“Get your blue mind on!” is a frequent expression and admonition of Wallace J. Nichols, known simply as “J” to most of us. J has been a leading thinker, researcher, and activist extraordinaire when it comes to all things related to water. The author of the recent bestselling book Blue Mind(July 2015), he isa passionate advocate for ocean and water environments and for the healing and recuperative powers of water in all its forms. A half decade ago, he began convening an eclectic group of like-minded academicians and others in an intensive one-day conference called “Blue Mind,” a collective exploration of the many different ways that the power of water might be studied and applied.
In late May of this year, J helped convene the fifth of these unusual meetings, Blue Mind 5. For this year’s event, the emphasis was to be on urban blue, and I was honored to have been asked to give the closing keynote for the meeting. In addition to discussing a bit of my own research and writing, a key charge given me was to listen throughout the day and to summarize and synthesize the main themes and overarching conclusions. This was a tough job, to be sure, but a fun one, and what follows here is a modest attempt to put down on paper some of what I learned that day. The meeting took place in the elegant digs of the Carnegie Institution of Science, in Washington, DC.
J Nichols.
It was (and is) a huge agenda, an agenda for a lifetime. How can we be healthier, saner, better human beings through connections with water, and how can we be better stewards of our ocean and water environments? While for many of the participants, the setting for their own research, practice, and activism, was oceans, this was not always the case, and sometimes it was the municipal pool, or the float tank, or the lake, or river. So from the beginning, there were some interesting and stimulating ambiguities, but water in every form imaginable became the subject of our appreciation and celebration that day.
Part of my task was to look for the urban manifestations and implications of the topics being covered so eloquently and insightfully. It was not a hard thing to do. We are an increasingly urban world, and increasingly call cities home; every topic discussed held special meaning and importance in understanding, and perhaps shifting, modern urban life. And many or even most cities are located near water.
The new urban stories of water
J Nichols has an uncanny knack for joining together sometimes disparate speakers, while always extracting synergy and logic emerging from the interactions. The day was largely structured around four main panels: The New Story of Water; Science of Solitude; Sleeping Deeper; and Submergence. I liked the look of the day— topics rarely thought about or considered much by urban planners, but clearly critical issues for us to think about in relation to cities.
The first panel of presentations wondered out loud about the importance and power of storytelling, and ways we frame the stories we create and tell. There was a strong sense that a new story about water was needed, and a helpful shift away from the tired, older story (or stories) we have been telling. The old story of water was a negative one, a pessimistic one. Addressing the immense water and ocean agenda we are collectively facing requires a new kind of story about effective change and a new sense of the appropriate messenger. Ocean advocate Danni Washington spoke eloquently about the need to “change our conversation, to flip the switch, because we’re not going to inspire anyone by telling them that they’re doing horrible things.” The story must increasingly be about the positive benefits and qualities of water, what we love about oceans and water.
M. Layne Kalbfleisch, a cognitive neuroscientist, studies talent and inspiration, and offered insights from her research about how color (blue specifically) enhances mental performance, and the need to better appreciate the ways in which the body’s resting state (its autonomic systems) creates the conditions for daydreaming and imagination. Becoming more in touch with our “endogenous heuristic” (our internal playbook), must be part of the new sensibility. The new story must include, she told us, a new understanding of “water as medicine” (more on this below) and that “water flows in one direction.” Flow in cities is a defining force and a way of fixing relationship and position: some are upstream, others down.
Kalbfleisch played some music for the audience from the group The Stray Birds, specifically a song called “I Dream in Blue,” and then asked us to identify the many references to water (Listen to the song here). It was a convincing point that music frequently contains deep connections and references to water, and also perhaps that we can and must tell these new stories of water in many different ways, including through music, drama, and poetry. Later in the day we heard the moving poetry of Jamie Reaser and saw the beautiful photographs of National Geographic Photographer, Anne Doubilet.
Just and equitable access to water, and its benefits, was yet another theme and another necessary element of the new story. Harvey Welch, of Carbondale, Illinois, described what it was like to be African American, growing up excluded from enjoying public pools. Later in life, he has lead the charge to build a new outdoor public pool, something that has proven harder than expected (and still is not accomplished). It was a reminder of the entrenched inequalities, but also the promise of water as a bridge, as an opportunity to heal past injustices and to create spaces and places for coming together.
Part of the charge in crafting a new story is to think more carefully about who we hold up as purveyors of change. We have relied heavily on a “hero model” of ocean conservation and protection, which was noted by several speakers. Stiv Wilson, with the Story of Stuff, made this point through a provocative self-assessment, pondering the imagery he has commonly used to present himself to the world (and to audiences like ours)—the image is of singular hero, saving the day (an image of him steering a ship during a storm, strong and in charge). The reality is that addressing ocean conservation problems today will require changes in how we buy and consume, as well as through legislation. But it is not to be found in singular herculean acts of saving the day, so much as in more pervasive, collective shifts in our behaviors and buying patterns, and in our political action. Wilson showed a new film about micro-beads and suggested that it might indeed represent, he feels, a more effective way of reaching average people and effecting deep change. Wilson was recently profiled in the New York Times (looking a lot like the hero, ironically), with good news that states continue to enact restrictions on micro-beads in response to consumer concerns (California appears headed for a ban on both synthetic and organic micro-beads). The prospect of state-level restrictions and bans seems enough to shift companies like Proctor and Gamble away from micro-beads in their body and facial scrubs.
I frankly did not know much about micro-beads before Wilson’s presentation, but the inability of conventional water treatment plants to filter them and the possibilities of working their way through and up the aquatic food chain is a scary prospect indeed. It was the first of a number of references that day to the ways in which humans consumption and lifestyle choices negatively impact the blue realm, and in turn our own human health. As is so often the case with water, optimism and pessimism blend together, though the former, thankfully, may be carrying the day. And the issue raises once again the many ways in which the transition to urban lives may induce a mental distance between action and impact (where do those micro-beads go when they slither down the drain?). Yet, the new emerging story is, and must be, that urbanites can be made to care and have more power to effect change than is perhaps commonly thought.
There was a consistent refrain throughout the day about the watery nature of our human biology and physiology, and this was/is another aspect of the re-writing of the new story of water. We are largely made up of water, of course—about 60 percent on average (though it varies by age, gender, and other factors). That we should connect with, and be so profoundly soothed by touching and having contact with water, is not surprising. For me, these repeated references to our watery selves conjure up the ideas of deep ecologythat many of us talked about and found compelling in the 1980s. The ideas of Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess that we ought to seek to be at one with a larger “Self” (a “deep” ecology,” in contrast to the more superficial ways in which we adjust our relationship to earth and environment; e.g. Naess, 2010). If we are the water, if we are the river or the ocean, then aren’t we doing harm to ourselves, so the argument goes,when we pollute those water environments? And is there the chance that through seeing greater unity in the world, we will find a way to live less destructively? If our physiology is so inherently watery, does this not bode well for finding deeper caring and connection?
Solitude
The second panel of presenters addressed the subject of solitude, a quality that might seem, on the face of it, to be in short supply in cities. Again, it brought together a remarkable (and unusual) set of thinkers and doers. The sense from these presentations was often not of the potential or promise or benefit of solitude, but just what a difficult relationship we seem to have as a species with the idea. Tim Wilson, who teaches in the UVA Department of Psychology, reported on his fascinating research showing the difficulty subjects have with simply sitting and thinking. We have a difficult time, apparently, just being with our thoughts and through a series of different experiments WIlson has demonstrated just how hard this is for us. In one set of experiments, subjects were asked to sit quietly with their thoughts. They were, however, able to administer a mild but unpleasant electric shock (something demonstrated for them before the experiment began). Remarkably enough, a relatively high percentage of participants shocked themselves (67 percent of men, 25 percent of women), presumably out of boredom (e.g. Wilson 2014). Some shocked themselves repeatedly, rather than sit quietly with their thoughts (and one man shocked himself 190 times!). This result garnered lots of attention in the popular press (and headlines like this one in the Washington Post: “Most men would rather shock themselves than be alone with their thoughts” see Feltman, 2014: ).
A kayaker on the James River.
Cities in some ways are an antidote to boredom. They are rarely boring places, and often the problem is finding places and opportunities where quiet reflection is possible. I remain convinced that humans need the time to and places where they can sit, recharge, reflect, and ponder intensely or not at all. And these places must increasingly be in cities. Designing and planning these opportunities ought to be a major task of city planners, and for me it is the daily connections with nature—whether watching and hearing a bird or sitting in a small park or tending a garden—that can provide those moments of quiet solitude. Perhaps we are inclined to shock ourselves (especially men, it turns out) in part because of where we are: that we are stuck in a room, locked in a stifling interior space with little that is uplifting. In an era where many feel bored waiting for the traffic signal to change and reach for our iPhones, is such a response perhaps partly learned behavior?
Water in cities represents some of the best opportunities we have to create conditions and circumstances for solitude, squeezing these experiences (in both a spatial and temporal sense) into cities. Solitude must surely be partly about putting us in the present moment, enjoying the sound of our own breath and the heave of our lungs, quietly watching, listening, being mindful. And the watery realms in and around cities often offer the best chances for finding these experiences, whether floating on a kayak on the James River or sailing in Boston Harbor.
One of the best examples demonstrating the therapeutic power of water in a city is Paley Park, a remarkably small park (1/10th of an acre in size) located in highly-developed midtown Manhattan. Designed by landscape architect Robert Zion, it opened in 1967, and has been delighting residents ever since. It is small space providing a quiet respite and source of solitude. It has trees and potted plants and “vertical lawns” (Zion’s words for describing the ivy walls that flank the space), but it is the roaring 20-foot tall waterfall that is the park’s most impressive feature. Seeing and listening to this waterfall is what makes this park so enjoyable, providing an element of unusual solitude. Paley helped to usher in new thinking about the power and potential of small spaces—pocket parks, parklets—and perhaps the need to look for all possible ways to include one or more water features. The Project for Public Spaces (PPS) has declared Paley to be one of the best parks in the country and biophilic design expert Bill Browning frequently uses it as a prime example of the “presence of water,” a key biophilic design principle (Browning, 2014; see his terrific 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design here).
Solitude and adversity developed as another theme over the course of the day. Matt McFadyen told a gripping story of being trapped under a sailboat in the Southern Ocean, moments from death, and an equally harrowing journey to the North Pole. Water tests us in many ways, and some of these experience seem more to fall under the heading of solitude under duress. Other speakers over the course of the day described similar struggles; for instance, Blue Mind alum Bruckner Chase, a self-described “endurance waterman,” described his struggles competing as in ironman competitions. There is the suggestion that through struggle and endurance and, sometimes, even through failure and defeat, there is a closeness and affection for these challenging environments; such struggles provide the portal or platform for deeper connections and perhaps for a degree of humility that is helpful in interacting with the ocean world.
Matt McFadyen at the North Pole.
Jamie Reaser, artist and poet, re-framed the challenge as one of “bringing people into their inner wildness.” It may have been the first explicit reference of the day to wildness as a positive, desired attribute, but the wildness of oceans and water bodies was implicit in a number of presentations throughout the day. In the sense of vastness and in the largely uncontrollable power of nature are the possibilities of experiencing awe and wonder. I have often spoken of the need for “cities of awe,” that seek to maximize and facilitate these emotions, and water in and near cities is a major opportunity for this.
Reaser argued that we need solitude “to become fully human,” and made a critical distinction between solitude and isolation (a seeking of “apartness” and a more disconnected state). Solitude is as much about feelings of connectedness and relationship; to achieve this need does not require us to require us to escape to a distant place where there are no or few people. That is good for cities and the planet.
Sleeping deeper
The profound importance (emotional, health) of sleep is sometimes overlooked, and a fourth major panel addressed the question of Sleeping Deeper. Here there was the very personal and wrenching story of Bobby Lane, a marine veteran grappling with PTS and suicidal impulses. He told a meandering but compelling story of how he discovered surfing. Surfing saved him. After experiencing this, he tells of having his first night of real sleep in a long time. The power of water brought him back from the brink.
Sleep itself is an essential human need and so many things in cities have proven to be disruptive to sleep—artificial light, for example, and excessive noise from car traffic, landing aircrafts, and building construction, among others. There is growing recognition of the negative health impacts of bad sleep and the beneficial, health-enhancing effects of good sleep, so it makes great sense for planners and urbanites to give this topic more attention.
Bobby Lane is a living example of how spending time in, on, or near water can be part of the answer to good and healthful sleep. This is further support for the many ways that cities might nudge its residents to enjoy these forms of nearby nature and beneficial health outcomes that would result. Good sleep could result from other urban interventions, of course—real efforts at controlling both light and noise pollution would be a start—but I am convinced we often overlook the “blue gym,” to use the language of Michael DePledge, all around us as a partial antidote (e.g. DePledge, 2009).
Justin Feinstein, a neuroscientist with the Laureate Institute for Brain Research and co-founder of FLOAT, provided an interesting connection between water and good sleep in his presentation. His work has focused on the beneficial effects of spending time in float tanks. It was a fascinating look at the power of this technology in addressing and enhancing urban health more broadly. Spending time immersed in the quiet, dark, soundless environment of a float tank quiets many parts of the brain, and studies show it helps to reduce anxiety and stress and helps us to relax deeply. The studies are more numerous and extensive than I had imagined (27 studies at least; see floatboston.com, undated). These benefits have been shown to last for months. I came away convinced of the utility of a network of float tanks in cities, though I struggled a bit in understanding the planning and public policy implications of float tanks.
A float tank.
Feinstein’s presentation also made me ponder the value of floating in cities more generally and the opportunities to do so there. Perhaps less an opportunity for quieting the brain, events such as the Big Float in Portland, Oregon, do provide the chance to sit on and slowly move through the water spaces of a city.
More generally, the theme of water and shorelines as medicine re-emerged; it’s one of the most important take-aways. In urban planning and design, there has been a growing recognition of the ways that bad urban form (e.g. unwalkable, car-dependent sprawl) can make us sicker and can inflict a host of health problems. We have been less quick to recognize the inverse, that many urban landscapes (designed and natural) can be profoundly therapeutic and health-enhancing. Bluescapes seem especially to be potent forms of medicine.
Several recent studies by Michael DePledge and his team at the University of Exeter in the UK show the power of proximity to water. In one large study, self-reported health increased with proximity to the coast. In another series of studies, participants were shown and asked to react to a photographs, some containing water. “As predicted,” DePledges team concludes, “both natural and built scenes containing water were associated with higher preferences, greater positive affect and higher perceived restorativeness thanthose without water.”
And this recognition (or re-discovery, more accurately) has lead to new design directions in blue urbanism. Recent examples include the installation of the new Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital on Boston harbor, along its HarborWay trail. The building is designed to provide extensive views of the harbor through lowered windows in patient rooms, for instance, and from ground level rehabilitation spaces. It is remarkable, in a way, that we have not fully utilized the healing powers of water, so nearby and so often overlooked as potent therapy and medicine.
A Spaulding Rehab Hospital room in Boston.
Submergence in the city: partial and full
Finding ways to float in city, whether in an enclosed tank or as you’re drifting down a river, will deliver benefits. Submergence takes the relationship even further (though to float implies at least partial submergence) and opens up yet another set of ways to relate to water and the topic of the fourth panel. Again, it was a fascinating and eclectic group of presenters.
Bruce Becker, a physician from the University of Washington, reported on his research using water immersive therapies. His extensive body of research shows how valuable even shallow immersion—with water up to one’s shoulders—can be for the body (e.g, Becker, 2011). Most of his work and practice have been in pool settings. The physiological benefits are remarkable, as immersion significantly increases blood flow to the kidneys, for instance, and the relaxation benefits are equally great.
James Nestor, author of the best selling book DEEP, took us on an amazing story of water immersion of a deeper sort. He reports on the remarkable story of freedivers, who risk their lives to dive and swim to incredible depths (some up to 700 feet). One of the more fascinating aspects of the story is discovery of the ways in which the human body is able to adapt and protect itself at these incredible depths. The “master switch of life,” a set of protective reflexes that shifts blood flow to the body’s core and lowers heart beat to conserve oxygen, kicks in. This is more convincing evidence about the watery origins and deep connections we have to oceans and water, embedded in our basic biology.
So what about submergence in cities? How does this concept relate to modern urban planning and emerging ideas of blue urbanism? One is the possibility of swimmable waters in and near cities—harbors, ports, near-shore waters of various sorts. There certainly is a trend in cities aspiring to swimmable (and fishable) waters as an enhancement to quality of life and health. Cities such as Copenhagen have famously opened public swimming areas in the hearts of their former ports where, in the past, industrial water quality would have made swimming unhealthy. Other cities from Berlin to London have taken, or are taking, steps towards outdoor urban swimming. New York city has recently unveiled a plan for creating a river swimming area as a part of its Hudson River Park.
Swimming in Copenhagen harbor.
The Becker and Nestor presentations provide interesting contrasts in submergence—from shallow to very deep. The shallower opportunities seem more present in cities, but as we seek to better understand and connect to the amazing marine life and biodiversity in coastal and marine cities, opportunities for deeper submergence should perhaps also be a goal. Here I am reminded of Steve Journée, who dives nearly daily in the Wellington (New Zealand) harbor. Urban diving may be a logical counterpart to swimming, with different but complementary benefits. Journée recently published a fascinating book of photographs of the underwater life of that harbor (Journée, 2014). Cities can be, and often are, venues for such deeper forms of submergence, and this may be good for both people and cities.
Which brings me to the beautiful underwater photography of Anne Doubilet, who has for many years traveled the world, diving and photographing for National Geographic. Her photographs are wondrous and magical and provide a visual mechanism that might, we hope, provide emotional connections to organisms and worlds otherwise hard to experience directly. A major challenge today is how to foster that deeper connection and caring for marine worlds that are largely out of sight. Few of Doubilet’s remarkable photos are taken in urban environments (though she lives in Manhattan). But they could be and, like Journée’s, they might help to forge a new understanding of and curiosity about what lies below the surface in urban areas—what is just beyond the bulkhead or pier or roadway. Doubilet’s photographic skills are needed, desperately, to capture these underwater city wonders.
Papua New Guinea: Anne Doubilet with cameras underwater on reef.
Towards a blue-minded urbanism
Traveling back home at the end of this long day, I pondered why this event felt so different to me. It was in part that I gave it—and the presenters—my full attention. But it was more than that. It was a day devoted to examining—carefully, methodically examining, from many different perspectives and angles—something that is ubiquitous: water. And the methods and presentations came at the promise and value of water in so many different ways. There were academics and researchers, but there were also physicians, activists, artists, and water practitioners of various kinds. And often they wore multiple hats, viewed the world through multiple lenses. Rarely do you find these different people and perspectives on the same agenda, rubbing shoulders at a conference. It was an intentional mash-up in these ways and I am sure that J Nichols compiled his eclectic list of invitees and presenters with this clearly in mind.
It was an exceptional day for considering a full range of ideas that don’t necessarily find their way onto urban planning syllabi—solitude, submergence, deep sleep, the need to craft and tell new stories. These are ideas, bodies of research and thought, that have truly remarkable implications for health and happiness and meaning for the future design and planning of cities.
At the beginning of the day, J Nichols handed out small blue marbles to everyone and explained how we might use them to think about our blue planet. The marble represented the small, resilient, but fragile planet on which our existence depends. Something to think about but to act upon as well. He extolled us to pass the marble on to someone else—as an act of blue gratitude. It is a creative idea to raise awareness and model some behavior we want to see. The Blue Marble Project, which began in 2009, has now seen millions of blue marbles change hands and millions of thoughts of gratitude and hope pass from person to person. I have a vision of blue marbles turning up at city council meetings, mayoral campaign stops, and community meetings of various kinds. I know I will be handing some out.
DePledge, Michael, 2009. The Blue Gym: health and wellbeing from our coasts,” Mar Pollut Bull. 2009 Jul;58(7):947-8
Eriksen, Marcus et al, 2014. “Plastic Pollution in the World’s Oceans: More than 5 Trillion Plastic Pieces Weighing Over 250,000 Tons Afloat at Sea,” PLOS One, December 10, found at:
Nichols, J. Wallace. 2014. Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do, New York: Little, Brown and Company.
On a path of accelerated urbanization, India is going through substantial changes in its land cover and land use. In 1950, shortly after Indian independence, only 17 percent of the country’s population lived in cities. Today, India’s urban population stands at 33 percent. India contains three of the world’s ten largest cities—Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata—as well as three of the world’s ten fastest growing cities: Ghaziabad, Surat, and Faridabad. In the past two decades, the area covered by Indian cities has expanded by a staggering 250 percent, occupying an additional 5,000 km2 of India’s surface with concrete, asphalt and glass (Nagendra et al., 2013). Projections indicate that more than 50 percent of India’s people will be living in cities by 2050 (United Nations, 2014). This massive urbanization will pose large scale challenges for urban resilience and sustainability, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable: the urban poor, migrant workers, traditional village residents.
“Smart cities,” a program of focus of the Indian government, are considered to hold promise to resolve major challenges of urban sustainability. This approach is driven by a belief in the supremacy of technology for the efficient management of urban growth. Yet other equally, if not more, significant issues of the importance of nature and the restoration of thriving ecosystems for the wellbeing and health of people in cities demand attention. A systematic focus on urban ecosystems, via the protection of urban commons, is essential to provide a robust, adaptive, and resilient pathway towards greater urban sustainability.
The environmental consequences of the rapid growth of cities are starkly apparent. Urban expansion has degraded and destroyed natural habitats across most Indian cities and small towns, transforming urban forests, lakes, and wetlands into polluted travesties of their former ecological vigor, and converting them into vast expanses of concrete construction. Why should we care about the impacts of urbanization on ecosystems? In part, of course, because of their intrinsic value. In addition, though, urban ecosystems are essential for human health and wellbeing and, ultimately, for urban resilience.
Trees provide shade for all, including vulnerable groups such as street vendors in Bangalore.
Urban ecosystems provide a range of important ecosystem services that are critical for the sustainability of cities. Wetlands clean up water contaminated with industrial pollutants and sewage, while trees strip the air of pollutants. For instance, coastal wetlands provide protection against flooding to parts of Navi Mumbai, an extension of the city of Mumbai (Nagendra et al., 2013), while inland wetlands buffer the city of Chennai from flooding during heavy rains (Nambi et al., 2014).
Trees in Bengaluru clean polluted air and provide shade for street vendors and pedestrians, reducing the levels of harmful pollutants such as suspended particulate matter and sulphur dioxide (Vailshery et al., 2013). Services such as these are termed “regulating” services because they regulate the environment. Important “supporting” ecosystem services, such as the provision of habitat for migratory birds and bats, are provided by urban ecosystems such as the coastal wetlands of Mumbai and parks in Bangalore (Nagendra et al., 2013).
A park in Bangalore provides a refuge for large colonies of the fruit bat.
Urban ecosystems also provide important cultural and recreational ecosystem services. Ecosystems hold an important place in the cultural landscape of urban India through their sacrality and worship (Nagendra et al., 2014). Exposure to green spaces provides wellbeing and psychological relief from urban stress. Parks, lakes and coastal beaches act as important social nodes of congregation, strengthening social bonds between disparate, anonymous urban residents.
In the heart of the city, children engage in a time honored favorite activity—climbing trees!Children from wealthy residential areas and local slums working side by side, painting leaves and stones at an urban lake festival in Bangalore.
The importance of urban regulatory, supporting and recreational services are widely recognized by the public, as well as by policy makers and planners. Yet there has been a systematic decline in the availability of urban ecosystems for provisioning ecosystem services across Indian cities. In almost all Indian cities, lakes, tree cover, grasslands and wetlands once provided food, fodder, fuelwood and other important resources. These ecosystem products are still consumed by many, from cattle owners and fishers to migrant workers and the poor. For instance, the mangroves of Mumbai are used by thousands of local residents for collecting fodder, fuelwood, and food, while lakes in many parts of Bangalore continue to provide fodder for cattle, and supply milk and fish to city residents. These areas historically functioned as urban commons, providing collective resources for the entire community in times of scarcity and need.
Goats grazing at a lake in Bangalore.
However, local planners and governments have permitted the large scale conversion of these areas for urban development. It is only in recent years, in particular after large scale flooding in 2005, that the utility of maintaining mangrove habitats for flood protection and lakes for ground water recharge became recognized, prompting the protection of these habitats (Parthasarathy, 2011). The motivation for such protection has been the urgent need to maintain regulatory ecosystem services, while the importance of production services for the resilience of the poorest and most vulnerable has been largely ignored in official planning discourse. For example, many lakes across Bengaluru are now being restored in response to ground water depletion, following citizen protests by affected local communities.
Community protests to save a polluted lake in Bangalore.
Yet the protection of lakes has an often ignored, yet important social consequence: while lake ecological condition improves, restored lakes are typically fenced and gated to keep out grazers, washermen (dhobies), fishers and other traditional users.
A sign in Kannada announces that fish are available at a local lake in Bangalore.
Urbanization thus not only leads to specific patterns of change in ecosystem use: it also leads to specific types of change in the perceived value of specific types of ecosystem services, shaping wide ranging policies that regulate access to and management of these former urban commons.
Regulatory and recreational ecosystem services have systematically taken precedence over productive uses of ecosystems in the minds of the urban public, the media, and city administration. In turn, urban ecosystems have transformed from commons or common pool resources used by communities for shade, water, grazing, fishing, and fuelwood collection, to protected lakes, parks, and mangrove forests that belong to the state, valued for public ecosystem services such as ground water recharge, recreation, and flood protection.
A tree branch provides shade and shelter for a makeshift cradle, holding the sleeping child of a street vendor in a Bangalore park.Water collected from a depression in a dry lake bed is an important resource, used by the inhabitants of a tented slum.
In this process, many of the urban poor—whose livelihood resilience, health, and nutritional levels depended on access to provisioning ecosystem services—have been the worst affected, losing access to the services provided by natural ecosystems due to the dual processes of privatization for urban land use and public protection for conservation (Mundoli et al., 2014).
An advertisement for a private butterfly park in a new residential complex in Bangalore.
The massive scale of urbanization in India will undoubtedly pose challenges for the country’s environment, ecology, society, and sustainability. Responding to these challenges will require sustained attention to devising and implementing appropriate policies for ecologically sustainable urban growth. The current focus on smart cities in India is driven by a search for technological fixes. Yet the restoration of thriving ecosystems as urban commons, which can ensure the wellbeing and health of a wide strata of people in Indian cities, requires equal attention. A systematic focus on urban ecosystems is essential and can provide a relatively inexpensive, adaptive, robust, and resilient approach for enhancing urban sustainability. Better protection, management, and use of urban ecosystems will be essential for urban sustainability in the era of the Anthropocene.
An ecologically smart city may be the smartest city one can envisage! Such an approach would increase the resilience of cities by providing low-cost, adaptive, and efficient ways to deal with the challenges of providing safe food, pure water, and clean air for unprecedented and growing numbers of people. To create ecologically smart cities, a systematic focus on urban ecosystems is required, restoring their original function as urban commons that provide important provisioning, regulatory, recreational, and supporting ecosystem services. Such ecologically smart cities would be low-cost, adaptive, and resilient to a whole host of local and global environmental challenges, from pollution and food insecurity to climate change.
Mundoli, S., Manjunatha, B., Nagendra, H. 2014. Effects of urbanization on the use of lakes as commons in the peri-urban interface of Bengaluru, India. International Journal of Sustainable Urban Development DOI: 10.1080/19463138.2014.982124.
Nagendra, H., Sudhira, H.S., Katti, M., Schewenius, M. 2013. Sub-regional assessment of India: Effects of urbanization on land use, biodiversity and ecosystem services. In Urbanization, Biodiversity, and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities, ed. Thomas Elmqvist et al., Chapter 6, pp. 65-74
Nagendra, H., Unnikrishnan, H., Sen, S. 2014. Villages in the city: spatial and temporal heterogeneity in rurality and urbanity in Bangalore, India. LAND 3: 1-18.
Nambi, A.A., Rengalakshmi, R., Madhavan, M., Venkatachalam, L. 2014. Building urban resilience: assessing urban and peri-urban agriculture in Chennai, India. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Nairobi, Kenya.
Parthasarathy, D. 2011. Hunters, gatherers and foragers in a metropolis: commonising the private and public in Mumbai. Economic and Political Weekly XLVI: 54-63.
United Nations. 2014. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, New York.
Vailshery, L.S., Jaganmohan, M., Nagendra, H. 2013. Effect of street trees on microclimate and air pollution in a tropical city. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening 12: 408-415.
Why do we plant what we do in our personal gardens? It turns out it’s driven by a complicated mix of personal philosophy and social posturing, which sometimes are at odds. And, it turns out, in South Africa and many other countries, we don’t even plant our own gardens. This is done by “unskilled” and immigrant laborers. We talk a lot about gardens in the nature of cities, but what of gardeners, especially as part of the labor force?
Plantings in one interviewee’s garden.
In South Africa, most middle class homes will have a gardener. Gardeners in this country are nearly always men and, reflecting the apartheid history of our country, are nearly always black. Gardeners are generally paid as unskilled labor at shockingly low rates. Shamefully, gardeners in South Africa are still often referred to as garden ‘boys’. One can only speculate that making grown men feel diminutive in this way arose as a function of historic issues around race, gender, and hierarchy, where the garden is traditionally the domain of the woman of the house and having a ‘boy’ working for a woman, in her space and taking her orders, was somehow more socially acceptable than having a man working for her.
Origins aside, the term persists today, suggesting that little has changed in relation to race and power in this particular arena in South Africa in the last 20 years. South Africa’s unemployment rate is measured conservatively at over 25 percent (Statistics South Africa, 2014). Gardening is an entry point to the job market for supposedly “unskilled” labor. A graphic example of the dire need for work and the role of ‘gardener’ as a catchall entry point is given by Kingdon and Knight in their 2001 paper on unemployment in South Africa, which reported a staggering 39,000 applications for 35 permanent jobs advertised for gardeners and cleaners at the University of Cape Town (Kingdon and Knight, 2001). Many gardeners do find themselves in more permanent positions, but must often juggle a number of gardening jobs on rotation through the week. In addition to local South African men, gardening has become a common occupation for migrant labor in South Africa.
Gardener Samson Malunga.
The men who tend these gardens make large contributions to the overall ecology and ‘nature’ of our cities. Interested in the dynamics between those directing their garden desires (garden owners) and the implementers of these desires (gardeners), I decided to speak to some gardeners in Cape Town. What brings them into this field of work? How do they view their roles as the ‘enactors’ of other people’s views of nature and greenery? For the purposes of this essay, I only spoke to a handful of gardeners, but this marks the start of a larger project and more interviews will be necessary to confirm the preliminary views noted below. Out of respect for concerns around privacy, in particular for those foreign nationals working in South Africa who expressed concerns about legitimacy and xenophobia, the names used here have been changed. However, interviewees were mostly happy to have their photographs taken and shared.
With the exception of one migrant gardener from Malawi who is a professional teacher, all the gardeners I spoke to consider themselves skilled workers with a deep understanding of plants, nature, seasonal cycles, and soil. Several of the gardeners I interviewed voluntarily shared photographs with me by mobile phone of the gardens in which they work: their desire to share pictures of their work is indicative of pride in that work. All the garden photographs shared in this blog are courtesy of Isaac Mgedezi and Samson Malunga. The universal willingness to be interviewed and the enthusiasm with which gardeners approached the interview gave me the impression that this was a group of people who had never been asked about their jobs in a professional manner and were delighted to have the opportunity to share their views and insights. I make particular reference to this as I am confident that this is not how these men are perceived by most people that employ them. The first ‘discomfort’ I will note emerges here, around perceptions of ability, understanding, and professionalism.
Gardener Isaac Mgedezi.
“We are farming people”
All the gardeners I interviewed had grown up in rural neighborhoods and gardened alongside parents or grandparents as children. All had fond memories of these childhood spaces or ‘first landscapes’ and were confident that these early experiences had informed their interests in nature and gardening. The Malawian gardeners all looked somewhat dumbfounded when I asked where they learnt their gardening skills, and while they noted that they grew up in family gardens, the much more emphatic response was generally: ‘I am Malawian, we are farming people’.
With the exception of one gardener who sometimes takes his son to work with him when he helps out in a community food garden close to his home, none of the gardeners was currently raising his children with the same degree of exposure to gardens and gardening that he had in his own childhood. While the gardeners have confidence and pride in their role in molding the gardens of our cities, the lowly pay and lack of professional recognition and security are all aspects they do not wish for their children. Their repeated references to very low wages, persistent poverty, the constant need to search for extra days of work here and there, and the relief expressed by those who have permanent jobs, all speaks to the very difficult emotional and economic space occupied by gardeners in South Africa.
One interviewee’s favourite garden. Photo courtesy of the gardener.
Another apparent discomfort emerges around issues of power and autonomy. Gardeners expressed deep frustration at not having their views and understanding of the workings of plants and soil taken seriously. This is a consistent theme: gardeners feel the garden owners who, in their view, have less understanding about gardening, should be more willing to listen. Isaac said, ‘I get frustrated when my expertise is not respected … I really understand soil and what can grow in different soils’.
Potted plants from one of the gardens.
There are, of course, references made to particular garden owners who do consult their gardeners, who open opportunities for discussion, and—in one instance—who even allows the gardener to accompany them to the nursery and on the odd shopping trip. However, these cases were certainly the exception. One gardener expressed irritation at having to share his workspace with another gardener who comes on a different day. Andrew Makwena says, ‘I don’t like to work with others. I speak to the seeds and flowers I plant and don’t want someone else interfering with that’.
In addition to not liking the interference of others in the work of the garden, Andrew gave a fascinating insight into the frustrations of working in space owned by others. He talked of pruning roses and then watching buds emerge and going every day to see how a single bloom is coming along, only to arrive at work one day to find the flower ‘gone, cut off and taken away into the house’; his immense disappointment and irritation at this aspect of working in other’s gardens was apparent.
Gardener Andrew Makwena.
Dream garden
I asked each gardener what their own dream garden would look like. Most called for more order, less mock wilderness; all desired an element of productivity, with a food garden included. All wanted a lawn on which to ‘lie in the sun’ and ‘play with the kids’. On the whole, they wanted flowers, too, with a particular preference expressed for Agapanthus africanus flowers. Only the teacher, Devout Masuso, an economic refugee currently working as a gardener, expressed impatience over the planting of flowers, saying he would not waste his time with flowers but would plant his favorite Malawian fruit and vegetables such as ‘impiru’, a leafy green which he described as quite delicious. One gardener drew a blank in response to my question, responding, “I really don’t know. I can’t imagine. I think you need money to be able to dream like that.”
Most of the gardeners acknowledged sharing information on plants and gardening techniques with other gardeners they know. Several agree that they move plants around, in particular from the gardens they work in to those of their rural homes. Isaac says the last time he went back to the Eastern Cape to see family, he took several cuttings of flowering plants home with him. The gardeners’ homes in Cape Town are generally too small to allow for any gardening. Spaces are shared, overcrowded, and not owned by the gardeners themselves.
Gardener Devout Masuso.
My interviews suggest that gardeners in South Africa occupy a shadowy space where they seldom fall under the direct gaze of anyone in their professional lives. They all relished the opportunity to speak of their work and expressed frustration at being under-recognized in their professional capacity. Discomforts are evident around recognition and autonomy. My interviews reveal a community of interested and engaged gardeners with a keen understanding of the plants, seasonal rhythms, and soil; they are hungry for professional recognition. These men operate in networks where they share ideas, information, and plants with each other. They are working in multiple gardens in our cities and green spaces in our broader landscapes. These are the people who tend the 20–30 percent green cover that our gardens represent in the ever-increasing footprint of the cities of the world. I think there needs to be greater social acknowledgement, greater engagement with these critical players in our urban ecological space. The informing role of gardeners certainly warrants further investigation.
Just as in real life, the representation of gardeners in literature is few and far between. Where reference to gardens abound, the gardeners are largely overlooked. A quick inventory gives us little more than the foolish, two-dimensional gardeners in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, old Ben Weatherstaff in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s TheSecret Garden, and Michael K in J. M. Coetzee’s The Life and Times of Michael K. [picture of the Alice in Wonderland Gardeners] Michael K demands the most attention, and ideas around gardening and being a gardener are threads that weave their way throughout the book. K gives us the best plea for the gardener, suggesting the gardener’s role as knowledge broker between the earth and those that live on it:
‘… enough men had gone off to war saying the time for gardening was when the war was over; whereas there must be men to stay behind to keep gardening alive, or at least the idea of gardening; because once that cord was broken, the earth would grow hard and forget her children, that was why.’
“The gardeners in Alice in Wonderland are out painting the flowers. ‘Would you tell me,’ said Alice, a little timidly, ‘why you are painting those roses?’ Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low voice, ‘Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know.”
Tactical Urbanism: it’s one of the buzz words in the emerging people-centred planning paradigm. If you do a Google News search of the term, you’ll find articles from all the news sites beloved by urbanists: Next City Daily, CityLab, Slate, ArchDaily, et al. Often used in the context of citizen-led improvements to the urban environment, it can mean everything from small beautification projects to major city-led revitalization efforts. To me, it evokes images of renegade city-dwellers armed with spray paint, bollards, and patio furniture, taking urban planning matters into their own hands to improve their small piece of the city. But Tactical Urbanism can mean a lot of things: there is no unified definition to place it into the larger dialogue about citizen action in urban planning.
These many meanings are captured in Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-term Change, a book by American urban planners Anthony Garcia and Mike Lydon, both leaders in civic advocacy and principals of The Street Plans Collaborative. By clearly laying out what tactical urbanism is—the authors define it simply as an approach to neighbourhood building and activation using short-term, low-cost, and scalable interventions and policies (in other words, according to Professor Nabeel Hamdi, Tactical Urbanism is “making plans without the usual preponderance of planning”)—the groundwork is laid to build on this theory of change by providing successful examples and providing guidance for making it work in practice.
I found it to be an accessible read, heavy on place-based examples, personal narratives, and photographs, while touching on planning and public space theory. As a person who studied urban planning and is most interested in working in the community sector, I found this book to effectively bridge the worlds of quick and visible on-the-ground action with less exciting but very rigorous long-term planning that sets out comprehensive frameworks for development. It also does a great job of celebrating the many successes of citizen-led action, while acknowledging an integral part of the iterative “build-measure-learn” cycle of tactical urbanism: having the courage to fail.
The Tactical Urbanism cycle: It’s about trying things out, then continually adapting and refining.
I found the tone to strike a positive yet pragmatic balance: it has a “you can do it” inspirational voice, but includes frank discussion of the bureaucratic obstacles that continue to prevent the kinds of straightforward, low-cost interventions championed in the text. This left me with the impression that it is possible to create lasting change in one’s community—but don’t expect it to be smooth sailing. A note on terminology: while this book uses minimal planning jargon, the term tactical urbanism itself may not resonate widely in its attempts to capture a movement that presents an alternative to the long-range municipal planning processes that shape our cities. An alternative term used by New York’s Project for Public Spaces is “lighter, quicker, cheaper”. Jaime Lerner’s term “urban acupuncture” also seems to have leverage with a non-planning audience, although it refers specifically to pinpointing vulnerable areas and then using design to re-energize them. “Trial-and-error urbanism” might also capture Garcia and Lydon’s framework: rather than spending a lot of time, money, and resources on coming up with the best plan, we would do better to test things out on a small scale to see if there is potential for wider applicability and sanctioned change.
I found the weaving through of examples that illustrate how we shape our cities by doing something in the short-term, with the view of changing conditions for the long-term, to be immensely helpful in understanding the strategic nature of tactical urbanism. While any intervention that alters the urban landscape, such as yarn bombing a chain-link fence or adding life to an underpass with graffiti or paste-ups, can change people’s perceptions of a space, what makes tactical urbanism tactical is its efforts to shift thinking and patterns of development by demonstrating what is possible with a little creativity and often a whole lot of DIY smarts.
Throughout the book, Lydon and Garcia highlight examples in which an unsanctioned project was eventually supported by government—often a city’s planning or public works agency. This gradual shift from unsanctioned to sanctioned can ease some of the burden of project maintenance on volunteers while allowing cities to take leadership on facilitating bottom-up planning. However, the authors embrace the idea of having a spectrum of projects, from those steeped in DIY culture all the way to “tactical economies”, such as setting up pop-up businesses to attract private investment in a stagnant area. Not all tactical urbanism efforts will be okayed by government, and that should not necessarily be the end goal of citizens looking to test out urban interventions.
This dance between citizen-led action and long-term policy change was a motif throughout the book, and one that I think has potential to provoke conversations about shifting public participation in planning from “show-and-tell” to deep collaboration. It was incredible to read about such a range of stories about projects that began as one-off, localized efforts but have now been scaled up or out by budging municipal policies. For example, on a recent visit to Portland, OR, I noticed that neighbourhood intersections were often adorned with murals.
A welcoming intersection in Portland’s Sunnyside neighbourhood
Turns out, this is thanks to a crew of Portlanders who, concerned about road safety in their neighbourhoods, obtained a block party permit to undertake “intersection repair”: painting a mural across the intersection, adding a tea station, community bulletin board, and more. Despite initially meeting resistance from the Portland Bureau of Transportation, the group persisted, demonstrating improvements to quality of life through resident surveys. Eventually, the City saw the light: facing a decrease in funding for art and public spaces, yet needing to fulfill livability and sustainability policies, they eventually adopted an Intersection Repair Ordinance. Examples like this show what is possible when residents pave (or unpave!) the way for city-level policies that enable more efficient and people-friendly planning.
For those who already have a tactical urbanism idea in mind, the book makes effective use of basic diagrams to explain the practice: one in particular that budding tactical urbanists might want to consult is the Tactical Spectrum, showing the range of projects from unsanctioned to sanctioned. In this context, unsanctioned refers to projects that citizens can go ahead and do without any government support; sanctioned describes projects that require support and approval from government, usually city departments, by nature of their scale or complexity.
The Tactical Spectrum: Where does your project fit?
While budgeting, permit application, and other logistical matters aren’t the most exciting parts of planning your tactical urban intervention, it is helpful to think about how much government support you will need so you don’t find yourself facing unforeseen obstacles.
Overall, though, the authors stress that no matter the nature, scale, and degree of government implication in the project, the most important consideration is how it will affect the community. This is something that I find often goes missing in conversation about urban revitalization: who is doing the revitalizing, for whom, and to what ends? In the second-to-last chapter, “A Tactical Urbanism How-To”, the authors present a series of questions that one needs to ponder before getting a project underway, from sourcing materials, to leveraging community support, to maintenance. I liked the emphasis on thinking through what the effects might be on the surrounding communities: it is easy to forget that what you think is a swell idea might not actually be what a particular group of people needs or wants.
This concern for ensuring that tactical urbanists do not end up adversely affecting the communities they are trying to improve gets to the crux of whether planning should come from the grassroots or “grasstops”. While tactical urbanism can bring alternative methods and accelerated timelines to municipal decision-makers’ attention, ultimately their goals are not so different than those espoused by planning policy: what city’s Official Plan doesn’t use words such as sustainable, vibrant, and resilient? One aspect of tactical urbanism that merits more exploring is what happens when the landscape of projects starts to become saturated. As with anything, the more people involved, the greater the need becomes for checks and balances. Does this kind of “lighter, quicker, cheaper” intervention only work when few people are doing it? How can multiple groups with competing visions negotiate the space of tactical urbanism without undermining each other’s’ efforts—and the visions, guidelines, and plans laid out by city government?
While these big questions aren’t answered in this book, the authors do suggest, through examples of informal partnerships between citizen groups and city government, the possibility of a new planning practice. This practice derives rigour from harnessing residents’ skills, energy, and imaginative foresight to balance comprehensive, long-term planning with the kind of quick-win, prototyping work that can get folks excited about improving the places they live. To refer back to Portland, the City’s Office of Neighbourhood Involvement coordinates a 95 neighbourhood-strong network of district coalitions and offices which provide support and technical assistance to volunteer-based neighborhood associations, community groups and individual citizen-activists. It may be in this type of supportive partnership that the strengths of both tactical urbanism and bureaucrat-led planning can be leveraged to build communities that are both functional and personable.
Until that happens, though, people will continue to find ways to mobilize and to shape the places they care about. It may sound cheesy, but seeing photos showing regular people doing work in their communities, wearing normal clothes, and using simple methods, reinforces the authors’ emphasis that truly, anyone can do tactical urbanism. It’s hard not to be inspired by the go-getters described in this book: from Baltimore resident Lou Catelli, who painted a crosswalk at a dangerous intersection when city staff failed to do the job, to Matt Tomasulo who created simple wayfinding signs to encourage people to actively rediscover their city.
Getting it done: Lou Catelli painting a crosswalk in Baltimore; Matt Tomasulo’s wayfinding signs in Raleigh.
In particular, understanding how to exploit loopholes in the web of planning regulations is a great skill to have in one’s pocket: from feeding the meter to roll out a temporary park in a parking space, to using a catch-all special events permit for “build a better block” programming, there are a surprising number of instances in which seemingly hard-and-fast rules can be reinterpreted, at least in the short term. Another takeaway message that seems obvious but may be underappreciated is the value of developing allies in city staff by getting them on board early in the process by documenting successes, including community buy-in. If staff perceive value in what you’re doing, they’re that much more likely to put pressure in their departments to make the big policy changes that can facilitate and even mandate what you’re championing.
Throughout the book, the authors encourage the reader to reconsider in-between spaces that often do not fit into traditional land-use planning. One shining example is an Orlando community group’s efforts to activate a strip mall parking lot by setting up a temporary night market: the Audubon Park Community Market. The market was so successful—thanks to buy-in from residents and nearby business owners—that the organizers have now opened a brick-and-mortar market two blocks away. This probably would not have been possible had they not demonstrated the demand for and benefits of a temporary community market. If a group of engaged residents can transform one of the least people-friendly places—the surface parking lot—into two thriving markets, I’d say we have a lot to be excited about for the future of city-building.
While it is the individual stories of citizen-led action that bring the book to life, the authors also provide context to these stories by tracing the evolution of five broad categories of tactical urbanism: Intersection Repair, Guerilla Wayfinding, Build a Better Block, Parkmaking, and Pavements to Plazas. These in-depth explorations trace the origins of each approach while sharing resources that readers can draw from along the way. For example, understanding the genesis of now-iconic programs such as New York City’s Pavements to Plazas (see: Times Square, Park Ave, and many more) highlights how far the idea of people-centric planning has come in a short time period—and what we can look forward to as these ideas become championed by municipal leaders such as the formidable Janette Sadik-Khan (check out her TEDTalk: NYC’s Streets Are No So Mean Anymore). One aspect of the book that folks with great ideas but limited resources will appreciate is that often the best interventions are simple, and start on a small scale. Daniel Burnham famously proclaimed “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood…”; rather, Lydon and Garcia posit that it is by testing new approaches in small ways that we create the kind of bigger shifts we’re yearning for in cities.
In addition to contextualizing tactical urbanism as a whole, the book brings in a bit of history: while the term is new to the city-building lexicon, the concept dates back more than a century, when city dwellers faced many of the same concerns that pervade discussions about cities today. For example, I didn’t know that Open Streets (championed in Canada by organizations like 8-80 Cities) can be traced back to Safe Streets for Play movements in New York in the early 1900s. It is inspiring to witness the progression of this simple idea—turning streets from car-centric transportation corridors to paved parks for all—that is now being embraced by diverse communities (see: Bogota’s Ciclovía, LA’s CicLAvia, Austin’s Viva Streets, Ottawa’s Sunday Bikedays, and many more). It’s a prime example of tactical urbanism because it starts with a simple action: replacing spaces for cars with spaces for people—and over time has become embraced by municipal planners (although perhaps not yet traffic engineers). Other fun historical tidbits: the bouquinistes along Paris’ Seine as early examples of unsanctioned commerce; Sears’ pre-fab, mail order houses as a basis for today’s shipping container architecture; bookmobiles as informing mobile services before city infrastructure is put in place
An early Bookmobile in New York City.
I would recommend this book to both world-weary city planners seeking to be re-inspired to improve public spaces and the next generation of municipal “intrapreneurs” who are driven to catalyze big changes—as well as folks working on the ground in their communities seeking guidance on strategic and logistical matters. While many of the examples may be familiar to anyone interested in urbanism, I certainly found a few new ideas that sparked further research. Plus, the “how-to” parts of the book ensure that you’re not trying to reinvent the wheel: the wonderful thing about tactical urbanism is that it’s open-source by nature, so learning from others’ successes and drawbacks is part of the process.
If you don’t have time to read the whole book, I would recommend spending an hour with the last two chapters. I guarantee you’ll come out with a practical idea or two on improving your own neighbourhood through tactical urbanism—while avoiding getting caught behind a wall of red tape.
Postscript: Are you keen to get you own tactical urbanism project a try? 100in1 Day is a good way to get started. It’s a global festival of civic engagement, designed to embrace our power as urban citizens by spending one day of the year testing out small urban interventions to ultimately improve one’s city. These can range from activities, to education, to installations that temporarily change the built environment. In 2015, 100in1 Day happened on June 6 in four Canadian cities. Check out the 100+ urban interventions that happened in Halifax (Nova Scotia), Hamilton (Ontario), Toronto (Ontario), and Vancouver (British Columbia).
Cities for People also hosted a webinar on 100in1 Day and Active Citizenship featuring Juan Carlos Londono and Cédric Jamet, two Montrealers who launched the 100in1Day movement in Canada. You can watch it here.
Designing for resilience is a complex undertaking. As David Maddox states in The Nature of Cities Global Roundtable, “to design for resilience suggests we can identify it, plan for it” and that “It’s a steep challenge, community by community”.
Identifying, planning, and designing for location-specific resilience is just what a Midwestern team of students and faculty are attempting to do. Drury University and Crowder College have partnered together and been accepted to compete in the U. S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon. While the focus of this 20-team national competition is on solar energy, the Crowder-Drury team has chosen to add an additional layer of complexity to their competition house: disaster resilience.
Destruction in the wake of an EF5 tornado that struck Joplin, MO in 2011.
Drury University and Crowder College are located in the heart of tornado alley in Southwest Missouri and in proximity to Joplin, where in 2011 an EF5 tornado destroyed nearly 8,000 buildings and took 161 lives. As buildings gave way under wind speeds in excess of 200 mph, fragments of the structures became missiles directed at neighbors as the ¾ mile wide, multiple vortex storm moved along its 16 mile path. What was left were three million cubic yards of debris that took months to clear and to send to landfills.
Debris from the tornado in Joplin took months to remove.
Storms of this nature have a destructive impact on individual lives, the emotional and economic well-being of a community, and the built environment. Additionally, a long-term environmental impact results from the millions of cubic yards of hazardous debris that is sent to landfills during the cleanup process.
The Crowder-Drury Solar Decathlon team believes that much of the structural devastation and loss of life in Joplin, as well as in many other tornado-hit cities, could be avoided if we designed buildings to resist the wind loads and impact of flying debris of such storms. Working out the design details of a solar powered, tornado-resistant home has been a rigorous academic and real-world challenge for the students on the team. To make the task even more challenging, for the competition, the home must be built at the home university; shipped to Irvine, CA; and reassembled to be ready for the October 8, 2015 start of the competition. Working out this logistical challenge and coupling it with our disaster resistance goal led students to discover two additional potential uses for the competition house: a disaster response command center and disaster relief housing.
The Crowder-Drury Solar Decathlon team works on design details of a tornado resistant home.
The concept for the competition house now includes all three potential uses and is called ShelteR³: a Solar Powered Home for Disaster Response, Recovery and Resistance. Team website: http://shelter.drury.edu/
The ShelteR³ concept: Respond, Recover, Resist
Disaster Response
Two pre-fabricated modules (living and kitchen/bath) are whisked via flatbed truck into a community that has been devastated by a natural disaster. The units are craned off the truck and attached together to form a disaster response command center or emergency relief housing. Roof-mounted flat solar panels generate electricity. The home or command center is self-sufficient and able to function before power and water are restored. Innovative impact resistant cladding and structural details protect from future storms and lend a sense of safety and security.
Disaster Recovery
Eventually, the community begins to rebuild from disaster and the need for residential housing takes priority over disaster response. Our structure can be easily adapted to fit these evolving needs. A foundation is laid and the two modules are separated by twenty feet. The resulting space is covered with window walls on both ends to create a spacious living area between the bedrooms and kitchen and bath. Cabinetry, customized to the owner’s needs, helps separate the living area from the bedrooms. Spacious decks extend the living space into the outdoors. Additional solar arrays are added on the roof for increased energy production. Using the ShelteR³ as the core of permanent housing could eliminate the need for temporary shelters typically delivered and used as disaster relief housing.
Disaster Resistance
The house need not be limited to post-disaster scenarios. In disaster-prone zones, the house offers a smart way to prepare for the possibility of storm winds and can be prefabricated or built on site. Structural sizing, spacing and connections as well as tension rods resist wind loads while redundant layers of impact resistant materials are the key to managing debris missiles. A 90-second video on the team website explains the concept further.
Various computer model-generated views of the Crowder-Drury Solar Decathlon team’s tornado-resistant home design, ShelteR³. In order from top to bottom: the front deck, the interior living area, the kitchen, and the exterior of the house at night.
When designing to resist tornadic events there are several programmatic issues to consider and problems to resolve.
Programmatic issues:
Preservation of life
Preservation of structure
Little to no contribution to debris field
Problems to solve:
Preservation of structure vs. sacrificial portions of structure
Resisting Impact of flying debris during storm
Preservation of life, of paramount importance, is achieved through preservation of structure and resistance to impact. Little to no contribution to the debris field can be achieved through designs that eliminate sacrificial structural elements.
Students building ShelteR³.
Many approaches to construction of a home arise after a storm. Some simply build using traditional construction methods and address future storms by placing a storm shelter in a room within the home, in the floor of the garage, or in the backyard of the home. In each of these applications, life may be preserved within one of these storm shelters if the family makes it to the shelter, but the rest of the home becomes sacrificial and is transformed by the storm into projectiles directed at the neighbors and beyond. Eventually, these sacrificial projectiles and debris field must make their way to a landfill. In Joplin, this added up to over 3 million cubic yards and months of effort and energy.
The Crowder-Drury team believes that redundant layers within the wall system can be key to withstanding a storm. Impact resistant Lexan over water repellent Zip Wall brand sheathing are finished by a Swiss Pearl fiber cement rain screen cladding, all of which create the protective enclosure. An enveloping fence of Kawneer’s Reynobond impact resistant and air scrubbing panels are the first line of defense, while hurricane-rated windows and doors protect areas of natural light and passage throughout the house.
The structural system consists of traditional 2×6 wood stud framing wall placed in compression by steel tensile rods through a steel chassis. Students worked with structural engineer Q. Scott Ragan, who specializes in disaster forensics to design this resistant home. We chose wood framing because it is a typical material used for construction in the Midwest and we wanted the challenge of resolving tornado resistance with a commonly used building material.
Students building ShelteR³.
Thermal Mechanics Inc. provided the team with a high efficiency, affordable Daikin brand mini-split heating, cooling, and ventilation (HVAC) system for the home. This is a ductless system which means less material and labor for installation and less maintenance over the life of the home. The mini-split system requires a smaller heat pump than conventional systems, reducing the energy load on the solar panels.
At every turn the students have chosen readily available, affordable, and sustainable materials for ShelteR³ such as Patcraft carpet and resilient flooring. Their goal is to educate the public on choosing and living a sustainable lifestyle that considers energy, building materials, and resilience to our ever-increasing frequency of natural disasters.
Details continue to be refined as the team constructs the home this summer. Follow and engage with us on social media, or literally behind our Transland truck convoy as we head to the Solar Decathlon competition October 8th – 18th, 2015 at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California. Our student decathletes are excited to hear from you.
We can build better, preserve life, and protect our planet—we just have to work out the details. Our team, some witnesses to the Joplin tornado, have learned through the opportunity of Solar Decathlon and a thoughtful design process that designing for resilience is location specific but several principles can be applied across the globe.
1. Respond to location and the unique challenges it brings.
2. Rethink shelter. Approach the entire building as shelter and let no parts become sacrificial.
3. Better structural details. Use specific structural details in homes and buildings to resist the high winds and impact of tornados or hurricanes, or specific threat from other natural occurrences. Include mechanical fasteners at vulnerable connection locations specific to the potential threat at a level strong enough to resist the threat, not at minimum build code requirements.
4. Think about the many layers of threat of a disaster and protect against all aspects of a natural disaster, not just the primary focus. In the case of a tornado, for example it is not just the high winds that destroy, but the missiles created by the debris field as buildings fail and break apart.
The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon challenges collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. The winner of the competition is the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency.
Fact Sheet – City of Joplin – May 22, 2011 EF5 Tornado; Lynn Iliff Onstot, Public Information Office; July 1, 2013
Crowder-Drury team concept; U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2015; co-authored by student decathletes and faculty mentors, Drury University, 2015
“The rent is too damned high.” You hear it on the subway, you hear it on the news, and you hear it exclaimed even by mild-mannered conservationists while perambulating in the park. The rising cost of urban housing is on everyone’s mind, from Mayor Bill de Blasio to the chattering masses of the blogosphere. For most of my life, I figured nature had nothing to do with the price of my apartment. But now I’m not so sure. Let me explain by taking on the boogeyman of the moment: gentrification.
Gentrification is the process by which the wealthy, and the values of wealthy people, displace the persons and the values of others who are economically less well-off. On the one hand, one can see gentrification as a measure of a city’s success. Rising rents indicate the attractiveness of the city and, in particular, of certain neighborhoods, as places for people to live and work. Simply stated, more people want to live in the city than there is housing available, so rents rise. (This is exactly why the Mayor is so keen on building more affordable housing.) More expensive rents bring greater returns for property owners, raise the price of real estate, generate construction and secondary economic effects, and thus expand the municipal tax base. Compared with just a few decades ago, it is astonishing how New York has changed: safer, cleaner, more populous and more prosperous. Mayors of many cities in America and around the world would kill to have such problems.
On the other hand, what gets lost as rents rise is diversity and the vitality of urban spaces that follows directly from diverse, “authentic” experiences. Sharon Zukin, a renowned sociologist at Brooklyn College, opens her book on gentrification by saying: “In the early twenty-first century, New York City lost its soul.” What Zukin laments is the loss of gritty, heterogeneous, vibrant, ethnic, working class villages of small shops and businesses that used to comprise New York City, a city of villages. As Zukin writes, these were the kinds of neighborhoods celebrated by Jane Jacobs and are now the explicit goal of most urban planning practices. Yet, despite the best of intentions, in areas with access to the subway, these “authentic” places are being replaced by high-end versions of the Mall of America. The wealthy displace the less wealthy and bring with them what might be called homogenization by capital. Mom and pop stores just can’t compete with multi-nationals (read: Starbucks) when rents double every 18 months. The coffee might be stronger, the food might be fancier, the clothing might be finer, but only the better off might afford it for long. And truth be told, the wealthy are a bit boring.
Displacement is the nub of the issue. This group of people comes in and that group of people goes out. One can’t help but note that this has been happening in New York City for a very long time. Quoting Zukin quoting Burrows and Wallace quoting periodicals of the middle nineteenth century: “Manhattan is a ‘modern city of ruins,’ the New-York Mirror wrote in 1853. ‘No sooner is a fine building put up than it is torn down.’ Harper’s Monthly declared ‘A man born in New York forty years ago finds nothing, absolutely nothing, of the New York he knew.’”
Of course all of this is ripe with analogies to nature. Gentrification is not unlike the invasive weed that takes over the empty lot, squeezing out less competitive flowers of various kinds. Sure, one could argue that the biomass is higher and that some ecosystem services, like carbon sequestration or water retention, are better served by the dense, monotypic cover, but anyone who knows anything about biodiversity can’t help but feel the loss. More is not always better, and everyone—down to the smallest and most fragile—deserves some place to live.
Another analogy: gentrification has, indeed, been proceeding from the very beginning. If early twenty-first century New Yorkers mourn the loss of the gritty streets of New York in the 1970s, if mid-nineteenth century New Yorkers lamented the loss of farmland and springs, then they are only echoing the much more profound loss of nature initiated when the city began. Earlier generations of Native Americans knew forests and wetlands and a diversity of creatures completely unlike the city of steel and asphalt we know today.
In fact, my dear “The Nature of Cities” readers, what was the original displacement? Who has the greatest claim to vitality and authenticity in New York City? Well, it ain’t you and it ain’t me. It is the plants and animals (including some people) that lived here before the idea of New York City ever emerged. It is to these creatures, and their sense of the city, that “The Nature of Cities” blog is committed. We seek the true authentic experience of place—the experience of nature.
Manhattan island, from 1609 to 2009. Credit: Mannahatta and Eric Sanderson.
As you may know, the place that became New York City—what I call Welikia, which meant “my good home” to the Lenape inhabitants of 400 years ago—had an extraordinary nature. Our latest count puts it at over 100 distinct ecological communities that once inhabited the landscape that became New York, filled with at least 1,000 distinct species of plants and animals. Differences in class and ethnicity among the human species represent one kind of vibrant heterogeneity, but the heterogeneity across species—biodiversity—represents a much more profound level of difference. Consider for a moment the life histories of a red oak, a broad-winged hawk, and a humpback whale, all of which made Welikia home. Those are the authentic experiences of New York City.
Why were these vital, authentic, heterogeneous populations almost entirely displaced? Where were the policies that should have maintained their lives in the city? Such policies did not exist because plants and animals (including the Lenape that inhabited Welikia) had no political power and were economically undercapitalized. Not a single tree, bird, whale or American person at the time New Amsterdam was founded had a single penny to his or her name.
Zukin is absolutely correct to say that gentrification is not a “natural” process, especially if we take “natural” to mean outside the human arena of social relationships. Gentrification, as we know it in New York City today, is almost entirely the product of the rules we have set up to govern the relationships among our fellow citizens. (“Almost” because the amount of land, one must remember, is determined by geological forces that long preceded us. Yes, we might make some landfill, but our contributions are still modest compared to the glaciers.) Today, those rules are driven by the exigencies of who has the most money, in the context of the laws of the city, state, and country. Therefore if we seek remedies for gentrification or for the destruction of nature, we must seek to change the rules.
I don’t know what to do about gentrification, but wrestling with gentrification has clarified in my mind what we need to do for nature in the city. There are four main approaches. One is the usual one we take in this forum: exhort our cities and each other to do better. We describe how lovely nature in the city can be, we provide interesting case studies or poorly known facts about urban nature, and we link arms in a shared, global endeavor. It’s nice, even wonderful in the best of cases, but sad to say, less effectual than many of us might like. Over the long run beautiful words and ideas make a difference. In the meantime, they hardly pay the rent.
The second approach is public demonstration and protest. Here fights over specific uses on specific pieces of land (for example, community gardens, beach fronts, parklands) can bring attention, motivate larger groups, and actually change the minds of politicians, especially if the clamor grows loud enough and the press gets involved. Sometimes nature even pitches in, with unpredictable and dramatic acts, such as Hurricane Sandy in New York City in 2012. Retrospectively, and with all due respect to the losses of life and property that followed the hurricane, Sandy is probably the best thing to happen for nature in New York City in a long time: it reminded us all that nature actually does exist, despite the tall buildings.
The third approach is the regulatory one: actually changing the rules to change the behavior. This approach is more dependent on local situations, with each government (and level of government) in each locality having its own ways of doing things. In the United States, we saw a wave of important environmental regulation in the early 1970s that made large, important changes for the New York City environment (e.g. Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, National Environmental Policy Act, etc.). Forty-five years later, those laws still govern our environment, with their focus on human health and safety, but one could imagine a new set of rules that addressed the species long since displaced. I harbor not so secret desires to have all of the Welikia community back, minus perhaps the dangerous ones and the climate refugees, to whom the city might make commitments to save elsewhere
The fourth approach is the most potent one and the one least tried: to directly tie nature to the economic system by valuing it. In other words, we need to agree to give nature value in a monetary sense. The problem from the very beginning was that Europeans ignored the value of nature. They conceived of the bountiful land and its many services as a free gift, to be used and abused at will. In other words, they never thought to pay rent to the first landlord: nature.
What does it mean “to pay rent to nature”? In a literal sense it is not possible, because nature doesn’t care for your money; nature’s lack of greed is its downfall. Rather than pay nature directly, we need the public to act as the guarantor of nature, both for our sake and for the nature of cities. The rationale lies in rights and responsibilities. Any development project represents an appropriation of ecological value from nature and the body politic as part of nature. The apartment building that creates more stormwater runoff and displaces the trees that would have cooled the city has taken something from me and you and everyone else. For the birds and the bees, it has taken everything. In compensation, the private owner has a responsibility to repay the public for its loss.
The most direct way to value nature is through taxes. Right now, property taxes are based on the economic value of the land, which is one reason why some city leaders applaud the process of gentrification. Higher real estate prices translate directly into more money in the city’s coffers. Valuing land in terms of its ecological value, instead, would decouple some of the economic incentives that lead to bleeding high rents while simultaneously returning value to nature. For New York, we could use information about the historical ecology of the city (via the Welikia Project) to set a price on the development of oak-hickory forest, or salt marsh, or the shallow estuary waters, for every parcel in the city. If the tax per area increased as a function of development for each type of natural community, incentives would be built in to develop and respect nature simultaneously.
The result would not only be better nature, but better cities, and, in short order, a better world, with less reliance on the free gifts of nature and more on the diverse talents and skills of human beings. If you want a preview, try chapter 9 in Terra Nova, or read this, or try this.
The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford is a beacon for global arts and culture in Silicon Valley—it opened its doors in 1894, nearly a century before Silicon Valley was a thing. On this most recent visit, I was pleased to see that the Cantor was also making some effort to be a beacon for our relationship with nature.
Trees by Henri Edmond Cross, 1909, Graphite and watercolor on paper.
The Arboreal Architecture exhibition takes place in a space that is only slightly larger than the museum’s coatroom, yet the show truly speaks volumes beyond its size. Inside the Lynn Krywick Gibbons Gallery space, you feel as though you’ve just stumbled into a hidden treasure trove.
The show’s curator, George Philip LeBourdais, has shoehorned a global collection of artworks from the Cantor Center’s collection into the room. Spanning about 1,500 years, the collection is impressive not only for the time it covers, but because all of the works concern the trees and our ever changing cultural relationships with them.
Textile fragment with an oval medallion containing a Tree of Life, 6th century Egypt, wool and linen.
There have been societies in every corner of the globe at just about every time in history who had some form of a “tree of life” motif integrated into their culture. For ancient Egyptians, however, not only was the tree a symbol of life, death, and regeneration, it was a symbol of the very beginning of everything, of the universe and life itself.
Such deep connection to the tree is reflected in one of the oldest works in this exhibition, a 6th century “Tree of Life” woven in Egypt from wool and linen fabrics. It is a testament to the quality of ancient Egyptian craft that such a piece even exists today, yet the cultural story it tells is even more impressive and still broadly relevant. Seeing the tree as a source of life is a well-appreciated message with which to begin this exhibition, and one which is explored well throughout, both in physical and spiritual realms.
Moving forward in time, two works both dating from the 16th century hang across the room from each other, offering a powerful historical comparison of trees in Eastern and Western cultures.
Landscape by Shen Zhou, c.1500, ink and color on paper.
From China, a delicate landscape painting by Shen Zhou depicts a riparian scene of a man sitting calmly under a tree. There is an appreciation in the work of the tree as a partner. Visually, the tree pushes out the side of a hill and then gently bends upwards to stand watch over the waters as if man and tree are taking in the same view together. Though not explicitly, the work reminds us of the tree’s deep historical ties to ideas of wisdom and enlightenment in many Eastern cultures.
Rural Woodworking by Johan Gruninger, 16th century, woodcut.
Across from this work is a view of the tree from the same period, yet through the lens of what was a vastly different culture. The detailed woodcut print by German artist Johan Gruninger depicts a scene of grumpy-faced rural wood workers and is thoroughly utilitarian both in process and subject. The print is reflective of a culture in the midst of the Renaissance, a time in which radically new ways of thinking of self in relation to nature were being brought forward and, along with them, radically new ways of making and doing. Though the industrial revolution was still a few centuries off at this point, you could say that this is the time where the seeds of the current way of life in the Western world were planted.
Whether it was intended or not, the placement of Gruninger’s piece across from the Zhou painting offers a profound juxtaposition, not only of Eastern and Western artwork, but of differing relationships to nature during the 16th century in these two places.
Standing back to admire the collection as a whole, I was curious about LeBourdais’ attempt to arrange the works in this show by way of ‘branches’ and a ‘tree map’. He splits the show into three distinct sections and visually connects the works with wall graphics, noting this as a depiction of the “tree-like structures of knowledge that help us make sense of the world”.
Of course, we are in the middle of Silicon Valley, where spreadsheets and data driven visuals are a language of their own. Yet in so many ways, the trees in these artworks and their simple arrangements speak so much to the viewer — and, indeed, to each other — that they might do just fine without the help of neatly organized categories and connections. This is a small misgiving, of course.
The Fallen Tree, Fontainebleau by Eugene Blery, 1831, graphite on paper.
The Arboreal Architecture exhibition offers a deep and powerful display of cultural relationships to trees over such a great cultural timespan that it’s impossible not to be affected by it. The works speak of trees in city and countryside, of trees in in ritual and for utility, and, perhaps most importantly, of trees as part of us and, ultimately, as works of art themselves.
Several days after seeing the show, while sitting under a California Oak, I caught myself laughing that this was certainly a tree and moment worthy of a painting. I realize now in closing this review that the Arboreal exhibition is important not only for its depth and scope in looking at historical cultural ties to the tree, but also for the opportunity it gives each of us to discover something new between ourselves and the humble tree. The works reverberate with the energy of man and nature, and if the enduring relevance of these artworks is any indication, this process of discovery can be an amazingly fruitful and never ending one for humanity.
I believe that urban landscape matters! The landscape in which one grows up, matures, and lives life may be the essential factor in determining the behavior towards and empathy with nature and with other people and their cultures. The landscape can even be the way we connect to ourselves.
The shape of our cities is a result of the historical changes in land cover, built structures, and the continuous man-made interferences that are made in the landscape and its relationship with natural factors such as geomorphology, climate, biodiversity, ecosystem remnants, green areas, and urban forests. Social aspects are not less important. Cities that segregate social life in closed communities (being gated high-end or middle class enclosures, or favelas), malls and cars, may induce prejudice and injustice. Live streets and urban amenities are the public realm where the different meet, learn with each other, and may have daily contact with nature and natural processes.
Landscapes and the spiritual bond with Nature
When I walked along the Philosopher’s Path in Kyoto, I felt the spiritual power of Nature in the urban landscape. The path meanders along a channelized river, with clean waters in the city border. The landscape is peaceful, with the city in one side and the forest in the other, the water flows in between.
Shinto shrine. Photo: Cecilia Herrzog
There are several Temples and Shrines along the path. The Shinto Shrines profoundly touched me. I was ignorant of their sacred meanings, but I have never felt this deep connection with Nature in a spiritual way before. Being a non-religious Jew myself, I perceived the temples and churches I have entered in my life as built structures; I have never had the feelings I had in the shrines! Actually, much earlier in my life I remember when I was in Assisi (Italy), I felt something very special. I was touched by St. Francis of Assisi’s history of loving of nature and its creatures. At the top of the hill was the place where he had lived, and I could feel the energy of nature flowing around. Maybe this was the source of his inspiration and connection with holy love to nature and living organisms.
After these experiences, I started reflecting about our divine bond with nature, and how the landscape influences our lives and values.
Until I read the E.O. Wilson’s book The Creation, I had never really had any thoughts about how religion could play an important role in ecological education and awareness raising. In his book, scientist Wilson dialogues with religion, and looks for the common ground to protect and restore Nature.
And what a grateful surprise was the Encyclical Letter of Pope Francis! The LAUDATO SI’ calls on all of humanity “to care for our common home”. Firmly grounded in science, the Pope talks about consumption, greed and accumulation; the oil addicted society that eradicates ecosystems and depletes natural resources. He also says that we cannot trust only in technical solutions to solve our environmental and social problems. He declares the urgent need to restore, conserve, and protect our environment. He urges all of us to mitigate the colossal damage that our civilization has made, and to avoid climate change and the huge uncertainties that are threatening the future of humanity. The response to his message has been massive, and I believe that 2015 is crucial to prioritize life and also to shift the way we see, plan, and design our landscapes at all scales.
Cities in challenging times
How can globalized, modernist urban landscapes reconnect urban dwellers with Mother Earth?
We are living in challenging times in which cities play a crucial role, as so many authors of The Nature of Cities have pointed out from different perspectives. In this international blog, contributors have presented and discussed examples that are popping up around the world—of social-ecological oriented research, planning, and design, wherein biodiversity is treated as fundamental. Many of those case studies come from local residents who want more livable places to raise kids in healthy and diverse environments.
However, many cities have remained in the old modernist sprawl paradigm—based on high consumption economies, gated communities with homogenized gardens, and automotive transportation that requires costly infrastructure—known as business-as-usual. The surrounding ecosystems’ remnants and productive lands are eradicated in this process. Also, old urban areas have been transformed, destroying their history and culture. Gentrification in renovated regions is another negative factor, displacing residents and small businesses while ceding room for a globalized culture and international brand stores. This globalized trend widens the social gap even farther, especially in poorer countries, where it is already abyssal.
Our planet is urban not only because the Biosphere is giving way to built surfaces, but also because the political and economic decisions are largely taken by city dwellers.
I consider ecological illiteracy to be one of the main drivers of the disconnection and disregard of our Home: our planet, our region, our city, our neighborhood, our street or our own home. Or even with our own selves!
How can people connect with nature and its processes if they spend their life in air-conditioned (or heated) built boxes, apart from biodiversity and social diversity? How can they develop and act on their Biophilia in artificially built and “controlled” landscapes? [Biophilia is the “innate and genetically determined affinity of human beings with the natural world” (E.O. Wilson)] Much has been written, published, and discussed in conferences about those issues (see for instance Tim Beatley in this blog).
Urban landscapes and reconnection with Nature
For me, the Pope’s call to “care for our home” is more than a metaphor for the Planet’s degradation and the related risks to Humanity. It is time to care for our home at all scales, including the ecological restoration of our urban landscapes.
In Brazil, the number of urban dwellers that are engaging in growing organic food, fighting for ecosystem restoration and water conservation, and getting together to learn and exchange experiences has been growing exponentially. As everywhere, in this country, social media is helping people to communicate among themselves about their findings and experiences with Nature and natural processes in multiple ways. We have very positive results on the fields that actually enhance urban landscapes ecologically and socially: publications and courses on related themes are starting to pop up around the country; leaders are assuming important roles, participating in actions and policy elaboration; volunteers are expanding their work in a society without a tradition of social work.
There are lots of good examples that are more powerful every day, as I have already mentioned in my previous posts in this blog. Hortelões Urbanos (Urban Food Gardeners), an urban agriculture group in São Paulo, has been a source of knowledge and inspiration to similar projects in cities around the country, and now depends on more than 17,000 followers (in less than 4 years). Their interventions in parks and squares in São Paulo, the largest Metropolitan Region, are awesome: from green or gray deserts, they create biodiverse, productive landscapes with waters springing again.
A Hortelões Urbanos (Urban Food Gardeners garden in São Paulo. Photo: Cecilia Hezog
Rios e Ruas (Rivers and Streets) is another group that has been working in the last decades to ecologically educate residents. They have been tracing rivers and creeks that were wiped out from the landscape. The severe drought that is hitting Southeastern Brazil, with water shortages threatening the removal of large number of residents from urbanized areas, has helped to give visibility to their work
A few years ago Juliana Gatti and Sandro Von Matter started the Instituto Árvores Vivas (Living Trees Institute). They have a remarkable engaging and educational role in São Paulo. They are actually changing the way Paulistas (São Paulo residents) see, feel, and act regarding trees and their urban lives.
The green economy is slowly starting to emerge in Brazilian cities, with new companies that develop green technologies to implement green roofs and walls, solar energy, water bioremediation and conservation, and bio-sanitation, at different scales. Hopefully, with the dramatic water shortage and the challenges of the changing paradigm towards a clean economy, they will rise and help Brazil get out of its severe economic crisis.
Another excellent and inspirational example is the Skygarden, a relatively new company specialized in green roofs and walls, that mimics São Paulo’s native ecosystems: Mata Atlântica (Atlantic Rainforest) and Cerrado (Brazilian Savanah). The founder/owner Ricardo Cardim, studied odontology, but soon fell in love with botany and native ecosystems and then went on to a Master’s in biology. In 2008, he started an NGO named Árvores de São Paulo (São Paulo Trees), and from then on has been helping to change hearts and minds regarding autochthonous urban trees, not only in streets and parks, but also in roofs and facades
The TransCarioca Trail, in Rio de Janeiro.
In Rio de Janeiro, the remarkable TransCarioca Trail project is underway with the support of hundreds of volunteers under the leadership of Pedro Menezes and Celso Junius. It is a more than 180 km-long walking track over the splendid massifs of the city, connecting several protected areas. It spans the world-renowned Sugar Loaf to the distant beaches of Guaratiba.
Another initiative that is also gaining more support is Green Corridors, part of the Carioca Mosaic project, in the lower areas on the water basin where most of the Olympic Games facilities are concentrated.
The locations of the low lying areas, or water basin, in Rio.
Shift for a better future
I have written before in this blog about the challenges and opportunities that the city of Rio de Janeiro has had in the last few years, especially with the high investments focused on international events—the 2014 Soccer World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games being the most internationally recognized. Unfortunately, decisions about the future of our cities (not only Rio de Janeiro) are mainly focusing on companies that build gray infrastructure, engage in non-productive land speculation, and support the oil-based transportation industry. This means building cities-as-usual: sprawling and transforming the landscape and changing natural processes and flows with social segregation.
Model of gated community in Rio. Photo: Cecilia HerzogGolf Olimpic in Rio.
We might expect that what is happening was planned based on the knowledge that was generated by state-of-the-art academic research, supported by the city since 2007. Not at all…Wetlands and protected areas have been eradicated with the excuse of the Olympic Games. The rich biodiversity and wet landscapes that offer irreplaceable ecosystem services have been transformed into more and more gated communities, commercial areas adorned with homogenized cosmetic gardens, and the expressways on which oil-dependent transportation oil-dependent relies. In this process, the city is losing not only its ecological heritage, but its cultural identity.
One of the most significant examples is the Olympic Golf course that was built over one of the last protected remnants of Restinga (sandy soil, sea border ecosystem). Besides the elimination of biodiversity and ecosystem services, the landscape conversion to lawn requires daily irrigation in times of uncertain climate. The real estate market is the beneficiary of this mega-gated development, as many others in the same water catchment.
A sewage canal in Rio. Photo: Cecilia Herzog
The social segregation and lack of sanitation are still huge issues and the City has not complied with the commitments it assumed when the right to host the Olympic Games was won. The rivers, lagoons and even Guanabara Bay are heavily polluted with sewage, diffuse stormwater run-off, and garbage.
Civil society is fighting against what is happening in the city. Its voices are heard mainly on social media when the traditional media doesn’t open space for protests and meetings.
Landscape for today and the future
Landscape is becoming an important issue as people start to understand how they depend on biodiversity and the ecosystem services they need to live healthy and fulfilling lives. Unfortunately, in Brazil, the profession of landscape architect is neither recognized nor institutionalized. We are in the process of passing a law that will make possible to start new undergrad courses in the area of landscape architecture in Brazilian Universities. We need to implement interdisciplinary courses, establish research groups, and fund pilot projects that demonstrate how our landscapes work, their social-ecological functions, and their processes.
Pierre-André Martin and I are coordinating a new Master’s in Ecological Landscape Planning and Design at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in the Department of Architecture and Urbanism, to start next August. The course is interdisciplinary, with professors from landscape planning and design, urbanism, biology, geography, social sciences, law, anthropology, and engineering.
We urgently need cities that praise nature, that protect and restore native biodiversity in all possible ways. We must escape from the trap of fragmented knowledge and look for integrative research and teamwork on adaptive landscape-based urban planning and design. We must monitor results and learn what works or not in our landscapes. We must plant trees to have water and food. The cities have to be part of the Biosphere with green infrastructure that regenerates degraded gray and polluted areas. People have to be educated and reconnected to life to participate in the landscape planning and design process.
I hope that the momentum we are living is transformational. Powerful forces are moving to make effective change in the economic, social, and environmental paradigms: from a competitive society to a more cooperative world, where natural capital has more value than the virtual financial market. I believe that the call of Pope Francis can help, especially in Brazil. We are the most populous Catholic country in the world, with more than 120 millions followers of the religion.
I hope all people hear his call and give science and practitioners with ecological vision the opportunity to contribute to a shift to a better future.
Of all the cities in America, Detroit, Michigan may provide us with the best opportunity to discover how to create a connection to nature within an urban population.
The New Nature in Detroit. Photo: Rebecca Salminen Witt
Detroit is a place of glass and asphalt and steel juxtaposed block by block with wild prairies, emerging woodlands, and re-emergent wetlands. We are immersed in a kind of new nature here, but most Detroiters quite literally can’t see the forest for the trees. Detroit is a place of contradictions where the unexpected is a daily occurrence. Here, we see pelotons of cyclists 300 strong, first rolling along in the company of a stray dog or a lone pheasant on urban avenues that no longer host any homes, and then pedaling toward downtown streets crowded with cranes marking new building development.
These contrasts fascinate the world, but it is the wildlands which are emerging in between these extremes—places like the small second stage forest which has grown up on what was once an illegal dump site on King Street, pictured above, or the pockets of prairie that have claimed blocks of former home sites in the old Briggs Neighborhood, that are most interesting and which may actually have the most potential to improve the lives of Detroiters by providing them with the opportunity to cultivate a lasting connection to nature.
Detroit Wildland Urban Interface. Photo: Rebecca Salminen Witt
Wikipedia will tell you that the Wildland Urban Interface is that zone of “transition between unoccupied land and human development.” This zone (the WUI) is often studied for its relevance to outbreaks of wildfire, and particularly the escalating danger to human lives and property that wildfires represent as more and more homes are built within the wildland urban interface which exists on the outer edges of suburban development. Traditionally, we investigate human intrusion into the wildlands and discuss the disruption in natural systems (including suppression of wildfire) that this causes. In urban areas, the wildland urban interface receded long ago and, for the most part, urban residents no longer consider themselves to be part of the interface with nature.
But in Detroit wildland has suddenly and unmistakably appeared in spaces where neighborhoods recently stood. Here, wildlands exist within the city limits, not on the outer edges of development. After decades of disinvestment and abandonment in the urban core, there is, once again a “zone of transition between unoccupied land and human development.” In this context, we see an unpredictable—and often interesting—disruption in human activities caused by nature’s wild return. It is this disruption that has created space, both literally and figuratively, for Detroiters to discover a connection with nature.
Green Corps. Photo: Greening of Detroit
I recently moderated a brainstorming session for high school students tasked with generating ideas for improving the environment of their neighborhoods. Their interests ranged from occupancy of vacant structures, to illegal dumping on vacant land, to urban gardening. They were palpably afraid of the wildlife (pheasants, raccoons, deer, coyotes) that they had begun to see patrolling their streets.
Much of the discussion centered on “blight elimination.” Their interests were motivated by how they feel when they are in their neighborhood, what they think they deserve, and how the current conditions impact the self image they carry with them into the world. In the eyes of the students, the wildland that is encroaching upon their neighborhoods is evidence that they have been ignored, forgotten, or blatantly disrespected. To them, uninvited nature in their neighborhood represents nothing more than urban decay requiring an intervention designed to eliminate it.
Our discussion was wide-ranging and very animated. By the end of the day, we had arrived at an unexpected conclusion: maybe this new nature was an opportunity to be considered more carefully. Perhaps, the wildland that had emerged at their doorsteps was something better managed than eliminated, and maybe this was a civic issue that they, as young people, could actually do something about. Most surprising was their conclusion that maybe this opportunity made them the lucky ones after all.
My discussion with the kids that day emphasized a simple truth that isn’t glamorous or romantic in the way many recent articles have portrayed Detroit and its residents. Detroiters are not necessarily willing stewards of the environment or intentional civic ecologists in this assertive nature that we find ourselves living amidst. We are merely human participants in the inevitable march of evolution, adapting as we must, surviving as we may. But we are surviving, and because Detroiters are resilient and hardworking, we are finding our place within this new wildland urban interface.
Unintentionally immersed in nature. Photo: Rebecca Salminen Witt
Detroiters did not seek to experience nature within their city. This may be why they have not fully recognized its benefits. A few years ago, The National Wildlife Federation published a handy fact sheet that lists many of the benefits of human exposure to nature. A quick review reveals that despite heightened access to nature, Detroiters still suffer from the ills that exposure to nature is supposed to alleviate: ADHD, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, autism, increased depression, stress and pain. Our kids are asthmatic and hyperactive. Our adults are depressed, obese, and suffer from heart disease. It’s no wonder that most Detroiters aren’t embracing the nature that has appeared in their urban space—they aren’t getting any of its benefits!
I have begun to think that in order to realize the benefits of exposure to nature, one must intentionally seek it out. Further, the Detroit experience suggests that proximity to emerging wildlands does not equate to a connection with nature. Immersion in natural space undoubtedly increases the opportunities for connection with nature, but alone, it is not enough. To create connection, we must be intentional and deliberate in crafting quality opportunities for interaction with nature.
So, given that Detroiters have more opportunity now than ever before to develop a meaningful connection to nature, what can we do to capitalize on our de facto immersion in wildspace to create that connection?
Camp Greening. Photo Credit: The Greening of Detroit
Start small
By giving the youngest and most vulnerable Detroiters the opportunity to experience nature in the wildland urban interface, we have begun to create tiny emissaries of true connection to nature.
Infusing environmental education and nutrition education into the Detroit Public Schools curriculum was an important step in creating an environment where immersion in emerging wildlands could be recognized as an opportunity to build a connection to nature. We began in a classroom, building excitement and expectations for the things that we might find outside. We worked with teachers and students alike to make them comfortable with the idea of moving intentionally into the wildspace in our city. And then we ventured out.
Our LAND. Photo: The Greening of Detroit
Our first adventures in the wildlands were a learning experience for all of us. Children in spotless basketball shoes labeled by LeBron picked their way gingerly through rubble and mud. So we bought boots. They showed up for our “field” trips unprepared for the weather. We brought hats and mittens. Teachers suggested that “troublemakers” stay behind. We made the troublemakers team leaders and let their exuberance light the way for their peers. Everyone was afraid of bugs, and spiders, and worms. We played I Spy and Wildlife Bingo and by the end of the day, we were searching pockets so that no pet worms made it back to the classroom.
We all adapted. The kids (especially those “troublemakers”) thrived. The littlest of us all were some of the first to realize that the new nature that surrounds us just might be a gift. I’m betting that they will also be the first to exhibit the benefits of a connection to nature.
Gardening in the WUI. Photo: Rebecca Salminen Witt
The agriculture of opportunity
Another group of Detroiters that have become emissaries to the wildlands can be found within the urban agriculture community.
The urban garden is emerging in Detroit as one place where the barriers have started to come down for urbanites struggling to understand their place within the changing ecosystem of the City. Gardeners were some of the first residents to venture into the wildlands on the edges of their neighborhoods, carving gardens of all types from the emergent prairies and woodlands. We could consider urban gardeners the first to recognize the opportunity inherent in Detroit’s vast open spaces.
These early adapters are a different breed; for the most part we aren’t talking about happy hipsters growing green zebra tomatoes and red russian kale in tidy urban allotment plots, although we have those, too. The pioneers in the wildland urban interface are a rough crowd forced off the grid by life circumstances and an unstable local economy; they are growing a crazy profusion of food in abandoned lots to feed their families and sustain their neighborhoods. For these folks, forging a connection to nature is not the primary objective. In fact, many times it seems almost accidental. Nevertheless, through the work in the garden, the gardeners develop an authentic connection to nature and come to enjoy the benefits that it creates.
Green infrastructure planning. Photo: Greening of Detroit
Participation
Another opportunity to bridge the gap between immersion and connection can be found in community-based planning and design.
Encouraging residents to engage in discussions and planning activities around the vacant spaces in our midst almost inevitably leads them to recognize the benefits that they are already deriving from open space, simultaneously providing them with the opportunity to participate in its long term preservation and/or use. Community-based planning has gained momentum in Detroit during the past several years, and we now have examples of neighborhoods that are not only firmly connected to the nature that surrounds them, but are also empowered to begin to shape that space to facilitate comfortable coexistence.
On Detroit’s lower east side, residents of several neighborhoods joined together to form LEAP, the Lower Eastside Action Plan. The LEAP target area borders one of Michigan’s most affluent suburbs as well as the Detroit River. It has a major automobile manufacturing facility within its borders, as well as several of Detroit’s major streets. Still, this area is notable for its residential abandonment and resulting acres of open space. The members of LEAP recognized the need to be proactive early on. They realized that community-based planning could give them a voice in what would happen in their neighborhoods. Today, they have an organized Greenway, an open space master plan in the implementation stage, and a voice in what will be done with the vast vacant spaces in their community.
Neighbors building Brightmoor. Photo Credit: Greening of Detroit
In the opposite corner of the City, the Brightmoor neighborhood came to community-based planning from the other direction. There, community residents first came together to build a garden and to rid their street of prostitutes and drug dealers. Soon after, a community group formed and the neighborhood began to redefine itself with gardens at its core. Brightmoor is another neighborhood near an affluent suburb, with abundant open space and a location along the banks of a (different) river. The natural assets of the place are undeniable. This is a place where gardens work with the existing terrain to create a connection with nature that is almost immediate for everyone who visits.
Here, the plan came later. In fact, the plan was created as a tool to preserve and extend the community-based development that had already occurred in the neighborhood.
These examples are fascinating when compared. The neighborhoods have similar assets: abundant wildspace, riverfront, proximity to an affluent suburb. They also have similar challenges: residential abandonment, aged infrastructure, combined sewer overflow issues. And they arrived at a similar conclusion—that community-based planning was a valuable tool to help them manage the wildland urban interface that had come to exist in their neighborhoods. The control that community-based planning provided helped both of these neighborhoods turn immersion in wildland into connection to nature for their residents. In each neighborhood, the residents are beginning to experience the benefits of their exposure to nature. Not surprisingly, these benefits are more readily visible in the Brightmoor neighborhood. After all, those residents intentionally sought the benefits of nature through gardening.
Detroit has miles to go when it comes to capitalizing on the wildland that has emerged in its core, but we have begun to recognize that these places give us the chance to create a city that more fully supports its citizens. Our children and our gardeners have shown us that connection to nature can be wrought from immersion in wildland. Our community planners have demonstrated that planning can create a voice for residents, leading them to recognize the value in nature.
Detroit’s wildlands hold its richest opportunity to improve the lives of its citizens. These are places were Detroiters can learn to embrace nature and in so doing, realize the lifelong benefits that such a connection provides. This unique opportunity must be cultivated carefully in recognition that connection to nature is not assured even given immersion in wildland. This is no time to stand idly by. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to enjoy a connection to nature must get off the sidelines and help orchestrate the preservation, use, and enjoyment of Detroit’s most surprising asset; the new nature at its core.
Sustainable infrastructure design—from water, energy, material flows, built systems—is the art of seeking solutions that address ecology, engineering and culture as interconnected realms.
In the past, civil engineering was the transformer of the natural environment to meet development and human needs. In doing so, engineers blindly trusted technique as a pillar, repeated recipes, disregarding the importance of understanding each intervention site as a unique living system. Multiple evidence around the world shows that, in many cases, engineering has been responsible for more environmental problems than for solutions.
In this book S. Bry Sarté calls us to design structures for the future that will be effective in the next century, reconnecting strategies that worked in the past with new methods.
An engineer himself, S. Bry Sarté graduated from the University of California. He is founder of Sherwood Design Institute, a non-profit research and policy group. Through his collaborative projects around the world, and in lectures and conferences he has addressed the urgent need for a new paradigm and has this influenced urban planning and management in a very positive way.
Sustainable infrastructure. The guide to green engineering and design, belongs to a constellation of books such as Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities (M.A. Benedict and E.T. McMahon, 2006) andGreen Infrastructure: A Landscape Approach (D.C. Rouse and I.F. Bunster-Ossa 2013) just to mention two. All these works are aimed at demonstrating the value of ongoing collaboration among architects, engineers, planners, ecologists and many other people.
This book is structured in three parts and nine chapters. The first part introduces the reader to the New Paradigm for Design, which is essential for this new era: the Anthropocene. In the present age, the social, economic and environmental issues surrounding infrastructure are too complex to be left to engineers alone, as it has been practiced in the past century. Today these multiple and multifaceted problems need to be solved in an interdisciplinary and collaborative fashion, if we want to make our habitat more livable. This part of the book there are two key chapters, describing the process and frameworks of sustainable design, explaining the new paradigm for an integrated approach to sustainable design at different levels.
The second part, comprising four chapters, describes water and energy management, as well as sustainable site planning and materials flow.
The third part of the book gives many examples across different action scales, which at the end are always intertwined: the urban (chapter 7), community (chapter 8) and site scale (chapter 9). Through case studies around the world, most through the experience gained by the Sherwood Design Engineers Institute, the author shows how sustainable design can provide system models for integrated win-win management programs.
This book is easy to read. It explains paradigms and strategies, providing a practical guide for planners, landscape architects, educators and students. It is an excellent inspiration to students and professionals, inviting them to integrate existing concepts in new ways.
The author succeeds in passing on an important message: design should deliver systems that are useful and also beautiful, so that people can connect with them, giving them value and understanding. He emphasizes the responsibility that citizens have in their everyday life choices to ensure the sustaining of life on Earth.
This book is an important reference, highly recommended.
Ana Faggi
Buenos Aires
To buy the book, click the images below and go to Amazon—part of the proceeds return to TNOC.
What happens to a city’s traditional foundations of service delivery when it expands boundaries and enhances its infrastructure? Does the city still concern itself with the maintenance of the supply structures that were once essential for the city? The case of the disappearing wells and polluted lakes in the south Indian megalopolis of Bengaluru gives us some interesting answers to these questions.
The well (in the foreground) of the old Begur Fort with its lone temple surrounded by apartments and children playing in the fields where history was once created. Photo: Hita Unnikrishnan
Earlier this week, we wrote a series of articles in a leading Indian newspaper about the importance of lakes and wells for urban social-ecological resilience in Bengaluru. One article described the disappearance of the thousands of private and public wells that once provided Bengaluru with water. In this piece, we called for a city-wide concerted effort to revive existing open wells, increasing the water security of the city.
As has become common, we received a number of comments on social networking sites. One particularly telling response revealed a viewpoint in stark contrast to ours: perhaps one held by several in the city. A friend commented that she’s glad to see wells disappearing because big open wells posed a danger to inquisitive children. While this is an acknowledged danger—and there are ways to work around this—the comment exemplified the mind-set of an urban population that has become reliant on piped water supply. The availability of piped water 24/7 often leads to the perception of traditional water storage, supply, and recharge structures, such as open wells, as useless, a waste of space that could be more usefully utilized for construction, or even as an environmental and physical hazard.
A dhobhies well in the heart of the city, with water very close to the surface. Photo: Hita Unnikrishnan
Both of us live in upmarket urban neighbourhoods where piped water supply is available, but with intermittent supply. When water is supplied, houses across Bengaluru proceed with filling up household water storage tanks. When water does not come for a few days, the city depends on water tankers filled by borewells that are depleting the city’s ground water table at an alarming rate. Yet while most will complain bitterly when piped water is not provided for a few days in a row, rarely do people spare a thought to consider where the water comes from, from whom water has been taken to provide the city with water, and whether it is sustainable to depend upon piped water from distant sources, or whether alternative arrangements for enhanced water security have to be made. What happens to a city’s innate resilience when basic supplies such as water are brought into it from great distances—in this case, from a river over a hundred kilometres away? Which brings us to our original question: are old and once essential traditional supply mechanisms still maintained? Or, like its residents, does the city ignore its past and disregard those very structures that could guarantee its water resilience?
A well (padlocked) visible on the compound wall of a temple. Photo: Hita Unnikrishnan
The modern day city of Bengaluru is built on the foundations of the medieval sixteenth century city founded by a local war chieftain, Kempe Gowda. Water supply in Bengaluru was always uncertain, with the city located in the rain shadow of the Deccan Hills. To provide the city with water, an intricate system of networked lakes was created in local topographic depressions. These lakes stored water, and replenished the shallow ground water table, functioning in association with smaller reservoirs called kalyanis, and with numerous open wells distributed across the landscape. Surface water was retained by the lakes, while recharge was performed by the wells.
The use of open wells as a source of water goes back much earlier than the sixteenth century; in fact, it goes all the way back to the dawn of civilization in India. Wells have been found in almost every site belonging to the Indus Valley Civilization, attesting to their persistence as well as their social importance.
A well that is used by communities in the more impoverished parts of the city. Photo: Hita Unnikrishnan
One of the oldest forts in Bengaluru is the mud fort of Begur. The fort lies within a larger temple complex, where an inscription from the 9th century AD provides the first mention of the word Bengaluru. This fort, with its mud embankments, encloses a large open ground with a small temple. Behind the fort, an array of high rise apartments can be observed. Within this open ground, where inscriptions record stories of battles fought, lands recaptured, and tales of martyrs and saints, is a magnificent open well: a strong reminder that the availability of water can make or break a civilization. Embedded at ground level, disused, and with stone steps leading to the bottom and stone walls lining it, the inside of the well is dark. Yet, when we knelt down and peered into the well, we could still see the glimmer of water deep within.
A community well under the shade of a banyan tree. Photo: Hita Unnikrishnan
We don’t know much about this well—perhaps its waters were drawn to worship and bathe the idol in the temple nearby; possibly laughing women with flowers in their hair whose anklets chimed in time to their footsteps came here to draw water for their households; or the well may have provided water to the weary soldier, trudging into his home after a long day of battle. Yet, there it stands, surrounded by a changing world with apartments in the background replacing agricultural fields and battlegrounds, still a reservoir of groundwater.
Each well of the city has its own story to tell—of a king who built the well for his people, of a well whose waters never went dry, of a well that was an indispensable resource for the poor, and of the thought and pride that went into its construction. While many people who live around the wells have recently migrated to the city, other elderly residents freely share the stories of these water reservoirs, speaking of them with pride, affection, and nostalgia.
Other information about the location and maintenance of wells in the past comes from maps and archives from the colonial period—crumbling, dusty, yellowing files with elegant, curved penmanship. These documents are evidence of the importance of wells to the social and environmental life of the past. There were different kinds of wells—public wells on roadsides, wells used for livestock living in the courtyards of houses, private wells within homes used to provide drinking water, wells inside temples used for worship, and wells belonging to specific communities like the washer folk (dhobhies) who used it for laundering. The links between lakes and wells were well recognized; some lakes were specifically retained without use, for recharging the open wells in their vicinity.
This is a massive open well that provides water to the community and into which fish have been introduced. The movement of the fish within the water of this covered open well provide local school children with entertainment. Photo: Hita Unnikrishnan
As early as 1865, contaminated wells were recognized to be a source of major epidemics of the time such as cholera, typhoid, and malaria. Steps were taken—not to destroy the wells as is wont in today’s world—but to remove the sources of contamination. The creation of a new position of a Water Inspector, whose job it was to monitor the two thousand or wells in the city, helped to keep the wells clean. Wells were stocked with larvicidal fish to prevent malarial outbreaks, and monthly reports were provided on the condition of wells in the city. When Bengaluru experienced a severe drought in 1891, it was to the wells that people turned to meet their water requirements. During periods of intense drought, such as that experienced by the city in 1905, agriculture was halted to restock wells with water, compensating the affected farmers.
Yet, for all their importance, wells also came with their fair share of problems. Perhaps the most disturbing accounts from the archives are those that describe a time when, in the throes of an epidemic of plague, the city grappled with corpses of affected individuals by throwing them into wells. It must have been quite a harrowing experience for municipal authorities who had to maintain the wells and prevent their contamination in such situations.
Another community well which provides water for domestic purposes. Photo: Hita Unnikrishnan
Wells often stood in the way of sewage channels and became contaminated with their contents. This, too, had to be taken care of. Sir Ronald Ross, the Nobel Laureate who was an officer on special sanitary duty in Bangalore during the cholera outbreaks in 1895, traced the transmission of cholera to wells contaminated with sewage and refuse which percolated through the soil, from which water was drawn for cooking and drinking. He coordinated a program to map all the public wells in the city, and to have them disinfected, or closed down in irreparable cases.
By 1898, lakes and wells ceased to be an important source of water in the city following the construction of reservoirs outside, with piped water supply to urban homes. For a few decades, despite the provision of water from distant rivers, the wells of Bengaluru continued to be maintained and used as important water sources. While many of the city’s lakes were converted for other forms of land use such as sports stadiums and malls, wells were valuable supplements of water for local residents and communities.
Over time, with the decline of the dependence of the city on its lakes, the use of kalyanis and wells also decreased. In the past couple of decades, there has been a steady loss in the number of functional open wells in the city. Using old maps from the 1880s, we find that there were about 1500 mapped wells (presumably public wells) in the old native city and cantonment; by 2014, that number had gone down to a handful: 49. Over time, some of these structures have become decrepit ruins that led to some fatalities, mostly of children who fell into them.
Yet, wells continue to be used by some communities. The dhobhies have never really given up their dependency on wells. Some of the best-maintained wells in the city are those that are used by dhobies. In many low-income areas, wells provide water security in conditions where the municipal water supply is erratic or contaminated. Other wells that are preserved are centuries old wells within temple complexes, used for worship and domestic consumption. Some wells that have been preserved within the homes of people are used both to recharge groundwater and as an alternate source of water to these families.
A well that is a reflection of the most rudimentary type of drawing water—the yatam—with its stem, drawing rod, fulcrum and water very close to the surface. Photo: Hita Unnikrishnan
Many of the old wells in the city are a visual delight. Ornate stone structures, some have lovely spiralling stone steps right down to the bottom. One open well hosts another well within its depths, while several bear beautifully crafted pulleys. Some wells retain the form and structure of the wells of old—a simple fulcrum stem, a base stem, and a drawing rod taking the place of the pulley, with specially handcrafted buckets. Other wells also exist, their structures intact, the glimmer of water captured in sunlight, despite their state of disuse. They provide hope for the city, if only they could be revived and utilized.
The advent of piped water supply did reduce the perceived necessity for wells and lakes: but why, then, do some wells persist? Our field studies clearly indicate that wells have survived only where people see a value for the water they provide. Contamination with sewage, lowering of the water table, and a lack of access to wells are factors that lead to the disuse of many wells now.
For a city to be resilient, it has to harness its innate resources to withstand change. Bengaluru is an example of a city that has provided infrastructure for its residents from afar, while neglecting to build capacity within itself. As a result, Bengaluru has wells that could and do hold water, but they also hold a whole lot of other things: leaf litter, plastic wastes, flower garlands, dead animals, and other garbage. Some magnificent wells are hemmed in on all four sides, so that the only way one can get to them is by climbing onto nearby residents’ rooftops. But once one climbs up, on a lucky sunny day, one could be greeted with a magnificent view of an old stone well with spiralling steps, through which the sparkle of water is still visible.
Structures such as these provide hope—that someday, this sparkle of clear water may be recognized for what it is—the strength and resilience of the city against adversity. The communities of dhobies, temple priests and other groups who still maintain their wells, and use them with reverence and pride, instil hope that more of these structures may be revived (and many of them can with little effort) and used. Then, just maybe, we can progress further down a path of cultivating an ecologically smart, resilient urban scape in water-hungry cities. Such a path is not only relevant for Bengaluru: it holds importance for cities across the world that are facing problems of water shortage, from California to Sao Paulo.
Harini Nagendra is a Professor of Sustainability at Azim Premji University, Bangalore, India. She uses social and ecological approaches to examine the factors shaping the sustainability of forests and cities in the south Asian context. Her books include “Cities and Canopies: Trees of Indian Cities” and "Shades of Blue: Connecting the Drops in India's Cities" (Penguin India, 2023) (with Seema Mundoli), and “The Bangalore Detectives Club” historical mystery series set in 1920s colonial India.
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.
Myla Aronson, New BrunswickScientists and practitioners may have more questions than answers, but we are communicating, and this is the start for successful biodiversity conservation and management in our world’s cities.
Keith Bowers, CharlestonBiohabitats recently created Bioworks, an intra-disciplinary practice dedicated to integrating robust research into the practice of ecological restoration and conservation planning.
Sarah Charlop-Powers, New YorkA new initiative called NYC 2050 Nature Goals is designed to bring academics, public land managers, and the non-profit conservation community together in New York City.
Ana Faggi, Buenos Aires Researchers should work on more effective collaborative forms by emphasizing concrete problems and by paying attention to regional or, if applicable, global, problems.
Haripriya Gundimeda, Mumbai Scientists and practitioners agree that the scientific community needs to mobilize to design programs and indicators that are pragmatic to support conservation decisions.
Bram Gunther, New York City A new initiative called NYC 2050 Nature Goals is designed to bring academics, public land managers, and the non-profit conservation community together in New York City.
Amy Hahs, Melbourne We need to make the feedback and evaluation stage a common element of project delivery wherever possible, either through formal mechanisms or informal mechanisms.
Fadi Hamdan, Beirut Scientists and practitioners regularly take decisions in their careers. These decisions must be subject to the same scrutiny as the “official” decision making process.
John Hartig, DetroitFor several decades the International Association for Great Lakes Research has worked with others to better inform policy-makers to advance sound public policy and decision making.
Mark Hostetler, Gainesville I think the conversation that ecologists and practitioners would have in a bar is how to make an online tool that is menu driven.
Maria Ignatieva, Uppsala The most difficult questions are how to “translate” research results to make them understandable not for only practitioners such as city planners, landscape architects, or engineers, but for city administrators and politicians.
Michael Jemtrud, Montreal Research that embraces the counterfactual is a mode of provocation that agitates the disciplining inherent to disciplines—it’s a critical device in collectively imagining what we ought to do, not just what we can do.
Deborah Lev, Portland In Portland the Urban Ecology Research Consortium makes connections between researchers and practitioners.
Louise Lézy-Bruno, Paris By de-compartmentalizing academic and operational fields and promoting teamwork, we can help researchers, practitioners, and decision makers work together.
Yvonne Lynch, Melbourne We need to focus the lens on reality and combine intellect and resources to advance the outcomes for urban nature.
Ian MacGregor-Fors, Veracruz Many actors can be identified in bridging the gap between knowledge and its application; however, willingness will always be a cornerstone.
Charlie Nilon, Columbia We need to view conservation issues as collaborative projects that involve residents, managers, and researchers rather than just implementing management practices or conducting research.
Jose Puppim, Tokyo Over-reliance on technical information and on the opinion of experts is occurring side by side with neglect of local knowledge and lack of effective public participation from non-technical actors in decision-making.
Eric Sanderson, New York City A new initiative called NYC 2050 Nature Goals is designed to bring academics, public land managers, and the non-profit conservation community together in New York City.
Philip Silva, New York City Knowledge co-creation cuts two ways. How can scientists help make valid management knowledge that isn’t scientific?
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
A horse walks into a bar. The bartender asks: “Why the long face?”
Countless jokes start with an introduction of odd couples and diverse sets entering a bar to set up a joke or observation about differences in perception. And so: 10 researchers and 10 practitioners walk into a bar…
Many researchers desire to see their work used in policy and practitioner action. Many practitioners crave knowledge that they can use to make better decisions or to take more effective, evidence-based action. It’s a match, no?
Yet across disciplines—from biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services to community gardens and landscape design—researcher-practitioner interactions can be distant, fraught, or unsatisfying. Sometimes this is just a lack of effective fora for communication. Sometimes it is the lack of a shared vocabulary. Other times it is a disconnect of modes of working, in which researchers are rewarded for synthetic and theoretical work, but practitioners have more basic knowledge needs.
The respondents to this question include practitioners, city managers, international NGO policy analysts, scientists (biophysical and social), and designers. How can we evolve modes of interaction that advance both research and practice? Can such diverse actors co-create useful knowledge?
Myla Aronson is an urban ecologist at Rutgers University, NJ. Her research focuses on the patterns and drivers of biodiversity of cities to better conserve, restore, and manage biodiversity in cities.
Myla Aronson
Urban ecologists are looking for their research on the ecology of cities to be applied to conservation and management of biodiversity in cities. Practitioners are looking to urban ecologists to help bridge research findings into practical applications of day-to-day management. But how do we bridge the gap between scientists and practitioners?
Communication, data sharing, and collaborative research are key to bridging this gap. Communication can be enhanced through data sharing and collaborative research, but also through initiatives such as The Nature of Cities and UrBioNet. My colleagues and I recently established UrBioNet: A global network for urban biodiversity research and practice, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. UrBioNet has been established to develop a network that brings together researchers, practitioners, and students with an interest in biodiversity in cities. The network provides a forum for discussion, data sharing, and collaboration on topics relevant to urban biodiversity research, management, design, and planning. Communication between scientists and practitioners can also be achieved with college level ecology courses that incorporate project based learning through internships or projects with practitioners.
Practitioners have treasure troves of data. This data spans from hard numbers on endangered species populations to knowledge from trial and error on restoration practice. Rarely do managers have opportunities to synthesize these data and knowledge. Data offer an avenue for knowledge transfer and collaboration between scientists and practitioners. Sharing data across cities, countries, and continents has allowed us to better understand the role cities play in biodiversity conservation (for example, see Aronson et al. 2014). At the local level, sharing data will allow us, together, to develop best management practices for biodiversity.
Ecological research in urban areas is inherently collaborative. However, we need more opportunities to bring together scientists and practitioners. Better mechanisms for funding of research, better facilitation for scientists to perform their research in cities (i.e., less red tape), and research that incorporates practitioner experience and knowledge are all needed. Collaborative research efforts such as the Center for Resilient Landscapes, which combines academic scientists and students with practitioners at Rutgers University, USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station, and the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, are starting points for successful collaborative research.
Incredibly, we don’t even know the full biodiversity of cities. Recent research in cities has shown that cities house a surprisingly high diversity of species. At the global scale, cities house over 20 percent of the world’s bird species (Aronson et al. 2014). The discovery of new species is no longer confined to far-off, exotic places such as the Amazon Basin. In New York City, Jeremy Feinberg, a graduate student at Rutgers University, recently discovered a species of frog, hidden cryptically on Staten Island, and never described before, despite the long history of natural sciences in New York City (Feinberg et al. 2014). In Los Angeles, Emily Hartop and colleagues at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles discovered 30 new species of flies in urban backyards (Hartop et al. 2015).
Despite these new and exciting discoveries and the explosion of research by natural and social scientists in cities, we still have a limited understanding of how biodiversity—the plants, animals, insects, fungi, and even soil bacteria—function in urban habitats and how we can effectively conserve and manage biodiversity in these landscapes that have been designed and managed for humans.
So, when scientists and practitioners and get together, what do we talk about? We talk about how we can work together effectively to conserve and manage biodiversity in our cities. We ask big questions: How can we manage habitats in cities at multiple spatial scales? How can we use the data we have to create targets/thresholds for urban management? What are realistic goals for invasive species management? What are the best management practices for restoration of native habitats? What are the factors important to measure for monitoring urban forests? What tools can we use to communicate and synthesize management/restoration findings?
We may have more questions than answers, but we are communicating, and this is the start for successful biodiversity conservation and management in our world’s cities.
References
Aronson, M.F.J., F.A. La Sorte, C.H. Nilon., et al. 2014 A global analysis of the impacts of urbanization on bird and plant diversity reveals key anthropogenic drivers. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 281: 20133330.
Hartop, E.A., B.V. Brown, and R.H.L. Disney. 2015. Opportunity in our Ignorance: Urban Biodiversity Study Reveals 30 New Species and One New Nearctic Record for Megaselia (Diptera: Phoridae) in Los Angeles (California, USA). Zootaxa 3941: 451-484.
Feinberg, J.A., C.E. Newman, G.J. Watkins-Colwell, M.D. Schlesinger, B. Zarate, B.R. Curry, H.B. Shaffer, and J. Burger. 2014. Cryptic Diversity in Metropolis: Confirmation of a New Leopard Frog Species (Anura: Ranidae) from New York City and Surrounding Atlantic Coast Regions. PLOS One: 10.1371/journal.pone.0108213.
After finishing up her Master’s degree in urban ecology from the University of Cape Town in 2009, Georgina worked on biodiversity informatics and ecosystem based adaptation at ICLEI’s Cities Biodiversity Center. She then joined the Greenpop team. When she is not heading up Greenpop programmes across Southern Africa, you can find Georgina walking the soles off of her shoes or cooking up a Greek storm in the kitchen.
Georgina Avlonitis
Some ‘Touchy-Feely’ Stuff at the Bar
During my post-graduate years studying urban ecology, I eagerly ranted about my research findings to city officials and to my dismay, I watched eyes glaze over and feet start to shuffle as the communication disconnect set in. This was not due to any lack of fervent intonations and gesticulations from my side—I was convinced of the importance of my findings—but I was, of course, focusing on all the wrong aspects of my work. It may as well have been a soliloquy in Greek. And now, during my professional career, I realise I could not blame them, because when forced to sit in a room of scientists debating complex and unfamiliar methodological approaches, I’ve ashamedly found my mind beginning to wander and my feet doing that same shuffle, while half expecting my head to explode.
Street art by Mark Samsonovich.
Scientists and policy-makers certainly do all sorts of ‘talking’: they talk at each other, on top of each other, about each other, past each other. More often than not, they speak across each other—speaking about the same issues, but in completely different languages. For example, scientists often define evidence from a methodological perspective while policy makers define evidence from a relevance perspective—this is why policy priorities often drive the use of research, rather than research stimulating policy recommendations.
But how to create bi-directional, collaborative communication, where scientists and policy makers communicate with each other?
I could write about suggested solutions such as: the use of third party science-communicators; how to jointly involve decision-makers and scientists in all phases of research, including the development of the questions and the interpretation of results; or approaches for the development of effective platforms for dialogue—but we’re still not addressing the heart of the issue: that collaboration and co-creation needs connection. Which is why I’m choosing to focus on something a bit ‘softer’ and much more fundamental.
If I had to stick policy makers and scientists into a hypothetical bar, I’d probably first hand them over a strong whisky, to soften the edges and loosen them up a bit. Then I’d get them to speak about what makes them passionate about what they are doing and then—no cringing allowed—I’d get them to make themselves vulnerable. And by vulnerable, I don’t mean walking around with a box of tissues crying about things. I mean having an open conversation about some of the deeper, more human, more visceral elements of work: explaining where you’re unsure; talking about the complex challenges that wake you up at 2am; describing what gets you out of bed in the morning to go to work; explaining what excites you or completely devastates you about the field you’re in.
More often than not, vulnerability and passion are the links between the science and policy arena—it’s where the bravado dissipates, where the commonalities lie, where the challenging, exciting realities surface, where humanity is exposed; it’s where the conversation opens up and where the ground is leveled for better relationships, for honesty and communication. It’s something as simple as admitting: ‘I don’t know what I’m doing right here, with this.’
Policy-makers typically aren’t interested in science per se (although some are); they are interested in research evidence insofar as it helps them to make better decisions (because without adequate information—let’s be honest—they wouldn’t really know what they were doing). Scientists are enamored with their fields of inquiry and, coupled with an interest in promoting their work and ensuring research funding, this can sometimes lead to convoluted reporting of results and, very occasionally, exaggeration. But ultimately, if policy makers and scientists could open up about where they are unsure, could make themselves vulnerable around the effectiveness of their work and decisions, could share the real reasons why the potential impact of their work excites them (or doesn’t)—therein lies the connection! Only then can parties help to better fill the gaps, to reshape the objectives, and to enhance the relevance and impact of each other’s work.
Some ‘touchy-feely’ suggestions:
Reinvent the meet-and-mingle: Formalise more informal networking events/sessions where individuals from science and policy arenas can socially interact in your institutions/departments and most importantly have fun while doing so.
Personal relationships run the world: Take some time to get to know scientist/policy-maker peers, before launching into hard work-talk. Look for a common spark and learn what really matters to them and how you can help. It goes without saying that people are more likely to want to engage in your work if they feel a personal affiliation with you.
Stick your neck out: Be interested and ask more questions. “You can make more connections in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” — Dale Carnegie
Get outside: There is no better way to remember why it is you’re doing what you’re doing and share some common ground than by taking meetings/workshops into nature. (It also boosts creativity and productivity.)
And lastly and most definitely, build in more time at the bar: This goes without saying.
For nearly 30 years, Keith Bowers has been at the forefront of applied ecology, land conservation and ecological restoration. As the founder and president of Biohabitats, Keith has built a multidisciplinary organization focused on regenerative design.
Keith Bowers
More than once, while enjoying a pint with a group of my fellow restoration researchers and practitioners, I have wondered how many of us occasionally covet each other’s jobs. Don’t get me wrong, as the leader of Biohabitats, Inc., my passion and vocation is the practice of ecological restoration. But when I talk to researchers, I sometimes find myself thinking: “I wish I had the time and resources to integrate controlled, replicated experiments into all of our work.” And conversely, I suspect that my research colleagues may occasionally think: “How cool. I wish I had the time to participate in the design and implementation of restoration projects like Biohabitats does”.
Practitioners and researchers are united in so many ways. Our passion for restoration, our desire to continually improve the success of ecological restoration and our aspirations for healing damaged or destroyed ecosystems keeps us all going. Why, then, is our work so often disconnected? Although Biohabitats includes dozens of team members with academic research experience, and we often attend scientific conferences and review the latest journal articles, we seldom come across academic research that can be directly applied to our current body of work.
Conversely, while we have so many lessons learned to share from the design and implementation of hundreds of projects, we neither have the time nor resources to publish the work. And even if we did, we would most likely not meet the standards of peer-reviewed journals. In our daily work, Biohabitats rarely has the opportunity (time and funding) to embed experimental designs to evaluate hypotheses in an academically rigorous way, and our colleagues in universities rarely address the myriad constraints that we encounter in the real world of implementing restoration projects.
How can we let this continue? If there is one thing we know for sure, it is that the problems our work tries to solve are substantial and mounting. And as a society, we don’t have the time or resources to perpetuate failure. We need practical solutions based on rigorous science now.
We need practitioners informing experimental designs; we need researchers working with us to evaluate projects; and we need to pool our resources to find the best solutions out there. Some of these challenges can be addressed by purposeful collaboration between private companies and like-minded universities and research institutions. Others would benefit from third party support, such as grantors that explicitly require collaborations that bridge not only disciplines but also sectors.
In response to these felt needs, Biohabitats recently created Bioworks, an intra-disciplinary practice dedicated to integrating robust research into the practice of ecological restoration and conservation planning. Our goals are threefold. One, to develop hypotheses and embed applied experiments into all of our work, thereby establishing a rigorous foundation for collaborative research with universities, research institutions and non-government organizations. Two, team with these same organizations to purse funding to jointly research cutting edge solutions to some of our most pressing problems in achieving successful outcomes for ecological restoration. And three, to widely share this information in a practical, easily accessible way with the thousands of practitioners that are toiling day-to-day in the rivers, wetlands, woodlands and fields across the planet.
We know this important work cannot be done alone in a silo, by a single entity, institution or discipline. So if you are interested in joining this collaboration, join me for another pint and let’s make this happen!
Dr. Gundimeda is a Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay; and the President of URBIO. Her main interests are green accounting, mitigation aspects of climate change, energy demand and pricing, valuation of environmental resources, and issues relating to the development in India.
Haripriya Gundimeda
What does it mean to make the two ends—biodiversity science and policy making—meet?
Scientist: Biodiversity is very essential for life. However, we are losing it at a faster rate than before and the number of endangered and extinct species are increasing. For conserving biodiversity, the underlying biological processes need to be understood well and adequate emphasis has to be given to building stable and resilient systems.
Practitioner: Yes, biodiversity needs to be conserved, but the goal is harder to achieve than to say. Biodiversity is not just a mere collection of individuals, but is characterized by highly complex and nested interactions among the species. Further, the complexity of scale and level of organization makes it more complicated to build into the planning process. Do we have some rules to set conservation policies and what conservation requires?
Scientists: We need habitat inventories for the presence and abundance of various dominant and associated species.
Practitioner: Given that there is dearth of ecologists, can we meaningfully inventory all the habitats? How can we decide which is more important—bryophytes, invertebrates, mosses, lichens, vascular plants, etc.? Do we have closely aligned practical indicators to measure the success of various conservation efforts?
Scientist: One can measure the success of conservation in already protected areas through measuring changes in the number and relative abundance of species—keystone, flagship, umbrella, threatened, endangered, endemic, and focal species—and the distribution, turn over, diversity, and quality of ecosystems. However, it requires time and resources. Numerous measures may have to be identified. Classify the areas as risky and non-risky areas and ensure full conservation in risky areas.
Practitioner: It is not possible to carry out inventories in all areas; protected areas may have some of the above indicators already, but what about areas which are not protected, yet are important. Resources are limited, and there are trade-offs. Can we use some criteria? For example, we say biodiversity should be conserved because it enhances the well-being of people now and in the future. Can we look at nature as providing ecosystem services to people and should we be considering the economic value of these benefits to people? Such an approach helps policy makers in prioritizing areas that provide maximum benefits and also justify investments.
Scientist: We differ. Ecosystems are complex and the services are not separable. Moreover, values are dynamic and change as the structure of society changes, despite that ecosystem services remain the same. Moreover, there may be conflict in this case as the ecosystem service provided in many cases may not have market value attached. Quantifying cultural, spiritual, and existence values is difficult. The studies are still limited and it is possible that pristine ecosystems are left out. This would have deleterious impacts for the conservation of ecosystems.
Practitioner: Yes, we agree that there are trade-offs in functions provided by ecosystems and prioritizing one would be at the cost of another. But we need a metric to measure what to conserve and the outcome of our actions. How to measure the outcome and the actions needed to conserve for effective policy making? We need something which is cost-effective. Can scientists offer right indicators and legitimate criteria to choose one area above another?
Scientist: Yes, it is a bit difficult, complicated, and contentious, but we agree that the scientific community needs to mobilize to design programs and indicators that are pragmatic to support conservation decisions. Probably while we get the right science and science right, can we at least agree that biodiversity conservation is an integral part of development plans? And can we rope in private communities to finance conservation?
Practitioner: Yes, whatever it means to make both the ends—biodiversity science and development policy—meet.
Bram Gunther, former Chief of Forestry, Horticulture, and Natural Resources for NYC Parks, is Co-founder of the Natural Areas Conservancy and sits on their board. A Fellow at The Nature of Cities, and a business partner at Plan it Wild, he just finished a novel about life in the age of climate change in NYC 2050.
Bram Gunther, Eric Sanderson, and Sarah Charlop-Powers
“Never doubt that a group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” — attributed to Margaret Mead
This is a quote that could have come from a conversation over a beer. But now it’s the adopted motto of a new initiative called NYC 2050 Nature Goals, designed to bring academics, public land managers, and the non-profit conservation community together in New York City. The Natural Areas Conservancy, a new voice in the urban conservation world, is leading this initiative in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society, founded 120 years ago to conserve wildlife globally and teach about wildlife through urban zoological parks such as the Bronx Zoo and New York Aquarium.
NYC Nature Goals 2050 brings together people who work in over 25 different institutions and are invested in New York City urban conservation and ecological restoration. What makes this effort interesting is that (1) as a group we are focused on all resources within the city lines, from the estuary to the uplands, from the natural to the built, and from the public to the private; (2) we are not explicitly policy focused, but rather aspiration focused; and (3) at the first three workshops each individual is representing his or her own values. Only in the last workshop do we sync our individual values with our institutional missions. To this end, we will hope to write a “constitution” to facilitate alignment among groups in different spheres (research, government, NGO, community), so that our sum is greater than our pieces.
Our conversation about goals follows a trajectory from function to composition to structure (Redford and Richter 1999). Function is about what interactions we want from nature, answering the question: “why have nature in the city?”
We held a meeting on this topic in March and the five top consensus answers that emerged were:
Biodiversity and habitat—NYC nature provides living environments for species
Coastal protection/resilience—NYC nature mitigates damage from coastal storms
Water quality—NYC nature absorbs and filters water from runoff
Connectivity—NYC nature enables movements of species through the city
Inspiration—NYC nature encourages humanity creativity and appreciation of beauty.
Composition focuses on what components of nature are necessary to fulfill the functions outlined, helping us articulate: “what nature in the city?” We just held a meeting on composition and are digesting the results now (native species as opposed to introduced ones were strongly endorsed, for example.)
Structure is perhaps the hardest of the three: it answers, “how much nature or in what configuration is it required to fulfill the functions outlined”. Here we expect to come up against some difficult questions about nature in the city: how much salt marsh provides coastal protection? What configuration of nature assures connectivity for migratory birds? How large does a natural area need to be to inspire? We expect to generate a set of research questions tied to the nature goals of this kind.
At a fourth meeting, to be held in December, we will ask members of the advisory group to speak to the goals not as individuals, but as members of institutions.
In this initiative, we are making a space for individual values to be aligned ultimately with institutional values—this combination is a powerful force and hews to the Margaret Mead quote above. The driving goal of the NYC 2050 Nature Goals is to ask folks to think in a visionary way. This vision and the long-range aspirations for our City that we identify as a group will influence our short-range goals, capacity to coordinate efforts and initiatives, and decide our ultimate directions.
In our workshops, we’re deliberately staying focused on the process rather than the outcomes per se, so that our ideas can fly above the usual and lead to places not envisioned before, drawn from and shared by researchers and practitioners.
If this conversation does spread to “bar” talk, the more the better.
Eric Sanderson is a Senior Conservation Ecologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the author of Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City.
Sarah Charlop-Powers is the Executive Director of the Natural Areas Conservancy, with a background in land use planning, economics and environmental management.
Dr. John Hartig is a Visiting Scholar at the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Windsor where he is undertaking interdisciplinary research on the cleanup, restoration, and revitalization of the most polluted areas of the Great Lakes.
John Hartig
Strengthening the Science-Policy Linkage in the Great Lakes
Human population growth has caused numerous stresses on ecosystems, including habitat destruction and modification, chemical contamination, introduction of invasive species, and more. Recognizing the need to strengthen the science-policy linkage, the International Association for Great Lakes Research (IAGLR) has long been involved in addressing this in the Laurentian Great Lakes. IAGLR is a scientific organization of over 900 researchers studying the Great Lakes, other large lakes of the world, and their watersheds. IAGLR members encompass all scientific disciplines with a common interest in management of large lake ecosystems.
Informing public policy with sound science has long been recognized as a vital need for effective management and protection of the Great Lakes. However, delivering scientific findings to policy-makers in a timely, useful manner has been problematic. Policy-makers have often lacked timely access to scientific information. And when they do have access, this information is often too technical and needs interpretation to be truly useful for decision-making.
For several decades IAGLR has worked with others to better inform policy-makers to advance sound public policy and decision making. IAGLR efforts have included:
• Identifying research needs to better guide management;
• Advocating for sufficient funding to support better science-based decision making;
• Convening an annual conference that disseminates science to a variety of audiences;
• Converting all back issues of the Journal of Great Lakes Research (the foremost collection of multidisciplinary Great Lakes scientific knowledge in the world dating back to the 1970s) into an electronic format with public access;
• Building a web-based directory of IAGLR scientists to provide advice to policymakers;
• Helping educate elected officials and key policy-makers through periodic briefings;
• Issuing routine news releases on timely research from its journal and annual conference; and
• Developing specific recommendations on strengthening the science-policy linkage on specific issues like aquatic invasive species, contaminated sediment, and “How clean is clean?”
More recently, IAGLR was a partner in the U.S.-Canada Detroit River-Western Lake Erie Indicator Project that compiled long-term trend data on 50 indicators that were interpreted and translated for policy-makers and managers. Over 20 IAGLR members were involved in this project that resulted in many restoration and enhancement projects. Another project provided specific advice for a more strategic approach to habitat conservation in the watershed of the Detroit River and western Lake Erie.
Recommendations included:
• Greater emphasis should be placed on quantifying habitat targets to help evaluate and select appropriate habitat conservation techniques, and to measure project success;
• Pre- and post-project monitoring requirements should be added to all federal, state, and provincial permits for habitat modification;
• Partnerships should be established at the outset for monitoring the effectiveness of each habitat modification project, including use of citizen science;
• Sound science can help increase the ecological effectiveness of habitat conservation efforts;
• Technology- and science-transfer sessions should be convened regularly to share ideas and knowledge, and to achieve cooperative learning relative to habitat management.
A third recent example of strengthening the science-policy linkage was the Great Lakes Futures Project designed to assess past and potential future states of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin, inform strategic policy formulation, frame research priorities, and help train the next generation of Great Lakes leaders.
Professional societies like IAGLR can use their credibility and resources to strengthen the science-policy linkages and better support practitioners and evidence-based decision-making. Clearly, a long-term commitment will be needed and such professional societies can provide continuity over time. The work of the IAGLR in the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem could be a model for other professional societies to help strengthen the science-policy linkage and better support practitioners and evidence-based decision-making. See this link for more information.
Ana Faggi graduated in agricultural engineering, and has a Ph.D. in Forest Science, she is currently Dean of the Engineer Faculty (Flores University, Argentina). Her main research interests are in Urban Ecology and Ecological Restoration.
Ana Faggi
Researchers should work on more effective collaborative forms in order to become visible to the community by emphasizing concrete problems and by paying attention to regional or, if applicable, global, problems. This points out the role of the scientist at present: an individual who is dedicated to generating and communicating the necessary knowledge to reduce the risk and uncertainty in decision-making.
Researchers of the Flores University explaining the advantages of phytoremediation at the ExpoBIO, in Buenos Aires.
A researcher is a creator as well as an innovator who increasingly understands that his work must become a tool for new prosperity. The image of isolated researchers who are interested in creating further knowledge for their cognitive motivations only is obsolete. But, the new researcher requires active interaction with decision makers and practitioners.
In many countries, specialization and the prioritization of basic research has caused separation between “research” and the generation of knowledge that is relevant for future management decisions.
As an example, in Argentina, the National Parks Administration originally had a scientific body dedicated to the generation of that knowledge necessary for conservation and management. Over time, research moved to the universities and other institutions, where researchers studied other topics and the significance of knowledge of parks management lost relevance.
Considering that scientists are part of a collective enterprise, opportunities to do collaborative work with different stakeholders should be a strength. These scientific-technical or scientific-administrative synergies can, through debate and controversy, create the missing knowledge that will reduce uncertainty and will facilitate the work of practitioners.
We are currently working on a collaborative project between the city of Buenos Aires and our university, the Flores University. The Environmental Protection Agency was interested in rehabilitating the banks of a polluted river with native trees. They asked the university for advice, as we have experience in phytoremediation with marsh plants. In the end, both organizations began in March with a pilot project planting native vegetationalong 100m of the “Riachuelo” riverbanks, which we are analysing and monitoring. Through this collaborative research we are attempting to develop expertise that can be replicated to other municipalities and transferred to practitioners.
People from the University and the Buenos Aires Environmental Protection Agency working on a collaborative project to remediate contaminated riverbanks at the Riachuelo River.
Dr Amy Hahs is an urban ecologist who is interested in understanding how urban landscapes impact local ecology, and how we can use this information to create better cities and towns for biodiversity and people. She is Director of Urban Ecology in Action, a newly established business working towards the development of green, healthy cities and towns, and the conservation of resilient ecological systems in areas where people live and work.
Amy Hahs
In my personal experience of integrating science and practice, the best discoveries and insights have emerged through the direct interactions and conversations with other members of the cast, who come from different disciplines, institutions and perspectives. Therefore, while I think there are some opportunities to improve the way actionable science knowledge and outcomes are shared between groups, I strongly believe that the engine room for change and evolution will be at the level of individual interactions.
When it comes to these individual interactions, how would I describe the ideal scenario? I think that open channels of direct communication are critical, and they need to be ongoing. There may be great interactions and collaboration over the course of a project, but too often they effectively stop once the project has been delivered. The evaluation of the project itself, and the process that was undertaken, then ends up being conducted internally within individuals or perhaps disciplines, if it happens at all. This means that we are missing out on an important opportunity to continue learning and evolving our modes of interaction. We need to look for ways of making this feedback and evaluation stage a common element of project delivery wherever possible, either through formal mechanisms (i.e., written into the proposal) or informal mechanisms (committing to catch up for a coffee and chat shortly after the project delivery).
A common communication loop I have experienced during projects integrating science and practice. Most of the communication and learning (thick arrows) occurs during the project itself, and rarely during the evaluation stage (narrow arrow). An ideal scenario would see a much greater volume of interactions occurring outside of the project phase, either as a debriefing session focused on that specific project, or as a longer ongoing conversation.
We also need to find ways of respectfully expressing feedback and initiating dialogue around the things that didn’t work. These conversations may be difficult, but they are imperative if we are to address any tensions arising from institutional or disciplinary perspectives.
Steven Handel proposed that ecology and landscape architecture are in a period of their relationship where marriage therapy may be required. Relationships between people can only fully evolve if we are willing to share our full experiences, and we are committed to listening and working through our differences.
One idea which may help navigate these differences would be to think about disciplines as producing paintings with different styles. We become very good at recognising and interpreting the key features within the paintings we are familiar with, but it is more difficult to interpret works produced in a contrasting style. If we are experts at Impressionist landscapes, it is difficult to understand how to incorporate Romantic portraiture into our work. This is where the ongoing dialogue between diverse actors is critical. The best outcomes will emerge when we can become better “art historians” and increase our fluency of interpretation across a broader range of painting styles. This shared understanding may even lead to an entirely new movement, with a style all of its own.
When it comes to more formal avenues of communication, I suspect there is something about the process of peer review, as well as the expectations of journals about what is “of interest”, that limits the type of information and learning that can be shared in these forums. Personal conversations may continue to be the most effective way of sharing this information, and often can occur at conferences and other settings. Options for increasing the number of participants in the conversation may involve online fora and other activities that make the most of our sophisticated virtual technologies.
Something to keep in mind throughout these discussions is that some actors may not have the means or desire to navigate new disciplines. This means that a person who does enter this interface of science and action essentially becomes an Ambassador within the different realms. Amongst our colleagues and peers we may become a point of contact for others who are interested in engaging with this collaborative model of thinking and working. When we visit the realms of our counterparts, we help to bridge the divide between disciplines. If we continue to do our jobs well, then we will not only deliver better outcomes ourselves, we will also have helped to grow the momentum of effort in this area.
Evolutionary change often occurs in response to pressure. Our current efforts to integrate science and practice have evolved in response to the pressures of developing sustainable, resilient, biodiverse cities and towns. The evolution within our efforts will be shaped by the internal pressures related to how this diverse range of actors start bringing together their different perspectives to deliver outcomes that are greater than the sum of their parts.
Fadi has more than 25 years of international experience in analysing the interaction between development, urbanism, disaster risk, climate change, conflict, and state fragility. Fadi cooperates with various companies, cities, and countries to protect people, assets, and the environment
Fadi Hamdan
Several scientists and practitioners walk into a bar. After deciding on drinks, they began discussing how research and knowledge generation can better support evidence-based decision making.
One of the scientists, who is trained to make a hypothesis and then to test it either to confirm its validity or modify it accordingly, started the conversation by making an assumption that scientists rarely bother to test. Namely, the scientists believed that they do not take any decisions, they simply apply scientific tools effectively and objectively. It is the fault of “practitioners” or “decision makers”, who are not always capable of understanding the scientist’s “objective” scientific advice, when things don’t go smoothly.
One of the practitioners commented that decision makers come in different shapes and forms. But they all know that the decision making process is far from straightforward; even in the best of the functioning democracies, the decision making process is subject to gate keepers, as well as legal and illegal lobbying and legal and illegal modes of expressing and withdrawing support. And that was even before the age of globalisation, whereas nowadays, big capital and large multi-nationals can more easily void or threaten the prospects of effecting change as a result of a democratic election simply by threatening to withdraw their support, including in terms of investments and jobs.
That is why we find near unanimous agreement that the decision making process in any field must be subject to a governance framework, with checks and balances to ensure that all perspectives and points of view are being accounted for “as far as reasonably practicable”.
Another practitioner agreed and gave an example from the field of Disaster Risk Management, where there is agreement that the decisions related to the use, production, and distribution of natural and government resources (e.g. water, land, tax payers’ money, air, etc.) lead to a particular distribution of benefits, exposure, vulnerability, risks, and, increasingly, disaster losses. Furthermore, these benefits and associated exposure, vulnerability, risks, and losses are unequally distributed between sectors (e.g. industrial vs. agricultural or, increasingly, financial vs. industrial and agricultural). They are also unequally distributed between countries (if we look at the earth resources as a whole) and, indeed, within any country. That is why, in functioning democracies, these decisions are, as far as reasonably practicable, subject to scrutiny that practitioners like myself call a “Risk Governance Framework”.
Another scientist agreed that scientific advice is not always subject to the same scrutiny within this Risk Governance Framework. She gave an example of the decision to construct a risk map for a particular hazard in a city (e.g. earthquakes) that accounts only for the physical and natural factors contributing to vulnerability (i.e. severity and frequency of earthquakes and the state of building and infrastructure stock). Such a map is based on a decision that it is acceptable to ignore the social, economic, and institutional factors that contribute to vulnerability. She continued that this is equally true in other cases for other hazards affecting cities, including flooding, storms, sea surges, drought, etc.
Another practitioner commented that, in many instances, we end up with a situation where the decision makers know they are right, the scientists believe they are right, and affected people living in cities with deteriorating infrastructure feel something is not quite right.
After a few drinks, the scientists and practitioners agreed to ask non-specialists, their fellow citizens, sitting in the bar for their perceptions. Based on their reaction, most of the two groups then agreed that to improve the science-policy interface, to promote evidence-based decision making, and to account for societal apprehensions and concerns, decisions and recommendations provided by scientists should lie within the Risk Governance Framework.
I can imagine a conversation about urban development between scientists and practitioners sipping on their favorite beverages would go something like this:
Practitioners: When designing a site for development, there are many constraints that basically boil down to time and money. Conserving open space here and there means less buildable space. Even conserving vegetation on lots and between lots and saving individual trees and small patches of trees, buffers, and soils takes effort and planning. Where should our efforts be placed to retain biodiversity and minimize impacts? When moving a road or adjusting the location and size of built and conserved spaces, can we quickly evaluate the impacts on different species? We need to balance the developers’ needs and economic realities with biodiversity concerns, so we need rapid assessments of the biodiversity value of different designs.
Scientists: Well, how a site design impacts biodiversity depends on the species in question, the landscape context, and the spatial configuration of built and conserved areas, such as the sizes and locations of forest patches. It is complex and there is not an easy way to assess different species across several designs.
Typically, scientists and practitioners both fall back on generalities: saving large patches of land and trying to connect remnants across a landscape. But how big must the patches and corridors be for different species? Can small patches and built areas be designed with biodiversity in mind? Built areas (e.g., native landscaping and conserving trees within home lots) and small fragments (e.g., utility easements) can serve as habitat for a variety of species, such as small birds, insects, and small mammals. Further, built areas need to be compatible with conserved areas in order to minimize impacts. But these areas typically get lost in the shuffle and are not incorporated into a conservation design.
The realities of urban development leave very little time to conduct field research in order to determine the best designs for biodiversity. Practitioners need a quick way to assess different designs so they can demonstrate “bang for their buck”. Is saving those strips of trees, native landscaping, and natural remnants worth it? For what species?
Moving forward, I believe collaborations need to ensue where ecologists and practitioners develop a biodiversity evaluation tool that would work with the realities of urban planning and design. In a previous blog, I mentioned that if ecologists developed biodiversity metrics for different species, these metrics could be linked to a GIS-based evaluation tool (CommunityViz®). This tool would output indices that are related to how various designs impact different species. However, I now think the tool needs to be much simpler—not GIS-based—because many developers and planning departments do not have the time or money to run CommunityViz® analyses. This comes from conversations with practitioners and the reality that running CommunityViz® analyses may be a barrier to evaluation of urban designs.
I think the conversation that ecologists and practitioners would have is how to make an online tool that is menu driven. This would mean ecologists would assign (through systematic reviews of the literature) some relevant metrics that are linked to specific taxa and to spatial geometries that practitioners could manipulate. Practitioners could input, for instance, the patch sizes of conserved areas, how much tree canopy is conserved, and whether native landscaping is used across built areas and percentages landscaped this way. Ecologists would create equations that are species specific and, when linked to patch sizes, tree canopy cover, and percent of native landscaping, could generate diversity scores. These diversity scores should be easily interpretable and transparent about how different designs benefit or negatively impact species.
This is not easy! For example, some migrant bird species, such as forest-interior birds, need “core habitat” during the breeding season and practitioners need to know how big a patch (and shape!) gives enough core habitat for a good chance of successful reproduction. Complicating things, these same forest-interior species can use smaller patches as stopover sites and overwinter areas; thus, both large and small patches are important during different life history stages. The tool would not only need to have diversity scores that account for large patches and shapes during the breeding season but smaller ones for migrating and winter seasons.
In the end, I think there will be several iterations of an effective biodiversity evaluation tool, and the discussion between our scientists and practitioners would turn towards what practitioners could easily calculate and manipulate in urban design, and what ecological data could be formatted and linked to these design variables. Ultimately, this evaluation process would give comparable outputs, leading to optimal solutions.
Maria is working on the investigation of different urban ecosystems and developing principles of ecological design. Her latest FORMAS project in Sweden was dedicated to the lawn as cultural and ecological phenomenon and symbol of globalization.
Maria Ignatieva
How can our scientific research can be effectively used in practice?
Rain garden (top) vs. Conventional local cleaning facilities, CLFC (bottom, showing reconstruction of engeneering networks and elements of stormwater sewage). Rain gardens are much cheaper and do not need special legal agreements. They help decrease the pressure to CLCF for up to 80-90 percent of surface water. A rain garden is a landscape architecture (LA) design element compared to CLCF, which needs special LA design considerations.
Use of research results is one of the most desirable slogans in modern landscape architecture. However, the most difficult questions is how to “translate” the research results and make them understandable not for only practitioners such as city planners, landscape architects, or engineers, but for city administrators and politicians who make final decisions and proof the cities’ budgets.
Actually, in all grant applications today, scientists are required to think about communications of their results with a stakeholders. I would like to share with you one example, in which I was involved directly, with such a “translation” of the research into practice in a real neighborhood in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Here a group of young landscape architecture practitioners (Andrey Bashkirov and Sergei Shevliakov) were inspired by my lectures for master’s and PhD students about new ecological designs, particularly on implementations of Low Impact Design—an environmentally friendly ecological design approach aimed at managing urban stormwater and promoting biodiversity. The area of Novoe Devyatkino neighborhood, with multistory residential buildings, required immediate help due to flood issues in common green areas. In 2013, the landscape architecture firm Sakura presented a concept design based on the introduction of LID devices such as rain gardens. Realizing that LID requires an interdisciplinary approach, social research (questionnaires, interviews, and observation studies) were also conducted in the summer of 2014. The analysis of these questionnaires has shown the importance of water (a lake). The majority of people valued the lake as a major attraction and expressed a need for the development and improvement of the shoreline. People found rain gardens very attractive and were satisfied with their appearance and conditions.
Rain Garden. June 2014Social survey (Biana and Tuula). June 2014
From the very beginning of this project we realized that the most effective tools for attracting politicians, administrators, and contracts was the economic factor. That is why the conceptual design was combined with a calculation of costs. Our economic research comparing costs of design and implementation of traditional waterstorm management practices and LID practices (rain gardens and swales) clearly indicated that rain gardens are much cheaper and do not need special legal agreements (figures above). They help to decrease the pressure on Conventional Local Cleaning Facilities (CLCF) for up to 80-90% of surface water. A rain garden is, in itself, a landscape architecture design element compared to CLCF, which need special landscape architecture considerations. The cost of creating the rain garden was 1557 rubles (including plant material) compared to 1862 rubles per hectare for conventional facilities (not including design, legal negotiations, and plant material costs). The management costs of LID new devices are also very low compare to traditional methods.
Team work of young administrator Olga (on the left), landscape architect (Andrei) and the researcher (Maria). November 2013.
One of the conclusions of this project was that conventional thinking is still strong in Russia, but young administrators are more open to new, innovative designs, especially when they can see an economic profit. We also found out that for the success of the new LID practice, it is crucial to educate contractors and implementation teams in the “right” management approach.
Other positive lessons from the realization of the Novoe Devyatkino project were the introduction of a social survey practice (directly involving local citizens in the design and management process) and the implementation of educational boards. The positive attitude of local administrators and local citizens toward this innovative landscape architecture practice gives us hope for the introduction of LID into a wider urban context within Russia.
Reference
Bashkirov, A., Shevliakov, S., Petter, B., Irishina I., Eriksson, T., Ignatieva, M. (2015) Implementation of Low Impact Design (LID) in Russia. In: M.Ignatieva, N. Thorne, E.Golosova, P. Berg., P. Hedfors, T. Eriksson, D. Menzies (eds). History of the Future. 52nd World Congress of the International Federation of Landscape Architects Congress proceedings. 10–12 June 2015. Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Peter the Great Saint-Petersburg State Polytechnic University Polytechnic University Publishing House, St. Petersburg. Pp.22-23.
Michael is an Associate Professor of Architecture at McGill University and Founding Director of the Facility for Architectural Research in Media and Mediation (FARMM).
Michael Jemtrud
A Case for the Counterfactual Project
There are moments when a problem quite simply has to be solved and consolidating resources and expertise is a relatively straight forward, sensible, and effective thing to do. There are numerous examples in which researchers effectively collaborate with practice, industry, and government to solve problems (see Note). However, the “pragmatic efficacy” of instrumentally linking research and practice has significant limitations in imagining alternative futures, practices, and ways of acting in an era defined as the anthropocene. It is here I would like to make a case for the counterfactual as a productive and mediating mode of collaboration between research and practice.
As Graham Harman states, “pragmatic success often occurs on the basis of half-truths or outright falsehoods. In such cases we do not always leave our theories intact simply because they seem to be working. Quite often, we change our theories to give them wider applicability and a better capacity to handle possible surprising cases.” He goes on to say, “Architecture might make theoretical decisions that are unnecessary in the current practical state of the art, for the simple reason that truth has a greater power, reliability, flexibility, and allure than mere practical success” (Harman 2013, p. 213).
Research-through-design is a formally recognized methodology of inquiry that is productive and characterized by its fabricative nature. Proposals are made and outputs are varied, from drawings, models, simulations, and time-based representations to policy and strategic documents. In its most potent form, it is an inclusive, multi-stakeholder, cross-disciplinary, project-based activity. As such, it is messy and gains its value as research and practice from this messiness. It is most often context specific and accepts the inevitably contested constraints, concerns, and worldviews brought to the table by the participants. As a productive mode of inquiry, it is self-aware of the fact that “praxis distorts the reality of things just as much as theory” (Harman 2013, p. 211).
Engaging in “What if? scenarios” can occur at a variety of levels, either historical reconsiderations or future propositional. For example, speculation ranges from the formalized and sensible “Urban Futures Method” for designing resilient cities to the utterly fantastic and counterfactual (Lombardi et al. 2012). Collaborating in this manner is a way of dragging the real world into the academy and the academy into the real world. It is a distortion of the conventionally formulated problematic wherein problem solving is surpassed but not left behind. Significantly so, research that embraces the counterfactual is a mode of provocation that agitates the disciplining inherent to disciplines. Like Harman, I am encouraging the counterfactual in all fields of inquiry. It is a critical device in collectively imagining what we ought to do, not merely what we can do.
Note
It can be argued that this is in fact the predominant model of research in the academy since WWII signaled by Eisenhower’s famous military–industrial complex speech in 1961. Suffice to say, this is not the place to get into the corporatization of higher education but it is a significant factor lurking behind the question at hand. Also see: Readings, B. (1997) The University in Ruins. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Chomsky, N. (2011) “Academic Freedom and the Corporatization of Universities”. Online at: http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20110406.htm [Accessed 11 December 2014]: “it seems pretty clear that the shift toward corporate funding [for research in universities] is leading towards more short-term applied research and less exploration of what might turn out to be interesting and important down the road.”
References
Harman, G. (2013) Non-Relationality for Philosophers and Architects (2012). Found in Bells and Whistles: More Speculative Realism.
Lombardi, D.R., et. al. (2012) Designing Resilient Cities: A guide to good practice. Watford, UK: BRE Press.
Deborah Lev is about to retire from the position of City Nature Manager for Portland Parks & Recreation in Portland, Oregon, overseeing natural area management, environmental education, urban forestry, and community gardens.
Deborah Lev
400 urban ecology researchers and practitioners walk into a symposium. What happens? Research is summarized, questions are answered, contact information is exchanged and relationships are kindled.
In Portland (Oregon, USA) this is an annual event of the Urban Ecology Research Consortium (UERC). “UERC is a consortium of people from various educational institutions, state and federal agencies, local governments, non-profit organizations and businesses, as well as independent professionals and students, interested in supporting urban ecosystem research and creating an information sharing network of people that collect and use ecological data in the Portland/Vancouver area. The mission of the UERC is to advance the state of the science of urban ecosystems and improve our understanding of them, with a focus on the Portland/Vancouver metropolitan region, by fostering communication and collaboration among researchers, managers and citizens at academic institutions, public agencies, local governments, non-profit organizations, and other interested groups.” (from the UERC website).
The 13 year-old annual symposium provides a forum to present research findings in 8 minute presentations in sessions which have included topics such as wildlife, stream health, ecological processes, vegetation, water quality, public perception, and urban canopy. A poster session and inspirational keynote speakers (including David Maddox, convener of this Roundtable) as well as networking opportunities complete the daylong event. Proceedings of past symposia can be downloaded from the UERC website.
UERC Symposium 2015. Photo: Mike Houck
The regional focus has indeed fostered ongoing relationships within the Portland, Oregon/Vancouver, Washington area. Attendees are encouraged to directly contact researchers and a listserv keeps people connected with announcements and events. Popular presenters are invited to present at longer format brown bag presentations scheduled throughout the year.
As a local government natural resources manager, I have tried to base natural resource management decisions and policy on science and data. I understand from direct experience how hard it is to stay abreast of applied research related to invasive species control, stormwater best management practices (BMPs), and visitor attitudes, let alone academic literature in related fields such as ecology, ecosystem services, and climate change. I appreciate having UERC to provide connections in my region and the opportunity to share our own work. What else can practitioners do to build better relationships with the research community? I offer a few suggestions here hoping that others will add to the list and colleagues in the research community can offer suggestions for researchers to better connect with practitioners.
Suggestions for practitioners:
Collect data and make it available to others. Monitoring your treatments? Doing baseline assessments or before-and-after counts of plants and animals? Document your methods or adopt methods already in use by others. Share. Researchers may be interested in following up on your work or may find your results useful in identifying potential research sites.
Invite academic research on your property. Are you a land manager? Think of your land as an urban ecology research lab. A permit system can help ensure that you receive reports of data collected on your property and a better understanding of management issues. Have a particular management question? Consider sponsoring a graduate student’s research project at your local research institution.
Attend meetings and conferences. Organizations such as the Society for Ecological Restoration and professional organizations hold regional conferences that help connect research and practice.
Follow publications in your field. Journal subscriptions and individual reprints are expensive but many journals offer free subscriptions to regularly receive the journal’s table of contents and allow free abstract downloads.
Take advantage of outreach materials from agencies and research institutions. In the United States, the Forest Service does a great job of making research accessible. http://www.fs.fed.us/research/
Gather nine of your practitioner colleagues and head to a bar with some researchers.Bring those troubling questions from your applied work; let the conversations begin.
Louise is Deputy Director of the Environment in the Paris Region. An Architect-Urban Planner with a PhD in Geography, she works on the cities-nature relationship. She is a member of the IUCN-WCPA.
Louise Lézy-Bruno
Is it a dialogue of the deaf?
In 2010, during the BiodiverCities conference we organized in Paris, I heard the manager of a national park of a large city in East Africa say that he and his city official counterpart had met for the first time on the plane to come to Paris. Two administrations, two jobs, with no conversation between them. But both had already met the researchers who came to ask both park managers and city officials questions about their fields.
The objective of this conference was, precisely, to gather around the table cities, parks managers, and the researchers working on the relationship between cities and parks. The researchers assumed the role of middle ground between the different tribes of managers.
But at the end of the conference, there was still a hint of disappointment in the air: the practitioners (in cities and parks) had presented the results of the actions they had managed to set up and the researchers had analyzed, even criticized, everything that had been accomplished…No wonder! The researcher is there to raise questions, the practitioner, to find solutions.
They are made for each other, it seems! Both are needed to develop an applied research process, even if they each intend to call into question the certainties of the other party. In practice, the researcher is the “troublemaker on duty” that comes into the practitioner’s field to analyze everything that goes wrong. The practitioner breaks his back to find solutions, which are inevitably a compromise between local knowledge, social demands, political pressures, limited human resources and budget constraints. In his mind, he has just resolved the squaring of the circle. Of course, he doesn’t greet the “researcher of problems”, coming into his field to give him lessons on what is good and what is not, with pleasure.
How can we be sure that the theoretical analysis of the researchers can be working tools for the practitioners? How can independent research support operational choices on the field?
We need to be more malleable with each other, more attentive.
For me, the answer is like cocktails: varied recipes produce different effects. The “Caipirinha” and the “Sex on the beach” are different. First, it is a matter of substrate: in the hot alcohol, the cachaça, and in the iced alcohol, the vodka, produce different results. The ingredients of the first are mixed in a shaker; in the second, the difference in densities of the ingredients makes up the whole. In the end, both results could be very good.
In other words, there is no single recipe for the dialogue between research and operational practice. We must simply have a common goal towards which to combine our different ingredients: either the mixture of different components forms the whole, or the superposition of the strata supports the entirety.
For example, long-term research deepens the questions that the immediacy of practice does not allow. In turn, the practitioner provides the fertile ground for the production of the researcher. In this way, the results of the scientific research should be able to fertilize the management practice. The wealth and independence of scientific research should be the substrate of practitioner action, the elements combining to both inform and support decisions. Likewise, the application of theory in practice enables checks of the theory’s validity.
In addition to basic research, the academy could incorporate more applied research. But it should also develop tools to disseminate scientific information and translate scientific language into technical and popular languages. We could develop more research programs associated with field actions, with research funding, or with orders from the field stakeholders.
By de-compartmentalizing academic and operational fields and promoting teamwork, we can make researchers, practitioners, and decision makers work together.
The trick is to know how to combine the minds and the spirits, and we will have a good cocktail!
Yvonne is an Urban Greening & Climate Resilience Strategist who works with Royal Commission for Riyadh City.
Yvonne Lynch
If 10 scientists and 10 practitioners were walking into a bar, it’s entirely possible that they would not be walking in together. As the benefits and value to be gained through scientist-practitioner collaborations remain largely untapped, the time has come for the confluence of these divergent communities, so I hope this bar has a late trading licence!
A key challenge for urban nature-focused scientists and practitioners is the ability to affect the process of urbanisation itself. We know that nature and green infrastructure in cities is still regarded primarily for its amenity value instead of its essential ecosystem services provision. Grey infrastructure and the built form command priority and investment in both city planning and market processes. You could say that we have a relatively simple formula for how we grow our cities, and that formula is: grey in, green out. With climate change looming and population growth booming, there is no doubt that we need to transition toward a new way of developing our cities and towns.
What we need is the rapid co-production of relevant knowledge that can inform and transform urban policy and practice. This requires that research and practitioner communities establish effective partnerships, engage in an ongoing dialogue, and formulate research questions together. Currently, scientists and academics have limited incentives to undertake research that is focused on practice because research is normally orientated towards other academics rather than practitioners. There is often an optimism that the research will make its way back to practice. More direct contact between scientists and practitioners would go some way to remedying this situation and it would dramatically improve both the quality of research and policy practice.
So why is there limited interaction between scientists and practitioners? At this stage, I’ve been to more conferences, seminars, and symposiums than I’ve had hot dinners. I’ve yet to see a beautiful blend of scientists and practitioners together in major conference programs. I think it’s an area for improvement. Joint seminars and conferences between scientists and practitioners can help demonstrate the relevance of research to practitioners and the relevance of practitioners to researchers. It would definitely lead to more bar-time together.
Attendees in Melbourne at the National Urban Forest Master Class, 25 June 2015.
On 25 June, the City of Melbourne convened a National Urban Forest Master Class with the Victorian State Government and the 202020 Vision to advance planning and implementation of urban greening across Australia. We brought together over 200 local government officers, practitioners and researchers and provided them with a “How to Grow an Urban Forest” guidebook. The most important aspects of the Master Class for the practitioners were the focus sessions on demystifying the data and the science, communication, and effective partnership development. For the researchers and scientists, the critical component was an insight into the political and community contexts that frame policy development.
Neil Brenner’s work demonstrates urbanization is a process of constant transformation that leads continuously to the production of new urban configurations and constellations. We need to collaborate to understand that. Cities are the ideal canvas for research and we’ve never had more at stake in terms of how we’re developing. The deliberation at the bar needs to focus on how we can advance our ability to understand and solve complex problems together, how we can develop a shared understanding of our similarities, and, ultimately, how we can focus the lens on reality and combine intellect and resources to advance the outcomes for urban nature.
Ian MacGregor-Fors is a researcher at INECOL (Mexico). His interests are broad, but he focuses on the responses of wildlife species to urbanization.
Ian MacGregor-Fors
Science and its diverse disciplines have both basic—or fundamental—and applied components. On the one hand, basic science relies on the exploration of unknown phenomena regardless of the potential applicability. The reason behind focusing on any given phenomenon, hypothesis, or topic in any basic science research varies from mere curiosity to continuation of previous findings in a similar line of thought. Applied science seeks to address specific needs or to solve practical problems based on preexisting knowledge gained through basic science research. However, there are cases—occurring more frequently in recent decades—where basic and applied sciences work together to generate the new information needed to tackle specific concerns from scratch.
Currently, planet Earth is experiencing important changes that have resulted in unprecedented environmental and social disasters. Poverty, water insufficiency, food scarcity, disease epidemics, climate change, and pollution, among other devastating problems, are at the top of the list of news headlines. Among other factors, this has resulted in a biased perception of science as a problem solving activity, setting aside and, often, excluding some of its most fundamental expressions. I agree that the basic/applied science ratio is dynamic and responds to a complex array of external factors; yet, some of those driving forces could tip the ratio out of balance.
The path that runs from generating scientific knowledge to its potential immediate application, if any, can be as diverse as the universe of evidence-based findings. It is important to underline that for scientific knowledge to be applicable, it needs to be robust and sufficient to integrally solve a given problem. Robustness of science usually depends on the spatial and temporal scale of its design, which often requires more than a single view to represent the nature of the phenomenon being studied. So not only are multiple studies generally recommended to have a complete enough picture of the tested hypotheses or described phenomena, but diverse views—venturing into the multi-, cross-, inter-, and even trans-disciplinary schemes—are also necessary to successfully achieve the desired results.
From my perspective, the cornerstone of scientific knowledge application is willingness from all implied stakeholders. Aside from the actors facing the problem, there are two other main components involved in this process: scientists and practitioners. One important ingredient behind the complexity of applying evidence-based knowledge is the number and type of involved actors. The number of scientists and practitioners needed in solving a practical issue generally depends on the magnitude or specificity of the problem. Although it may seem intuitive that having more actors solving a problem could increase its probability of success, it can also escalate potential complications. Something similar happens with the type of scientists and practitioners involved in the application of knowledge to address a specific need, where a trade-off arises as the degree of complexity increases due to including multi- to trans-disciplinary approaches. Nonetheless, emerging additional actors joining this interesting equation are currently bridging the gap of complexity when large and diverse stakeholder groups are required to address a specific problem; the most important of these additional actors are “evidence-based knowledge translators”—a blend between applied scientists and decision making practitioners.
Once the actors are defined and all parts share a common goal, an initial step could be to search for preexisting studies that could shed some light on the matter; there is an overwhelming amount of top-notch knowledge gathering dust in science journals! I am not suggesting that preexisting knowledge is generalizable and ready to use; however, it could represent a basis to depart from, saving valuable time and resources. Also at the initial stages of a project, languages—including technical ones—need to be equalized if one primary objective is to level the comprehension of all edges of a given problem based on first- or second-hand evidence-based knowledge.
Charlie Nilon is a professor of urban wildlife management at the University of Missouri. His research and teaching focus on urban wildlife conservation and on the human dimensions of wildlife conservation. Since 1997, he has ben a co-principal investigator on the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES).
Charlie Nilon
This is an interesting and important topic, one that is certainly relevant to those of us who are trained as ecologists. This Roundtable’s question comes, in part, from the way that the field of urban ecology has developed over the past 20 years. Urban forestry and urban wildlife management are older fields with a strong focus on addressing issues and problems in cities. Lowell Adams (2005) reviews the history of urban wildlife management, noting the development of urban wildlife in the 1970s and 1980s as a sub-field of wildlife ecology and management, the field’s ties in the U.S. to urban planning and to state agency programs, and the strong connection to urban nature conservation programs in Europe, specifically those in the U.K. and Germany. Those programs all emphasized strong science but also application of that science to questions relevant to managers and planners. Two larger urban ecology initiatives from this period, the Man and the Biosphere program (MAB) and the U.S. Forest Service’s urban forestry research program, all combined research with an applied focus on management and conservation.
The last 20 years have been an exciting time in urban ecology. The start of major research efforts in the U.S., Germany, and the U.K. in the mid 1990s brought the study of urban ecosystems into the mainstream of ecology and mainstream ecologists into cities. In the U.S., the National Science Foundation’s long term ecological research projects in Baltimore and Phoenix consciously focused on addressing important ecological questions and continued their emphasis on a human ecosystem approach in studying cities. This research is important and has advanced our knowledge of urban ecosystems, but it does not always translate into information that urban residents can use or that managers can apply.
The gap between researchers and managers is in large part due to the distancing of questions that are important to ecologists from those that are important to managers, planners, and residents. Questions raised by urban residents and managers are viewed by those who fund research as “lacking conceptual focus” or as “unexciting”, or simply as topics not worthy of study by serious ecologists. Peer-reviewed journals often have similar views of applied questions and ask that authors limit management recommendations to statements on what managers should consider. Finally, many university faculty view students interested in careers in management as being not quite good enough, forgetting that universities educate the large majority of managers.
But managers raise questions that are difficult for researchers. Managers are responsible for a large number of native and non-native species across a diverse landscape. Managers often work at a site-scale rather than the landscape or ecosystem scales preferred by many researchers. Managers work with constituents who have perspectives on management that are often different from both managers and ecologists, and managers work for agencies and organizations that may not place a priority on nature conservation. And, managers may not view urban ecologists and the research they do as useful or helpful.
A solution to bridging the gap between researchers and managers in cities may be in viewing conservation issues as collaborative projects that involve residents, managers, and researchers rather than just implementing management practices or conducting research. An example of this approach is Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s urban forestry program’s efforts to replace street trees in low-income neighborhoods. The forestry program worked with residents and with researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to identify neighborhoods that were poorly served by the existing tree planting program. The project led to a new approach in working with neighborhoods as part of the city’s tree management program.
References
Adams L. (2005) Urban wildlife ecology and conservation: A brief history of the discipline. Urban Ecosyst 8:139–156.
Diane Pataki is a Professor of Biological Sciences, an Adjunct Professor of City & Metropolitan Planning, and Associate Vice President for Research at the University of Utah. She studies the role of urban landscaping and forestry in the socioecology of cities.]
Diane Pataki
This topic is timely as I’m one of the many researchers who would like to do more to translate knowledge into action. Yet, the notion that progress has been slow and difficult is familiar. In addition to common concerns about communication and process, I see an additional barrier to the integration of science and practice.
Scientists are trained to be critical. We are constantly critiquing ideas, methods, and results. Critique comes in many forms: manuscript and proposal reviews, supervision of student work, and discussions of new projects and findings with colleagues. There are always alternative ways of looking at data, uncertainties in methods and extrapolations, and better ways of conducting experiments and observations. Critique and skepticism are the scientific habits of mind, and with good reason—this is one central way in which we advance scientific understanding.
However, cities can’t be built on skepticism. To construct livable places, we have to envision, inspire, plan, design, and implement. We have to create instead of tearing down. Yet scientists are trained to continually challenge ideas, point out uncertainties, and highlight dubious assumptions. This must be done—there is an important role of examining uncertainties and assumptions of new ideas from a scientific perspective. But there is also a role for science that inspires. The opportunity to integrate scientific knowledge into a new vision for cities, one which translates our increasingly nuanced understanding of nature and human-environment interactions, has never been greater. How can we take advantage of these opportunities?
I have spoken with many practitioners and decision-makers in the cities in which I live and work. There is truly a desire to integrate good science into practice in these places. My research focuses on costs and benefits of different types of vegetation and landscaping in cities. There is wide consensus that re-vegetating cities has many benefits, as evidenced by many posts here and elsewhere. But “the devil is in the details.” Currently, I see a dichotomy in how scientists and practitioners approach this issue. On the one hand, the call for “more green, everywhere” has swept through cities the world over. But the possible configurations for constructed greenspace are virtually endless. Our research has shown (not surprisingly) that these configurations matter—particular plant types, species, and spatial arrangements have a large influence on the outcomes for greenspace, both positive and negative. In many cities, the commonly cited option of restoring native plant assemblages to urban areas is not feasible or even desirable (in arid cities, for example, where trees and other culturally important vegetation is not native). Given the range of options, science can and should inform new greenspace designs, which could be monitored and evaluated with the wide array of instrumentation used to study non-urban ecosystems. But to date, there is still a wide gap between urban ecosystem science and practice.
One way to bridge the gap may be to focus on developing the collective vision of scientists, practitioners, and stakeholders about the cities in which they want to live. Beyond the experiments, the methods, and the data, scientists have a role to play in helping to shape a vision of the future in which our best understanding of place-based ecology, the built environment, and well-being are all integrated. Such visions can be aspirational—even unattainable. And they will change over time. The process of envisioning and working toward a common goal may be enough, even if the goal is later refuted by new information, or otherwise never fully realized.
Critiques have their place, but so does the process of developing a shared vision in which scientific advances are part of an exciting new future for cities and urban nature.
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
Urban planning in many countries is a profession, so planning researchers work closely with practitioners. Indeed, the questions posed by this roundtable are objects of research in planning. The issue is broader than knowledge generation, but encompasses knowledge use and acceptance of knowledge. Knowledge in the urban planning context is embedded in the political, social, and cultural context. This is particularly relevant when knowledge is applied in practice and has economic and political implications.
For example, if a new road is been proposed, there are many ways the road could be designed (different routes, different widths, etc.), and each design will have a social, political, and economic implication. For instance, if the road is close to my house, it will increase the value of my house, but if it is too close, it may be a disturbance. Thus scientific and technical knowledge can help the decisions, but the final decisions in the urban context will be a political decision. There is no “definitive truth” or “neutral knowledge” in urban planning, and that is why cities are so different.
As a scientist/researcher, I truly believe that research can advance practice. But I am critical about the use of scientific knowledge in certain instances, which many times is used to empower the powerful (who can buy and use the best knowledge and hire the best technical people) and disempower the powerless (in general, the poor or the weakest in society, such as minorities). Over-reliance on technical information and on the opinion of experts is occurring side by side with negligence of local knowledge and lack of effective public participation from non-technical, other actors in decision-making. This creates an imbalance in the political process and also a sense of overconfidence regarding scientific knowledge that can be dangerous in many instances. Thus, the right direction for good planning is to figure out how to balance the different kinds of knowledge to make better planning processes and outcomes.
The best way to increase and advance interactions between different kinds of knowledge is public participation, which is a political process. Even though public participation can be a means to inform, consult, involve, collaborate, or empower (citizens and scientists); it can also lead to manipulation, coercion, and misinformation. How participation is integrated into decision-making process determines the benefits for specific land use planning outcomes along with legitimacy and fairness of the process. However, there is still a lack of understanding and scarce empirical research done on how the participation of different actors can effectively affect public interventions in land use planning, particularly those promoted by government and developers. What we know is that there is no “right way” to do participation, and an interesting point of participatory/interactive processes is that the outcomes can be very different, even among the same group of stakeholders or with the same people.
Rebecca is the President of The Greening of Detroit, a 25 year old non-profit environmental organization that works to secure the ecosystem of Detroit.
Rebecca Salminen Witt
Consider this recent interaction between a medical researcher and a community leader in Detroit, Michigan:
Researcher: “We are currently studying the interaction between chemical and non-chemical environmental stressors in urban environments. We are planning to study the construction of Detroit’s new light rail system in this context. How can we engage nearby neighborhoods in our research?”
Leader: “Well, my neighborhood is not located along the new light rail line. All of the investment in this City is happening downtown. We need resources in the neighborhoods. We are constantly being studied, but no one is offering us any resources. Y’know what I’m sayin’?”
Both the researcher and the community leader are working to improve Detroit’s environment. Both are committed and passionate about their work. Each could be helpful to the work of the other. But clearly, they don’t have a common starting point from which to develop this potentially fruitful relationship. They aren’t even starting in the same neighborhood, much less walking into a bar together!
This exchange gets to the crux of our focus question. How can we fortify the hyper-local and generally self-interested work of the practitioner with the work of researchers dealing with theoretical concepts often designed to be applicable in a global context and rarely grounded in individual realities?
First, identify common ground. The researcher in this example wants his research to help reduce stress-induced disease. The community leader wants her neighborhood to benefit from the economic development that is the source of the stress that the researcher is studying. Could the researcher study the stress caused by being “left out” of the surge in economic development happening in other parts of the City? Could the Community leader draw attention to the needs of her neighborhood by participating in the study? If they were discussing this over a beer instead of in a conference room, would the conversation be more productive?
Next we should examine the language that these partners are using. Remember the community leader’s question in my example “Y’know what I’m sayin’?” Without thoughtful consideration of the language that they are using in their conversation with one another, neither one of these Detroiters is likely to know what the other is saying. The community leader is looking for resources to get vacant houses demolished and the empty lots mowed on her block. She hasn’t got the slightest concern for the “chemical and non-chemical environmental stressors in urban environments.” Yet she is clearly impacted by the environmental stressors in her neighborhood, and would likely benefit from the results of the proposed research.
Similarly, the researcher needs data, and just wants to talk to some real people who are likely to be affected by his target stressor. If the researcher had simply asked to chat about what was causing neighbors to stress out, he may have engendered a more helpful response. The community leader may have been able to recognize that she is suffering from stress brought on by her environment and might have seen some personal relevance in the research, leading her to participate. Similarly, if the community leader had focused her response on the proposed research instead of the needs of her own neighborhood, she may have found that the research was a resource in its own right.
What this conversation needs is focus and plain language. The next time these two walk into a bar together, I hope they’ll order a beer, take the time to figure out where their interests overlap, and work hard to communicate clearly about opportunities to pursue their common objectives.
Philip's work focuses on informal adult learning and participatory action research in social-ecological systems. He is dedicated to exploring nature in all of its urban expressions.
Philip Silva
Let’s imagine that the scientists at the bar are out celebrating a new publication in a prestigious academic journal and the practitioners are celebrating the successful completion of a big environmental restoration project. Both groups raise their glasses to mark the end of two different knowledge-intensive processes. Their methods for creating new knowledge may be similar, such as natural resource managers using environmental sensing tools to collect data on the outcomes of their restoration efforts. But practitioners and scientists have different motives in their work and different rewards for a job well done. They make different kinds of knowledge for different purposes and they have different long-term expectations for the knowledge they produce.
We often speak of science as if it has a monopoly on the process of making new knowledge. Yet not all knowledge is scientific knowledge. Not all claims made on the basis of observation and evidence are exclusively scientific claims. Not all knowledge is codified using scientific standards, such as blind peer review or reproduction of research results. Science creates scientific knowledge. Other processes and practices produce other kinds of knowledge. We might debate whether science is an exceptional way to create exceptionally reliable knowledge or whether it is just one of many different methods for constructing stable meaning out of the chaos of reality—but that’s a debate for a different forum. For now, let’s just agree that knowledge making isn’t solely a scientific endeavor.
Harry Collins (2007) argues that, “Science, if it can deliver truth, cannot deliver it at the speed of politics.” Practitioners are often faced with day-to-day puzzles that go far beyond the knowledge found in textbooks or journal articles. Laws are passed, ecosystems are restored, polluters are punished, and natural resources are managed on the basis of sound scientific knowledge. Yet in plenty of cases, practitioners have to learn as they go and create their own useful insights into the problem at hand—either because the knowledge produced by science is incomplete or, in cases of complex and emergent systems, because the science doesn’t match reality. Waiting around for science to catch up with the chaos can lead to disastrous results, as Brian Wynne (1996) showed in his study of sheep farmers and regulatory scientists in northern England struggling to manage radioactive fall-out from Chernobyl in 1986.
Knowledge for management needn’t make a detour through the methods and conventions of science. It can, and often must, find its own path. When we speak of practitioners and scientists getting together to co-produce knowledge, we shouldn’t always give priority to the co-production of scientific knowledge, forcing practitioners to carve out a space for themselves in the practice of science and rarely expecting the same of scientists in the service of management. Funtowicz and Ravetz (1991) proposed the idea of “post-normal science” to deal with these issues nearly a quarter century ago, and though they came close to honoring the practical knowledge that comes out of daily management, they nonetheless created a theoretical framework that shoehorned all forms of knowledge production under the heading of science. Mainstream science, in return, has largely ignored their prescriptions—and rightly so. Science is science. Post-normal science is, well, something else; something like the knowledge making practices we see at play in day-to-day environmental management.
I’d like to see more practitioners becoming aware of the knowledge-making and knowledge-managing dimensions of their work. They may find useful insights and ideas in the knowledge that comes from science, but they also need to see themselves as insightful puzzle-solvers with wisdom to share with others in their fields.
In turn, I’d like to see scientists grow comfortable with the notion that other forms of knowledge production can bear a striking to science without having to actually be science. Intellectually informed management and epistemologically humbled science? It’s hardly an inspiring toast to rally our revelers, but all the same, I’ll drink to that.
As the introductory chapter states: “Sustainability is everywhere.” Indeed, what did we do before the introduction of the term? Sustainability in the Global City engages with the concept of urban sustainability from a sophisticated, skeptical, but sympathetic perspective. Through multiple case studies, it shows the complex and contradictory tensions that emerge in the concepts and practices for implementing greater sustainability. The programs described in the book are organized to highlight the ways in which sustainability initiatives impact social justice and equity, showing how, in some cases, it can entail positive change,yet increase domination by organized economic interests.
One of the major contributions of this book is the use of ethnography to create detailed accounts of local histories, cultural meanings, and everyday lives. Embedded in the larger context of history, social and cultural expectations, norms, and political rules and organization, this perspective provides an understanding of how urban dwellers interact with the sustainability discourse, and how the programs can disguise otherwise purely modernist projects of displacement. The anthropological voice is welcome in uncovering the tensions and contradictions that emerge from sustainability initiatives.
The introduction does an admirable job of revisiting the origins and history of sustainability, placing it squarely in the negotiated outcome of the collapse of communism and the unfettered rise of neoliberalism. While it backs away from claiming that sustainability and sustainable development are fully co-opted concepts, better placing their origins provides greater understanding of how and why upscale, cosmopolitan, and politically liberal urbanites tend to be attracted to sustainability.
Chapters are organized into four parts: Building the Myth, Branding the Green Global City; Planning, Design and Sustainability in the Wake of Crisis; Everyday Engagements with Urbanity and “Nature;” and Cities Divided: Urban Intensification, Neoliberalism and Urban Activism. I liked that some chapters were theoretical and academic, drawing on literature, and that some were simple and direct vignettes. Cities from around the world are included and each place illustrates a different face of urban sustainability endeavors, from modernizing traditional laundries in Delhi and the impacts on the Dhobis (washer-people) and water resources, to ethnographic research on bicycling in Los Angeles and Seattle. The common thread throughout is that sustainability policies and programs affect people and communities differently depending on their status and degree of activism.
I highly recommend this collection of essays, and hope to have a chance to use it in teaching. It provides insightful and nuanced perspectives on how the language of sustainability is used, how programs get deployed, and their differential impacts on communities. The sophisticated way in which the concept and its origins get unpacked offer an important corrective to some of the dominant paradigms and definitions of sustainable development and sustainable cities that then allow a more critical rethinking of the terms and direction. By such thoughtful engagement, we may have a chance to reexamine sustainability, to develop more precise terms, and examining the full impacts in order to emerge to the next set of alternatives that can be more just. There is no doubt that integrated, less resource intensive, more human- and nature-oriented development and redevelopment is necessary. This volume helps us be more alert to unintended consequences and to the need for greater equity going forward.
As urban areas explode around us, competition is heightened between nature and built landscapes. There is a salient competition between biodiversity on the one hand and structures—infrastructure installations—on the other. In Kampala, this competition is manifest in how deliberate actions of development clear natural areas for housing structures and infrastructure, thereby accelerating biodiversity loss. But it also manifests in the form of desire for aesthetically pleasing landscapes in the built-up patches of urban landscapes that are considered for leisure more than for ecological benefits.
Given the current debates around sustainable development and climate change mitigation, this competition is taking an interesting twist in which publically initiated programs and activities are starting to recognize the importance of nature and biodiversity as one among the various solutions.
In this article, I present a case of a municipally initiated effort to ‘green’ the city of Kampala with the motive of addressing climate change mitigation. This initiative has its good aspects, enhancing green patches and biodiversity, but also comes with problems depending on the choice of species planted for greening the city. Caught in the midst of global and regional debates about dealing with climate change, this low-emitting city of Kampala is embarking on a number of climate smart initiatives for mitigation and adaptation. One of these activities that the municipal authority is planning to embark on is the planting of 500,000 trees in the city. This sounds like good news for biodiversity and ecological enhancement, but it also comes with challenges from which lessons can be drawn on urban space creation and biodiversity.
Urban space as understood from everyday life
Urban space is an interesting combination of structures and green areas, as illustrated by many cities including Kampala. From a practical point of view, urban space goes beyond physical space to include social relations, processes, nature, and actors. Different urban spaces change in time according to function and the actors involved. For example, it is important to think about specific areas as residential zones to which people retreat to rest from work and vibrant city life. But these residential spaces are understood from everyday life experiences based on how an individual, group, or neighborhood makes use of the space.
To this end, it is possible to find commercial and/or production activities within residential spaces. It is this mix of functions, people, and relations that creates urban space. To illustrate this view, the street has also been described as an important spatial entity of understanding urban space, where a series of activities from trading, social relating, communication, networking, to commuting occur. There is little consideration of biodiversity as a component of residential urban spaces, yet we know that trees and animals exist in these spaces. It is also known that enhancing these spaces with urban forestry can pave the way for a return of animals if the forests measure up to habitats for such species. The return of animals such as primates and other medium sized animals redefines the urban space and can be a practical strategy for living in harmony with nature in cities such as Kampala.
Photo: Shuaib Lwasa
Greening Kampala and the return of primates
As I mentioned earlier, Kampala City Council Authority is in the process of embarking on planting trees in Kampala, with a high target of planting 500,000 The species are yet to be determined, as this has to be elaborated by the Landscaping Unit of the city authority. The planting of trees is part of an effort to ‘green’ the city, where greening was initially conceived as getting more tree coverage in a city that is already considerably green. But greening has been expanded to include low carbon development and institutional energy balancing by the City authority. The loss of trees is occurring at an alarming rate, especially on hilltops and lowland areas in this tropical landscape known for dense vegetation and tree canopy. The city is located in an area that previously had natural land cover dominated by tropical rain forests that were habitat for primates. The remnants of these forests still accommodate primates, but these animals have moved or have been killed through time as built up areas intensified.
The greening activity is part of the effort to build climate resilience in the city, which has been envisaged to have multiple benefits. Green cover would enhance aesthetics, reduce common flash floods through increased infiltration, and sequester greenhouse gases. But one unforeseen possibility of the greening program is the return or increase of the primate population in the city as habitat is re-created. To this end, it is important for planners and practitioners of urban space re-creation in Kampala to think about tree species that would attract the return of primates, whose persistence has continuously communicated that they will not be left out of the city. Given this potential for the return of primates in big numbers, should greening be KCCA-led or led by a private developer? If there is appreciation of urban spaces that create harmony between nature and built forms, how can the greening activity be utilized to improve habitats and return primates to Kampala? What would be the motivations for increased biodiversity in the city?
Photo: Shuaib Lwasa
Competing motivations
In the process of greening, there are competing issues. The desire to identify with global initiatives of reducing emissions by sequestering greenhouse gases is motivated also by existing resource envelopes from which finances can be tapped by the city authorities. Thus, the selection of tree species is likely to be those with a high uptake of greenhouse gases—species that may not provide food and proper habitat for primates. Primates live in habitats with plenty of wild fruit trees from which to forage.
The other competing motivation for greening is the production of food by practicing urban agriculture. Though this can provide food for primates, urban agriculture tends to promote crops with high-value niches, which may not provide the right habitat for primates. And although, at the individual plot level, the motivation of aesthetic appeal achieved through landscaping may promote the return of primates, acceptance of their existence may not be guaranteed, as they may be seen as pests that should be driven out of urban spaces, residential or otherwise. Therefore, important considerations for the return of primates include tree species, planting systems, and who gets involved. Whereas the city authority’s plan to take the lead on planting the trees is plausible, the authority has very limited land, meaning that achieving their goal of 500,000 trees will remain challenging. Yet, this obstacle is also an opportunity if the authority recognizes the role that individual developers can do on their plots of land to plant trees towards the 500,000 goal. Since most land is held and owned by individuals, it is prudent that the approach to planting systems should involve the developers. A good number of hilltops are still covered by trees, and those cleared of trees can be replanted. The return of primates also has ecosystem co-benefits down the food chain, including increases in protein-rich insects, pollination, seed dispersing and ecosystem productivity.
How can greening pave the way for the return of primates in Kampala?
I summarize below the various ways that can be deliberately planned for the return of primates in Kampala.
The city is in an area that receives substantive amounts of rainfall ranging from 1200 to 1500 mm annually. With the established correlation between rainfall amounts and primate populations, there is a high possibility that well-targeted greening will pave the way for the return of primates in the city.
City authority-initiated greening is plausible, but may not be sufficient to achieve the targeted number of trees. Involving developers either through incentivizing tree planting or the inclusion of tree coverage on plots in development standards will most likely achieve the target in a more efficient way.
Tree species for planting are critical in that the inclusion of fruit-trees is important for the return of primates. This will ensure availability of food for primates, reducing fears about primates becoming pests and attacking homes in search for food.
Common fruit tree species in the area, such as fig trees, could be planted for the purpose of attracting primates.
Lowland areas and hilltops are appropriate areas for increasing tree cover and habitats for primates. There are co-benefits of focusing on these areas for increased tree coverage; if connected through vegetative corridors, these areas can enable primate thrive in the city. Hilltops and lowland areas covered mostly by wetlands in Kampala have a co-benefit of regulating hydrology of the city.
Incentivizing tree planting will be critical for Kampala to achieve its 500,000 tree target. Incentivizing can be in different forms. Municipal charges for development can be discounted with a clear tree-planting plan as part of the development. Providing seedlings and, where appropriate, subsidies for purchase may also be another way to incentive developers to engage in greening.
Conclusion
This article illustrates that urban spaces have largely been understood in physical terms and dominated by human population. Space definition, however, can be enhanced by including function such as biodiversity enhancement. Re-creating urban spaces in response to diverse motivations, such as climate change mitigation, is creating possibilities for the return or increase in the population of primates in Kampala. Though this may not be seen as an opportunity by many, the ecological benefits of primates in the city outweighs the risks associated with an increased number of primates. Living in harmony would be supported by targeted greening that includes planting trees that provide food for the primates while creating corridors that can enable migration, access to water, and a variety of food between lowland forests and hilltop forests. Given that Kampala lies in a tropical zone that receives substantive rainfall, the current small population of primates is likely to multiply, but attraction from nearby forest zones will also increase the primates in the city.
California has long been a center of gardening culture. With a mild climate and a history of agricultural expansion followed by rapid urbanization, California’s ornamental gardens are populated by plant species and cultivars imported from all over the world. Many of these exotic species have become iconic, such as the palm trees, figs, and citrus of southern California. However, the current drought has brought wide recognition of the fact that most of these ornamental plants, from the palm trees of Rodeo Drive to Santa Barbara’s landmark Moreton Bay Fig, are supported by irrigation that is rapidly becoming a scarce commodity. So, is there a place for ornamental gardens in the new California? We’ve been studying this question for a number of years in Los Angeles and its surrounding municipalities, and fortunately, the answers are not as alarming as most people seem to assume.
Water conservation in irrigated gardens generally has three components: watering less; employing more efficient irrigation technologies; and changing the composition of garden plants (by removing lawns and non-waterwise species, for example). Many Californians have concerns about the costs of these measures and their implications for the aesthetic and recreational quality of urban parks and gardens. Just as “xeriscaping” became associated with mental images of sparsely planted cacti and succulents that were unappealing to most people, the new language of water conservation is “mandatory watering restrictions,” which brings to mind brown lawns and withered flowers. Is that the future of California’s cities?
Banded trees at UC Irvine, where Pataki measured their water use. Photo: Pataki and Pincetl
We’ve extensively measured the water use of residential yards, parks, and also individual plants and trees grown in the Los Angeles area, and can consider each of these measures in turn. First, let’s think about irrigation efficiency. Reducing water applications without changes in technology or plantings is the “low hanging fruit” of outdoor water conservation, but most people are lacking information about the actual water requirements of urban landscapes. Excess irrigation is apparent virtually everywhere in California, perhaps most visibly in urban storm sewers and storm drains. As the name implies, storm sewers are meant to convey stormwater—that is, rainwater—away from streets and residences. However, looking at California’s storm drainage system at any given time of the year, including the “dry season”, one will find storm gutters and sewers full of running water. In the absence of storm events, most of this year-round “nuisance flow” originates from irrigation runoff. Excessive irrigation has been prevalent in most California cities for a number of years, and the consequences have been severe not only for water conservation, but also for water quality: irrigation runoff contains contaminants that pose serious problems in coastal waters due to eutrophication and bacterial outbreaks. To combat this issue, some coastal municipalities prohibit excessive runoff from residential properties, but these restrictions are very difficult to enforce. Widespread over-watering has simply become an accepted source of both water consumption and non-point source pollution throughout the irrigated western U.S.
The potential upside to all this over-watering is that eliminating it can be an effective means of meeting conservation targets without drastic changes to landscaping. But, how will residents know how much to water? Many water districts and state and local agencies provide guidelines, although we have found that these often over-estimate the actual water requirements of urban landscapes, particularly lawns shaded by trees or buildings. Online recommendations and calculators are a starting point, but many residents don’t access or properly implement them. This is where irrigation technology provides the next effective strategy in urban water conservation. Most people have a general sense that lawn and garden watering requirements vary with the weather: cooler temperatures = lower water requirements. Unfortunately, the ubiquitous irrigation timers found in most California homes have to be adjusted by hand to account for changes in the weather. And even with the best of intentions, most of us have probably failed to adjust or shut off these systems during foggy or rainy conditions. Newer systems use environmental measurements to do this for us: there are systems that record soil moisture onsite or that tap into California’s network of weather stations to automatically adjust irrigation schedules at the appropriate times, although the accuracy of the calibrations for these systems can vary. Of course, changing irrigation technology costs money, and the reality is that these new systems need to be widely incentivized by water districts to be implemented on a large scale. The good news is that they work: for example, we found that a soil moisture-based system tested in residential turfgrass at the South Coast Research and Extension Center in Irvine, CA had almost 100% irrigation efficiency, with virtually no water lost to runoff or drainage (percolation below the rooting zone).
An example of what can replace a lawn—gravel with non-native, small, and unobtrusive plants. Photo: Pataki and Pincetl
Lawn watering practices and the extent of turfgrass in California cities are important aspects of urban water conservation. We agree that reducing the area of urban lawns should be an important aspect of water conservation strategies. Yet much of the appeal of California’s urban gardens is due to their stunning array of other types of ornamental plants. Many media reports highlight fears about the loss of valued ornamentals such as exotic trees, heirloom roses, and other flowering shrubs as a consequence of the current drought.
Is there a place for these species in the new California? Most definitely, the answer is yes. Of all of the plants that we’ve studied, lawns require the most water by a large margin, mainly because they are very shallowly rooted. In all ecosystems including cities, the deep soil is a storage pool of water, and plants that are deeply rooted have a far better capacity to withstand drought than lawns and grasses. Virtually all shrubs and trees, including ornamentals, use far less water than lawns, and can persist on infrequent (but deep) watering if they’ve developed adequate root systems. One significant factor limiting the success of these species is that most home irrigation systems are optimized to keep lawns green, not to properly water trees and shrubs. Further, some urban developments are built with relatively restricted soil volumes, and plants in these areas will be prone to drought stress regardless of watering practices.
San Juan Capistrano, where ornamentals have been cultivated despite the drought. Photo: Pataki and Pincetl
Thus, there can be room for ornamental shrubs and trees in the new California, even for species that many presume to have high water requirements (roses, lilacs, ficus, and Eucalyptus to name a few), but cities will need the appropriate infrastructure to accommodate them, including adequate soil depth and irrigation practices that are optimized for deep root systems. Without these changes, the future of California’s urban tree canopy may be threatened as lawns are increasingly removed: while most people don’t specifically irrigate urban trees, California’s urban forest has long benefited from the excessive watering practices associated with lawns. Even large trees require far less water than lawns, but they still require some water in addition to local rainfall. This water will have to be provided by modest irrigation—at half the rate or less than current average outdoor water consumption—and the efficiency of the irrigation could be enhanced with low volume or drip irrigation systems.
Without proper stewardship of California’s urban ornamental gardens, the consequences for the new California will be dire. Urban trees and gardens provide a significant cooling effect, and large reductions in the extent of urban vegetation will exacerbate warming of California’s cities. What’s more, although the mechanisms are not well understood, many studies have found both physical and mental health benefits of access to urban vegetation. Finally, many people simply enjoy ornamental plants, as California’s active gardening culture shows. Ornamental gardens make cities more livable and enhance quality of life for many residents. So remove your lawn but keep your roses, and switch to infrequent, deep watering applied directly to the soil with no excess runoff. The new California will be better for it.
Diane Pataki and Stephanie Pincetl
Salt Lake City and Los Angeles
Pincetl has written extensively about land use in California, environmental justice, habitat conservation efforts, urban ecology, water and energy policy.
Cities are arguably the greatest achievement of our human species. They are such an impressive naturally-occurring phenomenon: popping up over the centuries on six continents, and sharing a common set of characteristics that include a density of built structures, some organized open spaces, a network of roadways and paths to ease mobility, and, most often, close proximity to water. Seen from outer space, cities form an unmistakably similar pattern (as in Beijing and London, below), showing us what people over the centuries create for their habitat.
Beijing.London.
The key hallmarks of cities as habitats are what Kaid Benfield so thoughtfully lays out in his most recent collection of essays, People Habitat: 25 Ways to Think About Greener, Healthier Cities, a self-published volume released last year and distributed by Island Press.
Essay collections are not everyone’s cup of tea when it comes to non-fiction, and with this volume there were times when I would have preferred a more connected narrative. Perhaps in his next outing the author will consider incorporating such a narrative, because after reading this book I was both buoyed and perplexed. Benfield provides twenty-five inspiring examples—principles even—of what makes a city work well. I am an optimist, as Benfield is, so I appreciate his belief that the good will eventually win out, and I appreciate the benefit of sharing the many successes he highlights here. By his own admission, what this book lacks is an analysis of the obstacles that stand in the way of these ideas being pursued more broadly. And it lacks a compelling, central thesis (which might have addressed the obstacles) with which the reader could engage. In the Prologue, Benfield explains: “I suspect that many readers are on that same quest to make cities better. To that end, I am sharing 25 essays related to points I believe are useful to consider as we enjoy and improve this wondrous invention that we call “cities”. It is less expository writing than storytelling, more illustration than proclamation. While I will always say exactly what I think—or believe I am learning—about these subjects, polemic writing and thinking don’t interest me. The nooks and crannies do” (pg xviii).
So, reader be forewarned: the benefit of this format is that you can dip in and out; for my fellow attention-deficit urbanists, this is a handy book to carry on the subway and read episodically. But a subsequent effort by Benfield should include an argument of what is preventing the proliferation of these principles—walkability, good design, adaptive reuse of civic assets, urban agriculture, place-making—in city-building and some tangible examples of how city-builders are overcoming those obstacles.
Benfield appears to be a pragmatic city lover. The city-building field is full of ideologues, rabidly advancing their world view of ‘smart’ or ‘green’ or ‘economically competitive’ or ‘sustainable’ cities (there, I’ve just offended most of my closest friends and colleagues), but Benfield is solidly grounded in what he sees is actually happening; he considers context, and especially how things fit together. To me, this is the discourse we desperately need in planning and designing our cities: ways to integrate various considerations and expertise. It’s what we’ve done so poorly before, thinking too narrowly about one kind of investment or initiative, at the expense of any other.
For example, on historic preservation Benfield writes: “I believe that preservationists must be discriminating and wise in asserting our values, in order to maintain the continued support of the public. If we always push our principles to the maximum without awareness of the consequence to other important societal values, we risk losing our credibility, among other things” (p. 75). This pragmatic tone is threaded throughout Benfield’s commentary, and his chapter titles reinforce it.
Like the city life about which Benfield writes, reading this book brought me to some new, unexpected places: I kept keep Google busy pursuing Benfield’s included references, and my browser cache now shows a very broad range of search terms, from food to faith to Koolhaas and Fisher. In many ways, this dense book reads like a primer. I could imagine building a course syllabus based on the chapter headings. Volleying out so many ideas in short sections comes at a cost, though, as several topics get only a cursory look: you can’t kill sprawl in five pages. (See my earlier urging: sequel please, Mr. Benfield.)
Another quibble: Benfield’s references to other experts and urban ‘thought leaders’ are disproportionately male, which is odd because in cities around the world, local, community-driven work is predominantly led by women. This is all the more curious an observation when one considers the two voices that have dominated 50 years of the discourse on the relationship between people and their habitats in nature and in cities. Rachel Carson (Silent Spring, 1962) and Jane Jacobs (Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961) both wrote books in the early 1960s that brought into sharp relief the deleterious impacts on people—and their habitats—of human decision-making taken in isolation. Yet, Benfield doesn’t cite either one across these 25 essays, which is remarkable considering the subject matter. Given his philosophical lineage, I am quite sure the absence of Jacobs and Carson is just an odd quirk of this particular collection. (On the bright side, he does mention Gertrude Stein, and her alleged lamentation that there was no there when she first saw Oakland, in a thoughtful essay about the authenticity of place). Still, I have found that both innovation and activism are invariably led by women in local neighborhoods, so more women should have been cited here.
For any urbanist whose mother often asks, “What is it you do again, dear?” give her People Habitat. This book pretty much covers it: hopefully she’ll see for herself what you do, while being reminded of how the neighborhood in which she raised her child either thwarted or supported the attributes of city life that have drawn said child to urbanism.
Benfield’s motivation in collecting these essays is to make the point that the only way we will be able to save our wilderness areas and natural assets is to make our cities so compellingly attractive that people will prefer to live in them, rather than continuing to encroach on rural life (see Epilogue pg 262). I suspect it would be unfair to imply that he is an urbanist by default, that he came to love cities only as a means to preserve nature. A complementary narrative could include examples of neighborhoods with hipster co-working spaces, hole-in-the-wall arts spaces, unique improvised solutions to inadequate infrastructure, independent businesses using the internet to find new foreign markets, pocket parks, sleek new high rises with local retail at the street, and tech enabled jitney services.
The phenomenon of cities as habitat is a marvel, not only for what it protects, but for what it intrinsically manifests: life. That’s the nature of cities.
“Quem é rico anda em burrico
Quem é pobre anda a pé
Mas o pobre vê na estrada
O orvalho beijando as frô…
…Vai oiando as coisa a grané
Coisas que prá modo de vê
O cristão tem que andá a pé…”
—Estrada de Canindé, Luiz Gonzaga
“The rich travel by donkey
The poor on foot
But the poor see on the way
The mist kissing the flower
…Can look at things loosely
Things that can only be seen
If one walks on foot…”
—Estrada de Canindé, Luiz Gonzaga
After decades of “progress” and aggressive, mostly unplanned, growth, the modern city in the “developed world” collapses under the weight of its heavy infrastructure, or because of the absence of such infrastructure. More than ever, the city needs to be understood in terms of its vertical section, where all of the layers of urban reality are considered simultaneously: its natural substrate, infrastructure, buildings, and cultural values.
São Paulo. Photo: Nelson Kon
One of the impediments that prevents us from realizing this approach to our understanding of the city is that infrastructure, even as it shapes our city, is not always visible or obvious to most of its inhabitants. Rainwater management, sewage, water, and the distribution of electricity are all, in the engineered city, “invisible”. And unfortunately, so is nature. In São Paulo it is not different.
Being a Paulista and having lived in São Paulo until my mid-twenties, I was accustomed to a dead river, the smell of carbon dioxide, skies of beautiful orange and pink enhanced by air pollution, and a lack of open green space. My understanding was that to be with nature one needed to leave the city.
But it was in this sprawling metropolis of 20 million people, over 8,000 km2, catering to private transportation with tons of asphalt and concrete, that I discovered the force of sub-tropical nature. It was also where I learned the importance of urban design’s educational and interactive role, the importance of relatively small interventions that could elucidate the complexity of the city and could bring people closer to the understanding of more harmonious and sustainable design solutions.
Not being an ecologist, a biologist, or a landscape designer, I was originally trained to design cities from the perspective of the built environment, reflecting the practice of architecture in Brazil today, where different specialties meet to sustain a fragmented, partial vision: that of the professional who initiates the process. With little prior interaction and discussion that could amalgamate numerous urban facets into a holistic approach, we continue designing in fragments. Every specialty holds to itself its own primacy, its own knowledge. In the same way, in our daily realities, governmental RFPs are launched for engineering firms (or even construction companies) when it comes to infrastructure, with no mention of architecture, urban design, or landscape design.
So it was very exciting when, in 2007, I was invited by a friend to participate in a project in São Paulo involving urban soil contamination. My friend was orchestrating a partnership between the City and a private publishing company to transform the site of an old incinerator into a productive public space. The site, a former medical waste incinerator, was allowed to fester and remained abandoned for many years following its decommissioning. With no precedent in Brazil and hardly any legal support in our laws, the proposed public-private partnership was innovative and courageous.
Eco-Park plan. Image: Dietzsch/Levisky
The preliminary design, though, was non-imaginative, proposing something of a bucolic small-city plaza, with winding paths and benches over a three-foot high cap of new soil. This cap was required by the City’s Sanitation Department, which understood that the contamination needed to be contained before the site could be dedicated to public use.
My first reaction was almost instinctive: why not expose the contamination instead of hiding it? Suddenly, the immensity of the post-industrial city’s scar became very clear and I wanted other people to see it, to make clear what was already obvious, hiding in plain sight.
The new proposed design was a deck of certified Brazilian hardwood, raised one meter above the original site on a steel structure to prevent any contact with the contaminated soil below. Oriented diagonally across the site, the wood deck creates a procession, an approach that emphasizes the site’s natural perspective, inviting the public to a leisurely experience. Like the hull of a ship, it unfolds seamlessly from the horizontal to the vertical plane, defining urban-scaled rooms where a range of activities, such as theater and yoga, can take place.
Theater in the Eco-Park. Photo: Guilherme LemeInformation display in the Eco-Park. Photo: Guilherme Leme
Along the prescribed path, users are invited to read about the different environmentally sustainable systems used and showcased: self-irrigation through the use of a low-tech Brazilian system called “Tech-Garden”, water cleansing through natural filters (wetlands and a pond) and a vertical garden. Originally, what I really was interested in doing was to experiment with phytoremediation, but that was not in the client’s budget or desire.
So I proposed planters that cover the contaminated soil throughout the site as if they were plantation rows in a farm, evoking the relationship between nature and manufacture. The plants were also curated to emphasize this relationship and we chose six groups of plants: medical plants, biodiesel generators, ethanol generators transgenic plants, organic garden plants, and hydroponic garden plants. The built project was officially called “Victor Civita Plaza: Open Museum for Sustainability”. Or, as we call it: the “Eco-Park”.
The finished Eco-Park. Photos: Nelson Kon
After the Eco-Park was opened, I was invited by a well-known journalist in São Paulo to visit a not-for-profit institution he had founded a decade earlier. As an NGO, Cidade Aprendiz works to integrate schools with their neighborhoods, promoting the city as school. We walked through an alley in Vila Madalena, one of the bohemian and artistic centers of São Paulo, in which Aprediz occupied several different rented houses. They had “adopted” the dead-end alley in an agreement with the City to take care of it, and were successful in transforming what was before a dirty and dangerous space into what they called an “educational place”. A basketball court and a playground were surrounded by an open graffiti gallery, today one of São Paulo’s most popular tourist destinations.
The alley in Vila Madalena, prior to a proposed redesign. Photo: Davis Brody Bond Architects.The hidden river in the alley. Photo: Davis Brody Bond Architects
They wanted me to design a door, a portal that would connect a house they had just rented to the alley. So I designed a door, a great big red door that could be transformed into a small stage for performances. To our disappointment we discovered that any opening to the alley was illegal. The alley, as I later found out, was officially called a “sanitary passage” by São Paulo’s zoning laws, meaning it marked the passage of what was once a stream.
Zoning rules decreed that there should be a setback from any water body in the city and that buildings should not have openings facing them. The result was not good. As Jane Jacobs wrote and we have all witnessed, a city with no eyes is a troubled city. Surrounded by tall walls and canalized in the 50s, the Green River Stream was invisible and the paths it carved out amidst the built neighborhood were both dreadful and wonderful.
Intrigued by this invisible stream, I started to search for it in maps. What I found was astonishing: São Paulo has 4,000 linear kilometers of streams and rivers, most of which we can no longer see. The hydrologic map of the city is blue. From reading the map, it’s easy to envision that São Paulo is, in reality, a concrete slab over water—something quite striking for a city that is all concrete and only sees its waters when there are floods.
Soon, I began to envision how leftover spaces and streams could become re-engaged with the city. One of the teams in the City’s Environment Department saw some of the images produced during this work and the Green Stream Linear Park project was born.
A concept sketch for the Green Stream Linear Park. Image: Davis Brody Bond Architects
The new park consists of the redesign of approximately 645,410 sq. ft. among dense urban areas in consolidated neighborhoods in São Paulo. The project area retraces the path of the canalized stream by proposing a new pedestrian and bicycle path which opens up to transform adjacent under-utilized areas into new spaces for cultural, leisure, and educational activities. Along with the City’s Environment Department, the guidelines for the park design were settled:
Incentivize pedestrian and bicycle use;
Create spaces for community, leisure, and cultural activities;
Elucidate the history of the river and its importance to the area;
Make use of alternative drainage and water retention and detention systems;
Use native plants/vegetation;
Incentivize existing and local characteristics and uses;
Inform and educate the public about the urban and sustainable elements of the project.
The program was derived from a series of workshops with residents, property owners, businesses, and the public, as well as some of the several NGOs and institutions housed in the neighborhood of Vila Madalena.
The park was also designed to function as a “drainage machine”. Permeable paving with sub-layers for water retention, rain gardens, water recycling, and reflective pools will help the traditional drainage system to appease flash-floods in the area. As in the Eco-Park project, these systems will be visible and explained to the public, allowing people to reflect about the current condition of our urban waters.
A 2013 flood that affected residents at lower elevations. Photo: Davis Brody Bond Architects
Since its publication, the project has generated a strong, polarized public reaction. On one side, the residents of the neighborhood located at the higher end of the river, where floods are not a problem, claim they don’t want a park, nor the burden associated with the upgrade of the infrastructure, since the City plans to substitute existing rainwater drainage system and build a small-scale modern underground cistern.
On the opposing side, residents at the lower elevations, who historically have been flooded, support both the park and the new “hard” infrastructure. The creative and artistic groups in Vila Madalena have joined the debate to support the park and the strengthening of the neighborhood as a cultural hub. In 2013, a series of independent groups and associations joined the cause to celebrate the idea of the park by occupying the area and a daylong party attracted more than three thousand people.
Revealing the galleries and the partial reintroduction of the stream have given rise to more public debate. On the one hand, some residents are opposed to it, fearing that it will worsen the flooding and cause diseases, reinforcing the “sanitary” view of our traditional infrastructure system. On the other hand, organized activist groups question why the river should not be reintroduced in its entirety. As the City prepares for the construction of the first phase of the project with federal funding, the discussion continues and will have to be monitored to help reshape the final project in a constructive way.
The experience with these two projects, both the Eco-Park and the Linear Park, have taught me the importance of local urban and landscape design in the implementation and discussion of urban infrastructure. They have not solved the large infrastructure problems they tackle, but by “showcasing” environmental issues, have made them a topic for open community discussion. Infrastructure is so far from one’s daily routine, as is nature in and around São Paulo’s urban environment, that the majority of the population has lost its connection to the natural substrate that holds everything together. It really needs to become more present if we want any change in the way we face the challenges of upgrading and building new infrastructure.
Victor Civita Plaza Authors: Anna Dietzsch and Adriana Levisky Coordinator: Renata Gomes Project Team: Casey Mahon, Tatiana Antonelli, Lílian Braga, Luciana Magalhães, Renata Helena de Paula Client: City of São Paulo and Abril Publishing
São Paulo, 130,000 sf
Green Stream Linear Park: Author: Anna Dietzsch. Davis Brody Bond Architects Coordinator: Carolina Bazzo Project Team: Charlie Salinas, Hosung Chun, Clarissa Morgenroth, Alexandre Delfabrio, Patricia Rabelo, Thais Russo, Vinicius Gaio. Client: City of São Paulo
São Paulo, 620,000 sf
On a tree-lined boulevard that leads to the central business district of Melbourne lies a building that trains performers. Few would know that the landscape surrounding the Victorian College of the Arts is also performing. This is one site among many in the city of Melbourne and its suburbs that are performing as a catchment for the citizens’ supply of water. Nature is fundamental to the process, working for the city as green and blue infrastructure.
Melbourne is at the forefront in creating performing landscapes that harvest, treat, and store stormwater for reuse. Every year, an equal volume of water is diverted as stormwater from the city to Port Phillip Bay as is consumed as potable water from the dams. Raingardens, grassy swales, wetlands, lakes, and other pieces of green and blue infrastructure are being constructed to harvest, treat, and store stormwater for fit-for-purpose use. Harvesting stormwater for treatment and reuse will provide water to supplement potable supply from dams. It will decrease the quantity and increase the quality of drainage flow to waterways in urban areas, with environmental benefits. It can ease the demand on existing infrastructure, so that its replacement can be delayed or avoided. It can mitigate the urban heat island effect, contributing to improved thermal comfort. It will certainly change the appearance of the city. It is assumed by many promoting green and blue infrastructure that landscape amenity will be improved, but how will the residents of Melbourne respond to the new form and structure of the city as a catchment?
Green and blue infrastructure is “the network of natural landscape assets which underpin the economic, sociocultural and environmental functionality of our cities and towns—i.e. the green spaces and water systems which intersperse, connect and provide vital life support for humans and other species within our urban environments”. These green spaces and water systems perform sustainable stormwater management, using natural processes to passively treat the water and store it for later use.
The system is very simple. Let’s look at raingardens. A raingarden is a shallow trough densely planted with vegetation that tolerates alternating wet and dry periods. Appropriate contours within the landscape direct stormwater run-off towards the raingarden. The water is then held within the raingarden and allowed to percolate through its carefully designed and structured soil media. Contaminants in the water are removed by entrapment or absorption by the soil media or adsorption by organisms on the media or roots of the plants. The treated water might then be diverted to the stormwater drainage system, where it passes to a local creek, river or bay. Alternatively, it might be stored nearby, for later use in irrigation of surrounding parklands, car washing, or some other approved purpose. Similar principles apply in the performance of grassy swales, street trees in bioretention pits, and even wetlands.
In front of the Victorian College of the Arts—a heritage-listed Victorian building—an interconnected series of seven raingardens, with an area of almost 58 m2, has replaced the lawn. The detail is quite playful and the water remains visible in order to engage passers-by and to alert them to the performance of the landscape in stormwater management. Downpipe spouts, in the form of eel heads, deliver water from the building’s roof into the raingardens, over which pedestrians can move on walkways.
Top: St Kilda Road, Melbourne, looking north. Image: www.flickr.com Bottom: Landscape of Victorian College of the Arts before 2008, without a raingarden. Image: essential-architecture.com. The Victorian College of the Arts sits on St Kilda Road, a leafy boulevard leading to the centre of Melbourne. Before 2008, the heritage-listed building was fronted by a lawn. This was replaced with a series of seven raingardens in 2008, which harvest and treat stormwater before it is discharged to nearby Port Phillip Bay.
Raingardens are appearing in the suburbs of Melbourne, too. In the streets of high-density inner suburbs, such as Richmond, with narrow footpaths and limited space, raingardens have been constructed within the road reserve, often defining on-street parking locations. In lower-density suburbs more distant from the city, such as Mentone, raingardens replace the traditional grassed nature strips that lie between the footpath and the road.
Raingardens in front of Victorian College of the Arts. Image: en.wikipedia.org.
Ways of looking: Four ways to perceive the environment around us
What do we know of the residents’ reactions to these raingardens? Do they appreciate them? Joan Nassasuer argues that cultural sustainability of ecologically functioning landscapes, such as these streetscapes with raingardens, demands that they be appreciated, valued, and cared for. If we know how people perceive these landscapes, we can design them to fulfil both technical and aesthetic functions. Such performing landscapes require maintenance to ensure their effective function. Participation of local residents in this maintenance, e.g. by removing rubbish, is important support for the local councils, which are responsible for the raingardens’ upkeep and the effective drainage of the suburbs. Are residents likely to help maintain these raingardens?
Of course, each individual perceives a landscape in a unique and personal way. Perception is a transaction between the individual and the landscape; the way in which a person perceives a particular landscape depends on particulars of the person and landscape, but also on the context in which this transaction occurs. Despite the millions of people looking at millions of landscapes, in Western cultures there are four main ways of looking at or perceiving a landscape. These perceptual lenses have been described as the scenic aesthetic, the ecological aesthetic, an aesthetic of care and the effect of knowledge, and an aesthetic of attachment and identity. The distinctions can help us understand what people want in their urban environments.
Two streets in Melbourne suburbs with raingardens: Cremorne Street, Richmond (top), and Stawell Street, Mentone (bottom). Both images: M. Dobbie.
The scenic aesthetic appreciates a landsc
ape as a static picture: Nature is idealised, stylised, and pristine. This aesthetic is thought to have arisen from 17th and 18th century aesthetic theory, expressed in paintings by such artists as Claude Lorrain and in landscape designs, typically by ‘Capability’ Brown. The elements within the landscape are appreciated visually according to formal design principles. The scenic aesthetic often applies in the appreciation of wildscapes, to which responses are predominantly affective (i.e. emotional).
Wildscapes can also be appreciated with an ecological aesthetic, but this involves a deeper understanding of nature and its processes. Knowledge is fundamental to an ecological appreciation of a landscape, which is recognised as dynamic and changing. All senses are engaged and the response is both cognitive and affective—that is, both thinking and feeling are involved. The aesthetic of care also requires knowledge, but knowledge of the role of humans in creating and managing the landscape.
The aesthetic of care applies to the appreciation of agricultural landscapes, in which order and stewardship harmonise with nature. Cues to human care are important in their appreciation. Thus, neatly fenced paddocks with even rows of crops are seen as beautiful. Overgrazed paddocks with tumbledown fencing and bare patches of earth showing through pasture grasses are not.
Finally, an aesthetic of place attachment and identity is active in the appreciation of cultural landscapes. In this aesthetic, appreciation is for cultural patterns at the landscape scale and material cultural artefacts at the site scale. For example, the inner suburbs of Melbourne have narrow cobbled lanes lined with tiny Victorian terraced houses, interspersed with industrial and commercial sites. Residents of such streets might feel a special attachment to these streets as a physical expression of the history of settlement of Melbourne. Living on these distinctive and historic streets might be an important aspect of these residents’ identity. If they were to live elsewhere, they wouldn’t feel as comfortable or as ‘at home’. Visitors to such streets might look at the crowded old houses squeezed between factories and office buildings and wonder how anyone could see beauty here. But with an aesthetic of place attachment and identity, residents of these streets do see ‘beauty’.
Graphic: M. Dobbie and L. Booth
Which of these perceptual lenses, or ways of looking, might apply in the appreciation of streetscapes with raingardens? How might the choice of lens affect acceptance of the change in landscape after raingardens are retrofitted into a suburban street? What can we do to enhance appreciation and acceptance of performing landscapes in our cities?
I am exploring all of these questions within a research project funded by the Co-operative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities. The research is almost complete and preliminary results suggest that more than one perceptual lens is used in the appreciation of streetscapes with raingardens. Which perceptual lens a person uses varies with individual context and the situational context of the landscape.
There is evidence to suggest that an aesthetic of care predominates in the perception of streetscapes with raingardens. Sedges, rushes and other tussocky plants are often used in raingardens because of their tolerance of periodic inundation and their ability to remove contaminants from the stormwater. As a consequence of the informal and loose shape of the plants, the raingardens can be perceived as messy, untidy, and uncared for. They might not be appreciated with this aesthetic, nor accepted.
Knowledge about form and functionis important in appreciation of raingardens. This knowledge might moderate unfavourable perceptions derived from an aesthetic of care, or cause an ecological aesthetic to operate. Knowledge that raingardens require a certain type of plant to perform in stormwater treatment might moderate a negative initial perception of ‘messiness’ associated with an aesthetic of (lack of) care. Although the planting might appear messy, the informed person would understand that this messiness is necessary and, indeed, intended. The raingarden is not neglected and uncared for; rather, it is a fabricated, functioning ecosystem, intentionally designed to fulfil an important technical role in sustainable stormwater management. In these circumstances, then, the raingarden might be appreciated and accepted. Alternatively, knowledge might trigger an ecological aesthetic in the appreciation of the raingardens. In this case, the streetscape with the raingardens is appreciated as a dynamic landscape, performing important ecological functions. In any case, appreciation is active and experiential. Appreciation with an ecological aesthetic is likely to lead to acceptance.
An aesthetic of place attachment and identity might operate in people very attached to their street, and for whom the street is integral to their sense of who they are. If the installation of raingardens complements the existing appearance of the street, the place attachment and sense of identity of the individual perceiving the raingarden might be preserved. In this case, the raingarden is likely to be appreciated and accepted. If the raingarden does not complement the appearance of the street, the individual’s place attachment and sense of identity might be challenged, with negative consequences for appreciation of the raingardens and their acceptance.
Using aesthetics to improve design
Understanding the perceptual lens through which people view their suburban landscapes can inform the design of raingardens in performing landscapes. Raingardens can then be designed so that they work well and look good, especially to the people who live on the street in which the raingardens are constructed. We can understand the perceptual lens of residents on a particular street simply by looking at their own gardens. People declare their landscaping preferences, and thus their perceptual lenses for suburban streetscapes, in their domestic gardens.
Most domestic gardens are neat and tidy; often, but not always, they have a formal layout. These gardens express an aesthetic of care. To accommodate this aesthetic in the design of a raingarden, selection of plants for the raingarden can be extended to include plants with a less ‘messy’ habit. Many of the plants used in the nearby gardens could be included in the raingarden, so long as 50 percent of the plants operate in removing contaminants from the stormwater. Maintenance regimes can ensure that plants are pruned regularly, and that the raingardens do not accumulate rubbish and appear untidy.
Some domestic gardens have a more unruly appearance, using indigenous plants in more organic and natural layouts. The owners of these gardens might use an ecological aesthetic in their appreciation of landscapes. Thus, raingardens installed into streets with predominantly naturalistic gardens need not be so ‘tidy’. A greater percentage of the plants within the raingarden could be those occurring in wetlands, so well adapted for alternating cycles of wet and dry, but often with a more ‘messy’ habit. Rubbish should always be removed, but regular pruning might be less important.
Operation of an aesthetic of place attachment and identity is less easily identified by simply looking at a residential street. Nevertheless, the same strategy applies, in that the design of the raingarden should reflect the landscape preferences of the residents of the street. These can be identified simply by observing their gardens. Plant selection and layout of the raingarden can be based on those of nearby domestic gardens.
Regardless of perceptual lens, appreciation for raingardens can be increased by providing information about the role of raingardens and their function, and the myriad benefits that they confer. The information can be disseminated through signage, letter drops, and other communication strategies. This knowledge might then trigger an ecological aesthetic or moderate the aesthetic of care or the aesthetic of place attachment and identity.
Performing landscapes are fundamental to cities operating as water supply catchments. Green-blue infrastructure will provide the stage for performances. Landscape amenity is certainly a potential benefit–sweet music–of this infrastructure. Attention to careful design of raingardens, one of the instruments of the orchestra, can ensure it.
If you are like me, when walking in some neighborhoods, you see the endless yards of turfgrass and exotic plants and you think to yourself, “How can I reach people to change their landscaping practices?” Or you may see natural areas impacted by nearby urban areas, such as ATV vehicles and trails running through natural areas and/or perhaps invasive exotic plants escaping from nearby yards and spreading into natural areas. You think to yourself, “How can I reach residents to change behaviors that are impacting natural areas?”
While ATV vehicles are appropriate in areas designated for ATV vehicle use, ATV trails can spontaneously appear in natural areas that are not meant for ATV traffic. Photo: www.atv.com
In particular, I think that green developments need informed and engaged residents in order to retain the biodiversity value of a site. Even in green developments that are designed to conserve biodiversity through native landscaping and conservation of natural areas, homeowners are no different than homeowners of conventional developments in terms of environmental attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors; all tended to score low (Youngentob and Hostetler 2005). There is always a potential to compromise the biological integrity of a green development (Hostetler 2010; Hostetler and Drake 2009). Imagine residents removing native landscaping and putting in turfgrass or planting invasive exotics in their yards.
The good news is that landscaping practices in yards can improve both native flora and fauna diversity. For example, a study in Chicago found that the cumulative impact of individual yards that contained greater amounts wildlife habitat (e.g., native trees, vertical height structure, and plants with fruits and berries) had increased native bird diversity, especially for migrants (Belaire et al. 2014). Other studies have indicated that the characteristics of yards can improve the biodiversity measures in neighborhoods and cities (Hostetler and Holling 2000; Daniels and Kirkpatrick 2006; Lerman and Warren 2011).
I do not think that people want to harm the environment. It is just that they do not have information readily available that increases their awareness and empowers them to change behaviors. In this essay, I will discuss how signs installed in neighborhoods can be a technique to inform residents about conservation issues and engage residents to adopt new practices.
How can we foster the adoption of conservation practices that both improve the biodiversity value of neighborhoods while minimizing impacts stemming from residential neighborhoods?
How do we move urban landowners from yards dominated by exotic plants and turfgrass to native landscaping? (Photos: Front lawn—www.hickoryhollowlandscapers.com; Native front yard—Mark Hostetler)
Creating a new norm: using signs to inform residents about conservation issues
One technique to engage and inform residents about biodiversity conservation is to install educational signs into common spaces of neighborhoods. These signs could discuss a variety of conservation issues pertaining to homes, yards, and neighborhoods such as biodiversity conservation, water and energy conservation, and even information about particular wildlife species. Below, I will discuss my experiences with creating and installing such educational signs.
I. Design and management of signs
About 15 years ago I started to think about using signs, which I have seen in national parks, to reach homeowners in neighborhoods. In national parks, people only see these signs a few times. In neighborhoods, people would encounter neighborhood signs multiple times and the information would feel repetitive. My idea for neighborhood signs was to create a sign that allowed educational information to be easily updated. I have found that interchangeable education panels that insert into the “sign”–technically called a graphic display unit–were critical for several reasons. First, because the same content that people see day-to-day becomes boring or even outdated, I wanted the ability to keep information fresh and to allow educational topics to rotate. Also, in Florida and elsewhere, the panels eventually fade (or are even damaged by vandals) and I wanted a cheap way to replace them. If you use a sign that is not interchangeable, if it gets damaged or content fades over time, one has to replace the whole unit. This is very expensive! Switching out panels is more cost effective because the panels are easier to reproduce.
Where does one get a graphic display unit that allows educational panels to be switched out? We tried several models, but I like the one below the best (see below images). The top of the display unit can be taken off and an educational panel slid into place. To learn more about this type of graphic display unit and educational panels, see this example from Pannier Graphics. I am not endorsing this company as there are others out there, but it took me a while to find a display unit that was durable and interchangeable.
In a Gainesville, FL development, this graphic display unit was installed near a sidewalk where foot traffic is high. The panel discusses water-wise landscaping. Photo: Mark HostetlerIn this graphic display unit, the top “bar” of the frame comes off with three screws and the slot to slide the panels is open to insert the educational panel. Photo: Mark Hostetler
The panels are usually printed on a hard media (e.g., aluminum backing) with a clear overlaminate to protect from fading and scratches. We went with a local sign company that agreed to print full color (35” X 23”) panels on 3mm aluminum backing with a clear overlaminate for about $100 each. Once printed, the panels are endlessly interchangeable. For this neighborhood in Gainesville, we had one display unit near a pool (see photo below) and the other by a sidewalk along a road where children are picked up by a school bus (see photo above). I would recommend allocating the “switching” responsibility to a local neighborhood club, the homeowner association, or to a diligent homeowner. We have found that turning over responsibility of the upkeep of the signs to the neighborhood helps to foster ownership of the signs (not to mention that it reduces the number of trips you have to make to a neighborhood!). Further, panels need to be reprinted and new ones made; thus, I would have a long-term funding source, such as homeowner association dues, set aside for sign upkeep.
In a Gainesville, Florida development, this graphic display unit was installed near a pool where foot traffic is high. The panel discusses native plants and how to install natives into a yard. Photo: Mark Hostetler
Printing posters that just have overlaminate on them and are not “hard” is also an option, but one can bend these panels easily. These work OK, but they do tend to “bubble up” and warp just a bit under the hot sun (over time). I recommend getting a sturdy backing, such as aluminum or some hard plastic composite, which will resist buckling and warping. If you do print on thinner media, you will need to place some hard backing behind the thin panel to make the space “tight” in the slot so that the panel does not slide around.
This panel will be installed near a stormwater pond in a Gainesville, Florida development. It discusses the natural history of and how to live with alligators. Alligators are common in neighborhoods with stormwater ponds in Florida. This “35 X “23 panel slides easily into the graphic display unit and is stiff, just like a slim “board.” It is about 3/16 inch thick. Image: Meryl Klein and Mark Hostetler
You can organize content the way you like, but we found that information organized in three sections seems to offer a variety of information in a readable way. The first section is usually a little background information about the topic; the middle section highlights an interesting fact or goes more in depth about an issue, and the third section is usually a “What You Can Do” or “Tips” section. The alligator panel above gives background information (left section) about alligators and the issue of them living in urban areas. The middle section highlights some interesting facts about alligators (courtship and nesting), while the right section talks about what people can do to reduce conflicts with alligators.
We also printed QR codes for people to scan to access more information on a Web site. On the alligator panel, the lower right area has two QR codes: one for a Living Green Web site and the other for a Florida-Friendly Landscaping Web site. We wanted to count the number of visits to these Web sites as a result of people scanning the signs in the neighborhood; there is a procedure for this. Instead of describing this process in detail, instructions can be found here. We made different QR codes for different developments so that we could track where the site visits were coming from.
As for the graphic display unit itself, we had tried some wood backing and wood posts, but I would encourage folks to install an all-aluminum graphic display unit. It is much more durable and sturdy. A couple of signs that we installed with a wood backing are beginning to break down after 7 years (not bad though!). The all-aluminum framing versions are very sturdy. I recommend installing more than one graphic display unit in different areas of a neighborhood in order to display more information. In the Town of Harmony, Florida, we installed 7 signs and each one tended to have a theme (e.g., water, energy, wildlife, landscaping, insects/pollinators, lakes, and natural/human history). Readers may wonder whether these neighborhood signs were vandalized; rates of damage appear to depend on the neighborhood. We had signs in the Town of Harmony for over 8 years with no significant damage from residents.
Still, I cannot stress enough the importance of turning over the “responsibility” of the signs to the neighborhood. Extra panels need to be stored somewhere and I recommend finding one or two local homeowners to watch the display units and to switch out the education panels. Also, any local landscaping companies need to be informed and aware about upkeep of the signs. Weed whacking around the base of these signs can cause significant damage, as can lawn care procedures around the signs. In particular, the example I showed above (the water-wise landscaping sign) has been significantly “soiled” by a pair of northern mockingbirds. They have taken to perching on the sign and defecating on it at will. When a lawn care person comes by, it is a simple matter of wiping the bird poop off the sign every now and then. Ahh well . . . . at least the mockingbirds like the sign!
A homeowner helped me to install this sign in the Gainesville, Florida development. He is also taking the extra education panels and will switch them out periodically. It was a hot day! I recommend using a post hole digger to get down at least 21 inches to create a sturdy base. You can install with cement, but I did not in this case because we may want to move the sign to another location. Photo: Jeanette Hostetler
II. Highlighting a Local Steward
One twist on the signs is to find a resident in the neighborhood that has implemented conservation practices and to highlight these on the panel, inviting people to contact this homeowner or to visit their yard. The trick is to find that maverick homeowner that has done something different and is willing to talk with neighbors.
In this panel on Florida natives, we highlight the landscaping of a homeowner that contains muhly grass and coontie plants, both of which are native. The photo on the bottom right is the raised landscaped bed with these natives installed. The text just to the left invites people to contact the homeowners by email. Click on image to enlarge. Image: Meryl Klein and Mark Hostetler
We have just installed this educational sign and will follow-up with the homeowners to see if anybody has contacted them about their yard and have whether any neighbors have begun to install native plants. The hope is that a local, knowledgeable homeowner can encourage change much better than outside experts coming in and talking with only a few residents.
III. Do these signs work?
Is all this effort having a positive impact in terms of improved environmental attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors? In a study with my graduate students, we evaluated the impact of a new environmental education program installed in a green community, Town of Harmony, Florida. The study implemented educational signs, a website, and a brochure; after installation, we evaluated whether Harmony residents’ environmental knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors improved when compared to residents of a conventional community. After two years of exposure to the program, Harmony homeowners did show some improvement in environmental knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors and the control community did not (Hostetler et al., 2008). In particular, we found that most residents saw and read the educational signs and relatively fewer homeowners visited the website and/or read the brochure. Such signs can help homeowners understand ways to manage their homes, yards, and neighborhoods in a more sustainable manner. To see more examples of these signs, visit http://www.wec.ufl.edu/extension/gc/harmony/documents/wildsidewalk.pdf.
IV. Conclusions
As we move forward with attempts to adopt biodiversity conservation designs in urban communities, we must not forget the need to engage the local populace. The ecological function of urban natural remnants and the long-term viability of conservation design and management practices in homes, yards, and neighborhoods are contingent on how engaged and accepting residents are within cities. I encourage municipalities to create policies that require or provide incentives to install such educational signs, particularly in “green developments” that have intentions to conserve natural resources. Also, these informative signs should be installed in neighborhoods and city parks that are immediately adjacent to critical natural areas, informing users on behaviors that could have both positive and negative consequences.
I do understand that these educational signs may be only one step down a path towards a sustainable community, and signs may not be enough if there are significant barriers in city policies and even in deed restrictions placed on homes in a neighborhood. For example, some deed restrictions require that 60 percent of land in the front of a home is lawn, a condition monitored by a homeowner association. The signs may raise awareness and confidence for homeowners to implement conservation actions (e.g., planting natives), but if significant barriers exist in city or in homeowner association oversight, actions may be limited.
I hope I have highlighted some important steps to take in order to install a successful and long-lasting sign/education program to help engage residents to conserve natural resources. If you would like more information or want to collaborate on implementing such a program, please contact me, as we have streamlined the process and it is adaptable to most urban situations.
Belaire, J.A., Whelan, C.J., and E.S. Minor. 2014. Having our yards and sharing them too: the collective effects of yards on native bird species in an urban landscape. Ecological Applications 24(8): 2132-2143.
Daniels, G. D., and J. B. Kirkpatrick. 2006. Does variation in garden characteristics influence the conservation of birds in suburbia? Biological Conservation 133:326–335.
Hostetler, M., Swiman, E., Prizzia, A., and Noiseux, K. 2008. Reaching residents of green communities: Evaluation of a unique environmental education program. Applied Environmental Education & Communication 7(3):114-124.
Hostetler, M.E. 2010. Beyond design: the importance of construction and post-construction phases in green developments. Sustainability 2:1128-1137.
Hostetler, M., and C. S. Holling. 2000. Detecting the scales at which birds respond to structure in urban landscapes. Urban Ecosystems 4:25–54.
Lerman, S. B., and P. S. Warren. 2011. The conservation value of residential yards: linking birds and people. Ecological Applications 21(4):1327–1339.
Widows, S.A. and D. Drake. 2014 Evaluating the National Wildlife Federation’s certified wildlife habitatTM program. Landscape and Urban Planning 129: 32–43
Start a Community Food Garden: The Essential Handbook is exactly that. This comprehensive resource is perfect for backyard gardeners wanting to go communal, community organizers wanting to impact their neighborhoods, and anyone else with a drive and a green thumb looking to make the place they live a little bit better.
I am the program manager at Grassroots Gardens, a non-profit organization that manages a network of nearly 100 community gardens in Buffalo, New York. I can’t wait to recommend this book to our constituents. With our brutal winters, residents of Buffalo get antsy and want to start community gardens once the sun is shining and the temperature hits seventy degrees. We receive calls in late May, June, and even in July asking for help starting a new garden. It’s always hard to dampen someone’s positive energy, but we have to tell them that starting a community garden takes a lot of preparation, outreach, and organizing. We emphasize outreach and engagement when we help neighbors start a new community garden. It isn’t enough to just start a garden and expect that the community will automatically show up to participate. Forming new relationships takes more time and energy than most people seem to expect.
Part one of the guide is useful because it lays down the building blocks of community engagement for new gardens. For example, most people think they can run effective, productive meetings. If that were the case, we’d all be going to great meetings—but anyone participating in a neighborhood association or a community board knows that’s far from true. “There’s no quicker way to lose interest with a group of people than by wasting their valuable time,” Joy writes, drawing on her many years of experience as a community gardener in Chicago. This is the best advice on community gardening I have ever seen in print. I know from my own experience that if you don’t convince your neighbors to join a garden after one or two meetings, everyone’s energy and time has been wasted.
Planning is pivotal to creating a successful garden and Part Two of the book hits on every important step. It is a helpful resource for choosing an appropriate site, funding (both short and long term), and the really boring stuff such as insurance and bi-laws. Joy leaves nothing out.
Sustainability is the last crucial part to having a successful community garden. Keeping the momentum going ensures a long-lasting and transformative gardening project. Joy offers activities and tips that will keep gardeners engaged for the long term. However, the Teaching new Gardeners section seems a little out of place, and might be more appropriate as a supplemental technical growing guide.
I enjoyed reading the book and I’m certain to recommend it to new gardeners in my work. Future editions of the book might benefit from a new section on what to do if the garden fails—and believe me, some do. More advice on what to do when engagement dwindles, when personalities are polarizing—and, consequently, when the weeds start to grow tall—would be fruitful. I would also hope to see a companion to this guide that focuses solely on advocacy work. Our community gardeners are also community organizers—though they might not see themselves playing that role. These activists just need a little nudge and some more tools in their toolbox to become bigger earth movers.
Still, The Essential Handbook is a must-read—and simply a treat—for any budding community gardener.
These many meanings are captured in Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-term Change, a book by American urban planners Anthony Garcia and Mike Lydon, both leaders in civic advocacy and principals of 
The third approach is the regulatory one: actually changing the rules to change the behavior. This approach is more dependent on local situations, with each government (and level of government) in each locality having its own ways of doing things. In the United States, we saw a wave of important environmental regulation in the early 1970s that made large, important changes for the New York City environment (e.g. Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, National Environmental Policy Act, etc.). Forty-five years later, those laws still govern our environment, with their focus on human health and safety, but one could imagine a new set of rules that addressed the species long since displaced. I harbor not so secret desires to have all of the Welikia community back, minus perhaps the dangerous ones and the climate refugees, to whom the city might make commitments to save elsewhere
What does it mean “to pay rent to nature”? In a literal sense it is not possible, because nature doesn’t care for your money; nature’s lack of greed is its downfall. Rather than pay nature directly, we need the public to act as the guarantor of nature, both for our sake and for the nature of cities. The rationale lies in rights and responsibilities. Any development project represents an appropriation of ecological value from nature and the body politic as part of nature. The apartment building that creates more stormwater runoff and displaces the trees that would have cooled the city has taken something from me and you and everyone else. For the birds and the bees, it has taken everything. In compensation, the private owner has a responsibility to repay the public for its loss.
A few years ago Juliana Gatti and Sandro Von Matter started the 
Sustainable infrastructure design—from water, energy, material flows, built systems—is the art of seeking solutions that address ecology, engineering and culture as interconnected realms.
Not being an ecologist, a biologist, or a landscape designer, I was originally trained to design cities from the perspective of the built environment, reflecting the practice of architecture in Brazil today, where different specialties meet to sustain a fragmented, partial vision: that of the professional who initiates the process. With little prior interaction and discussion that could amalgamate numerous urban facets into a holistic approach, we continue designing in fragments. Every specialty holds to itself its own primacy, its own knowledge. In the same way, in our daily realities, governmental RFPs are launched for engineering firms (or even construction companies) when it comes to infrastructure, with no mention of architecture, urban design, or landscape design.
The experience with these two projects, both the Eco-Park and the Linear Park, have taught me the importance of local urban and landscape design in the implementation and discussion of urban infrastructure. They have not solved the large infrastructure problems they tackle, but by “showcasing” environmental issues, have made them a topic for open community discussion. Infrastructure is so far from one’s daily routine, as is nature in and around São Paulo’s urban environment, that the majority of the population has lost its connection to the natural substrate that holds everything together. It really needs to become more present if we want any change in the way we face the challenges of upgrading and building new infrastructure.
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