The New Urban Agenda, being adopted at Habitat III, requires a coherent and legible global urban scientific community to provide expertise to direct and assess progress on urban sustainability transformations. As we have commented in Nature’s special section on Habitat III, the urban research community is currently institutionally marginalized and poorly prepared to interact effectively with global urban science policy platforms. We have five specific recommendations for the urban scientific community to support the global urban agenda and successfully implement this New Urban Agenda, or NUA, after Habitat III.
The battle for sustainability will be won or lost in cities (NUA, 2016). Every twenty years, the UN convenes a major cities conference. The third, Habitat III—addressed in various places elsewhere on TNOC—opens in mid-October in Quito, Ecuador, to adopt a global framework for transforming cities toward sustainability—the so-called New Urban Agenda (or NUA). This is significant because it is the first major international convening following the 2015 UNFCCC COP21 Paris Agreement on climate, the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction and, critically, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the associated Sustainable Development Goals (or SDGs). The success of these multilateral agreements rests on catalyzing complex transformative change across the global system of cities—a tall order for international processes.
Unlike the aforementioned global policy processes, where the views from science were central to making the case for change, the voices of experts in Habitat III have been largely disregarded. One explanation is that, throughout the drafting process, the role of science was organizationally subsumed by that of civil society as part of the Global Alliance of Partners (or GAP). Also, during the penultimate drafting of the NUA in Surabaya in late July, negotiators dropped the proposed Multi-Stakeholder Panel, which would have included scientists, as a formal mechanism for implementing the NUA (NUA 2016). However, the urban research community itself may bear some responsibility for its marginalization in Habitat III. We are often a disparate “community” lacking the level of international coordination of, say, the climate or ecological research communities, which have developed over decades thanks to strong professional networks.
We argue that the case for a powerful and independent urban science policy interaction rests on the dire implications of failing to understand or respond to scientific evidence of the cumulative and accelerating pace of increasingly urban-driven development processes and consequent global environmental change. This change, the Great Urban Acceleration, lies at the heart of the sustainable development opportunity. It is also well understood by the drafters of the NUA, as is a general awareness that this is a critical window of opportunity to make cities pathways for transitions towards sustainable development (Revi & Rosenzweig 2013).
The product of consensual politics, the Habitat III agenda espouses a welcome and important holistic perspective. It is also, however, both hugely ambitious and too vague to be of immediate practical value: the mechanisms for catalyzing rapid transformation in individual cities or city systems are entirely absent (Cohen, 2016). Rapidly shifting urban conditions and the catalytic role of cities in sustainability mean that over the 20-year policy cycle of Habitat III, some review and recalibration will be imperative. Habitat III attendees are actively engaging with the challenges of linking scientific knowledge to participatory solutions via an innovative science-policy interface, but much work will need to follow the conference itself. We argue that if the NUA fails to establish a satisfactory science policy interface through the Habitat III process, an alternative means must be found for ensuring urban goals are informed by scientific knowledge.
The Great Urban Acceleration: global sustainability hinges on urban sustainability
Urban development pathways will continue to dominate global change (Grimm et al., 2008). In the next 30 years, there will be more urban areas built—largely in Africa and Asia—than in the whole of history combined, driving demand for urban infrastructure, roads, pipes and mobile technology, food, energy, water, and housing, and shifting the burden of disease (UN 2014). Urban sprawl, the least sustainable of all growth strategies, is evident across all the major regions of the world (Seto et al. 2011). Settlement expansion puts tremendous pressure on immediate and displaced biophysical environments to sustainably supply services critical to urban livelihoods (Elmqvist et al. 2013).
Cities are significant sites of resource depletion and climate-induced risk. For example, recent flood disasters in the United States (2005, 2008, 2012), the Philippines (2012, 2013), and Britain (2014) have demonstrated increasing vulnerability of coastal and riparian cities to storm surge flooding, with US$ trillions of assets at stake (Aerts et al. 2014). At the same time, simply meeting the demand for urbanization will exhaust any reasonable chance of success of staying within the 2015 Paris Agreement’s carbon budget.
Many of these upward trends are accelerating, including climate change in cities, infrastructural investment, land use and land cover change, inequality in health and income, and urban population expansion (Figure 1). While any one of these challenges alone requires ambitious action that must begin immediately to reduce risk, as well as to improve urban livelihoods and environmental sustainability, the challenges also intersect and influence each other, requiring a more complex urban system approach to cities to elucidate scientifically validated pathways for more desirable urban futures. Yet, cities are often engines of innovation (Glasser 2011); to date, the most progress is being made on climate change (Revi et al. 2014, Seto et al., 2014, Rosenzweig et al. 2010) and other sustainability goals (UNEP 2016, Kanuri et al. 2016) in cities.
Figure 1: Cities and urban areas will house nearly all of the world’s net population growth over the next two decades, with 1.4 million people added to urban areas each week (UN 2014), equal to roughly the population of Stockholm. Cities are engines of national and global growth, accounting for 80 percent of global economic output. In China, four city-clusters account for nearly half of China’s GDP (Shao et al. 2006). Cities are also key drivers of global energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for around 70 percent of both (IEA 2008). Meanwhile, urban land area could triple globally from 2000 to 2030 (Seto et al. 2012). This is equivalent to adding an area larger than Manhattan every day. Accelerating urban development boosts private consumption (Dobbs et al. 2008) and requires significant infrastructure, including carbon intensive manufacturing and construction, which consume massive quantities of concrete and steel, particularly in early phases of urbanization (Güneralp 2016; Wang 2007).
Rapid urbanization represents one of the biggest social transformations in human history (e.g., Bai et al. 2014). Cities display emergent properties, have dynamics that are nonlinear and often far from equilibrium, have a rapacious appetite for energy (Batty 2008), and are thus difficult to plan, manage, and govern. Drawing on the evidence from diverse conditions around the world, the essentially urban characteristics of sustainability are, however, increasingly understood (OECD, 2016; Simon 2016). Developing an urban science with methods and tools that, while sensitive to context, can address the social, ecological, and technical infrastructural complexity of urban systems is key to advancing the goals of improving urban sustainability, livability, social equity, and resilience, especially at the global scale (McPhearson et al. 2016).
The New Urban Agenda
The NUA negotiations reveal the difficulty of the UN in accommodating inputs from non-state actors, including the research community. The Habitat III preparatory process drew on a system of expert panels and a General Assembly of Partners, and early drafts of the NUA made provision for a Multi-Stakeholder Panel (or MSP) for ongoing extra-state engagement with UN structures. It seems that the MSP, the only possible placeholder for a more formal science-policy engagement in the NUA, was cut because European Union members and other high-income countries were concerned at the cost of funding such a broad mechanism, while there were wider concerns about the precise mandate of the MSP in monitoring and evaluation. Science was not the only casualty of the excision of the MSP in Surabaya and the latest drafts of the NUA still lack clarity on how local governments—absolutely critical stakeholders in the sustainability transition—will engage the global urban agenda.
Meaningful implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and revision of the NUA and related SDGs will require coordinated and sustained research evidence from the scientific community (including natural scientists, social scientists, humanities scholars, practitioner scholars, and professionals). Implementation also requires the urban scientific community be organized, representative, and seen as legitimate if it is to provide necessary input to any emergent science-policy platform.
The development of a coherent global urban scientific community is therefore one of the most critical, and currently missing, components of achieving the NUA. Habitat III must demand that the urban scientific community organize itself to meet the needs of the NUA and ensure its integration into the wider global urban agenda.
Lack of a coherent urban science
Despite having played a critical role in articulating the need for a global urban policy agenda in the SDGs and the development of the NUA, the urban scientific community is not coherent, organized, or legible (Parnell, Crankshaw and Acuto 2016). This lack of coherence makes it currently impossible for there to be inclusive scientific input into any global science-policy platform for achieving the goals of the NUA and related SDGs. This lack of disciplinary and methodological coherence is compounded by the context-specific nature of urban research and solutions. For example, African urbanization trajectories can be very different from those in Asia or in the Americas (Bloom et al. 2008). Most urban scientific research and academic institutions are located in the Global North and/or large cities, while some of the most pressing urban challenges are in the Global South and in small- to medium-sized cities. Additionally, cities are a growing locus for scientific research and have enormous influence on one another, especially at regional (but also global) scales. Beyond Europe, where the regional urban system is fairly well understood, scientists have so far mostly failed to address cities at the regional scale.
Given the geographical diversity of cities and the complexity of issues encompassed by the urban question, it is unsurprising that there has been a proliferation of scholarly communities engaging in sustainable urban development. Taken as a whole, urban science is mostly not inter- or trans-disciplinary in theory, method, or data, and existing resources are not aligned with areas of the greatest need.
In brief, the research community, located both within and outside of academia, is heterogeneous and unevenly distributed worldwide in terms of depth, resourcing, and especially in interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary experience. The skills of drawing together and synthesizing the multiple sources of urban knowledge that must inform global urban policy are in short supply, but are essential in view of the complexity of urban processes and phenomena. Paradoxically, experience in working with complexity is commensurately greater in countries of the Global South than in the North, where academic institutional practices and research evaluation processes frequently reinforce disciplinary barriers on the ground, and foster narrow specialization that is antithetical to addressing complex urban problems across sectors and scales.
A new urban science
Achieving the SDGs and the NUA requires that the global urban scientific community come together to develop a new urban science, including new institutions, new funding mechanisms, and new research agendas to support fresh knowledge generation on the urban transition. Scientists must expand primary research in little studied and rapidly changing urban contexts, as well as developing a new urban systems science aligning and responding to emerging, evidence-based policy needs. Setting aside the self-evident imperative of the need for a fundamental expansion of Southern urban research capacity and funding, which will take time and considerable resources to resolve, reforms for building an inclusive global urban scientific community and developing a new urban science could be achieved more rapidly and would have immediate and positive impact for policymakers. Several approaches for attaining these aims have been considered.
One model advocated during NUA negotiations is an urban equivalent of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (or IPCC), designed to lend independence and authority by weighing the accumulated evidence in recent scientific and grey literatures. However, the intergovernmental nature of the IPCC has proved burdensome in recent years, with cumbersome processes and arrangements, increased difficulty in ensuring integration between the Working Groups, and escalating workloads and travel for Working Group members.
The sustainable urban development agenda is broad and, while focused on the NUA, also cuts across the entire UN system. Urban scientists don’t necessarily agree on the most important research questions, which limits the possibilities of an IPCC-like body to advise global and local policymaking. For example, the IPCC began with clear aims to establish the magnitude and impact of climate change, and to understand the drivers and the response strategies. Urban system challenges require a much more complex and interrelated set of questions about equity, justice, climate resiliency, economic opportunity, infrastructure development, ecological restoration, and more.
One strength of the IPCC is that it has helped focus a strong, internationally coordinated research community. IPCC findings, however, require clearance by member governments—an assessment of cities may require an even more torturous, sub-national clearance level, and may generate political tensions from opposition-run Councils. Crucially, too, the IPCC does not undertake new research, but rather collates and assesses the existing literature. Given the paucity of published scholarship on the cities of the Global South, adoption of the IPCC process might inadvertently reinforce current distortions and further encourage inappropriate interventions. We believe, moreover, that an IPCC-like model will probably move too slowly to address the urgency of urban social and environmental challenges, and would limit the need for fundamentally new urban system research.
The NUA and related SDGs require new research that is more credible both thematically and geographically. The researchers, therefore, will need to be on the ground in different locales for differing durations, often working collaboratively and integratively with local, regional, and national governments (Simon et al. 2016), and coordinating with the practitioner scholars within these levels of government to maximize the benefits of their research—none of which lends itself to an IPCC-like mechanism.
Beyond city limits
We propose 5 key steps for science to support the global urban agenda, including implementation of the NUA:
1. Build global urban science. The urgency of urban growth issues demands the building of a new urban science and a rapid change in research and institutional organization. As a starting point, we recommend that a global urban scientific body be formed to address issues of science pertaining to the urban question in the post 2030 agenda. This could take the form of an urban scientific network of networks based on (or amalgamate of) existing global networks with a strong science policy commitment. These existing networks include urban clusters with the IPCC, IPBES, UN-Habitat, the United Nations Environment Programme, the Future Earth Cities Knowledge Action Network (KAN), and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. The final form of a new, coordinated, and legible global urban scientific community should be developed in consultation with scientists, professional societies, and urban knowledge holders at all levels. This will take time but can start with scientific leaders within existing institutions as a pragmatic initial step. Governance of this body should be planned inclusively and could be based on the polycentric model developed within Future Earth, allowing distributed regional hubs with ability to be responsive to different research needs locally and regionally.
2. Map knowledge and institutions globally. Inclusivity and diversity across geographic regions and scientific domains is key to legitimacy and legibility. Most research is in the North, yet most need is in the South. We need major investment in academic institutes at the nexus of urban research-policy-practice in rapidly urbanizing cities. Mapping knowledge and institutions would help to uncover key geographic and thematic gaps in knowledge and scientific research capacity.
3. Boost urban research and funding mechanisms. Truly global sources of research funding are needed to allow cross-comparison studies of cities and regions. These sources should be set up with support from national governments, development banks and private foundations. This would require significantly large sums, which is one of the reasons the MSP was taken out of the final NUA draft. Still, scientific funding issues must be addressed if we are to make real progress on the global urban agenda.
4. Support trans-disciplinary research synthesis. It is crucial that scientists and other communities of practice with relevant knowledge have a significant seat at the table to generate policy to guide urban development over the short- and long-terms. Transdisciplinary research must be not only supported through new urban science funding and organization, but also be a centerpiece of synthesizing existing knowledge and new knowledge generation for input to policymaking at global, regional, and local levels.
5. Improve access to science policy arenas. Urban scientists must have a clear role within emerging science-policy platforms in the New Urban Agenda and the wider multilateral system, such as the links forming between the urban SDGs and the Future Earth Cities KAN. As a start, the role of independent urban experts including multiple types of knowledge holders across multiple disciplines must be made clear within the New Urban Agenda and its implementation stage through development of a strong, diverse, and inclusive science-policy interface to achieve the NUA and related SDGs.
We must deal seriously with the complexity of urban systems and overcome institutional reticence to understand the emergent behavior and properties of urban systems as they evolve and change. The imperative of scaling up urban research and fostering a global scientific research leadership that is able to direct and critique global urban policymaking and implementation cannot be underestimated.
Timon McPhearson, Susan Parnell, David Simon, Owen Gaffney, Thomas Elmqvist, Xuemei BAI, Aromar Revi, Debra Roberts
New York City, Cape Town, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Stockholm, Canberra, Bangalore, and Durban
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Professor Sue Parnell is an urban geographer in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences at the University of Cape Town and is a founding member of the African Centre for Cities there.
David Simon is Professor of Development Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London and until December 2019 was also Director of Mistra Urban Futures, an international research centre on sustainable cities based at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Science writer and journalist Owen Gaffney is a communications consultant for Future Earth and director of international media and strategy at the Stockholm Resilience Centre.
Thomas Elmqvist is a professor in Natural Resource Management at Stockholm University and Theme Leader at the Stockholm Resilience Center. His research is on ecosystem services, land use change, natural disturbances and components of resilience including the role of social institutions.
Aromar Revi is Director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements. He is an international practitioner, consultant, researcher, and educator with 30 years of interdisciplinary experience in public policy & governance, political economy of reform, development, technology, sustainability, and human settlements.
I live in Stockholm, Sweden. I enjoy talking walks in the autumn, inhaling the scent from degrading debris, kicking around dead leaves, and gazing at the vivid colors. This fall, my baby daughter has often followed me on my walks. Her name is Viola, and she is 4 years old.
Without critical discussion at Habitat III, could Smart City policies further disconnect children from experiences of nature?
Viola and I often walk to the grocery store to buy stuff missing for dinner. Farther on our path is a playground. Viola frequently stops and play for a while. Sometimes, we take a prolonged route through a forest grove on the way back to our apartment. It is not far away. In the forest, she often discovers tiny animals and plants, and asks me trillions of questions. I try to answer her every time. Sometimes, I do it in a mindful way, sharing her enthusiasm in the moment. But too often, I answer in an absentminded way, my mind unconsciously wandering to reflect on the experiences of today’s work and many other things.
Viola
Viola found an acorn on our path the other day: “What is this?” she asks. I point my finger towards an oak tree and answer her: “This is the seed of such a tree over there”. While gazing at the crown of the oak, she says: “It is amazing that a small acorn can transform into such a big tree”. Her comment surprises me and causes a warm sensation of affection in me as we share this moment of awe. But I just nod in a kind of stiff, Swedish way.
I tell her a story about the “forgetful Jay” that collect acorns for winter and then buries them into the ground. I tell her that the bird forgets most of them, and that this is how oak trees around here regenerate into new, big oak trees. I also tell her that an oak can live for a thousand years, and that there probably are many acorns in the ground around here that could grow into new oaks. She looks at the acorn for a short while, puts it in her pocket, and then we continue our walk back home. I ponder the experience we just had together. Someday, I will tell her that the Jay also need forests of pine for its needs, and about how different habitats are connected to form part of an ecological memory of the urban landscape we live in. I will teach her about the beauty of “slowness” in ecosystem dynamics.
As we continue our walk back home, my mind unconsciously wanders on. How interested will Viola actually be in learning about ecological memory, as narratives of what constitutes “a good life” increasingly might be shared on social media?
All this makes me think of Habitat III.
Habitat III
45,000 people supported by the UN met in Quito to discuss urban sustainability during the Habitat III conference. What’s new since the last conference, 20 years ago? The “Smart City” concept has entered the scene as a promising paradigm for a transition towards urban sustainability (HABITAT III, p. 10).
From a birds-eye perspective, the Smart City concept could perhaps simply be described by the words: rapid, digital, reflecting “the wired-in city”! It is the Internet of Things in the City! It is about increasing efficiency, which is important in terms of metabolic flows and regarding governance systems, as people attempt to cut costs and to decrease local and global pollutants.
There are naturally many positive aspects to wired-in infrastructures, some of which have been discussed before on The Nature of Cities. In 2012, Philip Silva wrote about cities as “cyborgs”, or hybrids between ecosystems and artificial systems, and that smart city solutions can and should work to clean and support local ecosystems. That blog made a lot of sense to me. But there are also critical voices of the Smart City movement. For instance, Sumetee Gajjar and Harini Nagendra raised questions regarding whether Smart City policies in India will include thinking about good governance and about local democracy, and whether such policies will blur the role that urban ecosystem services play in people’s well-being: wise words from India. Hollands (2008) questions whether the Smart City concept is for big business or for urban citizens.
Were such issues discussed in Quito?
Nowhere in the HABITAT III document is there any critical thinking addressing that the Internet of Things inevitably also means ever more screen time for people in their daily routines. It is noteworthy to mention here that increased screen time is discussed as a force driving kids to spend less time outdoors. In a recent paper, Soga et al., (2016) highlight examples where children in Japan spend much less time in natural environments compared to only 10 years ago, and that 12 percent of English kids have not visited a natural environment in the 12 months prior to the study.
Could Smart City policies unintentionally serve to further disconnect children from experiences of nature, perhaps inducing grand processes of social amnesia? Social-ecological memory (Barthel et al., 2010) involves the linking of social memory and ecological memory. Social memory refers to the accumulated collective experiences and knowledge of social groups or cultures, whereas ecological memory pertains to the remnants of biodiversity and spatial connectivity that persist in an area in the wake of a disturbance, such as a fire, flood, or construction of a road. As the ecosystem recovers from disturbance, ecological memory influences its reorganization. With a high degree of memory retention, the reorganized state of the system is more likely to resemble its former (i.e., pre-disturbance) state, but with low memory retention, the result of reorganization may be a fundamentally different, alternative stable state. Social-ecological memory is the collective memory of management practices that sustain ecological memory (Andersson & Barthel 2016).
How is social-ecological memory retained and eroded, and what might be the consequences of each? Integral to the production and persistence of memory are memory carriers—repositories and structures by which experiences and processes are transported in space and time (Ibid.).
Memory carriers may be ecological (e.g., gene pools, seed banks, and tree groves) or social (e.g., oral traditions, social norms, and media); improved understanding of how ecological and social memory carriers interact is hypothesized to be useful for fostering social-ecological memory and imagining new (or, perhaps, remembering old) avenues for place-based, sustainable living in the midst of rapidly unfolding global change. Alternatively, the loss of social-ecological memory may not only erode capacities for management of local ecosystems, but may also induce a broad societal shift in a psychological connection with nature.
In psychological literature, a connectedness with nature may be defined as an individual’s affective and experiential connection to nature (Mayer & Frantz, 2004, p. 504). As such, it can be viewed as a deep-seated attitude that forms an important part of predicting pro-environmental behavior (Ives et al., 2016). Of late, this perspective has also caught interest in sustainability science. An upcoming research group in Germany has identified a connectedness with nature as a “deep leverage point” for sustainability transformation (Abson et al., 2016).
Concerns are being raised about drivers that challenge people’s direct, sensory experience of nature and threaten to trigger baseline changes in people’s psychological connections with nature (Hartig and Kahn 2016). This is especially pressing from a children’s point of view. A deep-seated psychological connection with nature is most easily acquired during childhood (Giusti, et al., 2014; Cheng and Monroe, 2012; Chawla & Cushing, 2007) and persists unchanged through adulthood (Kaiser et al., 2014). To quote Miller (2005), “[if] people no longer value nature or see it as relevant to their lives, will they be willing to invest in its protection?”
Nearly home now…
We continue our walk home, dusk approaching, and the northern sky turning pink, my thoughts wandering mindlessly…Will our walks make any difference? Will they help instill Viola with a sense of care for nature? How will Smart City policies interfere with Viola’s experiences in the near future?…How is it possible that the voice of Nick Drake holds such sensitivity and wisdom despite that he passed away in his twenties? Probably I am just getting old…
Viola runs ahead of me towards our front door. We are home. Viola has an acorn in her pocket.
Abson, D. J., Fischer, J., Leventon, J. et al. 2016. Leverage points for Sustainability Transformation. Ambio, doi:10.1007/s13280-016-0800-y
Andersson, E. and S. Barthel. 2016. Memory carriers and stewardship of metropolitan landscapes. Ecological Indicators 70:606-614.a
Barthel, S., Folke, C. and Colding, J. (2010). Social-Ecological Memory in Urban Gardens – Retaining the capacity for management of ecosystem services. Global Environmental Change, 20(2): 255-265
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Cheng, J. C. H. & Monroe, M. C. 2012. “Connection to Nature: Children’s Affective Attitude toward Nature.” Environment and Behavior 44(1): 31–49.
HABITAT III NEW URBAN AGENDA. 2016. Draft outcome document for adoption in Quito, October 2016
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A review ofGreening Berlin: The Co-Production of Science, Politics and Urban Nature. By Jens Lachmund.2013. MIT Press. ISBN: 9780262018593. 320 pages.Buy the book.
The overgrown train tracks of Gleisdreieck Park. The community gardens and art installations of Tempelhofer Feld. The flora and fauna of Südgelände Nature Park. Today’s Berlin is home to diverse landscapes, ecologies, and juxtapositions of natural and manmade history which, together, tell the story of this destroyed, divided, and rebuilt city.
Greening Berlin made me miss the city that I once called home, where layers of history, adaptation, and re-use are evident in nearly every aspect of the built environment.
A reader curious about how these spaces came to be has much to learn from Jens Lachmund’s Greening Berlin: The Co-Production of Science, Politics, and Urban Nature. The book explores how the discipline of urban ecology developed in West Berlin, and how it transitioned from an academic pursuit to a cause championed by planners, community organizers, and the general public. The result is a story that is both very particular to Berlin and the politics of a once-divided city, and more widely applicable to landscape and planning practitioners working in ecologically rich urban environments.
By detailing how urban ecology developed and became integrated into planning policy, Lachmund illustrates how urban ecological values can shape a city’s future land use patterns. However, with the success stories come the inevitable stories of politics, tension, and negotiation, including failures of community advocacy. These stories are valuable to today’s practitioner, as they illustrate how the values of urban ecology can stack up alongside competing recreation, land use, and development interests.
By weaving together environmental history, policy, and the stories of politically charged parks and conservation projects, Lachmund has offered insight into a topic that will be of interest to planners as well as historians. Greening Berlin is a thorough and clear introduction to a subject that can come across as very technical. Although the city, its complicated history, and its particular urban settings are, of course, unique, the narratives addressing policy development, the integration of nature into urban policy, and the conflicts inherent to land use decision-making are universally applicable.
However, Greening Berlin is missing a crucial element: visuals. While the book includes a small number of carefully chosen photographs and diagrams, the narrative calls for many more. It is disappointing that a book about a city with some of Europe’s most interesting green spaces includes few photographs and nothing in color. Spatial analyses—such as maps of the destruction WWII caused to Berlin’s urban fabric and the subsequent ecological studies of damaged spaces—also could have been valuable. Without photos, the book is less stimulating and accessible to readers not already familiar with Berlin, making it better suited to the academic reader.
Lachmund begins by detailing the traditions of urban greening in Berlin and Germany generally; he also explores the development of the discipline of green space planning. The narrative moves from the traditions of the 19th century Kaiserreich through the Garden City movement to postwar reconstruction before exploring the origins of urban ecology. The overall thesis tracks planners, policymakers, and community members gradually seeing greater inherent value in urban nature, as opposed to considering nature and the city as two opposite ends of a spectrum, with the city acting as a corrupting force.
One of the many examples of adaptative reuse in former West Berlin, today’s Görlitzer Park occupies the site of the former train tracks from the historic Görlitzer Bahnhof. Photo: Katharine Burgess
Berlin’s story is critical to an understanding of the history of urban ecology, and Greening Berlin provides many details about the origins of the movement. Lachmund largely focuses on West Berlin, with occasional background information or anecdotes about the very different context and concurrent approaches in East Berlin. As Greening Berlin explains, the botanists of post-war West Berlin are widely credited with initiating the discipline of urban ecology. In studying rubble areas, they discovered new combinations of species that did not align with pre-existing categorizations. Lachmund states that “wastelands were the prototype of an urban ecosystem: their marginality within the urban environment allowed nature to thrive almost unimpeded, and yet it was a nature that was largely determined by the human-made environmental conditions of the city” (67). Lachmund focuses on botanist Herbert Sukopp, who created new models of floral survey to apply to sites in an urban context. Sukopp’s work led to the development of urban ecology as a discipline and, eventually, to an increased appreciation of nature in an urban context.
Beyond scientists’ work and examination of the city’s damaged urban fabric, the culture and unique geography of West Berlin also contributed to the rise in popularity and visibility of urban ecology. Living in an “island” of West Germany surrounded by East Germany—with the closest West German landscapes a substantial distance away—residents greatly valued the natural spaces within city limits, and scientists and ecologists used the city as a “home turf” to study. Citizen activism, including projects led by squatters, was significant. And even after the postwar damage was addressed, design and planning remained important, given the city’s visibility and role as a model and antithesis to East Berlin. For example, the 1984 Internationale Bauausstellung (IBA, or International Building Exhibition) was an impetus for large-scale redevelopment within the city center, igniting international discussion and the creation of new buildings and new public spaces.
Tiergarten, Berlin’s most well-known inner city park and one of historic West Berlin’s most symbolic green spaces, features prominently in Greening Berlin. Photo: Katharine Burgess
The professionalization of landscape planning is another theme that Lachmund explores. In the mid-‘70s, Berlin’s Senate Department for Construction and Housing employed only one full time and two part-time staff devoted to nature conservation. By 1979, the city’s new Nature Conservation Act had led to the creation of 39 new positions. Meanwhile, new resources and institutions dedicated to urban ecology began working. For example, the book details the founding of the influential Stiftung Naturschutz (Nature Conservation Foundation) as well as the Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (Alliance for Environmental and Nature Protection).
Lachmund further traces how urban ecology influenced West Berlin planning policies and the approach to land use in the city today. For example, the concept of biotopes—defined as the natural living spaces of urban wildlife—is applied within planning policy through the Biotope Protection Regime. Lachmund explores how biotope protection has been used in planning and land use policy and also examines the concept more philosophically, musing, “biotope protection has participated in the never-ending process of creating order in the city” (9). Today, biotopes are not only regulated on the city level, but on the federal level, with a rule that requires Länder (states) to set up networks of linked biotopes covering 10 percent of their area.
Lachmund presents Gleisdreieck and Südgelände, which are both natural parks on abandoned rail sites, as two case studies in the latter half of the book. Lachmund seems to relish the political back stories of these parks, describing even the concept of a nature park within Berlin as “a matter of conflict and constant negotiation between the participants of the planning process” (191). The book explores the role of Bürgerinitiativen, or community initiatives, in developing these parks, as well as the role of mitigation requirements. Indeed, many of the largest new park projects in Berlin were spurred by mitigation needs, meaning that the land conservation compensated for development elsewhere. Lachmund also explores the tensions between the desire for conservation and the need to provide opportunities for recreation, and the differing interpretations of legislation on recreation and conservation.
As an urban planner who recently returned from living and working in Berlin, Greening Berlin made me miss the city that I once called home. During my time there, the layers of history, adaptation, and re-use evident in nearly every aspect of the built environment fascinated me endlessly. Beyond that, the ambitious goals of the German landscape planning system—and the large-scale public projects, such as Gleisdreieck and Südgelände—are enough to inspire any planner. Reading Lachmund’s history of this place was a fantastic way to embed myself in the built and natural environment of Berlin again, considering not only the setting and local policies, but also how shifting perceptions, values, and means of scientific observation have facilitated the city’s physical transformation. Katharine Burgess
Washington, D.C.
Georgetown, Guyana, is one of the world’s smallest capital cities, a mere six mi.2 according to its official boundaries. The Dutch laid out this city, perched on the northern Atlantic coast of South America, in the 18th century; the British expanded it in the 19th and 20th centuries. Tree-lined avenues, flowing canals, and stunning colonial gardens earned it a reputation as the “Garden City”. Today, it is home to over 285 species of birds—47.5 species per square mile. The Botanic Gardens, a small area (about 75 acres) within the city, has an astonishing 196 species, which are listed here.
To live with wild birds in the city is an immense joy. But in Georgetown, this remarkable diversity is threatened by ignorance, greed, and deliberate destruction.
Does this density of species make Georgetown the bird capital of the world? It certainly means that anybody with their eyes and ears open could be in for a glorious day of birding.
On the street where I live, a pair of macaws sometimes comes with the dawn, screaming and screeching, vivid blue, with flashes of gold like the sun god, Apollo, in his chariot. The blue-and-yellow macaw is impossible to ignore and is a joy to behold.
The pair often settles down in the branches of a coconut tree across the street and croon gently to each other. Into the sound gap arrives the true dawn chorus, a glorious medley of song and whistling, including the haunting melody of the Pale-breasted Thrushes. They have been recorded here on Youtube.
The resident blue-and-yellow macaw. Photo: Melinda Janki
The thrushes have taught me a fraction of their melody and, for a few minutes, we go back and forth, my childishly simple notes embarrassing in contrast to their trills. Several pairs of these Pale-breasted Thrushes have built their nests between the wooden beams and the columns that hold up my house.
I seem to be inadvertently running a baby Thrush factory. The nests are in constant use, except when repairs are necessary. The mother and father are marvellous models of good parenting, flitting back and forth with food, taking it in turns to sit on the nest and remaining ever-alert to danger. From dive-bombing me the first time I picked up one of their fallen babies and put it on a branch out of reach of predators, they have learned to trust me as an ally. On the day that the fledglings are due to leave the nest, the parents keep up a racket until we lock up our dogs. I have observed that on these days, the songbirds congregate in the trees. It seems they, too, are watching out for threats to these precious babies. Perhaps this is an interesting example of interspecies cooperation which contradicts the dominant ideology that life is all about competition and selfishness.
This nest is about 10 feet off the ground on a pillar holding up the house. The underside of the floor boards is directly above the bird. Photo: Melinda JankiThrush babies on the nest. Photo: Melinda Janki
A few weeks ago, the Thrushes’ full volume alarm call brought me rushing into the garden, which was full of highly agitated birds hopping from branch to ground, from fence to flowerpots, and all over the garden. Disaster! One baby Thrush had taken off too soon. Flat on the ground, nose to beak with the baby, was one of our large watchdogs. I grabbed the baby, dropped him in a large flower pot for safety, and put our beloved dog in a fenced-off section. Fifteen minutes later, the birds’ alarm call brought me hurtling back out. There they were again, nose to beak, gazing at each other, the fledgling having launched himself straight back at the watchdog. I have often wondered why the dog did not simply open his jaws and swallow what would have been a tasty morsel.
The dawn chorus marks the time to put out the food. The wire feeders so highly recommended in temperate zones are useless—the birds will not go near them. They prefer two-bird tables made from old tree branches and, best of all, the top of the gate-post, which presumably gives them a better view of predators.
Yellow oriole on the gate-post with his favourite food—rotting plantains. Photo: Melinda Janki
After much experimenting with bird seed and various fruits, I have found that my visitors’ favourite foods are over-ripe papaw and rotting yellow plantains. I am fortunate. There is a stall holder in Bourda, one of the local markets, who gives me yellow plantains for the birds and a fruit vendor who will help out now and then with fruit. The birds on the bird table feel less like visitors and more like residents. Some of them roost in the trees in the garden. Every day there are Yellow Orioles, Grayish Saltators, Blue-grey Tanagers, Palm Tanagers, and the lovely Silver-beaked Tanager. This tanager is very dark—almost black—but when the sun catches him, his throat feathers are a rusty red. The beak is matte silver—more paint than polish—and very striking.
The early morning is popular with people taking exercise and, more importantly to my mind, it is an ideal time to see birds. Thirty seconds’ walk from my house, a pair of Ringed Kingfishers catch fish in the main canal that flows through the city. They perch high on the telephone wires and are easy to miss unless you know to look out for them. They are large for kingfishers and have a distinctive rufous belly and ring around the neck. Truly handsome birds, but not musical, as they take off with their harsh, “Tchak-tchack” cry.
Ringed Kingfisher on a wire. Photo: Melinda Janki
The kites are also in evidence, searching the water for the snails that make up the staple item in their diet. They are visible during the day, but are most active in the morning and late afternoon.
Around the smaller ditches, you can also see Striated Herons, Little Blue Herons, and Snowy Egret catching fish. Occasionally, I have seen a Limpkin completely still at the water’s edge, its unmistakeable beak ready for snails. The egrets seem to be almost as common in the city as in the countryside, mainly because of a large colony in the Botanic Gardens. Sometimes, a Snowy Egret nestling falls out into the water below and is immediately snapped up by a small caiman. The breeding plumage of the snowy egret is stunning and was once worth more than gold.
By mid-morning, doves, woodcreepers, shrikes, flycatchers, finches, and a host of other little birds have been and gone. Once, and only once, a Black-crowned Night-Heron, came into my garden. He sat in a Flamboyant Tree for a few hours completely still and silent before going home to the Botanic Gardens. The hummingbirds ignore my humble offerings, heading straight for the hibiscus nectar. Later come the Great Kiskadees—noisy, boisterous, raucous birds who seem to eat almost anything, including flying insects and small frogs, and who have no qualms about raiding the dogs’ bowls. Great Kiskadees are fearless. It is not unusual to see them mobbing a Yellow-headed Caracara, tormenting one of those powerful raptors until it takes refuge in a tall tree, screaming magnificently. What is very unusual is to see a juvenile and an adult caracara together; I was lucky to see these two from my living room window.
Snail kite. Photo: Melinda JankiA juvenile and adult caracara captured on camera together. Photo: Melinda Janki
In the hot afternoon, the birds are scarce except for the ever-present thrushes raiding the compost heap for my precious earthworms, and the odd straggler coming in for water at the birdbath. By teatime, the air is still and heavy. The contented tap-tap-tap of the Lineated Woodpecker breaks the monotony. Sitting on the back step with my tea, I can admire this handsome visitor with his bright eyes and scarlet crest and feel privileged that, today, he has chosen my trees for his attention.
Late afternoon reveals tiny birds high up in the sky. These are the swifts and from where I stand on the road outside the house, I am too hopeless a birder to be able to tell which species they belong to. It is much easier to identify the magnificent frigate birds slowly ascending the thermals and heading out over the Atlantic. As the short dusk begins, the Scarlet Ibises fly over, also heading for the ocean. Night sets in. The Barn Owl, ghostly white as the light catches his feathers, gives a piercing screech before disappearing into the gloom. On the best nights of all, a solemn, drawn out “hoo” tells me the Great Horned Owl has come into my garden for a visit.
To live with wild birds is an immeasurable joy. One never knows for sure who is going to visit. Will the Red-shouldered Macaws come in this afternoon? Where are the Orange-winged Parrots? What a delight that the Blue-black Grassquit has suddenly chosen my fence from which to jump up and down, calling for a mate.
Lineated Woodpecker at teatime. Photo: Melinda Janki
But even as I write this rich avian narrative, bird life is being threatened by a combination of ignorance, greed, and deliberate destruction of the city. Georgetown’s magnificent trees, home to so many birds, are slowly disappearing, choked to death with bird vine, or left jagged and damaged by “tree-trimming” exercises authorised by the Mayor and City Council.
Georgetown businesses have knocked down trees and poured concrete over the grass verges to extend their premises or obtain parking. Even private gardens are being turned into concrete so that people can park the vast numbers of secondhand cars imported into Guyana.
Our “Garden City” is being replaced with vertical horrors of mirrored glass. The American Bird Conservancy estimates that up to a billion birds die each year in the USA as a result of glass collisions. Yet, the private sector and the public authorities in Georgetown see nothing wrong with knocking down graceful, colonial wooden buildings that can accommodate birdlife, and replacing them with lethal glass buildings aping New York and Miami. Even the new Catholic church has horrible, mirrored windows which are a potential death trap for the city’s birds. A national “development” strategy focussed on economic growth, rather than on quality of life, has resulted in the Guyanese people adopting a frantic consumer lifestyle. Despite the recent heroic efforts of the government to clean up the city, people continue to throw junk food boxes and other garbage into the canals and ditches, choking the outlets and creating stagnant breeding grounds for mosquitos. The inevitable chemical spraying is harmful to wildlife and leaves me and everybody in our house choking from the fumes. The black night, lit by the stars of the ever-changing sky, has disappeared. Blazing security lights make sections of the city as bright as day. It is impossible to get a normal night’s sleep, and nocturnal birds are going away. The city appears to be sleepwalking towards a lifeless existence.
Georgetown’s residents have to act now. Do we not have a responsibility to ensure that the next generation can experience the wonder of nature?
My neighbour, my gardener, and I replant trees on the streets as a small act of resistance against the dead hand of “development”. Others can choose their own paths of resistance. The Guyana Amazon Tropical Birds Society has, for over a decade, been inspiring at-risk youth with a love for birds by creating checklists, carrying out research, and training their members to identify and care for birds. With appropriate funding, they could convert hearts and minds for birds and provide the technical advice to make Georgetown a bird friendly city once more. The public authorities have to work with us to re-create a city that is elegant, beautiful, and a joy to live in—to restore the Garden City and to keep alive what we like to call the capital city of the bird world.
Story Notes: More and more cities throughout the world are turning to parks, gardens, green roofs, and other kinds of “green infrastructure” to soak up storm water and simultaneously create vibrant new patches of open space for their citizens.
In this podcast, produced by Philip Silva, we explore three cases of green infrastructure that have popped up in alleyways and on sidewalks in São Paulo, Brazil, Los Angeles, California, and Montreal, Canada.
Though all three cases are unique, each points toward the need for a thoughtful community organizing and engagement strategy in getting new green infrastructure projects off the ground.
Parc Oxygène before, as a community created amenity, and after it was returned to grey infrastructure.Rendering of an LA green alley.
We hear from Tori Kjer, the Director of the Trust for Public Land in Los Angeles where residents of the South Park neighborhood have been working with city officials to create the Avalon Green Alley Network. We also hear from Anna Deitzsch, director of the São Paulo office of Davis Brody Bond Architects, the firm helping to create storm water friendly sidewalks linking new communities on the outskirts of the city. Finally, we check in with Janice Astbury, a researcher and former resident of Montreal who recounts the rise and fall of Parc Oxygene, a green alley that was bulldozed in 2014 to make way for residential development.
To learn more about each initiative introduced in this podcast, check out Crosstalk Essays by each of our three contributors here at The Nature of Cities:
What if urban resource management and conservation reflected not just the politics and science of the day, but were rooted in creation stories, place-name stories, and personal stories about the relationships people have with place? This kind of thinking is at the heart of traditional ways of stewarding the environment in many remote and rural place-based communities around the globe, but could it also be done in urban settings? If so, how?
What would a biocultural approach to sustainable resource management look like in a major city?
Hawaii’s lessons for navigating Island Earth
In September 2016, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature World Conservation Congress took place in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, the first time it has ever been held in the U.S. Through ceremony, hula (dance), and mele (chants), the opening ceremonies reflected the kinship that people from Hawaiʻi have with land, sea, and sky—and they set the stage for two weeks of events attended by world leaders in the policy and science of conservation.
In a 6 am oceanfront opening ceremony for IUCN, traditional sailing vessels from attending Pacific Island nations were to be greeted by the traditional families of the sacred Kalia lands in Waikiki. Passing tropical storms shifted the timing of the canoes’ arrival, but the ritual of requesting permission to land proceeded. As part of the ceremony, each island nation offered a stone from home. In this photo, a traditional caretaker of Kalia welcomes visitors. (September 1, 2016)Welcoming ceremony for the traditional Hawaiian sailing vessel, Hōkūleʻa, in Manhattan, where she landed on June 5, 2016, as one stop on a three-year worldwide voyage to promote stewardship of island earth. The messages of sustainability and traditional wisdom about stewardship relationships carried strongly throughout the crowd, which included Lenape and other indigenous caretakers of the region.
My time living and working in areas rich with biocultural diversity—such as Hawaiʻi, Tanzania, and Fiji—has taught me the value of promoting and applying local knowledge for addressing health care, conservation, and adaptation to global environmental change. More recently, my thinking about the value of applying particular, place-based ways of knowing has expanded—beyond the places in which these knowledge systems originate and into areas that, on the surface, look quite different, such as cities. The reflections I share here grew out of my participation in Hālau ʻŌhiʻa, the only formal professional and personal development training program in Hawaiʻi stewardship practices for stewards of Hawaii’s Islands’ well-being.
Braiding together personal, professional, and spiritual development
Engaging in this experience elevated the concept of braiding together the personal, professional, and spiritual aspects of life as a real practice, and it also shed light on an ala (pathway) to get there. Although this integrated approach is a foundational concept for many place-based and traditional approaches to environmental stewardship, the scientific approach most of us were trained in deliberately avoids such integration in the name of objectivity. The cover of our training manual reads, “Deepening our connections for the wellbeing of ourselves and honua [planet].” It begs the questions: how can we as individuals be well if our surroundings (people and environment) are not? And how can our surroundings be well if we are not? Starting from the idea that people and place, biology and culture are intertwined and synergistic means operating from a “biocultural axiom of aloha.” I believe this core principal of our course has the potential to inform natural-cultural resource stewardship beyond Hawaiʻi, including and especially in densely-populated, urban, culturally diverse places.
With support from the U.S. Forest Service at the Institute for Pacific Islands Forestry (Hilo, Hawaiʻi), the course was created and taught by Kekuhi Kealiikanakaoleohaililani, an esteemed kumu hula (teacher of hula), Director of the Edith Kanakaʻole Foundation, co-creator and Assistant Professor of the I Ola Hāloa Center for Hawaiʻi Life Styles at Hawaiʻi Community College and more. With the recognition that “natural resource professionals in Hawaiʻi recognize that effectiveness of and personal satisfaction from resource management can be enhanced by integrating multiple knowledge systems into all aspects of the management process,” Kekuhi formed Hālau ʻŌhiʻa. Her invitation letter described the program’s goals—to “both foster a working knowledge of Native Hawaiian perspectives on resources and resource management, as well as to enhance relationships among members of the resources community, such as managers and staff, community members, researchers, and the resources themselves.”
Hālau ʻŌhiʻa Hōʻike (exhibition and sharing with the community) July 17, 2016, Hilo, Hawaiʻi. Heather McMillen, Eli Wolfe (Heather’s son), Kekuhi Kealiikanakaoleohaililani (course developer and teacher), and Christian Giardina (Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry, Pacific Southwest Research Station of the U.S. Forest Service)
The course was held in the spring and summer of 2016 for one full Friday per month for four months, a weekend immersion experience, and a half-day exhibition to share what was learned with colleagues and family in the fifth month. The majority of participants came from non-profit organizations, government agencies, and educational institutions concerned with resource management.
Some course participants had Hawaiian cultural backgrounds, either by genealogy or by being born and raised in the islands. I have neither, although having lived and worked in Hawaiʻi for almost twenty years, I have developed an understanding of aspects of Hawaiian culture and language. I entered the course with a deep appreciation for this reservoir of information, and realize even now that I have only scratched the surface. I would say, regardless of cultural background or experience, as people who live, work, and care about Hawaiʻi, all of the participants in Hālau ʻŌhiʻa are invested in learning more about Hawaiian perspectives, culture, and traditional ecological knowledge. I left with a greater sense of purpose, more informed and equipped to see and engage in relationships with the social and ecological characteristics of communities in Hawaiʻi, and beyond.
Over the past two years working as a U.S. Forest Service Social Science Researcher with the New York City Urban Field Station, my team and I have been cultivating an understanding of how place-based and traditional ways of knowing can inform natural-cultural resource managers, researchers, and educators more broadly, including in cities. We have been asking: what would a biocultural approach to sustainable resource management look like in New York or another major city? How would it be translated? Would urban resource managers and researchers be receptive?
U.S. Forest Service associated participants in Hālau ʻŌhiʻa (we were about 15 percent of the total participants).
Connecting across micro, macro, and meta levels
In addition to thinking about connections across personal, professional, and spiritual levels, Hālau ʻŌhiʻa has inspired me to think about connections across micro, macro, and meta-levels. In the Hawaiian language, these are: kiʻi ʻiaka, kiʻi honua, and kiʻi ākea (at the personal level, the landscape level, and the level of planetary consciousness).
Conceptual model of connections
We began by applying this framework to understanding various koʻihonua (cosmology) and kaʻao (myth, conscious awakening) from around the world. Kaʻao are windows into other people’s worldviews. Common themes they share across space and time are: creation, recreation, and rebirth, among others. A theme that particularly struck me is that “the sacrifice becomes the creation,” evident in a number of kaʻao. We read and discussed accounts from the Arctic that relay the fate of Sedna, whose fingers were chopped off by her father Anguta as he threw her over the side of his kayak into the sea. Her fingers became seals, walruses, and whales, foods on which Arctic peoples rely. We listened to the Norwegian account of how Ymir was killed by his brothers, who then used his corpse to create the world—blood became oceans, skin and muscles became soil, hair became vegetation, and so on. Many of us are familiar with biblical stories of creation and sacrifice, which were also discussed as kaʻao. It was more than fitting to have this conversation in a landscape where Pele, the Hawaiian Deity associated with volcanoes, continues to take away and create land through the ongoing activity of Kīlauea.
“Kilauea lava flowing into the ocean” by slworking2 and made available under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license through Flickr
I thought of my own experience giving birth and the sacrifices all parents make for their children, but this discussion also conjured images of a seed and its development. Who could imagine that by splitting open its own skin, and seemingly self-destroying, that a life force thousands of times larger and stronger than the seed itself develops? As a class, we discussed how these stories also teach us about what we have in common, how we see the world and our place in it. Kaʻao are important for all of us, including resource managers, because they influence how we see our relationships (responsibilities and rights) to places, and therefore how we care for them (or not). In other words, they influence stewardship behaviors.
If we see places and their features as family, and recognize that a great grandparent, parent, and child are family members as much as a mountain, stream, and ocean, then the relationships are quite profound, as are the responsibilities we feel to them. In the words of Kekuhi, the relationship between people and land needs to be based on “kinship” rather than “commodity” if we are to live sustainably. As a class, each of us researched, memorized, and recited our genealogies, which situate us within our ancestral and landscape kin relationships. I described my generational connections to my Solvenian great grandparents, my Polish grandparents (via Chicago), and the mountain, stream, and watershed where I live now on Oʻahu.
Haley Kailiehu, secretary of the non-profit Hui Mālama I Ke Ala ʻŪlili (HuiMAU), describes her deep familial connections to the people and place of Koholālele, Hāmākua Hikina, Hawaiʻi Island.After we practiced chanting “O Wākea” a mele (song) we learned about Wākea (Sky father) and Papa (Earth mother) giving birth to the Hawaiian archipelago, Kekuhi described its relevance and connections
Taking this a step further, what if we recognize that we are not just related to but a part of and even the same as the landscape and water features, plants, and other animals that surround us? This concept of kincentric ecology is also echoed in many longstanding traditions around the world. Kekuhi wrote, “Because we possess the same subatomic structures that stars, earth, ocean, air, plants, and all manner of animate and inanimate forms, is it not natural for kanaka to constantly change as well?” If you see yourself as equal to another being, you are more open to learn from it rather than about it in an objective way.
If the kaʻao of a particular place and its original people is not readily accessible, one could expand and go more regionally, or think about the kaʻao in a more contemporary context. As a framework for outreach, researchers and managers could ask: What are the kaʻao of the people connected to that place today? How did they get there? Where did they come from? Who are their families? Their watersheds? Their mountains, trees, and waters? Are these elements the same or different from “home”? What are their accounts of sacrifice and (re)creation? In what ways are people sustained by their natural environments and by urban green space? What elements or characteristics are as valuable as their own family members? Open community meetings to share these stories in the early stages of engaging communities with conservation, restoration, or resource management have the potential to inform resource managers about the meanings and attachments to place that community members have. Such participatory meetings would also strengthen rapport and set a tone that demonstrates the desire for co-learning and reciprocal learning.
Learning from a place, not just about a place
Learning about something is to objectify it, which implicitly means to be above it. But learning from it means seeing ways it connects to your own life or a something greater. I love this idea. This approach requires humility, respect, and a mind that is receptive. In Hālau ʻŌhiʻa, we operationalized this approach by learning and practicing a ritual protocol to ask permission to enter a place, whether it is a building, home, or forest. When I recite the Mele Komo, a chant, it acknowledges that I am anticipating learning when I step through a door or across a path. Kekuhi told us, “If you don’t ask permission, you have nothing to learn.”
Before and during our class field trips to meet with people who embody relationship to place on the leeward side of Hawaiʻi Island, we discussed this theme of learning from places and the social-ecological memories they carry. The mission statement of Hui Mālama I Ke Ala ʻŪlili (HuiMAU), a non-profit culturally-based stewardship group in the Hāmākua district, says: “We are committed to re-establishing an ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) presence in Hāmākua Hikina, and envision the ʻāina [usually translated as land, but can also mean sea—literally, “that which feeds”] of Hāmākua Hikina restored as places of abundance, where kamaʻāina [children of the land, native born people] are healed by the spiritual forces, sustained by the natural and cultural resources, and elevated to higher levels of consciousness by the ancestral knowledge of these (HuiMAU).
We can also learn from our “plant people” and our “animal people” (Kekuhi’s affectionate terms for plants and animals). For example, dryland forest plants dropping their leaves during drought to conserve energy and water are seen as a lesson for people to adapt to a drying climate, something I heard from a cultural-ecology restoration specialist in North Kona years ago. In Kawaihae (North Kona District of Hawaiʻi Island), Hālau ʻŌhiʻa visited Nā Kālai Waʻa and listened to Uncle Sonny Bertelmann (Pwo navigator and captain of the traditional Polynesian sailing vessel, Makaliʻi) convey the story of his teacher, Papa Mau Piailug, who told him about how people learned navigation from migratory animals—whales and birds. Kekuhi explained to us that when the koholā (humpback whale) expel mucus and water through their blowholes as they move across a seascape, they are helping us remember and tell stories that connect us to Oceania more broadly. Her teenage daughters performed a hula composed by her husband at the cliff’s edge that drove home this message at a deeper consciousness level, beyond language.
Kekuhi’s daughters offer a hula to honor the whales.
Relationships to place are strengthened when you know the names and the stories of the landscape and the beings that inhabit them. As Hālau ʻŌhiʻa, we approached this through kaʻao (described above), learning place names and the stories behind them, as well as spending time engaging the land through stewardship in each place we visited. Although it was gratifying to see how our sweat equity transformed places, Kekuhi reminded us that it’s not how many weeds we remove, or how many plants we plant, that is appreciated; what is most important is what we learn and how we understand our time and purpose in the place at that time. Stated simply: it’s all about relationships.
Reflecting on potential applications in urban areas, the idea of learning from a place underscores the importance of place-based research, embedded knowledge, fieldwork, and the importance of researchers and mangers really “being in” and “connecting to” place. A ritualized “entry” into the field or learning environment (natural area, meeting, workshop, etc.) to set the tone for learning from a place could be done in any setting, including NYC. The protocol itself could be created by or adapted for each project or team, based on their values and experiences. It could even be a silent expression of intention or reflection by the group.
Through my work in NYC, I have heard an appreciation for these ways of learning. Richie Cabo, Director of the Citywide Nursery of the Division of Forestry, Horticulture, and Natural Resources in New York City, shared with me, “We are so much like trees that we don’t realize…we have a lot to learn from these guys.” Perhaps the way forward is to encourage and publicly describe the value of these ways of learning in a professional context. I expect they would resonate with the broader public as well. In all cases, being able to learn from a place is enhanced when one is an informed observer who is attuned to place, reminding us of the importance of building relationships.
Learning the songs, stories, plants, and animals of a place from the local perspective can be a way for resource managers to connect with people and place. In some cases, these can be humbling experiences, demonstrating that local people (including non-scientists) are experts with lessons to teach to managers and researchers. These other ways of knowing are important for resource managers because they inform praxis. But, what about cases when the history or the songs of a place are not known? Or the people who hold that information are unknown to the managers? Can these be created together by people today who are not ancestrally tied to that place? Can a group’s history or mission statement be seen as this type of story? Can the process of knowing a place’s kaʻao foster place attachment (aloha ʻāina, love of the land) for resource managers themselves? Given the cultural heterogeneity of New York City, kaʻao associated with a place or a place-based community present or past can be numerous and layered. Deciding which ones to focus on should be a collaborative process—or, in some cases, there could be room for all of them, in the spirit of work that is place-based, but not place-bound, to borrow a phrase from my colleague Lindsay Campbell.
A busy streetscape with dense and diverse populations of people in lower Manhattan as seen from a Federal Building that was built on an African Burial Ground rediscovered in 1991 during construction, now considered sacred ground and managed by the National Parks Service. Manhattan’s name comes from “Manahatta” a word that means “land of many hills” to the Lenape, the island’s inhabitants pre-European settlement. Today, the island is layered with generations of commercial, residential, occupational, and ecological stories of creation and sacrifice of many different people and cultures.
The process always needs to be localized, project-based, and place-based. To help guide the process, each project needs to think about its goals. In Hawaiʻi, they may be to foster and maintain cultural practices and traditional ecological knowledge associated with those practices in order to support natural-cultural resource management. In other places, such as NYC, it may be to support ecosystem functions while also allowing multiple cultures and user-groups equal access to and sense of ownership over green (and blue) space.
Function over form. Focus on the living practice, not particular objects
Discussions of native verses non-native species can be polarizing, but the idea that natives = good and non-natives = bad is an oversimplification. Instead, the concept of functional ecology allows the integration or acceptance of species that are not native to the area, yet are valuable because of the roles they play in maintaining ecosystem functions. I see this idea akin to what follows.
Because of the inextricable links among people and place, the stewardship of natural resources must also steward the practices, stories, and meanings people have for those places. The future of a particular landscape may depend on the stories, practices, and meanings we share with each other. Yet, we need not get hung up on which ones are the “authentic” or “right” ones. Cultures, like ecosystems, are dynamic. Just because their components change over time does not necessarily mean they are less valuable or inauthentic. The importance of maintaining the living practice so it can continue to adapt and evolve rather than “preserving” any particular cultural artifact or aspect of traditional knowledge is a theme I heard during my time in Hālau ʻŌhiʻa, one that echoed what I had learned previously through my place-based research in North Kona, Hawaiʻi. In the words of systems thinking, flexibility promotes resilience. During our cultural immersion weekend, one of the sites we visited was the ancient residence of Lonoikamakahiki, a prominent ruling chief of Hawaiʻi. Some of this stacked stone structure remains, but it has partially been built over by a tennis court and pool, and it is surrounded by vacation condos.
In Queens, NYC, adjacent to Forest Park, a bridge layered with messages from those who left their mark shadows glowing candles and white roses, typical of offerings from religious and spiritual practices throughout the African diaspora.Mahealani Pai, Kamehameha Schools Cultural Resource Specialist in Keauhou (black shirt and sunglasses in upper left), briefs us on our stewardship activities at the ancient residence of Lonoikamakahiki (mound of lava rocks on the right).
With reverence, we quietly weeded around the site and removed tennis balls that littered the sacred space. Later in our discussion, one of the participants talked about how unsettling it was to see the site disrespected by the developers and even by those staying at the condos, some of whom just stared at us from their balconies as we mālama-ed (cared for, steward-ed) the ancient residence of Lonoikamakahiki and then chanted together to the kai (ocean). Kekuhi commented that the condition of the residence and adjacent heiau (temple) (which are not reconstructed) is not the most important thing. The important thing is that the practices, relationships, and memories associated with the place live on. More than once, I heard her say that knowledge isn’t lost. People haven’t forgotten, they just need to be reminded, an expression that echoed what I have heard in my place-based research in North Kona, where one woman explained, “We have our characteristics and our system to show what this land has. We’re not lost. It’s not forgotten. The ground still has it. The castor oil plants come back, the ground hasn’t forgotten. We’ll see the younger generations coming back to produce this system with the knowledge they’ve had.” At Ko‘a Holomoana, the navigational heiau (temple, sacred structure) cared for by Nā Kālai Wa‘a (a non-profit organization founded on promoting traditional Polynesian voyaging), it continues to be a source of knowledge and inspiration, even though there is uncertainty about the original meanings of the pōhaku (stones) and their placement.
Holomoana, traditional site of navigational training, in Māhukona in the district of Kohala.
The deep memories are still there. The place still serves its function. People still engage in a reciprocal relationship with the place, even as the land is up for sale now. Hearing that the land under this incredibly important cultural site is for sale made me think about the vulnerability of places in Hawai‘i (and other places, including urban ones), and how the greatest threat is the ignorance (not knowing, or maybe not remembering) associated with real estate development. This threat is also linked to seeing the land as a commodity rather than kin. It raises the question, how can inevitable change (including real estate development) at the landscape level honor people-place relationships and our ongoing need to connect to nature and to each other in generations past, present, and future?
During our time together as Hālau ʻŌhiʻa, I took note of and came to a deeper understanding of multiple ways of remembering: through listening to and perpetuating the mo‘olelo (histories) of wahi pana (storied places); through stories and teachings from kūpuna (elders) of one’s own ‘ohana (family) or from another ‘ohana or even from another island nation (as was the case with Papa Mau Piailug of Satawal, Micronesia, teaching the first pwo navigators of Hawai‘i); from observing the behavior of plants and animals; and from observing and listening to our children, who can remind us of the magic in the world and inspire us to live pono (righteous) and with reverence for the wonder that surrounds us. All of these ways of remembering help connect us to place and to each other.
In the context of NYC, these themes of continuing practices (without getting fixated on the details of the authenticity of the cultural objects or species, which are certain to transform over time and across the space of migration, land use change, and ecological succession), and of the threats related to “forgetting” and to real estate development, are certainly relevant. Erika Svendsen suggested to me that perhaps some New Yorkers just need to be reminded and inspired to connect or reconnect to places in their own way. She and Lindsay Campbell have written about how people make urban spaces sacred. If feeling connected comes from admiring the arch of a bridge or a river of yellow taxis as much as admiring an upland forest or coastal salt marsh, we can appreciate all the relationships we have with our landscape on a deeper level. Through our own research at the New York City Urban Field Station, we have documented how New Yorkers engage with nature through ritualized practices that connect them to place and support social-emotional-spiritual well-being.
Flags with Hindu deities mark sacred engagement in a profane space at Little Neck Bay in Bayside, Queens, NYC.Assemblage created from natural materials found at Conference Park, Staten Island, NYC.
We’ve been working on bringing the social, cultural, and spiritual values associated with urban nature to the forefront (Svendsen et al., in press) so they can be considered on equal ground with other ecosystem services such as provisioning, regulating, and supporting services. Although I have a heightened awareness for why lessons from Hawai‘i could be applied in urban areas like NYC, there are many conversations to have and details to work out. Here I propose questions to consider in initiating conversations as we take the next steps in this journey:
How can we, as researchers, managers, and policymakers, recognize and embrace the sacred nature of stewardship in our urban work?
How can resource managers understand human engagement with the environment, including acts of stewardship and the values people hold for a place, as part of the critical functions of a place?
How can urban resource managers consider the cultural and psycho-social-spiritual aspects of a social-ecological system on par with native species conservation, native habitat protection, erosion control, clean air, and clean water?
Can these be incorporated into goals for urban green spaces and natural areas?
How might they be assessed and monitored over time?
Inviting and allowing time for discussing those questions could also be part of conversations about how personal, professional, and spiritual development have intersected or might be integrated in the future. There are prominent conservationists, other scientists, and philosophers who have written about this topic—including a recent TNOC post, Ecology of One—and these writings could be shared as a neutral (non-personal) way to introduce the topic. Through my experiences with Hālau ʻŌhiʻa, I have seen how these kinds of discussions can strengthen our appreciation for and commitment to stewarding place. Ways to introduce this might start with one person sharing their own experiences and perspectives at the beginning of a regular team meeting or devoting a half-day workshop to the topic.
Hālau ʻŌhiʻa participants sharing their personal reflections and experiences related to various cosmologies and landscapes
Far beyond my own personal reflections, others are recognizing the potential of amplifying stewardship lessons from Hawaiʻi. The Hawaiʻi Commitments from the IUCN describes “Aloha ʻĀina” as an “inherent part of the traditions and customs of Native Hawaiians” that “embodies the mutual respect for one another and a commitment of service to the natural world.” The document also highlights three critical issues: the nexus between biological and cultural diversity and the role of traditional knowledge, the significance of the ocean for conservation and sustainability, and threats to biodiversity. The document concludes that “Embodying Aloha ʻĀina globally will help address the tremendous environmental challenges we face.”
The themes of environmental kinship and interconnectedness resonate throughout our experiences as human beings, from urban to rural landscapes, from temperate to tropical climates. Refocusing our attention in those areas has great promise to help us navigate our life on island earth.
Thank you to the U.S. Forest service for supporting both this training opportunity and my time participating in it. I owe a depth of gratitude to Kekuhi Kealiikanakaoleohaililani for shining the light and teaching the course. Thank you to my NYC colleagues, Erika Svendsen and Lindsay Campbell, who supported my participation in the course, encouraged me to write this, and provided valuable comments. Thank you to Christian Giardina, Kainana Francisco, Claire Gearen, Laura Booth, and David Maddox for providing valuable comments and suggestions. Thank you to my fellow participants in Hālau ʻŌhiʻa who enlightened me and also provided some of the photographs in the blog. Thank you to my friends and family who helped care for my son, Eli, while I traveled to participate in the training and thank you to Eli for the ongoing creation and inspiration.
Reference cited
Svendsen, E., Campbell, L, and H. McMillen. Stories, Shrines, and Symbols: Locating well-being and spiritual meaning in urban parks and natural areas. Journal of Ethnobiology, special issue on urban ethnobiology. (Scheduled for October 2016)
Regularly, 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.
Yunus Arikan, BonnThe New Urban Agenda will pave the way for developing a new model of collaboration and engagement of the local and subnational governments in the UN system.
Xuemei Bai, CanberraHabitat III won’t be a success unless the attention it garners urban issues can be converted into societal momentum to achieve the New Urban Agenda.
Eugenie Birch, New YorkThe New Urban Agenda offers a tangible, manageable, and measurable roadmap for planning and managing urban spatial development: But are we up to the challenge?
Maruxa Cardama, New YorkHabitat III’s articulated aim to end the dichotomy between urban and rural areas is its most important vision.
Bharat Dahiya, BangkokHabitat III could act as a collective beacon for the renaissance of urban and territorial planning in the 21st century.
PK Das, MumbaiHabitat III should require participating nations to commit adequate land to the development of affordable housing and amenities.
David Dodman, LondonFor the New Urban Agenda to achieve meaningful outcomes, it needs the right ingredients, political astuteness, and appropriate data.
William Dunbar, TokyoHabitat III should cultivate landscape approaches to bring the urban agenda in line with conservation and post-2015 development goals.
Anjali Mahendra, Chapel Hill & New DelhiI want the Habitat III process to increase the authority, capacity, and resources for cities to become more effective partners in the development agenda.
Jose Puppim, Johor Bahru / Cambridge / RioHabitat III offers a chance to show the importance of sustainable urbanization to fight inequalities within and beyond cities.
David Satterthwaite, LondonFor the New Urban Agenda to achieve meaningful outcomes, it needs the right ingredients, political astuteness, and appropriate data.
Nelson Saule, São PauloThe most important outcome of Habitat III is the emergence of the Right to the City at the center of the New Urban Agenda.
Huda Shaka, DubaiHabitat III could be the beginning of a paradigm shift that will mean, 10 years from now, we are able to better understand and address inequality in our cities.
David Simon, GothenburgHabitat III must commit to the rapid establishment of clear and specific implementation and verification mechanisms for the New Urban Agenda.
Pengfei XIE, BeijingTo achieve sustainable urbanization post-Habitat III, national governments should build capacity, mechanisms, and platforms.
Lorena Zárate, Mexico CityThe inclusion of the right to the city framework in the New Urban Agenda is the most important outcome of Habitat III.
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. David's dad told him once that he needed a back up plan, something to "fall back on". So he bought a tuba.
Introduction
After many months and years of planning, and 20 years after Habitat II, Habitat III is a reality. As befits a gathering that happens only every 20 years, its goals are ambitious—there’s a lot to do. There is potential reward and risk, potential hope and disappointment built into the fiber of a convening such as Habitat III. Its grand gestures could inspire a vision that propels countless people to enact that vision on the ground in cities around the world. Or, the distance between metaphorical flourish and actionable agenda could be too great for implementation. The immense congress of urbanists, humanists, civil society, academia, people from government, practitioners—45,000 in all—might create an ambitious and specific vision for urbanization that serves humanity well. Or, such a sprawling group might file away all the sharp and controversial edges, producing a “vision” that is both bland and toothless. Bland and toothless will not serve us well, given the broad challenges to resilience, sustainability, livability, and justice around the world.
So Habitat III is a heavy lift, and the weight of the (urban) world lies across its broad shoulders. Everyone who has invested in Habitat III is to be celebrated and offered a hearty “Thank You”.
Habitat III has an outcome document. It hopes that heads of state and government commit to an urban paradigm shift for a New Urban Agenda grounded in the integrated and indivisible dimensions of sustainable development: social, economic, and environmental. This New Urban Agenda [is adopted] as a collective vision and a political commitment to promote and realize sustainable urban development, and (…) a historic opportunity to leverage the key role of cities and human settlements as drivers of sustainable development in an increasingly urbanized world.
In this roundtable, we want to focus the hope—for outcomes of Habitat III, as opposed to its outputs. Many, or even most, of the agenda’s outcomes won’t be known or evaluated for years. So, we’ve asked a group to project what they think the most important one is. As one might expect, the responses are diverse. Justice, equity, and housing are mentioned often. Better governance and increased capacity are key. Several of our contributors discuss the need for integrating the urban-rural gradient into a landscape concept that avoids false and unhelpful dichotomies.
The marriage of social, economic, and environmental is important in the Habitat III outcome document, and this is reflected in the responses here. The future of cities isn’t only about sustainability, or housing, or resilience, or indeed about any single thing. It is about finding a mix of social, economic, and ecological goals, and find a way to act on them.
Exactly how to act, and who will act, remains one of most difficult aspects of Habitat III: getting from vision to action.
Yunus Arikan is the Head of Global Policy and Advocacy at ICLEI, actively involved in leading ICLEI´s work at the United Nations, with intergovernmental agencies and at Multilevel Environmental Agreements.
Yunus Arikan
The New Urban Agenda in the new UN
The New Urban Agenda kicks off a 2-year process under the authority of the UN Secretary General and the UN General Assembly to define its modalities of follow-up and review. This process will overlap with the expected UN-wide reforms under the new UN Secretary General—who will take the office on 1 January 2017.
The New Urban Agenda will pave the way for developing a new model of collaboration and engagement of the local and subnational governments in the UN system.
Both of these processes will be designed for and implemented in a world that is more urbanized and connected than ever before. Thus, both follow-up and review of the New Urban Agenda and the UN reform, in practice, will focus on defining a new concept for the UN system and ways for its Member States to engage with local and subnational governments, as their role in the implementation and advancement of global sustainability goals become even more crucial.
Sustainable urban development: evolution beyond the HABITAT Agenda
The New Urban Agenda: bringing urban development back to the sustainability agenda
In the broadest terms, HABITAT III was expected to conclude the third phase of these intergovernmental efforts, which started with Rio+20 in 2012. In fact, the HABITAT Agenda was already reflected into the universal Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015 through Goal 11, which focuses on making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable—goals which are almost identical to paragraph 1 of HABITAT II in 1996. However, it was not possible to enshrine a clear linkage between SDGs and HABITAT IIII until the last hours of the informal session in September. Luckily, paragraph 9 of the Quito Declaration finally foresees that the New Urban Agenda will “localize the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in an integrated manner, and contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets, including SDG 11”. Together with paragraphs on follow-up and review, it is now possible to confirm that the New Urban Agenda is a core element in this third phase of the sustainability agenda, which is expected to be more holistic, transparent, inclusive, and transformative.
The New Urban Agenda in the making of the new United Nations of the Urban World
Pursuant to the recognition of the enormous need, potential, and power of local and subnational governments to support national and global efforts, almost all UN agencies now have some sort of a project, programme, or initiative focusing on cities and regions. The Executive Office of the UN Secretary General is also advancing its support by expanding the Subnational Climate Action Hub, initiated at the Paris Climate Conference in December, to all SDGs and relevant stakeholders.
Therefore, the implementation of a 2-year consultation indicated in paragraphs 171 and 172 of the New Urban Agenda may easily be expanded to all members of the UN system, pursuant to the leadership of the UN Secretary General and the UN General Assembly in the process. This will include an assessment of UN-Habitat commissioned by the UN Secretary General, which will be followed by a high level meeting at the UN General Assembly in 2017, and conclude with a decision of the UN General Assembly in 2018. It is hoped that the process will have strong interactions with some other events in 2017 (such as the UN-Habitat Governing Council in April, the UNFCCC stakeholder engagement workshop in May, and the 3rd UN Environment Assembly in December) and in 2018 (the World Urban Forum in February, the IPCC cities conference in March, and a High Level Political Forum focusing on SDG 11 in July.)
It is obvious that these consultations will go hand-in-hand with the expected UN reformed agenda under the new UN Secretary General starting in 2017. In the Urban World of 2030, appropriate utilization and vertical integration of the potential, ambition, and power of the local and subnational governments is key to ensuring successful attainment of any global goals and national commitments. Thus, one of the biggest outcomes of the New Urban Agenda will, in fact, be to pave the way for developing a new model of collaboration and engagement of the local and subnational governments in the UN system. If this process delivers the necessary innovations, it will be considered the biggest legacy of HABITAT III.
Professor Bai is a professor in Urban Environment and Human Ecology at Australian National University.
Xuemei Bai
With the UN Habitat III Conference in less than a week, the levels of excitement and expectation among those working in or on the cities—urban policymakers, practitioners, and researchers worldwide—are high. According to the organizers, more than 35,000 participants already registered and will come to Quito, Ecuador, to discuss and adopt the New Urban Agenda, which aims to set global standards for achieving sustainable urban development. Cities and urban affairs are likely to receive national and international political attention, and even become the focus of the world’s mainstream media—at least for the next week or two.
Habitat III won’t be a success unless the attention it garners urban issues can be converted into societal momentum to achieve the New Urban Agenda.
For many, the importance of achieving sustainable urban development is a no-brainer—urban futures will largely determine human futures, and the window of opportunity to improve urban futures sustainably is here and fast closing. However, this sense of importance and urgency is not necessarily shared beyond traditional urban centers. Too often, urban issues are still regarded as local issues, which can therefore be left in the hands of urban decision-makers and practitioners alone. Habitat III won’t be a success unless the attention it garners urban issues can be converted into societal momentum to achieve the New Urban Agenda.
A new and much broader engagement of stakeholders in urban affairs is needed to create such momentum. I will highlight three aspects of such engagement here. First, effective involvement of national governments in urban affairs is essential. Although they have administrative boundaries, cities are regional, national, and global in terms of the extent of their connections, processes, and impacts. This scope of influence needs to be matched by a policy framework that reflects this nature of cities. Giving cities their rightful voices in national and international policy forums; matching the mandates of cities with appropriate financial shares; providing, facilitating, and supporting policy and institutional environments by upper level governments—but at the same time not overpowering or dictating, and leaving the room for cities to explore innovate their own paths—are essential. The New Urban Agenda rightly recognizes many of these, with multilevel government linkages emphasized in many places.
Second, active participation of the general public from all walks of life needs to be enabled and achieved. This entails both the “right” and the “responsibility” of the citizens. On the one hand, the needs of the urban poor and other marginalized populations—needs such as the access to food, clean water, basic infrastructure, and other services—should receive the highest political priority, and the right of citizens to cleaner air needs to be urgently tended to. On the other hand, active participation also means citizens taking responsibility for resources and the environmental consequences of everyday urban life and choices. Chai Jing, an investigative journalist in China, said in her immensely popular film titled “Under the Dome”, that “the smell of the smog is the smell of money”, and that each and every citizen is contributing towards it. Responsible actions must be taken by all, as many urban problems cannot be solved otherwise. The need to improve access to basic sustenance and services is well articulated in the New Urban Agenda, but it does not sufficiently address the problematic lack of clean air for all citizens.
Third, urban science and scientists need to be given stronger roles. Urban science and the research community have received very little attention in the drafts of the New Urban Agenda. Yet, just below the surface of almost every commitment, there is a question that needs to be answered by urban science, broadly defined.
For example, the New Urban Agenda aims to achieve its goals “by readdressing the way cities and human settlements are planned, designed, financed, developed, governed, and managed, the New Urban Agenda will help to…” do various things. But the real question would be, how will the New Urban Agenda achieve these changes? Promoting integrated spatial planning has been around for a long time, but why is it not a reality?
Underneath these concerns are the fundamental questions of how cities, as complex evolving systems, work, and how these systems are understood. The truth is, we don’t have a good understanding of how cities, as increasingly complex system, behave, which is the reason many of our policy interventions do not work as intended in practice. Unless urban scientists, policymakers, and practitioners actively work together to address these questions, interventions may not be able to address the real cause of the problems, and the New Urban Agenda may end up becoming another new year’s resolution that is never achieved.
All of the engagements I have discussed can only happen if the efforts are bidirectional.
Professor Genie Birch is the Lawrence C. Nussdorf Chair of Urban Research and Education, former Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Municipal Art Society of New York, and co-chair, UN-HABITAT's World Urban Campaign.
Eugenie Birch
The recently completed draft New Urban Agenda, the Habitat III outcome document, reaffirms member states’ support of planning and managing urban spatial development and, equally importantly, providing the enabling environment (a supportive governance and means of implementation—knowledge, capacity-building and finance) in which those activities can occur. It does so in each of its parts (the “Quito Declaration,” “Quito Implementation Plan for the New Urban Agenda,” and “Follow-Up and Review”).
The prioritization of place in the New Urban Agenda is the single most tangible outcome of Habitat III.
While the New Urban Agenda pursues these priorities with simultaneous and synergistic actions, the recommendations for planning have a specificity that provides a clear roadmap for public and private decision-makers to tailor programs to their particular environments. Thus, I believe that “place matters”, as seen in the detailed articulation of the physical characteristics of a place, is the single most tangible outcome of Habitat III.
Note that the NUA assumes that urban places will have to accommodate some 2.5 billion more residents in the near future and will need to offer opportunities for efficient and agglomerative economic growth and protection of the environment overall. Further, the NUA recognizes the economic value of well-planned places—a fundamental issue related to individual and collective prosperity, i.e., the ability of property owners to increase their own assets and of cities to experience robust productivity that would reflect their overall economic health.
So, let’s take a look at the elements of the roadmap that are in the New Urban Agenda, remaining mindful that while its recommendations reflect general principles related to achieving sustainable urban development, contextualization of the recommendations will be essential. That is: “The devil is in the details”, and this is where multi-stakeholder work is going to be essential.
For overall guidance, the NUA refers to UN Habitat’s Guidelines for Urban and Territorial Planning, adopted by the Governing Council in April 2015, and which outlines roles for spheres of government: national (e.g. connect and balance the system of towns and cities); metropolitan (e.g. regional economic development, rural/urban linkages, ecosystem protection); municipal (e.g. design and protection of citywide systems of public space, capital goods investments in basic infrastructure, overall block layout, connectivity); and neighbourhood (e.g. site specific design, local urban commons).
Throughout the documents the reader will find specific recommendation that include:
A strong call for implementing integrated, polycentric, and balanced territorial policies and plans (para 95), which entails national urban policies that frame the spatial development of a nation (para 89)
A statement on the importance of planned urban extensions and infill development as a means of protecting natural resources and ecosystem services in the surrounding territory, as a means of supporting compact development (para 51)
Within urban places, treatment of the key elements that make a place safe, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable
Housing: several paragraphs call for adequate and affordable well-services dwelling units for all (paras 99, 105-108, 140)
Transportation: several paragraphs that deal with multi-modal mobility call for efficient and equitable public transit, including instituting equitable transit oriented development (TOD) (paras 113-118, 141)
Public space and green open space: many references to having sufficient, accessible space for recreation, infrastructure (streets, water/sewer), and social and economic uses (paras 36, 54,67,100) .
Basic services: water and sanitation top the list (paras 34, 88, 119), but dealing with waste management is also noted to be of critical importance (para 74), as are the creation of building codes (111, 121, 124) for safety and resilience.
Heritage: appreciation of the value of cultural heritage as contributing to the social and economic lives of the residents and to environmental preservation is clearly articulated. Of note is its appreciation of the wide variety of the sources of culture (paras 38, 45, 60, 97, 125)
A roadmap is not sufficient without the political will to use it. In the coming years, the key challenge will be to energize, inspire, and convince the member states to undertake the necessary programs—and this is where stakeholders, such as those from the General Assembly of Partners and the Global Task Force, come in. Working in a multi-stakeholder partnership model, they can have a critical role in keeping awareness of the key elements of the roadmap present in the minds of their constituents and in the everyday business of national, regional, and local government. That is, they can monitor and advocate fiercely. Further, at all stages of implementation, they can help provide the knowledge to help guide the policy choices to be made by all spheres of government. One question remains: can stakeholders meet the challenge of working for the collective interest while still safeguarding their specific group concerns?
Communitas Co-founder & Coordinator. Sustainable Development practitioner promoting socio-environmental justice & intergenerational solidarity for equitable communities
Maruxa Cardama
Balanced sustainable and integrated urban and territorial development: Key pillar for implementing the urban paradigm shift of the New Urban Agenda
When TNOC asked me what I thought was the single most important outcome of Habitat III, I instantly thought that reducing the competing forces and political factors that coexist in any intergovernmental process to one aspect was no straightforward task. One could even ponder if such reduction is convenient. Intergovernmental processes marked by 20-year cycles—such as the Habitat ones are—set global agendas that are the complex result of multilateral and geopolitical contexts.
Habitat III’s articulated aim to end the dichotomy between urban and rural areas is its most important vision.
Judging by the negotiation complexities the Habitat III intergovernmental process experienced in 2016, cynical souls could argue that getting to Quito with an outcome document ready for adoption by heads of state and government constitutes the single most important outcome of an intergovernmental process that, at moments, required much more soul-searching than what its “post-2015 context” had augured.
2014 and 2015 were prolific for multilateralism, with the international community adopting several global agenda-setting frameworks: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the Sustainable Development Goals (or SDGs), the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development, the Paris Climate Action Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, the Vienna Programme of Action for Landlocked Developing Countries for 2014–2024, the Small Island Developing States Accelerated Modalities of Action (or SAMOA) Pathway. Could the international community in 2016—in a post-2015 multilateral context—give birth to yet another “paradigm-shift-pursuing” global framework? In the outcome document of the Habitat III Conference, heads of state and government commit to an urban paradigm shift for a New Urban Agenda NUA (Para 5*) grounded in the integrated and indivisible dimensions of sustainable development: social, economic, and environmental (Para 24). This New Urban Agenda (is adopted) as a collective vision and a political commitment to promote and realize sustainable urban development, and (…) a historic opportunity to leverage the key role of cities and human settlements as drivers of sustainable development in an increasingly urbanized world (Para 22).
Whether in 2016—in the post-2015 multilateral context—the international community needed yet another long list of “paradigm-shift commitments” narrated primarily using previously agreed upon, multilateral language; or whether, alternatively, these noble aspirations begged for specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, and time-based implementation plans is another question. In any case, the recognition of the potential contributions of urbanization to the achievement of transformative and sustainable development (Para 4) delves deeper into the historic inclusion of SDG #11, “to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable” in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We should warmly applaud this outcome and commend all the stakeholders who have made it possible.
After this very long introductory disclaimer and pushing myself to identify the single most important outcome of Habitat III from a technical point of view, I would like to highlight the vision for cities and human settlements that fulfill their territorial functions across administrative boundaries, and act as hubs and drivers for balanced sustainable and integrated urban and territorial development at all levels, contained in Paragraph 13.e of the Habitat III outcome document.
Urbanization and demographic growth have increasingly linked cities with their peri-urban and rural areas spatially as well as functionally, through interdependent economic dynamics, social links, and environmental synergies that overcome traditional administrative boundaries. Examples of systems for which an approach of complementary functions and flows across urban and rural spaces is needed include: supply and distribution chains of commodities and services systems (raw materials; manufactured goods; basic services such as water and electricity; financial services such as financing and insurance; or ecosystem services such as water production, air quality control, energy generation, etc.); social protection systems, including health, education, diets and nutrition; transport systems, including the infrastructure for short and long chains; food production systems, including linking urban, peri-urban and rural production; land tenure systems, including formal legal and customary tenure systems; market systems that connect producers to consumers through formal and informal channels; disaster risk reduction and risk management systems, and governance and decision-making systems.
The notion of balanced sustainable and integrated urban and territorial development can contribute greatly to the objective of equitably distributing, across the wider urban-rural continuum, the gains brought by the process of sustainable urbanization. This notion is important in achieving inclusive, climate-friendly, environmentally friendly, resource-saving, and resilient development that addresses the needs and demands of both urban and rural areas. It also promotes integrated planning instruments, cross-sectorial solutions, and systems thinking in areas such as water, energy, and food security, as well the transport and waste sectors. This concept also encourages urban density and mixed land use and contributes to securing public and green spaces, as well as to preserving biodiversity. It promotes comprehensive risk analyses as a generalized starting point for resilient urban development, as well as requiring land use planning and spatial strategies that address flows across urban and rural landscapes. Accordingly, governance and decision-making systems have to be aligned vertically and coordinated horizontally, involving actors from different levels of government—national, regional, local and municipal—and different sectors—local communities, civil society, business, science and academia, philanthropies—to reduce conflicts around the use of limited resources and facilitate the balancing of interests. All in all, balanced sustainable and integrated urban and territorial development is a departure from myopic sectoral and urban-only approaches to holistic, multi-disciplinary, multi-sector, and multi-stakeholder approaches at the city-region scale.
The Habitat III vision for human settlements that fulfill their territorial functions across administrative boundaries, and act as hubs and drivers for balanced sustainable and integrated urban and territorial development at all levels, represents a robust opportunity for governments at all levels, the UN system, practitioners, scholars, civil society, and all relevant stakeholders to harness this reinvigorated will of the international community to depart for once and for good from a perspective of political, social, and geographical dichotomy between urban and rural areas.
* The paragraphs referred to are numbered as per the Draft Habitat III outcome document for adoption in Quito in October 2016, dated September 10, 2016.
An award-winning Urbanist, Bharat combines research, policy analysis, and development practice aimed at examining and tackling socio-economic, environmental and governance issues in the global urban context.
Bharat Dahiya
Renaissance of urban and territorial planning
Habitat III, its attendant global charter—the New Urban Agenda—and the concomitant commitment of the United Nations’ member states to it potentially act as a collective beacon for the renaissance of urban and territorial planning in the 21st century. The sine qua non for such a renaissance will be the long-term transformation of urban and territorial planning as an effective tool for sustainable urban and territorial development and management.
The renaissance of urban and territorial planning is long due for a number of interrelated reasons.
The renaissance of urban and territorial planning is long due for a number of interrelated reasons. First is the ever-increasing complexity of social, economic, and environmental challenges in the Anthropocene—reflected as they are in the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the COP21 Paris Agreement, as well as the need to address them in an integrated manner. Second is the need to manage and accommodate the fast pace of urbanization in developing regions such as Africa and Asia; in Asia alone, over 40 million new inhabitants are added to cities and towns every year. Third is the unprecedented set of spatio-demographic challenges in cities around the world, including the development of mega-urban regions, the phenomenon of urban shrinkage, and cross-border cities—to name just a few. Fourth is the importance of sound public policy and decision-making that involves various stakeholders, whether they are social (gender, youth, aged, or differently-abled), environmental (indigenous groups, environmental activists, advocates of ecosystem-based approaches, and those who address biodiversity, natural disasters, climate change, and the like), financial (people-public-private-partnerships), research (academic and research institutions, and think tanks), and media (print, online, radio, television, and social media) groups. The fifth factor is the substantive and technical progress urgently required for equipping urban and territorial planning in order to balance short-term needs with long-term desired outcomes in sustainable urban and regional development.
Whilst the renaissance of urban and territorial planning is urgent and (some would say, absolutely) necessary, it will not materialize easily. To make it happen will require administrative, institutional, procedural (also, perhaps, legal), and technological transformation as well as scientific (including applied and action) research on six interconnected fronts.
First, inter-agency and intra-agency administrative separatism will have to be reduced, if not completely eliminated. Silo-based administrative processes (e.g. processes narrowly limited within a specific discipline) have done enough harm to sound urban and territorial planning, all of which has resulted in haphazard development. Silos will have to be broken down, or “silo-effect” will have to be reduced to minimum, in order to put in practice the idea of sustainable urban territorial development.
Second, vertical institutional integration will be essential for opening up the compulsory legal and/or procedural space for (more) efficiently integrated urban and territorial planning. This will require delegation of powers to the various tiers of government—including sub-national, district, city-level, and sub-city-level authorities, which will be necessary to avoid bureaucratic quagmires and issues that have plagued multi-level governance.
Third, horizontal inter-jurisdictional coordination will be a prerequisite for the success of urban and territorial planning, especially with regard to city-regional infrastructure, urban-rural linkages, natural resources and environmental management, ecological restoration, biodiversity conservation, and urban-regional integration. This will be particularly important in the case of city-regions, mega-urban regions, urban corridors, and cross-border urban regions. Such coordination will be particularly important for addressing inter-jurisdictional fiscal disparities that hold the implementation of innovative and sustainable solutions.
Next, there is an urgent need to develop integrated approaches to address social, economic and environmental challenges in the urban and territorial context. The on-going work on “co-benefits” of developmental activities is making progress in this direction. More efforts need to be made on this front to conceptualise, develop, and implement integrated approaches that could feed into and bolster the revamping of urban and territorial planning.
Fifth, an increasing use of smart city approaches will feature in the future of urban and territorial planning. Smart city approaches will range from (i) the more sophisticated ones, for instance, such as “Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition” (or SCADA), to (ii) smart city systems, which include smart people, smart city economies, smart mobility, smart environments, smart living, and smart governance, and (iii) smart analytical and decision-support systems, such as for (a) collection, collation, compilation, analysis, and visualization of data, (b) development, analysis, and comparison of planning scenarios, (c) supporting decision-making process(es), and (iv) monitoring and evaluation, and facilitating feedback loops.
Finally, an ever-expanding scientific knowledge will act as a kingpin in the revitalization of urban and territorial planning. Future scientific knowledge will need to take into account the lessons learnt from (i) the worldwide experience in “town and country planning” practised since the advent of the industrial revolution, (ii) the implementation of urban and regional planning within various countries, (iii) the practice of metropolitan and city-regional planning, and (iv) the development plans and programs for small- and medium-sized cities. The ever-expanding scientific knowledge will combine these lessons learnt with (i) local social, cultural, and ecological wisdom; (ii) traditional knowledge on human, social, and environmental well-being; (iii) indigenous knowledge; and (iv) local developmental experience, both good and bad.
All of these factors, as well as the challenges and opportunities yet unforeseen, and inventions and technological developments yet to be made, will act as guiding lights and building blocks for the renaissance of urban and territorial planning in the 21st century.
P.K. Das is popularly known as an Architect-Activist. With an extremely strong emphasis on participatory planning, he hopes to integrate architecture and democracy to bring about desired social changes in the country.
PK Das
Let’s commit land for affordable housing
The single most important outcome of the Habitat III conference would be if all participating nations unequivocally agreed to commit land in their cities exclusively to construction of affordable housing (this does not come through in the draft of the “New Urban Agenda”, Habitat III’s outcome document). Thereafter, various governments would have to undertake direct responsibility for building affordable housing, rather than relying on markets for their supply.
Our collective focus has to shift to affordable housing alone, given the gravity of housing conditions in most cities.
The exclusion of more and more people from the benefits of development, particularly their access to formal and dignified housing, is squarely a failure of the current patterns of urbanization, which are steadfastly undermining the very idea of cities. Expanding cities are by no means indicators of desirable and sustainable urbanization. Achievement of higher human development standards, along with equity and justice for all, would be true indicators of successful urbanization and city-making efforts. Tragically, cities are being rapidly divided into disparate fragments of exclusive communities and marginalized populations. It is in this context that the Housing Question has to be understood and evaluated. Our failure to ensure this basic human right to a vast majority of city populations exposes our failure while challenging our collective capacity and capabilities.
The central issue in the housing question is land. Unfortunately, this statement has to be reiterated. The question that confronts us is, how do we achieve equity in land use and interweave the disparate fragments of our fast growing cities into unified landscape? We hope these questions are dealt with bluntly and squarely, and will lead to tangible outcome at the Habitat conference.
We hope the final declarations will overcome the overarching generalizations in the draft documents and will outline more specifically much-needed interventions for the equitable distribution of land and an increased role of governments in building affordable housing and amenities for all. However, the more daunting task will be to incorporate and reflect multitudes of local needs and demands into a set of common principles and action plans for the achievement of these objectives. While respective governments may put local plans together, it was agreed that one outcome of the Quito conference would be to collectively review, intermittently assess, and agree on individual cities’ and nations’ action plans for successful implementation of the global objectives.
Equity in land use
We have to bring land back to center stage in our discussion; over the years, as countries have committed to neoliberal globalization, the question of land has been pushed to the backstage. Substantial public land has been gifted away by governments and/or captured and colonized by private developers, who have been mandated to carry out development works, including public housing. Therefore, our questions related to just utilization of land are not being raised, as they would impinge on the freedom of free market forces. Such a model of development has not worked in favor of the public interest, nor has it contributed to the public good.
In many instances, without pledging land, governments have been beating around the bush, negotiating deals with private landowners and developers, who seeking concessions by dedicating a percentage of the built-up area in their high-cost projects towards affordable housing. Such a begging-bowl approach is only scratching the surface of this gigantic crisis that is crippling our cities and causing serious social unrest. On a related note, we also hope the outcome at the Quito conference formally calls off our increased dependency on markets for the promotion of affordable housing.
This exercise of allocating land for housing must not infringe upon the natural areas and ecologically sensitive zones and open spaces provision. Can the Habitat-III firmly resolve that all nations who are signatories commit to this significant step in the interest of checking climate change impacts?
But in many cities, large tracts of land are colonized and/ or occupied and contain very little vacant land. Poor and lower- middle class people, have managed to find roofs over their heads by living in slums and other informal settlements, often in very poor conditions. Slums have proliferated due to the non-unavailability of affordable housing. Can the present land occupation pattern— which is consistent with demand, although it is termed illegal or informal—, be accepted and formalized by incorporating these settlements into the development plan of cities? Reserving slum land in the development plans of cities would be one way of gaining land for affordable housing.
Focus on affordable housing
Currently, the Habitat declaration merely specifies the need for governments to allocate land for housing. This is too general; it is rather weak as a proposition, given the current situation of land in cities. We know that land earmarked for housing has been taken over and exploited almost entirely for exclusive upper class housing, high-cost amenities, and commercial development. Therefore, land has to be more specifically reserved for affordable housing. It is time that we collectively resolve under the UN Habitat III banner that “Housing” be re-addressed, or rephrased as “Affordable Housing” in all our discussions and documents. Our collective focus has to shift to affordable housing alone, given the gravity of housing conditions in most cities. Let the rich and those who can afford to buy or rent on the open market continue to rely on private builders and developers to fulfill their desires. We need not invest our collective time and resources to facilitate them.
We hope the UN Habitat III conference resolves that governments of all participating nations agree to commit adequate land to and will actively undertake the development of affordable housing and amenities, for the achievement of just, equal, and sustainable cities.
David Dodman is the Director of the Human Settlements Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
David Dodman and David Satterthwaite
The most significant global goals for the coming decades can only be achieved through major changes in the way that cities (and their governments) function. Reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (or SDGs) and meeting the commitments of the Paris Agreement on climate change will require new approaches to urban governance, greater technical and financial capacity for local authorities, and a stronger recognition of the role for local civil society both in implementing activities and in holding governments to account. Cities around the world need to be at the forefront of combining high quality living conditions, resilience to climate change, disaster risk reduction, and contributions to mitigation / low carbon development.
For the New Urban Agenda to achieve meaningful outcomes, it needs the right ingredients, political astuteness, and appropriate data.
The New Urban Agenda does not need to develop a comprehensive list of goals and commitments—this already exists in the SDGs and in the Paris Agreement. The single most important outcome from the Habitat III conference in Quito should be a recognition of the (mostly local) actions that need to be taken to achieve these goals, and a commitment by national and local governments to work in meaningful partnership with civil society groups to implement them.
What will determine the significance of this new urban agenda is its relevance to urban governments and urban dwellers, especially those whose needs are not currently met. This means that it has to be clear and relevant to the billion or so people living in poor-quality housing (mostly in informal settlements) with inadequate provision for basic services. It needs to be relevant to mayors, as well as to other urban politicians, civil servants, and other civil society groups. And what it recommends has to be within their capacities. It will have to go far beyond the SDGs, which are full of goals and targets (i.e., what has to be done), but which are very weak on how, by whom, and with what support those goals and targets should be achieved. The UN member states participating in Habitat III will have to focus on building or strengthening the institutional, governance, and financial frameworks.
There are lessons that can be learnt from “new urban agendas” of the past. Several of these, including the Healthy Cities movement, Local Agenda 21, participatory budgeting, Making Cities Resilient, and the Carbonn Climate Registry, have focused on urban areas. They included clear, simple, and relevant guidelines that got buy-in around the world. Their success was due in part to their encouragement of local actions that were relevant to local governments and supported by many urban residents. Even more significantly, the presence of a growing number of federations of slum/shack dwellers has changed the way in which urban development takes place. Such organizations are now present in more than 30 countries, where they build or improve housing, undertake surveys of informal settlements, and provide sanitation—and do this through working with local government (which allows a much larger scale of impact). This type of relationship between representative organizations of the urban poor and elected local government representatives can be genuinely transformative.
For the New Urban Agenda to achieve meaningful outcomes, it needs:
The right ingredients: a vision that ties prosperity with inclusion, which links organized low-income groups with others who benefit from public goods and services, and which addresses both environmental sustainability and resilience.
Political astuteness: removing discriminatory exclusion, ensuring that prevailing institutions support the Agenda, and ensuring that human rights are fully met.
Appropriate data: indicators to monitor and report progress, that are sufficiently geographically disaggregated to be relevant for local governments local civil society and that record meaningful information about issues shaping the lives of urban residents.
In summary, then, for the New Urban Agenda to achieve tangible outcomes, it needs to be concise and clear, to focus on the implementation of goals, and to recognise the importance both of competent and effective urban governments and of getting the buy-in of urban residents, including those living in informal settlements. If this can be achieved, then there is a genuine chance for transformative change for cities and citizens in the 21st century.
For further information, see “A New Urban Agenda?” (Environment and Urbanization Brief 33, pubs.iied.org/10800IIED).
William Dunbar is Communications Coordinator for the International Satoyama Initiative project at the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) in Tokyo, Japan.
William Dunbar
A new urban landscape approach
HABITAT III is the first major conference of its kind since the establishment of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, so one of its major roles must be to guide the urban development agenda into line with the priorities of the new overall development agenda. Reconciling these two agendas, so that those of us working in urban issues and those of us working in other conservation fields are not working at cross purposes, will be key to achieving both the goals of the draft New Urban Agenda to be adopted in Quito and the Sustainable Development Goals (or SDGs) related to urban issues.
Habitat III should cultivate landscape approaches to bring the urban agenda in line with conservation and post-2015 development goals.
So, what aspects of the development and conservation agendas need particular attention in the coming urban agenda? I’m sure each of the respondents to this roundtable will have specific points they would like to see included; my own would be the concept of the “landscape approach”. Landscape approaches have gotten a lot of attention in recent years in both conservation and development fields as a way of reconciling the seemingly competing priorities of each.
“Landscape approach”, in the sense that I am using it here, refers to the management—both conservation and use—of resources at the landscape scale. In many cases, management approaches have been based on one or more sectors, such as manufacturing or tourism, which can result in short-sighted management, inequalities, and perverse incentives—and, therefore, unsustainable use of resources. Other approaches, especially where public policy is heavily involved, are often based on administrative boundaries that have become out of date in terms of how and where people actually live and work, and, therefore, how and where resources are located, produced, and consumed. Landscape approaches, such as those promoted through the Satoyama Initiative—my main area of work here at UNU-IAS—attempt to take a holistic view of the landscape, integrating the interests of all sectors, administrative bodies, producers, consumers, and other stakeholders as much as possible. For this purpose, the “landscape” is defined as a logical unit constituting the area in which resources are used and managed by a local community or communities, for example. This could be a watershed, an administrative boundary, or something else, depending on the delimiting barriers and internal mechanisms for resource management.
Integration into the wider landscape is vital for healthy cities. Photo: William Dunbar
The draft New Urban Agenda only contains the word “landscape” two times, but both serve to highlight ways in which landscape approaches can apply to urban issues. The first mention of landscapes is about the creation and maintenance of networks of public spaces in order to promote “attractive and livable cities and human settlements and urban landscapes, prioritizing the conservation of endemic species” (this is a nice little shout-out to “the nature of cities”, too). This mention of “urban landscapes” points to an urban area constituting a “landscape”, or collection of landscapes, in itself. In this sense, a landscape approach to urban areas would mean planning and policymaking that account for the interests of all stakeholders in this landscape. This would avoid problems related to the narrow interests of certain sectors, or the particular concerns of people who happen to live within certain administrative boundaries, potentially reducing inequalities and contributing to more fulfilled lifestyles for all.
The second mention of “landscapes” in the New Urban Agenda document is about safeguarding “a diverse range of tangible and intangible cultural heritage and landscapes”, to “protect them from potential disruptive impacts of urban development”. This hints at another kind of urban landscape approach, taking a wider view of the larger biocultural landscape, with urban areas included as just one landscape element, and the need for better integration of cities into the landscape. Cities naturally depend on the surrounding landscape for provision of a wide variety of resources and ecosystem services; likewise, rural and peri-urban areas depend on the city as a market for products and as a provider of services only found in urban areas. Despite these symbiotic relationships, planning and policy too often seem to pit urban and non-urban against each other so they end up competing for resources and other benefits. A landscape approach that considers the urban area as a vital part of the wider landscape can help to overcome this tension.
That said, the solution is not necessarily that the “Quito Declaration” and “Quito Implementation Plan” need to contain the word “landscape” more often, but rather that landscape approaches and a holistic perspective on the wider landscape should be adopted as part of the new urban agenda. If this is an outcome of HABITAT III, it will not only benefit urban planning and policymaking, but also help to bring the urban agenda in line with conservation and with the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
Dr. Anjali Mahendra is an urban planner & transport policy expert working at interface of research & practice on issues dealing with cities, transport, climate change & economic development
Anjali Mahendra
Increased authority, capacity and resources for cities
Habitat III would be a success if it catalyzes the adoption of policies and incentives allowing city and local governments to play their critical role in implementing the New Urban Agenda, in partnership with national governments. Translating the impressive New Urban Agenda document to action on the ground requires enabling cities around the world to meet their citizens’ needs for core urban services and infrastructure. This is particularly true for rapidly urbanizing regions of Asia and Africa.
I want the Habitat III process to increase the authority, capacity, and resources for cities to become more effective partners in the development agenda.
We know that by 2050, about 3/4 of the world’s urban population will live in Asia and Africa, and 90 percent of the increase in urban population between now and then will occur in these regions. These are the regions with the largest number of low-income countries, fewest resources available to cities, fastest growing urban populations, and serious governance challenges. It is crucial to get ahead of the curve and give cities in these regions greater authority, capacity, and resources, within the larger framework of a national urbanization policy.
Ensuring this outcome requires a focus on at least three key areas:
a national policy for urban development linked to key economic and environmental goals, aligned with the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (or SDGs)
access to multiple financing sources for cities and authorities to raise municipal finance in innovative ways
increased capacity for cities to manage land and provide core services and infrastructure to all citizens
Experts tend to agree that the New Urban Agenda is a comprehensive document that identifies important areas, such as the need to manage urban expansion and consider transit-oriented development—ideas included for the first time in an internationally negotiated document. But, knowing that this Agenda is not binding on countries, certain steps are important to ensure its implementation.
National policies guiding urban development enable coordination and management of the urbanization process and exist in countries such as South Korea, Brazil, and Mexico. For lower-income, rapidly urbanizing countries in particular, a national policy framework aligned with the New Urban Agenda could not only enable implementation of the Agenda, but also the SDGs at the local level. It would allow countries to harness the urbanization process to achieve broader and more inclusive development goals.
Cities need greater authority to access national and international streams of finance, as well as to raise their own revenue in innovative ways. In 2012, more than 482 million urban residents lacked access to modern fuels and 131 million lacked access to electricity; and in 2015, 140 million urban residents did not have reliable, clean water. Significant investment is needed to address the serious gap in urban services, particularly in fast growing, low-income cities. In other work we are doing, we show how effective management of land use and equitable access to core services such as housing, transportation, energy, water, and sanitation, can bring environmental and economic benefits to all city residents.
Finally, cities need increased capacity to plan and manage urban growth in the form of stronger institutions and technical expertise. As the numbers above show, large numbers of people in cities that are seeing rapid urban population growth are underserved by core services and infrastructure. In our research, we find that the lack of access to core urban services causes city residents to fend for themselves in inefficient and costly ways, with risks to the environment as well. This undermines urban and national sustainability goals. But in many countries, city leaders and municipal agencies lack the capacity to deal with this growing challenge.
I want the Habitat III process to instigate national governments around the world to adopt policies that increase the authority, capacity, and resources for cities to become more effective partners in the development agenda. If this outcome is achieved, we will start to see faster progress towards other important global agreements, such as the SDGs and the Paris Climate Agreement.
Jose A. Puppim de Oliveira is a faculty member at FGV (Fundação Getulio Vargas), Brazil. He is also Visiting Chair Professor at the Institute for Global Public Policy (IGPP), Fudan University, China. His experience comprises research, consultancy, and policy work in more than 20 countries in all continents.
Jose Puppim
Cities and inequities
Cities are core drivers of inequities and inequalities. Habitat III has a chance to raise this issue, creating an alliance to fight inequalities by bringing together like-minded leaders from the North and South, local and national tiers, governmental and non-governmental organizations. Leaders have the opportunity to change the game of inequality by addressing the core of it—that is, the patterns of unsustainable urbanization in the North and, more recently, in the South.
Habitat III offers a chance to show the importance of sustainable urbanization to fight inequalities within and beyond cities.
Making changes will require a different view of the role of cities and their primary long-term development objectives, shifting urban development from being based on consumption and concrete buildings to quality of life, resource conservation, and sufficiency.
There is so much said about urbanization and its economic and social achievements. “This is the century of cities”, “Cities are the drivers of the economy”, “Cities are the hubs of innovations”, and so on. However, one of the less explored aspects of rapid urbanization is its relation to rising inequalities around the world.
Although growing inequalities have gained interest in global and domestic agendas, less is said about the role of urbanization in the increase of these inequalities. This pattern not only includes inequalities within cities, which are already well studied (from the favelas of Rio and Nairobi to the American inner cities and the banlieues of Paris), but other, more subtle kinds of inequalities that have both short and long-term consequences, such as energy use, carbon emissions, and migration.
Urbanization has strong links with several kinds of inequalities and inequities. The core of this problem is the capacity of cities to concentrate and consume extraordinarily, and to expel their unwanted residues to other places, causing several consequences for some of the urban population and for populations elsewhere, particularly in rural areas.
Let me give some examples. Cities concentrate human capital. They attract youth and talent to generate economic activities, leaving rural areas relegated to the elder and less productive segments of society. Take the examples of rural areas in Japan and Spain, which are deserted of young people or are completely abandoned, generating a series of social (e.g., lack of social services), economic (e.g., drop in income) and environmental problems (e.g., uncontroilled wildfires). We witness similar phenomena in developing countries, such as China and India, where the best, brightest, and fittest go to the cities.
Another example is consumption. Cities consume the bulk of the world’s energy, water, and other natural resources, directly and indirectly; some estimate that 75 percent of energy is consumed in cities. Thus, as many countries do not have the capacity and resources to generate electricity for all their population, rural areas end up short of electricity. Electrification in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, is less than 15 percent. Those populations are stripped of many services and economic opportunities available in cities, creating and perpetuating inequity. A similar problem happens with access to clean water, as many rural areas lack a clean water supply.
In a third example, cities in urbanizing middle-income countries tend to emit carbon per capita similarly to cities in richer countries, while some of their rural population has low or even negative per capita carbon emissions. This has implications for designing a fair global regime for ending energy poverty, tackling climate change, and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Urban-rural inequalities and inequities in the making of emissions of greenhouse gases and the impacts of climate change.
Habitat III could open up discussions on the broader implications of cities for increasing inequalities and inequities. Just emphasizing cities as engines of economic growth creates stiffer competition among cities, which leads to more consumption, higher concentration of wealth, and more pollution. These, in turn, increase inequities, which are generally felt hardest by the poorest and weakest in cities and rural areas, who have little voice and suffer from having fewer resources and opportunities.
Habitat III offers a chance to show the importance of sustainable urbanization to fight inequalities within and beyond cities. Pointing to unsustainable urbanization as the major source of inequalities will have long-term connotations for the people and for the planet. Following the advice of Mahatma Gandhi, the planet “has enough for everyone’s needs but not for everyone’s greed”; and cities are at the core of this debate.
Nelson Saule is an Urban Law Professor of the Post Graduate Program in Law from University Catholic of São Paulo and Coordinator of the Right to the City Area in Polis Institute of Studies
Nelson Saule
The Right to the City as the center of the New Urban Agenda
The current urban development model has failed to give the majority of the inhabitants of cities a dignified urban life. This model has promoted the commodification of the city that favors financial groups and investors to the detriment of the interests and needs of the majority of the urban population. The pattern of effects from urbanization, such as gentrification, privatization of public spaces and services, basic urban segregation, the precariousness of the neighborhoods of the poor, the increase of informal settlements, the use of public investments to promote projects and infrastructure that only meet business or economic interests, indicate that new ways of life and development in cities need to be adopted in the New Urban Agenda. For this reason, the New Urban Agenda must embrace a change in the predominant urban pattern that increases urban equity, social inclusion, and political participation, and provides a decent life for the urban population.
The most important outcome of Habitat III is the emergence of the Right to the City at the center of the New Urban Agenda.
The New Urban Agenda should recognize that current urban development patterns are based on the premise of attracting business and commodification of land and the speculation that results from it will not be able to create a model of sustainable social inclusion, citizenship, democracy, cultural diversity, and high quality of life in our cities. This agenda needs a diferent paradigm to establish the link between social inclusion, participatory democracy, and human rights to make the cities inclusive, fair, democratic, and sustainable.
The New Urban Agenda, as an agenda of the United Nations that was created for the promotion of human rights and peace between nations and countries, must have as its starting point the promotion of these rights for the establishment of a new paradigm for urban development. The “Right to the City” is a new paradigm that provides an alternative structure rethinking cities and urbanization; it is based on the principles of social justice, equity, the effective implementation of all human rights, the responsibility to nature and future generations, and local democracy. As part of the New Urban Agenda, the Right to the City consists of principles, actions, targets, indicators and ways of monitoring for the modeling of inclusive, fair, democratic, and sustainable cities.
In national legal systems, references to the Right to the City occur in the Brazilian legislation Statute of the City (2001) and the Constitution of Ecuador, which contains a legal Right to the City. In Article 2, items I and II of the Brazilian city statute, the right to sustainable cities is understood both as the right to urban land, housing, environmental sanitation, urban infrastructure, transport and public services, work and leisure for current and future generations; and as democratic management through participation of the population and associations representative of the various segments of the community in the formulation, implementation, and development of urban monitoring projects, plans, and programs.
This definition brings understanding of the Right to the City as a diffuse right of present and future generations—the same concept of the right to an environment that must be preserved for present and future generations.
In Article 31 of the Ecuadorian Constitution, the Right to the City is the right to the full enjoyment of city and public spaces, under the principles of sustainability, social justice, respect for different urban cultures, and balance between urban and rural. The Right to the City is based on the democratic, social, and environmental function of property and the city, and the full exercise of citizenship.
The definition of the Right to the City adopted in the New Urban Agenda is based on Article 4, paragraph 4, of the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions of 2005, which includes the goods to be protected; this includes the city, which can be protected as a common good. Article 11 of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage was an inventory of the assets that make up the world’s cultural and natural heritage. Examples of cities already included in this list are: the City of Potosi, Bolivia (2014); the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls (1982); the Old City of Damascus, the Syrian Arab Republic (2013); the Commercial Maritime City, Liverpool, United Kingdom, Great Britain and Northern Ireland (2012); Zabīd, Yemen (2000); and the Old City of Sana’a, Yemen (2015).
According to Articles 2-11 of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, materials is also allowed to expand the protection of areas regarded as sites of intangible cultural heritage to consider urban and rural areas. Examples of urban and rural areas that are in a representative list of intangible cultural heritage sites include: the cultural space, Yaaral degal and Mali (2008); the Palenque cultural area of San Basilio, Colombia (2008); Fiesta of the Patios in Cordoba, Spain (2012); and Majlis, cultural and social spaces in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Qatar (2015).
The Right to the City is therefore an existing collective of rights, such as the right of the inhabitants of present and future generations to occupy, use, and produce fair, inclusive, and sustainable cities as a common good, through a broad interpretation of cities and cultural property in accordance with international conventions mentioned above.
The Right to the City is applicable to all cities and human settlements within national legal systems. Based on this definition above, the Right to the City is a collective / diffuse right to see the city as a collective space that belongs to all of its inhabitants; the Right contains three essential elements: legal protection of cities as “commons”; collective / diffuse law; and collective ownership exercised by representative groups of residents, residents’ associations, non-governmental organizations, and public defenders and the public ministry, for example.
The Right to the City must be adopted and understood in the New Urban Agenda as the right of all inhabitants of present and future generations to occupy, use, and produce cities that are fair, inclusive, and sustainable. The Right to the City also implies that governments and people have a responsibility to claim, defend, and promote this right to the city as a common good, which contains the following components: a freedom from any form of discrimination; inclusive citizenship; political participation; fulfillment of social functions; quality public spaces; gender equality; cultural diversity; inclusive economies; and a common ecosystem that respects the rural-urban linkages. The Right to the City as a collective / diffuse right can be exercised in each metropolis, village or town that is institutionally organized as a district local administrative unit or municipality, or an area that is metropolitan in character. It includes the urban space and its rural or semi-rural surroundings.
Coupled with the adoption and these definitions of the Right to the City, the New Urban Agenda should contain tools for monitoring the implementation of this right by countries such as:
the establishment by the UN of a task force that, beginning in 2017, will campaign, sensitize and mobilize regions and countries for the implementation of the New Urban Agenda;
the creation of an international observatory for the Right to the City as a mechanism with which to gather information (i.e., best practices, legal frameworks, case studies) and to promote the Right to the City in an international forum
the gathering of all relevant stakeholders to push the agenda of the Right to the City (including global organizations, all levels of government, civil society, and the private sectorsocially responsible);
the production of regular reports on the state of the New Urban Agenda at national and regional levels every three year.
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
Time to address inequality
A clear and concerted focus on reducing inequalities within cities would be the most important outcome of Habitat III. Over the past twenty years we, the global community, have turned our attention to addressing challenges of poverty, environmental degradation, and resource consumption. What we seem to have largely neglected is the growing social and economic inequalities within our cities and societies. Habitat III, with its vision of promoting inclusive cities, is the perfect opportunity to thrust this issue into the spotlight.
Habitat III could forge the way towards a more meaningful understanding of and action against inequality at the individual city and settlement scale.
While we have not completely addressed the challenges of poverty or climate change yet, our performance is moving in the right direction on these fronts. Last year saw the number of people living in extreme poverty fall to below ten percent (still too high of course), and the decoupling of global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions from growth. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of inequality. Far from tackling it, we are still figuring out how to best measure and monitor it. In the G20 summit last month, there was a call to pay greater attention to global inequality, a metric we have only recently been able to calculate. Habitat III could forge the way towards a more meaningful understanding of and action against inequality and its impacts at the other extreme: at the individual city and settlement scale.
As a built environment professional working for a large multinational company, I have recently come to realise how little our industry understands the issues related to inequality. This is despite our work often having a direct and sometimes profound impact on these issues. Whether it is new master plans, cultural facilities, or transport corridors, such projects can either improve or worsen inequality in a society through the opportunities provided for access to employment, amenities, or housing, for example. Yet, project teams are rarely aware of such implications.
What will it take to get to a point where local economic and social inequality is adequately addressed? First, we will need an open and honest discussion on the state of inequality in our cities and its impacts. This will likely mean investigating ways of measuring and reporting inequality such that it becomes relevant and meaningful to multiple audiences: policymakers, developers, residents…etc. The discussion will also need to include a deeper understanding of the global and local policies and paradigms which have led to the current situation.
Academics and professionals who are already convinced of the need for action will have to articulate their arguments in the form of plausible solutions and strategies. These will vary from city to city, even from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, depending on the type and extent of inequality. Solutions will likely include measures at various levels, from global trade agreements and national economic policies to local plans and development controls. If we have learnt anything from the climate change movement, it is that we cannot afford to wait until a majority is convinced of the scale and importance of the challenge in order to begin addressing it. In addition, people respond far better to solutions than to alarms.
Going back to built environment professionals, we will need to train these professionals to understand and address inequality challenges. Consider that 10 years ago, only a minority of professionals understood sustainability appraisals, and it was perfectly acceptable to have a portfolio of one or two token “sustainable projects” in a portfolio of hundreds of “business-as-usual” projects. There was still much discussion about how to define and measure “sustainability” and how to convince authorities, clients, and stakeholders of its value. I may be overly optimistic, but I think that we are in a different place now: one where environmental sustainability is often the starting point and not the long-term aspiration. The same could and should happen for inequality.
Habitat III could be the beginning of a paradigm shift that will mean, 10 years from now, we are able to better understand and address inequality in our cities. A new generation of built environment professionals will consider shaping an equal and inclusive world to be their responsibility, whether they are private consultants, public officials, or members of civil society. Inequality, just like extreme poverty and greenhouse emissions, will have turned a corner and begun its decline.
David Simon is Professor of Development Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London and until December 2019 was also Director of Mistra Urban Futures, an international research centre on sustainable cities based at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.
David Simon
Aside from the organizational deficiencies of the Habitat III Secretariat, which have left many organisations, including strategic partners of UN-HABITAT, scrabbling around at the last minute to find alternative venues and formats for planned side and networking events in a way that might make navigating the site and programme difficult, this summit has profound symbolic importance. This significance lies in the unprecedented global attention to and recognition of the key role of urban areas and other sub-national entities in the meeting, the challenges of climate/environmental change, and promoting transitions to sustainable development.
The most important outcome from Habitat III would be a commitment to the rapid establishment of clear and specific implementation and verification mechanisms for the New Urban Agenda.
The New Urban Agenda (or NUA), to be adopted by world leaders as the centerpiece of the summit, has been forged through long and wide-ranging participatory processes involving government negotiators and diverse stakeholder groups around the world. The extent of engagement by such non-state actors in UN parlance, first experienced in the formulation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (or SDGs) adopted by the UN General Assembly last year, is itself evidence of belated and essential recognition that national governments can no longer address today’s societal challenges alone.
Not only does the NUA provide a progressive and holistic approach to sustainable urban development, it also formally recognizes the essential role of sub-national entities (i.e., urban local and regional authorities) in promoting such urban sustainability transitions. Curiously, despite such bodies constituting fundamental parts of the state sector, the UN still defines them as non-state entities. Accordingly, formal recognition in the NUA required a protracted struggle against opposition from various national government negotiators seeking to preserve an outdated central government monopoly of power in the UN system.
The NUA also recognises the importance of engaging all stakeholder groups, including academia, and urges the formation of multi-stakeholder partnerships to promote urban sustainability. It stops short, however, of providing any specific mechanism to establish a science-policy interface through which to mobilise research and scientific evidence as the basis for implementing evidence-led policy. The previously proposed Multi-Stakeholder Platform—which grouped academia together with civil society—was cut from the semi-final draft during the Surabaya negotiations in July. This illustrates how forging the intergovernmental consensus required in order to agree and adopt the NUA in Quito has produced a document that will serve that purpose very well, but which lacks teeth or any monitoring and evaluation stipulations beyond very general means of implementation and four-yearly progress reports to the UN.
Similarly, attempts to establish a formal link between the NUA and the broader 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the associated set of 17 SDGs could not gain the required support for inclusion. Hence, the NUA merely acknowledges these and other relevant documents such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in the Introduction, but the opportunity to use SDG 11 and the relevant elements of other goals as a monitoring and evaluation framework was lost.
Hence, to my mind, the most important outcome from Habitat III would be a commitment to the rapid establishment of clear and specific implementation and verification mechanisms. Perhaps the SDGs could still be mobilised to this end outside of the NUA itself, in order to avoid having to establish a wholly different set of metrics.
Another key aspect will be to engage the urban science research community (which is diverse and by no means restricted to universities and higher education institutions) and other important holders of local urban knowledge (including indigenous knowledges). These could be constituted (sub-)regionally, on the basis of agro-ecological or physiographic zone, or nationally to promote the availability of appropriate evidence alongside the strengthening of multiscalar governance between urban, regional, and national government bodies within each country. Such engagement processes should be as lean and bureaucracy-light as possible.
That all these issues remain to be addressed outside of the NUA itself will add to the overall administrative and negotiation burden after the conference, and incur delays, as will the commitment to commissioning an independent external review of UN-Habitat contained in the final NUA text. While perhaps politically expedient, this invokes several large hostages to fortune and risks the loss of momentum so carefully built up through the SDG and NUA negotiation processes. To lose this historical urban moment would be a tragedy, particularly after the vast energy expended to date in pursuit of greater urban sustainability.
Pengfei is China Program Director of RAP (Regulatory Assistance Project). RAP is a US based non government organization dedicated to accelerating the transition to a clean, reliable and efficient energy future.
Pengfei XIE
The UN’s Habitat III conference is fast approaching. As a person working in the international NGO community, I think the most important possible outcome of this great event would be the strengthening of international exchange and cooperation on human settlement development over the next few years.
To achieve sustainable urbanization post-Habitat III, national governments should build capacity, mechanisms, and platforms.
The reasons that this outcome is most important to me are twofold. First, the need to jointly fight against climate change. The threat of climate change to the entire human community and the human settlement has reached universal consensus. No country can stay safe alone, or be spared by climate change. We need to join hands and work together to meet this challenge by strengthening cooperation in the fields of technology, information, capital, talent, and so on. The goal of controlling global temperature rise won’t be possible without this joint effort. Second, we need healthy development of urbanization. Urbanization has become an important engine for promoting world economic development. Urbanization is also one of the key themes of the “New Urban Agenda”, which is a programmatic document of Habitat III. The next 20 years is going to be a critical period of urbanization, especially for developing countries. We are in urgent need of experiences and lessons from other countries to use as references, via international exchange and cooperation.
In order to achieve this outcome, it is important for country governments to try to achieve the following points:
1) Capacity building. Provide training for policy makers and relevant stakeholders, so that they realize the importance of international cooperation, have the necessary knowledge of it to be able to practice it, and, ultimately, to be good at implementing it. For example, the National Academy for Mayors of China undertakes the task of training the nation’s Mayors. An important part of the training is to teach the Mayors how to conduct international exchange and cooperation between cities
2) Mechanism building. Establish a fair, mutually beneficial, and win-win international cooperation mechanism that is constructed, shared, and co-ruled by countries of the world. For example, the New Urban Agenda issued by the United Nations is actually a new international cooperation mechanism of this kind
3) Platform building. Create broad international cooperation platforms among country governments, non-governmental organizations, and other relevant stakeholders. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, initiated by China and participated in by various country governments, is one example of an international platform working to promote infrastructure construction that can benefit the development of human settlement.
Lorena Zárate is co-coordinator of the Global Platform for the Right to the City and former president of the Habitat International Coaltion.
Lorena Zárate
Habitat III and the Right to the City—a commitment to a paradigm change?
After almost three years, including the last four months of intense and not always easy negotiations, the text of the so-called New Urban Agenda (or NUA) is finally ready for approval during the UN’s third Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development in Quito, Ecuador (Habitat III). Some voices are quite satisfied with both the process and the outcome so far, while others are not. Some voices are optimistic about the implementation and follow-up measures that have been established; others are not. What is certainly clear is that the general balance cannot be framed in a categorical, “all or nothing” formulation.
The inclusion of the right to the city framework in the New Urban Agenda is the most important outcome of Habitat III.
Thorough the process, several civil society organizations, including Habitat International Coalition (or HIC) and the Global Platform for the Right to the City (or GPR2C), in partnership with international networks of local governments, have participated at several of the preparatory steps, such as the regional and thematic official meetings, multiple editions of the Urban Thinkers Campuses and the General Assembly of Partners. At the same time, our members were engaged in the Policy Units responsible for drafting the substantive inputs for the New Urban Agenda’s first draft (May 2016), and we collectively reviewed and provided feedback on many of the subsequent versions as well as the Issue Papers released since May 2015.
As an international network which has the privilege, but also the huge responsibility, to have actively participated in the two previous conferences (Habitat I in Vancouver, 1976, and Habitat II in Istanbul, 1996), HIC maintained a positive yet critical voice, making public its concerns and proposals since the beginning of the process, which have been united around three large axes: a) the call for an holistic and integrated territorial approach to human settlements, evaluating the implementation of the commitments assumed by different actors as part of the Habitat Agenda (1996); b) the responsibility to mainstreaming human rights in public policy, according to international law, and taking into account the achievements—but also the growing challenges—during the last 20 years; and, c) the strong demand for a wide and substantial participation of non-State actors in the debates and decision-making processes, giving particular relevance to the communities, organizations, and individuals traditionally marginalized and excluded.
In that context, as part of the GPR2C, we strongly campaigned for over a year for the explicit inclusion of the right to the city as the cornerstone of the NUA. Thanks to international mobilization and tireless advocacy activities at multiple levels, the definition of the right to the city and many of its main principles and contents are now part of the “shared vision” in the Quito Declaration (paragraphs 11-13) to which the world leaders will be subscribing, making this the first time that this concept is included in an international agenda signed by the national governments at the UN level.
The synthetic definition refers to the “equal use and enjoyment of cities and human settlements, seeking to promote inclusivity and ensure that all inhabitants, of present and future generations, without discrimination of any kind, are able to inhabit and produce just, safe, healthy, accessible, affordable, resilient and sustainable cities and human settlements, to foster prosperity and quality of life for all”. The authors of the document also recognize “the efforts of some national and local governments to enshrine this vision, referred to as right to the city, in their legislations, political declarations and charters”.
Among the key components, it is worth mentioning:
The respect and guarantee of all human rights and gender equality for all;
The social function of land, the public control of gentrification and speculation processes, and the capture and distribution of land value increments generated by urban development;
The promotion and support of a broad range of housing options and security of tenure arrangements, including the social production of habitat and rental, collective, and cooperative models;
The prevention of forced evictions and displacements, as well as tackling homelessness;
The recognition of the contributions from the informal sector and the social and solidarity economy to the urban economy as a whole;
The commitment to sustainable and responsible management of natural, heritage, and cultural goods; and,
The integrated vision of the territory beyond the urban-rural divide, understanding regional interactions and responsibilities beyond administrative boundaries.
Although all the references to “democracy” have been removed from the text after the first draft (we want them back!), there are several mentions of the promotion of substantial citizens’ and social participation in the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of public policies and national and local budgets. The document also mentions the need for greater inter-institutional coordination inside and between the different government sectors, as well as the recognition of the key role of subnational and local governments in advancing towards more inclusive, participatory, and sustainable cities.
We are not naïve and we know that having those values and commitments on paper will not be enough. We also know that many of those same values and commitments were already enshrined in the Habitat Agenda (1996) and even before, as part of the Vancouver Declaration (1976).
A real change of paradigm will necessarily include a serious questioning of the current production, distribution, and consumption patterns; of goods and services in general; and of human settlements in particular. The mantra of “sustained economic growth”, repeatedly mentioned in the NUA is clearly not compatible with social justice and the planetary boundaries. Maybe a concrete example will help to illustrate this principle: the policies of building and selling houses do not necessarily comply with the right to adequate housing; on the contrary, as the 2008 financial crisis showed, patterns related to the housing market can result in a massive social, economic, and environmental disaster.
The growing inequality, tensions, and conflicts in all regions of the world—with their spatial manifestation in terms of territorial segregation—feed the exclusion and poverty circle, as well as the limitations and vulnerability of the limited representative democratic systems current in place; these are clear wake-up calls that cannot be ignored any longer.
We believe that the right to the city, as a political and programmatic agenda, offers concrete instruments to reshape human settlements as common goods and collective creations. Moving towards the implementation of this paradigm of cities and territories as rights, and not as commodities, will require fundamental changes in the conceptions, knowledge, attitudes and practices of a wide range of actors and institutions at multiple levels. Are you ready to be part of that?
Since the founding of modern Singapore in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles, the small island nation has developed from a sleepy fishing village into a modern day metropolis, and has lived up to the adage, “if you build it, they will come”. Particularly over the last eight decades, Singapore’s coastal landscapes have gone through significant transformation. From an island skirted by mangroves and mudflats, this modern-day coastal city state has become one of the most populated metropolises in the world. Seawalls, headlands, and breakwaters were built along the coast to protect valuable land and inland assets from coastal erosion and inundation. The majority of Singapore’s contemporary coastline is thus reinforced by sea defences and other forms of coastal infrastructure.
The marriage of engineering and ecological knowledge is imperative to create or modify coastal structures that protect the coast and support biodiversity.
Sea defences to shore up the coastlines are a fundamental need for small coastal city states like Singapore, especially in the context of land scarcity, expanding population and impacts from climate change. While sea defences and coastal infrastructure are largely permanent engineered structures that are not purpose-built for supporting biodiversity, one strategy to enhance the capacity of these structures to compensate for and replace lost biodiversity without compromising their intended functions would also come through purposeful engineered modifications. This requires a mindset change that challenges us to understand the functions of coastal infrastructure beyond engineering goals and to explore opportunities for supporting and restoring biodiversity. Ecologically informed engineering in the design and construction of coastal infrastructure can reduce the loss of intertidal and shallow water biodiversity on artificial shorelines.
Biodiversity by chance
As it provides valuable economic, social and functional services, coastal infrastructure—such as jetties, floating pontoons, and seawalls—can also contribute directly and indirectly to habitat and biodiversity loss, as the construction of such infrastructure usually takes place in the shallow areas fringed by biodiversity rich intertidal and reef areas. However, as the character Dr. Ian Malcolm famously uttered in the 1993 movie “Jurassic Park”, “Life will find a way”, recent observations and studies in Singapore have shown that far from being barren, these artificially engineered structures can support unique assemblages of marine organisms. In particular, seawalls support a relatively high diversity of intertidal organisms and share several metrics with rocky shores, such as the number of species present and dominant species. For example, the presence of hard substrates, such as granite armour rocks used for shoreline reinforcement, can support the recruitment of biodiverse corals and other reef organisms in areas where reefs either used to exist, or could exist if suitable substrate were present. We observed this phenomenon along seawalls at reclaimed sites such as Pulau Semakau, East Coast, and Marina East, which continue to support rich assemblages of corals in less than a decade after the completion of reclamation works. We observed similar biodiversity revival within marinas, where the submerged walls of the floating pontoons used for berthing boats supported rich assemblages of marine organisms. In particular, the concrete coating used for the submerged walls provided suitable surfaces that encouraged the recruitment of marine organisms. However, the uniformity of seawall construction material, the inclination of their surfaces, and the lack of microhabitats such as holes, cracks, crevices and rock pools resulted in lower biodiversity assemblages compared to natural rocky shores.
Biodiversity by choice and reverse engineering
Our observations of biodiversity occurring by chance along artificially engineered coastal structures presented us with the perfect opportunity for studying the factors that facilitated their successful development, such as surface material, rugosity, slope gradient and hydrodynamic regimes, among others. We adapted and then applied these factors to intentionally enhance the biodiversity of other existing and future coastal structures. Recent investigations suggest that larval supply of marine organisms is not limited in Singapore. However, the availability of suitable habitat is limited in many areas. By introducing appropriate substrates in the right environment, coupled with effective management of human activities, we believe that marine biodiversity can be revived or enhanced along otherwise barren areas. One way to do this is through the reverse engineering of structures—i.e., the process of extracting design information from a manmade structures/objects and using this information to enhance other structures/objects—to understand the design and engineering aspects and environmental factors that facilitated the recruitment of organisms in the examples described above. We looked at the nature of the built structure from the type of material used, the methods of construction, surface complexity, inclination, hydrodynamic conditions, exposure to varying tidal regimes and anthropogenic activities, and the historical condition of the sites that contributed to their ability to host and support biodiversity. Based on those metrics, we investigated different strategies for biodiversity enhancement and developed the following framework to assess coastal structures and their capacity to host biodiversity [Figure 1].
Figure 1: A framework to assess coastal structures and their friendliness toward biodiversity.
Based on this framework, we identified and investigated strategies for increasing heterogeneity and complexity of built surfaces, introducing novel habitats such as tidal pools, enhancement units, and textured tiles, substrate manipulation, planting of coastal vegetation, and incorporating purpose built elements to coastal structures.
We found that for enhancement on existing seawalls and coastal structures, surface complexity is the most important and also the most easily manipulated amongst all assessment criteria. Complexity can be manipulated at different spatial scales, ranging from millimetre to metre, and targeting different organismal behaviour. We worked with four complexity parameters that were developed in a separate research project by our research collaborators from the National University of Singapore, namely (1) the number of object types; (2) the relative abundance of object types; (3) the density of objects; and (4) the variability and range in the objects’ dimensions, to design reverse engineered tidal pool units to be introduced along an existing stretch of seawall with a barren horizontal surface.
These tidal pool units consisted of purpose-designed and fabricated concrete modules measuring 1.5m x 1.0m x 0.3m. They were fabricated with concrete suitable for the marine environment using negative fibreglass moulds, and were designed to collect seawater during high tide and to retain it during low tide to mimic a tidal pool environment. These tidal pool units are expected to create habitats that are similar to natural rock pools, to provide additional niches, and to encourage more diverse assemblages of marine organisms to thrive within the area.
Janine M. Benyus’ description of biomimicry as “the conscious emulation of life’s genius” (1997) served as a source of inspiration for our design. To design the units, we first studied natural rock pool habitats to identify attributes that made them suitable for certain marine organisms to colonize and thrive, and found that a combination of crevices, grooves, and pits provided ideal niches and succession for a variety of marine organisms. These attributes were then incorporated in the design process, according to the four complexity parameters, to create conceptual designs that would most closely mimic natural tidal pool habitats. Multiple designs were created based on the different complexity combinations, and two designs were selected for testing.
The first design is a pool with a combination of evenly distributed grooves with pits of three sizes – 30 small pits (20mm diameter), 30 medium pits (40mm diameter) and 30 large pits (70mm diameter) [See Figure 2]. The multiple sizes of the pits enabled us to increase the spatial scale of this feature. Pits and groves are cast on an inverted topographic surface. This surface plan mimics a natural hilly landscape in Singapore (Central Catchment Nature Reserve), where the complex topography houses significant biodiversity.
The second design is a pool of the same surface area with a randomised arrangement of steps. The steps’ thickness was calculated based on the aforementioned complexity parameters [See Figure 2]. The angular edges and offset create niches for marine organisms. We also embedded some pits (3mm) into some of the units of this design to test out the combination of pits and steps.
Figure 2A: (1) Design of the pool with pits and grooves [top]; (2) Cross section A-A [middle]; (3) Casted pool [bottom]
Janine M. Benyus’ description of biomimicry as “the conscious emulation of life’s genius” (1997) served as a source of inspiration for our design. To design the units, we first studied natural rock pool habitats to identify attributes that made them suitable for certain marine organisms to colonize and thrive, and found that a combination of crevices, grooves, and pits provided ideal niches and succession for a variety of marine organisms. These attributes were then incorporated in the design process, according to the four complexity parameters, to create conceptual designs that would most closely mimic natural tidal pool habitats. Multiple designs were created based on the different complexity combinations, and two designs were selected for testing.
The first design is a pool with a combination of evenly distributed grooves with pits of three sizes – 30 small pits (20mm diameter), 30 medium pits (40mm diameter) and 30 large pits (70mm diameter) [See Figure 2]. The multiple sizes of the pits enabled us to increase the spatial scale of this feature. Pits and groves are cast on an inverted topographic surface. This surface plan mimics a natural hilly landscape in Singapore (Central Catchment Nature Reserve), where the complex topography houses significant biodiversity.
The second design is a pool of the same surface area with a randomised arrangement of steps. The steps’ thickness was calculated based on the aforementioned complexity parameters [See Figure 2]. The angular edges and offset create niches for marine organisms. We also embedded some pits (3mm) into some of the units of this design to test out the combination of pits and steps.
Figure 2B: (1) Design of the pool with randomized steps [top]; (2) Cross section A1-A1 [middle]; (3) Casted pool [bottom]
We studied the hydrodynamic conditions of the site that may affect the service life of the tidal-pool structures. Through hydrodynamic modelling, we calculated mean current speed and changes in bed thickness per year to identify whether the seawall is subjected to strong erosion or accretion. Mean current speed is also an indicator that helps determine if the coast is subjected to strong hydrodynamic forcing, which might result in lateral movement or even dislodgement of the fitted tidal pool structures. While there are studies suggesting that introduced artificial structures can have a positive impact on sandy shoreline stabilisation, the introduction of these structures should not compromise the ability of the engineered coastal infrastructure to perform its primary function. In the case of seawalls, which are built for sea defence, the enhancement measures have to preserve sea wall structural integrity, as well as connectivity of coastal processes.
We are currently studying the relationship between the tidal pool designs and community assemblage and succession by assessing their ability to provide shade and regulate temperature using drained and un-drained units. In order to reduce bias and account for treatment or site effect, we positioned the different design configurations randomly along a linear stretch of seawall, and introduced control plots to assess the effectiveness of introduced structures versus no modifications. A control plot in this context is an empty plot on the seawall that is of the same size as the tidal pool units [See Figure 3]. Data collected on these control plots will act as a baseline against which the treatments/modifications will be compared.
Figure 3: The tidal pool units positioned in a randomised layout with control plots (empty slot without any tidal pool unit).
Currently, we are monitoring the units biweekly to gather data on recruitment and succession of fauna and flora, as well as environmental parameters such as temperature, conductivity, and irradiance. Preliminary results indicate that the tidal pools were occupied by turf algae within the first week after installation and, shortly after, this single species was replaced by an assemblage of algae including Bryopsis spp., Dictyota sp., Enteromorpha spp., Ceramiales spp. and Ceramium spp. Faunal diversity and abundance increased over time and, after several weeks, we recorded periwinkle and nerite snails, crabs, tube and fire worms, feather stars, and bead anemones. The performance of each tidal pool design and its complexity elements are also being monitored. The outcomes of this study are expected to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the combination of complexity treatments on species recruitment and biodiversity.
Projected sea level rise poses the most immediate threat to Singapore, and protecting our coastline has been identified as a priority in dealing with the effects of climate change. The current efforts to defend our coastal areas from erosion include the construction of walls and stone embankments. Thus, the marriage of engineering and ecological knowledge is imperative to create or modify coastal structures that both protect the coast and better support biodiversity. Ecologically informed engineering in design and construction of coastal infrastructure would reduce loss of intertidal biodiversity on our artificial shoreline.
Nhung NGUYEN, Karenne TUN, and Lena CHAN
Singapore
Karenne’s current work at NParks covers issues related to the management and conservation of Singapore’s coastal and marine environment (CME) and the biodiversity they support. She leads a team that serves as Secretariat for the Technical Committee on Coastal and Marine Environment, an inter-agency committee that undertakes studies, provides technical inputs for policy making, and builds capacity in CME related issues.
Nilofar* leans over to pour us more tea. All conversations in Central Asia seem to start with tea.
What role can cities play in promoting gender equality among the recently-graduated population?
She is asking questions about our trip, wondering why we are walking from Bangkok to Barcelona. She wants to know if we have always traveled, how we can afford the trip, if women can travel alone.
She wants to visit London and New York, and sure, Barcelona would be nice, too. Her eyes light up when she thinks about the idea of exploring the world and visiting cities she has seen on TV. But, first she has to finish university. She has a year to go.
Pamir girls, Tajik young women (this is a general comment, not specifically about these kids): Many girls and young women in Central Asia go to school, but their future after high school or university is uncertain. They feel the pressure to marry and have children at young ages. Photo: Bangkok Barcelona On Foot
She’s studying to be a teacher, and from where we’re sitting, we think she would make a great addition to any school. She is compassionate, generous, enthusiastic, observant, smart, funny, beautiful, and a great conversationalist. She speaks her local Pamiri language and the dialect down the road. She also speaks Tajik, Russian, English and some Arabic and Iranian.
She’s the kind of young woman the world deserves. The Earth needs her talent and her smile, we think, enamored by her and the many other young women we are meeting and connecting with on this leg of our trip through Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
Then the shoe hits the floor. There’s a marriage proposal on the table, and Nilofar is considering it. The deal, though, isn’t a fairytale story. The man, a family friend, has already told her that when they get married she will have to stay home to raise the children they will inevitably have and she won’t be allowed to go out with her friends like she does now.
Nilofar’s father, like many of the fathers we met in the Pamir region, talks with pride when he speaks of his daughter. He worked many years in Russia, and sees Nilofar’s love of foreign languages as a gift that will serve her well at home or abroad. He doesn’t appear to be a father who would want his daughter to be in a loveless marriage or hidden in the background.
Still, Nilofar thinks she has to accept the proposal. Saying no would disappoint her family, she believes. She feels stuck, not sure where her place is in the world.
Milking the family’s cows is one of the daily task many young women perform in rural areas of Central Asia. Photo: Bangkok Barcelona On Foot
This, like the conversation surrounding migrant workers, is a story that repeats itself in many of the towns and cities we walk through. Young women on the verge of joining the workforce—multilingual women entering the world with accounting, biology, business, chemistry, finance, and teaching degrees—will trade in their many years of study to be confined at home.
Young tajik woman. Photo: Bangkok Barcelona On Foot
Losing our valuable natural resources
Somehow we have stepped into a delicate space. We are now tiptoeing around complex, far-reaching social justice issues that have broad implications for nations, cities, families, and individuals. I recognize that we are on shaky ground, and that we are bearing witness to the loss of one of the Earth’s most precious resources: a smart, empowered woman.
It’s the kind of conversation that raises more questions than answers, and it’s difficult for us to explain this to Nilofar.
How can we, as a global community, spend as much as we have on educating girls and create a value system justifying the investment as critically important to the entire world and then turn around and leave these women unsupported when they graduate from high school or university?
How can we close the gap between knowing that better educated girls lead to better educated women who take better care of their families and help improve their countries’ GDPs and the unspoken knowledge that we will lose natural and school-taught skills when women are limited to a stay-at-home family setting?
How do we provide equal access to education to boys and young men and empower them to stand with women and question the limited gender roles society imposes on everyone, male and female?
If parents have invested whatever money they could afford to educate their daughters beyond the state-mandated level, shouldn’t they expect and trust their daughters to think for themselves and choose a life path that shapes their own unique spot in the world?
Why do we waste our time fighting for girls’ education if we are not willing to make the longer-term commitment to see them grow in the workforce or support them as they seek out their place in the world?
I walk in the shadow of majestic mountains mulling over these puzzling questions. Answers, I think, don’t really exist in the realm of a multi-national approach. Organizations such as the United Nations, the World Bank, and the many others we can rattle off, are powerful forces in shaping and setting international educational and workplace milestones and finding ways to hold nations accountable to achieving those goals. But they lack the grassroots enthusiasm that individuals want to latch onto and need to rationalize personal choices that are influenced by familial, cultural, social, and religious values.
Because I love cities, and because I feel cities are the lifeline to communities unreachable at a nation-state level, I believe there is a place for issues like this on the city agenda. Cities are bridges between an individual’s day-to-day life and the lofty, idealistic international dialogs happening in big conference halls. Cities, along with the schools and businesses that operate in them, are the frontmen dealing with the loss of these valuable human resources.
We’re not sure what this picture means and we were not able to speak with them, but we like to think it’s a political statement opposing the shackling of young women to a man she is forced to marry. Photo: Bangkok Barcelona On Foot
Creating space for the dialog
As we struggle through our conversation with Nilofar, trying to balance compassionate guidance while remaining sensitive to her situation, my mind wanders to city-level stories I have heard about and the models they are implementing to break gender barriers.
Closing the wage gaps is one such tactic. Three Minnesota cities—Rochester, Minneapolis, and St. Paul—rank highest on this list of cities, where women earn almost as much as men. Boston is taking the idea even further with its 100% Talent: The Boston Women’s Compact, a voluntary pledge that more than 50 companies in the city have signed to indicate their commitment to closing the gender wage gap in the workplace.
Wage gap issues, however, are much further down the line when filtering the conversation through a Central Asian film.
Here, young women first need to be able to understand that they have options, that they can choose which barriers to break, and which values they hold onto. Education has given them the fundamental groundwork to prepare them for this discussion. More is needed.
Nilofar is only one woman having an internal debate about her place in the world. We tried to help her get a little farther down her path. But, there are many, many more women like her. How will your city ensure that we don’t lose their voices and their minds?
*Her name has been changed to protect her identity. Some details are not unique to the woman identified here, but, rather, are representative of conversations we have had with several women in Central Asia.
“Cities separate us from nature, do they not?”
—Light, 2003
No, they don’t; or at least they don’t have to.
The good news: green infrastructure is expanding and gradually softening a proportion of our planet’s increasingly urban surface. It appears we’re on the right track, as recent years have witnessed a global emergence in the implementation of ecological interventions alongside the growing awareness of our inter-connectivity and our complex needs for nature. Yet: from my perspective as a plant ecologist, I regret to say that many green infrastructure installations miss their full ecological potential. While monoculture is better than concrete, diversity is generally better than monoculture.
The ideal of green infrastructure is two-fold: it must be multi-functional and it must express ecological sensitivity.
If green infrastructure were not such a crucial and simple element for offsetting humanity’s footprint—and for sustainability, climate change adaptation, resilience, social well-being, the restoration of natural cycles, ecosystem function, biodiversity, and so on—I could ignore the missed opportunities that I’ve observed. Surely, a xeric green roof is better than a gravel roof, and a grassy swale is better than a bare ditch? As a plant ecologist with over 15 years’ experience working in this multidisciplinary domain, this essay has encouraged me to share some challenging reflections and observations. Confident and loyal to the faith that we all want the same thing—a healthy future on this beautiful planet—I hope you will share your perspectives and opinions.
Background
A major challenge for the 21st century will be ensuring environmentally and culturally sensitive urban landscapes for the health and well-being of future generations (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). As the world and its human population become increasingly urban, the provision of plants and soil in the built environment—green infrastructure—is essential to providing ecosystem services and improving the lives of urban dwellers. More than 60 percent of the area projected to be urban by 2030 has yet to be built (CBD, 2012), so the window of opportunity to future-proof our biosphere is immediate. Human settlements need more green infrastructure providing multiple ecosystem services if they are to be liveable and sustainable (Andersson et al., 2015). With respect to urbanisation, green infrastructure is an obvious tool to facilitate our necessary shift from the industrial to the ecological age.
More than 60 percent of the area projected to be urban in 2030 has yet to be built (CBD, 2012, back cover).
The benefits of soil and plants for reducing the ecological footprint of human settlements and for ameliorating some challenges of urban life are well documented and date back to the earliest cities. By definition, green infrastructure is a network of nature-based solutions that are cost-effective and offer multifaceted solutions for social and environmental issues in the built environment. Green infrastructure includes bioswales, rain gardens, vegetated roofs, and living walls, but also green spaces, trees, and grassy verges. An ideal installation offers resources for biodiversity, improves air quality, mitigates stormwater, and supports ecological functions such as nutrient recycling, but it may also provide thermal insulation; enhance thermal comfort; facilitate social cohesion; offer space for creativity, inspiration and connection; and provide experiences of nature.
Despite the obvious associations to plant ecology, experiences from both research and practice suggest that collaborative ecologists form a minority amongst the other disciplines working with green infrastructure. This has been demonstrated for vegetated roofs, whereby the research areas of engineering (followed by environmental science and construction technology) have ten times more publications than plant sciences (Blank et al., 2013). Practical experience also suggests that multidisciplinary teams lacking ecologists are more likely to specify green infrastructure lacking in ecological integrity. If this is the status quo, then we should lower the bar of what benefits we can expect from green infrastructure. But this discredits the potential of green infrastructure, particularly as simple measures can transform substandard designs into expressions that approach the ideal.
What is “the ideal”?
Acknowledging the term “ideal” is loaded with subjectivity, I shall nevertheless try to describe the ideal of green infrastructure from the plant ecology perspective.
Put simply, the ideal of green infrastructure is two-fold: it must be multi-functional and it must express ecological sensitivity. In other words, it will provide a range of ecosystem services, demonstrate sensitivity towards natural cycles (e.g., the water cycle) and complex relationships (e.g., food webs), and honour the principles of regenerative design (Lyle, 1994; Orr, 2002). Ecologically sensitive design, in its full sense, is future-oriented because it creates opportunities for the unknown, including processes, organisms, and uses. When an installation or project is too simple in these terms, the resulting vocabulary may include words such as incomplete, lacking, substandard, missing the point, uninspired, etc.
My contemplation of the disparity between “ideal” and actuality was aroused by my Ph.D. research (Thuring, 2016), which granted unprecedented insight into the long-term development of extensive green roofs. By surveying the vegetation and soil from some of the oldest green roofs in Europe (some were prototypes of the popular systems defining today’s global market), I discovered significant simplification in plant species and functional diversity. As an example of a commercially available, off-the-shelf solution, these findings issue cause for concern that installations of technical green infrastructure can fall short of their designed intentions over the long-term. Poignantly, the vegetation on the old roofs I surveyed was green and considerably more diverse than many of the more recent installations I’ve seen over the years. The option of cheap design (value engineering?) often leads to ultra-shallow roofs that only manage to support perpetually stressed stress-tolerators—i.e., red succulents—not to mention poor function for water management and other ecosystem services.
The disparity between ideal and actual also occurs for sustainable urban drainage system (or SUDS) on the ground. Bioswales are linear, permeable, vegetated conveyances that clean and absorb stormwater. An ideal bioswale will be multi-functional with respect to drainage (both locally and regionally), air quality, aesthetic appeal; it will also be ecologically sensitive by providing a steady buffet for pollinators, birds, and mammals. By contrast, an “uninspired” bioswale might provide limited infiltration (e.g., if the outflow pipe is too low and the water drains away immediately) or be over-engineered (e.g., facilitating drainage rather than infiltration to replenish aquifers); it might be planted with species lacking nutritional value or seasonal interest, and might even be planted inappropriately (e.g., dry-loving plants in the wettest areas). I have borne witness to these scenarios, and am not making any of this up.
Evoking the ideal
In Sheffield, where I’ve been working the last six years, the first phase of the 1.3 km Grey-to-Green corridor is complete: two redundant lanes in the heart of the city have been transformed into a linear network of rain gardens, bioswales, perennial meadows and spacious tree pits. It’s not perfect, but it evokes the ideal. Through its civic engagement program, the University of Sheffield’s Department of Landscape worked closely with Sheffield City Council to devise a fundable plan of urban regeneration. Grey to Green is a good example of what is possible through partnership, as City Council was able to use the ideas and proposals generated by our students to successfully apply for external funding.
Based on the project brief, three cohorts of our Landscape students developed designs for a green/ blue corridor that enhances opportunities for biodiversity (with particular reference to priority species), climate-change mitigation (especially flood risk), and business improvement. Temporary interventions were a requirement (e.g., pop-up landscapes, a café), as was consideration of the mixed-use culture of the area. The overarching aim was to create an exemplary site that would attract and engage visitors, be they design professionals seeking precedence; tourists passing by; locals making themselves at home; or birds, insects, or mammals raising their families.
Top and bottom: Sheffield Grey-to-Green looking eastward. Two lanes were transformed into a linear bioswale planted with species-rich perennial meadow and trees. Given the intensive use of the area, the planted part features a mix of native, non-native, and ornamental species, in order to ensure a long flowering period for people, insects, and birds.
Top and bottom: Sheffield Grey-to-Green, looking west. After uncovering tramtracks and other buried surprises, the resulting bioswale is shaped to reduce traffic speed, and its colourful diverse plantings were further adorned with sculpture, furniture, and lighting.
Top, middle, and bottom: Sheffield Grey-to-Green. Given the slope of the hill, the bioswale is directed through a series of terraced rain gardens. This serves to slow and reduce stormwater runoff entering the River Don below, thereby protecting otter habitat and lowering the risk of flooding in the area.
Other examples that evoke the ideal of green infrastructure, from a plant ecology perspective, include the following.
This private home in Texas features a green roof that replicates the unique, soil-specific prairie flora surrounding it. Image: Mark SimmonsThis roadway verge in Germany is colourful and diverse. Given that some of these species are deep-rooting, this verge likely absorbs more water than a simple turf verge (and requires less maintenance). The species diversity also implies consistent provisions for insects, not to mention aesthetic appreciation by drivers.The 6-acre living roof on Vancouver Convention Centre played a role in earning the building’s LEED Platinum designation. Being planted with native species, some of which had never been commercially grown, this roof also boosted the emerging green roof industry by establishing bioregional species lists. Image: The City of Vancouver Convention Centre
Questions
Green infrastructure offers great opportunities to conjure the wonder and magic of the natural world through urban and ecological design. By visiting exemplary installations that demonstrate what is possible, I’ve come to realise that projects evoking the ideal are destinations, scattered like jewels across a global context of conventional landscapes. For most of the projects given above, I know that at least one plant ecologist was part of the multidisciplinary team, and in a position of leadership. Given how varied the disciplinary constellations can be on such projects, not to mention the role of policy or particular funding requirements, I’m interested to know the basic “how” by which ecological sensitivity can be integrated into green infrastructure installations. Here are some questions:
In spite of all the knowledge, technology, systems, and shared language, why do most designed landscapes not implement ecologically sensitive approaches? Is it because many of the disciplines involved in green infrastructure (architecture, civil engineering, landscape architecture) do not receive training or education on ecology? Perhaps their curricula are focused on the practitioners’ varied obligations to society and thereby lack the space for lessons in ecology and how to address the pressing issues facing the biosphere?
Is financial constraint the main reason? Or are there other mechanisms or even relationships that determine whether a green infrastructure project will evoke the ideal or not?
What are the main drivers that promote green infrastructure that is ecologically sensitive and multi-functional?
What will it take for “ideal” installations to become the norm, and for “conventional” approaches to become the minority?
On a scale ranking theory to practice, how collaboratively do multidisciplinary teams on green infrastructure actually work? If any of the associated disciplines are strongly rooted in their traditional outlooks (i.e., silos), can this be attributed to their education and training, through the taught approach to collaboration, or otherwise?
What would help to advance the expression and integration of ecological knowledge into green infrastructure installations? How might this look in cases where social requirements take center stage? Can social spaces also be multi-functional and ecologically sensitive?
Conclusion
With respect to this collective blog, over the last year, TNOC has published 14 essays reporting on the opportunities and challenges of green infrastructure in various cities in North America and Europe, as well as Japan, Uganda, and India. Compared with more abundant tags such as architecture (68), experiencing nature (100), climate change (46) or ecosystem services (55), green infrastructure still a relatively small topic. As such, it is encouraging to learn about the experiences and efforts of others in this domain, and to reflect on the dynamic influences that determine what goes forward in what form.
Note: The questions posed are drawn from a proposal that, if funded, would seek to determine the disciplinary limits to ecologically sensitive design in the built environment. Your feedback is welcome, whether in the form of sharing experiences (and opinions) or speaking to points of resonance that could help to direct or streamline the research.
Bibliography
ANDERSSON, E., TENGO, M., MCPHEARSON, T. & KREMER, P. 2015. Cultural ecosystem services as a gateway for improving urban sustainability. Ecosystem Services, 12, 165-168.
LIGHT, A. 2003. Urban ecological citizenship. Journal of Social Philosophy, 34, 44-63.
A review of Field Guide to Urban Wildlife: Common Animals of Cities & Suburbs How They Adapt & Thrive by Julie Feinstein. 2011. Stackpole Books. ISBN978-0-8117-0585-1. 453 pages. Buy the book.
While it may have set a Guiness record for longest subtitle, Julie Feinstein’s Field Guide to Urban Wildlife caused me to reminisce about a birding class I taught many years ago. It was an in-service teacher’s workshop for novice birders. Having worked in the field with beginning birders for several years, I had become all too familiar with the, “oh, that’s just a…”. Which meant, of course, that the individual had written the bird off with a shrug and a superficial knowledge of the bird’s field marks, habitat, behavior, and individuality.
“Field Guide to Urban Wildlife” is replete with Feinstein’s sense of wonder, which cannot fail to rub off on her readers.
For the class, I decided that we would not name any bird throughout the daylong workshop. Instead, each time we saw another member of that species, we would assign it the same number. We followed that rigorous protocol all day, even though it was, at times, excruciatingly difficult to resist naming the bird.
By day’s end, we had accumulated a list of 20 species, each entry containing detailed descriptions of field marks, habitat, and behavior. Never again would those teachers mistake a Spotted Towhee for a Robin based on a cursory look at the bird. And never again, I hoped, would they say, “Oh, that’s just a Robin”.
After reading Field Guide to Urban Wildlife, I cannot imagine Julie Feinstein ever saying, “Oh, that’s just a…”; to Feinstein, nothing is common. She makes that very clear from the outset in her introduction, writing, “Though urban animals live among us, sometimes even inside our homes, they largely go unnoticed. They are too commonplace. Yet there are moments, watching a fox in the backyard, discovering a centipede in the bathtub, or finding a bat asleep in the garage, when we wonder about them.”
This book is replete with her sense of wonder, which cannot fail to rub off on her readers, no matter how jaded they may be by the so-called “commonplace.”
The book will be equally appreciated by any “urban naturalist”, whether a rank amateur or seasoned professional, as Feinstein’s field observations and incredibly well-documented research reveal fascinating and illuminating factoids that are by turns humorous and horrifying. Her writing provides us with detailed life histories of everyday urban critters that are also replete with fun trivia, much of it gleaned from extensive literature searches. Meticulous research is Feinstein’s forte—unsurprising, given her professional position at the American Museum of Natural History and her own list of scientific publications.
One example of the obscure details common throughout the book is the revelation that opossums have a maximum land speed of 4 mph and sleep 18 to 20 hours daily, enjoying five hours of REM sleep in the process. She cites another researcher who discovered that taking two male mice and “anointing one of them with a third male’s urine resulted in the anointed mouse starting a fight with its former partner.” And, under an ultraviolet light, “mouse urine glows in the dark like psychedelic art.” We also learn that bathing your dog in tomato juice is not an effective remedy for the dog’s regrettable encounter with the neighborhood skunk. Fortunately, she follows that bit of information, having delved into Chemical Engineering News, with something that actually works to “de-skunk” your dog.
A young squirrel. Photo: Mike Houck
While we all are familiar with the generally friendly, but sometimes fraught, human/squirrel relationship—particularly between humans and the fox and Eastern gray squirrels, which are both the bane of every backyard bird feeder—few readers will know that Ronald Reagan routinely fed squirrels around the White House; indeed, the First Family featured squirrels in their 1984 Christmas cards. President Eisenhower, on the other hand, trapped and deported the squirrels to Maryland after they marred the presidential putting green with myriad holes. Feinstein goes on to describe squirreling counters with other presidents, including Carter, George H. W. Bush, and the Clinton clan, which, in “an era of appeasement”, gardeners provided with “peanut-filled feeders on the South lawn and Rose Garden to draw squirrels away from flower bulbs.” Interesting tidbits aside Feinstein also provides in-depth descriptions of common urban wildlife biology, ecology, and life histories. Such is the case with her descriptions of the fox and Eastern gray squirrels, including a detailed account of their interactions in North America and their invasion of England, where Eastern grays were introduced in the late 1800s.
A Turkey Vulture suns itself. “Field Guide to Urban Wildlife” details many of this species’ interesting adaptations. Photo: Mike Houck
Feinstein goes into great detail with one of the most common phenomenon that face parents accompanying their children to urban ponds—“ forced extrapair copulations”, or, to put it more bluntly, repeated gang rape of female mallards. While flummoxed parents may not be appreciably assuaged by the information, Feinstein provides detailed information as to the evolutionary strategy for this behavior. She has a great section on Turkey Vultures, including why they defecate on their legs, why they employe projectile vomiting as a defense strategy, why they lack feathers on their heads, that they play a role in the tourist trade at a Georgia state park, and that they have their very own fan club, The Turkey Vulture Society.
Her concluding chapters highlight insects and other arthropods, concluding with earthworms and slugs, subjects all too infrequently discussed in the context of urban wildlife. Among the more fascinating topics she explores are the grooming and mating behavior of centipedes; she even throws in a real groaner of a schoolyard joke on the topic. Given the recent spate of bedbug infestations across the U.S., her chapter on this most reviled pest will be of interest to her readers.
Feinstein’s writing style is user-friendly for the novice but also appealing to the specialist owing to her extensive citations of the scientific literature. The book is filled with high-quality photographs. Finally, she complements the book with her urban wildlife blog, www.urbanwildlifeguide.net, which she updates 4 to 5 times monthly, focusing on holidays such as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, as well as the changing of the seasons.
I would rate Field Guide to Urban Wildlife as a must-read for urban naturalists of every stripe. Mike Houck
Portland
Regularly, 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.
Simone Borelli, RomeStrategically communicating the value of urban green spaces should keep the message simple and ensure that people understand that they can turn their “space” into a “place”.
Sarah Charlop-Powers, New YorkAs the benefits of nature grow more visible, we’ll see an increase in the value placed on urban natural areas.
Hastings Chikoko, JohannesburgUrban green spaces are not made safe after they are created; safety starts from their design, and this includes understanding social dynamics.
Marcus Collier, DublinBringing green infrastructure to urban communities is about winning hearts and minds.
Sven Eberlein, OaklandOld habits die hard. However, they can be kicked to the curb if greener ones are visible, available, and within reach.
Niki Frantzeskaki, RotterdamTo connect with nature, seeing, listening, and being alert for all the experiences the city offers are paramount.
David Goode, BathUrban nature may be visible, but the processes are not. The vital functions of ecosystems are not readily appreciated until things go seriously wrong.
Leen Gorissen, AntwerpThe framework provided by Biomimcry can help us start to create conditions conducive to life.
Cecilia Herzog, Rio de JaneiroCollaboration is a key word for translating new social behaviors that are driving people to rethink their lifestyles, patterns of consumption, and waste production.
Seth Magle, ChicagoDoes nature want to be visible? Much of it clearly does not. Nature’s “invisibility” is part of what helps it persist on an urbanizing planet.
Polly Moseley, LiverpoolBridging the gap between research, innovation, art, and science is a collective responsibility.
Jean Palma, ManilaUrban design elements, such as bio-walls, vertical gardens, and urban agriculture, can help make nature visible in Filipino cities.
Jennifer Sánchez Acosta, San JoseCombining strategic planning with educational activities can help people recognize both tangible and intangible benefits of natural areas in cities.
Richard Scott, LiverpoolUltimately, green spaces in cities are about being kind, to nature and ourselves.
Chantal van Ham, BrusselsThe more people experience, connect with, and share their love for nature, the more support there will be for its conservation in the future.
Mark Weckel, New YorkAt the American Museum of Natural History, students think NYC nature needs a good publicist and a travel agent.
Mike Wetter, PortlandMessaging is unique in cities. Diversity, unconventional messengers, and creative combinations of urban and natural amenities are key.
David loves urban spaces and nature. He loves creativity and collaboration. He loves theatre and music. In his life and work he has practiced in all of these as, in various moments, a scientist, a climate change researcher, a land steward, an ecological practitioner, composer, a playwright, a musician, an actor, and a theatre director. David's dad told him once that he needed a back up plan, something to "fall back on". So he bought a tuba.
Introduction
People like parks of all sizes—clean and safe ones anyway. They like trees and birds, even street trees and house sparrows, as they walk to work. Perhaps they are curious about the occasional dragonfly. Or at turns thrilled or alarmed by a coyote down the road. Enjoy the tranquility of a water course in a busy downtown. People like protection from storms too.
But do people see parks and birds and trees and the rest of urban nature (and its benefits) clearly enough to value them as elements of a well planed city? Do they appreciate the tree pits that suck up storm water? Do they celebrate the wetland that moderates storm surge and is a hatchery for game fish? Do they recognize cities as important sites of conservation?
Is the rich value of urban nature and its services—including economic value, social value, biophilic value, and conservation and biodiversity value—appreciated by citizens and policy makers enough to place them as co-equals at the planning table with transportation, sanitation, housing, and economic development? Do they understand nature as a key element of a city—their city—that is resilient, sustainable, just, and livable?
That’s where we need to be.
But most cities, and most people, aren’t there yet. What information or communications efforts or actions will it take to achieve an urban nature that is truly valued and visible to everyone?
Simone is a forester and he works at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN as Agroforestry and Urban Forestry Officer.
Simone Borelli
Telling a good story
Everybody likes a good story and, at the end of the day, communication is telling a good, simple, clear, and truthful story. The difficult part is to ensure that you are telling the right story to right people and in the right way. Again, people love trees. There is no doubt that, when asked if they like trees and forest, everybody will answer “yes” without any hesitation. So, why is context critical, when you are trying to communicate and make sure that the community gains a better understanding of the value of the forest and trees that can be found in the cities in which they live?
Involving volunteers and both formal and informal community groups in tree planting and tree caring in public spaces can help raise awareness of the importance of urban forests, while also increasing community capacity.
The relative importance, both real and perceived, of the benefits that derive from green spaces deeply differs from city to city, and even within cities. It is intimately related to cultural, social and economic conditions. Basic resources such as food and fuelwood will normally be valued more in poorer districts of cities in less developed countries, while aesthetic and recreational values of nature and green spaces will be more of a priority for richer neighbourhoods. The choice of species to be planted and their management are often based on a ”luxury gradient”, from the more utilitarian to the more visually appealing.
Regardless of the context, having the benefits provided by nature recognized by the local communities is a key step towards their maintenance over time. Most urban dwellers, however, lack awareness of the key contribution that green spaces provide to their daily life. People living in cities, become progressively less familiar with natural processes and come to give for granted the services that the “invisible” natural environment provides. This is exacerbated by the fact that local communities are seldom engaged in the planning, design and management of urban green spaces. As a result, urban dwellers feel less involved and are less aware of the role that they could and should play in setting priorities for the place in which they live and ensuring that it becomes a “place” that they can call and feel their own.
So, how can we increase the awareness among urban and peri-urban dwellers, other stakeholders and policymakers of the roles and benefits of urban forests and other green spaces? How can this concept become an integral part of their lifestyle and encourage them to be “owners” of their green spaces?
There are many different narratives that have developed in various conditions and that could be included in an effective communication strategy. A powerful tool is that of creating green spaces in degraded areas of the city. In many situations, this has stimulated citizens to actively engage in the management and maintenance of these spaces. In Nairobi, Kenya, for example, a tree planting campaign launched in 2010 by the community of the slum of Kibera led to the planting of 10 000 new trees. The action was strongly supported by the local community, which saw in this action a first step towards an improvement of the conditions of their neighbourhood, making a space into a place for the first time.
This, of course, is not only true in extreme situations such as slums. Involving volunteers and both formal and informal community groups in tree planting and tree caring in public spaces can help raise awareness of the importance of urban forests, while also increasing community capacity in urban forest management (potentially reducing the cost of forest management in the longer term). Some of the better-known campaigns such as the MillionTreesNYC, in New York, were very successful in mobilizing urban dwellers to participate in volunteer group plantings in parks and other open spaces, or to actively engage in tree pruning, education, and advocacy programs. Providing free trees to citizens to plant in their own gardens has also proven to be an inexpensive and effective way of bringing attention to urban forests and trees, as well as other green spaces.
A different but also successful approach is that of certification schemes that has proven to be a very effective means for publicizing the environmental services provided by well-managed urban forests. In Celije, Slovenia, in 2005, the urban forest service and the local municipality launched the “Mestni gozd Celije”, a non-commercial brand aimed to raise local community awareness on the values of the urban forest for the city and to promote local sustainable tourism.
Social media, of course, are being used extensively and have helped sustain very successful awareness campaigns such as the Big Trees Project in Bangkok, which has played a crucial role in supporting the efforts to defend the remaining heritage trees around the city.
As a final consideration, it is always simple direct messages that seem to work best. A simple cartoon on the Benefits of Urban Trees that was produced by FAO has already been viewed by almost 400,000 viewers (in the 4 different languages).
Sarah Charlop-Powers is the Executive Director of the Natural Areas Conservancy, with a background in land use planning, economics and environmental management.
Sarah Charlop-Powers
There has been a sea change in public expectations for urban parks. The Olmsteadian ideal of pastoral landscapes comprising rolling meadows interrupted by lakes and fountains has shifted to a broader vision of urban nature that includes wilderness areas, green streets, and community gardens.
As the benefits of nature grow more visible, we’ll see an increase in the value placed on urban natural areas.
Many policymakers have come to expect that our urban parks should provide residents with a broad suite of services above and beyond recreation—including flood protection, clean air and water, biodiversity, and respite from the pressures of urban life. The impacts of climate change, including sea level rise, changes in precipitation patterns, and increased temperature serve as a reminder that our human experience is deeply intertwined with the natural world. In the face of these shifting expectations, it is worth reexamining the importance of nature in the urban environment and the diverse and significant benefits that urban nature provides for residents.
Our natural landscapes shape our cities
New York City frequently evokes images of skyscrapers and subways, but the legacy of natural landscapes continue to shape the city. Nature literally serves as the bedrock of human development. While geology has allowed for the construction of tall buildings in some neighborhoods, our coastal areas are characterized by glacial deposits, lending themselves to low-rise construction. Our historic wetlands, located along 500 miles of coastline, provided a historic buffer from flooding. Residents who lived through Superstorm Sandy experienced severe flooding along the coast, especially in areas where wetlands have been filled and altered.
Horseshoe crab monitoring by the Natural Areas Conservancy in Brooklyn.Natural Areas Conservancy student researchers in Jamaica Bay.
Urban residents need nature
We know empirically that nature in New York (and other cities) is incredibly important for making cities cooler and more flood resistant; there are also many opportunities for urban residents to enjoy positive experiences in nature. Our recent research also shows that urban parks and the nature that they contain is incredibly valuable from a social perspective. In partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, the Natural Areas Conservancy conducted a survey of visitor perceptions of natural areas. In response to a question about where they recreate, more than half of the 1,600 people interviewed reported that they either spend time only in the park where they were interviewed (19.8 percent), or in another public park (36 percent). These findings support the idea that urban open space provides a much-needed outlet for residents, especially those who are less able to travel to suburban and rural locales for a break for urban life. Municipal parks departments and NGO partners are increasingly focused on expanding public programming and creating trails and other amenities that provide opportunities for safe exploration of forest and wetland areas.
A Natural Areas Conservancy trail crew in the Bronx.
Wildlife can thrive in city parks
Research increasingly shows the unique value that urban areas have as biodiversity hotspots, serving as key stopovers in long-range migration routes, as well as providing year-round homes for a surprising diversity of flora and fauna. In 2014, the Natural Areas Conservancy completed an ecological assessment that revealed incredible natural diversity within New York City’s forests and wetlands. Urban centers are frequently located in areas that are historically rich in natural diversity. In the case of New York City, the unique natural features that made the city’s location appealing for human habitation included a compelling combination of northern and southern species, ample game, and a mix of terrestrial and aquatic habitats, which continue to result in a high level of natural diversity. Our inventory of 10,000 acres of city-owned parkland revealed more than 750 plant species and over 60 unique habitats.
Looking forward
As we look to the future, we see that urban parks, especially those that are located in city centers, are frequently overcrowded, experiencing unprecedented levels of visitation. Luckily, less developed parks, frequently near residential neighborhoods, provide a meaningful alternative to overcrowded parks, and provide unique opportunities to spend time in nature. As we look to the future, I believe that we’ll see an increase in the value placed on urban natural areas, where people can engage in a broad range of recreational activities, and also appreciate the quiet and calm of time in nature.
Hastings Chikoko is the Regional Director for Africa at C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group.
Hastings Chikoko
Fighting urban “green” criminals in African cities
In October 2015, a gang of 12 people murdered two men and raped a woman at Rhodes Park in Kensington, in the city of Johannesburg. The City of Johannesburg responded swiftly with initiatives to curb criminal elements in the city’s recreational facilities to ensure that the value of urban green spaces is not undermined. This has seen End Street North Park in the same city bringing residents to use the park for games, tournaments, and learning exercises.
The value of urban spaces in African cities is sometimes concealed by safety concerns. The fear of urban green spaces defeats the notion of social cohesion that most public spaces are intended for. In my life, I have had two encounters where my personal safety has been threatened at knifepoint. Both encounters happened in different urban green spaces that were created with good intentions—to provide recreation and leisure for people while addressing some ecological goals. My nasty experiences in these two urban spaces justify some reflection on crime in recreational facilities and what needs to be done to make urban green recreational facilities offer good life and not strife.
Design urban green spaces alongside the communities that the spaces are intended to serve.
Some urban spaces have quickly become homes to the homeless and unemployed and also a hub for drug dealers and gambling. However, we cannot sacrifice the immense ecological, social, economic, and aesthetic value that urban green spaces provide because of criminal elements. Given the knifepoint threat to my safety, there are a number of things that I—as a member of the community—believe urban planners and designers in African cities should consider before copying-and-pasting designs from overseas.
Urban green spaces are not made safe after they are created, so the solution to criminal elements in urban spaces does not lie in policing alone. The safety starts from people-centred designs of urban green spaces; this includes the understanding of social dynamics of the communities that the spaces are created to serve. There is a holistic package that needs to be considered in addressing public safety issues in urban green spaces and this package is wrapped in an envelope of community ownership and social relevance. This underscores the need to design the urban green spaces in a participatory manner with the communities that the spaces are intended to serve.
For me, a good urban planner is the one who locates an urban green space in an area where help is accessible. To me an urban green space should not be isolated from where the people are. It should be at the centre of the settlement and not adjacent or in the periphery of a settlement. That way, I still feel connected to the community even when I am engaging with the natural aesthetics of the urban green spaces. I also know that should my safety be threatened, help is only a shout away.
Linked to this is the absence of concealment. Designers should be able to include all the features of the park—including the shrubs and bushes without concealing my visibility for more than 10 minutes. Besides the shrubs and bushes, the landscaping and sloping of the park matters to me, too. Unless one is a professional mountain climber, it is not easy to run for safety in an urban green space that is predominantly steep.
Planned lack of concealment should also consider the possibility of my being audible to the community surrounding me. While a waterfall is a relaxing feature in an urban green space, a deafening waterfall does not guarantee safety, as my shouts for help will be obscured.
The number of people using the green space at any particular time minimizes concealment and creates a constant, visible presence. Increasing social and public activities in urban green spaces increases the number of “eyes-watching-over-me” factor, and makes me feel safe in the green space.
Green space designers should also know that I will not step into any “dark” forest just because it is located in a city, unless, of course, I have bodyguards. The placement of lighting in the park and the visibility the lighting provides (whether natural lighting or electricity lighting) informs my decision to use an urban green space.
To achieve all these, municipalities need to adopt an inclusive governance approach that goes beyond the parks, recreation, and environment departments. Different departments must be brought together to deliver every aspect necessary to enable the urban green spaces meet the social, economic and environmental needs, including safety.
Marcus is a sustainability scientist and his research covers a wide range of human-environment interconnectivity, environmental risk and resilience, transdisciplinary methodologies and novel ecosystems.
Marcus Collier
Old-fashioned thinking
Recently, during the final meeting of the TURAS project, I was interviewed for a national newspaper. I was asked my opinion on a plan to pedestrianize a part of Dublin in front of Trinity College, known as College “Green”. Online public consultation documents have the usual mock-up of what this pedestrianization might look like, yet, despite its name, the images show only a large grey, open area. Not a shrub in sight!
Bringing green infrastructure to urban communities is about winning hearts and minds.
Our conference had highlighted new urban transition strategies that we developed in the project. One of these strategies presented was a demonstration of a novel, nature-based solution which we call a “green comfort zone”—an outdoor green “living room” that is also high in biodiversity; absorbs noise, particulates, and CO2; and looks great too. In the resulting newspaper article, the journalist led with a remark I made about the plan being an example of old-fashioned thinking: grey, instead of green, infrastructure. The pedestrianization plan is flying in the face of resilience thinking, contrary to the nature-based solutions that other cities are scaling up. For many years now, collaborative research and demonstration projects have produced ample evidence for the efficacy of nature-based solutions such as urban green infrastructure; it does just seem so old fashioned to ignore this.
To say the least, there was a lot of public reaction to the article. Amid all the palaver, it became clear to me that a sizeable number of people do not always value urban parks or trees in the way we imagine. It seems that these people do not “see” the same diverse social and ecological values as researchers and practitioners do. Greenery and trees can be threatening. So, how do we convey, or make visible, the tangible and intangible values of urban green infrastructure? One way is to follow the ecosystem service and natural capital route, such as moving to green roofs or sustainable urban drainage systems, which are capable of illustrating in real time how green infrastructure values can be economic and even aesthetic. Another way is through collaborative, co-created processes that draw on social capital networks, build new ones, and have an element of social learning. This can bring the message to a wider, less aware, perhaps less understanding audience. Focussing on the social values of green infrastructure, though, is very difficult to convey without a longer, more involved process.
Perhaps we should return to another “old-fashioned” technique that can be called on to illustrate values—show, don’t tell! When we demonstrated our new green living room in Ludwigsburg, and recently created a mobile version (currently touring Europe), people could directly observe the value of nature by seeing, touching, and smelling it. Nature-based urban comfort zones can fulfil multiple objectives, especially on a hot and noisy day in the city where users can immediately appreciate the relative calm of a green comfort zone. Couple that with beautiful and creative design as well as diverse plant species, and values increase. Urban dwellers really appreciate value when they can experience it for themselves—and frequently begin to demand nature-based solutions of their local authorities as a result.
Thus, it is on us, the academics and the practitioners, to take our curious findings—our working examples, our long-term case studies, and our strange, novel designs—to package them creatively and imaginatively, and to take them onto the road, literally. Bringing green infrastructure to urban communities is about winning hearts and minds, and can make nature-based solutions fashionable instead of intrusive.
Sven is a San Francisco-based solutions journalist and whole systems thinker committed to the advancement of ecologically healthy cities and a livable planet. He is currently the publisher and editor of The Art of the Green New Deal, a next generation journal of creative culture shift.
Sven Eberlein
Developing better urban habits
Why is it such a challenge to bring more trees and birds and parks into our urban environments when we know that most humans enjoy trees and birds and parks in their lives? Why is there so much resistance any time a major public infrastructure project is proposed that would daylight a creek, green a median, or turn a congested street into a butterfly sanctuary when nobody ever said they hated creeks, plants, and butterflies? Why are we so attached to an outdated, drab, and fossil-burning industrial-age concrete jungle when solutions are readily available to simplify, beautify, and green our existence?
Old habits die hard. However, they can be kicked to the curb if greener ones are visible, available, and within reach.
The answer, you guessed it, is habit. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know, as the saying goes. Or, as in this case, the angel you don’t know. I’ve heard merchants fight tooth and nail for a single storefront parking spot in the face of gaining countless new customers from increased foot traffic through a proposed, canopied pedestrian boulevard. I’ve witnessed my entire city’s bicycle infrastructure plan come to a grinding halt for four years because of a single resident’s meltdown over the effect it would have on the flow of auto traffic.
Fear of change is a powerful emotion. Unfortunately, it takes only a few vocal people with strong attachments to the status quo to stonewall any kind of movement, no matter how beneficial it could be for the common good. The antidote to this fear of the unknown is to make the unknown visible, if just for brief moments and in small doses. This process is like turning on a flashlight in a cave to catch a glimpse of the beautiful paintings all around—once you’ve experienced a snippet of their beauty, you can imagine what it would be like if the whole space were illuminated. And being the social animals that we are, once we know how to shine a light on something new and inspiring, we want to share it with others.
The way to most effectively stage such a natural “interruption” of the regularly scheduled, dreary asphalt programming may vary from country to country and culture to culture. In the United States—a decidedly individualistic society with an innate distrust of government and authority—the most effective way to “change the program”, in my experience, is for individuals or a small group of creative and determined citizens to simply flick on the light switch.
For example, the wildly successful Pavement to Parks program in my adopted hometown of San Francisco did not originate in the city’s planning, public works, and transportation departments that currently jointly administer it. The seed for Pavement to Parks, which is intended to facilitate the conversion of underused spaces in the street into publicly accessible open spaces, was planted over a decade ago by urban visionaries at a small art and design studio (Rebar) who decided one day to convert a single metered parking space into a temporary public park on a plighted downtown street. Feeding the meter its maximum allowed parking time, they created a two hour green space and called it Park(ing).
The original PARK(ing) installation by Rebar. San Francisco, 2005.
As the photo of the intervention traveled across the Internet, Rebar began receiving requests to create the PARK(ing) project in other cities. However, rather than replicate the same installation, they decided to promote it as an open-source project, empowering others to create their own parks in their own cities and neighborhoods. This turned into PARK(ing) Day, an annual global event where citizens, artists, and activists collaborate to temporarily transform metered parking spaces into temporary public places. By 2011, there were 975 parks in 162 cities in 35 countries on 6 continents. In San Francisco, there are now over 50 permanent parklets, with new proposals being filed all across the city.
So what was it that broke San Franciscans’ old habit of assuming curbsides to be reserved for cars only, leading them to accept a new and officially sanctioned reality in which these spaces could be redesigned into public parks? For one, it took a small group of creative thinkers to re-envision a public space and boldly act on it. Secondly, a number of early adopters spread the idea, creating a necessary critical mass for accepting a new reality. Next, the installations needed to be localized, temporary, and fluid, giving the general public just enough of a sampling to inspire them, without feeling imposing. And finally, city agencies needed to step in at just the right time, seizing the momentum of maximum public support to enshrine the new vision into city policy and to normalize what had previously been unthinkable.
Ciencia Publica, a parklet holding exhibits on the theme of sustainable water use, was co-developed by Exploratorium’s Studio for Public Spaces and community-based organizations in San Francisco’s Mission District. Photo: Sven Eberlein
Old habits die hard. However, in urban planning, just as in our personal lives, they can be kicked to the curb if greener and healthier ones are visible, available, and within reach. Change is possible if we enact it together—creatively, and one step at a time.
Niki Frantzeskaki is a Chair Professor in Regional and Metropolitan Governance and Planning at Utrecht University the Netherlands. Her research is centered on the planning and governance of urban nature, urban biodiversity and climate adaptation in cities, focusing on novel approaches such as experimentation, co-creation and collaborative governance.
Niki Frantzeskaki
Make time to connect with (in)visible nature!
It is a warm summer in Europe, and it is rather impressive to see how Rotterdam city looks during a heat wave. Experiencing 32 degrees C during August and 28 degrees during September, we are living more than 10°C of the average seasonal temperature. How does the city look? Booming with life: there are people everywhere enjoying the sun, enjoying the socks-free days. Walking in the city, people finally sit on the parks, rather than only walking through them or focusing on how to cut down walking time from home to work through them. But is this really a first opportunity to appreciate nature in the city?
To connect with nature, seeing, listening, and being alert for all the experiences the city offers are paramount.
Remember that it is “just” a park—or is it? The connection of people with nature can start in parks. But what is the first connection we make? We get on the ground, we touch the grass; we get the perspective from the ground up, not from a sovereign position looking down to the ground. Making this as the first step, and getting “grounded” is the first connection with our nature in cities. Connect with the hidden nature, the soil, that in most parts of the city is covered by a carpet of infrastructure, and feel the temperature of the earth. But this connection requires that we slow down, that we stop from rushing and stop to have time to connect.
Give time to connect with nature and get “grounded”—a view of Rotterdam’s Museumpark. Photo: Niki Frantzeskaki
At least in my city, Rotterdam, many people still romanticize nature as a picture from a Monet painting. Beyond the planned and planted perception for what parks are (Buchel and Frantzeskaki 2015), urban parks exist and thrive with biodiversity to be loved by many people in Rotterdam. But to realize what urban nature is about, you need to also “release” the small kid we all have inside us. Wanting to connect with nature, wanting to touch nature in its simplest “form” in cities, people wander in parks, meet in parks, and play in parks. In the sizzling summer we are having, I saw hedgedogs in the Warande of Brussels; I saw kids try to touch and hug seagulls in the Park (Het Park) in Rotterdam, rabbit families in Kralingse Bos in Rotterdam, and yellow snails in Zartpark in Breda; and I listened to crickets during the evening in Park Pwostancow Slakich in Katowice, Poland. For connecting with nature, time to connect is the first requirement, but you also need to give your attention: you need to listen, you need to see, to discover. In our overly communicative world, how many hours are we attached to our screens of all sizes, maybe missing the life that happens around us in the city? To connect with nature, seeing, listening, and being alert for all the experiences the city offers are paramount.
Is this an excuse to just be lazy? Maybe it is, maybe it is a way to find inspiration, to give time for nature, for inspiration, and for discovering the unseen sides of your city. Instead of queuing for a visit to a zoo, to see animals that do not even belong to the continent on which you live, maybe dedicate time to discover the open and often undiscovered urban habitats of life you have around the corner of your house.
Fox in motion in Berlin. Photo: Niki FrantzeskakiBrown squirrel in Washington Park, Washington, D.C. Photo: Niki Frantzeskaki
Put time into making nature! Many people find gardening therapeutic, but it also goes beyond that. Get your hands dirty, have the passion to change your own land from emptiness to a green patch, to be excited when mockingbirds, parrots, and even owls come by. These represent investments in inviting nature, connecting with nature with your own hands. It is a welcoming act for a more “personal” connection.
But it is not just to make a personal connection with nature that is important; “making” nature in urban gardens established by communities goes beyond the personal and gets into the social. It is about finding new meanings of urban life, making sense of change and connecting with people and place simultaneously. Urban agriculture and urban community gardens are the places of socialization and political activation of urban communities. It is about considering how the actions of today connect with how we can change the future; it is about transforming today to shape the tomorrows of cities. So when you see the community gardens happening in your city, think of them as places to meet, to learn, and to connect with a pulse of change in your own city.
Birds hiding in plain site, Central Park, New York. Photo: Niki Frantzeskaki
How can you broaden connections with nature? Inspire others by sharing your experience, by changing the stories of what quality time in cities can be. Set the example for those who work with you that discovery and time for connecting with nature and others is not time lost, but time well invested. And for those working closely with urban planners and decision-makers, simply bring them to nature in the cities, allow the connections to work for them and with them, show what the smart city strategies cannot buy and that nature in cities is the greatest investment and inventor of them all.
David Goode has over 40 years experience working in both central and local government in the UK and an international reputation for environmental projects, ranging from wetland conservation to urban sustainability.
David Goode
Understanding the role of nature goes far beyond its visibility
Talk to anyone in my town about nature in their neighbourhood and you can be sure that they will mention gulls, foxes, and probably badgers. Some see them only as a problem— things that intrude into their lives that need to be controlled. Others enjoy having wild foxes and badgers visiting their gardens and set up night vision cameras to record their activities.
Urban nature may be visible, but the processes are not. The vital functions of ecosystems are not readily appreciated until things go seriously wrong.
Someone will inevitably mention our local pair of Peregrine Falcons that nest on the church. They have provided a good-news story that has captured people’s hearts. Thousands now log on to the live webcam to experience the domestic activities of these birds. Some have even become seriously addicted. In the digital age, the falcons are visible as never before.
Britain is known as a nation of gardeners and nature lovers. Membership of the Royal Society for Protection of Birds and the numerous regional Wildlife Trusts totals nearly 2 million. Local communities are involved in a vast number of projects to protect endangered species and habitats. But ask them about the issues and hardly anyone mentions green infrastructure or natural capital. These are words from a different language.
Where I live, people know that the city suffers from periodic flooding. Marks on the river wall record past flood levels together with dates. But I doubt whether most who stop to look will make any connection between these catastrophic events and the gradual loss of the natural flood plain as the city has become more and more built-up. River engineers are aware of the problems and there are plans to create a small flood alleviation scheme in the city centre. But the amount of land available to absorb floodwater is extremely limited. The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are both predicted to rise as a result of climate change. We are already experiencing such episodes in the U.K., as evidenced by disastrous flooding of many towns and cities, where river levels have risen to heights never known before. Despite the colossal impact on homes, businesses, and local economies there are still immense political and economic pressures for local decision-makers to allow new developments and many of these will lie in flood plains. This is wilful blindness on a massive scale.
Designing cities to make optimum use of natural capital requires ecologists, planners, architects and engineers to work together to find sustainable solutions. Green roofs, living walls, and rain gardens are now well established as a new form of ecological architecture that makes sustainable urban drainage a real possibility. But this goes way beyond our everyday perception of nature; it requires an understanding of urban ecology—what makes things work and how we can make them work better.
Making the underlying ecology of a city visible to the wider public is far from easy. We can see Peregrines, and by watching we can begin to understand their story. But seeing the benefits of city green space and nature as an infrastructure supporting economics, health, and human well-being is far more complex. It requires evidence from all these fields. We, the professionals, have that evidence. It is for us to make the case. But we have a problem. Urban nature may be visible, but the processes are not. The vital functions of ecosystems are not readily appreciated until things go seriously wrong. In the meantime, when crucial elements are missing from ecosystems, their absence is rarely understood by decision-makers. We have to make use of every opportunity to publicise the value we gain for free from the natural world.
What will it take to persuade people to take nature seriously? Some opportunities arise in the wake of environmental disasters, when politicians are keen to take credit for new initiatives. Restoration of peatlands on British uplands to reduce the incidence of catastrophic floods many miles downstream is just one example. We can create our own opportunities too. This week there was a major public event in the Royal Festival Hall promoting London as a National Park City. It was packed full of reasons why nature is of value to Londoners. Dr. William Bird, a pioneer advocate of green spaces for health, argued that, “If we were able to connect people to nature in London and have increased access, it would have a bigger health benefit than almost any other intervention in public health.
Yes, we need to use both catastrophe and celebration, and with all the evidence that now exists there is no excuse for wilful blindness.
Leen Gorissen, PhD, is an Innovation Biologist and Sustainability Transitions Expert. She is the founder of Studio Transitio. By imitating & emulating nature, businesses and governments can design more efficient, effective and life-friendly innovation strategies that support rather than deteriorate life.
Leen Gorissen
On August 8, 2016, we began to use more from nature than our planet can renew in the whole year. The date at which human consumption passes this marker each year is now called Earth Overshoot Day, and it illustrates the alarming rate at which we extract resources from the Earth. We are exploiting nature to such an extent that we are undermining our life support systems by overfishing, overharvesting, and through deforestation—nature’s regeneration capacity cannot keep up with our pace of consumption. This mismatch in regeneration ability highlights the dramatic disconnect that has arisen between humans and nature, a disconnect that is reinforced by the trend that more people now live in cities than in rural areas, and by our design of urban habitats as concrete jungles crowded with technological distractions that imply we do not need nature to succeed.
The framework provided by Biomimcry can help us start to create conditions conducive to life.
We have forgotten that our urban habitats need constant flows of ecosystem services, such as water, oxygen, biomass, and pollination, to thrive. We have become so busy consuming resources that we have overlooked how to safeguard the production of ecosystem services—or, even better, how we as a species can contribute to the production and regeneration of life supporting services.
However, we are not the only ones that build skyscrapers and cities. Termites, for instance, learnt to build high-rise buildings accommodating thousands of residents without overexploiting their environment. Instead of using vast amounts of energy to keep the inside temperature comfortable, they have designed a smart system of ventilation tunnels, a system that is far more energy efficient than our technological air conditioning systems. Coral reefs have developed underwater cities that use carbon as a building block instead of emitting it, thereby sequestering carbon in their building structures. Forests house an extraordinary variety of species and communities while producing benefits that are exported far beyond their borders, such as air production, climate control, and water regulation.
If we as a species want to endure and thrive on this planet, we will have to learn to develop solutions that work for instead of against life. Luckily for us, a new transformative and interdisciplinary field has emerged that is devoted to learning from nature and consciously emulates nature’s solutions to solve our problem of unsustainability. This field is called Biomimicry, after the words bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning imitating (Benyus, 1997). This discipline builds on the logic that nature has already solved many of the problems our societies are struggling with: energy, food production, climate control, benign chemistry, transportation, collaboration, and more. Mimicking these proven and lasting designs can help humans implement sustainable technologies.
Emulating nature’s organizational forms, processes, and systems can help accelerate our transition to sustainability (e.g. Baumeister et al., 2013). As Benyus so compellingly writes: “The organisms that surround us surf the opportunities in their habitat while respecting the limits, and in that frame, they perform what seem to us to be technological miracles. These tightly knit forests, prairies, coral reefs, tundras, and grasslands are the envy of all of us who thirst for a sustainable and equitable world. As a community, they not only create but continually heal and enhance their places. Our places, too. What better models could there be?” In other words, Biomimicry complements learning about nature with learning from nature. If we embed this new framework of inquiry in our educational, design, development and planning programs in cities, it can reconnect and re-align us with nature and offer us a new set of lenses to look at and value nature so that, like natural systems, we can start to create conditions conducive to life. Urban green spaces can thus be regarded not only as place to relax, but also as libraries of smart solutions that work on a finite planet.
References
Baumeister D, Tocke R, Dwyer J, Ritter S, Benyus J. 2013. The Biomimicry Resource Handbook: A Seed Bank of Best Practices. Biomimicry 3.8: Missoula. 280 p.
Benyus, J. 1997. Innovation inspired by nature. HarperCollins, NY.
Cecilia Polacow Herzog is an urban landscape planner, retired professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. She is an activist, being one of the pioneers to advocate to apply science into real urban planning, projects, and interventions to increase biodiversity and ecosystem services in Brazilian cities.
Cecilia Herzog
Safer, healthier, and more socially active urban spaces for all
Certainly people all over the world love parks, squares, and other open green spaces. But there are some essential factors to attracting and maintaining social use of these areas: they must be safe, comfortable, and filled with plenty of people (who attract more people). Many are not beautifully designed, but the ambience created by large trees, pleasant gathering sites, and nice pathways close to dense urban areas make those places a neighborhood magnet.
Collaboration is a key word for translating new social behaviors that are driving people to rethink their lifestyles, patterns of consumption, and waste production.
But if this is true, why it is so difficult to keep green areas from becoming occupied by other uses? In Rio de Janeiro, in the path of the preparation for the Olympic Games, many tree covered areas were taken and transformed into lawns and subway stations; even a biological reserve was replaced by the controversial Olympic golf course (native animals retook their places during the Games).
Once, I did a research project in one of the most attractive open spaces of Rio de Janeiro—Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon front—and when I asked why people loved to use the space, they responded that it was the beautiful scenery of the surrounding hills, the statue of the “Christ the Redeemer” on the top of one of those hills, and the water view. In spite of being simultaneously underneath a tree’s shadow hearing birds sing and beside degraded and eroded lagoon banks, with sewage smell emanating from the contaminated waters, and the noise of the heavy nearby traffic surrounding them, the park users noticed neither the good things coming from the local biodiversity, nor the bad things coming from of all types of pollution.
I was intrigued to know why they couldn’t see, feel or understand the multiple factors producing that local landscape context. I was concerned: if the park’s users liked things as they were, why would we need to change and improve the quality of their environment? To address this lack of public understanding, I, together with some fellows, founded the NGO Instituto INVERDE, which aims to educate and promote green infrastructure and urban ecology locally. We organized monthly lectures in one of the most beloved parks of Rio de Janeiro, Parque Lage. During more than four years, we invited myriad scientists, landscape architects, public officials, and researchers from many fields of knowledge related to the urban landscape. It was a great experience, and the response was really unexpected.
Then we started giving lectures and INVERDE gained recognition, becoming part of the Environmental Committee of the City of Rio de Janeiro. Together with some local public officials, I had the opportunity to organize seminars to educate and raise awareness about the work that was already being done by the Mosaico Carioca. Ultimately, our actions culminated with the first Green Corridor of Rio de Janeiro, under the leadership of Silma Santa Maria (head of the Conservation Units of that region), the design of EmBya Lanscapes and Ecosystems, and DeF, an urban design studio. The local residents became aware of the treasure they had next to their homes and became engaged, supporting and fighting to take the project forward. It was a process built from a win-win situation, even against the negligence of the city administration.
Social media is key in the process of education and raising awareness to protect and enhance urban nature. In the last few years, my writings for TNOC have focused on how people are falling in love with nature and natural processes via bottom-up movements that focus on urban food production, pocket forest planting rallies, urban trees planting and protection, and the reinsertion of hidden rivers and creeks in the tissue cities, and urban agroforestry, among others. Those movements are increasing in scale and expanding in Brazil. Lawns in parks are becoming targets of these ecological regenerative actions, and people are learning why they need nature in their urban front yards, local parks, squares, streets, or any residual space. These community members are developing new social skills. Collaboration is the key word that translates this new social behavior, which not only encourages people to praise natural features, but drives them to rethink their lifestyles, patterns of consumption, and waste production in all forms. Gradually, people are changing the very foundation of the money-oriented societies they live in. As a consequence, new forms of economy are rising, such as Instituto Chão (an NGO) in São Paulo, which successfully implements a solidarity economy focused on organic, locally grown, fresh food, which employs local people in its store and has became a staple in a trendy neighborhood of São Paulo.
As a result of these movements, a new ecological aesthetics is transforming not only public spaces, but residential gardens as well. For many people, cleaning is not an obsession anymore—they care for the leaves that fall and cover the soil, they compost organic residues to feed their plants naturally, they protect water springs in parks. As a landscape designer, I love these outcomes of working with nature and people to transform our common places with rich biodiversity—whether native or non-native, but productive—that attracts more and more people to this beautiful, life-based-movement. The consequence is safer, healthier, and more socially active urban spaces for all.
Seth Magle is the Director of the Urban Wildlife Institute at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois. He has studied wildlife in urban areas for nearly twenty years.
Seth Magle
Valuing invisible nature
We are asked to consider the notion of a “truly visible” urban nature. I’d like to pose a glib question in response to this one, a question that simultaneously anthropomorphizes and oversimplifies the topic, and thus would probably give my scientific colleagues a collective heart attack. Does nature want to be visible?
There is ecological theater happening around us every day—it does not need to be visible to inspire.
I ask because much of it clearly does not. In studying animals, and particularly mammals, in the urban sphere, one is struck by the care they take to avoid detection by us. We can all point to the exceptions—the tree squirrels that chatter away from the safety of a tree, bounding here and there without evident concern for the silly primates below, the indifferent pigeons, and the like. But in North America, the coyotes, the rats, the foxes, the raccoons clearly do not want our attention. They go to great lengths—adapting to be more nocturnal, finding the least occupied portions of the city, watching carefully before crossing the streets—to avoid human notice. It is estimated that thousands of coyotes roam around Chicago, but in the very rare cases when one generates a conflict with humans, it’s worthy of local news coverage. The city is their home, and they will happily eat our leavings. But us? No, they have no apparent interest in being seen by us.
In fact, we have created evolutionary pressure on these species that ensures they remain concealed. A raccoon that makes a habit of scratching at people’s doors or tipping over trash cans is more likely to be the target of a call to animal control. The outcome of that call, in turn, will probably render that raccoon much less likely to pass his or her genes on to the next generation. Humans have generated a crucible that rewards invisibility, and so each new generation of wildlife gets a little bit better at evading us, even as they make their homes where virtually all of us are.
An urban coyote in the city of Chicago. Animals like these persist in huge numbers despite being rarely detected by people. Image: Urban Wildlife Institute at the Lincoln Park Zoo.
But clearly, the question posed to this roundtable isn’t about visibility in a crude sense. We are instead supposed to consider how to make people more aware of the animals that share their neighborhoods, invisible or not. But here, as well, we have a conundrum or two.
People call me frequently when they spot an opossum, or a coyote, or something else they didn’t expect moving through their yard. “What do I do?” they often ask. “Not a thing”, is my usual response. But they rarely find this satisfactory. Someone, they usually inform me, needs to catch it, move it. They have to do something. It does not belong here is a refrain I hear often. “It does, though”, I usually gently reply. “If you really want to do something, get a picture. Put it on Facebook.”
Sometimes this advice is received well. More often it is not. We are not always comfortable with the notion of visible wildlife intruding into what we see as a humans-only domain. It’s not just visibility we’re seeking. It’s not enough to simply know that we aren’t alone in the city. We need to accept it, to celebrate it, and then, perhaps, to carefully engineer it.
How do we create an urban nature that people are not only aware of, but rejoice in? This task is somewhat easier for wildflowers and oak trees than it might be for prairie dogs and little brown bats. People are not excited about the raccoon that makes a den in their attic, and with good reason. But what made the raccoon choose to do that? What is it about attics that attract raccoons? How many raccoons can an urban area support, what will they eat, and how do the answers to all of these questions impact hundreds or thousands of other species that interact with those raccoons? It takes more than just scientists to grapple with these issues; we need economists, sociologists, city planners, architects, and more.—not to mention much more space than is allocated for this thinkpiece.
From the science side of things, we work to generate this new urban nature through complex monitoring and analyses designed to understand urban wildlife behavior, and by so doing, determine how to build urban green space that both maintains wildlife and reduces human-wildlife conflict. This is what my colleagues and I spend rather a lot of our lives working on.
But from a psychological, and perhaps deeper, viewpoint, my hope is that we build this urban nature by inspiring a sense of place—an awareness that we all live in a form of nature, one with myriad unseen connections and interactions. There is ecological theater happening around us every day—animals are in a desperate hunt for shelter, for mates, for food, within a hundred yards of you, no matter where you are. It does not need to be visible to inspire.
Polly Moseley is a producer and PhD candidate at Liverpool John Moores University, working on applied research on social and cultural values underpinning urban ecological restoration work in North Liverpool. Her first degree was French & English Literature from Oxford, and she is interested in linguistics and place-based narratives. Highlights of her career involve intercultural exchange with Grupo Cultural AfroReggae and street art with Royal de Luxe, and land artists in Nantes. Her current projects include building the Scouse Flowerhouse movement and preparing a public campaign for the restoration of a beautiful, heritage Library building. Polly has spent a total of 22 years on kidney dialysis and has dialysed in 180+ centres. She plays fiddle and loves wild swimming.
Polly Moseley
“Another Place”, sculptures by Antony Gormley.
Until last November, I lived on the shores of Crosby Beach, which since 2006 has become synonymous with “Another Place”. This is the name of the artwork comprising 100 bronze sculptures conceived by Anthony Gormley and scattered over the 3km of sands and mudflats, with their foundations sunk into the depths of the earth and their heads rising above the waves at high tide. They cover a stretch which bridges the cranes and containers of the superport, with the far-reaches of Formby’s detached estates and red squirrel reserve.
Bridging the gap between research, innovation, art, and science is a collective responsibility.
No doubt, many people brought up in the city think of it as wild, though the dunes and the marina were constructed when Liverpool’s port was moved north to accommodate larger vessels. Whether you see this artwork as a soothing presence, an egoistic luxury, a mass suicide, or a sci-fi lunar landscape, (and I have walked it with people who have projected all of these things), it has become an iconic part of the landscape and draws people to the mouth of the Mersey.
Fernando Pessoa’s statement that “the function of art is not to be pleasant; art’s purpose is to elevate” seems all the more important when populism is masking, debasing, and corrupting public opinion.
Granby4Streets is a Community Land Trust in Toxteth, the ward up the hill from where I now live. Toxteth, like many areas of northern England, has undergone dramatic change involving demolition of many historic streets, and has lost many of its vibrant shops. Residents of several streets in the area resisted eviction and stayed and stayed for many years. Eleanor Lee is one of these residents, whom I had the pleasure of meeting this year, and who described two clear factors in bringing about the positive change which has gathered momentum over the last few years. The first of these changes is the street planting; the second was the market. The street planting came first and it is ad hoc and sprawling, humourous and joyful mixed with a hint of anarchy.
Last year, Assemble, a collective of architects from London, won the Turner Prize—the U.K.’s most coveted fine art prize—for a Winter Garden concept within 2 of the terraced houses on Eleanor’s street. This concept is to conserve a public space, which will also be an artists’ residence space within the street, which is now being refurbished. Eleanor’s dream is for this handful of streets to become the greenest triangle in Liverpool and she is on her way to realising it. When questioned by national media, Assemble don’t claim the responsibility for this work. They credit the energy of the residents they worked with and, unusually, they even smile at the definition of being labelled as artists.
The French have never drawn lines between artists, gardeners, or chefs, and in a recent national poll, 15 percent of people equated culture with agriculture. Nantes, which was European Green Capital in 2013, has had a 20+ year trajectory with a civic leadership which prioritises arts, particularly street art. This has, in recent years, accelerated the popularity and importance of environmental policy and visibility of green spaces. From labelling plants growing out of cracks in pavements, to courgette mountains on roundabouts, a massive open-air cantine where you pick your own herbs, and the “stations gourmands” dotted along the river bank, Nantes has blended iconic artworks with inviting greening interventions, and has let the public take the lead in activating them. Lending frames through which people can take a different view and provoking action rather than prescribing it is surely a more sustainable way of making nature visible.
The work pictured above was a first move to reconciling the redundant shipyards on the Île of Nantes to the Loire Estuary. Reconciliation can be a function of art, though the timing and pacing of work is as critical as it is for conductors, choreographers and comedians.
The time it takes to build public-private sector coalitions has been vastly underestimated by the U.K. government. In Nantes, the duty of care for public space remains a clear public responsibility. The success of artworks to elevate debate about energy, about environmental issues, about adaptive environments and urbanism will only breathe if it is not prescribed, and if we harness the technologies available to artist innovators to fly with their dreams. I see in the hangars of Airbus the same creative forces at play as in the workshop of Royal de Luxe or the drawings of Jules Verne. Bridging the gap between research, innovation, art, and science—between human interventions and the outer realms of what is possible—is a collective responsibility.
Ragene Palma is a Filipino urbanist currently studying International Planning at the University of Westminster, London, as a Chevening scholar. Follow her work at littlemissurbanite.com.
Jean Palma
Shades of green are medicine to the eyes and lungs in a congested, smoke-filled metropolis such as Metro Manila. A highly dense, built-up environment; millions of inhabitants; and a busy atmosphere require breathing spaces and green parks.
Urban design elements, such as bio-walls, vertical gardens, and urban agriculture, can help make nature visible in Filipino cities.
Nature is visible in metropolitan areas primarily because of urban design. Planned estates and commercial districts incorporate foliage along sidewalks, malls, and other design components within view of pedestrians.
An interesting approach to integrating nature with design comes from one of the Philippines’ top estate developers. Ayala Land uses the biophilia hypothesis in landscaping, taking into account how people and nature thrive together. This is evident in how they use a variety of natural elements, from fishponds to flowering vines atop walkways. The firm’s use of native plants and trees better fits the local ecosystems, allowing nature to flourish without the need for adaptive maintenance.
The Ayala Triangle Park provides visibility of nature in the country’s financial district, contrasting a highly urban environment with greeneries.Small vertical gardens along footbridges are refreshing to see in fast-paced, built-up areas.
Other efforts to make nature visible include bio-wallsand vertical gardens along tunnels, footbridges, and arterial roads. These green elements are refreshing to look at against solid, cemented areas.
Landscaping, government initiatives, and legislation are very important in incorporating nature into any urban setting. But transitioning it into a cultural norm goes beyond the aforementioned pieces. The appreciation for nature and efforts of a household or community to incorporate greeneries and gardens into its environment go a long way towards putting urban nature on a pedestal close to issues such as resettlement, livelihood generation, and solid waste management, which are much-discussed issues in the Philippines.
While Filipinos are a people that are generally in touch with nature because of the archipelagic setting and the vast agricultural lands of the Philippines, a highly urbanized environment and the economic challenges of a developing country restrict communities from easily including plants and animals in their residences. Limited spaces, such as units as small as 18 m2 in condominiums, are dedicated to more practical house needs than creating pocket gardens that people find difficult to maintain, for example.
Community vertical gardens promote a sense of understanding and belonging.
Awareness about the benefits of having nature as a standard element in urban areas—better health, less costs for infrastructure, and scientifically-based improvements in emotions and moods—should be encouraged. Initiatives to create “visibility” at a personal level may be small, but in a collective state, they create a sense of understanding and belonging among those who champion urban greeneries. Such projects also influence those who do not practice urban gardening because of the curiosity green spaces induce, and the aesthetics they display.
Best practices to increase green spaces should be encouraged in urban planning. These include urban agriculture, increased area allocations for garden parks in land use plans, and greenery programs in communities, among other strategies. The integration of these practices in land use and development plans, which are translated to tools of implementation at local levels, is critical to achieving visible elements of nature.
Jennifer works at Universidad de Costa Rica as a professor and at Parque La Libertad, an urban project from the Ministry of Culture as environmental educator.
Jennifer Sánchez Acosta
Working in an urban park to make visible the benefits of this kind of place is an actual part of my work. I can say that using this area to involve school students in outdoor sustainability education activities helps to make manifest one of the main social contributions that natural spaces bring to cities: raising awareness about the importance of sustainable development, and, more importantly, engaging students in projects and individual actions towards eco-efficiency.
One key action to making nature more “visible” is to bond people to their urban parks.
Bringing school groups to the parks is a great way to make “visible“ the benefits of an urban park, since it indirectly brings families and organizations closer to the parks. It also helps other authorities (such as the Culture and Education Ministry in Costa Rica) to take notice of the activities being developed there.
Costa Rica is highly regarded as a green country; it is famous for its protected areas and its biodiversity, which our kids learn about at school. Children from both urban and rural parts of our country learn about the importance of conservation to ensure great benefits for our country and the world. However, in the urban areas, the importance and benefits of conservation seem to be invisible, since there is no “apparent” nature to be preserved. That’s why, recently, many NGOs and some other civil organizations have been working in introducing urban residents to the natural environments found within cities.
People care about the history of the parks; they like to know how old the trees are and to hear about the conservation objectives of the place. They need to be taught about the direct benefits of having such places as part of the city. We work hard to rescue and recreate the natural environment of San José and to encourage citizens to engage in practices that are being forgotten, such as growing one’s own vegetables, taking care of one’s garden, and rescuing communal areas to turn them into natural places that the whole community can enjoy.
I’ve learned that one key action to making nature more “visible” is to introduce people to the spaces—not just building or preserving “green places“, but getting people to relate to the place. To achieve this, we need to bond people to the parks by incorporating elements in the parks that help people bond to them, while planning the design of new spaces into which we can incorporate historical and social elements that appeal to users’ interests, and, in spaces that have already been built, by implementing strategies to increase their appeal.
I think parks and other natural areas in the cities need to speak directly to people. We need to work face-to-face with groups of people interested in learning more about these spaces and letting them help us to engage more and more people in the use of our parks. The immediate benefits are tangible: I often hear people saying that being at the park makes them feel relaxed, helps them to connect to nature, and that they enjoy their time outdoors. It should be easy to incorporate into those feelings an appreciation for all the benefits that nature gives our cities.
Richard Scott is Director of the National Wildflower Centre at the Eden Project, and delivers creative conservation project work nationally. He is also Chair of the UK Urban Ecology Forum. Richard was chosen as one of 20 individuals for the San Miguel Rich List in 2018, highlighting those who pursue alternative forms of wealth.
Richard Scott
We live in challenging times for green space. The U.K.’s Green Belt, which rings our cities, is up for grabs, and is gradually being picked over. We find ourselves having to straddle fences to make a stand. Our green spaces are becoming globalised like High Street fashion, as experiences are standardized and our world is dumbed down—or they just get built on. As in evolutionary theory, it’s order out of chaos, seeking ways to build landmarks to change mindsets and raise aspirations.
Ultimately, green spaces in cities are about being kind, to nature and ourselves.
For Landlife, the organization for which I work, wildflowers have proven to be a great platform and a connecting force for a new kind of cultural ecology, which brings nature into people’s lives, using wildflower species as the spark. Great green space (in all its many colours) should have a place in our lives; it should be in close proximity to where people live. It is about personality and dignity, respect and hope; it’s about daydreaming and thinking big and thinking small, or thinking small in big enough ways to make a difference. Creating themes and stories, and finding a resonance with the way you react to place and people. It is about imagination and energies and champions, and it is about resources and connections, and having systems in place that can recognise these attributes as strengths, lending the momentum to carry them forward. It’s also about the joy and cussedness of swimming against the odds, and not being swallowed. This is Resilience.
Princess Parkway split, Manchester and Liverpool.
It is important to pass energies between places and build real collaborations, rather than just sharing logos. Recently, we have made some headway on this, with our own Tale of Two Cities flagship project in Liverpool and Manchester. These areas, which suffered mass demolition and mass transit, have witnessed major social upheaval and have huge stories, from the potato famine and the decline of the docks, to the origins of Rolls Royce and post-industrial change.
The best bits are the things you really remember. The seed sowings, when we heard the songs for the first time, or the simple exchange of wildflowers between a Liverpool and a Manchester School. The smiles, moments of laughter, embarassments, heroic failures (occasionally), and real success stories. It’s about life stories, and sharing them, and adding them up to link to other people who can do the same. This way, you can dive deeper into ecology and its complexity from a simple seeding.
When we met and were influenced by “Landmarks” author Robert Macfarlane, we saw that making nature visible is clearly about a magical way of responding in language to ideas of nature, place, and landmark in respect to conversation and surroundings, inspiration, and self-pilgrimage. It’s a playful thing for children or just anyone feeling free enough to reflect and observe the world and dare to invent a new word, rather than just accepting the world as frozen—as we can easily do, through the notion of seed banks and collections, which are important, but which touch few, or don’t grow anything.
Building a Northern Flowerhouse.Building a Northern Flowerhouse.
This links back to a Time of Gifts, when the gift was the beginning of a journey, and reflection on where this can take you. The idea of generosity of spirit and sharing that places and people bring together is an enormously strong mechanism to make things happen, and ignite the imagination. It’s extraordinary what people can gain from knowing the name of a plant and telling its personal story and being fascinated by that. Ultimately, green spaces in cities are about being kind, to nature and ourselves.
It is often healthy to try and grasp what made something fresh and important in the first place, to remind ourselves of that whilst working to stimulate others. Often, it is the delight of a transforming moment which gives people the feeling of being part of the world, like a fleeting moment reflecting with a rare animal or butterfly. These indefinable, enabling moments hold the power to define the way individuals respond and react to green space in a way that transcends normal experience.
As the world leaps urban, it’s the urban places that have the key to the future. This is why it’s so important to connect the hot spots of energy and talent. Tale of Two Cities has been so important because it has reached more people as active participants and passers-by than any other work we have done. By drawing on the assets of two proud neighbours, with their wealth of trade, sports, and cultural links, the flowers have enabled us to orchestrate exchanges between large organisations, grass-roots charities, and individuals with flair.
The sparks can fly, and suddenly personal connections we made with China are informing a new Wildflower Centre in Chengdu, which has grown 54 species of wildflowers released from Kunming Institute of Botany to enable similar creative projects in one the world’s fastest growing cities.
In the future, fewer will have the countryside on their doorstep. We need to both play with nature and take it seriously. We all too often contain and bottle ideas rather than running with them. The most inspiring places are where people have been able to do that for a long time, like Nantes and Amstelveen, places which ratchet up work to set real gold standards.
Most importantly, it’s about the warmth of connections and the way we make our days count, without being discouraged or distracted, and the need for individuals and organisations to work flexibly to collaborate and deliver. We just produced a seed packet for an arts project in Liverpool called The Liverpool Perennial, with artwork by artist Jamie Reid, who produced the iconic sleeve for Anarchy in the UK by the Sex Pistols.
We have to make nature visible if the world’s wilder places are to have a chance and society to reap joy from the benefits. As we build a new Northern Flowerhouse here in the Northwest, it is about creating movements, and taking the Flowerhouse principle to the Northern Hemisphere.
Chantal van Ham is a senior expert on biodiversity and nature-based solutions and provides advice on the development of nature positive strategies, investment and partnerships for action to make nature part of corporate and public decision making processes. She enjoys communicating the value of nature in her professional and personal life, and is inspired by cooperation with people from different professional and cultural backgrounds, which she considers an excellent starting point for sustainable change.
Chantal van Ham
With a growing urban population, the benefits of nature both for quality of life in cities and to respond to challenges such as climate change, drinking water supply, and health are becoming clearer and clearer. Not many cities and their citizens are truly aware of the values of nature for their futures. What sets the cities that do make the connection with nature from those to whom nature is invisible?
There’s a clear, yet often-overlooked connection between nature, culture, and development that is essential to finding common ground.
IUCN just hosted its World Conservation Congress, Planet at the Crossroads, a gathering of over 10,000 leaders from government, the public sector, non-governmental organizations, business, UN agencies, and indigenous and grassroots organizations to discuss and decide on solutions to global environment and development challenges.
Some of the messages I took home are that there is a clear connection between nature, culture, and development that is all too often overlooked, and which is essential to finding common ground in a spirit of partnership and collaboration.
Green roofs, bird-friendly building design, natural landscapes that work with indigenous plant species, urban trees, and urban agriculture are all equally valid ways to attract attention to the valuable services that nature provides to cities. However, to attract attention to the services of nature, there is a need for a broader perspective that connects the urban landscape with the ecosystems surrounding it, integrates nature within planning and decision-making, and gives a voice to the ideas of citizens.
In the context of severe water scarcity in Brazil, São Paulo state has committed to restoring an ambitious 300,000 hectares of degraded land by 2020. As part of the restoration programme, the government is working to improve water quality, to increase access to water by restoring 20,000 hectares of riparian forest in the state, and to recover springs. This initiative demonstrates how a political decision that unites different actors, such as public and private companies, public power, and civil society can lead to effective investments in natural solutions, bringing multiple benefits to water-stressed cities.
Urban parks are at the heart of connecting citizens with nature in cities. Chapultepec Park is to Mexico City what Central Park is to New York, with 18 million visitors annually, 60 percent of which are families. A citizens group, together with city officials and park administrators, set themselves the goal of creating a master plan to preserve, restore, and remodel the park. In a unique effort for Mexico, half of the funding for restoration was collected from individual donations, including one million donors at metro stations and supermarkets. This shows clearly how much citizens value nature in their cities and what their participation in urban planning and development processes can lead to.
One more example related to the world’s water crisis that I would like to highlight is a new conservation and impact investment model developed by The Nature Conservancy called Water Sharing Investment Partnerships (or WSIP). Sustainable water management will mean reducing consumptive use without compromising economic returns or crop production. This will require strong government leadership and a well-functioning water market. Such a market can provide financial incentives for improving water’s productivity by enabling those willing to use less water to be compensated by those who need more water, or those who want to return water to the environment. Such a system can only work if there is a good understanding of the value of nature and a willingness to act to give water back to ecosystems in order to ensure the sustainability of water supply.
NatureForAll is IUCN’s new global movement founded on a simple idea: the more people experience, connect with, and share their love for nature, the more support there will be for its conservation in the future. I hope this will provide some new inspiration and collaboration to make nature part of everyone’s life, bringing together different worlds, as only jointly can we create more visibility for nature.
Gavin Van Horn is the Director of Cultures of Conservation for the Center for Humans and Nature, a nonprofit organization that focuses on and promotes conservation ethics.
Gavin Van Horn
From visibility to voice
“There! There!” Every summer now in Chicago, my son and I tune into the otherworldly buzz of cicadas. They play built-in tymbals on their bodies, marking the season with courtship crescendos that rise and fall through waves of humid air. It would be hard not to hear them in my neighborhood when they reach their symphonic peak. Seeing them is somewhat trickier. But once you put your nose close to a trunk, get eye-level with an exoskeleton still fastened with a pincer-like vise to the underside of a tree limb, you probably won’t be able to stop seeing them. “There! There!” my son shouts, and we marvel at the world abuzz over our heads and the many lives active under our feet, where the next round of cicada nymphs will quietly bide their time until summer returns.
Making urban nature visible and valuable depends on storytelling.
Cicadas are one of many busy urban critters that forcibly remind me that the city is alive. Our creaturely neighbors—adapters, migrants, residents—live and thrive without our permission, sometimes because of us, sometimes in spite of us. Annie Dillard remarks, “Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.” How can we “be there” more often, more present to the grace and beauty of the lives that enfold us?
This gets to the heart of the question of visibility, which is a matter of more than what is within eyeshot. For anything—any person, any other creature—to have value, we must first be able to “see” this being as a subject, something that has its own interests, its own claims on our shared place. Visibility is drawing what is otherwise inconspicuous to us into the sphere of our moral attention. This simply means “seeing” something as a member of our community—not just just as background noise, but as an important voice in our decision-making. Not just as background scenery, but as a visible character within our story.
Making urban nature visible and valuable depends on storytelling. Writer John Tallmadge captures this understanding well with the following observation: “So much of the quality of our lives depends on relationships, which can’t be weighted, measured, quantified, or even directly observed. We use stories to make them visible” (p.24, in The Way of Natural History). Stories, at their best, crystallize what is most meaningful to us. They orient us and hold up a vision of the world—an ethic for how to live well. They make the unquantifiable visible.
I’d like to share a pair of maps that demonstrate how stories of urban nature can change. When my friend and illustrator Keara McGraw moved from the suburbs to Chicago, she brought with her a fairly common set of assumptions about the relationship between nature and the city. In one of her illustrations, she captures a number of presuppositions many people have about the city, whether or not they are conscious of this.
Keara McGraw, Chicago Map Before (2015).
As you can see, the outline of Chicago’s city limits serves as the container for a lot of emptiness, other than the “cement,” “smoke,” “buses,” “trains,” “pollution,” and “smog.” In this depiction, you need to get away from the city to find “lots of nature and stuff.” Without a proper counter-story, I’m afraid this is the mental map of urban nature that many people continue to carry in their minds.
To Keara’s credit, she was open to seeing new things. Perhaps because she’s an artist, she knew how to “be there,” present to the grace and beauty that was once obscured by or absent from her mental map. Once she began learning about the plants and animals that make this city such an exciting, life-affirming habitat for so many, her map changed.
Keara McGraw, Chicago Map After (2015).
Keara’s new—and by no means final—map reveals a completely different understanding of the city. The central figure in the map may be familiar to those who know their birds. Black-crowned night herons are a state endangered bird in Illinois. They once nested on the far southeast side of Chicago, but now have moved their colonial nesting arrangement to the heart of Chicago, a mere 2.5 miles from downtown. By all accounts, they are thriving. By the hundreds. Their rattling qwawks and croaks fill the urban tree canopy every spring through fall as they hatch and fledge their young. The herons are living reminders that nature can flourish in our cityscapes.
Just like Keara, we all have mental maps. Our stories draw the lines on them, tell us what to expect, what’s possible. Where nature can be found.
In a book I co-edited, City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness [reviewed at TNOC here], one of our goals was to further a re-storyation of Chicago. We invited our readers to see Chicago, and all urban areas, as multispecies communities. If we perceive our own stories as entangled with the lives of other creatures in the city, we’re more likely to consider their needs, bear witness to their struggles, and take them into account in decision-making, whether that involves planting milkweed for monarch butterflies, designing buildings in a way that discourages bird strikes, or restoring large habitats with other species in mind. Stories may be our most ancient and possibly best means of fostering empathy. They engage our imaginations, creating a space in which we can consider the living realities of others.
A final point: from visibility and value emerges voice. Stories of place that reveal urban areas as lifeworlds—as valuable shared habitat populated by multiple unique and curious subjectivities—can change our mental maps. The show goes on with or without us, whether or not our mental maps are attuned to urban nature. But if we do want a more comprehensive story of place, one in which other species are central to our mutual thriving, this requires not only telling stories—making visible—but listening. Voice. I hear the cicadas again. The voices are all around us.
Mark Weckel is a conservation scientist and manager of the high school Science Research Mentoring Program at the American Museum of Natural History
Mark Weckel
City kids’ perspectives on making the green more visible in the gray: equal parts media and education, and a dash of force
I would imagine that for many us—readers of and contributors to TNOC—we think about how to make urban green nature more obvious and relevant all the time. But we are both the preacher and the choir. We are the converted. Whether it is innate or learned, we accept the idea that nature humming through our cities is as normal as the rumble of its subways (and in both cases, we always want more!).
At the American Museum of Natural History, students think NYC nature needs a good publicist and a travel agent.
I am a true believer: a conservation scientist born, raised, educated, and living in NYC. Growing up, I always dreamed about studying the big wildlife and remote vistas that, in my Brooklyn childhood, only the TV could provide. After landing my dream job studying jaguars in Belize, I realized that I was truly inspired by finding solutions to challenges at the intersection of human and wildlife communities, and I wanted to engage with those issues in a community where I was more than just a researcher. So, I came home to ply my trade. Fortunately for me, urban white-tailed deer and coyotes were becoming a growth industry in NYC metropolitan areas.
Today, I am a conservation scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, where I manage the Science Research Mentoring Program (SRMP). Each year, 60 NYC high school students have the opportunity to join the lab of one of the Museum’s researchers. As an initiation into SRMP, the class spends a week at Black Rock Forest, just north of the city in the Hudson Highlands, hiking (a lot), turtle trapping, star gazing, and bird watching. It’s new, scary, and tiring. It’s also the best damn thing they’ve done all summer. The only complaint I get—every year—is that they only get to go once as part of the program.
So, using my captive audience of city kids, I did a little research to help me answer this round table’s question: how can you sell green nature to an urban audience? How can you make the public need more of something that many didn’t know they wanted? After our trip to Black Rock, I asked all of the kids if their experiences had changed their perception of nature, and what they thought could be done to make green nature more visible to their friends and families back home. Here’s what they had to say:
A bigger and wilder Central Park: Central Park occupies the premier spot in the Pantheon of NYC parks. And for good reason: we are still looking to Vaux and Olmstead’s 19th century visionary masterpiece for 21st century solutions to the Anthropocene. While there are many other parks to learn about and love, Central Park will always be a flagship—and therefore a symbol—of our ideals. My kids wanted to really push the envelope: make it bigger and “wilder” to showcase urban biodiversity, big and small.
1Million Trees is not enough: Although students were familiar with NYC’s successful afforestation effort, they wanted more regular opportunities for observing biodiversity. A few of them of suggested sidewalk meadows (Million Meadows project, anyone?) replete with habitat for butterflies and grasshoppers.
The Need for a Media Blitz: Several students gave suggestions that are already in place (e.g. NYC bird walks, or hiking trails through “Forever Wild” areas). Perhaps that’s why they also pointed to the need for more PR highlighting NYC’s natural wonders. Students suggested signage similar to those you’d see on nature trails, but along sidewalks highlighting facts about street nature. Subway ads might be a good way to go, too. Perhaps the ubiquitous green and red stick figures that tell New Yorkers that poll dancing is not acceptable subway etiquette could teach us about quirky NYC natural history, from our once famed (and now rebounding) oysters to our Gotham whales.
DOE: Put NYC Parks in your curriculum – So many of my students wished that they knew more about NYC nature as children. They argued that visiting parks and observing their flora and fauna should be part of the Department of Education’s core curriculum for elementary schools. Students should not just learn about ecology; they should learn about NYC’s ecology. And it should be immersive. As one student said, “Hiking for four days, staring at the night sky, setting your feet on the bumpy rocks, and jumping through streams . . . I was interacting with nature closely, not just observing it.”
Resort to force – Somewhat unexpectedly, several students said we need to find ways to force people out of their comfort zones because Black Rock had forced them out of theirs (Disclaimer: we don’t force our student to do anything! Picking up a millipede or wading through muck to check a turtle trap is all voluntary). Said one student, “Despite the fact that I’m still not keen on insects, I feel that being in the forest and surrounded by them for a few days, I’ve grown more accustomed to them and I can only imagine how I’d feel after more time in the forest.”
These suggestions came from students still on the high of their week at Black Rock. As with my experience in Belize, leaving the city interrupted their normal life and provided the distance, stimulus, and discomfort necessary to reflect. Hopefully, they will bring some of this newfound appreciation back to NYC. However, as close as Black Rock is to NYC, it’s not feasible to lead transformative disruptive excursions for 8.5 million residents. Whether my students’ ideas are practical is debatable; however, we will need more of this creative brainstorming from New Yorkers from all walks of life as we look to bring micro-transformative disruptive excursions to their everyday existences.
Mike Wetter is Executive Director of The Intertwine Alliance, where he leads a coalition of 112 organizations working to integrate nature into the Portland-Vancouver region.
Mike Wetter
Lessons from an urban alliance: three ways messaging about nature is different in cities
As a coalition of more than 150 organizations, resident engagement with nature is fundamental to our mission. Here are three things we’ve learned in our ten years of work on this topic:
Effective messaging in cities requires diversity, unconventional messengers, and creative combinations of urban and natural amenities.
1. Start with what they already value
People think about, relate to, value, and enjoy nature in remarkably different ways. Not everyone is going to join a conservation group or learn bird calls. At The Intertwine Alliance, we’ve created a campaign called “Our Common Ground” that uses animals as a way to represent different perspectives on nature. As people, we are different in age, geography, race, ability and interests, but we share these spaces—parks, trails and natural areas—in common. They are our common ground.
Do-Gooder Doe is one of several “spokespecies” for the Our Common Ground Campaign developed by The Intertwine Alliance and Frank Creative.
The Our Common Ground campaign is a celebration of diversity. Rather than encouraging people to value nature, we recognize and celebrate the different ways they already value it.
For some young people in our city, nature is a pathway to a job. Gerald Deloney, director of program advancement for Self Enhancement Inc., a nonprofit organization serving thousands of at-risk youth in the Portland area, notes that people of color are not getting their share of nature-related jobs. He says, “A lot of our kids want to be hip hop artists. But there are a lot more park managers and conservation scientists than there are hip hop artists. We’re giving our young people an introduction to those jobs”
I recently had a former U.S. Treasury Secretary, a Republican, tell me, “I don’t give a damn about sustainability, I care about the outdoors.” People value nature in different ways; they also use different words for it.
Some are interested in nature for its health benefits, as more and more medical research is showing correlations between being in nature and physical, emotional and mental health, which brings me to my second point.
2. Use unconventional messengers
Sometimes, pharmaceuticals aren’t the answer to what ails us. With “prescription play” programs, physicians prescribe physical activity to those that need more of it. The Intertwine Alliance is working to establish this program region-wide, underwritten by multiple health providers.
Many are under the impression that being in nature is good for their health because they associate being in nature with being physically active. As part of our expansion of RxPlay, we are introducing the idea that spending time in nature has its own intrinsic health benefits.
With prescription play, the message that you need more nature in your life doesn’t come from some anonymous billboard; it comes from your doctor. Physicians carry enormous credibility and influence.
3. Combine the best of the urban and the natural worlds
We will soon launch our own app, called Daycation. Daycation introduces the idea that being outdoors isn’t just something you do on weekends, it is something you can do every day, right outside your door. Plus, urban regions have an added bonus that you don’t get when you are trekking deep in the boreal forest: urban amenities! Daycations are personalized adventures combining parks, trails, beaches, waterways, coffee shops, brewpubs, art, history, and other fun waypoints. Daycations are about nature, but also about enjoying the best that our metropolitan region has to offer.
The Daycation app plays to the unique strengths of cities by offering adventures combining urban and natural amenities. Each Daycation is as unique as the Portland-area resident that created it.
Daycation gets people out of their cars and off their couches. It is designed to get children out of virtual battlefields and into treehouses. And to make sure our app is relevant and irresistible, we are enlisting the most effective salesforce on the planet: kids. Who better to carry the message that it’s time to get out and have more fun?
“My son and his wife moved to Moscow a few years ago.”
“My brother and sister work in Moscow.”
“I want to go to Moscow. I can find a job there, and make more money than here.”
Cities in Central Asia and around the world that turn a blind eye to migrant issues are potentially missing a big opportunity for themselves.
We heard all sorts of versions of this story for almost three months while we collected visas in Kyrgyzstan and walked through the Pamirs, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
Nearly every time we spoke with a local family, which was frequently over tea, questions about our day-to-day lives inevitably circled around to their relatives living abroad. It seemed like most people we spoke with had at least one close family member in Russia who sent money back home.
That’s not surprising, given the region of the world we’re walking in. For many families living in these former Soviet countries, independence some 25 years ago has unraveled into a different kind of dependency, one still hinged to its richer big brother.
Many people in Central Asia have limited opportunities for work. Their animals are their main source of income. Photo: Bangkok Barcelona On Foot
Integrating migrants
Clearly, this is not a story that unfolds only between Russia and its neighbors. It’s the same yarn woven throughout history. People are always moving around the planet looking for better lives, or they have been forced to leave their homelands for one reason or another. It is playing out today as Central Americans head north into the U.S.; in Germany, with its large Turkish community; and anywhere else in Europe now dealing with the issue of accepting large waves of migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa.
Migrants and human migration are not novel ideas, but countries and cities often act like they are. They are surprised when big groups of people arrive, and fall into some state of fear-driven paralysis that hampers efforts to quickly integrate newcomers into their new urban lives.
It’s a strange dynamic considering how long this has been happening historically, and how it is likely to continue into the foreseeable future. In a world filled with uncertainty, one thing is almost sure: cities will continue to be the place where migrants land. The age of the megacity is upon us, and millions more people from everywhere will flock to these places for their promise and possibility. These newcomers may be wanted or not, they may be skilled or unskilled, they may weave themselves into their new societies or they may be marginalized—but they will keep coming.
Farmers do the best they can to use whatever flat land they can find in between the mountainous areas of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Photo: Bangkok Barcelona On Foot
So, how are cities going to integrate these migrants? When will cities and the people who run them stop pretending that the current system is good enough? When will restrictive laws that keep outsiders out be turned around to celebrate diversity, inclusiveness, and the global community? How are employers in cities going to learn what hidden talents or skills these migrants have and how their natural potential can be used for something other than building high rise apartments, washing dishes, picking vegetables, or scrubbing toilets?
There’s an opposite view worth considering, as well. How can cities stay globally competitive with the local talent they have while also developing a strategy to attract and absorb migrants who want to be there? How are cities going to keep families together and stop losing their people to the dream towns across the border? How can they reinvent the conversation that often centers on the “lack of resources and opportunities” to one that adopts an abundance, “there’s-enough-for-all-of-us-to-grow-and-prosper” mentality? How can cities use their young generation’s enthusiasm, curiosity, and social connectivity skills to generate wealth and stability in their regional surroundings?
Cities that turn a blind eye to these issues are potentially missing a big opportunity for themselves.
While families wait for their loved ones to come home, many of them are dependent on the funds relatives send from Russia, Turkey or other countries. Photo: Bangkok Barcelona On FootPamir Park waiting. Photo: Bangkok Barcelona On FootYoung Tajik woman. Photo: Bangkok Barcelona On FootThe Kirghiz family spending the summer in the mountain with their livestock. Photo: Pierre Noel
We met young men and women, students and recent university graduates, who spoke their local languages, Russian, English, maybe some Turkish or Persian, and even a little bit of Korean. They were studying or earning degrees in accounting, business, biology, chemistry, economics, finance, management, marketing, teaching, and tourism. They see so few options at home. Some may get okay work after graduation in their field study. Many will marry young and start families without adequate financial means, causing the cycle of poverty to repeat. And, at some point, they may have to leave and go where the money is; inevitably, that probably means a move west.
The westward gaze
To Central Asians, the first step west usually means getting a job in their capital cities, and then using those credentials to jump to Russia, Europe or Turkey. A move to North America may also be on the wish list, but many know that’s a faraway dream steeped in visa-collecting complexity.
Previously, when Russian’s centralized power distributed wealth regionally (whether it was justly distributed is an altogether different topic), people had security in the form of jobs (reflective of the “everyone works” dictates that fanned out from Moscow), education until the 11th grade, and access to some amount of health care. There were factories, agriculture, and opportunities in-country—and there were ways people could stay near home and their families, a woman told me in Khorog, the biggest town in the mountainous Pamirs region in eastern Tajikistan. People struggled then, but they struggle more now, she added, with a tinge of remorse. “We work for bread. There’s not much money for anything else,” she said.
Today, although the growing capital cities of Bishkek, Dushanbe, and Tashkent are budding places for an increasing number of university students, blue- and white-collar workers, construction sites, housing projects, commercial centers, and even tourists (especially European cyclists crisscrossing Asia), there’s too much competition for too few jobs, and the career and income trajectory is limited. Leaving is frequently the only logical option.
For now, it’s still Russia that people here have their sights on. This yearning comes down to the basic principles of human well-being: people want the better quality of life money can buy, and they believe they will earn more money abroad than at home.
Total amount of remittance sent from Russia for 2012-2015 and Q1 2015 – Q12016.
Word on the street is that the average person in the cities we visited earns less than $500 a month in their home countries; $200-$300 was frequently mentioned as a monthly wage in more rural parts of the countries. According to the World Bank, the 2015 annual gross national income (or GNI) per capita (formerly GNP per capita) was $1,170 for Kyrgyzstan, $1,240 for Tajikistan, and $2,150 for Uzbekistan.
Central Asians told us they can and are willing to trade the good, but low-paying, jobs here for less skilled, better-paying work abroad, primarily in Moscow. That was the dominant idea until Russia recently passed new mandates for work patents that give migrants permission to work legally, as well as its recent economic slowdown and the depreciation of the ruble against the dollar, which started making the country less attractive and directly hit local families’ pocketbooks.
The World Bank reported that remittance flows (money sent by migrant workers back to their home countries) to Europe and Central Asia were severely affected in 2015, contracting by 20.3 percent because of Russia’s downturn. The organization expects to see a recovery in 2016, with remittances expected to grow by 5.1 percent to $36.3 billion, from $34.6 billion in 2015.
The Eurasian Research Institute, an Almaty, Kazakhstan branch of Akhmet Yassawi University, reported that more than 60 percent of the remittance inflow to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan comes from Russia. In 2015, the amount of remittances sent from Russia, which hosts 12 million international migrants, to Uzbekistan decreased by 57 percent; for Tajikistan, this number dropped by 66 percent, and Kyrgyzstan saw a 46 percent fall.
Family members, usually grandparents or older aunts and uncles, take care of young children whose parents are working in Moscow. Photo: Bangkok Barcelona On Foot
Again, though, this not an issue Central Asian cities should struggle through alone. It is a world issue needing a global conversation that involves words such as “equal” and “fair access to resources”, “just livelihoods” and “sustainable inclusiveness.” The thought process really needs to shift from “How can we keep people out” to “How can we help each other earn more than enough for a loaf of bread.”
The magnetic pull of urban environments puts cities in a unique position to rethink their own boundaries. Getting masses of migrants to love their hometowns and adopted cities even more will help bridge communities near and far.
We asked locals many questions about national and city development and progress. The conversations we had with locals, however, are not unique to this region. Countries and cities around the world are dealing with gender issues, managing shadow economies and informal trading practices, and building a grassroots activist movement to create more livable and sustainable cities. We’ll explore these topics in another upcoming essay and several future podcasts.
Sydney is in heritage crisis mode. Ancient Aboriginal campsites are being dug-up and destroyed. Low-income residents are being forcibly removed from their long occupied, heritage-listed, city-centre homes and apartments. Magnificent and much-loved trees are being uprooted from their parkland settings. These actions are having emotional affects for individuals and communities, undermining people’s feelings of well-being, and changing the livability of the city. So what the heck is going on?
As Sydney is demonstrating, heritage in the form of objects, structures, or people’s feelings for place, is a litmus test of change.
The International Council on Monuments and Sites (or ICOMOS), a global network of heritage professionals that work for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage places, has shown that heritage can be a driver of development. ICOMOS has implemented a series of initiatives and actions over many years that promote a development process that incorporates tangible and intangible (or non-material) cultural heritage as a vital aspect of sustainability, and gives a human face to development. Despite this work, governments such as the New South Wales (or NSW) State Government are undermining heritage by re-enacting an old but pervasive binary—population growth and infrastructure improvement versus amenity and heritage. This is a long-held and artificially constructed political opposition that positions heritage as an inhibitor of development.
In this essay, I consider recent cases of loss of Sydney’s significant heritage items—stone artefacts, buildings, and trees—and the consequence these losses are having on peoples’ lives. In these examples the NSW State Government’s decisions are reversing long-fought-for gains across social justice matters and severing community connections to important places. Such losses, it seems to me, are happening even faster than global warming can erode Sydney’s coastlines. I argue for a return to an ethics of respect and care in urban planning and change management so as to better marry heritage, development and community well-being.
I have been a resident of Sydney for over 16 years. I love this city (though clearly I have issues with it). By training and experience, I am an archaeologist-heritage practitioner and academic. My interests centre on the ways that material remains and community practices affect peoples’ everyday lives. Work in the fields of psychology and heritage studies has demonstrated the ways in which people develop emotional attachments to special things, such as inherited objects or important places—for example, people’s homes and gardens, particular plants and trees or urban open green spaces. I am not an urban planner, but my interests are in the emotional-sensuous landscape of urban dwellers and how feelings as much as urban fabrics permeate the contemporary cityscape.
Are you Sirius?
The Sirius Building, a brutalist-style structure located adjacent to the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge, is slated for demolition. The building is a public housing complex designed in 1979 by NSW State Government Housing Commission architect Tao (Theodore) Gofers. The design was influenced by Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67 building in Montreal, Canada. The Sirius Building is a series of concrete boxes that together provide 79 apartments capable of housing 200 people. The structure is also notable for its green credentials—plants sit between the occupied spaces and surround the base of the building.
In March 2014, the NSW State Government announced plans to sell the Sirius Building site and, in 2015, tenants of the public housing complex were relocated. In 2015—albeit somewhat late in the game—the Heritage Council of NSW unanimously decided to recommend the Sirius Building for state heritage listing based on two key criteria—aesthetics and rarity. Surprisingly, they omitted the “key” criteria of “social value”, a phrase encompassing the significance of places to contemporary communities. Regardless, the Heritage Council’s recommendation was submitted to the NSW Minister for Environment and Heritage. The Minister declined to heritage list the building, citing economic rationalist reasons (heritage listing would reduce the site value by approximately AUS $70 million, a figure equivalent to 240 social housing units). It would seem that in this case, money has spoken, and the residents and communities of interest have wielded little influence or power.
To my mind, there are several disturbing aspects to this process and decision. First is the State Government’s rejection of the expert perspective of the Heritage Council of NSW, a body established to advise the government on such matters. In refusing to list, the Minister avoided adopting an ethical and courageous position of accepting the heritage value of the building based on expert and community viewpoints and then arguing for its demolition. The Minister’s decision making shows that he does NOT respect expert and community viewpoints. Second, the value of the building to its residents, many architects, and the wider City of Sydney were “overlooked” in the decision not to list the building. City of Sydney Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, has expressed support for the retention and heritage listing of the building, stating: “The original design and use of the Sirius building for apartments means it is capable of reasonable and economic use for housing. Its retention will continue to contribute to the character and housing diversity of The Rocks and Millers Point.”
A decision to demolish the Sirius Building is, in my view, an act of meanness. The decision ignores the personal impacts on recent and long-term residents. It also reflects an attitude antithetical to ideas of trust, humility, and integrity that many of Sydney’s residents, including me, want to see practiced by government.
Out with the trees
In early 2016, roughly 40 mature Moreton Bay Fig trees (some more than 130 years old) were removed and/or slated for removal from in and alongside Moore Park in Sydney. The Park, dedicated in 1866, has a long history of use for recreational activities (such as picnics) and outdoor sports. It is also renowned for its landscaping and functioning as an urban green open space. In May, public protests against the ongoing removal of trees led to the arrest of one person. Local resident and campaigner Annie Hargue has spoken of the loss of trees as a “very emotional issue”.
The removal of the trees is associated with the State Government’s development of an extended light rail system, itself a much-lauded project by those supporting improved public transport schemes. However, the issue is one of community engagement at a sufficiently early stage in the project planning. It would seem that community consultation, itself a rather cynical exercise when it is not undertaken in a truly collaborative spirit, was an abject failure. The State Government simply did not determine the social and community value of the trees. Instead, there is a sense of tree removal by stealth, which is not uncommon in governmental decision-making practice, but which is also at odds with the idea of transparency and accountability so often touted in government strategy and public declarations.
A subsequent “offer” to replant “significantly more” trees by the State’s Premier seems to have come too late and in an effort to compromise rather than out of generosity. This replacement option might have been acceptable to the majority of community members if a respectful process of civic engagement had been undertaken. In this failing, I see echoes of the meanness associated with the Sirius Building decision.
Trampling spirits
A further impact of this same light rail development project, but this time in the Sydney suburb of Randwick—several kilometres from Moore Park, has been on Australian Aboriginal (or Indigenous) cultural heritage. Heritage investigations undertaken in advance of the project resulted in the excavation of large numbers of Aboriginal stone artefacts. The exact numbers of artefacts are disputed, though a figure of 20,000 is commonly cited in the media. Nevertheless, and regardless of the exact number, such artefacts are taken to be markers of Aboriginal presence by present day Aboriginal people, representing a mix of settlement activities and ritual ceremonial practices. They are evidence of Aboriginal peoples’ occupation at the find location in the period prior to the 19th century, and likely many thousands of years previous. Aboriginal Elders have called for the protection of the artefact site because of its importance to contemporary Aboriginal people.
Stone tools (“backed artefacts”) from sites in the Sydney region. These example artefacts were not recovered from the Randwick site. Image: Dictionary of Sydney
For many Aboriginal people, stone artefacts, whether formal tools or the waste products of tool manufacture and use, have come to represent the presence of real and spiritual ancestors. Furthermore, for some, stone artefacts act as agents with a capacity to channel the power and spirituality of ancestors and the place itself. I am not familiar with the excavated site referred to above, nor do I know the people for whom it evokes powerful feelings. However, Aboriginal peoples’ emotional attachment to such places is a vital expression of reconnection to urban landscapes, from which Aboriginal owners and custodians were dispossessed following the non-indigenous invasion and occupation of Australia from 1788.
Despite such connections felt by contemporary Aboriginal people to the stone artefacts and the place, the Federal Environment Minister, responding to a call for protection, has expressed the opinion that “I am not satisfied that the area …is a significant Aboriginal area as defined” (in relation to relevant legislation). There are echoes here of a long-standing colonial position that Aboriginal stone artefacts are of the past and are not relevant to contemporary Aboriginal people who are, in this instance, urban dwellers. This is a false presumption and reflects an attitude that urban Aboriginal people are not “traditional”, and are therefore incapable of reformulating and renewing their cultural connections to place.
Meanness, lack of generosity, and ongoing dispossession
Sydney’s expansion of its light rail system, though not a bad thing in itself, is coming at an emotional cost to communities, just as the proposed removal of the Sirius Building is undermining a sense that government actions respect civil rights. Such actions have become more common, rather than less so, over the last decade.
Australian heritage practitioners have a global reputation for their work in recognizing and documenting community values for special places. These skills have been developed since the early 1990s and offer workable approaches to engaging communities in identifying and managing important places and landscapes. Such work is typically characterized in heritage terms as “change management”, a phrase that talks to the dynamic and negotiated nature of heritage. Such skills should be regularly called on when discussing the values of public housing structures, Aboriginal cultural heritage, and long-standing trees. To be fair, much is already done in this regard. However, more recently, the balance between positive and negative outcomes for much-loved places is shifting toward the latter. The consequence is that community values and connections to special places are being increasingly sidelined in the processes of change in Sydney’s inner city environment.
Thus, Sydney is demonstrably moving toward a less-civil civil society. Heritage, whether as objects, structures, or people’s feelings for place, is a marker or litmus test of change. What is emerging is a growing tendency towards meanness or lack of respect for community views, a lack of generosity to the less-wealthy parts of society, and an ongoing practice of destruction of Aboriginal heritage. Not only are these things happening, but people are being deeply hurt in the name of a “better” society: an uncivil, civil society.
But I remain an optimist and a believer in the power of peaceful civic action and the capacity of government’s to respect expert and community viewpoints. Skill sets, tools (such as cogent planning based on community impact studies) and political processes exist for building closer ties between governments, heritage professionals, and those communities with intimate connections to special places. It is inspiring to see, for example, the recent placing of a “green ban” on future redevelopment of the Sirius Building site by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Engineering Union (The Herald Sun, 18 September 2016, page 2). At a rally held on Saturday 17 September, Jack Mundey, renowned for coining the term “green ban” during urban heritage campaigns of the 1970s, told the crowd, “It’s a great pleasure for an old 87-year-old-bloke to be here. Let us resolve to keep the fight going.”
The sustainability of urban ecosystems depends on how we respond to future social, economic, and environmental challenges. From reducing the negative effects of highly engineered infrastructure on the ecological functioning of natural systems in cities, to achieving a more equal provision of ecosystem services in the urban social landscape, each challenge is unique.
Effectively adapting to climate change means addressing uncertainty while taking a dynamic view of urban natural systems.
However, no challenge has more potential to exacerbate problems and cut across social, environmental, and economic fields than climate change. This is partly because of the complexity of its manifestations, including: 1) increase of average temperatures, enhanced by the urban heat island effect; 2) change in hydrological regimes, which may result in more, less, or more variable rain; 3) increase in the frequency and severity of weather events, which may not be limited to “warm” events, such as tropical storms, but may also include prolonged dry spells, ice storms, or frosting events. Also, climate change requires a complex response, which necessitates putting together a wide range of ecological, social, economic, and political strategies that may be too difficult to conjure all at once in small-scale management landscapes, such as urban parks.
Many urban rivers concentrate urban nature, particularly densely forested areas. With climate change, these may be more vulnerable to changing hydrological conditions, such as intense storms or prolonged droughts. This riparian forested area in the Santa Rita River, a subsidiary of the Cali river, in Cali, Colombia, is an example of that. Photo: Camilo Ordóñez
Although climate change is being considered more and more in urban ecosystem management, I sometimes see an over-excitement about hasty and narrowly-conceived climate strategies. My experience is in urban forestry, where, for example, people usually argue that just planting more trees is the best way to address climate change. This idea has gained so much popularity that many cities are doubling or tripling their tree-planting targets. Obviously, the motivation for this is to enhance the benefits of urban trees, such as reducing urban heat, among other climate-related benefits. However, although planting more trees is a welcomed activity in itself, planting trees without giving any thought to climate adaptation may actually result in a higher mortality of newly planted trees. Urban trees are already vulnerable to the harsh conditions they grow in, such as compacted soils—conditions that have nothing to do with climate change, yet tree decline may be further exacerbated with the effects of climate change. For example, a tree surrounded by concrete and already struggling to survive may be more severely affected by a tropical storm. Considering that urban-tree planting is a considerable expense (e.g. many North-American cities today spend $250-500USD/tree in new street-tree plantings), our concern should be to maximize their benefits in a changing climate, instead of just blindly planting a lot of trees.
I believe that maximizing the benefits of urban nature in a changing climate depends on a strong adoption of some of the often-overlooked ideas related to climate adaptation. Contributors to TNOC have argued that national climate change strategies fail to address regional and local microclimatic realities (Villagra, 2016), while others show how engineering solutions for climate-proofing actually exacerbate climate vulnerability and social inequity (Shi and Anguelovski, 2016), or how climate change is actually an opportunity for reinstating nature-based solutions in cities (Garvin, 2016). I want to contribute to these efforts by revisiting some of these often-overlooked ideas and making better sense of climate change adaptation, drawing from my experience in urban forestry. Some of these ideas may be old for seasoned TNOC participants, others new for those new to TNOC, and yet others may have been only implied in passing in other TNOC articles. If anything, my intention is to bring these ideas to the forefront of the discussion.
1. Let’s increase adaptive capacity, instead of just mitigating impacts
When we think of climate-change impacts we intuitively start thinking about how to mitigate them. If the day is going to get hot, we seek the shade of a tree. Mitigating the impacts of climate change on urban ecosystems is an important issue. We can plant more trees in parks so people can escape the heat. We can also build barrages to protect a naturalized riparian forest from flooding, or develop storm-response programs to take care of trees in the case of a storm. But increasing the resistance of urban nature to the external threats of climate change can only go so far. If the trees we plant in a park are all the same species, they may be more vulnerable to a pest or disease that attacks that particular species and that is being driven by warmer temperatures. If a larger flood event than the ones the barrage was meant to stop comes, then our riparian forest will still get flooded. As important as impact mitigation is, we also need to work towards increasing adaptive capacity.
In broad terms, adaptation is the adjustment of a system in response or in anticipation to changing conditions. The adaptive capacity, or the characteristics that make a system capable of adapting to change, of urban ecosystems is important given the existing climate vulnerability of cities. Although the vulnerability of cities to climate change depends on the magnitude and intensity of changing global patterns and their local manifestations, it also depends on the conditions that already exist. For instance, for historic, cultural, environmental, and economic reasons, the majority of world cities are located in coastal areas, while a significant number of cities are located in mountainous regions, as in Latin America. Coastal and mountainous regions will be severely affected by climate change given the intrinsic variability of climate in these regions, which includes a higher frequency of storms, a more variable precipitation regime, and dependence on glacial water sources. Add to this an intensification of urbanization patterns, inadequate land use regimes, unsustainable livelihoods, undemocratic political organization, and a deteriorating natural environment, and we have conditions of high climate vulnerability, a determining factor in the direction of change for urban ecosystems.
In 2013, the city of Toronto was affected by a severe ice storm. The weight of the ice brought down a number of urban trees and broke numerous branches, causing evident damage to trees, infrastructure, and people. With climate change, ice storms may become more frequent and/or severe in certain urban regions. Photo: http://www.yourleaf.org
Increasing adaptive capacity may be a more important consideration in urban ecosystem management than mitigating impacts if a climate response is to be sustained in the long term, since mitigation responses may be downplayed by a mal-adapted system. When we only think of mitigating impacts, such as when we plant trees in a park without thinking if they are susceptible to a pest or a disease, the solution may actually become a part of the problem. Adaptation requires us to have a more dynamic view of urban natural systems, since these must thrive in a very different climate. The adaptive imperative is crucial from a climate adaptation perspective.
Our task, then, is to translate this adaptive vision into practical techniques. An adaptive response in the case of planting trees in a park, or protecting a riparian forest from flooding, may mean modifying the species and age mix of these urban forests in such a way that they can withstand pest and diseases, or flooding and storms, on their own. In the case of planting trees on a street, it may also mean improving soil conditions so the trees that are planted can grow to be robust and to withstand any attacks by pest and/or diseases, or by storms; or maybe planting trees at a younger age, since these can be more malleable to changing conditions. These techniques speak to a more general goal of creating dynamic natural areas in cities that emulate or enhance those natural patterns that are more favourable in shifting conditions and that optimize their functionality, without sacrificing their ecological integrity.
Undeniably, an adaptive response in urban areas will not be complete without the human element. So, climate adaptation in urban ecosystem management also means enhancing community participation programs to engage people in the management of newly-planted trees in parks, or riparian forest set aside for conservation. This doesn’t just mean raising the public’s awareness of the benefits of urban trees and natural areas, or asking residents for a helping hand in tending them, such as asking them to water them once in a while, or even gathering volunteers regularly for tree-planting events. A strong community program means actually allowing people to participate in the management of urban nature. This may mean establishing more public consultation processes in the development of management plans, or establishing community-based steering committees for an urban park or a residential area full of public street trees. If we have more people both interested in seeing urban natural areas thrive and engaged in their management, then climate change can be confronted effectively.
2. Let’s think about uncertainty and try to address it
Some people think of climate change as something that will happen far away in the future and they look at 50 to 100-year projections to inform their decisions. Others think that the changes are already starting to occur, and the drought, flooding, heatwaves, and ice storms they see right now will soon become the new norm. In reality, no matter how useful climate change projections are, or how indicative current weather is, we may never know the absolute magnitude of climate change and have no empirical basis to know how urban ecosystems may respond to it. We also do not know if our cities will live through cultural shifts that will reduce or increase the importance of urban nature. This “uncertainty”—known formally as the expression of the degree to which a value is unknown because of disagreements of what is known or even knowable—is a very important aspect of climate change.
Climate change uncertainty cannot be addressed with a static vision of the future determined to mitigate climate change impacts that may or may not manifest in the way they are projected. However, uncertainty does not make us powerless or our management strategies trivial. Uncertainty should not limit the development of climate-adaptation strategies. One of the things we can do right now is to assess the direction of change and what factors are contributing to this change, so we know if we can expect more, or less, or different, urban nature. This means increasing the amount of climate change vulnerability assessments (or CCVAs) of our urban natural resources, including doing CCVAs for urban forests, urban wetlands, and other natural features in cities. We also need to develop communication strategies so that we can build a language for communicating uncertainty openly and clearly to other stakeholders, allowing them to understand the degree of confidence we have at a particular moment in taking a decision regarding climate change. Finally, uncertainty requires us to diversify our portfolio of management strategies so we can increase the chances of reducing it. In the particular case of planting trees in cities, it may require us to diversity our planting techniques. Instead of just planting 5-yr old trees wide apart, we could combine this with planting trees closer together and/or planting them at a younger age, among many other techniques that diversify how we plant trees in cities and reduce uncertainty.
3. Let’s bring back adaptive management so we can learn before things get worse
The 1970s saw the emergence of a so-called “adaptive management” approach to ecosystem management (Holling, 1978). This theoretical construct was widely used to adjust management to the dynamic stability of natural systems. Although still widely used as a buzzword, many times the idea of adaptive management doesn’t materialize into anything substantial. Today, and with climate change, we have an opportunity to bring the principles embedded in the notion of adaptive management back to life.
The majority of us have an intuitive notion of adaptive management and see it simply as management that adapts to new circumstances. In fact, this conceptualization is widely used in ecosystem management plans. But such simplification is actually dangerous, since it may result in a reactive approach to management. To avoid this shallow interpretation, we need to be more proactive. In real terms, adaptive management refers to the integration of uncertainty and change into management by devising learning processes based on monitoring and experimentation activities that in turn feed back not just into management actions, but also into the basic assumptions and values of the management model.
This newly planted tree struggles to survive in the harsh urban environment of Bogotá, Colombia. With climate change, newly planted trees may be more vulnerable to changing climatic conditions, unless changes in planting techniques are adopted, such as planting smaller trees and planting in tree clusters. Photo: Camilo Ordóñez
Adaptive management is the cornerstone for managing climate change in urban ecosystems because it promotes monitoring and experimentation, activities that help us to be more proactive on the basis of the results of our activities on the ground. Monitoring and experimentation embrace uncertainty and establish a mechanism to reduce it. This is even more relevant in urban ecosystems, where complex socio-ecological dynamics and rapid or sudden changes usually determine the pace of change.
So, any climate-inspired activity in urban ecosystem management, such as planting more urban trees, needs to be complemented with strong monitoring and experimentation programs. A monitoring program can be used to collect data on the survival rate of these newly planted trees, which is crucial to understanding how climate change is playing a role in tree survival. An experimentation program may involve setting up lab experiments, either in a tree nursery or in a control urban environment, where different planting treatments, such as planting smaller trees and planting tree in clusters, can be set up to understand how successful these can be for ensuring the survival of newly planted trees. If adopted boldly, the whole city can be viewed as a living laboratory for urban forests, where we experiment, in a controlled and systematic manner, with different planting and management techniques that educate us today, faster, about the future.
Nature-based solutions to climate change: an economic justification
Because of their political, economic, social, and environmental conditions, cities will differ in the way they approach nature-based solutions to climate change problems, and will also differ in the way they can bring adaptive capacity, uncertainty, and adaptive management to the core of what they do. Climate change is certainly not an easy challenge for cities. Economically, not everybody can allocate budgets for planting more urban trees. Politically, not everybody has a centralized system government, or even enough public land, to coordinate nature-based strategies at the city scale, such as planting a million trees. Socially, poverty and lack of education may be more pressing issues in some neighbourhoods than spending more money on planting trees.
However, nature-based solutions to climate change can also provide low-cost, decentralized, poverty-alleviating, and educational opportunities in urban areas (see Garvin, 2016). And in cases where nature-based solutions are the preferred option to respond to the climate challenge, adaptation is a better way to think about how to manage them. Climate-proofing a riparian forest zone through conservation and tree-planting strategies requires the ecological savvy to do so, but ultimately it takes less money than a flood-resistant barrage to protect such a zone. Engaging private stakeholders in tree-planting and engaging citizens in the management of urban natural areas may actually reduce centralized municipal efforts and budgets. A tree-monitoring program could be led by citizen scientists; citizen leaders could collect data on the survival rates of newly planted trees using free-to-download cellphone applications. Finally, experimenting with different planting techniques, such as planting smaller trees and planting in clusters, may be cheaper in the long-term than investing in highly engineered tree-supporting infrastructure. Eventually, an adaptive mindset will pay for itself in the changing urban world we live in.
The final night of the European Soccer Cup in July, 2016, brought together some of the world’s greatest sports figures and fans. France, the hosting team, was hoping to ride a wave of wins to capture their third Eurocup title, following successes in 1984 and 2000. But it was not to be, as Portugal won its first-ever European championship in a 1-0 extra time victory.
We need to view eating insects as part of a sustainable answer to the rapidly increasing demand for food worldwide.
Along with the stars on the field, fans in the seats, and extra security forces everywhere, there were some unexpected visitors at the national Stade de France Stadium—swarms of medium-sized moths, known as Silver Ys (Autographa gamma).
The moths had been attracted to the Stade de France by its floodlights. The stadium, built for the 1998 Soccer World Cup, sits like a great elliptical space ship in the northern Parisian suburb of Saint Denis. It looks particularly spectacular at night. Meanwhile, the Silver Ys are quite ordinary looking. They are brown and grey, with a sort of y-shaped marking on the wings and a wingspan of 3-4 cm (~1-1.5 inches).
Stade de France Stadium on the final night of the European Soccer Cup in July, 2016. Photo: Reuters
The Silver Ys are migratory and very common across Europe. The moths winter around the Mediterranean and head north in the summer in search of new breeding grounds. Many of the moths—millions, if conditions are good—end up in the UK, following fast-moving airstreams hundreds of meters above the ground that allow them to travel at speeds reaching 50 km per hour (~30mph).
On the night of the soccer final, the moths were out in abundance, described as rising from the turf in great clouds when officials first stepped onto the Stade de France field. Players and referees were seen swatting the moths before the game began, while stadium staff tried to vacuum or sweep them away with wide brooms. During the match, one famously flew by Portuguese team hero, Cristiano Ronaldo, who was forced to abandon the match after only 18 minutes of play due to a knee injury. The moth added lightness to the tension and drama on the field.
I live in Nairobi, Kenya, and it is easy to relate to the feelings of human helplessness and frustration experienced in the face of swarming insects. Twice a year, during the rainy seasons (April-May, October-November) we experience the nightly emergence of thousands of flying termites. Attracted to light, they arise from the ground in great waves, and in a determined pursuit to find a mate. The winged termites, known as alates, are the sexually viable members of the colony. They have one assignment: to reproduce with a fellow flyer from another colony.
The pursuit is a desperate one, however, as the termites naturally lose their wings after about 20 minutes of flight. This makes their efforts quite dogged and the insects completely impermeable to the frantic swatting and flailing of nearby humans. Most ultimately fail to find a mate, but it does not prevent them from infiltrating lighted areas by the hundreds or even thousands. Like a micro-sized invasive force, they creep through the tiniest of spaces, making their ways indoors even when all the doors and windows are seemingly tightly shut.
Termite wings. Photo: Vanessa Watley
By morning, all that is left of the nocturnal swarm is piles of detached wings and brown, beelike bodies—some still squirming with life. Most of us urbanites sweep them up and toss them in the garbage, not without some feelings of disgust.
But for western Kenyans, the flying termites represent more than a temporary pest. They are a source of food, appreciated for their abundance, taste, and nutritional value. Termites are rich in protein and fatty acids. They contain iron and zinc, and may have antimicrobial properties. They are most easily collected during the rainy seasons. But the insects can also be extracted from termite mounds directly, and a typical mound can produce 20 kg of termites. Because they deteriorate rapidly, the insects are best when caught alive, from healthy environments, and eaten or processed immediately.
Some people eat the termites raw, with a pinch of salt. More often they are fried or dried, and often mixed with other food, such as beans. At the Amaica Restaurant in Nairobi, the fried ones, known as kumbe kumbe, are served as an appetizer. They are nutty-tasting, crunchy, and surprisingly filling.
More than 2.5 billion people on the planet eat insects, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (or FAO), and termites are second only to grasshoppers in terms of human bug consumption, according to its 2013 report, “Edible Insects: future prospects for food and feed security.” Termites come in a variety of sizes and types. The most commonly consumed Termitidae in Kenya, according to a 2010 study include Macrotermes bellicosus, Pseudacanthotermes militaris, and Pseudacanthotermes spiniger.
In the West, however, the consumption of insects, known as entomophagy, is considered unconventional at best—something people do out of desperation when stranded in the wilderness, for example. Likewise, urban attitudes in developing countries are heavily influenced by “modern” perceptions that see insect consumption as “primitive” or only to be considered as a last resort. Thus, the popularity of kumbe kumbe declines once it hits a city like Nairobi, where it takes on the image of poor people’s food.
The truth is, we should be eating more bugs, not fewer—for ourselves and for our planet. Instead of seeing entomophagy as primitive, we need to view it as part of a sustainable answer to the rapidly increasing demand for food worldwide.
Insects are a healthy alternative to meat and fish, and can also be used as animal feed. They are greener than conventional livestock: they emit less ammonia and/or greenhouse gas, need less land or water, and are able to feed on organic waste streams. Insects are more efficient at converting feed into protein than are organisms such as cattle, pigs, or chickens. Moreover, insect harvesting requires minimal inputs or technical knowledge, and it is an important possible source of livelihood for poor people in both urban and rural environments.
Because bugs are not generally categorized as livestock, however, their production as a source of food (or animal feed) is rarely incorporated in agricultural research and development agendas, and they have been absent from major agricultural innovations. To the extent that insect farming is considered, it is largely limited to honey bees, silkworms, and scale insects (used for red colorant). When insects are considered within agricultural research and development, it is through the lens of their (considerable) role as pests or as biocontrol agents against common crop pests, e.g., using ladybugs to control aphids as an alternative to control by insecticides.
Since 2003, the FAO has had a campaign aimed at increasing the uptake of insects as a healthy and readily available alternative food source. The campaign promotes greater awareness regarding the benefits of insect consumption. Its goal is to increase knowledge-sharing among different countries and across multiple sectors (policy, education, advocacy, implementation) regarding the potentials and policy implications of an increased use of insects as food, in processed products, and for livestock feed. It also supports field projects and collaborations exploring the multiple uses of insects as food and feed. A major focus of the campaign is changing the negative image of insect consumption and highlighting its potential:
“Western societies still largely averse to the practice of eating insects will require tailored strategies that address the disgust factor and break down common myths surrounding the practice. Governments, ministries of agriculture, and even knowledge institutions in developed countries will need to be targeted, given that insects as food and feed are still largely absent from political and research agendas. Insects are still viewed as pests by a large majority of people, despite the increasing literature pointing to their valuable role in the diets of humans and animals.” – FAO, 2013
Targeted studies, supported by the FAO and others, are investigating the development and acceptability of processed food products based on insects. For example, a study published in the African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (2010) conducted research with processed products based on readily available termites and lake flies in marginal areas of Lake Victoria, Tanzania, where protein deficiency is common. Their findings suggest that insect-based products, such as crackers, sausages, and muffins, have commercial potential and could play a significant role in improving food security and income generation in the region. Further studies on edible insects are occurring in institutions as varied as Wageningen University (Netherlands); Montana State University (USA); University of Copenhagen (Denmark); Khon Kaen University (Thailand); Chinese Academy of Forestry, Kunming, Yunnan Province; Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology (Kenya); Centre de Recherche pour la Gestion de la Biodiversité (Benin); National Autonomous University of Mexico; and the National University of Laos.
What will it take to get more insects on our plates?
Clearly, a targeted makeover is needed to overcome the negative biases against insect consumption, both in terms of the “ick” factor and its image as a poor person’s food. Though the task may seem great, it is not unprecedented. Consider the cases of lobster and shrimp. Like insects, these organisms are arthropods, characterized by a hard outer shell, segmented body, and jointed appendages—and they were historically considered poor peoples’ food. It was only 80 or so years ago that lobster (known as the cockroach of the sea) went from being throw-away food—given to cats, spread as fertilizer, fed to prisoners—to becoming a gourmet delicacy, thanks to growing demand and better recipes. Shrimp experienced a similar transition in the 20th century, when it replaced oysters as the cocktail shellfish of choice.
More recent examples of foods that have been propelled from elements of meals for subsistence to gourmet rankings in upscale supermarkets and restaurants worldwide include quinoa, kale, native potatoes, and even the lowly Brussels sprout.
The FAO suggests that further changes would help assure greater use and acceptance of insects in our diets, including:
Technological innovations, such as simple ways of rearing insects at scale, or methods to simultaneously control pest insects by harvesting them as food
Food and feed legislation that encompasses insect production and trade, with the development of regulatory frameworks in collaboration with government, academia, and industry
Sustainable ways of producing insects for food (or feed), including nature conservation strategies
Further documentation of the nutritional value of insects, and investigation of the bioavailability of micronutrients in insects, especially iron and zinc, as a way to address common deficiencies in the tropics
Greater emphasis on and understanding of environmental benefits of insect consumption, using quantitative studies of the environmental impacts of harvesting/farming insects compared with traditional livestock or agricultural production
More research on preservation and processing techniques to increase shelf life of insect products—and to extract insect protein for the food and feed industries
Clarification of the socio-economic benefits of insect farming and gathering as income and food-generation activities for the poor
With these considerations in mind, the swarms of termites in Nairobi take on a new dimension. Termites are among the most successful groups of insects on earth. They are available on every continent, except for Antarctica, and live in profusion in cities, such as Nairobi. It’s time we city dwellers stopped swatting at these flying sources of protein, and considered savoring them instead.
Ayieko MA, Oriaro V, Nyambuga IA. Processed products of termites and lake flies: Improving entomophagy for food security within the Lake Victoria region. African Journal of Food Agriculture Nutrition and Development, Vol. 10, No. 2, 2010, pp. 2085-2098. Link: http://www.bioline.org.br/request?nd10013
A review of Rosten Woo’s“Bowtie Nature Walk,” available at the Bowtie Parcel on the east side of the Los Angeles River’s Glendale Narrows. A map and tour audio files are available here.
A “nature walk” seems like an unlikely activity to find on the industrial banks of the Los Angeles River. From the vantage point of a 70-mile-per-hour car crossing the moat between east and west Los Angeles, there doesn’t appear to be much “nature” on the river’s cavernous concrete floor or walls.
The Bowtie Nature Walk asks vital questions about the current plans for the Los Angeles River: namely, whether they will lead to a recognizable “river,” or the opposite.
But to those who live alongside, recreate on, work with, or otherwise get up close to the river, its ecological complexity is undeniable. The persistence of certain plants and wildlife in the concrete channel, despite no natural hydrology, has undoubtedly inspired Los Angeles River revitalization efforts. This is the audience I suspect artist and designer Rosten Woo had in mind while creating the “Bowtie Nature Walk,” the second of three installations intended to bring the less-visible aspects of the Los Angeles River ecosystem to the surface.
Looking south over Glendale Narrows from Los Feliz Boulevard. Photo: Anne Trumble
Woo’s audio tour piqued my interest because a few months before its release, I got up close to the Los Angeles River myself. Very close. For six days, I walked the river’s entire urban reach, from Canoga Park in the San Fernando Valley, to the Pacific Ocean in Long Beach. While traversing both sides of the 51-mile channel, I observed things well known to river advocates—mainly that the river is a dynamic landscape. But I reached the river’s terminus with its sweetly acrid aroma baked into my skin, and more questions than answers about its future. Several months later, Woo’s nature walk gave shape to these questions.
In ten audio segments, less than four minutes each, Woo’s narrators peel back layers of the river’s socio-ecology. Each segment corresponds with a modest wooden marker poking above clumps of fountain grass throughout the Bowtie Parcel. Also called G1, the parcel was purchased from Union Pacific Railroad by the California State Parks in 2003 for $10.7 million, to create a 100-acre river park. Located within the soft-bottomed Glendale Narrows, and with a shape squeezed and pulled into a bowtie by surrounding infrastructure—freeway, rail tracks, and river channel—it is an ideal lens through which to view the river’s past, present, and future. The Bowtie Parcel is a microcosm of the ecological, social, and political factors influencing the Los Angeles River corridor and basin.
Each narrator explores a piece of the River’s story through found cultural artifacts. With a variety of spoken accents, the narrators represent the diverse communities surrounding the river and shaping Los Angeles’ cultural vibrancy. The one-mile audio tour loops around several large-scale land-art installations from previous public programs conducted by Woo’s non-profit collaborator, Clockshop. These artifacts are enduring symbols of the perpetually unfurling, emergent culture inspired by the Los Angeles River.
The symbolism of labels
Labels—and the symbolism they encode—are a theme woven throughout the Bowtie Nature Walk. What do the labels we give things mean? How do labels influence city making? How do labels shape a landscape like the Los Angeles River? Woo discovered this conceptual direction in a large warehouse anchoring the northern end of the Bowtie Parcel. The box’s blank exterior gives no indication of what’s inside. I passed by it on day three of my river walk, and paid no attention. It was one among hundreds of non-descript warehouses dotting the industrial portions of river. But inside, Nelson-Miller’s several hundred employees comprise the world’s largest, industrial label maker. While Nelson-Miller is, according to their slogan, “Labeling the World,” the Bowtie Nature Walk explores how we are “Labeling the River.”
Plants as labels
A grove of Mexican Fan Palms growing between Nelson-Miller’s warehouse and the river channel is the subject of the tour’s introduction. The narrator discusses how palm trees have become a label, perhaps the label, for Los Angeles. She quotes the California author and architecture historian Esther McCoy, who once called palms “a symbol of the city’s indolence; shallow rooted, constantly on the move, shifty, shiftless, with no sense of place.” Los Angeles has since adopted a policy to not replant palms—native or non-native—as they reach the end of their natural lives.
Bowtie Parcel Nature Walk, wooden marker 2 at Mexican Fan Palms. Photo: Anne TrumbleBowtie Parcel Nature Walk, entrance signage. Photo: Anne Trumble
Someday, the palm trees along the Los Angeles River will all be gone, including an indelible grove I discovered on day two of my river walk. Wedged between the Weddington Golf Course and the river channel in Studio City, one finds a row of native California palms that have evaded annual frond trimming. Desiccated, brown fans from years past obscure narrow trunks from the ground up to living fronds tufting their tops. I hadn’t noticed “natural” palm trees like these before on my walk, but their juxtaposition with the stark concrete channel forced me to pay attention. Instead of bare, thin pencil trunks, I found columns displaying everything they’d grown. Much as the rings inside deciduous trees visualize a historical record of growth, these Fraggle-like creatures animating the edge of the concrete river wear their history like so many layered dresses. This was the first moment on my river walk that I felt I was somewhere; I was in Los Angeles. The 12 walking hours before this “palm experience” could have been in any suburban landscape.
The Bowtie Nature Walk left me wondering: how much of the decision to not replant palms is a reaction to their acquired symbolism rather than the palms themselves? Will Los Angeles be less indolent, more rooted, or less shiftless without palms? Or will the absence of palm trees lead to no label for Los Angeles at all? Perhaps a palm-less Los Angeles will be a label-less, or place-less, Los Angeles.
“Native” and “Non-Native”: symbolizing an attitude towards nature
Five of the ten audio segments examine the immigration status of plants in the Los Angeles River ecosystem. Which plants are native? Which are non-native? How do we decide which get to stay, and which have to go? With the exception of the native palm being selectively phased out through city policy, other native plants have become a label for the restored Los Angeles River of the future. Narrators discuss how native planting guidelines are established, and announce that specialty nurseries to supply the plants are being propagated nearby. Much like eradicating palms for a more “rooted” sense of place, re-nativizing the Los Angeles River is intended to reclaim the river’s natural heritage, producing a recognizable landscape, or a landscape “of the place.”
“The Unfinished” by Michael Parker, Clockshop’s Bowtie Project. Photo: Anne Trumble
One audio segment examines the only native plants remaining on the Bowtie Parcel. Mulefat, California buckwheat, and sage, in addition to natives that have not lived there for decades, will be prominent in a restored Los Angeles River. Day one of my river walk provided a snapshot of this native river vision. As I trekked along the newly constructed San Fernando Valley River Greenway, the path snaked between the river channel and discriminately designed plantings of native California sage, wild rose, laurel sumac, and sugar brush. Although they provide preferred habitat for native birds and other wildlife, these plantings will always require extensive maintenance to defend them against aggressive non-natives.
The Bowtie Nature Walk weaves through the non-native and “invasive” fountain grass blanketing much of the river landscape. Listeners are encouraged to visualize removing millions of fountain grass clumps dotting the foreground and horizon and the seeds that stay viable underground for up to seven years. Like similar exotic species that out-survive natives with greater adaptability, the fountain grass will need to be eradicated from the Los Angeles River basin to construct a native river landscape.
Another exotic and invasive species residing in the river channel set day three of my river walk apart from the others. After two days pounding the hot, barren, ceaseless sea of river concrete, I approached the soft-bottomed Glendale Narrows. A green haze on the horizon was the first sign of vegetative life in the river channel. I sprinted a few hundred feet, anticipating the relief of a temperature drop. There I stood and applauded this symbol of nature’s dynamism. Giant reed grass—Arundo donax—is thriving in the harsh Los Angeles River.
I would later learn from the Bowtie Nature Walk that giant reed grass is reviled among river advocates. Its habitat value for native wildlife is reportedly low and its rapid growth—up to four inches a day—outcompetes native species. But Arundo has found a luxury home in the Los Angeles River. It can depend on natural and human disturbances, such as annual floods and continual attempts at removing it, to break and release stem fragments that propagate elsewhere. Downstream drains and islands of trash and debris characterizing the Los Angeles River are the perfect nooks and crannies for fragments to lodge and sprout new, vibrant colonies. The plant even feeds on heavy metals common in the river water, absorbing them through its roots and storing them in its stalks and leaves. Arundo is also being studied for carbon sequestration of degraded soils associated with desertification, although I haven’t found research on this specific to the Los Angeles River.
Giant reed grass thrives off the human excesses of the contemporary Los Angeles River. It is a species symbolic of the Anthropocene, confirming that stability in nature is an illusion and humans are inseparable from the ecological equation. The Bowtie Nature Walk left me with many Arundo-inspired questions. Perhaps when we focus on the negative aspects of a species, we miss out on its industrious side.
One Bowtie Nature Walk segment links a belief in native plant superiority to the Nazis. The first and most vocal proponents of native horticulture, the Nazis were obsessed with creating “pure landscapes” along the Autobahn, free of foreign intruders. Woo uses this example to suggest what the eugenics of native horticulture symbolizes about our attitude towards nature. One narrator states, “Fear of the non-native combines two contradictory impulses: the celebration of our landscape before human intervention, and the fear of nature beyond human control.” Proponents of re-creating native landscapes want to return to a pristine nature no longer possible in the Anthropocene. But attempting to do so requires unending human intervention to keep foreigners out. Meanwhile, examples like giant reed grass suggest that nature has other ideas about cleaning up our messes.
“River”: symbolizing something lost
The Los Angeles River’s impervious course to the ocean relaxes just once over 51-miles. At the Sepulveda Flood Control Basin, its concrete walls and floor recede into a landscape reminiscent of the river before thousands of WPA workers descended on the flood ravaged basin with 3.5 million barrels of cement. Three hours into my first day river walking, I reached White Oak Avenue, Sepulveda Basin’s westernmost edge. What I found looked like, well, a river. As I tweeted photos, a follower immediately tweeted back: “Now THAT looks like a river!”
Field of Fountain Grass on the Bowtie Parcel next to the Los Angeles River. Photo: Anne Trumble
Native willows, cottonwoods, and sycamores mingle with non-native black locusts, tree of heaven, and eucalyptus. The lush mass of trees and shrubs replaces the heavy mat of concrete previously lining the bass, catfish, and carp-filled stream. Moving further into the basin, I passed between golf courses on both sides of the river, where maintenance crews mowed and fertilized meticulously manicured fairways. I strolled past bonsai dotted gravel terraces being raked smooth in a Japanese Garden. I ambled through the wildlife reserve, where maintenance crews replaced acclimated non-native plants with native ones. Waterfowl, shorebirds, and other small birds swam in a lake filled with reclaimed water from the nearby Tillman Water Reclamation Plant. These recreation areas provide room for a 100-year flood event. The iconic Sepulveda Dam at the easternmost end of the basin ensures that prospective floodwaters don’t move beyond their carefully engineered boundaries into the city beyond.
I named river walk day one The Archetype. The engineered Bell Creek and Arroyo Calabasas merging to form the river, and the 405 and 101 freeways merging to force the river back into its concrete edition prior to Sepulveda Basin, epitomize the Los Angeles River. Although most of its uses require intensive gardening, Sepulveda Basin is a snapshot of the river when it had room to pour out beyond its banks, depositing rich alluvial soils and recharging underground aquifers. The channel leading into the basin exemplifies the halt of these ecological functions to protect human settlement. The new San Fernando Valley River Greenway exemplifies the river’s future, with continuous pedestrian access and a re-nativized riverbank.
One audio segment of the Bowtie Nature Walk asks the question, “What is a River?” Various versions of “river” from my walk came to mind. Is a river the concrete channel that has been fixed in place for the past 60 years? Is a river the softer, wilder version that momentarily flows through Sepulveda Basin, with room to flood only in catastrophic events? Is a river new courses carved each year, flooding the delta with rich soil and recharge water?
For nearly 50 years, the Los Angeles River was called a “flood control channel.” Through tireless advocacy efforts, that term has universally been replaced with its historic descriptor, “river.” This change in language acknowledges that Los Angeles has a river at all, and in doing so reclaims the channel as public asset—and, consequentially, makes it available for public access. It is as much a shift in words as it is a shift in consciousness. A long forgotten landscape slicing through the region is now accessible by everyone. But it does beg a question asked by the Bowtie Nature Walk: to what version of “river” is the Los Angeles River now being restored?
Woo’s narrator suggests that if steelhead trout are to return to the Los Angeles River—one metric of restoration in current plans—the concrete banks need to be removed and the flow of water from treatment plants rerouted away from the river. It would again be seasonal and wild, as it was 70 years ago, when the steelhead trout called it home. But that would require restoring a surrounding Los Angeles; relocating homes, industry, and infrastructure for a wider flood zone. The narrator explains that as a real estate vision takes the helm of restoration efforts, other visions fade, and new development abutting the river channel will make a restored vision impossible. The Bowtie Nature Walk asks whether current plans will lead to the opposite of a restored river. Will the final result be restored access and high maintenance native plantings—but not a restored hydrologic system—because that would require a restored city to match? I wonder, then, whether the former result is a “river” or something else entirely? By continuing to call it a river, perhaps we are chasing a mirage—an optical illusion of what was lost, rather than what has become or what will be.
“Restoration”: symbolizing choices
One thing I have learned about Los Angeles during my short time calling it home is that the city values challenging questions posed by artists and activists. In Lewis MacAdams’ lifetime artwork, he asked, “to whom does the river belong?” Rosten Woo asks in his river artwork, “for whom or what is river restoration?” Time and advocacy have provided the answers to MacAdams’ question. But Woo’s questions will be answered as river restoration unfolds.
The Bowtie Nature Walk prophesies two very different answers to Woo’s question, based on the outcomes of two distinct choices: abandon enough of the city to make room for a restored river, or proceed with current plans, knowing that they will not produce a restored river, but something else entirely. Neither of these choices acknowledge the terms of conserving nature in the Anthropocene.
Erle Ellis, a professor of anthropogenic landscape ecology at the University of Maryland, explains conservation in the Anthropocene in his essay “Too Big for Nature.” He says, “To conserve nature in the Anthropocene, the ecosystems engineered to sustain us must be engaged to the fullest. It is only by increasing the productivity of engineered ecosystems that we gain the ability to leave room for nature. To demand less from our agriculture or our settlements is to demand more from the rest of Earth’s ecology. The only hope of conserving any semblance of a wild nature is to offer it the luxury of not serving us.”
Bowtie Parcel Nature Walk, wooden marker 6 at Fountain Grass. Photo: Anne Trumble
The Los Angeles River and its watershed undoubtedly comprise one of the most engineered ecosystems on earth. It is engineered to protect us. As the Bowtie Nature Walk suggests, it is difficult, if not impossible, to undo its engineering. Perhaps an Anthropocene re-making of the Los Angeles River is about engineering it to sustain us, in addition to protecting us. If the Los Angeles River could be as productive as possible, thus lessening the pressure on the rest of Earth’s ecology, what might it look like? Would it be re-engineered to capture every drop of water it currently releases to the ocean? Would its vegetative inhabitants mitigate pollutants, like the giant reed grass does now? Would the transportation its linearity facilitates be maximized, beyond just recreation? These possible futures may not be the picture of a native, bucolic river landscape, but they may be key for choosing to go forward to nature, rather than going backwards to nature.
I hope that there are more artists and activists, like MacAdams and Woo, who continue to make the Los Angeles River the vehicle for their inquiries. It is work like theirs that asks some of the most critical questions about our fundamental role as humans on earth.
As the world is fighting against climate change, many Chinese cities are now trying to transition towards a low-carbon development pathway. Beijing, the capital city of China, promised to peak its carbon emissions by 2020, an ambitious target that inspires all of its citizens. And the city has actually made progress on this.
Beijing is determined to build a World City, which should be inclusive. We can’t drive all the migrants and so-called “low-end” industries out of urban districts.
However, we have heard voices from different angles on this progress. A friend told me that since 2014, many retailers in downtown Beijing have closed down their businesses and moved out of urban districts. These retailers consist mostly of migrants, who have typically worked in community and small commodity markets, barbershops, restaurants, beauty salons, public baths, and in other services for years. Their departure is a great loss to Beijing, and brings inconvenience to urban residents in Beijing’s downtown. As China’s capital city, Beijing is welcoming friends from all over the world with the objective of building a World City. “Welcome to Beijing”, the theme song of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, intends to convey the open-mindedness and hospitality of the capital city. But now, why are these migrants leaving Beijing?
1. Decentralization to tackle urban problems
Like other megacities, Beijing has experienced common urban problems such as environmental degradation, traffic congestion, resource deficiency, and soaring housing prices, etc., in the process of its development. The Chinese leadership decided to follow a low-carbon pathway, and to solve the capital’s urban problems at a regional level, as a means of addressing these issues. In recent years, policies of coordinated and integrated development in Beijing, and its two surrounding Provinces, Tianjin and Hebei, have been enacted. The objectives of these policies are to maintain the function of the capital city, to move the non-capital functions to the surrounding areas, and to balance the development of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei. The main approach to achieving these goals has been to decentralize the excessive population and the so-called “inappropriate and low-end industries” from urban Beijing, moving them to the surrounding regions. According to the “Coordinated Development Plan of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei” issued by the central government in 2015, Beijing’s total population shouldn’t exceed a 23 million person cap, and by 2020, it is planned to decrease by 15 percent compared to its 2014 level (in 2014, the population reached 21.51 million, and it shows an increasing trend). In this context, Beijing is trying to relocate population and industries out of the urban districts.
The retailers I mentioned above and the “low-end industries” in which they are engaged are regarded as the first people and activities that ought to be moved out of the urban centers. According to statistics, during the first half of 2016, the population of the six urban districts of Beijing decreased by 95,000, the first decrease since the founding of PRC in 1949. The decentralization policy is starting to work. However, are we not losing something with the exodus of these migrants and their businesses? We are. We are losing convenient public services and amenities close to us, and we are losing vitality and diversity of the city.
2. Negative effects of the decentralization of migrants
The loss of migrant populations brings inconvenience to urbanites and influences the livelihoods of the migrants who leave. Because most of the decentralized migrants work in service sectors, their departure causes a serious lack of basic services essential to the locals’ lives. In addition, migrants who leave lose their jobs, and their family members are forced to move from their familiar surroundings (e.g., the kids need to go to other schools).
In the community where I live in northwest Beijing, there used to be a daily necessity market that had operated for over 20 years. It occupied an area of 19,000 m2, and had more than 900 shops. This market served the communities within a radius of 5 km, and was beloved by local residents. Regretfully, the market was demolished in 2014. The government said that the marked caused a large flux of people and traffic jams. I am not sure whether tearing down the market was the only solution to tackling congestion in this case, but I am quite sure that our lives became more difficult without the market, and thousands of migrants who had been working in retail needed to find new jobs. According to government officials, by the end of 2014, 43 markets like this had been demolished in Haidian District alone, one of the six urban districts in Beijing.
The Xiyuan Daily Necessity Market right before demolishing (The banner ads in Chinese said: “Good bye Beijing”). Photo: http://j.news.163.com
Loss of migrant communities will also cause an imbalance of urban space and a loss of vitality of the city. As migrants and “low-end” industries move out of the town, local residents turn to amenities that are usually more expensive and located farther away in order to satisfy their daily needs. Living costs subsequently increase, which may result in the movement of elders and the low and medium-income groups, as well. Eventually, rich people will be gathered in the urban areas, while the poor live on the periphery. This will cause social stratification, and an unbalanced population structure in space, which poses a potential threat to social stability. Moreover, as the “low-end” industries move out of town, the industrial structure left downtown tends to be unitary; it loses diversity, and, inevitably, the vitality of urban areas is reduced.
3. The way towards an inclusive Beijing
Beijing is determined to build a World City, which should be inclusive. We can’t drive all the migrants and so-called “low-end” industries out of urban districts, as these people and their work are greatly needed by the urbanites. E. Saarinen proposed the Theory of Organic Decentralization in 1940s, and it was adopted widely all over the world. At the present development stage of Chinese megacities, such as Beijing, I think the main point in implementing this theory is to make our decentralization better coordinated and better planned.
First of all, experts, the general public (including representatives of the migrant population), and officials from different government authorities should meet regularly before making a coordinated plan or final decision on such issues. In Chinese cities, different plans are compiled and supervised by different government institutions, such as land use plans (by the land and resources bureau), transportation plans (by the transportation commission), urban plans (by the urban planning bureau), social economic plan (by the development and reform commission), etc. The problem is, authorities and experts involved in making different plans usually do not communicate effectively with each other. This has caused inconsistencies to arise between various plans, so that the implementation of those plans did not produce optimal results. Like the commodity market under discussion, if transport planning and land use planning had gone hand-in-hand from the beginning, starting 20 years ago, traffic congestion might not occur today. Likewise, if today, different stakeholders can meet together in the decision-making process of decentralization, it will result in a more scientific and coordinated plan for the future.
Secondly, there might be other alternatives to solving urban problems that are perceived to be caused by high density population and “inappropriate” industries, rather than decentralizing the migrants all at once. For instance, in order to mitigate the perceived problems caused by an excessive migrant population and the industries they engage in, the government could strengthen the supervision of retailers and industries, could provide and encourage more transit services, could set up one-way streets, could develop and utilize underground space, and could establish low emission zones.
Take the approach of strengthening government supervision, for example; Cangzhou city makes a good case study. Located 200 km southeast of Beijing, and with a population of 7.44 million, Cangzhou faces urban problems like other Chinese cities, one of which is how to deal with street vendors. Typically, street vendors are migrants coming into urban areas to earn a living. The goods they sell and services they provide are needed by citizens, but street vendors are also blamed for causing dirty, disorderly, and bad environments. By building unified market stalls for street vendors, Cangzhou government can tighten supervision on the migrants. At the same time, this policy actually keeps the migrants’ livelihoods intact, and improves their surrounding environments.
The street vendors in Guangrong Road Cangzhou, China, before the construction of the unified market stalls. Photo: http://cn.chinagate.cnThe street vendors in Guangrong Road Cangzhou, China, after the construction of the unified market stalls. Photo: http://cn.chinagate.cn
Thirdly, the government should synchronize decentralization and resettlement. If the government decides to decentralize the migrants, it should make an all-out effort to help those shifting populations by providing new employment opportunities, services, and facilities in the outskirts of cities and new towns to which the migrants are moving. Hong Kong sets a good example of “planned” decentralization. In order to solve the housing problem of the growing population in urban areas, the government built nine new towns from the 1970s to the 1990s. Before the newcomers moved in, the government introduced industries, public services, and transport facilities into the new towns. This way, people could find new jobs and were more eager to move.
Beijing needs its migrant population; its contribution to the city is critical towards its development as a World City. The government needs to follow coordinated and planned decentralization policies to achieve its social, economic, and environmental objectives. As an ordinary citizen of Beijing, I hope that the rhythm of “welcome to Beijing” rings out loudly under the clear sky.
The Cheonggyecheon “River” then, covered up by a highway.
Story Notes: A casual chat on a bus nearly thirty years ago led to the improbable removal of a major elevated highway and the restoration of a beloved river in the old city center of Seoul in South Korea.
Dr. Soo Hong Noh, a professor of environmental engineering at Yonsei University, became a champion for bringing back the Cheonggyecheon River in his home city after listening to a colleague fancifully muse about the river’s restoration while they sat together on their evening commute.
The idea stuck, and after a research sabbatical at Ottawa University in Canada, Dr. Noh came back to Seoul intent on finding a way to replace the four-lane Cheonggyecheon Highway with the hidden river from which it got its name.
The daylighted and restored Cheonggyecheon today. Photo: David Maddox
In this podcast, produced by Philip Silva, Dr. Noh recounts his work to restore the Cheonggyecheon River, a tale that begins with that fateful bus ride in 1989 and continues through to the present day with similar highway removal efforts around the world drawing inspiration from South Korea. Dr. Noh recently delivered a presentation on the Cheonggyecheon restoration at TransitCenter, a think tank and philanthropic foundation based in New York City.
We caught up with him before his lecture and included some of his public remarks in this podcast.
The Cheonggyecheon restoration. Photo: David MaddoxAn art installation on the Cheonggyecheon. Photo: David MaddoxDr. Noh speaking at Transit Center in New York. Photo: Philip Silva
Several months ago, the City of New Orleans was awarded $141 million dollars from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (or HUD) to implement a wide-ranging green infrastructure project in the city’s Gentilly neighborhood. The main goal of this project, known as the “Gentilly Resilience District,” is fairly straightforward: slow down soil subsidence and take pressure off of the city’s complex drainage system by retaining groundwater and capturing stormwater on the landscape during rain events.
A project in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans aims to demonstrate how cities can adapt existing systems and utilize green infrastructures to deal with water challenges.
While limited in its spatial scope to one neighborhood, the project represents an ambitious move by local authorities to fundamentally upend long-held views on water management in the city. This essay describes the aims and scopes of the Gentilly project, and places the intervention in a longer historical context of the engineering strategies applied to the city’s peculiar deltaic geomorphology and ecology over the past century.
Announced in January 2016, the Gentilly Resilience District project aims to provide a concrete demonstration of how cities like New Orleans can adapt existing systems and utilize green infrastructures to deal with water challenges. The figure below shows the main interventions the project entails. Some of this work will “daylight” drainage canals that are presently sealed in concrete and buried in street medians. The idea here is transforming invisible gray infrastructure into green infrastructure with multiple public benefits: improving the quality of public green space, and giving the landscape the capacity to retain more surface and groundwater, while not exacerbating the flooding risk to neighbors.
New Orleans typically receives around 64 inches (162cm) of rain annually, and much of this volume arrives in the form of intense downpours that overwhelm the city’s drainage system, even with the marked improvements made since Katrina. The system can pump an inch of rain an hour in the first hour of a storm, and then a half an inch an hour afterwards. In other words, the system can handle three inches over a five-hour period. Often, localized downpours exceed this rate and water begins to collect.
This is where the other primary intervention of the project becomes relevant. Several large tracts of undeveloped land—a former sprawling convent that was destroyed in a fire after Katrina, and a remnant tract of bottomland forest near Dillard University—will capture and retain stormwater, storing it while neighborhoods and streets are pumped dry first. This video, produced for city agencies, provides a helpful illustration of how green infrastructure is being promoting as a “triple bottom line” solution to environmental problems in New Orleans.
Before elaborating on the Gentilly project further, let’s return to the urban geomorphology of New Orleans, and explore the development of the problems the project aims to address. It’s no secret that much of New Orleans was constructed on drained swampland. City engineers devised a comprehensive drainage system around the turn of the 20th century with two central aims. First, they pumped dry the freshwater forests in the city’s low-lying basins, which was incredibly effective in mitigating the spread of diseases including yellow fever, malaria, and cholera. Prior to this intervention, in the 1800s, thousands of residents, many of them recent arrivals from Ireland and other impoverished European nations, succumbed to yellow fever during the summer months. The city garnered a reputation as a “necropolis” that was to be avoided in warmer months.
Beyond the humanitarian and public health crises these outbreaks represented, they also had serious implications for the city’s core economic engine: international trade through the Port of New Orleans. On the one hand, the city’s centrality in the trade networks of the Caribbean and its need for laborers rendered it vulnerable to the arrival of pathogens and un-acclimated hosts aboard ships. During the worst outbreaks, however, quarantine orders and outright bans on ships visiting the city undermined economic activity. City engineers and public health officials, pressured by local economic elites, decided to simply install canals and pumping stations capable of draining the city’s entire urban footprint, limiting breeding ground for the yellow fever (Aedes aegypti) and malaria (genus Anopheles) mosquitos, and providing better elimination of sewage (cholera and dysentery threatened even native residents, who had acquired immunity to yellow fever). Between 1900 and 1920, deaths from yellow fever, malaria, and cholera plummeted, and life expectancy for New Orleans residents increased by over 20 years (NOS&WB, 1921). In a span of 20 years, diseases that previously paralyzed the city for several months out of the year were all but eliminated. This was a huge achievement that stabilized the city’s position in economic exchange networks and alleviated human suffering on an impressive scale.
Draining these swampy basins in the city had an additional effect: it opened up hundreds of square kilometers to urban development. Since the city’s founding in 1718, urbanization was largely limited to the natural levees along the Mississippi River’s banks, as well as a few narrow ridges (ancient river channels) that crisscrossed lands that were otherwise at or slightly above sea level. The city’s population (280,000 in 1900) was packed into dense urban neighborhoods along these ridges and riverbanks. Modern drainage (begun ca. 1900) de-coupled the city’s urban form from these constraints, and the newly drained basins (or polders) were subsequently developed, with medium to low-density residential housing as the dominant land use.
This draining and development process generated several problems, both immediate and in the longer term. The massive drainage pumps did more than just convey stormwater into local estuaries—the groundwater was actually removed as well, lowering the city’s water table substantially. The highly organic and peaty soils in these former swamplands were incredibly prone to subsidence, and sink they did, up to three meters or more in some places. Much of this subsidence occurred in the first few decades after the drainage system was implemented, posing challenges for the installation of roads, sewer lines, building foundations, and so forth. This underscores the essential paradox of hydraulic drainage in these organic deltaic soils: the more water that is removed from the soil, the more the land sinks, but the more the land sinks, the less drainage is assisted by gravity, and the more energy intensive and technically challenging removing that water then becomes.
This ecological reality was further complicated by a perverse incentive: as more people moved into these highly modified drained polders, residents demanded even more intensive drainage. This paradox involves trading one temporal pattern of ecological disturbance for another. Everyday rainstorms no longer led to major street flooding and standing water, but especially intense rainstorms could have dramatic effects on residents and infrastructure, as the bowl-like topography the drainage system helped to create filled with water. It could take days to fully drain against gravity.
The Gentilly neighborhood typifies this historical sequence and set of environmental, technological, and political factors. It is situated between a narrow ridgeline that bears its name (Gentilly Ridge) to the south, a deepwater navigation canal to the east (the Industrial Canal), and Lake Pontchartrain to the north (figure 1). Nearly every drop of rain that falls in the neighborhood must make its way into drainage culverts, through a series of massive pumping stations, and finally into Lake Pontchartrain. In some cases, stormwater must be mechanically elevated 2-3 meters before reaching the lake, which is more or less at sea level. By retaining more water on the landscape, planners in New Orleans are hoping that green infrastructure can be part of the answer in ensuring the city’s long-term sustainability in the face of rising seas and more intense storms.
Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, hundreds of experts in the fields of water management, civil engineering, urban planning, and ecological design have helped develop proposals for re-thinking and adapting the city’s approach to water. Local architect David Waggoner has been at the forefront of this by convening collaborative planning processes that draw upon international best practices for dealing with urbanization in the context of river deltas. These insights were subsequently elaborated into the “urban water plan,” a vision for adapting the city’s water systems. Building upon these initiatives, the city of New Orleans was selected by the Rockefeller Foundation as one of its first “100 Resilient Cities” program. New Orleans was the first among these cities to develop its “Resilience Strategy,” a plan completed in 2015 that drew heavily upon the afore-mentioned work on water management. With the funding from HUD awarded for the Gentilly Resilience District in 2016, these post-Katrina planning initiatives are now finally on the cusp of being implemented at a neighborhood scale.
With funding for green infrastructure finally coming down the pipeline, how will the Gentilly project achieve its multiple goals of improving groundwater retention, mitigating flood risk, and improving community green spaces? Even though the project is limited to a single neighborhood, the initiative has multiple sites and interventions. Let’s focus one of the project’s signature sites. The Mirabeau Water garden is a 25-acre (.10km2) empty tract of land in the heart of the Gentilly neighborhood. Formerly, the site was home to a sprawling convent, which was gutted by a fire in 2006, a year after it was inundated by floodwaters following Katrina.
The property, now controlled by the city government, will be re-engineered as a catchment for stormwater and a public green space. Stormwater from nearby streets will be conveyed into wetland basins, or terraces, along a long swath of the property. This water is thus removed, at least temporarily, from the city’s drainage systems, adding capacity to the system during heavy rainfall events. Vegetative plantings are planned throughout the Mirabeau site to help filter the captured water, provide habitat for wildlife, and beautify the site for visitors (see figure 1).
Similar interventions are planned at a large remnant forest tract nearby, at an even larger scale. With assistance from local urban ecologists, ecological monitoring will be conducted on all the project’s sites, to track how alterations in the area’s hydrology impact plants, rodents, birds, and insects. In the subtropical and swampy environment of South Louisiana, environmental management is a critical aspect of urban public health. While green infrastructure interventions aim to mitigate flood risks and improve urban green space for city-dwellers, the prospect of a project that involves large basins of standing water give rise to concerns over nuisance species like mosquitos and rodents. This has become especially poignant in the summer of 2016, as Miami deals with a Zika outbreak in the heart of the city.
The Zika outbreak underscores a certain paradox with green infrastructure in New Orleans, and emphasizes the importance of careful monitoring and adaptive management of such projects. The city’s unified drainage system generated massive improvements in urban public health in the early 20th century. But the unintended effects of that same system are now threatening the very habitability of the city in the face of rising seas and intense storms. Open canals, bioswales, and constructed wetlands might prove effective in reducing subsidence and adding capacity to the city’s drainage system during storms. At the same time, these projects will, to some degree, replicate eco-hydrological conditions that prevailed in the city before 1900, though on a small scale. As such, the Gentilly project will have to wrangle with all of the ecological ramifications of these interventions, even the undesirable ones. City leaders understand this challenge, and are confident that New Orleans does not have to choose between a terra-formed and vulnerable bowl, and a mushy swampland full of disease vectors, such as mosquitos.
In subsequent posts, I hope to document the implementation of the Gentilly Resilience District project, exploring how the project reshapes water, ecosystems, and communities. If the project manages to achieve the suite of benefits it is aiming for, a strong argument could be made for implementing similar projects throughout New Orleans. The widespread implementation of these measures could help the entire city balance wet and dry conditions, and to be much better positioned to cope with the impacts of climate change.
Figure 2B: (1) Design of the pool with randomized steps [top]; (2) Cross section A1-A1 [middle]; (3) Casted pool [bottom]
New Orleans typically receives around 64 inches (162cm) of rain annually, and much of this volume arrives in the form of intense downpours that overwhelm the city’s drainage system, even with the marked improvements made since Katrina. The system can pump an inch of rain an hour in the first hour of a storm, and then a half an inch an hour afterwards. In other words, the system can handle three inches over a five-hour period. Often, localized downpours exceed this rate and water begins to collect.
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