All Content

Art, Science, Action: Green Cities Re-imagined
December, 2019

16 December 2019

A Storm in a Bioswale: Breaking Down Barriers to Nature-Based Solutions
Stuart Connop, London Caroline Nash, London

Nature-based solutions are emerging as a key mechanism for renaturing cities, yet barriers around evidence and effectiveness still stand in the way of widespread rollout across our urban landscapes. More by luck than design, we learned that a straightforward technical test of a Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS) retrofit scheme in...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

13 December 2019

Cities are the Perfect Laboratories for a Global Green New Deal
Sven Eberlein, San Francisco

It was only a year ago when the idea of a Green New Deal entered the American public sphere with a big splash. When a group of young activists, joined by an idealistic new crop of congresswomen, stormed the incoming house speaker’s office to demand nothing less than the wholesale...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

10 December 2019

Is Experimenting Natural in Cities? The Nature of Experiments and the Experiments with Nature
Niki Frantzeskaki, Utrecht

Experimentation is a way to bring new solutions or approaches to cities. As a researcher on sustainability and sustainability transitions, I believe that, if solutions are to be adopted and scaled to improve human and ecological conditions in our world, they require testing in the field, beyond closed-door labs but...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

7 December 2019

Neither Above Nor Below
Claire Stanford, Los Angeles

Jakarta Is Sinking So Fast, It Could End Up Underwater —New York Times headline, 12/21/17  A flash of silver-green in the water. That is all Hasan sees, but it is enough. He runs after, alongside, his small legs propelling him across the planks and platforms that crisscross the city. The...

1 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

3 December 2019

Biophilia Revived: How Do We Strengthen the Connection to the Natural Environment in a City Expanding in the Desert
Abdallah Tawfic, Cairo

I live in a country that lives the dream of conquering the desert and building new cities. Cairo is the second largest city in Africa with a booming population crossing 23 million over an area representing less than 5 percent of the whole country’s land. I always wondered what is...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation
November, 2019

30 November 2019

National Park City: What if your city were a National Park City, analogous to what London created? What it would be like? What would it take to accomplish?
Alison Barnes, London Méliné Baronian, Versailles Maud Bernard-Verdier, Berlin Ioana Biris, Amsterdam Timothy Blatch, Cape Town Geoff Canham, Tauranga Samarth Das, Mumbai Gillian Dick, Glasgow Luis Antonio Roman Diez, Merida Eduardo Guerrero, Bogotá Sue Hilder, Glasgow Mike Houck, Portland Sophie Lokatis, Berlin Aletta Bonn, Berlin Scott Martin, Louisville Sebastian Miguel, Buenos Aires Gareth Moore-Jones, Ohope Beach Rob Pirani, New York Daniel Raven-Ellison, London Tom Rozendal, Breda Snorri Sigurdsson, Reykjavík Lynn Wilson, Vancouver

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

29 November 2019

Inspiring District Residents, Specialists, and Government Officials to Work Together to Create a Park That Would Sustain Biodiversity and Meet People’s Desires
Nadezhda Kiyatkina, Moscow

Этот текст также можно прочитать на русском языке. For the last two years our interdisciplinary team has been working on the Cherished Meadow (Zapovedniy lug, in Russian) project. This is an unprecedented happening, as it is the first project of its kind in decades that involves building a city park...

1 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

22 November 2019

Free to Live Beautiful Lives
Rodolphe Deborre, Lille

Good evening. I’m quite moved by the fantastic show we just had. So, I’m going to be experimental as well, because it’s going to be the first time in my life that I think in French, I try to speak in English, and it’s going to be translated back in...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

18 November 2019

City as Nature Festival, Osaka, Japan
Patrick M. Lydon, Daejeon

Co-sponsored by The Nature of Cities and FRIEC, the inaugural City as Nature Festival took place from 11-22 October 2019 in Osaka, Japan. Featuring interactive, place-based art, workshops, concerts, walks, talks, and storytelling events, the festival aimed at cultivating our awareness of urban environmental landscapes. The works and activities within...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

11 November 2019

Community, Collaboration, and Controversy: A Story of Activists, Architects, Scientists, Engineers, and a Vision to Transform Artifacts into Amenities and Oil Tanks into Oyster Beds.
Jay Valgora, New York

As a student, I walked the narrow river, sliding along edges to reach the massive curves of the abandoned grain elevators, rising in the sunlight reflecting off frayed elephantine concrete skins. My father worked in the steel mills of Buffalo, where I visited the incredible mile-long buildings that I felt demonstrated...

3 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

4 November 2019

How to Sell “Nature in Cities” to the Middle Class
Cha-Ly Koh, Kuala Lumpur

Cities are not only hosting 68% of the world’s population by 2050, but a growing population of mobile-toting, car driving, and home ownership aspiring middle class. For rising middle class cities such as Jakarta and middle-income trapped citieslike Kuala Lumpur—middle income trapped cities are cities in countries that are unable...

1 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation
October, 2019

31 October 2019

Why are we doing walking tours in African cities? To help us see and engage with small scale urbanism and urban tinkering.
Pippin Anderson, Cape Town Celestine Collins, Kisumu Julie Goodness, Stockholm Jessica Kavonic, Cape Town Odhiambo Ken K'oyooh, Kisumu Viveca Mellegård, Stockholm Benard Ojwang, Kisumu Aiuba Oliveira, Nacala Semakula Samson, Entebbe Ellika Hermansson Torok, Stockholm Thandeka Tshabalala, Cape Town

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

28 October 2019

Plastic Bag as Tumbleweed: Poetic Observations of the Everyday Around Us
Malerie Lovejoy, Oxford

A review of Urban Tumbleweed: Notes from a Tanka Diary, by Harryette Mullen. Greywolf Press 2013. Buy the book. For renowned poet and professor, Harryette Mullen, awareness is walking. Inspired by the Japanese syllabic verse form of the tanka, Mullen set out to explore her environment in a series of captured...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

28 October 2019

For Urban Sustainability, What Research Do We Need Now?
Mark Hostetler, Gainesville

For over 25 years, as an urban ecologist working in academic institutions and collaborating with city planners, developers, and the public, I have seen the sustainability needle move ever so slowly. How can we speed things up? For scientists, if they are going to help make cities more sustainable, what...

4 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

21 October 2019

Can Artistic Knowledge Bring Us Closer to Encountering the Co-influence of all Living Organisms?
Audrey Yeo, Edinburgh

“the knowing self is partial in all its guises, never finished, and can thus only develop in combination with others.” — Donna Haraway in Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective, p586 I grew up in Singapore. I heard stories from my father about when...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

16 October 2019

Co-creating Inclusive Green Cities: European Examples and Global Learning Opportunities
Katharina Hölscher, Rotterdam Alice Reil, Munich

“Co-creation” has garnered much buzz as a promising enabler of greener and better cities for all. During a hands-on session (“Co-creating inclusive green cities: European examples and global learning opportunities”) at the Nature of Cities Summit in Paris (June 4-7, 2019) with co-creation experts and cities—co-organised by Connecting Nature partners...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

11 October 2019

How is the concept of “stewardship” and “care for local environments” expressed around the world?
Nathalie Blanc, Paris Lindsay Campbell, New York Zorina Colasero, Puerto Princesa City Kirk Deitschman, Waimānalo Johan Enqvist, Cape Town Emilio Fantin, Milan Artur Jerzy Filip, Warsaw Carlo Gomez, Puerto Princesa City Cecilia Herzog, Rio de Janeiro Michelle Johnson, New York City Kevin Lunzalu, Nairobi Patrick M. Lydon, Daejeon Romina Magtanong, Puerto Princesa City Heather McMillen, Honolulu Ranjini Murali, Bangalore Harini Nagendra, Bangalore Ferus Niyomwungeri, Kigali Ragene Palma, London Beatriz RuizpalaciosHuda Shaka, Dubai Erika Svendsen, New York Abdallah Tawfic, Cairo Diana Wiesner, Bogota Xin Yu, Shenzhen

1 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

11 October 2019

WILD STRAY CARE: Exploring multiple ways people co-exist with urban nature
Ferne Edwards, Barcelona Amy Hahs, Ballarat Yun Hye HWANG, Singapore

Human relationships with nature are highly complex and variable. Particularly now when the human connection to nature has been highly disrupted, and the sense of custodianship or stewardship has been displaced. Yet at the same time, there is a growing awareness and movement of the need to reconnect people and...

2 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

6 October 2019

How Much Nature in Cities Should Be Set Aside?
Will Allen, Chapel Hill

Even in an era of extreme political divisiveness across the globe, clean air, clean water, and land conservation are extremely important goals across the political spectrum. According to recent bi-partisan polling in the US, 84 percent believe we can protect land and water and have a strong economy at the same...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation

1 October 2019

Can Cities be Greta?
Peleg Kremer, Princeton Raz Godelnik, Princeton

On the last week of September millions of people participated in climate strike marches around the world, protesting against global inaction on climate change. Led by teen climate activist Greta Thunberg, the youth climate strike movement and other social movements such as the Sunrise Movement in the U.S. and Extinction Rebellion...

0 Comment(s)
Join our Conversation