maintenance and 110,000 lost hours of horticultural care city-wide. Public land managers are highly aware of these visitor impacts — and are redoubling their efforts to stay apace with trash pickup and other crucial maintenance tasks. Many public land managers expressed disappointment that at the time when there is such an influx of new visitors, they are struggling to provide the level or service or high quality experience. New visitation has also resulted in a new influx of volunteers. Public land managers are working to focus this energy on litter-pickup rather than horticultural activities.

Public agencies are not alone in responding to this challenge; individuals and civic groups are also involved in clean-ups and trash prevention. Some excerpts from Lindsay’s journal track individual and community-organized cleanups around Brooklyn:

8 May 2020

I don’t usually like to go to the beach at Valentino Pier after a rainy day (because of all the trash on the beach), but my daughter was asking repeatedly to go. I saw my neighbor and his toddler with a full bag of trash and a trash picker. He had completely cleaned the beach of all its debris. He is the primary caretaker of his toddler, as he lost his job during COVID. On the walk back, I saw him across the street continuing to pick up trash — so not just the beach, but strewn gloves and masks from the sidewalk.

10 August 2020

On Saturday morning, my family and I went to Prospect Park for the first time since the lockdown and met up with friends and their dog for a distanced hello. I was really surprised by the amount of trash — not just cans overflowing, but cups and cans and things just loose on the ground under trees. It was 11am and the park was already quite full and we had to walk a ways to find a shady, safely distanced spot. Then, what should I see, but a parent and 2 kids with trash pickers and bags going around picking up trash. And they weren’t the last — I saw about 6-8 people doing the same thing throughout the park. Call it “COVID plogging,” but people are definitely helping to maintain the “loved to death park.”

A neighborhood Red Hook mom I know organized a trash pickup on Valentino Pier at the beach for this Monday, 10am. The beach seems like a special issue though, because most of the trash is tidal, not litter.

27 August 2020

A South Brooklyn mom is organizing folks to adopt their blocks to pick up trash — started a google map — and following a model she read about from the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Reminds me of the way that the rainbow scavenger hunt map started and went viral.

LEFT: Screenshot of community beach cleanup flyer posted to neighborhood Facebook group
RIGHT: Volunteer participant at a Monday morning community cleanup with Prospect Park Alliance. Photo courtesy of Janeen Potts.

These community-led clean-up efforts are being encouraged and nurtured by public agencies (e.g. community cleanup tool lending from the Department of Sanitation) and elected officials (e.g. Bronx Borough President Reuben Diaz’s “Meaningful Mondays”). From our interviews, we found that civic stewardship groups are helping to address this gap by creating campaigns encouraging users to pick up their trash and some are even handing out trash bags as visitors enter parks. Park conservancies and other partners to the city are sounding the alarm about park budget cuts and making efforts to restore budget for these crucial services in future budget years. Park advocates have formed coalitions and are calling for city budget increases to maintain parks as well as writing opinion pieces calling for the creation of new parks in areas where they are most needed, to address disparities in park access that have been magnified under coronavirus.

Tropical Storm Isaias tree damage on an Astoria street. Photo: Michelle Johnson

STORMS 

The impacts of the COVID-19 crisis intersect with pre-existing inequalities and vulnerabilities across our population. One horrifying, but incredibly plausible scenario that city officials had to prepare for was the possibility of pandemic, heat wave, and hurricane co-occurring.

As tropical storm Isaias barreled toward the city, residents — particularly those in coastal communities–found themselves bracing for impact. Fortunately, New Yorkers were spared from experiencing flooding because of its trajectory, timing, and alignment with the tides — if these had been different, coastal neighborhoods could have experienced the sort of storm surge that occurred during Sandy. However, the storm’s high winds had an incredible impact on the city’s urban forest — leading to over 3,300 downed trees and over 32,000 tree-related public service requests sent into 311, the city’s customer service line, in five days (data provided by NYC Parks as of 28 August 2020). This is the largest number of public service requests since storm event record keeping began in 1997 and more than a third of what is typically received in a year. These downed trees damaged property and created power outages, some of which stretched on for a week, during summer daytime heat in the 90s. Residents in New Jersey, Westchester County, and Connecticut experienced extensive power outages as well. New York City Parks responded by mobilizing its workforce to respond rapidly in real time to these resident calls, to ensure that streets and sidewalks were safely cleared.

We are reminded that in addition to the first responders who stabilize life and property after a disaster, those we call “green responders” work to restore communities and landscapes by caring for the natural world. These green responders include both public land managers and civic stewards, and disturbances can be acute (storm, tornado, hurricane) or more slow moving (food insecurity, economic disinvestment) — and their actions are a crucial part of long-term recovery and preparedness cycles.

The residents of the waterfront community of Red Hook, Brooklyn — particularly low income, often people of color living in NYCHA’s public housing–understand firsthand what it is to experience multiple vulnerabilities. In 2013, Hurricane Sandy devastated the neighborhood with flooding, power outages, and sustained damages to infrastructure and the built environment. After seven years, major retrofits to the NYCHA buildings and grounds are finally being made this summer to improve flood resilience. Yet, according to interviews with neighborhood activists, this construction is occurring at a large-scale across the entire campus all at once — cutting off residents from vitally needed local open spaces during the pandemic, removing over 450 mature trees, and leaving piles of construction debris and soil uncovered and exposed to air. These unintended side effects of much-needed capital improvements reflect the complex realities of and dire need for retrofitting our infrastructure and landscapes to be resilient to multiple disturbances, while working closely with and listening to local residents. On several instances, water mains had to be shut off to allow for construction, which simultaneously cut off access to fresh water for drinking and hand washing for residents. Local activists, nonprofits, and mutual aid groups stepped in to ensure that water was provided to residents — along with the already existing food distributions that were occurring. Going further, they organized advocacy efforts, including a public rally on 28 July, to target elected officials and the media to ensure that residents’ concerns were heard and addressed (see also #LetRedHookBreathe and #FullyFundRedHookHouses). Local leaders continue to educate the public, the media, and elected officials on the ways in which threats like climate change intersect with social justice and inequality to affect people’s lived experiences, particularly for public housing residents (e.g. see upcoming webinar).

We are cognizant that we are writing these reflections on storms and COVID-19 from the Eastern United States, while huge portions of the west coast are ablaze with unprecedented wildfires. How can we best protect, prepare, and adapt our communities–particularly the most vulnerable among us — to sustain in the context of extreme weather and climate change occurring alongside a public health crisis and massive social upheavals?  How can caring for the land–as both a profession and as an avocation — play a part in making us more resilient?

POWER OF PUBLIC LANDS

Reflecting back on this summer, it has been a stark reminder of what food, shelter, and safety means to different groups of people. For some it is the continuance of good food while supporting one’s local restaurant and for others it is the basic need for food. Safety may mean public recreation free from debris and for others it may be access to clean water or safe streets. Shelter for so many this summer has also been about finding a respite in our public lands as a walk in the woods or neighborhood park can offer relief from this time of stress and uncertainty.

Of course, our public lands — wherever they may be — do more than offer temporary relief. As we enter these spaces, we are in the company of others — past, present, and future humans. In these spaces, we are, perhaps, reminded of a shared humanity and of natural forces that are great and alive, redemptive and destructive. As summer comes to a close, we prepare again for a season like none other. Many teachers will be in the classroom while their students are at home, on-line or struggling just to stay connected. Families and friends will find new ways to mark the fall and winter holidays and remembrances that often accompany the year’s end. And we know that public lands will continue to play an abiding role in our daily lives, as public space has always been a stage for the performance of everyday life. An excerpt from Erika’s journal:

1 September

I was reluctant to go to the park this evening with so much weighing on my mind. What would school be like this year for my kids? Will they fall behind? How will they stay safe but still be with their friends? Will they still feel part of a community? Eventually, I grabbed my mask, a blanket and a few snacks to share for an impromptu, socially-distanced picnic in Prospect Park. There I joined other mothers, fathers, and friends as we talked about our hopes and fears for the coming academic year. We shared stories of the summer that made us laugh. And we shared moments where one of us might have cried out if our kids hadn’t been within hearing distance. Our talk went on as the moon rose over the trees. A man on a bike approached our group. He stopped and shared a song with us. Soon we were encompassed by the music of Earth, Wind and Fire’s, No. 1 hit from the 1970s, September. Suddenly, we forgot our train of thought and leapt to our feet to dance under the moonlight. Wild, crazy dancing. For a moment, our children stared back at us in mild shock. Eventually, everyone joined the needed revelry on this first night of September.

Do you remember the 21st night of September?
Love was changing the minds of pretenders
While chasing the clouds away

Our hearts were ringing
In the key that our souls were singing
As we danced in the night
Remember how the stars stole the night away

Hey hey hey,  say do you remember?
Dancing in September
Never was a cloudy day

— Excerpt from “September” by Earth, Wind and Fire

Lindsay Campbell, Michelle Johnson, Laura Landau, Sophie Plitt, and Erika Svendsen
New York

On The Nature of Cities


Michelle Johnson

About the Writer:
Michelle Johnson

Michelle Johnson is a research ecologist with the USDA Forest Service at the NYC Urban Field Station.


Laura Landau

About the Writer:
Laura Landau

Laura is currently pursuing a PhD in geography at Rutgers University. Her research focuses on the civic groups that care for the local environment, and on the potential for urban environmental stewardship to strengthen communities and make them more resilient to disaster and disturbance.


Sophie Plitt

About the Writer:
Sophie Plitt

Sophie Plitt is National Partnership Manager the the Natural Areas Conservancy. Sophie works to engage national partners in a workshop to improve the management of urban forested natural areas.


Erika Svendsen

About the Writer:
Erika Svendsen

Dr. Erika Svendsen is a social scientist with the U.S. Forest Service, Northern Research Station and is based in New York City. Erika studies environmental stewardship and issues related to hybrid governance, collective resilience and human well-being.


 

Socioecological Science is Failing Cities. The Humanities Can Help

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.” — Max Planck

As a graduate student, I was often assigned to read the foundational work of pioneering ecologists such as the late W. Dwight Billings, who was still on the faculty of Duke University when I was enrolled there. The first few decades of ecological research generated an extensive body of descriptive papers that used the new and evolving ecosystem concept to explore the biomes of the world. Writing in 1933, Billings’ Ph.D. advisor Henry Oosting framed his work on a lake in the area around Minneapolis, USA by noting that “the present study, principally descriptive of the environment and vegetation…was begun as a necessary early step in the cultivation of a field of research as of yet almost untouched in Minnesota…” While quantitative methods were available to scientists at this time, qualitative observations still comprised an important component of the field. “Statistics,” Billings wrote in the journal Ecology in 1941, “cannot replace clear thinking, and masses of figures should not be allowed to obscure a clear picture of a problem.”

While ecology has learned a great deal through an increasingly strict approach to scientific positivism, these constraints are no longer needed, and indeed, no longer desirable in the advancement of urban ecology.
Embedded in these early qualitative and personal accounts is important information that I fear has been lost from ecology as a discipline. Descriptive ecological science, I was taught as a graduate student, had met its end by the 1990s (and indeed many years before that), and the field was entering an era of highly quantitative methods. Advanced statistics, computational models, and the merger of physical and biological sciences was the future of the field as it was presented to me and my fellow students at the time. Consequently, my graduate curriculum included far more coursework in thermodynamics, meteorology, and fluid mechanics than in biogeography or natural history. Like most scientific disciplines, ecology aspired to emulate the foundational sciences in Comte’s hierarchy, which is built on mathematics, followed by astronomy, physics, chemistry, and at a later stage of development, biology. Sociology, according to this framework, is built later still upon the tenets of all of the natural sciences. The more recent distinction between the “soft sciences” and “hard sciences,” formalized by Storer in 1967, has also been influential in ecology as it has struggled to be accepted as a “hard” science.

“Chroma S5 St. Francis” by John Sabraw, Acid mine drainage pigments, gold leaf, and other paints on aluminum composition panel, 36″ x 36″, 2017.

Ecology’s journey to distinguish itself from its “softer” roots is a bit of an ironic twist in the development of the discipline, at least as it pertains to urban ecology. The increasing recognition that human activities are becoming indistinguishable from “natural” processes has led increasingly to calls for a science of biocomplexity and coupled human-natural systems. One common methodological approach to understanding cities as complex ecosystems is to bring together the ecological sciences as they have been practiced as part of biology, with various sub-disciplines of the social sciences. While ecology is ostensibly the study of the relationships between organisms and their environment, in the last two decades many, if not most, ecologists have acknowledged that humans are not interchangeable with other organisms. As Pickett et al. (1997) summarized, “simply inserting humans in the organismal component of the ecosystem concept is correct, but hardly adequate to understand their role in ecosystems. This is because humans are social creatures with large manipulative capacities, whose primary means of adaptation is by learning…the second feature of humans that makes viewing them merely as biological agents inadequate to the task of understanding urban ecosystems is that humans are self aware and can learn individually, as groups, and as institutions.”

“Shindig” by Patrick Dougherty, willow from Double a Willow, Fredonia, NY, 16′ x 12′ x 90′, 2015. Photo: Diane Pataki

This argument certainly holds true today: humans are not sparrows, and there is more to studying human-dominated ecosystems than biological methods alone can reveal. And yet, more than two decades later, where do we stand in the development of socioecological science as a set of theories, a sub-discipline, or even as a set of methodologies? I have been deeply engaged in this field for many years, and I will confess that my answer is not far enough.  Not enough to claim major advances in the scientific understanding of how cities work, and not nearly enough to help cities solve critical environmental and social problems.

I’m sure some readers engaged in this field will disagree. Perhaps some of you think that in fact, major breakthroughs have been made, or that socioecological research has greatly assisted contemporary cities with their most pressing problems, or perhaps simply that the field and its practitioners need more time to accomplish these things. But let me offer something else: the possibility that while ecology has learned a great deal through an increasingly strict approach to scientific positivism, these constraints are no longer needed, and indeed, no longer desirable in the advancement of urban ecology. This idea is somewhat implicit in the framework of “ecology for cities” that is becoming popular with urban ecologists in the United States. Ecology for cities advocates for an applied ecological science that will help inform urban design in ways that meet the needs of stakeholders and urban residents. Not surprisingly, this notion is somewhat contentious given the diversity of views on the varying and blurry lines between modern “objective” science, applied science, and advocacy that undermines public trust.

But there might be another way beyond the science vs. advocacy debate. Although numerous knowledge-to-action frameworks exist, ecology has yet to fully and explicitly interrogate the range of models of scientific objectivity, and their various challenges as implicit in modern urban ecology and it sibling disciplines: environmental science, sustainability science, and conservation biology. To varying degrees, these fields are built upon an implicit or explicit interrelationship between the observer and the object of the study: the city, society at large, and biodiversity. An interrelationship implies some degree of subjectivity and normative concern for the outcome: the practitioners of these disciplines have an interest in contributing to the livable city, the healthy environment, and the survival of non-human species. This conflict between normative ideals and post-Enlightenment scientific methodology has been plaguing the ecological and environmental sciences (and many sciences that have clear societal implications) for decades. But new generations of both scientists and philosophers, including feminist scholars, have challenged the assumptions of current methodologies. Evelyn Fox Keller, the mathematical biologist and feminist philosopher of science, pointed out that “scientific knowledge is made objective first by being disassociated from other modes of knowledge that are effectively tinged and hence tainted.” In the conventional view, the subjective mental experience of nature has little to offer science as a mode of knowledge. However, embedded in this experience are the reasons why we wished to engage in knowledge to action in the first place. In other words, we not permitted, in the traditional scientific method, to fully explore our personal connection to our object of study, how it came about, and how it may (or may not) be common to the human experience. As a result, cut off from ways of knowing in which nature affects us directly through personal experience, the broader relationships between people and nature remain elusive in ecology.

The human experience in the urban environment is, in fact, at the heart of what we need to understand if we’re to use scientific knowledge to build better cities. It’s no accident that human-environment interactions are among the most poorly understood aspects of urban ecology; many of the tools that can be used to access these experiences are deemed to be unusable in modern science, because they are too qualitative, subjective, or unverifiable by experimentation. This dilemma was a major impetus for bringing together the social and natural sciences to study urban complexity. However, the social sciences are also strongly influenced by positivist ideals and methods, going back to Comte. Perhaps less so than the natural sciences are today, but nevertheless, though much has been made of the conceptual and methodological differences between the social sciences and biology, they share many ideals and historical trends in development. Even social constructivism as a contrast to positivism is probably fairly accessible to most natural scientists, at least conceptually.

But the humanities offer additional, new possibilities of direct access to the human experience in urban nature, as well as a fresh understanding of what it means to construct nature in the urban environment, that are also needed in the expansion of ecology as an urban discipline.

The problem is that central to the humanities are assertions that contradict the very basis of modern science: that knowledge can be gained through subjective experience; that there is reality beyond what can be materially measured and physically verified; and that generalizable theory is not always the most insightful path to understanding nature. It is no trivial task to expand the concept of ecology to encompass these views, antithetical as they are to what not just scientists, but all of our modern society has to come to accept as a hierarchy of ways of knowing, with materialism at the top.

Taking materialism all the way to its logical end, the modern scientific method presumes that the human experience can be reduced to atoms, chemistry, and physical laws. Do ecologists really believe that this is true? I suspect that most do not; nevertheless, we’re on track to reduce humans and life in the general to the “ ‘universal laws of life’ that are…mathematizable so that biology could also be formulated as a predictive, quantitative science much like physics,” to quote Geoffrey West in Scale.  To this, as a proposed endpoint for biology, I would answer that as a science that embraces uniqueness, context, variability, and interrelationships, ecology is, perhaps, the branch of the life sciences that is the least well-served by strict reductionism.

There are, in fact, biologically-based arguments for expanding our ways of knowing in ecology. In his dazzling book, The Master and His Emissary, psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist argues that modern cognitive science locates scientific materialism in only one part of the brain.  While most of us have been presented with a simple view of the functioning of the left and right hemispheres of the brain (logic on the left, art on the right), the reality is, of course, more complicated. McGilchrist builds a case based on cognitive studies, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and case studies in pathology (in which parts of the brain have been damaged) to present a more nuanced view. In his synthetic framework, the left hemisphere is responsible for evaluating information in relation to what is already known, placing objects and experiences in more abstract categories. It further contends with the impersonal, the literal, and the mechanical, but is not well-equipped to understand individuality, the otherness and the howness of things, their context, their interrelationships, and the experience of empathy. Rather, these aspects of cognition are the domain of the right hemisphere, which processes “relational aspects of new experience, emotion and the nuances of expression” as well as wholeness, connections, and uniqueness.  McGilchrist then sweeps through all of western history, arguing that some periods have been dominated by left hemispheric thought, while others (the early Greek period, the Renaissance, and the Romantic period) have drawn more completely on all of our powers of cognition. According to this view, we are currently in a period where the left hemisphere is almost completely dominant over our culture and now constitutes virtually the entirety of the scientific method.

As an ecologist, I find this argument striking, since most of the asserted functions of the right hemisphere—context, interrelationships, the individuality of organisms, and the whole as more than the sum of its parts—are both central to ecology while still remaining the most uncertain and elusive aspects of our understanding of ecosystems and their functioning. Given that the post-Enlightenment scientific method has devalued many possible means of fully exploring these aspects of the natural and human-created world, it seems plausible that without a more radical expansion of the boundaries of ecological concepts and methods, we are highly constrained in our ability to understand, let alone successfully shape, the nature of cities.

“Your Memory is Already Fading” by Wendy Wischer, cast, cristal clear resin, false floor and stereo sound of an original script on loss, 13′ x 10′ x 7.8′. 2015.

Art-science collaborations in ecology abound—I’m not suggesting that they don’t exist—however, more often than not, scientists view these projects as a means of communicating scientific ideas and results to the public.  What I’m calling for is a flow of information in the other direction, in which scientists are open to the arts and phenomenology as a means of gathering much needed knowledge about the intersection between people, cities, and other aspects of nature. At the very least, science and the humanities certainly need not be at odds where their goals intersect, as I believe they do with respect to urban nature. In a wide ranging essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Steven Pinker describes this relationship as nothing short of a war between the disciplines, with each side hurling accusations of racism and other atrocities against the other. I must disagree when Pinker implies that all critiques of the scientific method contribute to the cultural “war on science”. Pinker calls for a reconciliation between the humanities and science as I’m doing, but all the while calling practitioners of critical analysis of science “resisters to scientific thinking” for implying that not all phenomena can be quantified. His solution is for the humanities to move closer to science, while science need not question a single digit in the numerical depiction of nature by viewing the world through the lens of the humanities.

I am very much a practicing research scientist and not a humanist, but sometimes our traditional methods simply fall short of the questions that need to be answered. When it comes to the intersection between ecological processes, the built environment, and the experience of living in modern cities, this problem is both acute and urgent. If there is a chance that the arts, literature, philosophy, and other humanist disciplines have something to offer our understanding of what urban ecosystems are and can be, then I think we should explore that chance, and quickly. Given the pace of environmental and social change, we don’t, unfortunately, have another two decades to wait to see the results of urban ecological studies to come to fruition.

Diane Pataki
Salt Lake City

On The Nature of Cities

A city with a river running through it

Solving the Global Water Crisis

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

Many of the challenges we are experiencing in cities and communities around the world are connected to water. What we can do to make our water flow in abundance, and life on this planet thrive again?

In 2010, the UN General Assembly explicitly recognized the human right to water and sanitation. Equal access to safe and clean water, however, requires a major change in how decisions over use and rights to water are made and needs appropriate legal frameworks to curb over-extraction and unsustainable behavior.

Qanats are an ancient system of under-ground water channels in Iran that together equal the distance from the earth to the moon; they are now recognized as a World Heritage site. They are still in use for agriculture and livelihoods in arid regions of the world. They give back water to nature and have given life to millions of people over centuries. They are an excellent example of sustainable water management solutions that remain valuable over time.

Water is our source of life but, unfortunately, it often features in the news through stories of crisis: flooding, droughts, oceans filled with plastic, water pollution, scarcity, and contamination of drinking water. Populations of migratory fish have fallen by three-quarters in the last 50 years (The World’s Forgotten Fishes, 2021). In 2020, 6.13 billion people were living in critically water-insecure or water-insecure countries, (Global Water Security Assessment 2023). Around one-quarter of the global population lives in water-stressed countries, and by 2050, 5.7 billion people are likely to live in water-scarce areas, while the number of people at risk from floods is projected to rise to around 1.6 billion (UNEP, 2023).

Water deserves all our attention, as it is essential for life on earth and for all business and economic activities. The reason why I want to dedicate this essay to water is to better understand how the challenges we are experiencing in cities and communities around the world are connected to water and what we can do to make our water flow in abundance, and life on this planet thrive again. The aim is to give insights into water-related challenges and the value of restoring nature in addressing these challenges.

Even though we may think that we are in dire water straits, there are a range of solutions that we all can contribute to. The secret to some of these solutions is trees. Forests have a crucial role in regulating the water cycle and the frequency and intensity of rainfall (Global Environmental Change, 2017). Restoring forests and natural landscapes can impact water cycles, water availability and quality, and climate change adaptation in extraordinary ways.

A tall tree with many leaves in a forest
Chinese Water fir, Botanic Garden Meise. Photo: Chantal van Ham

Universal water challenges

A growing demand from an increasing world population, insufficient infrastructure, climate change, pollution, overexploitation, and flawed water governance lead to multiple water-related challenges around the world.

Every year, we withdraw 4.3 trillion cubic meters of fresh water from the planet’s water basins. We use it in agriculture (70 percent of the withdrawals), industry (19 percent), and households (11 percent). We often are not aware that all industries depend on water for some part of their production processes: for food and beverage companies the water use is obvious, but metal and mining companies need water for dust control and drilling, data centers require water for cooling and apparel companies rely on water to grow cotton and wash garments (McKinsey, 2020).

An example is the export ban on rice in India. India is the world’s largest rice exporting country, providing around 40% of the world’s supply, 22 million tonnes in 2022. India is home to 18 percent of the world’s population but only has 4 per cent of the world’s water resources, which leads to high levels of water scarcity. To grow rice, water is added to aid weed management and increase nutrient uptake for higher yields, so-called “ponding conditions”. This consumes 60 million litres of water per acre of rice paddy, or the equivalent of a hundred households’ domestic water consumption a year. The volume of water used to grow rice cannot be replenished by rainfall alone, therefore farmers pump groundwater to irrigate their paddies, up to 5,000 litres for every kilogram of rice produced. This means that water is exported with rice production rather than used for meeting domestic needs. Last year at least 47 billion liters of water were used to increase rice supply to sell overseas. Transition to other less water-intensive crops, such as millets or pulses, vegetables, and fruits may be needed in the coming years.

A burlap sack with a red and black text
Bag of Indian Basmati Rice. Photo: Chantal van Ham

The supply of fresh water has been steadily decreasing while demand has been rising. In the 20th century, the world’s population quadrupled—but water use increased sixfold. A study on freshwater stress and storage loss published in Nature last year (Huggins et al. 2022) indicates that the most vulnerable freshwater basins encompass over 1.5 billion people, 17% of global food crop production, 13% of global gross domestic product, and hundreds of significant wetlands.

Water is a growing business risk and to tackle this, companies need to understand how they are interacting with basins that are projected to become water stressed and prioritise efforts there. Companies can focus on several areas of action to help mitigate water stress: direct operations, supply chain, and wider basin health. Some companies are already taking action in all three areas. Apple, for example, anchors its water stewardship policies by mapping its global water use against regions with heightened water risk.

In partnership with The Nature Conservancy, Starbucks China pledges to replenish at least 1.5 million tons of water annually to Qiandao Lake, by the beginning of 2030. Qiandao Lake is the largest manmade freshwater lake in the Yangtze River Delta and a vital water resource for 10 million residents in Hangzhou, Jiaxin, and other areas in Zhejiang province. By focusing on sustainable agriculture and wetlands restoration, this partnership will meet the annual water consumption needs of 23,000 citizens in the vicinity. As water is essential to the Starbucks agricultural supply chain and store operations, it aims to give back water used by protecting surface water against pollution and allowing water from rain, storms, and rivers to naturally replenish the local ecosystem. It entails the restoration of 2 hectares of wetlands and support to local farmers to implement sustainable agricultural practices for their crops, to reduce the use of fertilisers and pesticides, reduce soil erosion and surface runoff while improving yield.

All these examples of business and economic activities that depend on water, demonstrate that insight into risks and the need for efficient use of water is not sufficient to ensure equal access to clean and abundant water, in particular in cities and water-scarce areas, such as India and China. Investment in water infrastructure and measures for water saving and groundwater management and water price reform are important actions, but effective legislation that prevents overexploitation and unsustainable water use is essential in every part of the world.

The origin of water and its use — biodiversity matters

To understand the state of water, it is important to start with the origin of water: more than 97% is salt water, held by our oceans. The remaining 3 percent of freshwater is mostly frozen in glaciers. What remains for drinking water is 1 percent. Availability of fresh water differs by location and the majority originates from a few hundred named basins, of which the Nile, Indus, Amazon, Congo, Yangtze, Mekong, and Colorado rivers are well-known ones. Freshwater can be found in lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, and wetlands, but also in less-obvious places: more than half of all fresh water on our planet seeps through soil and between rocks to form aquifers that are filled with groundwater. The top surface of an aquifer is called the water table, and this is the depth where wells are drilled to bring fresh water into cities and homes (National Geographic).

According to Hydrologist Emma Haziza, every species living on earth needs water as much as we do. Water extraction creates economic wealth and is part of everything that is produced and consumed, clothes, food, electronics, houses, cars, technology, and machinery but this destroys the water cycle on a planetary level. This leads to a loss of biodiversity as droughts increase.

A bowl of leaves and cherries on a wood surface
Cherries and lime blossom. Photo: Wameed Al Ganim

With climate change and increasing temperatures, the water cycle is accelerated with more evaporation, evapotranspiration, and precipitation. The risk of torrential rains also increases and droughts occur more frequently. Emma Haziza has worked for more than 20 years on the International Panel for Climate Change projections and as we are currently noticing around the world, the scenarios for future drought are beyond what has been predicted. In parts of France for example, in one year of drought deep water reserves collapsed by more than 70%. Most parts of Europe experience extreme droughts, groundwater is overconsumed and water stress increases, as well as urbanization and soil sealing. Heavy agriculture machinery also prevents water from penetrating and reaching the groundwater and harms soil quality due to pesticides and fertilisers. Such lifeless soils have no water absorption capacity and harm the deep water table as they are unable to recharge. The way we treat the soil determines to a large extent the water resources available in the world’s aquifers. Without deep water tables, there is no river flow and life disappears.

Trees sustain biodiversity and climate resilience

By evapo-transpiring, trees recharge atmospheric moisture, contributing to rainfall locally and in distant locations. Trees’ microbial flora and biogenic volatile organic compounds can directly promote rainfall. Trees enhance soil infiltration and, under suitable conditions, improve groundwater recharge. Precipitation filtered through forested catchments delivers purified ground and surface water (D. Ellisson et al, 2017).

Species richness, particularly native species and forest rehabilitation can provide positive effects on the health of forests and their water-related ecosystem services. Forest rehabilitation offers opportunities to restore water-related ecosystem services (Ellisson et al, 2017).

Drought is not caused by a lack of water but by a failure to convert water vapor into viable clouds, rain, and a failure to retain that water on the earth within plants, soil, and water structures. Converting heat-holding water vapor into viable cooling low-lying clouds produced through bio-aerosols made by plants while protecting soils, is essential for combatting drought (Cindy Morris, INRA, 2017). Water retention landscapes, rich soil fed by micro-organisms and livestock nutrient cycling, cover crops, trees, and plants of all varieties producing as much foliage as possible, cool the earth, release necessary cloud seeding aerosols, and induce rainfall.

More information about the hydrologic cycle which explains the continuous journey of water between oceans, atmosphere, and land can be found here: NASA Water and Energy Cycle.

How nature brings water to life

Nature plays an important role in keeping urban water sources reliable and clean. Natural solutions, such as reforestation, better farming practices, river bank, or wetland restoration can reduce erosion and run-off that pollutes water. This can improve water quality and reduce treatment costs. The Urban Water Blueprint (Mc Donald, Schemie, 2014) analyses the state of water in more than 2,000 watersheds and 530 cities worldwide to provide science-based recommendations for natural solutions that can be integrated alongside traditional infrastructure to improve water quality.

The Urban Water Blueprint explains that source watersheds provide the natural infrastructure that collects, filters, and transports water. On average, the source watersheds of the largest 100 cities are 42 percent forests, 33 percent cropland, and 21 percent grassland, which includes both natural and pastureland.

Watersheds and their land use greatly influence the quality of water cities receive; it is a dependence that becomes clear when significant changes happen. Changes in land use, particularly the conversion of forest and other natural land covers to pasture or cropland, often increase sedimentation and nutrient pollution. Increased human activity and the expansion of dirt roads in source watersheds can also lead to many other pollutants increasing in concentration, impacting the cost of water treatment and the safety of urban water supplies (McDonald, Schemie, 2014). In the period 2000-2012, more than 40 percent of source watersheds have had significant forest loss, which results in growing water challenges. Protecting and restoring the natural functions of watershed areas, through forest protection, reforestation, riparian restoration, agricultural best management practices, or forest fuel reduction can improve water quality and regulate water flow. It can reduce the costs of drinking water provision while providing multiple other benefits for nature and people. For instance, New York City avoided having to build a filtration plant by agreeing to the conservation of the Catskill watershed,  the main source of its drinking water, thereby saving US $110 million per year. The water that originates from the watershed complies with water quality standards as a result of natural filtration by trees, swamps, and soils on its way to NYC.

In a time where technological solutions are spreading with the speed of light, we need to keep an eye on ancient systems that have proved themselves over centuries of life on the planet. New is not always better. Trees and natural ecosystems offer some of the most effective solutions to water security and climate change mitigation and are much cheaper than technical solutions such as carbon capture and storage  (Nathalie Seddon, 2022). What is most important, they offer additional benefits, such as water filtration, clean air, biodiversity, livelihoods, and health.

When Charles Darwin arrived in Rio de Janeiro in the early 1830s, there was a chronic lack of drinking water due to the deterioration of the forests surrounding the city. He observed the complete deforestation and soil erosion of the hills around Rio that resulted from sugarcane and coffee production. The same hills that today are covered in lush native forest. This forest is Tijuca, the largest replanted tropical forest in the world that was created due to long-term government laws, regulations, management plans, and conservation policies (Drummond, 1996). Seeds and seedlings from mountaintop forests were collected and replanted on the hills over the course of more than 20 years, which resulted in a new forest in which rivers and streams flow again, and that cleans the air and lowers the temperature for citizens of Rio.

Another example of natural solutions to water challenges is under development by the Weather Makers, an engineering company that is involved in an ambitious project to bring rain back to the Sinai Peninsula. As land use in the Sinai changed with overgrazing and depletion of water, the loss of vegetation prevented the formation of clouds, allowing more and more water to evaporate from the area, increasing the rate of desertification. The local population suffers from heat waves, sand storms, and flash floods. By looking at the peninsula on Google Earth, they discovered that the scars of old rivers crossing the desert are still visible.

Re-instating the hydrological ancient water cycle leads to a substantial increase in water sequestration, a decrease in land surface and air temperatures, combined with unprecedented carbon sequestration. The Weather Makers works with a range of partners to regreen the Sinai desert, starting with the restoration of Lake Bardawil and its surrounding wetlands and an integral planning approach for regenerative landscape development of a total area of ~30,000 km². The fertile marine sediments that are dredged from the bottom of the lake are used, as well as sustainable sediment treatment, freshwater management, water harvesting, and flash flood prevention. In this way, native vegetation can be brought back, and it will change the direction of the winds, bringing water vapour from the Red Sea and Indian Ocean back to the Mediterranean land and as well the rain that is so desperately needed. The restored wetlands will increase the presence of birds, add fertility and new plant species, improve water and food security, and provide extensive carbon sequestration benefits.

A city with a river running through it
The Nile in Cairo. Photo: Chantal van Ham

Reflecting on the earlier mentioned Qanats, which harvest and convey water in a sustainable manner without damage to the tapped aquifer, their success relies on the social systems, the so-called Qanat Civilisation. This allowed for peaceful and cooperative management of water in arid regions of the world for safe drinking water, food security, water quality, and sanitation and we can learn a lot from this at a time when the world faces increasing water scarcity. These social systems were based on deep knowledge of the natural environment, indigenous culture, communal trust, and social cooperation. The social institutions fostered by the Qanats spread to other realms of social life, becoming part of the social capital of the society.

The cultural and social structure of Qanats offers a foundation for optimising water and land use to ensure sustainable socio-economic development based on cooperation. Cooperation is essential for any successful solution and in relation to water and management of water sources and their distribution will require new forms of stewardship and trust as well as the sharing of ideas and knowledge. This will strengthen societal efforts for change within and across societies.

United for water and nature

During the UN Water Conference in March 2023, the Freshwater Challenge was launched: a country-driven initiative to leverage the support needed to restore 300,000 km of rivers and 350 million hectares of inland wetlands by 2030 to enhance water security, tackle climate change, and reverse nature loss.

Trees are among many other things, food suppliers, rain makers, water keepers, and oxygen providers. If we restore forests and our natural vegetation systems, temperature extremes can drop, and the hydrological cycle will restore their cooling potential and with that improve the health of soils and biodiversity. This may even help to mitigate geo-political tension, as water does not stop at borders, which makes trees also peace makers.

As the examples mentioned before demonstrate, restoring nature is of tremendous value to make our watersheds healthy again in every part of the world. There are many success stories to present, but what they all have in common is that investing in nature-based solutions brings many benefits. However, despite these benefits, raising the financial capital and political will for their implementation remains very challenging. It requires cooperation between all of society and across disciplines, awareness, education, and capacity building. Not one watershed, river, or wetland at a time, but with united efforts across the globe.

As Sumetee Gajjar in her TNOC essay from May 2019 points out: “as scholars are allowed to experience and visit a living ecosystem from the past, they may be able to imagine and wish to sustain nature of their cities in the future. The lake thus becomes a classroom”. She adds that this is not only through what we can learn by studying it as a living social-ecological system but also by simply existing alongside its physical and ecological presence.

Urgency and large-scale action towards regulation are essential to address the water-related challenges in a changing climate, and part of the solution is up-to-date information about water developments. Global Water Watch, by Deltares, WRI and WWF, is an excellent resource that provides high-resolution information on thousands of global reservoirs, estimates the current state of a reservoir, and maps surface water. This can help to determine priority areas for action by governments and the private sector to conserve and restore ecosystems and natural water cycles.

If water is to be everyone’s business, then stakeholders will need to unite in water-scarce countries to make some difficult trade-offs on the road to water resource security (Charting our water future, McKinsey). Some solutions may require potentially unpopular changes, such as higher prices and the adoption of water-saving techniques and technologies by millions of businesses, farmers, and households.

In large water basins, individual action by a particular city’s water utility may not make economic sense as many millions of people live in cities that rely on this water. Conservation action would benefit multiple cities and water users downstream. Although each action alone may not have enough benefit to solely fund conservation, collective action may make economic sense. In this way, the scale of the intervention will go from a local level to regional and beyond, developing approaches that strengthen the landscape-wide application of land use planning for the provision of ecosystem services.

Countries with largely informal water sectors can re-allocate subsidies to incentivize water conservation. Simply removing subsidies and adjusting pricing might incentivize more prudent use of water but would also lead to challenges for farmers or other water users who cannot afford additional costs. Therefore, market-based mechanisms and financing instruments have to be designed in an inclusive and equitable manner, as demonstrated by the ancient Qanats, making water available to all in a cooperative manner.

“Water is not a commodity – it is life-making material. We need to ensure every living being has access to it” – Sadghuru.

Chantal van Ham
Brussels

On The Nature of Cities

Some Birds Love Cities—Can Cities Love them Back? TNOC Podcast Episode 9

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

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Also available at iTunes.

HouseSparrow
House Sparrow

Story Notes:  House sparrows, rock pigeons, and red-tailed hawks are three bird species that have successfully—and very visibly—adapted to life in cities. Yet as the number and the size of cities across the globe continues to grow, more birds find themselves dealing with the challenges and the opportunities of urban life. While some species find ways to take advantage of living near humans, up to a billion birds die each year after flying into glass buildings, according to the American Bird Conservancy. Architects, engineers, and planners in some cities are working to make the built environment more bird friendly, adapting to the needs of our feathered neighbors.

A White Crowned Sparrow.
White Crowned Sparrow.

This podcast episode, produced by Philip Silva, checks in with Kim Todd, a science journalist and the author of Sparrow, a book that explores the social and natural history of a tiny bird with an oversized representation in poetry, song, and theater from the past two thousand years.

We hear from Dr. Christine Sheppard, a scientist with the American Bird Conservancy and co-author of the organization’s Bird-Friendly Building Design guidelines. While Todd’s writing investigates the ways different bird species are adjusting to human habitats, Sheppard’s book—co-written with TNOC contributor Glenn Phillips—collects insightful examples of buildings purposefully designed to make urban life easier for birds.

Finally, we hear from Jennifer Sánchez Acosta, an environmental educator at Parque La Liberated in San José, Costa Rica, where the first annual Urban Bird Festival recently introduced city dwellers to more than fifty bird species found within city limits. Educators at Parque La Liberated hope that residents of San José can grow to appreciate the diversity of birds living alongside them—and, perhaps, take steps to help make the city more bird friendly over time.

The Orange Cube, in Lyon, France, was designed by Jakob+ MacFarlane, Architecture as is a bird-friendly building.
The Orange Cube, in Lyon, France, was created by Jakob+ MacFarlane, Architecture and is a bird-friendly design.

 


Some Kind of Nature… But What Will We End Up With?

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

There are many motivations to create urban green space, but current trends suggest that real ecological value and function is losing its place among them.

Whenever I listen to the song Some Kind of Nature by the Gorillaz & Lou Reed, it makes me think about what kind of nature we are going to end up with in our cities, even though the song isn’t actually about urban nature at all. From my perspective here in New Zealand, it seems as if there are some prevailing ideas driving urban biodiversity research and urban restoration initiatives that might compromise the ecological authenticity of the nature that results from these efforts. I think we are in danger of ending up with a very watered-down and biodiversity-poor version of nature. This reduced version of nature will only exacerbate the ongoing process of shifting the baselines of expectations of what nature of urban nature is. Are we all going to end up with fake nature, and be happy with it?

Urban ecologists see nature in cities through a lens that is focused on the requirements of other species, the integrity of habitats and systems, and the potential for enhancing and restoring biodiversity to spaces that are often quite small. Urban ecology also recognises the significance and the potential of the human dimension, and acknowledges the importance of community-driven approaches to restoration projects. To be successful, restorations need to include families and communities, provide opportunities for social connections, be relevant to everyday life, encourage free choice and learning, target local issues, promote collective action, foster roles of local stakeholders, and promote direct experiences with nature. Of this list of requirements (Wilson 2011), most of the objectives are social.

While satisfying the human dimensions is essential for success, and acknowledging that restorations should be community-led, social and management constraints associated with urban restorations include “lack of ecological knowledge, lack of social acceptance of management approaches, human-wildlife conflicts, and conflicting goals based on varied views and value systems” (Clarkson & Kirby 2016; DOI: 10.1111/emr.12229). Research shows that many urban residents do not know what natural habitats look like, they aren’t able to recognise common species, they don’t know how those species function within the food web, and they do not feel comfortable in wild spaces with which they lack familiarity. If the health of cities, in terms of ecosystem services, biodiversity, and the quality of the nature experiences available to adults and children, depend on how much local communities value and know about nature, then we could be in trouble. For example, In New Zealand, many urban residents are unaware of the impacts their pet cats have on native wildlife. Many believe that it is natural for cats to kill native wildlife and it’s just a question of reaching a new equilibrium. In community consultation about cat management, I’ve heard people say that cats are just like lions, at the top of the food chain, so it is natural that they eat native birds and lizards. This attitude reflects a lack of awareness that in New Zealand there are no native terrestrial mammals except for two species of bat. I’ve also been asked if there are even any native birds within the city. A city-wide survey revealed that only a few nationally iconic bird species are recognised by most people as being native, while between a quarter and two-thirds of people are uncertain or incorrectly label other common urban native species as exotic when they are native, or native when they are exotic. This same lack of knowledge has been reported in other countries and attributed to the abundance of exotic species in home environments and the media. However, values drive community demands for green spaces and the design of these spaces. Can we rely on those things a community deems valuable if we are to achieve worthwhile ecological outcomes? Shifting baselines mean people’s concept of “wild” and “natural” will have changed.

An example of a restoration that was driven at least partly by community consultation is Boneyard Creek, which flows through Champaign, Illinois (USA), draining much of the city, including the central business district and the University of Illinois Campustown area. Poor water quality and flooding issues prompted the city and university to create a redevelopment plan. The redevelopment plan involved community consultation, and took into account social acceptance of restoration techniques, the socio-political atmosphere in neighbourhood groups, and was careful to include cultural perspectives. However, none of the reported wishes of the public reflected a desire to restore ecological function, except possibly tree planting and the creation of a pond, but rather reflected a desire for recreational spaces. The list on their website includes the following: provide landscape plantings; bike and pedestrian paths; get rid of ugly stuff; create parks; create a beautiful, safe trail; trees; create an outdoor amphitheatre; create a pond; build a beautiful bridge; convert the lumberyard into a beer garden. The completed restoration serves its primary function of increasing stormwater capacity and improving flood protection, and it provides an attractive amenity park with spaces for recreation, fulfilling four of the five defined goals, but the fifth goal of enhanced wildlife and habitat is hardly met. While some new species, such as ducks, Canada geese, turtles, and green heron have been observed on the site, the habitat value of the site has increased from being “poor/marginal” to only “sub-optimal”.

Is functionality for social purposes always going to conflict with ecological functionality? The aesthetic values of many people still reflect preferences for an Arcadian/Romantic landscape form, seen in parks with widely spaced trees that in New Zealand are usually exotic species, scattered across a mown lawn with no understorey—not the best habitat to support wildlife. Recreational spaces are not always conducive to thriving wildlife populations, except in the case of the most tolerant urban adaptors. Popular recreational spaces are likely to be noisy and well-lit. Some animals abandon areas when frequent or chronic noise interferes with their ability to pick up auditory cues, or when sounds are perceived as threats. Pedestrians interrupt bird foraging, causing birds to flee, and the presence of dogs can force birds to spend more time being vigilant, waste valuable energy, and lose foraging opportunities if they have to repeatedly fly away.

Another urban ecological restoration that is often touted as a great example of what can be achieved is the Cheonggyecheon River in South Korea. A critique of the restoration by Cho (2010; doi:10.3828/idpr.2010.05) provided a very different perspective on this restoration. Although a dramatic transformation was effected, and social goals were achieved, little public consultation was involved and the opinions of ecologists ignored. The end result has been labelled fake nature by some. The Cheonggyecheon Highway, which ran through Seoul, was seen as obsolete and an impediment to the competitiveness of the city, and so it was removed as part of an urban renewal project. It had covered the Cheonggyecheon River for decades. Now the space is occupied by a stream, lined with parks and urban-gathering spaces. It is very popular; 90,000 people visit the stream banks on an average day.

Figure 1. A view of the Cheonggyecheon River restoration in Seoul, South Korea (https://inhabitat.com/how-the-cheonggyecheon-river-urban-design-restored-the-green-heart-of-seoul/)

However, the result is hardly ecologically authentic. Almost all of the water that now flows between the mostly concrete banks of the Cheonggyecheon is pumped there through 11 km of pipes from another river. Cho (2010) describes the whole process as a staged political performance, launched on the eve of the Mayor’s inauguration and completed 10 months before the end of his term. Criticisms are that the Mayor used the environment as an instrument of urban development, that engineers were not open to alternative ways of water flow because it would take too long to construct, and that the approach prioritised flood control over restoration of the range of habitat types and associated species assemblages that likely existed long ago before the river was modified. Its design allows a high volume of water to flow downstream promptly, but it is not a good habitat for species. Stream engineering dictates its design, the stream bed is cleaned of moss, the water quality controlled daily, and plants are actively maintained. It is simulated nature.

But what kind of nature experience should people be entitled to? A body of literature is accumulating that supports the connection between nature contact and human well-being. Frumkin (2001; doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(00)00317-2) stated in his review; “As we learn more about the health benefits of contact with the natural world, we need to apply this knowledge in ways that directly enhance the health of the public”. As ecologists, we should be pondering what the consequences are of a focus on using nature to enhance human health. For example, a rise in green prescriptions has the potential to intensify use of green spaces, increasing levels of human disturbance, and even resulting in pressure to modify green spaces to make them more user-friendly, with the likely result that wilder areas will be lost.

The concept of nature contact as a therapeutic device has been widely applied, but recently more specific questions regarding the required dose of nature have been asked (Shanahan et al. 2017, doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biv032; Cox et al. 2017; doi: 10.3390/ijerph14020172). That is, for how long and how frequently do you have to be in nature to gain benefits? A few studies have tried to identify the elements of nature that people perceive and respond to. Do we enjoy the same benefits from a park filled with introduced species, as from a native woodland? These studies are presented in the context of public health gains and aim to identify minimum doses needed to effect well-being benefits. For example, Cox et al. (2017) conclude that their analysis demonstrates that quantifiable reductions in the population prevalence of poor mental health can be achieved if minimal thresholds of vegetation cover are met. My concern is that we should not be cornered into thinking about the minimum amounts of nature needed to improve human health.

While human health gain is a powerful rationale for investing in green spaces, inevitably human need will dominate all other justifications, and quantifiable needs tend to trump those that are less easy to quantify. By viewing nature as a commodity that supplies health benefits, and by identifying the minimum needed to gain benefits, we run the risk of trivialising a deep and significant affective response to nature. This view could provide an incentive to create natural spaces that are structured primarily to satisfy our well-being requirements, rather than according to ecological goals. What if we discover that we get the same well-being benefits from sitting on a lawn as from a biodiverse wetland, or woodland? And what if we gain the same benefits from a virtual experience? Chang et al. (2016; doi: 10.3390/su8101049) asserted that the absence of a relationship between physiological benefits in relation to different levels of invertebrate diversity meant that city planners should not hesitate to use ecological best practice in their designs, since settings rich in biodiversity will not necessarily influence people’s physiological well-being in a negative way. I might be accused of being cynical, but I believe that that kind of information could be used to do the exact opposite: to create spaces with minimal ecological value. The infographic below outlines all the benefits we can gain from nature in our backyard, but the yard itself is presented as just lawn with one tree. The website advises that lawns can make you feel happier.

Figure 2. Infographic from Orethapedia website (https://orethapedia.com/2017/04/10/your-lawn-can-make-you-happier-infographic/) outlining well-being benefits in a biologically depauperate garden environment.

Biodiversity has been conceptualised within economic frameworks, and can be divided broadly into use values and non-use values. Non-use values include those values relating to the feel-good factor nature provides us with—existence, altruistic, and bequest values. We should be careful not to shift the way we think about and value our natural green spaces more into the “use” part of the framework. Whatever the motivations for protecting and restoring green spaces in cities, the input of ecologists, as well as input from a well-informed public, is essential. Despite principle motivations that may not be primarily about biodiversity enhancement, such as social, hydrological, and well-being goals, and despite lack of knowledge in the public driving the project, what we end up with must have ecological value.

Yolanda van Heezik
Dunedin

On The Nature of Cities

 References

Chang, KG, Sullivan, WC, Lin, Y-H, S, W, Chang, C-Y. 2016. The effect of biodiversity on green space users’ wellbeing – an empirical investigation using physiological evidence. Sustainability 8: 1049; doi: 10.3390/su8101049

Cho, M-R. 2010. The politics of urban nature restoration: The case of Cheonggyecheon restoration in Seoul, Korea. International Development Planning Review 32 (2) doi:10.3828/idpr.2010.05

Clarkson, BD, Kirby, CL. 2016. Ecological restoration in urban environments in New Zealand. Ecological management and restoration 17(3): 180-190.

Cox, DTC, Shanahan, DF, Hudson, HL, Fuller, RA, Anderson, K, Hancock, S, Gaston, KJ. 2016. Doses of nearby nature simultaneously associated with multiple health benefits. International journal of Environmental Research and Public health 14: 172. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph14020172.

Frumkin, H. 2001. Beyond toxicity: human health and the natural environment. American Journal of Preventative Medicine. 20:3. 234-40. doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(00)00317-2

Shanahan, DF, Fuller, RA, Bush, R, Lin, BB, Gaston, KJ. 2015. The health benefits of urban nature: how much do we need? BioScience 65(5): 476-485. doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biv032

Wilson, C. 2011 Effective Approaches to Connect Children with Nature, Department of Conservation: Wellington, New Zealand.

Soul and the City: Re-Establishing our Relational Capacity Beyond COVID-19

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

Taking into account that the urgency of the present socio-ecological crisis demands to think — or better to feel — outside our rational-centered box, sustainability research on urban socio-ecological systems can take a deeper look at transdisciplinary strategies that strengthen our urban relational capacity for responsive human-nature relations.
Aren’t we living in crazy times? It seems that the COVID-19 pandemic may never end. Home office, covering our faces with masks and social distancing have suddenly become part of our daily routine. In the beginning of the first lockdown, the world outside seemed so near due to the various digital events such as webinars, online conferences and virtual field trips offered. However, over the weeks and months of social distancing and staying at home most of the time during the dark European winter time, the feelings of being alive, getting inspired, being touched by and affecting the people or the garden on the other side of the screen have popped-up only recently or not at all. Now, one year later, tiredness and fatigue are spreading.

Although all of these digital offerings are a great opportunity to bridge the current social distancing dilemma, it is becoming evident that they cannot replace meeting in person or being in nature in order to experience ourselves, once again, as sentient members of the web of life. Digital events are exhausting since we cannot deeply connect with each other. We can neither smell nor touch the digital landscape. It is hard to grasp how the person vis-á-vis really does feel, to read between the lines of what is said, so that we can react and connect comprehensively. What remains is this sense of how crucial these deep connections with human and nonhuman nature are in order to feel alive.

Maybe this is one of the crucial lessons learnt from the current pandemic we should reflect on: How can we strengthen our urban relational capacity in a world characterized by individualization, digitalization and instrumentalization? How can we also deeply re-connect with each other and with nonhuman nature in cities — in light of the socio-ecological crisis, which will not disappear after COVID-19?

Illustration by K. Artmann

Covid-19 as a symptom of a sick system?

In fact, in light of the socio-ecological crisis it can be argued that this pandemic isn’t happening right now by chance. For instance, during the webinar Earth Talk: Gaia’s Lessons organized by the Schumacher College, parallels between COVID-19 and the anthropocentric destruction of the rainforest were discussed. Rainforests as the lungs of our earth are cleared for humans’ never-ending demand for natural resources and meat. Just recently the WWF warned that Europe is in the second place of the world ranking of tropical forest destroyers behind China, making our imperial way of life visible.

Looking at this sad news through the lens of the Gaia theory, which considers nature as an intelligent self-organizing system, is it only a coincidence that the pandemic attacks humans’ lungs? Can the recent pandemic be interpreted in a way that implies that the corona virus is a wake-up call by nonhuman nature warning humanity to change our way of life, to remind us that we are part of nature and that we are destroying through our exploitation, domination and instrumentalization of nonhuman nature our own basis for life — in material and spiritual terms? Although the developers of the Gaia theory, the chemist James Lovelock and the microbiologist Lynn Margulis, do not consider the Earth to be alive in the same way as humans or other living beings, the theory can be considered a scientifically-based alternative to overcoming the Western human-nature duality by emphasizing the mutual relationship and interconnectedness between humans and the planetary ecosystem. Fostering a responsive relation between human and nonhuman nature in external-material and internal-spiritual terms is also a crucial task for cities, their decision makers and residents.

Illustration by K. Artmann

Reconnecting urban residents to nourishing food

In material terms, it is difficult for the urban population to comprehensively understand and, in particular, to deeply experience multi-scale impacts of our consumptive decisions and routines, such as the destruction of the tropical forests. Most of the inner cities look similar, calling us to buy things — things we usually already have enough of — such as clothes and shoes and when we are hungry from shopping we can consume some hot dogs or sausages. In fact, food is a kind of metaphor for the challenges of human-nature alienation in cities, providing us with a creative and multi-level pathway for how we can achieve more sustainable connections between food and nonhuman nature.

On a material-collective level, issues such as food miles (describing how far food has travelled from its source of production to the consumer) of exotic food or deforestation of the tropical forest for meat production are relevant when exploring responsive human-food connections. That strengthening urban food production can be an effective leverage to foster urban sustainable development and food resilience in times of crisis (also becoming quite relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic, see also this blog-post), is recognized by a range of bottom-up and top-down activities bringing sustainable food consumption to the urban planning and policy table, such as shown through the Edible Cities Network. Edible cities and urban food production can be considered a systemic nature-based solution that addresses a range of challenges connected with urbanization such as fostering biodiversity, social cohesion and green jobs. Overall, bringing food back into cities is not only about strengthening ecologically sound food self-sufficiency, but also cognitively and emotionally reconnecting urban populations with food, thereby fostering pro-environmental food behaviour through an embodied perspective on human–nature connection.

Edible City Andernach. Photo: M. Artmann

Such an individual-embodied perspective can then also strengthen the establishment of a responsive relationship with food. Thus, we should internalize that food is nourishing us physically and spiritually. We put (more or less) nature-based food products into our body that nourishes us to stay alive. Shouldn´t we then reflect deeply upon what kinds of foods we are supplying our body with so that we can not only survive but feel alive? For instance, how was the food produced — was the vegetable nourished by healthy soils? Do we absorb the suffering of animals with the dead bodies we are consuming? Since cities are usually dependent on food imports outside their boundaries, there is a risk that urban residents are increasingly becoming disconnected from processes related with food production.

Thus, it is worthwhile to contemplate which key processes and situations have the potential to influence urban residents to transition to a plant-based, organic and regional diet, which are crucial pillars for sustainable food consumption. Potentially influential processes could include experiencing meat alternatives through an appealing choice of food in an urban restaurant (in fact, perceived availability of sustainable products is suggested to be crucial for nudging pro-environmental behaviour). For instance, in the cities of Dresden and Nuremberg, where we live, more and more vegan restaurants and coffee shops with delicious meals and cakes are emerging, which offer the opportunity to discover that a plant-based diet is very tasty and does not necessarily mean self-sacrifice. Besides tasting sustainable plant-based food, experiencing vegetable production through the physical engagement of urban gardening, for example, can become a crucially transformative process when we experience how much effort is needed to grow food, thereby motivating us to reduce food waste. Since animal-based food production in particular is usually placed outside the cities, we need to be aware how meat is produced at the expense of animals as sentient beings (see related to this topic this interesting ARTE-documentary (in German)). Thus, the current overconsumption of meat and milk products has crucial negative multi-scale effects on the environment and human health — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)  is therefore voting for plant-based diets.

To consume animal-based food is also an ethical and moral issue and it has to be discussed whether causing animal suffering for human desires is immoral. To inform urban residents about what precisely meat consumption entails, from farm to table to consumption, social awareness campaigns about the negative aspects of meat production in urban public spaces such as Anonymous for the Voiceless can be an important pillar for developing empathy regarding animals exploited for food production.

Overcoming the exploitation of non-human nature

In Western culture, from whose viewpoint we write this blog-article, cats and dogs are considered as a valuable part of our family, but when it comes to our daily food habits the brutal way we treat cows, pigs, and poultry so that we can acquire meat and milk-products shows the dark side of modern society and industrialized food production. An example to make the dimension of animal exploitation visible: In Germany, each day about 2 million animals are slaughtered. In contrast, in January 2021, on average 3,500 people died in Germany daily. If each day as many people would die as animals are slaughtered, Germany would have no population anymore in about 42 days. Is this extraordinary extent of killing animals that are subordinated to the will of humans ethically justifiable? Furthermore, is this exploitation of nonhuman nature not a logical explanation for the development of zoonotic pandemics as a response of nonhuman nature to the human caused socio-ecological crisis? In fact, according to a joint report by the United Nations Environment Programme and the International Livestock Research Institute, issues related to human-food connections such as the worldwide increasing demand for animal protein and industrial meat processing must be considered when discussing how we can decrease the risk for future zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19.

Illustration by K. Artmann

Developing a responsive connection to non-human nature

To explore responsive human-nature relations and the awareness of and empathy for all human and nonhuman members of the web of life, it is worthwhile to learn from indigenous communities and wisdom. The responsive characterization of human and nonhuman nature is interlinked in indigenous communities in the form of kin-centric ecology. In kin-centric ecology, one views oneself and nonhuman nature as members of an extended ecological family connected through spiritual and material life, their common ancestors, souls and the land holding intrinsic value to be respected and protected in the same manner as humans.

In the field of urban ecology, such as also shown in this TNOC-blog, a lot of effort is being made to emphasize the importance of urban nature experience for mental and physical health and psychological resilience, in particular during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, what could a responsive soulful human-nature connection in cities look like? A responsive nature experience does not include visiting urban nature with the intention of instrumentalising nature experiences such as recovering from a stressful day or increasing one´s personal fitness. Neither does it mean to reduce nature experience to an aesthetic quality and its passive “consumption”. When aiming at a responsive nature connection, mindful practices with a focus on listening to nature speak with her own voice is crucial. We personally have the impression that there is recently an increasing demand by urban residents to reawaken place-based spiritual practices and ceremonies to deeply reconnect with our and nonhuman nature’s soul.

For instance, in many German cities shamanic cacao ceremonies are offered. The raw cacao used for such ceremonies should not be mistaken with the industrial processed chocolate found in the supermarket. Raw unprocessed cacao usually tastes bitter and astringent compared to the sweet industrial chocolate processed with sugar and milk. Raw cacao can be considered a master and teacher plant, which was used and valued by indigenous communities for ritual and shamanic purposes, such as for weddings, sacrificial rituals, and currency. Legends of the Maya say that the cacao tree, its plants and seeds come to humans when they treat Mother Earth carelessly to re-establish the lost harmony. Maybe this lost harmony is the reason that a new strand of urban shamanism offers cacao rituals in cities? Mother cacao, which is also called the food of the gods, has with its chemical super food composition the potential to create heart-opening processes and moments of strong bonds. Embedded into an urban circle culture, its ritual use accompanied for instance with meditation or dancing, can offer participants of such rituals answers to specific questions, foster creativity or re-solve deadlocked emotions and patterns. In teachings, such as offered by the Earth School Berlin, urban residents can learn about cacao rituals, shamanic practices, inner and collective transformative capacities to re-establish deep connections with ourselves and the Earth.

Illustration by K. Artmann

Creating a multi-dimensional space to explore non-duality

Taking into account that the urgency of the present socio-ecological crisis demands to think — or better to feel — outside our rational-centered box, sustainability research on urban socio-ecological systems can take a deeper look at transdisciplinary strategies that strengthen our urban relational capacity for responsive human-nature relations. TNOC and its festival in February this year offered a great space to explore together with academic and non-academic methods how we can deeply experience, learn and feel human and nonhuman nature in material and immaterial spheres such as through poems, journaling or dancing. We were very happy that we got the chance to be part of this family with our session on soul and the city. Together with the session attendees we created a multi-dimensional space to explore the inner and external nature of cities. A crucial focus of the session was a meditation which we developed inspired by the Advaita Vedānta tradition found in Hindu philosophy referring to non-duality.

These are some major excerpts and stations of the meditative journey:

  • Point of departure: Think about a place in a city, for instance, a city you are living in, a city in which you had experience that shaped your life, an experience in a city, which touched you significantly. Stick with your first idea, your first feeling, which is popping up inside you without any judging.
  • Connecting with the urban environment: Feel inside the place. Maybe you can perceive a special smell, a sound next to your ear. Gradually start to move from the place you are. Slowly walk along the path, perceive how you are synchronically breathing with your steps. Take a look at the urban environment you are walking along, consciously observe how you feel at this place. In front of you there is a bench, slowly walk towards the bench and take a seat.
  • Connecting with urban residents: When you sit on the bench, take a closer look at the place that surrounds you. Are there any other people? What do they look like and what are they doing? Do they look relaxed or stressed, are they alone or in groups? Look into their eyes? What do you feel?
  • Becoming an urban animal: While you are observing your environment, you´ll see how a bird lands next to you on the bench. The bird is curious and is coming closer to you so you can look each other into your eyes. Maybe the bird would like to share something with you. You´ll start to establish a connection with the bird and then you perceive how you become the bird. It is very normal for you to become a bird, there are no doubt why you should not become a bird. You feel how you can spread your wings, how the wind is carrying you away from the bench, you move your wings up and down synchronically with your breath.
  • Connecting with an urban tree: You appreciate that you can effortlessly surf with the wind, you enjoy the silence, being one with the air. Looking down, you see a tree, the tree is a good old friend of yours and you land on your favourite part of the tree. You say hello to your friend, the tree is happy that you came around, so s/he can share some news with you. Just listen to her/his words without any judgement, how is the tree doing?
  • Becoming the urban wind: While the tree is chatting with you, you hear the wind touching the leaves from the tree, maybe the wind also brings some special smell to you or a sound. You feel how the wind has the same rhythm as your breath and heartbeat. You feel how you are becoming the wind. You say goodbye to your friend and you are roaming through the city, the streets, the urban nature, and the mystic cemeteries. You feel how you can expand yourself, how you can through your energy connect people, plants, animals, and buildings with each other.
  • Becoming one: Dive one more time in the feeling of oneness, allow yourself that this feeling is flowing through your being, let this energy nourish you with whatever you need. Connect again with your breath, slowly come back into your body.

Logo for our session at the TNOC-festival. Logo design: K. Artmann

Based on the meditation, we afterwards reflected on the experiences made and discussed ways of soulful relations in cities. The discussions showed that transdisciplinary approaches such as mystical and embodied experiences, journaling, mindfulness practices or storytelling can help to nourish our soul in the city and to experience urban nature as a sentient, soulful member of our kin. Motivated by the supportive feedback after the session, we got inspired to develop further activities for transdisciplinary conferences and festivals dealing with urban human-nature relations and sustainability transformation. For instance, in September this year we will offer a cacao-ceremony at the IOER Annual Conference 2021: Space & Transformation ‒ hopefully taking place in presence.

Martina Artmann and Katharina Artmann
Dresden and Nuremberg

On The Nature of Cities

Acknowledgement

Martina’s work is supported by the Leibniz Best Minds Competition, Leibniz-Junior Research Group under Grant J76/2019.

Kathi Artmann

About the Writer:
Kathi Artmann

Kathi Artmann studied Geography in Austria and design in Germany and today works as a texter, graphic designer, firedancer and hoop-dance-trainer. Her interests lie in processes of alienation and how they endanger coexistence in society. In her artistic works and movement workshops, she tries to encourage people to reconnect with themselves and their environment to visualize and heal alienation.

 

Southeast Asia’s Urban Future: A Snapshot of Kuala Lumpur

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

We found ourselves scrambling along the slippery, vine-entangled slope, ducking under branches and contorting ourselves around fallen trees. The air was hot and thick with humidity, causing us to sweat after just a few minutes on the trail. As we walked, the noise of the busy highway slowly subsided and the sounds of the rainforest could be heard in the breaks in our conversation. We stopped to look up at a large dipterocarp tree of the Shorea genus. Its straight trunk made it desirable for timber, we were told—one of the reasons so little of this type of forest remained.

For a green future in Kuala Lumpur, multiple actions need to be taken: from localized high-level policy frameworks, to harnessing residents’ love for nature.

From a small scar in the bark flowed an aromatic, sticky sap. We selected a picnic spot: a section of the trail just wide enough to spread a mat, but steep enough that we had to be careful not to drop our fruit lest it tumble down the slope in to the water below. From our vantage point above the lake, we watched as the inhabitants of the jungle revealed themselves. A Bee-eater flew quickly into view and perched on a branch. A kingfisher darted from one bank across to the other. A water monitor lizard glided gracefully through the turquoise water to the great delight of the children. This was a side of Kuala Lumpur that few visitors to the city would experience.

This artificial lake was created by diverting river flow around a new urban development of multi-storey apartments. It is within a piece of biodiverse, remnant rainforest.

As we wandered back through the forest, we caught a glimpse of the imposing residential apartment blocks not more than a kilometre away, which had been constructed just in the past year. It was these apartment blocks that had necessitated the diversion of the creek, resulting in the formation of the artificial lake we had followed. When we finally left the dense canopy behind and entered the clearing, we looked out to the new “eco-village”—a gated settlement of generic bungalows and green lawns surrounded by razor wire. It had been rolled out some years prior, across land that once was covered completely by the same dense rainforest we had walked through. This picture of contrast represents the interface between the city of Kuala Lumpur and the landscape beyond. It raises the question: what does sustainability mean in this city? And what kind of future can be expected here?

Kuala Lumpur: a city of contrasts

Asia is a hotspot for urban growth. In the coming decades, the population of Southeast Asia is expected to increase from 634 million in 2015 to a maximum of 804 million in 2065, and finally to decline to 769 million in 2100, based on 2015 UN modelling using a medium fertility estimate. Projections of urbanisation (based on 2014 UN modelling) suggest that by 2050, 65 percent of the population of Southeast Asia will be urban. Malaysia, in particular, is predicted to experience high rates of urbanisation, with 86 percent of the population projected to live within urban areas in the future. If urban sustainability is to be pursued on a global scale, progress in rapidly developing nations is going to be critical.

Greater Kuala Lumpur (including Kuala Lumpur the federal territory and surrounding municipalities) is a city of contrasts. It is a city of immense diversity, where a Muslim mosque, a Hindu shrine, a Christian church, and a Buddhist temple can be found in the same place.

Total population (both sexes combined) by Southeast Asian nations, annually for 1950-2100 (thousands). Modelling based on medium fertility variant, 2015 – 2100. Data from “United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2015). World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision”.

Annual Percentage of Population at Mid-Year Residing in Urban Areas. Singapore not plotted, as current population is 100% urban. Data from “Urban Areas by United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2014). World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision”.

This cultural and ethnic diversity is reflected also in the diversity of urban forms. The centre of the city contains some of the most impressive sky scrapers in the world, notably the Petronas Towers and the KL Tower. There are high end shopping malls and luxury apartments. Construction is occurring all around the city, including high density residential areas and intermediate density, planned estates. In Kuala Lumpur, new train stations and highways are being constructed all across the city in a move to help transport the growing population, while, in the meantime, roads are clogged with ever-increasing numbers of cars. The traffic chaos during much of the day in central Kuala Lumpur is a hallmark of the city, as it is for many developing nations (see Jenn Baljko’s recent post on Dhaka). The city of Putrajaya is the new federal administrative centre of Malaysia and is located just outside Kuala Lumpur. Constructed over marshland and oil palm plantations, people planned Putrajaya as a garden city according to Ebenezer Howard’s principles; 38 percent of the area is designated as green space and it is the home of Malaysia’s largest botanical gardens. With all this varied and diverse development, the question remains: What kind of a future is greater Kuala Lumpur is likely to experience, and what place is nature likely to have in it.

Kuala Lumpur is a city of great diversity, as seen by the many varied urban forms visible from the vantage point of the KL Tower.

To understand the future of Kuala Lumpur, the city needs to be considered in the context of Malaysia’s growth and development over time. Malaysia has developed rapidly over the past 50 years. In 1970, almost half of the population was living in poverty, yet this figure had dropped to only 1 percent in 2014, according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia. In this regard, Malaysia is a success story. But this increase in social and economic capital has come at a cost to its natural capital. Malaysia is a global biodiversity hotspot, ranking 12th in species richness and endemism globally. However, resource extraction and deforestation has resulted in a reduction in forest cover, from nearly 80 percent to 44 percent between 1940 and 2014

Malaysia is ambitiously pursuing future economic growth, with the Eleventh Malaysia Plan setting out a strategy for the country to be an “advanced nation” by 2020 through promoting “productivity and innovation”. Although one of the strategic thrusts of the plan is “pursuing green growth for sustainability and resilience”, there is a degree of scepticism amongst Malaysians as to the practical outworking of this plan. Greater KL’s current population of 7.2 million (2016) is set to increase to 10 million in 2020 – 2025 (according to Land Public Transport Commission (2013)), which will bring many more challenges related to green space availability and transport.

Different forms of housing and levels of affluence sit alongside one another in Kuala Lumpur.

Connections to nature and sustainability

During our recent time in Kuala Lumpur, our thinking wandered to the type of connections with nature that people in the city have and how these are likely to change over time. These thoughts have emerged from conversations with academics and community leaders, but are still loosely formed.

There has been little research on perceptions and behaviours towards urban nature in Malaysia. Some research has shown that distance to a nearby green space is very important in influencing frequency of use, along with ethnicity. A recent study also highlighted that Malaysian residents who grew up in rural contexts were much more likely to engage in nature-based activities as children than those whose childhoods were in an urban context. Experience of nature by people living in cities has been shown to be relatively uncommon in the U.K. Considering the increased rural-urban migration in Malaysia, what could this pattern mean for people’s experience of the natural world more generally? Might people become more disconnected from nature just as has happened in the West, or will people actively seek out nature experiences? And how might these experiences of urban nature influence their attitudes and behaviours towards the environment?

In Kuala Lumpur, a great deal of the new housing stock is in the form of master-planned, gated communities. The expansion of this development is threatening existing forest remnants, like the one we walked through for our picnic. Yet ironically, these are frequently sold as “eco” housing, or “green” communities because of the emphasis placed on the provision of communal green spaces within the estate. It appears that the environmental image is a powerful one in marketing terms, presumably because of the notions of freedom, space, and healthy living that it conjures. However, it is the wealthy and affluent residents of the city that are attracted to this type of housing. These are the same people who statistically consume more energy and resources than those in lower socio-economic classes. In contrast, the people who are moving from the countryside to the city typically reside in higher density areas, disconnected from nature experiences, yet their ecological footprints are likely to be much lower. A move to the city is considered a move towards financial independence; concrete and “development” are equated with progress. These dual narratives are a mere snapshot of the complexity of the nature of Kuala Lumpur. So what of the future of the city?

New medium-density “eco” development in the outskirts of Greater Kuala Lumpur in Semenyih.

Nature and the future of the city

Malaysia is at a crossroads. With strong economic prospects and rapid urban expansion, it is clear that decisions made in the coming years will shape the social and ecological future of the city greatly. Moreover, global connectivity between urban activities and changes in ecosystems elsewhere as a function of trade and consumption means that Kuala Lumpur’s development will impact the rest of the world. For a green future in Kuala Lumpur, multiple actions need to be taken. First, the high-level policy frameworks that promote “green growth”, such as the Eleventh Malaysia Plan, need to be operationalised at finer scales. Tangible strategies for curbing expansion of housing into remnant forest and promoting more green infrastructure in the city will be crucial. Second, the love for nature that many residents feel needs to be mobilised in a way that can shape the future of the city. Particularly for those who engage in nature-based activities, translating this passion into decision-making for parks and reserves will help to promote a sense of public ownership of these features. Finally, greater opportunities for residents and visitors to engage with urban nature will help to embed nature experiences in the culture of the city. Designing spaces that are easily accessible, yet provide mystery and opportunities for exploration, may help here. Malaysia is a country of immense biocultural diversity. We hope that this biocultural diversity will also be reflected in the country’s cities of the future.

Chris Ives and Alex Lechner
Nottingham and Kuala Lumpur

On The Nature of Cities


Alex Lechner

About the Writer:
Alex Lechner

Dr. Alex Lechner is a landscape ecologist and Assistant Professor at the School of Environmental and Geographical Sciences at the University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus.


Souvlaki Coyote and other Tales of Urban Wildlife

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

Much of the fabulous writing on The Nature of Cities blog site to date has focused on integrating the built and natural environment, erasing, or at least softening the lines that separate the natural and the manmade. I would like to shift focus a bit and explore the intersection between people and wildlife and suggest that we would also be wise to consider how we integrate animals into our urban stories, poems, art, culture and collective narrative. We need to bring the same level of creativity and imagination that we are currently investing in transforming our physical landscape into repopulating our mental landscape with the diversity of life that surrounds us.

In short, we need to do a better job telling animal stories  urban animal stories.

I am not talking here necessarily of ecology, biology and natural history, although ecological literacy is of critical importance. I am taking at least one step further back into the realm of mythology, legend and folklore, about how we tell and retell our own story in a way that truly recognizes wild beings as fellow travelers on our urban landscapes.

For many years I ran Portland Audubon Society’s wildlife hospital. There we treated upwards of 3,000 injured wild animals and responded to more than 15,000 wildlife related phone calls each year. The vast majority of both calls and animals emanated from the urban and suburban landscape. One of the indelible impressions from those years was how often somebody would walk into our center having taken significant time out of their busy day to deliver an injured animal, and ask us some variation on “what is it and why is it here?” They would insist that until that very morning, when the animal was dragged in by the cat or slammed into their kitchen window or collided with their car, they had never seen this creature in their neighborhood before. We would slowly open the box only to find ourselves eye to eye with…a crow…or a robin…or a scrub jay…or a fox squirrel. Often however, when the same people returned a few weeks later to pick-up the repaired animals for release, they would tell us that their neighborhood was suddenly teaming with never before seen wildlife. A connection was made…eyes were opened.

Fish art on downtown Portland, Oregon (USA) building, Photo by Bob Sallinger.

The human mind is good at filtering information and more than 35,000 years after humans first painted wild animals on cave walls, we have done a remarkable job of exorcizing wildlife from our consciousness. We don’t expect to see wildlife in our cities and therefore we don’t…until something or someone alters our expectations.

Those animals we treated at our hospital were sad and broken, but at the same time they also painted a rich tapestry of stories about how wild animals live and die in our urban landscape and how they interact with one another and with us. These stories are not the stuff of field guides, PhDs or wildlife management plans. They are funny and sad and weird and mysterious…sometimes they are mystical.

Raccoon as urban trickster. Photo by Michael Durham.

They are messy too.

If we restore it, critters will come, but we are not always sure what to do with them when they get here. Coyotes run off with cats, raccoons roll garbage cans, birds slam into windows, deer browse grandma’s flower beds, otters crack shellfish on the decks of high priced yachts…they are our own modern day tricksters.

Throw a high concentration of humans into the mix and the opportunities for mayhem increase exponentially. Among my favorite vignettes: the woman who wanted me to suggest a natural area to release her pet alligator. It was cute, apparently, when she bought it, but now it is three feet long, won’t stay in the bathtub and seems inclined to eat the kids and Chihuahua.

Apparently they don’t read the signs. Photo by Bob Sallinger.

The gentleman who graciously shared his hot tub with the neighborhood raccoons because “all the wetlands have been filled” and could not understand why the ungrateful little beasties decided to dismantle it one day while he was at work.

The lady from the Greek restaurant who delivered leftover souvlaki to a street corner in an upscale Portland neighborhood each morning to feed the local coyotes who promptly began associating all people with restaurant handouts.

Nursing moms who suckle orphaned raccoons (yes, really… and it happens more often than you might think!). Working on urban wildlife management issues is sometimes a bit like living inside of an extended “Far Side” cartoon.

A friend who works as an urban natural resource planner once told me that 90% of her job was trying to get people comfortable with “messiness.” She is right. A big part of the challenge before us is integrating messiness into a culture that increasingly prioritizes higher and higher levels of organization.

Souvlaki Coyote on the prowl in downtown Portland, Oregon (USA). Photo by Bob Sallinger.

Over time I came to realize that wildlife rehabilitation was about fixing broken animals, but it also was just as much about being a chronicler of the animals in our midst. I slowly realized that the succession of stories that I heard day in and day out were indelibly transforming my own mental map of the city. As I move about Portland now I can’t help but transpose those stories onto the landscape. That corner is where coyote loped across the highway and disappeared behind a bar….this fire escape is home to a pair of red-tails that sometimes bop high-rise construction workers that intrude upon their airspace…that bridge is where a pair of Peregrines have nested since 1994 and fledged 58 young…and so on.

Peregrine nesting on Portland Bridge. Photo by Bob Sallinger.

I can already hear the lamentations of my friends on the scientific community: “uou are talking about anthropomorphizing wildlifethat’s the last thing we need.”

Actually I am not.

I am after something different here.

How do we create stories that fundamentally reconnect our communities with the life forms that surround us? The types of stories that imbue our urban landscape with the magic, mystery, ambiguity, messiness…inspiration that comes with a recognition that we are not alone…we weren’t even here first.

Fledgling Peregrine exploring Portland’s industrial landscape on foot. Photo by William Hall.

Our lack of awareness plays out subtly as we consider policies to re-green our landscape. Too often our decision-makers and the community at large view wildlife as something we should consider adding as opposed to recognizing wild animals as something that has always been and will always be part of our urban landscape. In a city like Portland, which sits at the confluence of two great rivers, wild animals will continue to live upon and migrate through our landscape. The only question is whether we will provide for their needs when they are here.

There are signs of progress. I am intrigued by the proliferation of urban wildlife webcams. Several years back, Portland Audubon collaborated with a local television station and placed one above a pair or Red-tails that nest on a downtown fire escape and “Raptor Cam” was born. As something of a Luddite, I was initially skeptical and frankly appalled by the substitution of digital experience for direct experience.

Raptor Cam Red-tail on nest. Photo by Dieter Waiblinger.

Half a decade later, I see it differently. Each year the site gets nearly a million hits as people track these birds like a soap opera. They anticipate and celebrate and grieve and discuss and opine on line with one another. I hope and wonder if perhaps it causes them to look skyward more often when they actually are outdoors.

My friend Mike Houck of the Urban Greenspaces Institute (and who also writes on this blog) was after the same type of awareness when he commissioned a giant mural of our urban birds on an bare mausoleum wall overlooking Portland’s first natural area at Oaks Bottom and when he convinced a local brewery to name a microbrew after Portland’s official city bird, the Great Blue Heron.

Oaks Bottom Mural, Portland, Oregon, commissioned by Mike Houck. Photo by Nelson Photography.

I see it as well in books like Wildwood by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis which transforms Portland’s Forest Park into an impassible wilderness occupied by baby snatching crows and scheming coyotes. Even the television show Portlandia, with its ubiquitously referenced (at least in Portland) “Put a bird on it” sketch edges towards what I am after.

Wildwood by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis.

Restoring ecologically healthy cities will require the participation of a far broader cross-section of the urban population than is currently engaged, whether that is naturescaping backyards, reducing nighttime lighting to prevent migratory bird strikes, housing cats indoors, or funding green infrastructure. At Audubon we often talk about the conservation continuum of appreciation, understanding and action, but I think sometimes we skip a step, perhaps the most vital step, of simple awareness. I think we underestimate the degree to which the concept of “urban wildlife” remains an anomaly for much of the populace. People can’t care if they are not aware…

Wildlife of Portland Poster produced by Portland Bureau of Environmental Services http://www.portlandonline.com/bes/index.cfm?c=32184 to raise awareness of urban biodiversity

This site has attracted an amazing array of experts already but I hope as it continues to expand it can perhaps pull in some poets and storytellers. To that end I will leave those who have read this far with one of may favorite urban wildlife stories. It involves a crow named “Havoc” that I came to know several years ago. It has been more than a decade since I last saw him, but he has forever altered the way I look at crows.

One of Portland’s more unique residents was a crow appropriately dubbed “Havoc.” Havoc was discovered in downtown Portland where he spent his days drinking out of the Benson bubblers, dodging traffic and barking at blond women. Our best guess is that he had been illegally raised as a pet and then set free.

Eventually his antics resulted in his capture and delivery to Audubon’s Wildlife Care Center. Upon arrival, he immediately released himself from the confines of the pet carrier in which he found himself imprisoned, flew to nearest sink, turned on the faucet and had himself a nice, long, cool drink. Once satiated, he turned to the assembled staff and volunteers, gave three high pitched barks, “whoop, whoop, whoop,” and bowed.

Havoc lived at Audubon’s Care Center for a year during which he served as an education bird teaching kids about the importance of keeping wild animals wild. With a penchant for blondes, bathes, mice and mealworms, he quickly became a favorite of the general public. Generally he had the run of the place during the day but was caged at night—something he openly and vocally despised. He would greet us each morning by springing up and down in his cage like some manic, feathered pogo stick. Failure to satiate his ever-changing desires quickly resulted in what only can be described as a vindictive temper-tantrum, a full-fledged squawking, shrieking, food flying, ankle pecking, crow freak-out. His tastes were expensive too—one day I turned to find him removing the prism from a five hundred dollar ophthalmoscope.  

Several months after arriving Havoc decided to test out what it was like to be free again—my suspicion is that he was thinking about it for quite some time because he waited until several doors were simultaneously open and then launched himself through a succession doorways and out into our sanctuary. A short while later we began receiving reports of an oddly vocal crow down by the creek that runs through our property.

The creek was running high and muddy from winter rains and perched in the middle on a barely exposed rock was Havoc. Upon seeing us, he immediately leapt off the rock and made like some sort of mutant dipper, dunking himself completely below the surface and then reappearing to preen and make sure that we were still there watching. Each time we moved toward him, he inched away. It was about the time that we were about to leave him to his freedom that a particularly large swell in the creek caught him off-guard. The sight of the distraught crow tumbling beak over claw down the creek surfacing occasionally to gurgle out a forlorn shriek was matched in absurdity only by the foolish human who dove in after him and emerged on the opposite bank muddy, drenched, ungrateful biting crow firmly in hand.

He was sent for a short time to live at Oregon State University where he participated in a study of captive crows. The professor in charge arranged for a cohort of blond coeds to visit Havoc on a daily basis to keep him reasonably entertained. I have always wondered about how many times the professor in charge got turned down before he found students willing to participate. “So, I have this crow that likes blonds and I was hoping you might be able to swing by my lab about 3 pm…” Havoc eventually returned to Audubon, irascible as ever.

Eventually Havoc was set free on a property at the edge of the urban growth boundary where the neighbors were apprised and accepting of a somewhat odd bird. He spent many months in the vicinity perfecting the art of pushing azalea pots off porches and showing up uninvited at local barbecues.

One day Havoc was sighted keeping company with other crows. However, when the flock left to roost Havoc was left behind, apparently absorbed in watching a man fly his model airplane in the field below. As time wore on his interactions with the flock increased. The last known Havoc sighting was at a local school. A man working in the school basement turned to find Havoc barking at him from the window well. That was just around sunset. The next morning the flock had moved on and Havoc was nowhere to be found.

Bob Sallinger
Portland, Oregon
USA

Sowing the Seeds of Green Urbanism: ‘Spring is Here and the Time is Right for Planting in the Streets’

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

A review of The Revolutionary Urbanism of Street Farm: Eco-Anarchism, Architecture and Alternative Technology in the 1970s, by Stephen E. Hunt. 2014. ISBN 978-1-906477-44-8. Tangent Books, Bristol. 246 pages, including 16 pages of illustrations.

Street Farm cover
Front cover image adapted by Joe Burt from poster by Paul Downton originally in Rotring ink pen drawn for Street Farm’s visit to Cardiff in 1973 and inspired by their collage work.

Visions of cities draped in vegetation are now de rigueur for any architect, planner or urbanist who wants to lay claim to any kind of green mantle. But in the early 1970s—when environmentalism had no eye to the city except to see it as an abomination—and demands for insulation and double glazing in buildings was challenging the conceptual comfort zone of the average architect, the Street Farm vision was almost obscenely green. They wanted to plough the streets! To transform banal highrise office towers into fantastical forms consumed by vegetation gone wild! As an architecture student at the time, I loved it! And, I confess, I still do, so news of this book and the opportunity to make a small contribution to it rekindled all that old excitement. Reading the book caused the flames to rise again.

Author Stephen Hunt is from a humanities background and isn’t trained in architecture or planning—or ecology. His specialism is radical history, and this book records just that: a radical history of some of the most influential pioneers in the field of what the protagonists themselves called ‘revolutionary urbanism.’ Noting that ‘Radical history learns from the past to inform the present and inspire the struggle for the future,’ Hunt saw his project as ‘an unparalleled opportunity to look at the ideas of a unique grassroots activist group and to help understand the intersection between alternative architecture, the counterculture and the ecology movement in the 1970s.’

Street Farm paved the way for an approach to urbanism that is simultaneously playful and trenchantly critical.

Hunt is an advocate of oral-history interviews ‘as a method for revealing the overlooked experiences of unofficialdom,’ and was keen to capture directly remembered experiences of a part of a remarkable period in western cultural history. It was the time of the first Club of Rome report on Limits to Growth. The Internet had barely been invented, photocopiers had barely begun to have an impact and mechanical typewriters were the norm. It was a time of foment and the atmosphere in the student world was febrile and charged with the idea that radical, creative political change was not only necessary, but possible. It can be difficult, now, to appreciate the disenchantment felt by young people about the state of the world at that time. Paris had undergone near-revolutionary uprisings in 1968. The shadow of the atom bomb stretched across the entire political landscape. Environmental concerns were making headlines and affecting public discourse for the first time. ‘The Limits to Growth’ was published in 1972, the same year Street Farmhouse was built (and both predated the 1973 ‘Oil Crisis’).

There are now twice as many people on the planet, energy costs have continued to rise and the planet’s tree cover has halved, but almost every new architectural project claims to be ‘sustainable.’ The term has usurped ‘ecological,’ but I would argue that the latter contains more meaning, as it embraces the language of living systems. Hunt tells us that a flag with a clenched green fist flew from the top of the polyhedral greenhouse which was part of Graham Caine’s Street Farmhouse, built after securing temporary planning permission on the playing fields of Thames Polytechnic in Eltham, London, by Caine and friends between September and December 1972. The project ‘hit national and international headlines as the first structure intentionally constructed as an ecological house.’ It was the first time the term ‘Ecological House’ had been applied to a dwelling. It has had enduring influence on people such as eco-architecture pioneers Brenda and Robert Vale—and myself.

Caine was supported in his endeavours by Alvin Boyarsky in his role as chair of the Architectural Association, a school of architecture known for both the high quality of its programs and for possessing a long and illustrious tradition of supporting radical and challenging ideas in architecture and design. Begun when he was age 26, Caine and his partner lived in the house for the two years while Caine still a student. He later abandoned pursuit of an architectural qualification in favour of ‘pursuing the betterment of the planet’—one reason, perhaps, that he is not in the notable alumni list in the Architectural Association’s Wikipedia entry.

The eco-house was featured in the U.K. magazine ‘Undercurrents’ and in ‘Mother Earth News’ and in various other publications at the time, including the influential counter-cultural book ‘Radical Technology’ (eds. Godfrey Boyle and Peter Harper 1976). Street Farm’s contemporaries included The New Alchemists, ‘fellow anarchists with similar underlying principles,’ who built the Cape Cod Ark Bioshelter in 1976. In conversation with the book’s author, Graham Caine stated that, to him, ‘an ecological house was about a biological system, so it had an ecology going on within it… it was about experiencing yourself as part of nature.’

Street Farm formed as a small group of radical, like-minded architecture students—Graham Caine, Peter Crump and Bruce Haggart—who, like Pink Floyd back in the heady days of the late 60s and early 70s, were dissatisfied with the status quo and set out to change it. The ‘Floyd focused on music, the ‘Farm took aim at the largest, most complex creations in the human universe—cities. Placing themselves at the most radical end of the counter-cultural spectrum, Street Farm linked the personal with the political and the philosophical. The spirit of Street Farm was that of the Situationists, one of whose favourite slogans was ‘Be realistic. Demand the impossible!’ In the 1950s, the Situationist International developed ‘Unitary Urbanism,’ a critique of status quo urbanism that informed much of future Situationist thinking and which rejected a functionalist approach to urban architectural design and the compartmentalisation of art away from its surroundings. In Paris in 1968, through slogans and graffiti, these ideas gained a kind of popular currency with widely repeated phrases such as ‘Sous les pavés la plage’ (‘Under the paving, the beach’—which was also a reference to the fact that the cobblestones torn up to be used as weapons against the police in street riots were laid on sand). Such imagery simultaneously reflects the idea of the city as a blanket stifling the natural world, and as a potential place of imagination and liberation. Such powerful themes can be seen in Street Farm’s playful, sometimes deliberately amateurish ‘anti-graphics,’ in which sheep overrun city streets, tractors plough the roads between terraced houses and the ‘urban alchemy’ of creative vandalism leads to streets being transformed into new age villages.

Street Farm rebelled against the system but, because the system is all-embracing and brooks no real escape, they worked within its constraints with sufficient alacrity to deliver genuinely fresh ideas and to produce the first eco-house alongside some of the earliest attempts to reimagine the city as a place of fecund biological activity rather than sterile, technological imagery. Street Farm were the antidote to Archigram, nascent technocrats brewing at the same time in the same school of architecture, who purveyed images of cities as slick, mechanical devices, even walking machines. In an attempt to break down the traditional walls of alienation associated with architecture, Street Farm used multi-media in their presentations at a time when that meant slide projectors and tape recorders. Adopting the roles of entertainers and jesters, they created ragged montage-rich movies and their magazines made extensive use of collage—all to convey the message that architecture and cities could be reclaimed by people through revolutionary direct action, that alienation could be overcome. They drew upon Murray Bookchin and on the Situationist critique of consumerism, the ‘society of the spectacle’ and the potential to remake the urban environment through popular, creative, subversive play.

Many strands of environmental concern can be traced back to movements and ideas that arose in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but ‘green urbanism’ is rarely mentioned. The ideas of Street Farm were radical but are now almost routine—every week sees more images of urban buildings splattered and trailing with vegetation in a way that almost mimics the cartooned proposals of Street Farm to simultaneously undermine and remake the city by planting seeds to encourage rampant vegetation. Their vision included planting seeds to change the way living and managing cities took place, as part of a whole remaking of the economic and social order in favour of workers’ control, self-determination and autonomy from the state. At a time when most of the publications of the counter-culture seemed to be all about back-to-the-land romanticism, Street Farmer One proclaimed itself ‘an intermittent continuing manual of alternative urbanism,’ calling out that ‘Spring is here and the time is right for planting in the streets.’ In the ‘road not travelled’ that the counter-culture promised, one can find countless examples of failure, but also examples where it provided the fuel and impetus for changes that have made their way into the DNA of the mainstream. This is one of those examples and it still resonates over four decades later.

SF1 p19
Street Farmer One, page 19. Image: http://streetfarm.org.uk

Hunt’s interest in the group seems to have been very personal. He was inspired by the need to document the people and ideas that made the counter-cultural 1960s and early 1970s so fecund and fascinating, to show how so much of what we now take for granted in the realm of mainstream ideas can be traced back to initiatives and inventiveness that characterised the best of those years, and to capture something of the spirit and intentions of the times before they melt away into the ether and are lost with the passing of the characters who made it all happen. In this, he has done an excellent job. By concentrating on the activities of a small, almost forgotten group who were extremely active in their day, he provides a snapshot of their concept of ‘revolutionary urbanism’ that delivered ‘a toolbox for practical change’ which could be used in pursuit of the ‘desire for liberation in the nature and quality of our daily lives…and…a transformation of the visual appearance, sound and smell, the texture and ambience of the urban environment’.

Hunt puts it in a nutshell: ‘Taking inspiration from Situationism and social ecology, Street Farm offered a powerful vision of green cities in the control of ordinary people.’ (Think Paris 1968 and anarchist philosopher, later ‘municipal libertarian,’ Murray Bookchin). Their concept of urbanism was about social liberation, but integral to it was ‘a reconsideration of the human relationship with other species and their habitats.’

Street Farm’s narrative consistently advocated an urbanism based on community and, as Hunt observes, were exponents of ‘community architecture’ long before the term was coined. Cities are fundamentally about community and require co-operation and shared endeavour before anything can be built. In many ways, cities are the antithesis of the kind of Ayn Rand individualism that is sometimes mistaken for anarchism. Anarchism is arguably the most misunderstood and maligned of any political philosophy. It conjures up images of chaos, lawlessness and disorder. Although anarchism does mean ‘absence of government,’ it does not mean absence of order, anymore than chaos in nature means there is no order in the patterns assumed by natural processes.

Cities are complex, highly organised structures made up of countless unpredictable individuals, each with a personal agenda made up of needs and wants, informed by circumstance and whatever knowledge each possesses, yet collectively, people are predictable. Can anarchists make cities? Surely, cities require leadership? Street Farm provided a kind of leadership, demonstrating the ethos that leaders should offer concrete solutions to real problems and proffer working models of what can be achieved, but should not lay claim to membership of any kind of pantheon. In this model of leadership, skills, ideas and organisation are made available for as long as they are needed without dynastic tendencies or attempts to cement the leaders themselves into a permanent power structure.

Mikhail Bakunin, founder of ‘social anarchism,’ is famous for claiming that ‘the urge to destroy is a creative urge.’ That can be understood as another way of saying we’ve got to get rid of dead wood. A number of people would argue that on a planet where the very survival of our species is threatened by anthropogenic climate change, the urge to destroy the hegemony of coal and oil companies is an entirely creative urge. Even then, that process of destruction demands that people work collectively to achieve it; they cannot be in constant opposition to one another. Street Farm’s creative urge offered images of destroyed cities, but these were existing cities transmogrified—a favourite Street Farm term—from lifeless piles of concrete into places reinvigorated by nature, covered with vegetation and, crucially, under the direct control of their citizens.

Advocates of green cities and ecological urbanism might wonder where their ideas come from or not care at all. But I hope they will understand that if they are to succeed in shifting the culture, a memory helps. Henry Ford may have claimed that ‘History is bunk,’ but for a culture to lose its sense of history is like a person losing his or her memory. The person might still function at a basic level, but loses nuances, sense of meaning, purpose…and, most of all, can’t learn from past mistakes or successes. When Street Farm advocated alternative (renewable) energy, they drew from Bookchin and made the crucial distinction that they were proposing the use of liberatory technology… ‘a technology that will change the existing situation,’ whereas ‘alternative technology is one that will make the existing situation more tolerable.’

In many ways, it is possible to discern Street Farmer sensitivities in much of the best of modern practice and theory in regard to urban systems. Hunt argues that their revolutionary view of the nature of cities was an expression of ‘an ecological sensitivity that aspires to human interaction with the natural environment and other species and looks to confront and abolish the urban/rural divide.’

Street Farm paved the way for an approach to urbanism that is simultaneously playful and trenchantly critical, whilst putting forward ideas about what cities should be like that encompass social justice and revolutionary change, and ceding a central place to the fecundity of nature and the energy of community. That’s no small vision, especially considering that they were active at a time when environmentalism was pessimistic to the point of being ‘doomful’—which was a reasonable response to the increasingly informed analysis, exemplified by Limits to Growth, which warned of ecological and thence social collapse without major shifts in the patterns of industrial civilisation. That those warnings were not heeded is an historical fact, that the general gist of the warnings was correct is disputed with the same fervour that some apply to denying that the Nazis designed and manufactured the Holocaust. Hunt rightly points out that Street Farm were not ‘doomful.’ Their critiques and analysis of the dominant paradigms of capitalism and its consequences in the creation of modern cities wasn’t cheerful—how could it be?—but their solutions were marvelously creative, positive and joyful to anyone who could see past conventional prejudices.

SF1 p16
Pre-internet. Prescient. Street Farmer One, page 16. Image: http://streetfarm.org.uk/

Hunt concludes with a chapter that includes the offer of ‘an index of possibilities’ for how a revolutionary urbanism might be realised. This is an entirely legitimate exercise but it interrupts the flow of his otherwise immensely readable narrative by being in the form of a slightly clunky, annotated list of nineteen items like ‘Ecological awareness’ and ‘Thoughts to street furniture’ that could have been presented better in an appendix. The rest of his concluding chapter would have read well without this in its middle, and perhaps could have avoided the question of whether a list that included the ‘Rational organisation of space’ had quite the Situationist timbre that the topic deserves and that, otherwise, the book conveys well.

This book will be of particular interest to anyone with an interest in the lineage of ideas that have informed the movements towards ecological design, eco-architecture and green cities. Those with an interest in radical politics will find it a comprehensive and very digestible study of one of the ‘lost treasures’ of the counter-culture. This thoughtfully illustrated book may favourably dispose the reader towards the concept of transmogrification and it should be read by anyone interested in efforts to refresh, remake or reimagine the nature of our cities.

Paul Downton
Adelaide

On The Nature of Cities

Sparrow, Our Constant Friend

Many voices. Greener cities. Better cities.

A review of: Sparrow by Kim Todd. 2012. 192 pages. ISBN 978-1-86189-875-3. Reaktion Books, London. Buy the book.

Picture the basic bird, the stripped-down, super-efficiency model, and a sparrow probably comes to mind.
Sparrows are everywhere! They are varied in types and forms, offering a unique repertoire of opportunities to get to know and assess them, from their scientific study to the most diverse artistic interpretations. In Sparrow, award-winning, science and natural history writer Kim Todd, journeys through the “sparrow” concept in revealing ways.

As an urban ecologist, I’ve studied the house sparrow, the “agrarian” (as we call it in some Mexican regions), for over a decade now, and had never been aware of the infinity of human expressions related to sparrows in general. In this book, Todd gathers an impressive cumulus of facts, stories, and references to the generic concept of “sparrow” together with an exquisite palette of artwork by artists from around the globe.

It’s hard to generalize about sparrows”, Todd argues while transiting spontaneously between their natural history, ecology, distribution, related art, references in stories and books, and shifting species to present different sparrows to the reader, making this book feel like an encyclopedia of sparrows.

House sparrows are not picky (…) They are risk-takers.” Given their boldness, broad diet, and feeding and breeding strategies and behaviors, they have become one of the most successful invasive birds of the world. Albeit the current perception of the sparrow is, overall  positive, it has not been so throughout time. Todd comprehensively reviews the metaphoric use of the sparrow concept in texts and shows that it has been associated with a wide array of perceptions that range from death to love and desire.

But sparrows have not only been on our minds and books, they’ve also been in our crosshairs and on our tables! Haunting images of sparrow hunting together with impressive data on their culinary use color Chapter 2, Sold for Two Farthings. One generally unknown fact related to sparrow massacre is summarized in this book: the massive killing of sparrows (together with rats, mosquitoes, and flies) in Mao’s Great Leap Forward sought to make China competitive industrially with Western nations. “Nature was the enemy of progress, and China would fight back with its most potent weapon—its large population.”

Cover image. U.S. Department of Agriculture leaflet, Kalmbach, E.R., 1931.

I must confess that, given my interest in the invasion of the house sparrow and its ecological effects in North America, my favorite part of the book is Chapter 4, The Sparrow War. Briefly, this section reviews the reasons behind the idea of introducing birds, including the “English sparrow” in New England. “Slowly, notes of doubt began to creep in. In 1867, Dr  Charles Pickering gave a talk at the Boston Society of Natural History, warning of the evils of these introductions.” With a detailed walk-through of the social and environmental process, Todd describes the realization that bringing the sparrow to the New World was not a great idea at all.

By the end of the book, Todd describes the current history of house sparrow studies focused on its ecology and traits that make it an incredibly successful invader, as well as its role in contemporary art, including poetry and photography. “One reason for the sparrow’s success appears to be its flexibility in terms of behavior, particularly when moving to a new place. (…) All of these traits combine to make a very hardy bird. ‘They are survivors’, says researcher Denis Summers-Smith, who is known as the ‘sparrow guru.’

The final chapter emphasizes the environments that sparrows face at present, during the so-called Anthropocene. With the extinction of the dusky seaside sparrow, Todd’s view always contextualizes both the facts and the social perceptions. Finally, the current house sparrow paradox is set on the table, with it being a hyperabundant invasive bird in North America and with declining populations throughout Western European cities. Such a scenario is really intriguing, as no precise answer exists to date to solve the riddle.

To end with a golden snap, Todd wraps this singular piece with a Timeline of the Sparrow, going from “A sparrow ancestor begins to radiate out from the African tropics” 1 million BCE, to “House sparrows join the list of UK’s ‘Birds of Conservation Concern’” in 2002, providing a brilliant temporal synthesis of the book.

Ted R. Anderson’s 2006 Biology of the House Sparrow: From Genes to Populations gave us the first comprehensive radiography of the species from the natural sciences lens. With Todd’s Sparrow, we now have a thorough, yet subtle, expedition through the sparrow concept in an accessible book woven with natural history and cultural knowledge as approachable guiding threads.

Ian MacGregor-Fors
Xalapa

On The Nature of Cities

To buy the book, click on the image below. Part of the proceeds return to TNOC.