I carefully placed the oak in the hole, and we moved back the forest earth with our fingers. It felt like a homecoming, like a renewed vow, like having the whole forest as a witness, and at the same time, being witnesses for it. Life, vouching for life. Reciprocity.
In the last days, with the air finally above the freezing point, and the grey silhouettes of the barren twigs dripping with fine silvery moisture against the faint morning light, I have been drawn into the forest. Every morning, I unlocked the chain securing my bike to a low metal arc between the parking cars, brushed away the water from the saddle and the handlebars, and rode two blocks into the Grunewald forest, often in an early spring drizzle.
The Grunewald is a huge woodland in the southwest of the German capital. It stretches 4 miles from east to west and 6 miles from where I live to the south. Deep inside of it, you don’t hear any traffic noises, only the chirp of the black tit or the tune of a song thrush, the silent thunder of a leaf slowly falling to the ground. There are protected species like the rare and huge hermit beetle. There are joggers, mountain bikers, mothers with small kids and dogs—and some fantastic swim spots with their northern European policy of bare skin and extremely wide tolerance. In the early mornings and evenings, especially now in spring, you almost surely bump into a couple of wild boar. That’s the typical Berlin mixture of these times: considerable wildlife, but more weird people doing weird things.
Photo: Andreas Weber
The Grunewald is about tenfold the size of New York’s Central Park, and nearly equally accessible. The woods are open as a porous skin from many access points of the city. Behind one bend, the trees. When I go there, I first have to get past the roar of the six-lane Heerstraße main traffic artery, and next take the bridge over five curved railroad tracks bluntly sparkling in the mist. Then I cross into the trees. First underbrush, littered with trash, then pine, birch, black cherry, oak. Leaves carpet the floor, punctuated by heath, moss, and withering stumps.
In these last mornings, I have been longing for touch, for the earthly touch of transformation. I was longing for the mutuality which now seemed so overdue after three months of unusually severe winter cold, isolating me mostly inside. When I entered the forest on my usual narrow trail it felt like moving through a wall. Although it was still cold, the forest atmosphere immersed me in the scent of wet leafy soil, of cold bark covered with algae, of moulds and plant parts half transformed into phosphorous, nitrogen, and air.
I rode slowly, the wheels leaving deep tracks in the thawing floor, and breathed in the air. There it was already, I thought, the earthly touch for which I had longed. I did not even need to bend down. I inhaled the air, and exhaling gave back something of myself. My breath flowed as steam through the branches. Oxygen and carbon and water vapour condensed into tiny droplets of silvery transparency. Breath is touch as well: a mutuality, bound together on the thin surface of each of my lung’s alveoli, where the world enters into my body like an acorn dips into the surface of a puddle. I pedaled slowly beneath the stems and branches on which the cold gleaming drops hung, occasionally bursting into a sudden rain shower on my coat when I brushed along them.
Photo: Andreas Weber
I thought that the surface with which we respire is not that much different to a water droplet. The innermost layer of the lung consists of delicate bubbles of the most subtle tissue layer which in the end are watery bubbles themselves. They are membranes through which the thin spheres of vapour, transpired by the plants, crystallized as hoarfrost, condensed as dew, enter my own body, merging with its translucent blisters like an iridescent soap bubble merging with another, reflecting the world on its shimmering surface until it bursts.
I was on the way to “my” oak. When something important is under way, I always check in with that particular tree to see what to make of it. Being there helps me access the fact that I also am only enabled to thrive by means of the light from above, and that whatever is weighing me down will ultimately be taken back by the earth, without a trace of labour. Trees breath. They are manifestations of the sky inhaling the earth and the earth being washed over by the sky. When the soil inhales sun and air, trees grow. If you looked at a forest through a time-shift lens, you could see its different patches rhythmically swell and decay, like an ocean, the respiration of its waves changing the shores. Trees are breath, on a very large scale.
Photo: Andreas Weber
Last summer, I invited the lady, who is now my wife, to my oak. It was high summer, the air balmy, the undergrowth rustling with life. Some of the 500 species, mostly insects, who are obliged to live on oaks as their only habitat, were buzzing around our heads, while we leaned against the bark with its deep clefts, holding hands, not being able to embrace the whole stem, not by far. Oaks are the trees with the highest number of life-giving relationships in the northern hemisphere. Even if we did not speak it out explicitly, our embrace around the oak’s stem was a promise. It was the pledge to remain tuned into the other’s breath. To remain breathable, edible, vulnerable. To remain earth, fertile, fragrant.
Being edible is the basic condition which we share with all other life. It is the door through which our communion comes, the pleasure to eat, and the consolation of being transformed into the bodies and the blossoms of other beings. Understanding that we need to accept being edible leads to understanding that only as vulnerable beings we are able to be real, and to connect with others. Doing this is a profoundly embodied, sensual process.
Photo: Andreas Weber
I estimate that my oak is about 400 years old. It was already a thriving tree before Descartes decreed that all nonhuman bodies are just machines, and only the human godlike rationality real after all. Another Berlin oak, named “Dicke Marie”, “fat Mary” by Alexander Humboldt and his brother Wilhelm (because the two played at its feet in the Tegel forest near to their manor, and because the kitchen chef of their home was a somewhat strict and pretty obese lady), is estimated to be 800 years old, bringing us straight back into the middle ages.
Breath means to give something back when you receive something. It means giving back something of yourself when you inhale something which belongs to other. I have often been thinking that if we would organise more of our human ways as breath, many problems would settle all by themselves. Imagine teaching schoolchildren conceived as breath. Becoming with-other as mutual breathing in and out. Agriculture as breath. Breath is linked to eating. It is the other half of the respiration cycle in which food becomes body and body air. Breath is a fundamental reaching out to the other, and a substantial welcoming of the other as a necessary condition to be a self. Trees, the stem pushing upwards, the branches reaching for the void air, are a form of how breath becomes body.
Trees grope for the other. They reveal space as a relationship. They reveal relationship as breath. Breath, in which I constantly give away something from myself and constantly receive something from another being, incorporating it into my own existence. We have heard so much of the world’s forests being “green lungs” and therefore needing protection. This plea, however, has not been that successful. Maybe it would help to feel that forests are not only lungs in a technical sense. They are breath. Their way of being, and of relating to us, is an ever so slow rhythmical tide of breathing out myself, breathing in the other, of total, completely entangled reciprocity.
Breath means community, means sharing, means letting yourself be imagined by others: by humans, by non-human others, by non-animate others, as stone, and sand, and air. In the summer, after we had met under the oak tree and joined in its vow of reciprocity, we spent entire nights in its neighbourhood, stretched on the forest floor on a blanket. The wiry forest grass tickled our skin while we looked up to see the foliage flow into the approaching darkness of the night. The thrush’s song gave way to the grunt of wild boar and scattered sounds of stomping feet, while the beasts of the night were closing in on us, creatures among other creatures.
We were there, speechless, amidst a profound encounter of curious and needful bodies, caressed by the night, brought to life by the night. The primordial myth of Eros, as Ovid has written it down, is such a beginning in mutual tenderness, reciprocal fertilization: the primeval wind impregnated the primordial night, giving birth to a silver egg, says Ovid. Out comes Eros. He is a god because he is the tender curiosity for other, the force that yearns for touch and hence begets connection, and thus creates newness. The primordial night being inseminated by the primeval wind, that is also the archetype of breath. Breath is the precursor of what is there in solid form, its precursor in the form of desire.
When I entered the woods in these very early spring mornings of 2018, it was all about touch and reciprocity, all about sensing my skin adjacent to others, of being permeated, embraced, entangled. This touch was pretty faint, a fine mist, a delicate inhalation. My encounter was already touch before I even felt it as such, just by being breathable, by being the space from which I renewed myself. I experienced the world yearning for spring as profoundly mutual. Its fertility relied on the confidence that mutuality would remain possible, would remain the soil from which we all grow.
That’s not always the most obvious thought in a metropolis like Berlin, full of humans, trying to function the best they can, trying to make their lives ever so special, coping with expectations and constraints, all this in the short, busy time they are given.
Berlin is by far not a megacity, but still a place where mutuality often falls short. There is, for instance, a more than 50-percent-chance that your marriage will fall apart, far higher than in most rural settings of my home country. Breathing is not always easy in Berlin. From this angle, it makes things a little simpler that there are far more trees than humans populating the German capital. Berlin streets are lined with over 400,000 oaks, lindens, birches, cherries, sycamores, and other towering fellow beings. Fellow beings like us, who have a youth, born from the tiny shell of an acorn, groping for light, groping for contact, yearning to be, blossoming and bearing fruit, which, as my wife from time to time reminds me, means to understand that becoming mature means to become edible.
As the Berlin trees are on German soil, they are all precisely taken account of. If you look closely, you can discover a little green tag with a number on it nailed to the bark of every stem. In Berlin, if you feel lonely as a human (many do, as surveys reveal), you can at least go out of your house and directly hug a tree. (Beware of dog droppings, though). You can hug it and think of the invisible bubbles it transpires from its leaf surface and the concealed bubbles deep inside your body merging into one another in one tidal wave of breath.
Last November, my wife gave me an oak for my birthday. It was quite a decisive birthday, my fiftieth, so receiving an oak felt somewhat consoling. The oak was a pretty juvenile tree, a slender stem, not much higher than 50 inches, with a couple of short barren branches, to which two or three brown leaves clung, in a pot filled with earth. The oak was in deep hibernation, waiting for spring. It had arrived in a huge box packed with straw. When the temperatures climbed above freezing point in these last days, I suddenly thought of the baby oak and its fate.
My wife had carried the tiny oak for my birthday all the way from the post office. Having it stand there on my special day was a pretty surprise. She had carried the baby oak in its straw cardboard casing all the way into our flat on the third floor while I was traveling. The tree was small, but given the pot, packaging and all, it was an exhausting job for her to drag the tree up to our flat. I did not even know that you could do this: having trees shipped to a condominium in the heart of the German capital.
There it sat, beside the table with the more practical-seeming gifts, in the heated air of our apartment in late autumn, waiting for the earth to take care of it again. She gave me an oak to renew her vow—as we had done for the first time, under that other oak. Now, I thought, looking at that fragile young tree sitting in a tiny pot with some earth, surrounded by the wrapping paper that had hidden it, it is up to me to give something back to the oak. To give it life actually.
As it was too hot in the room, we put the baby oak out on the balcony, still half in its wrapping. There it sat in a corner, between all the summer stuff half-heartedly left there, folded chairs, boxes, empty flower pots. The soil over its roots became dry. We nearly forgot about the plant, until storm Xavier hit the capital in early December. I remember finding a shared car to rescue my wife from her workplace, as all public transport was shut down. The streets were awash with objects drifting around: tree branches, boards from hamburger stands, fragments of billboards, bicycles, plastic debris, driving leaves, in fact, whole trees across lanes and no one around to put them away.
We hurried to check on the devastation that had befallen our balcony. The straw mats that had been fixed to the railing hung in the branches of the surrounding oaks and sycamores. The oak sapling lay upside down under a deck-chair, the earth strewn around. I did not feel very well seeing that. I felt as though I had violated an important obligation. But what to do with it? We did not have a garden. We were impatiently waiting to be allotted a piece of land in an urban gardening area close to the forest but were very low on a long waiting list, and still are.
When the winter cold kicked in, I felt this uneasiness even more considerably. At least when I allowed myself to feel it. When I thought of the baby oak, a slightly startled feeling came up. Was the tree baby ok? Would the earth in its pot freeze through, killing it? Would the frost eat its tiny buds, already protruding from the empty twigs? This went on for some weeks. I visited the balcony, literally held my breath, then closed the door and tried to stop thinking of the tree.
I started moving when I saw the devastation the storm had done to the Grunewald. The forest administration estimates that 40,000 trees were lost here in December 2017, in only an hour’s time, when the worst of the storm hit. Since then, it has been difficult to access the forest by my usual tracks. Fallen trees blocked every path, one after the other. But it was not the devastation that finally made me think of the little oak again. It was the way the forest administration dealt with it. They sent in private contractors to clear cut every affected tree—including the ones badly beaten, but still standing.
One cold and grey morning, on a walk with my dog, I visited my old oak friend (which had weathered the storm unaffected) and cycled back, the poodle in her grey parka against the cold racing from one side of the track to the other. I stopped at another old oak which had been battered but had remained about two thirds intact. I had seen it in the days before since I had been coming back after the storm. If you look at old paintings of oaks you realize that there is nothing that stops them thriving. Here however, I stopped in my track, as the battered oak had been felled and cut to pieces. Cleared away, it was a painful sight.
Photo: Andreas Weber
What these guys were doing here was not simply tidying up the wrong way. It was literally breathtaking. They used the storm as an occasion to step out of the relatedness that thrives on mutuality. The five hundred or so species that rely on oaks as food or dwelling space (like the hermit beetle) do so because the oak is alive even if half crushed, half rotten, already half transformed into other beings.
The oak’s substance is visibly made of other beings. It is itself—in a majestic and towering way—precisely by being other. By this it is, more visibly than other species, breath, open to be breathed in, ready to take up my exhalation, and even more so the breath of the hermit beetle, of the black tit, of the woodpecker, the ants and hornets dwelling in its holes and crevices. Cutting and carrying away a half-dead oak seemed like disallowing relatedness to happen. It was the deliberate act of creating a life in isolation, lonesome and locked in. It is the standard forest policy, not only in the capital but in 99.8 percent of German woodland.
We wrapped our baby oak in long stretches of packing paper and carried it to the 136 bus, and then to the X49 bus. Nobody looked at us and our heavy load. Wildlife and weird people, and we apparently belonged to both. I even carried a spade, rusty from leaning against a damp basement wall. It was a grey, quite chilly day, the forest floor just above freezing solid. When we left the bus and walked the few steps to the forest entrance, we fell silent. A ceremonial feeling came upon me. And then it was also so weird.
What we were doing seemed very much like carrying owls to Athens, or rather, oaks. Planting an oak in an oak forest. Throwing water into the ocean. Besides, this was surely illegal. In a city where there is an individual identification number for each tree, it is hard to imagine that it would be acceptable for citizens to set their own plant specimens to roam free in the woods. At least, we told ourselves, the oak was not an alien species. We were offering the forest what the forest was continuously offering to itself.
Dusk began to fall already. We had selected the place carefully beforehand, a clearing, close to the tree that had been cut. The air was chilly. Our breath formed white clouds of tiny droplets, mine mixing with that of my wife, and then perfusing into the shrubs and among the stems. When I pushed in the spade, the earth under the loose grass gave away easily. It was a thing of few minutes. I dug a hole, and we moved out the remaining sediment with our fingers, touching the cool, soft, velvety sediment, touching our hands with one another, caressing the earth, being caressed back by its sheer touch, caressing one another. Then I carefully placed the oak in the hole, arranged the compact form of roots and earth that had come out of the pot so it sat straight, and we moved back the forest earth with our fingers.
It felt like something we both had long needed to do. It felt like a homecoming, like a renewed vow, like having the whole forest as a witness, and at the same time, being witnesses for it. Life, vouching for life. Reciprocity, celebrated by sheer and simple touch. Just being there, connected. Becoming earth again. What we were doing there was a very simple thing, a kind of natural play, and it was also, by being that simple, a kind of deep understanding. It made us see, in a way, that a vow to stay in reciprocity is respiration. It is a pledge to be earthly: vulnerable, accessible, fertile, nourishing. Also love, after all, is breath.
Planting that slender, lonesome oak in the soil where so many of his brethren already vouched for aliveness (by sharing the own self with others) did not seem different from that moment before falling asleep together when your breath somehow becomes the breath of your beloved, of your partner, your child. Planting the oak in the cold and grey eve of the Berlin forest felt like exchanging a long and tender kiss: the encounter of two sensitive surfaces in a way that forever changes both.
Most of us know how “good” trees are for the urban environment, and for the planet overall. Whether you’re a human, an insect, a fungus, a bat, a bird, a four-legged omnivore, or an amphibian, we all love trees. Trees are symbols of health, vitality, and goodness. For the greater landscape and environment, trees and woodlands connect the lithosphere and the atmosphere through their role in the water cycle, whether by absorbing liquid water and facilitating infiltration into the soil and aquifers, or evaporating and transpiring water vapour, along with oxygen and other molecules, into the atmosphere.
When it comes to street trees, recent lessons in Sheffield show that we must stay on top of current knowledge, and then put it to good use.
Trees, it would seem, can do no wrong. As in the case of any complex issue, however, there is no such thing as a silver bullet, and the same applies here. With this essay, I’d like to explore some good, some bad, and some ugly stories pertaining to urban trees and forests in Sheffield, England, where I’ve been living for seven years.
Bluebell time in Ecclesall Wood, Sheffield. Photo: Fran Halsall
The Good
This year marks 800 years since King Henry III signed the 1217 Charter of the Forest, which established rights of access and use for common people to the forests of Britain. To celebrate this document (issued concurrently with the Magna Carta), the Charter for Trees, Woods and People will be launched by the Woodland Trust, together with more than 70 organisations from across multiple sectors, to “build a future in which trees and people stand stronger together”. People are invited to sign if they agree with the 10 Tree Charter Principles, and a tree will be planted for every signature. (You can sign, too! After it closes, in November 2017, the Charter may serve as a policy instrument and help to inform decisions about how trees and woods are managed.)
Beyond the pleasing, round number of an 800-year anniversary, the timing of this initiative is resonant. Given that humanity is now an urban species, we are much less aware of how our woodlands are managed than when we depended on them for our livelihoods. Around Sheffield, there are certainly many political symptoms of this evident disconnect (see The Ugly). Accordingly, the Tree Charter aims to facilitate interest and engagement; promote the development of ecological sensibilities; and encourage the development and expression of personal connections with trees and woodlands. Only when we care for something will we protect it.
From my own experience as a “Charter Champion” for Sheffield, together with like-minded friends, we’ve created a group called Sheffield Woodland Connections. After months of familiarising ourselves with Sheffield’s most accessible (and South Yorkshire’s largest) ancient woodland, Ecclesall Woods, we are leading interpretive walks and inviting participants to become more personally involved in the woodland, perhaps by “adopting” a living feature, such as a veteran tree, and making regular experiential records of it for example, photographs, drawings, writing, measuring). These data can be shared on an interactive map that we have developed, and which will be online soon. After our launch event in April 2017, it has become apparent that we are filling a gap and addressing a need. While I hoped that people would enjoy our walks, the feedback we received was tremendous. (One of my highlights: “I’ve always wanted to know how to identify a Hornbeam: thank you!”) The tangible “good” in this case is creating connections, both amongst people and between people and a cultural woodland. I’m confident that providing people with the inspiration and tools to learn more about and engage with the natural world is profoundly good.
The Charter for Trees, Woods and People will be launched by the Woodland Trust. You can sign the charter, too!Immersed by interest, engaged with fascination, enriched with connectivity. Our “Sheffield Woodland Connections” interpretive walks have been very well received. Photo: Christine Thuring
The Bad
I recently learned some of the latest research on urban trees and urban forests at the GreenInUrbs conference in Orvieto, Italy, and was distressed to learn that trees and urban vegetation can have negative effects on air quality. Just as some species can tolerate air pollution or cramped growing conditions better than others, some species can break down urban pollutants whereas others will succumb to poisoning, and some will emit vapour while others will close their pores. Issues such as allergens, ozone formation, and how plants deal with particulate matter play an important role in the quality of the urban atmosphere.
Like most living things, plants emit volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, in the form of evaporated vapour or as sublimated solid resin. The main compound of plant-based VOCs is isoprene and its derivative, terpene. Under natural conditions, biological (or biogenic) VOCs are used for communication between plants, but the volatility of these compounds is also a response to temperature. It has been found that urban trees emit more VOCs during heat waves, and that this is a synergistic interaction with the urban heat island. In other words, urban trees are key agents in the formation of ozone and smog during hot weather. Based on a study of the 2006 Berlin heat wave (spanning 20 days in July in 2006), for example, Churkina et al. reported that 60 percent of the VOCs in the ozone had originated from the urban vegetation. They determined the varying contribution of VOCs from vegetation to ozone levels in Berlin as follows: ~9 – 11 percent on average days in June and August, ~17 – 20 percent on average days in July, and ~60 percent during the heat wave.
Biogenic VOCs combine with air pollution to form smog. Photo: Galena Churkina.
Researchers have reported that there are “crucial knowledge gaps associated with exacerbated emissions of pollen and volatile organic compounds, which may increasingly contribute to tropospheric ozone and particle formation under future climatic conditions” (Grote et al., 2016). Apparently the potential for urban vegetation to produce ozone in combination with anthropogenic emissions “has long been recognized, [but] the municipalities actively enlarging their green spaces still generally either overlook or ignore this fact” (Churkina et al., 2015). This latter comment leads neatly to an Ugly story pertaining to urban trees in the U.K.
The Ugly
With more than 250 parks, woodlands, and gardens, Sheffield is Britain’s most treed and wooded city (10.4 percent woodland by area). In spite of its leafy and green reputation, Sheffield has been receiving bad press recently with regards to how its street trees are being managed and, more troublingly, to how its citizens’ rights to protest are being subjugated.
In 2007, City Council adopted a methodology document, “Streets Ahead”, which categorises trees into one of 6 “D” categories: dead, dying, dangerous, diseased, damaging, and discriminatory. (The last D implies compromises to the sidewalk or pavement by roots, or to branches which could impede a person passing by the tree.) Streets Ahead is part of a £2.2 billion, 25-year PFI contract with Amey plc to maintain the city’s roads, pavements, streetlights, and trees. Herein lies the thorn. Amey is a private, multi-national infrastructure support service provider, for whom chopping down a tree is objectively more economical than maintenance over the long term. Of the thousands of trees already cut down, subsequent examinations have concluded that many of these trees were healthy, structurally sound, and, in some cases, very old. Unfortunately, the species lists for replacement trees are difficult to access and it’s unclear whether the trees being planted are “future-proof”.
Most of the old trees lining Oxford Road are due to be chopped down, as indicated by the ribbons of care. Photo: Christine ThuringOne of several memorials tree slated to be chopped down (Oxford Road, Sheffield)—but not without a fight from local residents. Photo: Christine Thuring
Currently, more than 20 old memorial trees, planted to honour a local group of young soldiers killed in World War I, are slated to be chopped down. For some citizens, this is akin to desecrating a war memorial. You just don’t do it.
The tree felling, and the situation in general, has led numerous citizens to defend individual trees, particularly those outside their homes. A peculiar form of law enforcement that has come to accompany the felling has inflamed the situation further, and brought Sheffield into the national spotlight. Numerous residents have been woken in the early hours of the morning by police officers knocking on their doors, requesting that they move their cars from the street. Fourteen people have been arrested since November 2016 for standing next to trees and protesting their felling, under a law originally designed to prevent strike breakers from working. All charges have been dropped, but tensions remain high and a Sheffield Tree Action Group, a decentralised, citizen-run tree vigilante, is on guard and ready for action. It is worth mentioning that this issue aggravates concerns around fracking, as licences have apparently been granted for shale gas exploration to nearly every town and village in the region.
Concluding thoughts
What these recent and current experiences evoke for me is how differently urban trees can be viewed. As an engaged citizen and plant ecologist, it feels profoundly good to introduce interested folk to the incredible details, stories, or functions of woodland flora. One of my favourite things is enabling connections between people and the natural world, by introducing the subtle lens through which to see certain things in high resolution. Have you ever had that experience of identifying a plant, for example, and suddenly realising that it is everywhere, yet you hadn’t noticed it before? I feel such experiences broaden our ability to see other forms of life more personally. When I sense my interconnectivity with other things (for example, that I comprise the same elements as plants, animals, air, and water), the small insight gained from such visceral understanding has a very positive effect on my state of mind and well-being. Just sitting in the natural world can be an especially calming experience for this reason.
The other side of the coin, of course, is that some people view urban trees not as resources or habitat, but as nuisances and problems. And not to say that this is incorrect, since all views are limited in scope, whether good or bad. In Sheffield, the practitioners who are responsible for urban trees are trained, and accustomed, to working with hard infrastructure and big machinery. Given those conditions, and given the situation of the PFI contract, it is not surprising that so many trees are being chopped down. It is interesting to think that while many people agree that the “Sheffield Tree Massacre” is BAD, the reasons will be manifold. With regards to the trees being planted today, and the possibility that uninformed species choices could potentially be harmful to air quality and public health, the lesson I take is that there are no easy solutions. We must all do our homework by staying on top of current knowledge and then putting it to good use. Trees are clearly more than just trees.
CHURKINA, G., GROTE, R., BUTLER, T. M. & LAWRENCE, M. 2015. Natural selection? Picking the right trees for urban greening. Environmental Science & Policy, 47, 12-17.
GROTE, R., SAMSON, R., ALONSO, R., AMORIM, J. H., CARINANOS, P., CHURKINA, G., FARES, S., LE THIEC, D., NIINEMETS, U., MIKKELSEN, T. N., PAOLETTI, E., TIWARY, A. & CALFAPIETRA, C. 2016. Functional traits of urban trees: air pollution mitigation potential. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 14, 543-550.
Have you ever sat beneath an old urban tree and wished that it could talk? Many times older than any human, yet always rooted to one location, imagine the stories that the tree could share and the wisdom it could impart. Such trees could have led extraordinary lives, witnessing profound landscape transformations: from natural to rural to urban; from residential to industrial to commercial.
Why do they stand where they do? Did somebody plant them, and if so, for what purpose? What history occurred beneath their branches? Were battles waged, was power brokered, were treaties signed, were enterprises born, were slaves sold, and convicts hung? What human tragedy, scandal, and elation, have these trees beheld? Moreover, why have they survived so long, when all about them is changing?
Interesting trees can be found in almost any city. They can shed light on the cultural value systems and economic priorities of bygone generations. If approached with an inquisitive mind, these trees provide excellent starting points for journeys of learning about a city — journeys that have no fixed route or endpoint. Over time, the trees and their environs develop distinctive personalities, reflected in the various anecdotes that we attach to them. This makes for an altogether more interesting and enriching urban landscape.
So far, I have identified over 30 remarkable trees in the City of Cape Town, South Africa. These trees have captured my imagination and led me to better understand and appreciate the colourful culture and rich, if brutal, history of the city. Here follows a small selection.
(1) The Treaty Tree in Woodstock
On Treaty Road, about 2 km east of the city centre, in the post-industrial suburb of Woodstock, there stands an ancient milkwood (Sideroxylon inerme), known as ‘The Treaty Tree’, which is well over 500 years old.
The Treaty Tree was previously known as the Old Slave Tree of Woodstock. Photo: Russell Galt
It was here on Cape Town’s original beachfront, in 1510, that the famous Portuguese explorer, Dom Francisco de Almeida, and 64 of his finest men met a gruesome end. A band of enraged Khoekhoe (local indigenous people) armed with sticks attacked and slaughtered the Portuguese, revenging cattle raids, abductions and extortion.
In later centuries, the tee became known as the Old Slave Tree of Woodstock. Under its shady breadth, slave masters bartered away humans like livestock, and from its gnarled branches, numerous “disobedient” slaves were hung.
In the early 19th Century the tree was renamed, The Treaty Tree, to commemorate the start of the second British occupation of the Cape. It was here, following the Battle of Blaauwberg in 1806, that the victorious British Forces regrouped and the defeated commander of the Dutch (Batavian) Forces signed capitulation conditions, effectively transferring control of the Cape to Britain. Different sources contest whether the treaty was signed underneath the tree or in an adjacent cottage later named Treaty House. However, the latter was demolished in 1935 to make way for a factory, so today, only the Treaty Tree remains and it is now protected as a National Monument.
The historical significance of The Treaty Tree is not reflected in its upkeep. Tall neighbouring buildings crowd it from view. Abandoned, stripped, and rusting old cars line along Treaty Road. Dozens of colourful plastic bags are tangled like tinsel in its branches. Remnant glue on a flat-faced rock suggests that the only information plaque has been stolen.
(2) European Oak in Groot Constantia
This European oak tree (Quercus robur) is several centuries old and remarkably hollow. Presumably it suffered from a fungal disease, perhaps after being struck by lightning or split by violent wind. Appearing at odds with gravity, its thick heavy branches hang precariously on the trunk’s thin, empty exoskeleton.
The old hollow European oak tree. Photo: Russell-Galt
This oak tree is one of many found on Groot Constantia, South Africa’s oldest wine estate. In 1685, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) granted the land to Simon van der Stel, the Governor of the Cape of Good Hope and an avid wine-lover. Van der Stel recruited French winemakers to the colony, who with the assistance of slaves, established vineyards in Constantia Valley, now suburban Cape Town. Rows of oak trees were planted to shield the vineyards from the beating winds of the ‘Cape Doctor’ and to provide wood for making wine barrels. This latter function will have been limited, because oaks tend to grow quickly in the Cape, rendering only low-quality, porous wood. In any case, the wine of Constantia soon became widely admired, especially the desert wine, Vin de Constance, famously a favourite of Napoleon Bonaparte when in exile on the island of St Helena.
From the affluent vantage point of the old hollow oak tree, one has a panoramic view of False Bay, called so because sailors returning from the East would mistake it for Table Bay further up the coastline. To the south, the Cape Peninsula skirts high above the surfing town of Muizenberg, and to the north, one can see part of the Cape Flats, known as ‘apartheid’s dumping ground’.
(3) Saffron Pear in the Company’s Garden
Of the many old trees in the centre of Cape Town, the saffron pear (Pyrus communis) in the Company’s Garden could be the oldest. Brought here from Holland during the time of Jan van Riebeeck (the founder of Cape Town) some 350 years ago, it is probably also South Africa’s oldest living cultivated tree. Three suckers radiate from the main trunk which died back many years ago. The rot has been scraped away and special sealant applied. Metal crutches and cables now hold the tree in place. Astonishingly, it still produces clusters of white flowers every spring and a bounty of edible fruit every autumn. It must be a surreal experience to taste the fruit of the same tree from which the traveller, Valentyn, recorded eating in 1714!
The saffron pear tree. Photo: Russell Galt
Established by the VOC in 1652, when indigenous hunter-gatherers and migratory pastoralists still roamed the land, the Company’s Garden is a foundation stone of Western colonisation of Africa. The Dutch needed a victualing station to provide fresh supplies to sailing ships plying the spice trade between the East and Europe, and later, to support ships engaged in foreign wars. To this end, the Company’s Garden was designed primarily to produce food. One can still see evidence of the original irrigation furrows and wells.
Today, the Company’s Garden provides Capetonians with a well-used refuge in the busy city centre. This green oasis brims with fascinating plants, statues and monuments, and abuts several historic buildings, thereby presenting an ideal gateway to discover the city.
(4) European Oak in the Company’s Garden
Another fascinating European oak tree can be found next to a well, dated 1842, in the Company’s Garden. The tree is remarkable because it has somehow engulfed the well pump and lifted it up to head height such that a large tap, also dated 1842, now protrudes from the trunk.
A tap protrudes from the tree trunk at head height. Photo: Russell Galt
The well was constructed with alternate rings of wood, slate, and brick to allow for the percolation of groundwater, whilst the base is lined with impermeable clay.
Water has played an essential role in the development of Cape Town. In the ancient Khoisan tongue, the area was known as ‘Camissa’, meaning ‘the place of sweet waters’. It is the existence of this freshwater running cleanly from the slopes of Table Mountain that ultimately determined the site of the city.
The Dutch utilised this water by building various irrigation furrows and canals. Later, in the context of increasing water consumption and periods of severe drought, the British filled in these canals and constructed a system of pipes and sewers, with a view to improving water supply and sanitation. Prevailing street names including the word, ‘gracht’ (e.g. Heerengracht and Buitengracht), reveal the whereabouts of original canals and forgotten waters still flow under these streets. A movement to make better use of this valuable water resource is now underway, spearheaded by the campaign group, Reclaim Camissa.
(5) Black Mulberry in the Company’s Garden
One can also find a contorted black mulberry tree (Morus nigra) in the Company’s Garden. This species, which is native to Persia, was cultivated across much of the old world, partly for its sweet fruit and partly for its leaves which are eaten by silkworms (Bombyx mon) — a clue to the story of the tree in question.
The black mulberry in Company’s Garden. Photo: Russell Galt
In 1704, Willem Adrain van der Stel, who succeeded his father, Simon, to become Governor of the Cape, sought to establish a local silk industry. ‘Die Oude Spinnery’ (the old spinning factory) was constructed on present-day Spin Street, next to the Company’s Garden. Imported silkworms fed on the leaves of black mulberry trees cultivated in the garden, and slave children were tasked with unspinning their cocoons. The black mulberry tree in the garden dates to 1800 and is probably the offspring of one planted earlier in support of the silk industry.
The industry failed to prosper and was soon abandoned. One account suggests that the eggs of the imported silkworms did not survive well in the Cape, perhaps owing to the harsh climate. Another possible explanation is that silkworms survive poorly on black mulberry, and actually favour white mulberry (Morus alba). Sensing a threat to their commerce, could Eastern silk producers have deliberately provided the Dutch with seeds of the less suitable species?
Spin Street is named after the old spinning factory. Photo: Russell-Galt
Many years later in 1753, the Frenchman, Francois Guillaumet, unsuccessfully sought to re-establish silk production. Thereafter, the old spinning factory was converted into a grain depot before it burnt down in 1792, leaving only the street name and black mulberry as evidence of Cape Town’s short-lived silk industry.
(6) The Old Slave Tree on Spin Street
Silk aside, Spin Street has a deeply sinister history. An old fir tree, the exact species of which could not be determined, stood here for hundreds of years until 1916 when it was cut down. Under this tree, an estimated 100,000 souls were sold into slavery.
Today, in the absence of that tree, a raised octagonal plaque lies wedged on a traffic island. It is faintly inscribed with the words, “On this spot stood the old slave tree”, which are only legible when the sun hangs low. Pedestrians seem largely unaware of the historical significance of this marker, and sometime walk directly over it when rushing across the street.
The rather inconspicuous Slave Tree Plaque. Photo: Russell-Galt
Slaves were brought to the Cape from other parts of Africa, India and Indonesia from 1656 onwards. They were named by their masters after months of the year, or characters from the Bible and classical mythology. Their surnames were replaced by their country of origin.
Near to the slave tree plaque is the Slave Lodge, which was built in 1679 and eventually housed 1000 slaves. Having served temporarily as the Supreme Court, the building is a now a museum providing a tear-jerking account of slavery in the region. Visitors can still see the squalid, inhumane conditions in which the slaves were kept. It was not until the 1830s, almost two centuries later, that slaves were finally emancipated.
The inconspicuousness of the slave tree plaque is partially compensated by ‘The Cape Town Memorial to the Enslaved’, unveiled in 2008, in the adjacent Church Square. The memorial comprises a sombre arrangement of eleven blocks of black granite. Each block is engraved with evocative words depicting the names and experiences of slaves.
(7) The Stone Pines of Groote Schuur Estate
Driving into Cape Town along the main freeway, one can see zebra and black wildebeest grazing in grassy paddocks next to massive stone pines (Pinus pinea) afore the crags of Devil’s Peak. The scene is Groote Schuur Estate, and contrasts strikingly with the concrete jungle on the lower side of the freeway.
Most of the surviving stone pines are nearing the end of their natural lives: Photo: Russell-Galt
Stone pines are native to the Mediterranean region and have long, branchless trunks terminating in an umbrella-shaped crown. In Cape Town, the trees often grow at an angle owing to the harsh south-easterly wind. Their cones produce large edible kernels known locally as ‘dennepitjies’ (pronounced denna-pye-kees). Many are over 150 years old and have become regarded as an important part of Cape Town’s landscape and heritage, popular for recreational activities and family ‘braais’ (barbeques). However, the pines are extremely water thirsty and corrode native biodiversity. As such, conservation authorities are at pains to remove them and prevent their regeneration, often in the face of strong public opposition.
The thirsty roots of a stone pine exposed here by erosion. Photo: Russell-Galt
The stone pines were originally planted by the Dutch in the 1700s, in response to escalating demand for timber. Later, in the 1890s another wave of planting was conducted, this time at the behest of the controversial British imperialist and owner of Groote Schuur Estate, Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902). It is these pines which can be seen from the freeway today.
Rhodes actually introduced many alien species to the Cape, some of which have become invasive, wreaking ecological havoc. He augmented the diverse stock of African animals kept on Groote Schuur Estate, with llama from Peru and emu, wallaby, and kangaroo from Australia. This folly of nature resulted in overgrazing and land degradation, for which Rhodes has been criticised. However, he has also been rightly credited for preventing this expanse of prime land from being consumed by urbanisation.
Cecil Rhodes introduced many alien species to the Cape. Photo: Russell Galt
In his will, Rhodes bequeathed Groote Schuur Estate to the nation under strict conditions: that it would be used exclusively for public purposes; that any new buildings would be in architectural harmony with the existing buildings; and that the land would not be sold or developed into a residential area. The conditions have been interpreted flexibly over the ensuing years, allowing for two landmark constructions — namely the University of Cape Town in 1920 and the Groote Schuur Hospital in 1938 (made famous by Dr Christiaan Barnard, who conducted the world’s first heart transplant there in 1967) as well as the aforementioned freeway — to infringe on the Estate.
(8) The Silvertree of Table Mountain
The silvertree (Leucadendron argentium) is an endangered species native to the Western Cape fynbos biome. Its silky leaves are covered in fine hairs that shimmer in the sunlight like shards of mirror. A member of Protea family, it only occurs in a few discrete locations on the sunny slopes of Table Mountain, specifically, Kirstenbosch, Newlands and Lion’s Head, where the soils are well-drained and acidic. The tree was once widespread around Table Mountain but urban sprawl, demand for timber, inappropriate fire management, and the spread of invasive alien species, have reduced its range by three-quarters. So precarious is the species’ survival, that a single fire in 2006 destroyed almost half of the world’s entire wild population. Fortunately, the species actually requires fire to regenerate and the population has already recovered to pre-2006 levels.
The silvertree is steeped in folklore. Photo: Russell GaltThe silvertree is a member of the Protea family. Photo: Russell-Galt
The silvertree holds a special place in Khoisan folklore. It is said that God asked the birds, animals, and Khoisan people, to plant special seeds which he gave to them. The birds planted the seeds in the centre of the land but they would not germinate because it was too high and cold. The animals planted the seeds on the West coast but they too would not germinate, because it was too dry. The Khoisan headed southwards to plant the seeds. On route, they encountered a great flat mountain (Table Mountain), and in an excited frenzy, spilled the seeds on its sandy slopes. The seeds germinated and grew into trees that shimmered silver to express their glee.
The silvertree also holds a place in modern folklore. Some say that the leaves will only turn silver if the tree has an unobstructed view of Table Mountain. Others say that the leaves turn especially silver when rain is imminent.
Almost all of the history that I have alluded to in this post can be found in museums, books, city archives and specialist websites. However, there are also personal histories that we as individuals can associate with certain trees. For example, on a recent hike through Newlands Forest one of my most spiritually-alert friends stopped abruptly to explain the significance of a large silvertree branching across our path. It was to this place, that some months earlier, she had carried her deceased, beloved cat to bury it in the fynbos. Unable to bring herself to let go, she slumped against the large silvertree and sobbed. Then, in the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a Cape Robin (Cossypha caffra) boldly perching nearby. They looked directly at each other before the robin fluttered away into the thickets. Perceiving it as a sign, she pursued the robin far off the beaten path, until she found it once more, resting on another silvertree. It is there that she chose to bury her cat.
To be continued…
There are far too many fascinating trees in Cape Town, to cover in this post alone.
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.
Ten years ago this month, in 2003, northeastern North America experienced the second most widespread blackout in history. That August evening, toward the end of my three-hour commute home on foot, a nearly full moon rose over the soft brownstone canyons of Park Slope, Brooklyn. Candlelit stoops hosted small, spontaneous parties serenaded by banjoes, guitars and accordions. Without the pollution of a million street and building lights the visibility of the night sky was exceptional.
The 2003 blackout over northeastern United States.
But what arrested one most of all was the soundscape of insects. It was as if, for one night, the crickets and cicadas had been given reign over New York; the city streets a symphony of a million minor territories and matings. It was a wet, reverberant carpet that came over one in waves.
Had those insects had always been singing beneath our aural radar? Or had they availed themselves of that perhaps once-in-a-generation niche and taken the cue of the lack of air condensers, ventilation fans and amplified music to raise their voices.
I Plus Ultra
In 2004 a friend of mine invited me to the Metropolitan Opera’s season opening featuring Karita Mattila in the title role of Salome. Having progressed through Strauss’s key modulations and ambiguous tonalities, Mattila then performed the lurid Dance of the Seven Veils. At the end of this incestuous strip tease, she took to centre stage, to a background of audible gasps, completely naked. (It took sixty years for a production to actually follow this staging as the composer intended, and afterward many still used a skin suit.) Salome’s kiss of the beheaded John the Baptist—the reward for her dance—was equally sensational, but it was the orchestral chord in the final minute that I found particularly chilling. At the curtain call the audience cheered and booed the directors in equal measure.
Karita Mattila as Salome, about to kiss the head of John the Baptist
I found this curiously puritanical for a New York audience. But then Salome had always had a controversial history for its combination of the erotic, religious and murderous. Numerous opera houses refused to stage it in the early 20th century because of the nudity and its overall thematic material. But for me the unshakeable impression of Strauss’s workis not so much the subject matter or its explicit visuals, but rather its sound and the way Strauss forces us to open our ears. Throughout the orchestra plays symbolic leitmotivs signaling the presence of the title characters, much like birds signaling the approach of a predator (in the case of Salome). And there is the famous, dissonant, polytonal chord in the final minute. By crushing together A7 and C#-major chords, Strauss was said to have produced ‘the most sickening chord in all opera.’
‘The most sickening chord in all opera’ at the end of Strauss’s Salome (marked sfz)
A generation prior, Richard Wagner had begun experimenting with new tonalities. Like a breath of fresh air, the opening passage of his Tristan and Isolde is for many music historians the birth of atonality. The ‘Tristan chord’ that unexpectedly enters in the eighth second of the opera rests on a dissonance composed of a root, augmented fourth, augmented sixth and augmented ninth. In music before that point, composers essentially employed dissonance as a brief moment of tension that was quickly resolved; a superficial frisson of controlled excitement. Wagner makes a point of focusing on the sound that would before then have been heard as a distraction; perhaps even noise. The effect is sublime.
Wagner’s ‘Tristan Chord’ (highlighted in orange)
Nowadays the tonalities of Wagner nor Strauss are not terribly controversial. But new sounds—or any sounds outside of the most common spectrum of tones, or outside of what our expectations are—still provoke skepticism if not outright outrage. In 1952 John Cage premiered his 4’33” in Woodstock, New York to the delight and consternation of an audience who sat through three movements of an orchestra instructed to play nothing. In fact it is the audience that creates the ambient sound that fills these movements. Some of that audience literally walked out mid-performance. But for Cage, there was no such thing as silence. His intent was to frame the dynamism of the sounds inadvertently created by the orchestra players, audience and environment outside the concert hall.
Why so much outrage? I suppose it depends on our expectations of music. If we expected more—or perhaps less—our broadened minds might allow us to hear more. How much more would we hear? What kind of voices might we discern in all the noise? Would we no longer hear noise but instead just another form of music?
And if we did, would we realize that our music probably came from nature in the first place?
II Tonal inspirations for classical music
By the mid-20th century musical composition had already reached a high degree of abstraction in its preoccupation with serialism and dodecaphony, an abstract formalism in which all twelve tones carry equal weight with none occurring more frequently than the other. Like urbanism of the time, it suggested a complete, practically irreversible divorce from vernacular. But it also reached a new degree of complexity with polytonality and polyrhythm. Composers in the 1960s were experimenting with electronic sound and the imitation and sampling of ambient sound for their sonic textures and patterns. Both nature and the city played inspirational roles, either as borrowed voices or as entire organizing principles. Some specifically imitated or embodied the voicing of animals and the soundscapes they created. Others focused on man-made machines and their own industrial soundscapes.
Charles Ives was famous for incorporating ‘unearthly’ harmonies and ‘cacophonous’ soundscapes into his music. Often he employed thirteenth and fifteenth chords that essentially touch all tones in the scale. Or he created music out of the cacophony of multiple marching bands playing simultaneously, layering both onstage and offstage players. Ives was virtually ignored during his lifetime, but has since posthumously enjoyed a surge in academic and performance-based interest. Much the reverse was the Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera whose work achieved greater renown in the middle of the last century, but who has since been somewhat ignored in the academic literature. Ginastera was known to admire Artur Honegger’s Pacific 321, which articulates the journey of a train from its initial ferric rumblings to its steady clip across the landscape. He was also a keen admirer of Bartók, equally polytonal, who happened to coin the phrase ‘night music’ to characterize the slower, ambient passages in his works that suggested the sounds of nature at night.
Recorded example of polytonal chord can be found here.
Partial recording of Ives’s Fourth Symphony can be foundhere.
Reproduction of a French Mainline steam engine, which inspired Honegger’s Pacific 321. Image by wwwuppertal.
He achieves an abstracted sound that still assertively voices nature within its scope. This holds true from Panambí, his panoramic first work, to his posthumous Popol Vuh, which only had its premiere in 2008 (‘like radio waves reaching Earth after a two-decade trek from a distant star’, as one critic put it [Petert Dobrin, 29 March 2008: A creation score long aborning: commissioned in 1975, a Ginastera work got its premiere with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The Philadelphia Inquirer].
Rather than the melodious birdsong of other contemporary composers such as Bartok and Ravel, his was the ambient sounds of biophony (such as insects) and geophony (such as wind). The effect is relentless and frequently ominous, with a host of instruments furiously buzzing with the insistence that they too co-exist with human life. It is a curious and thoroughly compelling effect, a kind of sumptuous modernism that is rigorous with principle while still lush with nature.
Musician and naturalist Bernie Krause urges us to listen more closely to natural soundscapes in their entirety, rather than simply for the purpose of identifying particular species. He began recording natural sounds in the late 1960s, when ‘sound fragmentation’—acoustic snapshots of solo animals—was en vogue and whole-habitat recordings virtually nonexistent. Manuel De Landa contrasts the two approaches as such: ‘analyzing a whole into parts and then attempting to model it by adding up the components will fail to capture any property that emerged from complex interactions.’ Such complex aural interactions can also be a potent place marker as they ‘generate an acoustic signature distinct to that location whenever times and conditions [are] comparable’. For example, baboons often wait to vocalize until immediately after a rain shower because of the ambient reverberation in the damp air. Coyotes and wolves choose the night because it gives resonance and distance to their calls.
Krause also illuminates the patterning and layering in natural soundscapes, referencing an old-growth Zimbabwean forest that ‘was so rich with counterpoint and fugal elements that is immediately brought to mind some of the same intricate compositional techniques used by Johann Sebastian Bach.’ That compositional whole would clearly have been lost in an accounting-style analysis of its parts. ‘In biomes rich with density and diversity of creature voices, organisms evolve to acoustically structure their signals in special relationships to one another—cooperative or competitive—much like an orchestral ensemble.’ Northern Pacific tree frogs sing in threesomes, each croaking one beat in a ¾ waltz with no voice overlapping the other no matter how fast the tempo. Humpback whales distinguish themselves with songs that ‘feature themes and structures commonly found in the most intricate forms of human music.’
Listening to nature also means recognizing that its music inspired our own.
IV Listening to urban soundscapes
Lest we think there is a linear historical progression from geophony and biophony to the human voice, composed music and ultimately polytonality, polyrhythm and serialism, De Landa reminds us that history has never been linear. There is no strict advancement or retreat, and certainly no ideal end state. For him, the universe is composed of endogenous stable states with many possible bifurcations—Frost’s proverbial divergent path—that can change everything. Furthermore, virtually everything that exists lies somewhere on a continuum ranging from strictly controlled hierarchy at the one extreme to decentralized nodal meshwork at the other. Both human and natural habitats (e.g. city streets and forests) exhibit properties of extremes, and the sounds that emanate from them are equally compounded.
Listening to complete soundscapes in context, we understand that natural sound is not a ‘chaotic random expression’, but rather ‘patterns suggesting musical structures in the natural soundscape’ that become ‘too obvious to dismiss’. The same holds true for urban soundscapes. Bringing this full circle is the sound artist Giorgio Sancristoforo who turns the tables on classically composed music as the highest artform and mines the city streets for their inspiration of—and transformation into—music.
Let us consider a city, Milano, and try to listen to it, in its wholeness. Millions of vehicles and machines stirring chaotically, punctuating the rhythm of our affairs on Earth. We deem this ocean of unwelcome sounds mostly as noise. This soundscape eludes our control: we barely rectify it, yet we cant give it up, since its embodied in the truck carrying our food, in the tram taking us to work, in the construction site building our houses. It [is] the sound of contemporaneity.Sounds can be sculpted. We can use noise as raw material to start with. Noise is at the same time no sound and all the possible sounds. — from Giorgio Sancristoforo
Sancristoforo applies this exploration directly to the city street with ambient noise as his raw material. His project Milano Audioscan made a sound mapping of more than 1,500 recordings of Milanese streets. Each recording, made at exactly the same time of day, was then layered on top of the other to create a total acoustic portrait. To this he applied the ‘three stages of modern music technology: tape recording electronic synthesis and processing, and personal-computer-based digital audio’ to transform these sounds into electronic instruments. As the riveting composition progresses it becomes increasingly layered. At the beginning, however, one hears only the raw material: the combined sounds of the city from above are a nearly indistinguishable woosh of humanity and all its trappings. The single thing that registers, high above back and forth of humans and their machines and their machinations is the occasional counterpoint of a singing bird.
One wonders whether it sang in oblivion to that which was beneath if or, instead, if it recognized sufficient order in the chaos to add its own voice.
A dense, mixed-used street in New York, US. Image: Sergio Somavilla
V Listening in the silence
Humans are frequently so tuned in to particular signals for sound bites and easily interpretable messages that we often miss what falls in the cracks; the interstitial ‘noise’ with less obvious—but not necessarily less structure or rich—patterns. There is dissonance, but there is also silence. But even silence is worth listening to. Before long one realizes it contains its own voices. In what is frequently seen as a precursor to his composition of 4’33”, Cage was known to have visited a soundproof chamber. But even there he unmistakably heard the high and low frequencies of his nervous and circulatory systems.
An old-growth forest in Oregon, US. Image: Susan Liepa
Ultimately, whatever its habitat, each species finds its own wavelength on which to communicate. And the density and diversity of cities and biomes promote the acoustic evolution of human and nonhuman voices ‘in special relationships to one another—cooperative or competitive—much like an orchestral ensemble.’ Music evolves with its contextually evolving voices. These voices are as much opportunistic as they are spatial in the sense that they find and inhabit unoccupied niches in the soundscape. It may well be that fine-grained cities and mature natural habitats are indeed our ultimate listening experiences.
And, unlike formal orchestras, ones to which we can all add our voices once we find our niche.
One of the root causes of inequity is urban and rural differentiation
China is experiencing a massive migration to the cities, mostly due to the availability of jobs and better facilities. But the way the government administers citizenship also creates inequity and poverty. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the country has adopted an administrative system of dualistic rural and urban structure in order to promote industrial development and to guarantee food security of what was then a poor nation. The Chinese central government prioritizes urban development over rural development. Rural and urban areas carry out and implement different mechanisms of land ownership, housing, household registration and social welfare policies. Compared to the rural areas, many more resources are concentrated into urban districts, including public services, investment and labor forces. This drives huge disparities of employment and well-being, and results in the relative poverty of non-urban areas.
Millions of farmers leave the land each year for urban jobs, but they are not allowed to have registered permanent urban residence status and so can’t enjoy the facilities and services that non-migrant urbanites do.
With the rapid urbanization in China, millions of farmers leave the land each year for urban jobs. But because they are not allowed to have registered permanent urban residence status—called HUKOU—their residency remains in their original territory; these migrant workers and their families can’t enjoy facilities and services as the non-migrant urbanites do, including social insurance and health care. This has caused inequity, poverty and the potential for social instability in many Chinese cities. Migrant rural children in urban areas do enjoy free schooling, in theory. But the opportunity costs for attending school for rural children are higher than for urban children. For example, the price of rent for an urban house rent and living expenses are usually unaffordable for them.
Disposable per capita income differences 2003 to 2012: urban in blue; rural in red; Unit: CNY. Source: China Statistical Year Book 2014
“Citizenization” of migrant workers is critical to address the Chinese urban justice problem. It is, in essence, the equalization of basic public services for migrant workers, which include stable employment opportunities, full coverage of social insurance and medicare, education, municipal services, affordable housing and ecological and environmental safeguards. Only by achieving this can migrant workers enjoy the same facilities and services as their urban counterparts do, and thus become actual citizens of the city. This is a big challenge given the huge amount of money needed and the enormous population involved. The Chinese central government realizes this issue and puts citizenization at the top of its agenda in its New-Type of Urbanization Plan, which requires local governments to solve the problem through innovative practice. Chongqing municipality demonstrates a good case of citizenization of migrant workers.
Innovation and reform of supporting policies
There’s a whole set of issues related to citizenization of migrant workers. How to solve the financing problem? Where to accommodate them? And so on. It is estimated that the citizenization cost for one-household migrant workers in Chongqing is 80,000CNY (12,600US$), and each year, thousands of farmers move into the city. This means huge amounts of capital demand and housing needs. To solve these problems, Chongqing has taken creative actions in reforming supporting policies.
Creation of a Land Ticket system and household registration reform: In China, rural property belongs to farmers collectively, while urban property is owned by the state. Rural land transactions between farmers and urbanites is prohibited. Nowadays, rapid urbanization has created new demands: the government needs money and land to citizenize migrant workers; farmers want to take full advantage of their only asset: the land; and food security should be guaranteed for a growing urban population.
In response to the new situation, Chongqing government created a system called Land Ticket, or DiPiao in Chinese, allowing proper rural land to be sold on the market. Vacant rural collective land can be reclaimed and reclassified as arable land. Such arable land (“proper land”) can be sold on the market. For this arable land, farmers receive a Land Ticket for the same land size, which can be sold in the primary land market. Property developers buy the Land Ticket (and its land quota) and certain construction is allotted to them within the urban construction areas. Farmers get 85 percent of the land sales revenue [1]. This system is beneficial to both the government and the farmers. In the last three years, Land Tickets worth 17.5 billion CNY (2.78 billion US$) have been transacted in Chongqing.
Chongqing’s household registration reform is China’s largest in scale, influencing over 10 million people [2]. Its features are: (i) lower requirements to become registered permanent urban residents, and (ii) a comprehensive package of social benefits. In addition to HUKOU, the government offers social welfare, medicare, education, affordable housing and vocational training for the migrant workers; this reform effort also (iii) safeguards farmers’ rights by retaining their homestead in the country, so that they can return home if they no longer want to stay in town; (iv) and gives consideration to urban carrying capacity by promoting the reform incrementally, and with a spatial balance (migrants are guided to distribute in new towns/districts, county towns and central urban areas)[3]. From 2010 to 2014, 4.09 million migrant workers became registered urban residents [4] in Chongqing.
Migrant workers get their social security cards in Dazu District, Chongqing. Source
Affordable housing and regulation:In most Chinese cities, housing is one of the main influencing factors of urban justice. Due to unsuccessful regulation policies, the housing price to income ratio has reached high levels. It is difficult for low-income groups to meet housing demands through market means. In recent years, Chinese local governments began to push affordable housing programs required by the central authority. Chongqing is a good example of how to control soaring prices and offer affordable housing to those in need.
Hua Fu Jia Yuan-Chongqing’s largest low-rent housing projects. Source
Among the four municipalities directly under the central government (the other ones are Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin), Chongqing’s housing prices are the lowest, thanks to its successful regulation policies. Chongqing’s program is: (i) Real estate investment is controlled below 25 percent of the total fixed-assets investment every year; (ii) Land prices are strictly managed so as not to exceed one-third of the housing price; (iii) Property tax is only introduced for larger houses; (iv) Examine and approve urban planning in accordance with the national standard for housing area of 30m2 per person; (v) Each year, affordable housing areas must be about 30 percent of the total floor space completed [5]. Because of these policies, Chongqing is able to keep the housing price to income ratio at about 6.5:1, which can be affordable for ordinary Chongqingners.
Creation of a compact city and walkable communities
Physical planning can promote spatial distribution of resources in a fairer manner through even and compact distribution of public facilities and services, convenient living and working environments, and walking-friendly communities. This is not always available to all in Chinese cities, especially to the low-income groups.
Clustered development and compact urban form: Chongqing’s urban layout features clustered development with multiple centers, which is determined by its mountainous location. Compact and mixed land use strategy is applied within each growth center. Compared to scattered layouts, compact urban forms reduce development costs, promote fair and efficient use of facilities, minimize energy use, decrease greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce urban sprawl.
In Chongqing, clusters are divided by impenetrable natural barriers or mandatory natural protection areas, or green belts. (i) Construction within green belts between clusters is strictly prohibited by law and urban planning regulations; (ii) Rules promote high density development surrounding each cluster center, and strengthen its service functions, so as to form a centripetal development force [6]; (iii) The form arranges mixed functions of residential, business and office facilities within walking distance from dwelling places to public transit, reducing repetitive transportation needs; (iv) Business, work and frequently used areas are arranged in the surroundings of public transit [7]; (v) Centers focus on public transit centers as hubs to carry out the organization of urban clusters and community layout, taking comprehensive consideration of the integral spatial layout of transportation, work and living facilities.
Compact Chongqing-downtown of Yuzhong district. Source: http://www.cqyz.gov.cn/web1/info/view.asp?id=3888
Walkability [8] and equity: As a way of transportation, walking has social, economic, environmental and public health implications. The relationship between walkability and urban equity reflects in three aspects: (i) walkable communities strengthen interpersonal communications, and cultivate common sense of belonging [9]; (ii) public amenities of walkable communities are accessible to people from all walks of life; (iii) walking reduces private motorized transport, prevent unchecked urban sprawl and decrease social segregation.
In a mountainous region such as Chongqing, the task of building walkable communities becomes all the more difficult. Chongqing has undertaken the following efforts: (i) Integrating the walking/non-motorized transport facility construction/renovation projects with other larger projects like urban renewal, new town/district building, environmental improvement, ecological reconstruction and historical preservation; (ii) Small blocks and narrow road networks are planned within the communities, to form a highly social space of human scale, enhance urban vitality and diversity, and promote walking friendliness; (iii) Active engagement of the general public/relevant stakeholders in the renovation process by conducting field survey to understand the pedestrian behavior, interviewing local residents to know their real needs, and monitoring the after-renovation usage to evaluate the implementation effect; (iv) Exploring low cost and small scale renovation patterns, such as adding street furniture along the sidewalks, coloring the pavement as safety reminder, and improving sidewalk paving to increase connectivity.
Dynamic walking space in Chongqing. Photo: Pengfei Xie
Towards a just city: suggestions
In the rapid development of urbanization, Chinese cities, in particular, need to successfully deal with the relationship between efficiency and equity. The above paragraphs show Chongqing’s efforts in tackling urban equity problems from institutional and spatial perspectives. Building a just city is a long and complicated process.
From my personal observation of Chinese cites, I would like to give two more suggestions:
Professionals from NGOs or other civil organizations should participate in the examination and approval, and supervision of urban plans. In Chinese cities, investors/developers and government officials usually have the power to influence urban plans. In order to protect public interest, professionals (such as urban planners, architects and engineers) from recognized third-party organizations, who have no personal interest, should be involved in the making, amendment, and supervision of urban plans.
New towns and new urban districts should be built on demand, and provide accommodation for migrant workers. A just city is one in which everyone has access to affordable housing, in China’s urban migrant communities this is not the case. Developing new towns and new urban districts is very popular in today’s China: 92.9 percent of the prefectural level cities have proposed plans to build such. Local governments invest huge amounts of money in it. The current scale of new towns/new urban districts in China is already enough to accommodate 3.4 billion people!The problem is: some new towns/urban districts are only for the high-to-medium classes, as most residential buildings are luxury houses that affordable only to the rich. So on one hand, migrant workers can’t find proper accommodation in cities. On the other, many new towns/new urban districts become ‘ghost towns’ with very few residents.So in order to build a just city, I would like to strongly suggest that new towns/ new urban districts accept migrant workers as their formal residents.
Pengfei Xie
Beijing
Acknowledgements: I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. David Maddox (The Nature of Cities), Professor Toni Griffin (City College of New York) and Dr. You You (Institute of Economics of Education, Peking University) for their suggestions and help in drafting this essay.
[1] Luo wenjian and Liu Zhongyan. A probe into the value of Chongqing’s “land ticket” in balancing urban and rural development and reforming household registration system. Journal of Ningxia Communist Party Institute. 2012(5):78-80
[2] Li Yanchang. Household registration reform in Chongqing: feature and revelation. Administrative management reform. 2011(5):77-80
[3] Li Bo. Household registration reform promotes new type urbanization: the Chongqing case. China Economic Herald. 2013. 6.25
[4] Yang Shuhai. Household registration reform for migrant workers in Chongqing: practice and thinking. Study Times. 2015.5.25
[5] Sun liming and Ao Xiangfei. Discussion on Chongqing’s housing price regulation. Chongqing Commercial Daily. 2009.9.7
[6] Yi Zhen. The Evolvement and Development of the Clusters Urban Structure of Chongqing. Urban Planner. 2004(20): 33-36
[7] Yu Yin and Hu Wantai. Compact City: A Study on the Space Structure Pattern of Chongqing Urban Area. Urban Studies. 2004(4): 59-66
[8] Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) China Program is evaluating Chinese cities’ walking-friendliness by a City Walkability Index System, the first of its kind in China. The aim is to advocate green transportation and catalyze public awareness. By now, NRDC has evaluated 35 Chinese cities, and has released the first annual report on walkability evaluation in August, 2014. The report has extensive impact on media and government. NRDC will continue to evaluate more cities, and release the walkability report on an annual base.
[9] Jane Jacobs. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vantage Books. 1961: 117-119
About fifteen years ago I fell in love with watersheds. Then, my passion extended to the forests and ecosystems that sustain them. Then, I discovered the urban waters and biodiversity, and consequently urban ecology, when I started researching on urban blue-green infrastructure and how people related to their environment. From then on, the complex urban landscape has driven me to a new world where social and ecological issues are intertwined, and offer an incredible universe for researching, learning and connecting to other people that are involved in transforming cities in all scales.
Baixo Rio presents a new opportunity to work from the bottom-up, together with Urban Planning and other city departments to enable a sustainable and participative urban transformation.
I have been fascinated about how grassroots movements and bottom-up approaches have been changing landscapes in many cities. At the same time, I have been very frustrated that in my city, Rio de Janeiro, people haven’t broken the bubble of the powerful decision-makers in the preparation to host the international sports events[1]: 2014 Soccer World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games. Arrangements that privileged some companies were always taken behind closed doors. The results are expressed in a violent and neglected city. The reasons are being acknowledged during the process of investigating the huge scandal of investments that focused on the city as a big business for few powerful people. Corruption blocked all grassroots movements to participate and choose greener and more sustainable projects, including the ones that I have participated on. As I have written about before at TNOC, many dreams and movementsI have participated in the last 5 years didn’t get beyond the paper phase.
Now, I have an opportunity to apply my knowledge and expertise in a new venture that aims to transform the urban landscape, connecting people, waters and biodiversity, oriented to local businesses, with food production, arts and culture.
Baixo Rio, is an experiment in participatory urban transformation
Rio Comprido neighborhood
In this article, I will focus on a specific case of urban transformation that I am involved in right now. It is located in Rio de Janeiro. It is a challenging area named Rio Comprido (Long River). Below is a brief outline of the neighborhood’s present context and challenges with pollution and livability:
The neighborhood divided by a long viaduct, or canal, what remains of a diverted and channelized Comprido River
Dereliction and neglect
The canal is narrow, and the water is polluted by sewage and diffuse contamination by rainwater run-off
Floods occur during storms, due to the steep slopes that surround the area and the extensive paving of the land cover
The canal is not visible to people who drive in the upper fly-over
Heavy traffic congestion on weekdays under the bridge
Ghost streets with no people most of the time, especially during the weekends
Not friendly to walk, the cars and buses have total priority, and lack any attractiveness
Surrounded by 22 low-income communities (slums), where gangs fight against each other, and residents fear for their lives
The neighborhood is unsafe (actually nowadays the whole city is insecure—the army was called to try to restore order where drug traffickers and militia are the main rulers of most of the urban territory)
Extremely noisy
The air is heavily polluted
Despite these challenges, there is a huge opportunity to regenerate the urban landscape adjacent to the canal and spread to the vicinity. Besides mixed middle- to low-income residential areas, the neighborhood houses small businesses, larger companies, and educational institutions that have been suffering with the violence that directly or indirectly affect their operations.
Academic proposition
About two years ago, Lucas Araújo, an architecture and urbanism undergraduate student asked me to be his co-advisor on his final project. He wanted to develop a plan and design for green infrastructure in an area that was extremely impacted by the hard, hard engineering of the early 20th Century, when the Comprido river that names the neighborhood was diverted and channelized to enable the urbanization and the construction of streets on its two newly built concrete banks. In the early 1970’s the opening of a tunnel to connect north and south regions of the city led to the construction of a 2.6 km long viaduct over the canal, dividing and destroying the nice neighborhood close to the downtown region.
The change was abrupt and the area became a concrete and asphalt “nowhere”, where cars and busses circulate in a dark and polluted environment, not suitable for life. The area has been decaying for the last five decades and nothing has been done to change the inhospitable landscape.
Rio Comprido (Long River) channelized and polluted underneath the flyover. Photo: Guto SantosPolluted canal water with garbage floating in the shallow surface. Photo: Guto SantosIrregular parking over buried river – totally paved ‘nowhere’, no people, no life – just cars. Photo: Guto Santos
During the following year, I had a chance to learn about the area, the challenges and opportunities that were hidden beneath the elevated highway. Lucas had a developed a very interesting process to accomplish his challenging project. During their undergraduate work, the students have very limited contact with landscape architecture and landscape planning and design. In spite of these academic limitations, the resulting plan was a robust proposition founded in the ecological and social systems of the ‘neighborshed’ (watershed + neighborhood). The project focused on the main square of the area, connected both sides of the canal, converted streets to pedestrian areas with components of local green infrastructure, such as rain gardens and bioswales, naturalized river banks, and much more.
Baixo Rio: seeing the city upside down
Last June I received an email from Guto Santos (Architect-Urbanist, head of Livre Arquitetura) telling me how passionate and motivated he was to transform the neglected area, Rio Comprido. He had worked for about 5 years in an office located close to the very end of the canal, and had walked in the region foreseeing the potential wasted by the short-sighted decision makers who focused their investments on increasing the sprawl of the city, and had no interest in revitalizing the degraded urban areas with infrastructure close to the downtown.
Academic proposition of Lucas Araújo – a River for All. Image: Lucas Araújo
Guto sent me his proposal, initially named the “Low Line” along the canal, inspired by the High Line in New York City. In his vision, humans had priority over nature, and the canal would be covered to enable social activities—recreation, sports, arts and culture—over the water. He wanted to discuss his conceptual proposal. It was really stimulating to hear from an energized young architect who wanted to improve the bleak and forgotten urban space.
Academic proposition of Lucas Araújo – a River for All. Image: Lucas Araújo
Academic proposition of Lucas Araújo – a River for All. Image: Lucas AraújoBefore and after vision of the Low Line over the watercourse. Image: Guto SantosBefore and after vision of the Low Line over the watercourse. Image: Guto SantosBefore and after vision of the Low Line over the watercourse. Credit: Guto Santos
During our first meeting, I listened to all the ideas he had developed over the years, and how he was gathering people interested in urban intervention. The project name became Baixo Rio. Low River, which in Rio de Janeiro has a double meaning: both low river and a gathering place where Cariocas, residents of the city meet). He explained how acupunctural interventions aimed to activate specific nodes would spread life along the “Low Line”. I asked why over the water and not in the car-dedicated lanes, as today the tendency is to daylight rivers and take cars out of the streets, giving priority to people and nature. After our conversation, he started to understand the role of nature (water and biodiversity) in the city. At that point I decided to join the team to contribute my networking skill and systemic view of the landscape, where green areas and natural flows are essential to the sustainability and resilience of the city, in addition to offering better quality of life and well-being. It is also a matter of social justice to bring better environmental conditions to the region.
The next step was to meet the initial interdisciplinary team that was eager to transform the idea into a real project. I invited three students of the Master’s program I coordinate to join us, one environmental scientist and two landscape architects (Lucas was one of them, for sure!).
From that point on, some members became more active and visited the area in different times: weekdays, week-ends, days and evenings.
Guto went to the main square on a Saturday evening, during a street fair that has been occurring on the site for the last 20 years. There he met the organizer, Deise dos Santos, a woman who leads the neighborhood’s most dynamic NGO, Aliança Resgate Organização Não Governamental—Non Gonvernmental Organization Rescue Alliance (ARONG). ARONG focuses on kids from 4 years old, teaching dance, jiu-jitsu, music (to play several instruments), informatics, and other activities.
ARONG dance class. Photo: Cecilia Herzog
The street fair is organized to fund the NGO named ARONG. The local leader doesn’t get involved in the regional conflicts, kids from all distressed communities attend her organization’s classes and events. Their parents must participate; parental participation is a requirement of enrolling children in the learning sessions. The institution and the street fair are an oasis in a socially complex region.
Teenagers and kids gather in the main room. Photo: Cecilia Herzog
Connecting to the municipality
In the same week, I participated in a workshop organized by the Urban Planning Department, when I had a chance to talk with two Department employees, who also teach in the same university I do. They asked me if I had any proposal for Rio Comprido, the forgotten area for which we were planning the Baixo Rio. I was astonished! It seemed like things just started coming together naturally. Either the stars were aligning or it was in fact time to start to recovering a city that was falling apart?
First sketches of the Baixo Rio event-intervention. Image: Guto SantosA vision for the future: green the gray. Image: Guto SantosBaixo Rio event sectors and traffic deviation. Image: Guto SantosView of the Baixo Rio interventions – with pop-up forest, gallery (inside the container), amphitheater, lounge, escalade wall and pedestrian area. Image: Guto Santos
In a matter of days, we had a meeting in the City Hall to present our Baixo Rio proposition. We had developed a comprehensive vision for the future, and strategies to develop with a bottom-up approach. Lucas also presented his proposal, and nature came to the discussion as the main driver together with the social issues. The Department was also developing their own top-down project to introduce a bike lane under the viaduct. The prospects were very exciting!
Deise dos Santos receiving us on July 7th, 2017 and talks about her work and ARONG activities (Lucas Araújo, Guto Santos and Sandro, Deise and Cesar Rodrigues). Photo: Cecilia Herzog
Time to meet local activists
It was time to visit the ARONG venue, a nice small house a few blocks from the main square. We wanted to be on the ground and experience the institutions’ activities. Deise received us with a big smile, she was proud to present the space and talk about her work. We could watch dance and hip hop classes. We saw the instruments hanging on the walls waiting for young musicians, the computers available to offer the opportunity to learn informatics, the small library in the entrance where the parents socialize waiting for their kids.
Sandro a local resident who volunteers at the ARONG also came to talk to us, and explain his involvement with the kids and the community. It was a very enlightening interview. We learned of many of their achievements, their aspirations for the area, and also confirmed some of our assumptions in the design of our project. They want priority for people over cars. The first demand was a bike lane to connect them to the neighboring regions. Loving plants and trees, they asked for more green areas. We talked about the canal and asked about what happens during storms. They complained of water pollution, and the frequent floods that happen in the area. They rejoiced when we spoke of introducing natural banks to the canal, and immediately started envisioning the transformation of the landscape. We also talked about closing streets to vehicles, and making areas more pedestrian-friendly. They loved the idea!
How to make things happen and when
So far, we have developed a methodology to work in four concurrent fronts (image diagram):
Conceptual strategic urban landscape plan. Develop an adaptive long-term plan for the whole area along the canal and the immediate vicinity. Focus on social, ecological, cultural and economic factors, and climate change challenges, such as strong storms and Urban Heat Island (UHI) effects aggravated by heat waves. Involve: public institutions and the city, private companies (preference for small and local businesses) organized collective groups, and NGOs. Timing: Continuous process.
Research and local projects. Learn and organize data about social, ecological and economic issues throughout the process. Design and promote short-term demonstration projects to help people visualize the potential uses and appropriation of the space, at the same time advocate for cultural and ecological restoration, and support economic development based on local and circular opportunities that exist in the area. Involve: academic institutions, organized collective groups, NGOs, companies and residents. Timing: Intermittent throughout the process.
Events and interventions. Develop strategic comprehensive planned happenings, with plural cultural, artistic and educational purpose, to attract and enable: social diversity contact, ecological education and awareness raising, local economic activation, art performances, promote the strategic plan and learn from the residents, stimulate public support, spark and maintain the landscape transformation process. Promote ephemeral and permanent urban interventions that improve the public realm, and inspire the sense of community and belonging. Timing: Occasional—develop a yearly agenda.
Management and financing. Involve public institutions and the city, and private companies (preference for small and local businesses) in the long-term management and financing of the long and short term plan and projects. Timing: Intermittent— related to the strategic plan, and the local projects, events and interventions.
First things first
While we are working on the strategic plan, we decided to promote a multipurpose event and intervention in the beginning of spring to kick off the transformation process, and engage the local community and businesses, potential sponsors and partners.
Rio de Janeiro has had a wave of successful events that occupy streets, mainly focused on food, beer, handcrafts and music. The most popular are oriented to local and organic products. We foresee a great potential to ally urban transformation with a multipurpose event. To make this project come through, we needed somebody to produce it. This is when Rafael Braga, known as an event producer, came to our team. We had a meeting to present the initial proposal and he immediately joined us.
The first event-intervention is ready to go. It is named reVIRADA BAIXO RIO (Turning Rio Upside Down – with double meaning: The neighborhood Rio Comprido and the city Rio de Janeiro).
Activities of the event:
Social
Environmental
Educational
Arts (music, dance, cinema, tehater, street art)
Cultural and literary
Sports
Culinary and organic local food
Cinema – Environmental Documentary projection in the square
The event aims to incentivize the local businesses through public space transformation, closing streets to cars and offering sitting and walking areas. This is one of the priorities: offering the experience of a new urban environment, even if ephemeral, to motivate effective project development and implementation.
Interventions in the urban space (to be implemented for the Spring event)
Amphitheater – Low cost ephemeral structure aims to activate the area with multiple events (image). (Planned to stay for 60/90 days)
Exhibition VISION Baixo Rio Comprido – a gallery will be set inside a refurbished container. (Planned to stay for 60/90 days)
The exhibition will present:
Historical photographs of the Rio Comprido neighborhood
VISION Baixo Rio Comprido 2020and 2030: printed boards of the preliminary Strategic Conceptual Urban Landscape Plan
VISION Baixo Rio Comprido 2030: virtual reality experience inside the gallery will show how the landscape would be transformed by 2030.
Implemented or not international references of urban landscape transformations on printed boards. The objective is to show the great potential of the area and the city to residents, and other stakeholders.
Pop-up Forest – Temporary green installation of riparian forest along the canal, and native species over paved surfaces.
Graffiti in the concrete banks of the canal, over the paved areas that hide the canal to signalize the existence of water underneath, and the pillars that hold the flyover.
Visual marks in paved surfaces, visually connecting walkable areas through streets (to be determined due to official restrictions).
Pulpit – space dedicated to encourage participants to manifest themselves within the urban space, the propositions of the Vision Baixo Rio Comprido, and other ideas people desire to publicly share in order to improve their place and the city.
Climbing wall – The two pillars of the flyover located in the main area will be converted to climbing walls.
Lounge – sitting areas dedicated to convivial and social interaction.
Activities that will take place in the areas with interventions:
Local Fair – ARONG (local NGO) fair will take place in the square as it has happened in the last 20 years, starting in the morning.
Music and dance presentations of the ARONG students, in the amphitheater.
Informal round-tables – Thematic chats with experts in urban issues, such as walkable cities, waters and biodiversity, social justice, sustainability, resilience, circular and local economy, in the amphitheater.
Local and organic producers of food and drinks, in the closed streets.
Food Trucks and Beer Fest, in the closed streets.
Book Fair, in the closed streets.
Street music players, throughout the pedestrian areas.
Classical Music – Musicians of the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra to provide public performances, in the amphitheater.
Organic food planting and workshop on urban agroforestry, in the square.
The way forward
I believe Baixo Riopresents a new opportunity to work from the bottom-up, together with Urban Planning and other city departments to enable a sustainable and participative urban transformation.
We received a green light from the city, and now we are raising funds and connecting with organizers for the many events planned to happen in less than 60 days.
This project allies many of my aspirations:
urban landscape’s direct inter-relation with sustainability, resilience and quality of life and well-being
prioritize nature in the city—waters and biodiversity
aims to activate people’s biophilia together with arts, culture, organic food production and sales
connect with local residents and grassroots movements
awaken people to public health impacts caused by the urban environment, food and consumption
stimulate local businesses focusing on reusing and recycling goods and value local knowledge and skills, such as secondhand clothes and thrift stores, shoe repair, electronic equipment restoration, handcrafts, and so on
raise awareness about climate change challenges to engage dwellers in the process of adaptation based on ecosystems and community solutions
I am also trying to introduce the concept of the biophilic city to the decision makers and residents, and this project could be the first step in this direction, toward ultimately becoming a partner city of the Biophilic Cities Project. Let’s see what will happen next.
I feel like we are running a marathon to enable an urban transformation that may be a catalyzer for greater change in the city in the early future. We have so much to do in so little time, but the team is committed to make our vision come true. I am happy to be engaged in an urban project again, and hope the outcome will be positive.
Baixo Rio Team that is working to TURN THE CITY UPSIDE DOWN in alphabetical order: Amanda Saboya
Bruno d’Acri
Cecilia Polacow Herzog
Cesar Rodrigues
Gabriel Queiros
Guto Santos
Lucas Araújo
Marina Christiansen
Pedro Schreiber Ribeiro
Rafael Braga
[1] I have written about my experiences and perceptions about the perverse process of planning, designing and implementing the huge projects in preparation for the international events in my blog https://ceciliaherzog.wordpress.com
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Virando o Rio de cabeça para baixo! Projeto de Transformação de Paisagem Urbana do Baixo Rio
(Traduzido por Cecilia Herzog.)
Cerca de quinze anos atrás eu me apaixonei pelas bacias hidrográficas. Então, minha paixão se estendeu às florestas e aos ecossistemas que os sustentam. Então, descobri as águas urbanas e a biodiversidade, e conseqüentemente a ecologia urbana, quando comecei a pesquisar em infraestrutura azul-verde urbana e como as pessoas se relacionavam com seu meio ambiente. A partir de então, a paisagem urbana complexa levou-me a um mundo novo onde as questões sociais e ecológicas estão entrelaçadas, e oferecem um universo incrível para pesquisar, aprender e se conectar a outras pessoas envolvidas na transformação de cidades em todas as escalas.
Fiquei fascinado sobre como movimentos de base e abordagens de baixo para cima têm mudado paisagens em muitas cidades. Ao mesmo tempo, fiquei muito frustrado de que, na minha cidade, no Rio de Janeiro, as pessoas não quebraram a bolha dos poderosos decisores na preparação para sediar os eventos esportivos internacionais: 2014 Copa do Mundo de Futebol e Jogos Olímpicos de 2016. Os arranjos que privilegiaram algumas empresas sempre foram levados a portas fechadas. Os resultados são expressos em uma cidade violenta e negligenciada. As razões estão sendo reconhecidas durante o processo de investigações sobre o enorme escândalo de investimentos que se concentrou na cidade como um grande negócio para poucas pessoas poderosas. A corrupção bloqueou todos os movimentos de base para participar e escolher projetos mais ecológicos e mais sustentáveis, inclusive aqueles em que participei. Como já escrevi sobre o TNOC, muitos sonhos e movimentos que participei nos últimos 5 anos não saíram do papel.
Agora, tenho a oportunidade de aplicar meu conhecimento e experiência em um novo empreendimento que visa transformar a paisagem urbana, conectar pessoas, águas e biodiversidade, orientadas para empresas locais, com produção de alimentos, artes e cultura.
Baixo Rio, é um experimento em transformação urbana participativa
Bairro de Rio Comprido
Neste artigo, vou me concentrar em um caso específico de transformação urbana em que estou envolvido agora. Está localizado no Rio de Janeiro. É uma área desafiadora chamada Rio Comprido (Long River). Abaixo está um breve esboço do contexto atual do bairro e desafios com poluição e habitabilidade:
O bairro dividido por um longo viaduto, ou canal, o que resta de um rio Comprido desviado e canalizado
Derelição e negligência
O canal é estreito e a água é poluída por esgoto e contaminação difusa pelo escoamento da água da chuva
As inundações ocorrem durante as tempestades, devido às encostas íngremes que cercam a área e a extensa pavimentação da cobertura do solo
O canal não é visível para as pessoas que dirigem o voo superiorCongestionamento de tráfego pesado durante a semana sob a ponte
Ruas fantasmas sem pessoas na maioria das vezes, especialmente durante os fins de semana
Não são amigáveis para caminhar, os carros e os ônibus têm prioridade total e não têm qualquer atratividade.
Rodeado por 22 comunidades de baixa renda (favelas), onde as gangues lutam uma contra a outra, e os moradores temem por suas vidas
O bairro é inseguro (na verdade, hoje em dia, toda a cidade é insegura – o exército foi chamado para tentar colocar algum pedido onde traficantes de drogas e milícias são os principais governantes da maior parte do território urbano)
Extremamente barulhento
O ar está fortemente poluído
Apesar desses desafios, há uma grande oportunidade para regenerar a paisagem urbana adjacente ao canal e se espalhar para a vizinhança. Além das áreas residenciais mestiças de baixa e baixa renda, o bairro abriga pequenas empresas, grandes empresas e instituições educacionais que sofreram com a violência que afeta direta ou indiretamente suas operações.
Proposição acadêmica
Cerca de dois anos atrás, Lucas Araújo, um estudante de graduação em arquitetura e urbanismo pediu-me para ser seu co-assessor em seu projeto final. Ele queria desenvolver um plano e design para infra-estrutura verde em uma área que foi extremamente impactada pela engenharia rígida e dura do início do século XX, quando o rio Comprido que nomeia o bairro foi desviado e canalizado para permitir a urbanização e construção de Ruas em seus dois bancos de concreto recém-construídos. No início da década de 1970, a abertura de um túnel para conectar as regiões norte e sul da cidade levou à construção de um viaduto de 2,6 km de extensão sobre o canal, dividindo e destruindo o bairro agradável perto da região do centro da cidade.
A mudança foi abrupta e a área tornou-se um concreto e um asfalto “em nenhum lado”, onde carros e ônibus circulam em um ambiente sombrio e poluído, não adequado para a vida. A área foi decadente nas últimas cinco décadas e nada foi feito para mudar a paisagem inóspita.
Durante o ano seguinte, tive a oportunidade de aprender sobre a área, os desafios e as oportunidades que estavam escondidas sob a rodovia elevada. Lucas desenvolveu um processo muito interessante para realizar seu projeto desafiador. Durante o curso de graduação, os alunos têm contato muito limitado com a arquitetura paisagística e o planejamento e o design da paisagem. Apesar dessas limitações acadêmicas, o plano resultante foi uma proposta robusta fundada nos sistemas ecológicos e sociais do “vizinho” (bacia hidrográfica + bairro). O projeto centrou-se na praça principal da área, conectou ambos os lados do canal, converteu ruas em áreas pedestres com componentes de infra-estrutura verde local, como jardins de chuva e bioswales, bancos de rios naturalizados e muito mais.
Rio Comprido (Long River) channelized and polluted underneath the flyover. Photo: Guto SantosPolluted canal water with garbage floating in the shallow surface. Photo: Guto SantosIrregular parking over buried river – totally paved ‘nowhere’, no people, no life – just cars. Photo: Guto Santos
Baixo Rio: vendo a cidade de cabeça para baixo
Em junho passado, recebi um e-mail de Guto Santos (Arquiteto-Urbanista, diretor de Livre Arquitetura), dizendo-me como era apaixonado e motivado para transformar a área negligenciada, Rio Comprido. Ele havia trabalhado por cerca de 5 anos em um escritório localizado perto do final do canal e tinha caminhado na região prevendo o potencial desperdiçado pelos tomadores de decisão míope que concentraram seus investimentos no aumento da expansão da cidade e Não teve interesse em revitalizar as áreas urbanas degradadas com infra-estrutura próxima ao centro da cidade.
Academic proposition of Lucas Araújo – a River for All. Image: Lucas Araújo
Guto me enviou sua proposta, inicialmente chamada de “Linha baixa” ao longo do canal, inspirada na High Line da cidade de Nova York (imagens). Em sua visão, os humanos tinham prioridade sobre a natureza, e o canal seria coberto para permitir atividades sociais – recreação, esportes, artes e cultura – sobre a água. Ele queria discutir sua proposta conceitual. Era realmente estimulante ouvir de um jovem arquiteto energizado que queria melhorar o espaço urbano sombrio e esquecido.
Academic proposition of Lucas Araújo – a River for All. Image: Lucas Araújo
Academic proposition of Lucas Araújo – a River for All. Image: Lucas AraújoBefore and after vision of the Low Line over the watercourse. Image: Guto SantosBefore and after vision of the Low Line over the watercourse. Image: Guto SantosBefore and after vision of the Low Line over the watercourse. Credit: Guto Santos
Durante a nossa primeira reunião, escutei todas as idéias que desenvolveu ao longo dos anos, e como ele estava reunindo pessoas interessadas em intervenção urbana. O nome do projeto tornou-se Baixo Rio. Low River, que no Rio de Janeiro tem um duplo significado: tanto rio baixo como um lugar de encontro onde os cariocas, moradores da cidade se encontram). Ele explicou como as intervenções acupunturais destinadas a ativar nós específicos espalhariam a vida ao longo da “Linha baixa”. Perguntei por que sobre a água e não nas pistas dedicadas ao carro, uma vez que hoje a tendência é a luz do dia rios e tirar carros das ruas, dando prioridade às pessoas e à natureza. Após nossa conversa, ele começou a entender o papel da natureza (água e biodiversidade) na cidade. Naquele momento, decidi me juntar à equipe para contribuir com minhas habilidades de rede e visão sistêmica da paisagem, onde as áreas verdes e os fluxos naturais são essenciais para a sustentabilidade e a resiliência da cidade, além de oferecer uma melhor qualidade de vida e bem-estar. É também uma questão de justiça social para trazer melhores condições ambientais para a região.
O próximo passo foi encontrar a equipe interdisciplinar inicial que estava ansiosa para transformar a idéia em um projeto real. Convidei três alunos do programa de mestrado que eu coordenar para se juntar a nós, um cientista ambiental e dois arquitetos paisagistas (Lucas era um deles, com certeza!).
A partir desse momento, alguns membros se tornaram mais ativos e visitaram a área em diferentes momentos: dias da semana, fins de semana, dias e noites.
Guto foi para a praça principal em uma noite de sábado, durante uma feira de rua que tem ocorrido no site há 20 anos. Lá conheceu o organizador, Deise dos Santos, uma mulher que lidera a ONG mais dinâmica do bairro, Aliança Resgate Organização Não Governamental – Aliança de Resgate da Organização Não Governamental (ARONG). ARONG se concentra em crianças de 4 anos, ensino de dança, jiu-jitsu, música (para tocar vários instrumentos), informática e outras atividades. A feira de rua é organizada para financiar a ONG chamada ARONG (imagens). O líder local não se envolve nos conflitos regionais, crianças de todas as comunidades em dificuldades atendem as aulas e eventos da organização. Os pais devem participar; A participação dos pais é um requisito de matricular crianças nas sessões de aprendizagem. A instituição e a feira de rua são um oásis em uma região socialmente complexa.
ARONG dance class. Photo: Cecilia HerzogTeenagers and kids gather in the main room. Photo: Cecilia Herzog
Conectando-se ao município
Na mesma semana, participei de uma oficina organizada pelo Departamento de Planejamento Urbano, quando tive a oportunidade de conversar com dois funcionários do Departamento, que também ensinam na mesma universidade que eu faço. Eles me perguntaram se eu tinha alguma proposta para Rio Comprido, a área esquecida para a qual estávamos planejando o Baixo Rio. Fiquei atônito! Parecia que as coisas simplesmente começaram a se juntar naturalmente. Ou as estrelas estavam se alinhando ou, de fato, era hora de começar a recuperar uma cidade que se desmoronava?
First sketches of the Baixo Rio event-intervention. Image: Guto SantosA vision for the future: green the gray. Image: Guto SantosBaixo Rio event sectors and traffic deviation. Image: Guto SantosView of the Baixo Rio interventions – with pop-up forest, gallery (inside the container), amphitheater, lounge, escalade wall and pedestrian area. Image: Guto Santos
Em uma questão de dias, tivemos uma reunião na Prefeitura para apresentar nossa proposição do Baixo Rio. Nós desenvolvemos uma visão abrangente para o futuro e estratégias para desenvolver com uma abordagem ascendente (imagens). Lucas também apresentou sua proposta, e a natureza veio à discussão como principal motorista junto com as questões sociais. O Departamento também estava desenvolvendo seu próprio projeto de cima para baixo para introduzir uma pista de bicicleta sob o viaduto. As perspectivas foram muito emocionantes!
Tempo para se encontrar com ativistas locais
Deise dos Santos receiving us on July 7th, 2017 and talks about her work and ARONG activities (Lucas Araújo, Guto Santos and Sandro, Deise and Cesar Rodrigues). Photo: Cecilia Herzog
Era hora de visitar o local de ARONG, uma linda casa pequena a poucos quarteirões da praça principal. Queríamos estar no terreno e experimentar as atividades das instituições. Deise nos recebeu com um grande sorriso, ela estava orgulhosa de apresentar o espaço e falar sobre seu trabalho. Poderíamos assistir a aulas de dança e hip hop. Vimos os instrumentos pendurados nas paredes esperando por jovens músicos, os computadores disponíveis para oferecer a oportunidade de aprender informática, a pequena biblioteca na entrada onde os pais socializam.
Sandro, um residente local que se ofereceu no ARONG, também veio falar conosco e explicou seu envolvimento com as crianças e a comunidade. Foi uma entrevista muito esclarecedora. Aprendemos muitas de suas conquistas, suas aspirações para a área e também confirmamos algumas das nossas premissas no projeto do nosso projeto. Eles querem prioridade para pessoas em cima de carros. A primeira demanda foi uma pista de bicicleta para conectá-los às regiões vizinhas. Amando plantas e árvores, eles pediram mais áreas verdes. Nós conversamos sobre o canal e perguntamos sobre o que acontece durante as tempestades. Eles reclamaram da poluição da água e das inundações frequentes que acontecem na área. Eles se alegraram quando falamos sobre a introdução de bancos naturais para o canal, e imediatamente começamos a imaginar a transformação da paisagem. Nós também conversamos sobre fechar ruas para veículos e fazer áreas mais favoritas para os pedestres. Eles adoraram a idéia!
Como fazer as coisas acontecerem e quando
Até agora, desenvolvemos uma metodologia para trabalhar em quatro frentes simultâneas (diagrama de imagem):
Plano estratégico estratégico de paisagem urbana. Desenvolva um plano adaptativo a longo prazo para toda a área ao longo do canal e da vizinhança imediata. Concentre-se em fatores sociais, ecológicos, culturais e econômicos e desafios das mudanças climáticas, como tempestades fortes e efeitos da Ilha do calor urbano (UHI) agravados pelas ondas de calor. Envolver: instituições públicas e a cidade, empresas privadas (preferência por empresas pequenas e locais) organizaram grupos coletivos e ONGs. Tempo: processo contínuo.
Projetos de pesquisa e locais. Aprenda e organize dados sobre questões sociais, ecológicas e econômicas ao longo do processo. Projetar e promover projetos de demonstração de curto prazo para ajudar as pessoas a visualizar os possíveis usos e apropriação do espaço, ao mesmo tempo que defendem a restauração cultural e ecológica e apoiem o desenvolvimento econômico com base em oportunidades locais e circulares que existem na área. Envolver: instituições acadêmicas, grupos coletivos organizados, ONGs, empresas e residentes. Temporização: intermitente ao longo do processo.
Eventos e intervenções. Desenvolver eventos planejados estratégicos abrangentes, com propósitos culturais, artísticos e educacionais plurais, para atrair e permitir: contato de diversidade social, educação ecológica e conscientização, ativação econômica local, performances artísticas, promover o plano estratégico e aprender com os residentes, estimular o apoio público , Faísca e mantém o processo de transformação da paisagem. Promover intervenções urbanas efêmeras e permanentes que melhorem o domínio público e inspiram o senso de comunidade e pertença. Calendário: Ocasionalmente, desenvolva uma agenda anual.
Gestão e financiamento. Envolver as instituições públicas e a cidade, e as empresas privadas (preferência por empresas pequenas e locais) na gestão e financiamento de longo prazo do plano e projetos de longo e curto prazo. Calendário: intermitente – relacionado ao plano estratégico, e projetos locais, eventos e intervenções.
Primeiras coisas primeiro
Enquanto estamos trabalhando no plano estratégico, decidimos promover um evento polivalente e uma intervenção no início da primavera para iniciar o processo de transformação e envolver a comunidade local e as empresas, potenciais patrocinadores e parceiros.
O Rio de Janeiro teve uma onda de eventos bem sucedidos que ocupam ruas, principalmente focadas em alimentos, cerveja, artesanato e música. Os mais populares são orientados para produtos locais e orgânicos. Prevemos um grande potencial para a transformação urbana aliada com um evento multifuncional. Para que este projeto venha, precisamos de alguém para produzi-lo. Foi quando Rafael Braga, conhecido como produtor de eventos, chegou ao nosso time. Tivemos uma reunião para apresentar a proposta inicial e ele imediatamente se juntou a nós.
O primeiro evento-intervenção está pronto para ir. É chamado reVIRADA BAIXO RIO (Turning Rio Upside Down – com duplo significado: o bairro Rio Comprido e a cidade do Rio de Janeiro).
Atividades do evento:
Social
De Meio Ambiente
Educacional
Artes (música, dança, cinema, teatro, arte de rua)
Cultural e literário
Esportes
Comida local culinária e orgânica
Cinema – Projeção documental ambiental na praça
O evento visa incentivar as empresas locais através da transformação do espaço público, fechando ruas para carros e oferecendo áreas sentadas e a pé. Esta é uma das prioridades: oferecer a experiência de um novo ambiente urbano, mesmo que seja efêmero, para motivar o desenvolvimento e a implementação eficazes de projetos.
Intervenções no espaço urbano (a ser implementado para o evento Spring)
Anfiteatro – Estrutura efêmera de baixo custo tem como objetivo ativar a área com múltiplos eventos (imagem). (Planejado para ficar por 60/90 dias)
Exposição VISÃO Baixo Rio Comprido – uma galeria será configurada dentro de um recipiente recondicionado. (Planejado para ficar por 60/90 dias)
A exposição apresentará:
Fotografias históricas do bairro de Rio Comprido
VISÃO Baixo Rio Comprido 2020 e 2030: placas impressas do Plano Estratégico Estratégico Estratégico de Paisagem Urbana
VISÃO Baixo Rio Comprido 2030: experiência de realidade virtual dentro da galeria mostrará como a paisagem seria transformada até 2030.
Implementou ou não referências internacionais de transformações de paisagem urbana em placas impressas. O objetivo é mostrar o grande potencial da área e da cidade para os moradores e outras partes interessadas.
Floresta Pop-up – Instalação temporária verde da floresta ripária ao longo do canal e espécies nativas sobre superfícies pavimentadas.
Graffiti nos bancos de concreto do canal, sobre as áreas pavimentadas que escondem o canal para sinalizar a existência de água por baixo, e os pilares que mantêm o sobrevoo.
Marcas visíveis em superfícies pavimentadas, conectando visualmente áreas móveis através de ruas (a serem determinadas devido a restrições oficiais).
Púlpito – espaço dedicado a incentivar os participantes a se manifestarem no espaço urbano, as proposições da Visão Baixo Rio Comprido e outras idéias que as pessoas desejam compartilhar publicamente para melhorar seu lugar e a cidade.
Parede de escalada – Os dois pilares do sobreviver localizado na área principal serão convertidos em paredes de escalada.
Lounge – áreas de estar dedicadas à interação convivial e social.
Atividades que terão lugar nas áreas com intervenções:
Feira local – A feira ARONG (ONG local) terá lugar na praça, como aconteceu nos últimos 20 anos, começando pela manhã.
Apresentação de música e dança dos alunos de ARONG, no anfiteatro.
Mesas redondas informais – Chats temáticos com especialistas em questões urbanas, como cidades itinerantes, águas e biodiversidade, justiça social, sustentabilidade, resiliência, economia circular e local, no anfiteatro.
Produtores locais e orgânicos de alimentos e bebidas, nas ruas fechadas.
Food Trucks and Beer Fest, nas ruas fechadas.
Feira do Livro, nas ruas fechadas.
Jogadores de música de rua, em todas as áreas pedestres.
Música clássica – Músicos da Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira para oferecer performances públicas, no anfiteatro.
Plantação de alimentos orgânicos e workshop sobre agrossilvicultura urbana, na praça.
O caminho a seguir
Acredito que o Baixo Rio apresenta uma nova oportunidade de trabalhar de baixo para cima, junto com o Urbanismo e outros departamentos da cidade para permitir uma transformação urbana sustentável e participativa.
Recebemos uma luz verde da cidade, e agora estamos arrecadando fundos e conectando-se com os organizadores para os muitos eventos planejados para acontecer em menos de 60 dias.
Este projeto alias muitas das minhas aspirações:
Inter-relação direta da paisagem urbana com sustentabilidade, resiliência e qualidade de vida e bem-estar
priorizar a natureza nas cidades-águas e biodiversidade
visa ativar a biofilia das pessoas junto com artes, cultura, produção de alimentos orgânicos e vendas
conectar-se com residentes locais e movimentos de base
despertar as pessoas para os impactos da saúde pública causados pelo ambiente urbano, alimentação e consumo
estimular as empresas locais concentrando-se na reutilização e reciclagem de bens e valorizam conhecimentos e habilidades locais, como roupas de segunda mão e lojas de segunda mão, reparação de calçados, restauração de equipamentos eletrônicos, artesanato e assim por diante
aumentar a conscientização sobre os desafios das mudanças climáticas para envolver os moradores no processo de adaptação baseado em ecossistemas e soluções comunitárias
Também estou tentando introduzir o conceito de cidade biofílica para os tomadores de decisão e os residentes, e este projeto pode ser o primeiro passo nessa direção, e talvez se tornar uma cidade parceira do Projeto Biophilic Cities. Vamos ver o que acontecerá depois.
Eu sinto que estamos executando uma maratona para permitir uma transformação urbana que pode ser um catalisador para uma maior mudança na cidade no início do futuro. Temos muito a fazer em tão pouco tempo, mas a equipe está empenhada em tornar a nossa visão realidade. Estou feliz em me envolver novamente em um projeto urbano e espero que o resultado seja positivo.
Baixo Rio Equipe que está trabalhando para girar a cidade antes
em ordem alfabética:
Amanda Saboya
Bruno d’Acri
Cecilia Polacow Herzog
Cesar Rodrigues
Gabriel Queiros
Guto Santos
Lucas Araújo
Marina Christiansen
Pedro Schreiber Ribeiro
Rafael Braga
1 — Eu escrevi sobre minhas experiências e percepções sobre o processo perverso de planejar, projetar e implementar os enormes projetos em preparação para os eventos internacionais no meu blog: https://ceciliaherzog.wordpress.com
On the flipside you can do anything (…) the flipside bring a second wind to change your world. Encrypted recipes to reconfigure easily the mess we made on world, side B —Song ‘Flipside’, written by Nitin Sawhney and S. Duncan
My brainstorming for this essay started thinking about the comprehensive list that follows the affirmation of “a just city is a city that…” But my brain fell to the temptation of looking at the task from the reverse angle. What are the key ingredients of the perfect recipe for the mess of injustice in a city?
Urban development has been dominated by silo thinking and action, aggravating the interconnected challenges that lead to injustice, and running against environmental sustainability.
For me, in a nutshell, the key ingredients are poor, inadequate, or opaque or simply inexistent frameworks, spatial planning, management, financing and governance. All these inefficiencies put together, we get a city that is trapped in, or inexorably marching towards, injustice.
The main point I would like to make is that frameworks, spatial planning, management financing and governance are essential foundations and enablers for a multidimensional conception of justice in a city. Why? Because justice in a city is about social, political, economic and environmental justice. Once more, why these enablers? Because not only they can, but actually in many cases will, deliver better results if conceived and operationalized with the city-region scale as their wider framework. Justice in a city goes beyond its administrative boundaries. Ultimately a city will not be just if it is triggering injustice in the peri-urban or metropolitan areas or the wider region it relates to.
Frameworks, spatial planning and management
Today cities are home to half of the world’s population and three quarters of its economic output, and these figures will rise dramatically over the next couple of decades. Urban development, with its power to trigger transformative change, can and must be at the front line of human development.
We seem to forget, though, that urban development is a complex process. It is a social process, and one that develops over time. To avoid getting trapped in morally abhorrent injustice, it is about time we collectively realize that urban development, like any other complex social process, needs to be soundly and sufficiently framed, planned and managed. City and regional spatial planning—territorial planning—can be an essential enabler of justice.
The majority of population growth in cities is the result of natural increase, rural-urban migration and the reclassification of formerly non-urban areas. It is also predominantly taking place in cities in developing countries, most notably in Africa and Asia. In many areas of the world, cities tend to endlessly sprawl, consuming the periphery land and, ultimately, nullifying the social, economic and environmental advantages of agglomeration. Spatial planning at the city-region scale can achieve balanced territorial development. It can promote mutually reinforcing urban and rural development and hence control and correct scenarios where cities trigger injustice in the peri-urban or metropolitan areas or the wider region they relate to.
Spontaneous proliferation concludes in forcing and segregating the most deprived and those facing vulnerability; those too often trapped in a life of morally unacceptable slum-like conditions. Spatial planning and urban design for the just city can secure a grid that enables food systems across the rural urban continuum and that provides access to affordable, safe and sustainable housing, water and sanitation, energy, waste management and mobility. In case these were not enough elements of justice, let us not forget their inextricable links with human and environmental health, prosperity and socio-economic development, community resilience, and, ultimately, respect for human rights.
Statistics show that in unplanned cities, public green space and publicly accessible open space virtually disappear. Gone with these public spaces are their benefits for social cohesion, equality, intercultural and intergenerational exchange, healthy lives and environmental sustainability—aspects inextricably linked to a multidimensional notion of justice. Spatial planning and urban design can offer solutions to fix this; solutions that can be exponentially empowered with strategies and norms to regulate the private ownership of land.
In a global sample of 120 cities, the sum of all urban areas that are not covered by impervious surfaces was estimated between 30 percent to almost half. Out of the 40 cities studied by UN-Habitat, only 7 allocated more than 20 percent of land to streets in their city core, and less than 10 percent in their suburban areas. In Europe and North America the cores of cities have 25% of land allocated to streets, whilst suburban areas have less than 15%. In most city cores of the developing world, less than 15% of land is allocated to streets and the situation is even worse in the suburbs and informal settlements where less than 10 percent of land is allocated to street. This is a reflection of the huge inequalities in many cities of the developing world. Over the last 30 years, public spaces are becoming highly commercialized and have been replaced by private or semi-public buildings. Commercialization divides society and eventually separates people into different social classes.
The United Nations programme for cities and human settlements, UN-Habitat is proposing a set of targets for the amount of land allocated to streets and public space in urban areas to ensure adequate foundation for the city. It is proposed that 45 percent of land should be allocated to streets and public space. The World Health Organisation recommends a minimum of 9 square meters green space per capita and that all residents live a 15-minute walk to green space.
Cities in their socio-cultural, economic and environmental complexity contain systems — cities are systems of systems. For far too long, urban development has been predominantly dominated by silo thinking and action. This has resulted in the aggravation of interconnected challenges leading to injustice in cities, including running against environmental sustainability and its notion of planetary boundaries. An integrated and systems-based management for our cities can take us very far in correcting and preventing the socio-economic and environmental injustice many cities face.
On the positive side, several pioneer cities across the globe have make proof of political and technical commitment to find planning and management solutions for sustainability in its three dimensions: social, economic and environmental. For the curious reader, I would vividly recommend taking a look at the inspirational collection of case studies that the network ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability has recently compiled. This collection of case studies sees the light on the occasion of the historic adoption of the global 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, including the unprecedented SDG11 to “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable in the horizon of 2030.”
Important examples include the integral urban development project of Medellín (Colombia); the district energy pilot project in Rakjot (India); the framework for uniting municipalities around a regional food system in Vancouver (Canada); the actions to turn trash into food in Mexico City (Mexico); the integrated moves to tackle city growth traps in Dongguan (China); the “Ecological Capital” approach in Curitiba (Brazil) as a world renowned model for innovative integrated planning and management; the strategies for protecting a world treasure of biodiversity from urban pressures in Cape Town (Africa); or the multi-annual efforts in Bristol (UK) to win the European Green Capital Award. All these and many more are examples of real tools and approaches to commit to sustainable urban development and rip its benefits for social, political, economic and environmental justice.
A last but not least crucial point needs to be highlighted. Spatial planning at the city-region scale, as well as integrated and systems-based city management are indeed answers for reconfiguring the mess of injustice in cities. However, this does not equal leaving it all to the sole action by the city or the regional levels. Achieving just cities will require strong action by governments and policymakers at all levels. Strategic frameworks and plans at the national level are a 21st-century must-have in order to achieve social, political, economic and environmental justice in a city and beyond its administrative boundaries. National urban policies, adapted to the needs and assets of a country, its regions and cities, and crafted by close collaboration among all levels of government, must be incentivized by international frameworks and implemented at the national level. With 70 percent of global population projected to live in cities by 2050, it is profoundly disconcerting that only around 30 countries have national urban policies.
Financing
Local and regional/state governments across the globe are regularly responsible for the provision of housing, public services and utilities, among other important services and tasks for justice in a city. Besides, many cities face the costly struggle of adapting to increased vulnerability to climate change and natural disasters. All this while they can no longer afford the cost of updating infrastructural backlogs. Around the globe, it can be said that on average the revenue and expenditure share of local and regional/state authorities is not commensurate with the strenuous financial burden these three realities impose on them. In this predominant context of inadequate financing the ability of local and regional/state governments to effectively combat poverty and inequality is reduced.
The highly political question of mobilisation of resources for and at the local level is also an issue of justice in the city. It cannot be left only to local and regional/state governments because the prevailing models for financing and for access to financing across the globe are leaving them hand-cuffed. International and national frameworks must change course to empower and enable new models for financing local and regional/state governments, as well as to open further access to financing for them.
Perhaps we could dream of a break-through in this political impasse, if the international financial institutions, the multilateral organisations and national governments could assess this question from the perspective of socio-economic and environmental justice for people and their communities. Enablers to reconfigure the mess exist, can be incentivized by international frameworks and operationalized with sustained dialogue among all levels of government.
Updating the level of national transfers and/or authority to generate additional income through taxes, as well as non-tax mechanisms will enable improvements. Local and state/regional governments need to be empowered to raise local revenue and tap local resources, while linking revenue enhancement with service delivery and transparency. Strengthening municipal finance is key for these levels of government to become credit worthy and access external financing.
There are other enablers to reconfigure the mess and enable the mobilisation of more resources for local and state/regional governments to invest in social, political, economic and environmental justice programmes. Improving the capacity of these levels of governments to capture land value is one. Another example is implementing frameworks for their access to capital markets. A third enabler is strengthening their capacity in areas of bankable infrastructure project development, land-based financing, and access to municipal development banks and/or pooled municipal financing. The set up of city and regional investment funds, combined with green growth funding and social enterprise funds, for instance, can also support justice objectives. Last but not least, participatory budgeting can provide a collectively owned framework for investment in multidimensional justice at the neighbourhood and city scale.
Governance
For me, governance and justice in a city are two sides of the same coin. The list of enablers to reconfigure the mess of injustice here is so naturally long, that it would be impossible for me to honour it in the space provided for this essay. Different words may be used, but I would like to believe that those who share my passion for urban and territorial development for their people and by their people would agree that governance is the lifeblood of a just city.
There are two obvious and fundamental enablers to reconfigure the mess: the empowerment of healthy democracies at all levels of governments, as well as of decentralisation in respect of the principle of subsidiarity. The principle of subsidiarity indicates that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible and more efficient, rather than by a central authority. I am saying that these are obvious and fundamental enablers; not that they are easy in the current state of world affairs.
Other enablers to reconfigure the mess of injustice in a city that I would like to focus on relate to the critical decisions that will be taken at the United Nations within 2016. These decisions will operationalize the universal 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals—including SDG11’s “Make cities and human settlements safe, inclusive, resilient and sustainable.” Moreover, in 2016 urban development leaders will be adopting the “New Urban Agenda” for the next 20 years at the Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development Habitat.
Indicators that will assess progress against goals and targets will be crafted. Monitoring and review systems will also see the light of the day. Justice in cities calls for data collection that provides the basis for disaggregation down to the micro-level, to the neighbourhood level. Situations of social, economic, political and environmental injustice in cities cannot go hidden behind national averages.
Grass-roots data collection systems and citizen-generated data, involving directly the urban poor and other disadvantaged groups should underpin monitoring systems. Data should be legitimated via institutionalized arrangements between regional and local governments and the experts collecting it and should focus on identifying community-driven priorities, with particular attention to the needs of those living in vulnerable situations and of the urban poor. Moreover, data should remain publicly available and accessible to all citizens and communities.
An inspiring ongoing initiative of grass-roots data collection is the project of Shack/Slum Dwellers International with the Ghana Federation of the Urban Poor (GHAFUP) for profiling Accra’s slums, which builds upon several previous projects carried out in other countries.
Transparent, inclusive and participatory accountability and review systems from the international to the local levels are non-negotiable and constitute enablers to reconfigure the mess of injustice in cities and beyond cities.
Multi-stakeholder partnerships for the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development, for the implementation of each SDG and for the “New Urban Agenda,” if well managed, will be powerful enablers to reconfigure, re-invent and imagine. The frameworks for these partnerships at all levels must ensure the engagement and participation of civil society and all relevant stakeholders. They should also build capacity in all levels of governments for fair, transparent and human-rights anchored public private partnerships, which are central to the provision of public services and utilities to urban dwellers.
All these enablers to reconfigure the mess of injustice we have made on the side B of our cities are not exempt of complexity, political cost, innovation and bravery. Just sustainable urban development is not an easy task but my arguments above show that we have tools and approaches to plan it, manage it, fund it, govern it and achieve it. As humankind, over the centuries and the different civilizations we have found solutions to evolution challenges.
We learned to make fire. We invented the wheel, the steam engine and the airplane. We discovered penicillin. We get a bit further in outer space every year. We have propelled an information technology revolution that has changed at unprecedented pace the face of what we deemed possible.
I am not ready to accept that we would let the complexities of operationalising just sustainable urban development shy us away from the moral imperative of achieving it.
Does architecture have a “color”? by Steward Pickett
The history of building and space is richer than we usually think. So are the visions of a less racist future, motivated in part by many Black voices and gazes. Reconstruction in America worked briefly in the past, ending not in failure but in its active repression. Reconstructions is a beautiful, evocative, and painful call for us all to nurture the racially regenerative possibility of space and building.
Does architecture have a “color”? In the United States, the answer seems to be yes. Architecture in the U.S. has been practiced largely by and for white people. Indeed, Glenn Lowry, Director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City said, “American government and industry were made by design to delimit and ultimately diminish the role and presence of African Americans and African diasporic communities.” In the field of architecture, MoMA has come to recognize its contribution to such diminishment in how it had represented architecture in its collections. It began to remedy the lapse through a recently ended exhibition called “Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America”. The exhibit explored how architecture — the design of buildings and the disposition of space — has been used as a tool of diminishment of Black communities, and how those communities and architects of color resisted and compensated for that diminishment. An eponymously titled book, edited by Sean Anderson and Mabel O. Wilson, was published by the museum this year to draw together historical, cultural, and critical themes to document the exhibition and make its insights more widely available[i].
MoMA, like most institutions in “the West”, has promulgated a white or Eurocentric view of its subject matter. In its hands, the roots of contemporary architecture were traced through the fashions, philosophies, and practices of Europe. Indeed, MoMA’s first architectural exhibition in 1932 was intended to promote the “international school” of modernism in American architectural circles and among the decision-making elite of American society. In this sort of universalist theory, there was no room for any other history, especially not the history of what is perhaps America’s least honored racialized group — Black folk.
This book explores diverse threads of Black thought and action that contribute to America’s architectural legacy and ongoing development. The project is named “Reconstructions” to recall the woefully brief historical period of racial democratization following America’s Civil War. After the end of that war in 1865, and extending to 1877, Blacks enjoyed a flowering of civic engagement, enfranchisement (for men, but alas, not women), and political power. Some historians suggest that the three constitutional amendments passed during Reconstruction (XIII outlawed slavery, XIV enshrined birthright citizenship and equal protection, and XV guaranteed voting rights), corrected some of the most serious lapses of the 1788 Constitution, and so can be seen as a “second founding” of the republic. However, in 1877, Federal troops were withdrawn from the territory of the defeated rebellious states, and the political and social gains Blacks had won were snatched back by vigilantism, reinstitution of racially discriminatory state and local laws, and a culture of racial exclusion enforced by unchecked violence. The historical period of Reconstruction, although it was not allowed to continue, was a period of release from oppression and an emergent anti-racist opportunity.
Steward Hall at Simmons College in Louisville. It was the first Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in Kentucky and was founded by the Black Baptist church there. The building was designed by Samuel M. Plato (1882-1957), noted Black architect in Louisville and Southern Indiana. Photo: Robert L. PickettThe Broadway Temple AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Zion Church. Described by an architectural commentator as a “muscular” building, it sits at a major intersection in a traditionally Black part of town. Architect Samuel Plato. Photo: Robert L. Pickett
Now, nearly 150 years later, the book Reconstructions points to contemporary anti-racist opportunities. It is an edited collection of historical analyses, illustrated essays, art, architectural plans, reflections on the intersection of different dimensions of oppression, examples of vernacular buildings and high design, photography, reminiscences, and dreams of aspiration. It does not flinch in the potentially judgmental gaze of whiteness. Rather, this book reflects honestly on the history of racial oppression in the United States. It notes how traditional architecture and planned spatial arrangements in the United States have dislocated and disadvantaged Blacks and other people of color. For example, ghettos are not accidents and the surveillance of Black spaces is not casual. Urban designer Justin Garrett Moore notes, “Space as a form of control and violence against the Black mind and body remains deeply ingrained…” (p. 155).
But the book has a hopeful message as well. If racism and its spatial and architectural manifestations were built or constructed, they can be unbuilt and replaced — reconstructed — with something more just and regenerative. Acclaimed landscape architect Walter Hood notes (p. 69) the need for a design in which “Blackness is a viable and vital presence[.] Why settle for the probable when we could instead imagine what is possible?”
The hopeful themes of the book include the power of resistance and the richness of creativity in Black culture. Many examples of the power of community are presented, along with the diverse ways in which Black people and institutions have forged nurturing spaces, both private and public. I was personally intrigued by the discussion of how the shotgun house, with its enfilade layout, can be a communal space. (Louisville, where I grew up, has the second most surviving shotgun houses in the United States, following New Orleans, which may well have been the “port of entry” of this Afro-Caribbean-inflected design.) The role of gardens and the many other ways that Black communities make “homeplaces” in the face of exclusion and intentional deprivation continue to be causes for hope.
One does not study racialized processes in the United States, nor see the constant drumbeat of the oppression, violence, and exclusion that racialized groups experience, with a light heart. But this book adds a range of voices and visions to the hopefulness of the social moment of 2020-2021. Reconstructions shows that the history of building and space is richer than we usually think. Racialized groups relegated to society’s margins have indeed made contributions to the form and conception of urban spaces. Black voices and gazes have helped establish and highlight visions of a less racist future for all persons, in the U.S. and elsewhere. Re-construction in America worked briefly in the past, showing us that in the era of Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, et aliis in infinitum, it is possible to construct urban homeplaces for all people.
The history of Reconstruction after the Civil War is an encouragement to us today because it did not end in failure, as so many racist retellings have it; rather it was violently and intentionally repressed by white supremacy. Reconstructions is a beautiful, evocative, and painful call for us all to nurture the racially regenerative possibility of space and building. Opportunities for reconstruction today must be seized, but they must be carefully guarded and protected.
Steward Pickett
Poughkeepsie NY
[i] Anderson, S., and M. O. Wilson, editors. 2021. Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America. Museum of Modern Art, New York. ISBN: 978-1-63345-114-8
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Twin legacies by Brian McGrath
The twin legacies of Baltimore Ecosystem Study and the Reconstructions exhibition allow us to think more fully about ecology, architecture, and blackness intertwined in un-disciplined ways. Black ecologists and architects teach us not to be limited by one’s discipline and, in the words of the creators of the MoMA exhibit, to enact a practice of refusal.
Does ecology have a “color”? Certainly, it is most commonly perceived as green. But, like architecture, it has a whiteness about it, as a discipline founded in Europe, tinged with racist eugenic ideas and predominately practiced by white people for white people. One of the rare exceptions is Black ecologist Steward Pickett and the collective work of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES), which he co-founded and directed from 1997-2016. Dr. Pickett, the first African American to be president of the one-hundred-year-old Ecological Society of America, an organization that has recently formed the Black Ecologists Section. The BES was primarily conceived to benefit the people of Baltimore, a proudly black city, and, by example, to bring ecology and blackness as central to the discussion of the future of American cities facing the twin crises of climate and justice. But architecture and ecology are not really “things” which can have a color, nor only fields of practice. They are disciplines or dispositions in the sense that they are ways we can all look at the world more deeply through different lenses.
Harlem Park, Baltimore, 2005-2008. As part of a study of the feedback loops between people, buildings, open space, and hydrological function, the Urban Design Working group at the Baltimore Ecosystem Study worked with residents of the Harlem Park neighborhood on the cooperative management of shared open space within blocks, comprised of alleys, vacant lots, and neglected public playgrounds. Image: Brian McGrath and Mateo Pinto, urban-interface
Dr. Pickett defines architecture as “the design of buildings and the disposition of space”, and, at the Cary Institute, has contributed to the evolving definition of ecology as the scientific study of the processes influencing the distribution and abundance of organisms, the interactions among and between organisms and the transformation and flux of information, energy, and matter. The Design and disposition of building and space within an environment, comprised of the dynamic field of organisms, lays out a rich definitional matrix for an expanded understanding of architecture. The question is who is controlling the transformation and flows? This is where the importance of racial justice links architecture, ecology, and blackness. Since the 1960s, ecology has helped architecture overcome its history of social inequity and environmental destruction by its broad science of not just examining “things” (organisms and environments), but their relationships.
I had the great pleasure of visiting the exhibition Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America on the last day of its short run at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Museum exhibitions are embodied experiences, and nothing can capture the sense of excitement and joy in spending a few hours in the space created by the curators, Sean Anderson and Mabel O. Wilson, and the work of ten commissioned architects: Emanuel Admassu, Germane Barnes, Sekou Cooke, J. Yolande Daniels, Felecia Davis, Mario Gooden, Walter J. Hood, Olalekan Jeyifous, V. Mitch McEwen, and Amanda Williams. The texts, drawings, videos, and physical artifacts in the limited space of the architecture and design gallery at MoMA conveyed the sense of joyfulness that Dr. Pickett captures in his review of the book that accompanied the exhibition. I cannot write a review here of the individual works, but it is worth mentioning the collective impact of the exhibitors’ “manifesting statement” hung at the entry to the gallery, and the curator’s map at the rear.
The exhibitors formed the Black Reconstruction Collective (BRC) during early planning discussions for the exhibition, unusual in curatorial processes, where discussions are normally only between the exhibitor and the curators, who answer to the museum directors. BRCs first public action was the covering of the name of MoMA’s architecture and design gallery donor — a Nazi sympathizer with a white nationalist background — with their manifesting statement. “With this commitment to Black freedom and futurity, we dedicate ourselves to doing the work of designing another world that is possible, here, where we are, with and for us.” The map at the rear of the gallery indicated the cities represented by the works of the collective exhibitors, but also indicated “All-Black” towns, “Freedmen’s” towns, and “Freedom Colonies” across the U.S. The manifesto and map together framed my experience of the gallery as if walking and exploring the most fantastic representation of the American city I had ever experienced.
The twin legacies of BES and the Reconstructions exhibition allow us to think more fully about ecology, architecture, and blackness intertwined in un-disciplined ways. Black ecologists and architects teach us not to be limited by one’s discipline and, in the words of BRC, to enact a practice of refusal. As a recent ESA “water cooler chat” revealed, there is a new generation of black ecologists in the field and an exhibition on Blackness in Ecology would be a worthy endeavor for MoMA in light of the recent $10m gift from Emilio Ambasz to establish the Institute for the Joint Study of the Built and the Natural Environment. The mission of the new institute is to explore the relationship between architecture and ecology. What better way to serve the mission of the Institute in “… fostering dialogue, promoting conversation, and facilitating research around the relationship between the built and natural environment, with the aim of making the interaction between architecture and ecology visible and accessible to the wider public” than to have black architects and ecologists take the lead.
Brian McGrath is Professor of Urban Design at Parsons School of Design at The New School and Associate Director of the Tishman Center for Environment and Design where he leads the Infrastructure, Design and Justice Lab. The focus of his work is the architecture of urban adaptation and change from social justice and ecological resilience perspectives.
On 21 June 2016, I committed to reading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Report executive summary as part of a national (Canadian) collective challenge. What is the TRC report and what does it have to do with urban natures and sustainable cities? The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established in 2008 with the aim of uncovering the hidden experiences and histories of Canada’s residential school system. It was (and is) also about recovering diverse Aboriginal histories in Canada to better understand complex settler–Aboriginal relations.
Beyond media stereotypes, the importance of nature to Canada’s Aboriginal peoples living in urban settings remains largely unknown.
I use Aboriginal rather than Indigenous to be consistent with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report. In Canada, Aboriginal refers to First Nation, Inuit, and Métis peoples. Canada’s historic and contemporary settler–Aboriginal relations are—as in many other colonial places—tense and reprehensible; indeed, the TRC refers to Canada’s past Aboriginal policies as cultural genocide. The TRC spent six years (2009 to 2014) collecting stories from Aboriginal, as well as non-aboriginal, people about their experiences in residential schools, on reserves, and in urban centres. In 2015, the TRC produced a six-volume report detailing these experiences and making recommendations on how Canada can reconcile and heal past settler-indigenous relations and create new relations without forgetting the past. As Willems-Braun (1997: 4) has emphasized, we need to pay attention to the “ways that colonial pasts continue to organize experience in the present.” A key part of the report is to advise Canadian society on how to collectively reconcile and heal through institutional and political reform.
As I read the TRC report summary, I am questioning how the experiences and recommendations apply to my own research and work on urban nature and children. The last volume of the report contains 94 calls to action which underscore the importance of recognizing and incorporating Aboriginal culture into mainstream policies of education—and part of this culture comprises diverse knowledges and experiences of natures.
While I am just starting to think about this, I have two preliminary ideas on how I can incorporate the TRC into my own research and what my own experiences and expertise can add to the calls to action
My first idea involves exploring, in more depth, non-settler understandings of nature. More specifically, I want to question the taken-for-granted assumptions about human-nature relations that are often underpinned by European ideas. Aboriginal understandings, experiences, and relations with natures are complicated, diverse, and dynamic. First Nations, Inuit, and Métis are diverse populations. There are over 600 First Nations groups across Canada. As such, there can not be a singular Aboriginal understanding of nature. While many of the articles in TNOC emphasize the complexity of our relations to nature, within the general public (at least in Canada), there is still an underlying simplistic understanding of Aboriginal peoples and their relationship with nature. In the imaginaries of many non-Aboriginal people, there are dominant stereotypes about Aboriginal peoples, which include their relations to nature. For centuries, Aboriginals in Canada (as well as in the United States and other places) have been depicted warriors, savages, lazy, free-loaders, and drunken. Then there is the other side of the stereotyping coin—the romanticizing of First Nations as the Indian princess, the noble savage, and the native warrior etc. and their understandings of and relationship with nature(s). Such stereotypes are often shaped by films and literature, and tend to simplify complex culture-nature relations. Much of this has to do with the marginalisation of Aboriginal culture in mainstream media (see the recent national survey on what non-Aboriginal Canadians know and think about Aboriginal Peoples).
I previously wrote about how the portrayal of nature in children’s media influences how they interact with and understand nature, both urban and non-urban. Children learn much from the movies they watch and the books they read. Nature in the children’s mainstream media landscape does not tend to include complex portrayals of Aboriginal American nature. The idea of the noble savage endures in film and literature for children. Perhaps it is not as pervasive today as in previous decades, but movies from Peter Pan (1953) to Pocahontas (1995) and Avatar (2009) visibly and audibly reinforce the idea of the noble savage (listen to the song ‘Savages’ from Pocahontas, for example). There is also the assumption that Aboriginal peoples must have a particular spiritual connection to the earth. Another tendency is to ‘freeze’ Aboriginal people in the past—to trap them in a particular historic moment.
But more visible than the negative and stereotypical portrayals of Aboriginal peoples in mainstream media is their absence in film, literature, etc. Of particular interest for me is that absence within children’s media and in school curriculums (the latter of which is emphasized as a key call to action in the TRC). Less than 1 percent of children’s cartoon characters and 0.09 percent of video game characters are Aboriginal (Leavitt et al. 2015). In Canada there are few children’s books written by Aboriginal individuals that make it onto school reading lists or library and bookstore displays, especially in large bookstores such as Chapter-Indigos. Yet there are many wonderful Aboriginal authors. For example, my daughter has a great book called Just a Walk, by Cree author Jordan Wheeler, about a boy named Chuck. Wheeler has a second book about Chuck in the city. (Both books are published by Theytus Books, an Aboriginal publishing company located in the Syilx territory in British Columbia).
Why is this important to mention on a blog about urban nature? Because such books tell stories about urban and non-urban worlds that contribute to shaping children’s knowledge about the world, which includes diverse representations of nature. And while many children’s books do not have explicit stories about nature, how nature is represented in the landscapes and in relation to characters can impact children (as I discussed in my previous post on children’s TV shows). More importantly, we need books by Aboriginal authors that complicate settler (non-Aboriginal) ideas about Aboriginal peoples, culture/natures, and what it means to live and built the future urban-rural Canada hinted at in the TRC report.
This brings me to my second point on how I can draw on the TRC in my work on urban nature and children to help the process of reconciling Canadian’s past settler-Aboriginal relations. Canada is a predominantly urban country. According to 2011 census data, 81 percent of the total population and 56 percent of Aboriginal people live in urban areas. The city is the home to a growing number of Aboriginal people in Canada, and off-reserve Aboriginal people constitute the fastest growing segment of Canadian society (see also the Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study, 2010). As a result, many Aboriginal children will be born and raised in cities. This profoundly disrupts non-Aboriginal/settler stereotypes of Aboriginal peoples, but until recently, most Canadians still linked Aboriginals with rural, “wild” nature—thanks to the media images and lack of historical accuracy in Canadian curriculum discussed above. A recent article in the journal The Canadian Geographer points out that despite the growing urban Aboriginal population, little is known about how “traditional” relations and understandings of nature have changed:
The importance of nature to Aboriginal peoples living in urban settings is a topic that has been neglected by scholars. In contrast to the large volume of social science research on the importance of nature to indigenous peoples, it is striking that major studies on urban Aboriginal issues make no mention of the natural environment [….]. This represents a significant gap given that at present more than half of Aboriginal people in Canada live in urban areas. Many questions remain unexamined. For example, are “traditional” connections to nature diminished, maintained, or reshaped in urban settings? Can nature be experienced in urban settings, or do people leave the city to fulfill their relationship with nature? (Smith et al. 2016: 4)
Such questions are critical to ask at this moment in Canadian history—and perhaps globally—if we are to recognise the past and current oppression and assimilation of Aboriginal populations. And more importantly to reconcile the oppression and processes of assimilation that marginalise Canadian Aboriginal populations. Indeed, if cities are supposed to be spaces of diversity, community, individuality, anonymity, culture, and natures, then we need to ask: How do the ways in which we construct urban nature maintain and reproduce colonial natures in the city? One 2015 article on TNOC—the Bright Side of Indigenous Urbanization for Biodiversity—sought to identify some ways that Indigenous peoples “urbanize with nature, incorporating biodiversity and more sustainable forms of socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes into the urban fabric, and linking peri-urban and urban ecosystems into innovative city design and planning”. The authors point out that the process of urbanization can result in loss of traditional knowledge and social alienation. Urbanization can also bring diverse Aboriginal peoples together and engender communities that not only recover cultural traditions, but create new ones. We have to remember that the idea of what counts as traditional and Aboriginal in communities can be contested—see the case of half-Indigenous individuals. The city can be a place to reclaim indigeneity. The city has also given rise to strong Aboriginal social movements, most recently Idle No More, that seek to resist neo-colonialism and create better futures.
How does this change my research on children and nature in cities? What can I do differently? I need to start asking how certain natures have assisted in the national project of assimilation of Aboriginal children. Moreover, how do we begin to diversify our constructions of urban nature to take into account the complex and dynamic contemporary Aboriginal culture-nature relations? Of course, asking these questions opens me up to many criticisms and challenges. As one of the many Canadians with mixed settler-Aboriginal heritage, I can never identify completely with the histories, cultures, and context of Aboriginal peoples. Growing up in a predominantly settler environment, I can only ask my questions from this position. But I need to recognise that Mi’kmaq is part of my family heritage and that this was buried because of the stereotypes that surround Aboriginals in Canada. But recognition, as the TRC emphasises, is critical, and we need to start asking deeper questions about settler-Aboriginal relations if we want to change perceptions and future relations—and such questions will alter how we produce future culture-nature relations.
In reviewing the wildlife habitats of British towns and cities for my recent book Nature in Towns and Cities (Harper Collins 2014)I became acutely aware that many of the UK’s most spectacular urban wetlands resulted from industrial activities.
The most extensive of these are newly created lakes that formed as a result of sand and gravel extraction. Others originated as subsidence hollows after deep mining of coal and other minerals. The result is a patchwork of high quality wetlands closely linked with urban areas.
Flooded gravel pits provide over 15,000 hectares of new lakes that have become established in Britain since the 1940s, and up to 500 hectares of new ones are still added every year. These new lakes are particularly popular for sailing and fishing and many have become country parks. A large number are now managed as nature reserves and some of these have become remarkably rich wetland habitats. Because of the history of gravel extraction, with most of the early pits being close to large towns and cities, many now lie well within large urban conurbations. While most of the nature reserves are managed by wildlife organisations some are owned and managed by municipal authorities which now find themselves responsible for some remarkably valuable areas for biodiversity.
The detailed story differs in the case of subsidence following mining activities as this has resulted in clusters of high quality wetlands in areas that were previously some of the most heavily industrialised parts of the country. These wetlands now lie within extensive tracts of post-industrial dereliction. Closure of virtually all the coalmines has led to major social and economic problems with development of alternative businesses and livelihoods. The urgent need to revitalise these areas has resulted in the restoration of degraded landscapes on a massive scale, providing opportunities to create new ecological landscapes linking the longer established wetlands that resulted from subsidence. So in the Dearne Valley of Yorkshire there are plans for a landscape-scale approach where a new Nature Improvement Area aims to link these existing habitats to create a 1300 hectare core area with a buffer zone of nearly 3000 hectares of reclaimed industrial land that will be enhanced for wildlife conservation. This is an example of the “bigger, better and joined-up” approach to nature conservation advocated in the UK Government report Making Space for Nature (2010).
Attenborough Lakes gravel pit nature reserve with reed beds and alder woodland. Photo: Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust
Although gravel pits and subsidence lakes have different origins their ecology has followed a similar pattern and many of those protected as nature reserves have a strong emphasis on birds. Winter duck populations are particularly significant, with a large number of sites supporting sufficient numbers to merit national protection by law as Sites of Special Scientific Interest.
It has also been estimated that the total number of water birds breeding on gravel pits is 33,000, which is nearly a fifth of the UK total. Because they are situated in urban areas many gravel pits are also designated as Local Nature Reserves to provide access to nature for local people.
Some wetland birds owe their survival to gravel pits. One of these was the great crested grebe (Podiceps cristatus), which had been shot almost to extinction in Britain to provide ornate feathers as fashion accessories for the 19th century millinery trade. It was the imminent demise of this bird that led to bird protection legislation being passed in the late 1800s. Although the birds gradually recovered over the next fifty years, it was proliferation of gravel pits in post-war years that guaranteed their survival. Another was the little ringed plover (Charadrius dubius) which found the pebble beds of newly worked gravel pits an ideal habitat as it colonised Britain from continental Europe in the 1940s. The process continues today with species that are moving north in response to climate change, such as little egret (Egretta garzetta) taking advantage of gravel pits and other artificial wetlands in their extraordinarily rapid colonisation of southern Britain. Heat islands of major conurbations may be assisting this process.
Radipole Lake in Weymouth, Dorset: Aerial view of the nature reserve in the middle of the town. Photo: David Wooton/RSPB
Examples of these unintended habitats include the Wigan Flashes, 250 hectares of lakes on the edge of the former coalmining town of Wigan in Lancashire, which has become one of the most notable wetlands in northwest England. As well as large concentrations of ducks the area now attracts wintering bitterns (Botaurus stellaris) from continental Europe. This wetland is accessible to large numbers of people; one estimate suggests that six million people live within twenty minutes drive! Another is Attenborough Lakes on the edge of Nottingham, a series of flooded gravel pits covering 150 hectares, now forming an open-access nature reserve with extensive reed beds, willow thickets, ponds and lakes, and large colonies of herons (Ardea cinerea) and cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo). The reserve also boasts an award-winning nature centre which attracts 250,000 visitors a year.
Attenborough Lakes, Nottingham: the Award winning Nature Centre. Photo: Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust
One of the most extraordinary of these new wetlands is Radipole Lake which lies in the centre of the small south-coast town of Weymouth. Run as a nature reserve by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds it supports a remarkable number of rare reed-bed species, including marsh harrier (Circus aeruginosus) and bearded reedling (Panurus biarmicus), both of which may be seen within a five minutes walk from the railway station. These are certainly not your usual urban birds, but Radipole demonstrates beautifully that high quality wetlands can exist right in the middle of town or city.
But they are not the norm.
The majority of towns and cities in the UK do not have high quality wetlands in their midst. Indeed there are plenty of places where wetlands have been filled to provide new land for urban development. The examples I describe are the exceptions that demonstrate what is possible. The point I am making is that wild areas in the city can be remarkably rich in wildlife and post-industrial landscapes offer enormous possibilities for nature conservation if we were to grasp the opportunities that exist. There is an urgent need for ecologists and city planners to recognise the potential value of such areas. Wetlands happen to produce dramatic results relatively quickly, but there are many other post- industrial landscapes that have enormous potential.
I am sure that you will know similar examples from your part of the world. One that I particularly like, though a very different habitat, is the disused Rocky Mountain Arsenal, now a National Wildlife Refuge, at Denver Colorado. This big chunk of country, covering 47 square miles, provided a buffer zone for the arsenal when it produced chemical weapons, nerve gas and pesticides. After operations ceased in 1982 the prairie recovered and it now provides an amazing example of a fully working ecosystem including burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia), ferruginous hawks (Buteo regalis) and 40,000 prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus). There are even bald eagles, bison and coyotes. Visitors on safari trips liken it to some of the National Parks in Africa. Yet this place is situated right on the city’s doorstep only ten minutes drive from downtown Denver.
Returning to the wetland theme, another urban wildlife refuge that I really like is Oaks Bottom, a wetland that lies very close to the central business district of Portland, Oregon. That city demonstrates very clearly how much can be done to protect wildlife sites if you have determination. Many unintended habitats, as well as some that have more natural origins, are now protected as a result of vigilance and persuasion. I am reminded that one of the world leaders in nature conservation, Ray Dasmann, castigated wildlife managers in the United States in 1966 for being too closely linked with hunting and game preserves. It was he who first urged naturalists to concentrate on the cities instead of the forests, arguing that “they should work… to make towns and cities into places where each person’s everyday experience could be enriched by contact with nature”.
Most of us writing for The Nature of Cities will applaud that view. It is still as valid today. Indeed there are some lessons here that are directly relevant to our current roundtable discussion on “bird-friendly cities”.
I was sitting comfortably in my favorite armchair, sipping coffee and listening to this podcast with my headphones on, when all of a sudden I heard: “We have been relatively good at discussing—not enough, but relatively good—at discussing the idea of environmental bads…” The whole idea was that we had not paid sufficient attention to environmental goods. “Green spaces”—especially linear parks—were described as paragons of environmental goods. I started thinking, Wow. Really? This idea stuck in my mind, because it clashed with my own experience. I am not convinced at all that actual urban policies focus mainly on what we could call environmental bads: building eco-districts and designing environmental friendly areas is creating environmental goods; both smart cities and resilient cities—two different and somewhat contradictory approaches—focus on the bright side of sustainability (designing the future) rather than the bad side. Besides, I am also unconvinced that green spaces are inherently “positive”, both from an environmental and social point of view. They may even, on some occasions, generate very negative and unexpected side effects.
The failure of Seine-St-Denis
In one of my more recently published articles —Combining Sustainability and Social Justice in the Paris Metropolitan Region—I showed that creating environmental goods and amenities such as parks “out of the blue” is absolutely not sufficient to enhance urban justice, be it distributive, restorative or interpersonal. Look at Seine-St-Denisnear Paris, a case that deserves special attention. At the scale of the Paris metropolitan region, this areahas a very poor image due to its industrial heritage and the presence of large social-housing units. It is associated with environmental shortcomings and low quality of life.
A gas plant in Seine-St-Denis (Usine du Landy) in 1919. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Parisians usually avoid this area because they see it as ugly and unsafe, while most of the inhabitants of Seine-St-Denis have the feeling that they live in a bad place, in which they consider themselves abandoned. They’d like to relocate, but they generally lack the financial ability to do so, or they are stuck in this area by their professional activity. So, their sense of belonging to the place they live in, their sense of ownership, and finally their self-esteem, are very low. A book about the industrial heritage of Seine-St-Denis between 1850 and 2000—Dangereux, insalubres et incommodes: paysages industriels en banlieue parisienne (XIXe-XXe siècles)—shows that the prejudice against Seine-St-Denis is strong. But guess what? The deindustrialization of Seine-St-Denis happened forty years ago. Since then, countless major urban regeneration and urban reconfiguration programs were developed, as explained by Sylvie Salles in her article “La reconversion de la Plaine Saint-Denis, le paysage à l’épreuve du territories”. Parks were created in former wastelands and brownfields; linear parks were designed along formal industrial transit roads, railroad tracks, and canals. Eco-districts of social housing were built, connected by hundred kilometers of tram tracks, new subway lines, and soft mobility systems (bikes and pedestrian paths). Better still, cultural amenities such as museums, libraries and theater companies were financed. Attractive heritage sites, such as Basilique de St-Denis—a very important one—or the industrial sites of the 19th century were restored with increased access for everybody. There are also two universities in Seine-St-Denis now.
Map of Paris urban riots of 2005. Only the Seine-St-Denis is concerned in the whole Paris metropolitan region. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Very little has been done to cope with the environmental bads, such as polluted soils or traffic noise. A lot of money has been invested to enhance or create environmental goods in Seine-St-Denis, yet nobody wants to live there. It remains a “bad area” and a stigmatizing place, whatever efforts have been made there. It is surely not a coincidence that almost all of the last years’ French urban riots took place in Seine-St-Denis.
The good, the bad, or the ugly: which should we prioritize?
Let’s play the devil’s advocate and consider what happens when urban policies focusing on environmental goods, green amenities, and nice ecosystem services, succeed in creating attractive areas. Is this situation positive for urban equity and urban justice? A first observation: urban injustice in the Paris metropolitan region increased significantly during the last twenty years. Curiously enough, this co-ocurred with the rising of sustainability policies. Was this some sort of accident? Probably not! In his article “Selective public policies: sustainability and neoliberal urban restructuring”, Vincent Béal points out that urban policies changed in the 1990s, as the sustainability issue became a top priority in a context of urban neoliberalization. Policies shifted with the development of a very aggressive urban marketing initiative designed to attract upper classes and the so-called “creative” classes to urban centers. This new orientation—linking together environmental and economic objectives—naturally induced spatial segregation and urban injustice, since poor people lost access to nice natural and living environments because they couldn’t afford to live in such locations anymore. Thus, green policies based on environmental goods may result in dramatic—if not intentional—negative side effects for urban justice.
The Seine-St-Denis today: Urban eco-regeneration — Les Grands Moulins de Pantin. Photo: Wikimedia CommonsThe Seine-St-Denis today: Using the canals, greening and soft mobility nearly the Basilique St-Denis. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
All things considered, there may be some good sense in coping first with the environmental “bads”, which, by the way, is not such a frequent attitude in real life. In the Paris Metropolitan Region, nearly 70 percent of the socially-deprived communes (the smallest local administrative division in France, governed by a mayor and a council) are exposed to cumulative nuisances, mainly north of Paris—essentially, Seine-St-Denis and Val-d’Oise. The west, the south,and Paris itself enjoy fewer nuisances and are inhabited by wealthy people. What are the determinants of such a distribution? Is it the attractiveness of a nice environment, or the avoidance of such nuisances? Put another way: is it the environmental “goods”, or the environmental “bads”? A report shows that in the Paris metropolitan region, nuisances and environmental degradation are the main reasons for people to move from the place they are living. Thus, the decision to move is strongly correlated to the desire to avoid environmental bads. This rejection is stronger than the attractiveness of environmental amenities (nature, silence, air and water quality, etc.). The question is: why? Why is the avoidance of real or imagined bad environmental conditions more decisive in explaining spatial distribution? Why does—in the case of the Paris region— the creation of amenities, green areas, or accessible ecosystem services have virtually no effect on attractiveness?
Creating environmental goods (Plage Bleue in Valenton). Photo: Wikimedia Commons
There are probably many reasons, and I hope that comments on this post will uncover a spectrum of answers. My answer is this: the environment cannot be reduced to those biophysical aspects that embody a proper functional integration of urban ecosystems. In France, so called “green spaces”, when coupled with social housing—as in Seine-St-Denis—are perceived by their inhabitants as buffer zones, created to separate them from the rest of the city. Conversely, the people living outside perceive them as dangerous areas frequented by rapists and dealers, as areas embodying fantasies about the social housing blocks. The result is that nobody ever uses these parks, even though they were originally designed to foster social and cultural intermingling, and to encourage social diversity. How ironic is that?
Maybe not so ironic—maybe perfectly in line with Parisian urban history. When Haussmann introduced greenery in the 19th century, one of his secondary objectives was to control the use of public space through a technical approach based on hygienism. The initiative’s main function was to bring more sunlight to the city and to better the air circulation. But, by doing so, the city’s life was marked by socio-spatial differentiation that was virtually segregative, embodied in a type of re-vegetation reduced to espaces verts. The very term espace vert (green space) instead of park or garden reveals its real nature: an indistinct area whose boundaries are decided in the abstract world of master plans. Nowadays, the same logic maintains itself: to separate, to distinguish, and to hide. The current regional master plan of the Paris metropolitan region proposes a quantitative objective of 10 m2 of public green area per inhabitant, as though it were sufficient to display a “green” label to become suddenly friendly and sustainable. The real issue is, does such a green label enable belonging and inclusion?
Indeed, one among the many challenges of urban sustainability should be developing the inclusiveness of the urban social fabric—a complex task—instead of adding parks and ecosystem services, which is relatively easy. Usually mayors, representatives, and other elected officials are not interested in improving what is already here, and they don’t like long-term commitments; their time horizon is usually the end of their term. There is no way to foster belonging and ownership in such a context.
Defining a good environment for green and just cities
What happens without dealing with the existing environmental bads (rail yard, gare de triage, and parking in Valenton, just behind the Plage Bleue). Photo: Wikimedia Commons
To design both a green and just city, it is crucial to know what a “good environment” is for the people and the communities living there, one in which the enhancement of environmental conditions improves living conditions and facilitates new lifestyles. A polluted environment can be a place where life is good. Just think about the price of a square meter in the very center of very noisy and very polluted Manhattan, Paris, or London. Conversely, an environment with clean air and clean water can be quite intolerable, as evidenced by windswept, segregated social-housing blocks settled in the middle of nowhere. This logic was reflected at the beginning of the TNOC podcast, which noted that urban justice is not only about equity, fairness and distribution—to affordable housing, for example—but also about choice and inclusion, which goes with ownership and participation in decision-making.
Finally, it is about the right of the inhabitants to be creative and to build a beautiful environment. I could not agree more. It follows, then, that both “green” and “just” policies should include among their deciders not only elected officials and companies, but also non-market institutions, local communities, and individuals able to form self-determined user associations, according to the idea of Elinor Ostrom’s work, who showed that user communities can manage common goods quite well.
An incinerator in the back of a park in St-Ouen. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Nobody is saying that it will be easy, but these principles are a necessary prerequisite for fostering collective appropriation of environmental policies by the inhabitants. Governing and managing a city by definition is a “wicked problem”: a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems (Rittel and Webber 1973). Such problems are made all the more difficult because they combine environmental action and social justice. As Bruno Latour and Michel Callon beautifully put it in their seminal article, “Unscrewing the Big Leviathan”:
“There is no overall architect to guide it, and no design, however unreflected. Each town hall and each promoter, each king and each visionary claim to possess the overall plan and to understand the meaning of the story… Here and there one retires within oneself accepting the fate decided by others. Or else, one agrees to define oneself as an individual actor who will alter nothing more than the partitions in the apartment or the wallpaper in the bedroom. At other times actors who had always defined themselves and had always been defined as microactors ally themselves together around a threatened district, march to the town hall and enroll dissident architects. By their action they manage to have a radial road diverted or a tower that a macro-actor had built pulled down…”
Yes, fostering co-construction, inclusiveness, and ownership in urban policies is no picnic. But curiously, it usually works better when nobody tries to frame the procedure. It works better when nobody “looks”—when no public or private actor explains from the beginning to the population what the procedure should be, how people should act, and what should be their objectives. In my next post, I will present the case of a squatted wasteland in a poor place near social housing blocks—an environmental “bad”— that turned into a very popular park, combining leisure amenities and urban agriculture. In this case, an environmental bad was successfully converted into an environmental good precisely because no local authority or private company interfered. The inhabitants created this place by themselves, seeking their own objectives. In the end, the local authorities had no choice but to formalize what the community had already built.
Mancebo F., 2015, “Combining Sustainability and Social Justice in the Paris Metropolitan Region”, Sustainability in the Global City: Myth and Practice, Gary McDonogh G., Cindy Isenhour C., Checker M. eds, Series New Directions in Sustainability, Cambridge University Press.
Promoting urban nature is a significant challenge for local governments. As demonstrated by so many posts on this blog, it is evident that it consists of much more than simply protecting areas of high biodiversity from human activity; it is about enhancing and even creating novel forms of ‘nature’ to promote the environmental and social sustainability of cities for decades to come. Such a task is unparalleled in its complexity and requires new knowledge to be achieved. This challenge calls for a close and effective interaction between science and governance. However, all too often, the potential for collaboration between local government and academic researchers to co-produce knowledge and develop policy and programs that benefit urban nature remains unexplored. In this post, we outline some of the lessons learnt from our individual experiences working in research and government in Melbourne and provide a series of tips to help others harness the potential of local government-science partnerships.
The need for science to be applied through practice is not a new concept in the academic literature on biodiversity and conservation. Much has been written on the science-policy interface and the need for ‘actionable science’ (see McNie, 2007; Palmer, 2012). Indeed, without good research, practice can be ineffective, inappropriate and unjustified; without an understanding of practice, research can be irrelevant. However, despite the obvious benefits of interaction, the potential of collaboration between local government and academic researchers remains unexplored for many reasons. Working in an urban setting throws up many challenges to collaboration such as the requirement to interact with multiple stakeholders and communities with differing values and needs and gathering data within a variety of land tenures. However, the potential benefits of collaboration are significant.
Three models for conducting research
Broadly, there are three common ways that research on urban nature is conducted. The first is the independent model. Here, researchers typically go about generating knowledge with little to no interaction with other end user stakeholders. Research questions are developed based purely on gaps in the literature, researcher driven preference and the feasibility or ease of data collection, which often requires interaction with government concerning matters such as gaining access to sites for data collection. Once the research is completed, the priority is to publish the findings in scientific journals. There is often an optimism that the research will make its way back to practice, but this is rarely followed up. In the absence of a working relationship with researchers, practitioners also seldom track down relevant research conducted in this way because the scientific language used can be hard to understand and access to journal publications can be restricted.
The second research approach is the consulting model. In this case, researchers are commissioned by an end user such as a local council or government agency to conduct research on a particular topic, with set deliverables included in a contract. In contrast to the independent model, the needs of the agency are first and foremost, with any resulting academic publications considered an added benefit. In many cases, the commissioning agency may be attracted by the specialist expertise offered by researchers, but the typical overheads charged by research institutions can be financially prohibitive. This type of research can be affected by restricted timeframes, which can constrain the desired depth of the research on behalf of the academic. In some cases constraints placed around ownership and distribution of the resulting intellectual property by the commissioning agency can serve as a disincentive for researchers. These types of projects, such as expert reports, strategies, opportunities assessments and data collection and analysis, are therefore often undertaken by specialist environmental consulting firms.
The final approach to urban nature research is the collaborative partnership model. This consists of a close working relationship between academic researchers and the management agency that is best positioned to utilise the knowledge produced. Through ongoing dialogue, the needs of both parties are considered together in the interest of producing mutually beneficial outcomes. This is the approach that the City of Melbourne is currently pursuing and is explored in the remainder of this article.
Benefits and challenges of collaborative partnerships
Undertaking urban nature research in a collaborative partnership approach can be far more beneficial than the independent research or consulting models. Academic researchers and government professionals each have unique skills and insights that are complementary. Working together can sharpen each other’s thinking and lead to superior tangible outcomes. For example, research scientists are typically strong on tailoring research methods to specific questions to ensure data are valid and robust. Policy makers and management practitioners will often be able to provide crucial insights into the social dynamics of the area, the decision-making processes by which knowledge is applied and the communication techniques that are likely to be most effective in conveying the significance of the research to various stakeholders. The combination of these skills can help ensure that knowledge is used effectively and appropriately to formulate policy and inform action.
Another benefit of collaborative research approaches is the development of rigorous techniques to support participatory democracy. As local governments typically have a mandate to represent the voice of the community, methods from the social sciences can be used to elicit community views on particular management issues. A good example of this is public participation GIS (discussed here), which has been used in the City of Melbourne and elsewhere to both collect information about the public’s attitudes and values, and engage them directly in decision-making processes when used in public meetings and focus groups. Through applying academic theory, public engagement activities can be designed to generate deeper insights into the character of local communities than would ordinarily be gathered by councils.
By working directly with government end users, researchers can potentially tap into new sources of research funding. From a government perspective, this kind of research can be tailored directly to the local context and is more likely to be effective. A good example of this is a research project conducted in Melbourne on the effectiveness of white roofs for cooling urban environments. Instead of commissioning a review of research on this topic from other global contexts, a collaborative partnership between the University of Melbourne and the City of Melbourne led to a successful project which informed council policy and led to direct academic outputs.
There are, however, some challenges and constrains to collaborative research partnerships that can limit exploratory research. Three of the biggest are budget constraints, time frames and cultural differences. Often, the budgets of local councils are relatively inflexible and may not have the capacity to accommodate new research initiatives. Issues of timing are related to this: the development of policies or undertaking of on-ground works can be planned and completed within a few months. In contrast, research projects typically require multiple years to follow through to completion and this does not always fit neatly with the financial year calendar cycle of councils. Finally, the vastly different work priorities and operating environments can lead to a clash of cultures and misunderstandings.
Dos and don’ts of research collaboration
Below is a list of tips for both researchers and practitioners on how to pursue effective collaborative urban nature research partnerships. These have emerged from our collective experience. We do not assume to have mastered all of these, but are striving to apply them in our current and future work. We hope that these can be of use to researchers and practitioners from around the world.
Formulate questions together
The research questions shape the entire project. By developing the key research questions together, all stakeholders involved can take ownership of a project. This also allows theoretically interesting and practically important questions to be identified. Working with the community at this point is also a good way of engaging the public in the process. Recently the City of Melbourne engaged RMIT University to conduct research to understand the insect biodiversity of the city. Through continuous iterative communication, we were able to identify a series of questions that are both of relevance to the urban ecology literature and to the development of a new urban ecology strategy for the City of Melbourne.
A pair of harlequin bugs (Dindymus versicolor) found in one of Melbourne’s green spaces. Sampling insects such as these will form part of the collaborative project between RMIT University and the City of Melbourne. Photo: Luis Mata
Be opportunistic
Interesting research projects can emerge from capitalising on events and works that are being undertaken in the city. For example, the redesign of parks or the creation of new urban spaces can be viewed as experimental treatments. Such landscape manipulations would ordinarily be far too costly for researchers to undertake themselves, but careful collection of data can provide useful insights. Social engagement events such as festivals or citizen science programs can also be good opportunities undertake research to understand the attitudes of local residents.
Understand institutional culture
Differences in work culture between academia and government can strain collaborative research efforts. In the highly competitive world of academic research, producing high-quality publications is paramount. Local government practitioners can accommodate this by proactively identifying potential projects that are novel and will contribute to the scientific literature. Providing researchers with the freedom to publish results and ideas can also help foster enthusiasm for collaboration. Compared with academia, government agencies tend to prioritise tangible outcomes and high levels of public acceptability. Researchers need to understand this and invest time in communicating research findings clearly. Adapting or compartmentalising research to fit the time constraints and political priorities that face government institutions can also help collaborative projects succeed.
Be creative
Developing new ways to generate and communicate knowledge is an effective way of keeping everyone engaged and maximising the impact of research. In February of this year, a collaboration between the City of Melbourne and three Melbourne research institutions—originally initiated to promote the Melbourne chapter of the recently published Cities and Biodiversity book—led to a public forum on urban biodiversity, which was attended by 600 people. Instead of seeing the promotion of the book chapter as a stand-alone output, creative thinking and collaborative partnerships enabled it to be turned into a successful public engagement event that increased both community and media awareness of the importance and relevance of urban biodiversity.
While there are many challenges to collaborative research, we believe the benefits are significant and largely remain untapped. We encourage researchers and city practitioners to look around and explore the potential for innovative and exciting urban nature research partnerships.
The rewards personally, professionally and for the ecology of our cities are huge!
Governance, despite its own hopes for a universality of exclusion, is for the inducted, for those who know how to articulate interests disinterestedly, those who vote and know why they vote (not because someone is black or female but because he or she is smart), who have opinions and want to be taken seriously by serious people. In the mean time, policy must still pursue the quotidian sphere of open secret plans. Policy posits curriculum against study, child development against play, human capital against work. It posits having a voice against hearing voices, networked friending against contractual friendship. Policy posits the public sphere, or the counter public sphere, or the black public sphere, against the illegal occupation of the illegitimately privatized.
—Stephano Harney and Fred Moten, the Undercommons, Fugitive Planning and Black Study
0. I understand fully the role of planner and their potential to offer more to the city than ever before. The situation at the level of the city and state is such that insider information, a history of connections within the system and traditional “good old boy” engagements work somewhat effectively at shaping the city and are perceived as a status quo that can’t be changed. In many of our cities, the opportunity for certain kinds of ascension into leadership works to create a caste system of entitlement and apathy. Art adds the potential for a critique from within, a critique that exists as a para-institutional engagement harnessing similar power structures and potentially even mimicking structures in order to advance the possibilities that exist for our city’s futures.
There will be no great future city without hacking the systems of power.
1. A just city requires counter-balance. It requires clear knowing of how governance works with an understanding that power corrupts and power constantly needs to be checked by other powers (people power, political power, ethical persuasion, public outcry). A just city requires that those who do not understand their power and feel cheated out of the right to publicly demonstrate their power are given channels and platforms by which to engage. The constant non-engagement between classes, races, political camps and social structures and the intentional separations that happen in micro-units of cities—and, in some cases, whole cities—will not only work against the possibility of a just city, it will signify the concretization unjust, uneven, unethical city.
2. The possibility that artists would contribute in the substantial transformation of major cities throughout the world is not radical news. What feels radical is the level at which artists rarely benefit from their side.
3. The possibility of the city as form becomes more feasible when the artist has a sense of the possibility of direct engagement with the real. I sense of the value of other forms of production in addition the forms that exist in museums, art forums, galleries and homes. The artists would have a chance to deeply embed him- or herself in the complex politics of a place, the near impossible capacity to reconcile social expectant from social engagements. The city waits with neutral need for its ramparts to be tended, nurtured and altogether revisited.
4. Never plan alone. Plans require idea engagement, public and inner-circle critique, and a way of ensuring that great ideas are great for as many as possible and tailored for communities that want and need planning. Plans grow out of a need to get things done. Getting things done requires lots of permission. Plans are ways of sharing ideas so that there’s consensus and sometimes rebuttal, but at least there’s awareness and hopefully, permission. Even though there are lots of ideas that seem perfect to me for projects that I want to do, I’ve found that the most successful ones are those that are inclusive of other values, opinions and leadership.
5. There was an abandoned building in the city about to be demolished. I, along with 17 developers, looked at the building over 20 years, none of us willing to invest in black space. None of us were willing to imagine new futures for the South Side, or able to imagine making an investment that might not yield a return. We weren’t willing to believe in a place that seemed not to believe in itself, or risk other people’s cash on a dream. We could not consider the possibility that this abandoned building might be the crucial link to the growth and redevelopment of a seemingly infertile land. In a way, the challenge was not the challenge of the building, it was a challenge of seeing—of imagination—on the ocular prescription one has. These days, I don’t see as well as I used to. I’ve learned that the blur sometimes makes things more beautiful; it may possibly even bring other things into greater focus. The impossibility of seeing is one of the major challenges of the built world.
6. This moment is ripe for new ways of imagining the form, the materials through which we address the form and the situations through which the form is conceived, exhibited, made visible and legible. The moment is ripe to new ways of imagining who participates in the inception of the form. The city is form and raw material and the location of possibility and the consciousness of our age. The city needs sculpture and praxis; it needs wedging and heat. The city is in the difficult position of no longer knowing itself or its virtues. It has suitors who are not fashioning futures, but instead fashioning wealth generation. If the sculptor is absent from this work, what we will have instead of the beautiful is the most efficient, the cheapest and most extravagant, ideas generated by those who pay not those who feel. The sculptor and the policy expert and the planner together make great cities. They share agency and resource, and stand strong together with ideology and a willingness to have sympathy for the vocations. When our administrations realize the potency of artistic and policy based collaborations, truly transformative works will happen: works that go far beyond mural making and public art programs; the type of work that might allow for innovations in professional bureaucracy.
7. At my undergraduate university, the School of Architecture was on the 5th floor, the Planning Program on the 3rd floor, and the Arts Programming in the basement. We all used to joke that our placement was an announcement of caste, of where we stood in the world; a hierarchy had been made clear. As a result of the professionalization of our creative selves, we were never able to really see how we were all cut from similar cloth, and that if we were to share the same libraries, skill sets, rigor, and lunch rooms, that we could in fact explode any one of the vocations we had set ourselves to do.
8. There should be more female and queer leadership in the just city. We need leadership that has the potential to ask new questions of the status quo and demand a more complicated set of determinations and willingness to invest in non-hierarchal structures. Leadership that also expects more from the men we work for. By challenging their assumptions and biases, we make room for an open critique of systems of power and pathways for understanding sharing, empathy, public participation and inclusion alongside land use futures, zoning policy and fiscal allocations.
9. There will be no great future city without hacking the systems of power. Policy is simply a way of ensuring legal process around things that matter. Sometimes our ideas need to push the policy envelope a little. I always imagine that this is part of what policy should do: it should capture the needs of communities that change. Policy, like communities, has to be dynamic if it is to capture that possibility of a just city. It has to keep looking for the nuance with the systems of governance to make our cities work better.
A few weeks ago I visited Austin, Texas to participate in the SXSW Eco conference. Staying across the street from Austin’s large and beautiful convention center, I was astonished to discover a green ravine immediately adjacent to the mammoth building, at the bottom of which was a slow moving creek full of small fish and a large turtle sunning on a rock. I soon learned that this was Waller Creek, a relatively short urban stream in a very highly developed area. I also learned that the stream is currently the focus of an ambitious public-private partnership to restore the stream and connect its banks with neighboring parks, creating both a recreational amenity and an ecological improvement.
Waller Creek as it flows by the Austin Convention Center, and a resident turtle. Photos: Adrian Benepe
Across the United States and around the world, urban rivers have been the focus of major clean-up and restoration efforts over the last century, going from places to conduct business and dump refuse and pollution, to waterfront parks and residences. More recently, the smaller creeks and streams that function as tributaries to those rivers have been the focus of restoration and even rediscovery, as cities “daylight” streams that have been covered for decades.
While there is no denying that the restored and rediscovered streams have led to more attractive and literally greener urban environments, and possibly increased real estate values, the jury is still out on the ecological value of these often extensive and expensive projects. With much of the work either still quite new or ongoing, and only a few scientific studies conducted, we would be well advised to document the effects of these efforts even as we continue them.
Urban stream restoration has been in practice for approximately three decades, with early efforts in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and in California, and in the last few decades they have spread to cities that include New York City and nearby suburbs, Boston, Los Angeles, Kalamazoo, San Luis Obispo and others. Currently major stream restoration projects are underway or planned for Austin, Atlanta, and many other cities.
There are two major trends in urban stream restoration—one is a more naturalistic restoration of an existing degraded stream, the other is the daylighting of a stream or small river that has been covered over. Perhaps the best known example of daylighting a “forgotten” stream is in Seoul, South Korea, where the Cheonggyecheon stream—once pristine but by the 20th century an open sewer—was buried under layers of highways and other urban systems for decades. The city peeled away the layers of roadways, exposing and restoring the stream bed and making it the centerpiece of a newly enlivened neighborhood, where children play in the clean waters (fed by a mechanical system) and where plant, insect, bird and fish species proliferate, despite the extensive engineering.
While technically a river (and the only fresh water river in New York City), the Bronx River is only a few feet wide in many places, and it had an equally notorious recent history, befouled by raw sewage and chemical waste by all the communities that adjoined its 23-mile length. It was also a favored dumping ground for abandoned and stolen cars, tires, household appliances, and all other forms of rubbish. A partnership between neighborhood groups—particularly those advocating for environmental justice, the NYC Parks & Recreation Department, and local elected officials, especially Congressman José Serrano— has led to a two-decade-long restoration, managed for the last decade by the non-profit Bronx River Alliance working with the City. Now local youth groups paddle its newly clean waters in canoes and hand-made row boats, a fish ladder will soon be built to allow reintroduced alewife herring to swim upstream, and at least two beaver have returned to the area after their species was exterminated locally by trappers.
The Bronx River, before (upper right image) and after (lower right) restoration. Images courtesy of New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC DPR)
Other creeks in New York City that once fed the salt marshes that used to define the coastline were boxed in for commerce and turned into “canals” and polluted by local industries, dumped on and despoiled. Now these creeks are being restored, ranging from the ambitious plans for the Gowanus Canal (both a Superfund clean-up and the use of innovative designs to capture stormwater runoff) and Newtown Creek (also a Federal Superfund site), to the beautifully restored wetlands of Gerritsen Creek on Jamaica Bay.
Gerritsen Creek, New York, before (upper image) and after (lower) restoration. Images courtesy of New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC DPR)
A dramatic example of daylighting a buried stream can be found in Yonkers, NY. The Saw Mill River (also known as the Saw Mill Creek) long ago the home of the eponymous saw mill that used hydropower to cut timber into boards, was covered over by the City of Yonkers and encased in a 10-by-20-foot steel and concrete flume to hide the dirty and smelly waters that flowed through the heart of the city. Recently the city celebrated the completion of the first phase of daylighting of the Saw Mill, which did not demolish the c. 1925 flume but instead diverted water from it into a new river bed that now flows through the heart of the city where a parking lot once covered the river. Upriver, a fish ladder allows eels to migrate upstream, though officials are trying to figure out how they can get back down without being trapped in nets installed to capture floating debris.
One of the earliest stream restoration projects was in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where beginning in 1986 a 1/3–mile stretch of the formerly covered over Arcadia Creek was daylighted to help address stormwater runoff problems and reinvigorate a downtown business district, at a cost of $18 million. In San Luis Obispo, CA, a much less expensive project that involved local business owners fended off a proposed covering over of the creek. As described in the excellent report “Daylighting and Restoring Streams in Rural Community City Centers: Case Studies” by Paul Hoobyar of the National Park Service:
The community eventually gained consensus on a design for the creek’s restoration. The agreed-upon design called for widening the creek’s floodplain and re-contouring the streambanks. The design also incorporated building terraced stone walls to prevent bank scouring during high winter flows. The City Council adopted the restoration design, as well as a flood management policy that was atypical for cities at that time. The city policy avoided creating the usual concrete-lined, trapezoidal channels that many communities were adopting for flood control…the City began developing a program designed to protect the creek while reducing the risk of flooding.
As climate change and related severe weather and flooding become issues confronting public officials, even as cities seek to make their cities more attractive and with higher ecological functions, three major projects are at various stages of development in three American cities. In Boston, the Muddy River Restoration Project is a massive, multi-pronged, multi-year initiative for a 3.5-mile section of the river to improve flood control, and water quality, enhance the aquatic/riparian habitat, rehabilitate the landscape and historic resources, and implement Best Management Practices. Among the many goals of the project are the reduction of sedimentation from local sources and the use of underground particle separators to remove sediment, along with the removal of invasive plants and their replacement with “a diverse cross section of plantings including emergent wetland species, low and high shrubs, and trees.”
In Austin, the Waller Creek Conservancy is partnering with the City on a plan to restore the 1.5-mile creek that runs from the north end of the University of Texas campus into the Lady Bird Lake (a dammed section of the Colorado River). The Conservancy recently ran an international design competition, eventually selecting the Brooklyn, NY-based firm Michael van Valkenburgh Associates to develop a master plan to restore the degraded creek and connect three parks along the Creek into a riparian greenway. The city is also just completing a massive project to capture storm water runoff in an adjacent pipe, to help avert some of the disastrous flooding that can come from sudden and torrential downpours. (Two days after I left Austin, which was bone dry at the time, 13 inches of rain fell there in just a few hours, flooding many portions of the city.) Waller Creek, along with its neighbors Shoal Creekand Barton Creek, must also play roles in natural flood prevention, and they need to be able to sustain both drought and sudden, intense storms.
Barton Springs Pool (Barton Creek) in Austin, Texas. Photo: Adrian Benepe
Even tiny creeks can get a lot of attention, as is the case with Proctor Creek in Atlanta. Unknown to most local residents, Proctor Creek runs from near the Georgia Tech campus into the Chattahoochee River. Though diminutive, the stream is responsible for 42 percent of the pollutants from the City of Atlanta that enter the Chattahoochee. The Proctor Creek Watershed was recently named one of 11 newly selected Urban Waters Federal Partnership locations, with five “champion” federal agencies and five additional federal agencies working to help the state and city improve many overlapping environmental and public health issues, including illegal dumping, brownfields, blighted sites, impaired water quality, pervasive flooding, and combined sewer overflows. The Trust for Public Landis one of the non-profit partners in this effort, and it will be supporting the creation of a mitigation bank, in which private sector partners will restore the banks of the creek, remove invasive species and contaminants, and restore the natural hydrologic functions, while creating a 7-mile accessible greenway trail along the banks of the creek.
With so many communities investing so much time, energy and money in urban stream restoration, what are the expected outcomes? While the field is still relatively young, a thorough study done by Kenneth B. Brown, an aquatic ecologist with The Center for Watershed Protection in Elliot City, Maryland evaluated 24 different types of stream restoration practices and included over 450 individual practice installations. There are both optimistic and less positive results. On the plus side, according to the study “overall, nearly 90% of the individual stream restoration practices assessed remained intact after an average of four years.” On a less positive note, habitat restoration was not as successful, with the study finding that “less than 60% of the practices fully achieved even limited objectives for habitat enhancement.”
Overall, it appears that cities should proceed with these ambitions plans, but we would all benefit from a much more widespread and detailed sharing of the best (and least) successful models, helping our cities to retain and improve our small but precious urban streams.
What do the Steel Flyover, the Karnataka Power Corporation Limited Power Plant in Yelahanka and Kaikondrahalli Lake have in common? They are all representative of how citizens across Bangalore are responding to environmental sustainability in the city, often linked to choices related to “development”.
The value of community scientists is especially visible in cities of the Global South, where the economically disadvantaged and vulnerable are unable to pursue the full range of mechanisms of environmental activism.
They were also discussed at a panel dedicated to Environmental Activism in Bangalore at City Scripts 2017, a three-day literary festival held at IIHS’ (Indian Institute for Human Settlements) Bangalore City Campus from 3-5 February 2017 and attended by more than 500 people. Speakers on this panel comprised academics and environmental activists sharing experiences from their involvement on a range of city problems that are as environmentally pertinent as they are socially relevant.
Dr. H. N. Chanakya, Chief Scientist at the Centre for Sustainable Technologies at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, has a long history of involvement on research and development of decentralized energy technologies, water and wastewater, treatment and purification, management and processing of solid wastes, and energy system integration into rural and peri-urban areas. Dr. Chanakya is an advisor to several environment-focused civil society organisations and public sector agencies. He has been instrumental in ensuring a nature conservation focus at Puttanahalli (in Yelahanka) and Jakkur lakes, both in North Bangalore’s Hebbal valley. He feels that conducting science walks for children at Jakkur Lake is as important as opposing the development of a power plant in Yelahanka which could potentially destroy the viability of the entire Hebbal Valley lake system. From a sustainability standpoint, it is as important to question the larger, environmental impacts of an intervention that is meant to meet our growing energy demands as it is to empower our next generation to engage with questions of urban sustainability.
Local residents’ resistance to the power plant in Yelahanka extends beyond concern around noise and air pollution to include the health of local water bodies and the larger ecosystem. Current lakes in Bangalore were conceived and designed as part of an interconnected hydrological system that supported provisioning (water for agricultural irrigation and domestic use) and regulatory (flood control, stormwater drainage) functions for a growing human settlement. The city’s topography is defined by a ridge that delineates the region into three watersheds, including the Hebbal Valley. The natural gradient of the land enables the flow of water from upstream lakes or keres, such as Puttanahalli and Jakkur, into downstream tanks, such as Rachenahalli, with smaller tanks and interconnect channels along the way. With rampant urbanization, as is experienced in Bangalore today, the major source of water sustaining keres is not rainwater, but treated water from sewage treatment plants, or STPs. Thus, Jakkur Lake receives on average 8.5 million liters of water per day from an STP, set up by the Bangalore Water Sewerage and Sanitation Board. The KPCL power plant in Yelahanka, once functional, will require 10 million liters of treated water per day, which reports indicate will be purchased from the Sewerage and Sanitation Board and acquired primarily through the Jakkur STP. Debates around this issue raise questions of socioenvironmental justice. In this case, “Who owns urban sewage?”
Dr. Veena Srinivas, is a Fellow at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment, or ATREE, where she leads projects which combine field hydrology, low-cost sensing, and community science to find solutions to critical water problems. Srinivas, whose interests include intersectoral water allocation and sustainable water management, spoke about the unique window of opportunity and years of academic research that sustainability represents: either to be directed towards a sustainability transition, or to counter an unsustainable transition through scientific evidence. Researchers from ATREE have been studying hydrology at Jakkur lake since 2015. They are now concerned about the effect of the new KPCL power plant on Jakkur and downstream lakes, including Rachenahalli. Setting up water level sensors in Rachenahalli and conducting a bathymetry survey will help estimate water balance in the lake, as well as inflow and outflow from the water body. These estimates will help to model different scenarios that emerge from the sale of treated water from the Jakkur STP to KPCL, identification of alternate sources of water (such as new sewage generated as the surrounding area densifies further or the wastewater from the KPCL), and water contamination problems in the absence of adequate water treatment facilities. The researchers’ discussion laid bare not only the interconnectedness of water bodies in the city’s northern valley, but also the impact of decisions made in the realm of energy generation or wastewater treatment and recycling on the continuation of an urban lake system. The mapping of water in select lakes is one segment of a larger study whereby water, and particularly wastewater flows, in the city need to be mapped to think through city-scale solutions on a range of issues, including human waste management.
Priya Ramasubban, another panelist, explained how her citizen group, working with scholars from Azim Premji University, among a range of other stakeholders, had found a way to manage the series of lakes, of which Kaikondrahalli is one. In a novel attempt, slightly different sets of activities related to recreation, conservation, or leisure are being articulated across different lakes in close proximity to each other, thus enabling some level of equitability in access. Ramasubban reflected on the reason she and her citizen group are able to address critical issues related to the conservation of Kaikondrahalli Lake. “We are always present and always engaged”, she said. Governance issues that sometimes need tackling are related to the management of the water body, as well as different groups’ claims and access to the lake and resources in its surrounds. As the managing trustee of a non-profit agency dedicated to environmental custodianship, Ramasubban must regularly negotiate with city officials, must sometimes lobby both politicians and corporate leaders, and must engage with media to ensure that the mandate of the citizen group is communicated, is understood, and remains uncompromised. In her own words, each day brings a new struggle in a drive towards greater inclusiveness and equity. And although some struggles end in frustration, this is not a path that one can step off, says Ramasubban.
Building awareness around conservation is an ongoing effort, with continued support from citizens, bureaucrats, and politicians alike. Environmental activism, conversely, often takes root around planned interventions by state authorities that may harm the city’s environment or its people’s well-being, and which require a highly public and urgent appeal in order to be successful. A perfect example is the proposed steel flyover in Bangalore, which may help reduce travel time from the airport to the city centre by a mere 7 minutes for private vehicles. Priya Chetty-Rajagopal, also a panelist, described the process of activism that has taken place since the flyover was first contested through the formation of the activist group Citizens for Bangalore to the mass public campaigns that finally resulted in a stay order from the National Green Tribunal. People opposed flyover construction on several fronts, including the loss of diverse species; the extent of tree felling required for the actual construction; the awareness that flyovers do not necessarily lead to traffic decongestion; and that the structure does not feature in any of the past or current city development and spatial plans. Finally, a question pertaining to justice took hold—how can public funds be utilized to benefit only a few privileged car owners on a particular route? Instead, they should be redirected towards developing a commuter rail network for the city’s working masses. Transport planners and engineers involved in this campaign believe that even a slight shift from road to rail, scheduled to time with office hours, should have a dramatic impact on non-motorized connectivity in the city. At the same time, planners and academics in the city, led by Leo Saldanha of the Environmental Support Group, are contesting the non-democratic and exclusionary process adopted by the Bangalore Development Authority for preparing the Revised Master Plan for 2031.
In his book on climate change, The Great Derangement, Amitav Ghosh [Note 1] has posited the question whether activism, particularly environmental activism, is merely a physical manifestation of online petitions—a display in which activists consider their own actions as performative, with the awareness that demonstrations will not necessarily lead to change in policy or state-driven practices. Recent experience—at least in the stalling of the steel flyover construction in Bangalore—suggests that protest has more behind it than performance. Citizens are choosing to respond, through activism, to situations of civic concern where a sizeable public outcry may well be the only mechanism that works.
However, there is a softer, less visible, more everyday type of environmental activism, which consists of building awareness, forming political alliances, and collaboratively producing and disseminating knowledge to develop an ecological consciousness in the city. Community members dedicated to daily management of natural assets, or to scientific enquiry and evidence generation on the status of nature in the city, are also helping give voice to unique urban problems, which are both environmental and political. The value of community scientists is especially visible in cities of the Global South, where the economically disadvantaged and vulnerable, who stand to lose the most from environmental misappropriation, are unable to pursue the range of mechanisms for environmental activism discussed at the panel.
Aside from the huge number of swanky resorts and their reputation as a honeymoon destination, the Maldives is probably best known for their less fortunate status as the nation most under threat from climate change.
I recently had the great pleasure and privilege of a holiday on a boat in the Maldives. I had never sailed before, and am by no means an ocean-going character (indeed I took a year of swimming lessons in anticipation of this holiday), so the whole experience of being at sea was wonderfully novel to me and got me thinking about nature in all sorts of new ways. The Maldives is tiny, ranking the smallest country in Asia, and made up of over 1000 islands spread out over the Indian Ocean.
A bird’s eye view of the Maldives. Photo: Pippin Anderson
Their population is small, at around 533 900 people all living on a cumulative 298 km2 (115mi2) of land. Aside from the huge number of swanky resorts and their reputation as a honeymoon destination, the Maldives is probably best known for their less fortunate status as the nation most under threat from climate change. If scientific projections are correct the nation will be inundated by 2100. Their cabinet famously held an underwater meeting ahead of the 2009 U.N. Climate Summit in Copenhagen as a symbolic cry for help.
A cabinet meeting held underwater prior to the 2012 UN Climate meeting in Copenhagen sought to draw attention to the plight of the Maldives who are predicted to be underwater by 2100. (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-maldives-environment/maldives-sends-climate-sos-with-undersea-cabinet-idUSTRE59G0P120091017) Photo: Mohammed Seeneen
What I found revelatory about my trip however was far more basic and straightforward. It is that in the Maldives, and no doubt numerous other coastal and island places, urban nature for them is mostly underwater. Not only is the bulk of daily experienced nature underwater, but with climate change and associated sea-level rise, there is more of this nature encroaching all the time.
Many of the islands are so small that you can stand on the beach where you land and look down the main street right through to the ocean on the other side.
Photo: Pippin AndersonFrom the beach, you can sometimes see right through town to the sea on the other side. Photo: Pippin Anderson
The proximity of the sea and life in the sea is astoundingly ever-present. And the beaches are littered with shells and in a few strides into the water you are surrounded by sea life. Roads are often compact sand, and when it rains, or the tide is high, this sand is wet giving the uneasy sensation of almost being underwater all the time.
When the sandy roads are wet, from rain or a high tide, you get a giddy feeling that with just a little more water you could swim through the town. Photo: Pippin Anderson
It felt unclear to me where the sea ended, and the land began. It’s not to say there is no terrestrial nature. Indeed, there seems to be a concerted effort on the part of residents to grow what greenery they can, but this feels incidental compared to the vast nature presented by the surrounding sea.
Balconies full of greenery and life in the capital city Male. Photo: Pippin Anderson
While I might take a walk to my local greenbelt, or visit the neighbourhood park, it would seem to me any equivalent outing in the Maldives would involve a beach or the sea. I was delighted by an urban park that demonstrated exactly this, where a portion of the sea had been cordoned off at the end of a block and shaded gazebos set up on the sand for mothers who looked on while small children splashed about in the water.
A portion of cordoned off sea forms a park in the city of Male. Photo: Pippin Anderson
Another city park has paths set among stretches of beach sand in the manner of paths crossing a public lawn.
This city park, in Male, uses beach sand in the way other cities might use lawn. Nature in the Maldives is set against a backdrop of sand and sea and this in turn occupies their urban nature spaces. Photo: Pippin Anderson
Almost all nature in the Maldives is sea, sand, and ocean-related and this infuses many of their urban public park spaces.
So, what must it feel like when this nature, the nature you grow up with, the nature that fills your childhood parks, the nature you love, starts to encroach on your city? I try and imagine the terrestrial equivalent. I guess it would be living in a city and the trees and lawns start to creep closer to your house. Grass runners inching their way up the steps towards your front door. Saplings sprouting in your living room. It’s hard to imagine. But for the Maldivians this is reality. Climate change will almost certainly bring nature even closer, threatening their cities, towns, and lives.
The Sinamale bridge, and airport expansion, both being constructed by the Chinese, are among a number of large engineering projects that also appear to be shoring up the islands in anticipation of sea level rise. It’s an expensive project—as island building always is—and it’s hard to know how viable it really is. There is a lovely piece of urban nature-based graffiti beautifully and cleverly painted onto a street in Hulhumale, the airport island just next to the capital of Male, which depicts dolphins breaking through the street, with a wooden bridge across the divided, broken, and submerged tarmac.
A magnificent piece of urban nature-based graffiti painted onto a road speaks of the mounting concern around sea level rise. Photo: Pippin Anderson
This piece of art seems to suggest nature is revered, and loved, but also is a clear statement of panic and concern over sea level rise. The piece is striking. It says to the viewer the sea is just beneath us, and it’s about to get a whole lot closer.
I do acknowledge these musings are undoubtedly naïve. The brief insights gained are enough to let me know my reading of these landscapes is grossly limited. I can cast my eye across a public park or a nature reserve and have some sense of diversity and system health, but in this nature, I am at a loss. I am sure the sea presents textures and colours that are easily understood by locals and lost on me. I cannot imagine what living with this kind of nature must mean for one’s everyday life, but its beauty is readily evident, and the nature is breathtaking.
Looking out across the natural vistas of the Maldives. Landscapes unlike any I have encountered or imagined before. Photo: Pippin Anderson
While I cannot claim an understanding of these seascapes, the experience has shifted my terrestrial thinking and turned me on my head. I look at my terrestrial landscapes now with greater depth. I think I see the air and the soil now in ways I did not before. I see my landscapes as immersed, embedded, upside down, fluid, and connected; less separate entities and more clines.
Every month we feature a Global Roundtable in which a group of people respond to a specific question in The Nature of Cities.
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Hover over a name to see an excerpt of their response…click on the name to see their full response.
Jane Battersby, Cape TownUrban agriculture is a weapon of mass distraction, drawing attention away from increasingly unsustainable food systems, absolving state responsibility as it goes.
Katrin Bohn, BrightonThe concept of Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes proposes integrating networks of connected open urban spaces that are designed to coherently include food producing urban agriculture.
Christopher Bryant, MontrealFor many cities in relatively temperate climates, Urban Agriculture contributes much to the sustainability of food needs.
Easther Chigumira, HarareThrough intensification of production on small pieces of land, urban agriculture can augment national food reserves.
Evan Fraser, GuelphIf there were more incentive for individuals to devote the time and resources to becoming good gardeners, then urban agriculture could play a major role in provisioning North American cities.
Kelly Hodgins, GuelphIf there were more incentive for individuals to devote the time and resources to becoming good gardeners, then urban agriculture could play a major role in provisioning North American cities.
Patrick Hurley, CollegevilleForaging provides another mechanism for thinking about the multifunctionality of urban greenspaces.
François Mancebo, ParisWhile some types of urban agriculture can help make cities more sustainable, others may produce deleterious effects on the city and its inhabitants.
Idah Mbengo, HarareThrough intensification of production on small pieces of land, urban agriculture can augment national food reserves.
Innisfree McKinnon, MenomonieTo make urban agriculture successful, land access must be made available in the nearby urban-rural interface.
Leslie McLees, EugeneHow can we imagine an urban sustainability? Focus on the connections, safety, and pride, and people of urban agriculture, even in poor places.
Geneviève Metson, VancouverUrban Agriculture could help harness city purchasing power to affect whole food system sustainability rather than only local sustainability.
Navin Ramankutty, VancouverThe most important way in which urban dwellers can address urban sustainability challenges related to food is by fostering a transformation of the food system.
Kristin Reynolds, New YorkUrban agriculture’s contribution to sustainability depends on a focus on social, economic, and political equity.
Esther Sanyé-Mengual, BolognaHow can urban rooftop agriculture in European cities contribute to urban sustainability in environmental, economic, and social terms?
Shaleen Singhal, New DelhiUrban agriculture directly contributes to the nexus of water, food, and energy.
Kathrin Specht, MünchebergHow can urban rooftop agriculture in European cities contribute to urban sustainability in environmental, economic, and social terms?
Naomi Tsur, JerusalemBefore reckoning the area available for peri-urban food-growing, we have to convince the consumer of the advantages of locally produced food.
Andre Viljoen, BrightonThe concept of Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes proposes integrating networks of connected open urban spaces that are designed to coherently include food producing urban agriculture.
Claudia Visoni, São PauloCultivating land in the city opens up the gates to the transition to a decentralized mindset that can fix diverse problems.
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.
Sustainability is key to our future, and, as urbanization steadily grows, keys to increased global sustainability must be found in cities and how they use and are provided with resources. In this area there has been much excitement about urban agriculture, which for our purposes here we will define as the production of food in and near cities at scales larger than home or community gardens.
There are many potential benefits to such efforts, including the support of social movements; economic development; creation of local businesses and jobs; environmental education; community building; and local food security. But does urban agriculture have the potential to contribute significantly to urban sustainability by reducing cities’ dependence on food grown at great distance from the city? Can it produce enough to address food insecurity?
These questions are complicated, depending on exactly what we mean by “sustainable”, “great distance”, and some other key words. And maybe the emphasis on food, literally, misses the point when there are benefits in social sustainability. In this roundtable we asked respondents to address the potential for urban agricultural production to make cities more sustainable, and how such potential could be realized.
In short, what should we expect (or not expect) from urban and peri-urban agriculture?
Jane Battersby is the research coordinator of the ESRC/DFID-funded Consuming Urban Poverty Project, based at the African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town.
Urban agriculture, as supported by municipal governments in Africa, is a weapon of mass distraction.
It has been heralded as a panacea to a number of urban ills: poverty, food insecurity, waste management, flood mitigation, inter alia. Increasingly, particularly as the Sustainable Development Goals come online, there has been a focus on the potential contribution of urban agriculture to environmental sustainability. Proponents of urban agriculture have been critiqued in the past about over-claiming benefits by using limited data to extrapolate expansive claims. That, however, is not my concern in this piece.
Claims of the sustainability contribution of urban agriculture are being used to detract from the responsibilities of the state and private sector to address the environmental impact of the food system.
My concern is not about the relative environmental sustainability merits of urban agriculture per se, but the way in which urban agriculture has been used to destract attention from the wider sustainability challenges of the urban food system. This is not the first time urban agriculture has been used to destract from broader urban challenges. When urban governments in Africa became more open and less repressive towards urban agriculture in the 1990s, it was in the wake of structural adjustment-related food price shocks. The changing attitude towards urban agriculture was not due to a collected epiphany about its intrinsic value, but an effort to shift the costs of structural adjustments from the state to the poor themselves and prevent declining urban living standards from becoming a political problem. In a similar way, claims of the sustainability contribution of urban agriculture are being used to detract from the responsibilities of the state and private sector to address the environmental impact of the food system and the planning decisions that are shaping the system.
The food system at a global and local level is profoundly unsustainable. Although notoriously hard to calculate, it is estimated that the food system is responsible for at least 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. At the local scale, the food system accounts for over 40 percent of Cape Town’s ecological footprint. The food system in developing countries is undergoing rapid transformation, characterized by increased presence of imported, highly-processed foods, lengthening supply chains and the increased presence of large-scale formal retailers. The overall trajectory is towards a less, not more, sustainable food system, characterized by greater chemical inputs, greater carbon emissions across the value chain, more waste, and other externalities. At the urban scale the privileging of this system increases food and food packaging waste, increases energy demand, increases the overall carbon footprint through increased transport, and undermines local food economies.
It is in this context that the latest enthusiasm for urban agriculture and its potential sustainability contribution is situated, supported by local governments, global development agencies, and corporate social responsibility programmes. There are many potential opportunities for local government, working with their existing mandates to address the unsustainability of the existing urban food system, through creating an enabling environment for informal sector retailers, through developing waste management programmes that consider deferring food waste from landfill, through not rolling out the red carpet to large developers who want to rezone agricultural land or build malls that force local businesses out of business. Most of these initiatives, however, are antithetical to the private-sector led, modernizing development agenda shaping African cities. Through focusing on urban agriculture, these urban actors are able to claim efforts to address food security and enhance sustainability, whilst drawing attention away from the sustainability impacts of the business-as-usual food system transformation.
Does urban agriculture in itself have sustainability benefits? Quite possibly, but the evidence needs to be interrogated. The more important question is, does urban agriculture increase sustainability across the whole urban food system, or does it simply distract from a system transitioning into ever less sustainable forms?
Christopher Bryant is a professor in the department of geography at the University of Montreal. His thirty years of research have dealt primarily with development, including urban and peri-urban agriculture, climate change, and conservation of agricultural land, among other subjects.
Urban Agriculture, as defined here, is broad and covers a wide range of farming systems which contribute to many markets. For many city regions in relatively temperate climates, Urban Agriculture contributes much to the sustainability of the food needs of their cities and thus to urban sustainability. They could contribute more under two conditions: 1) that agricultural land and farming activities are really protected from unnecessary urban development such as industrial parks and residential subdivisions that still get parachuted in many developed countries onto prime, quality farmland, even with the support of governments; and 2) that more attention is given to the many new emerging forms of agriculture, particularly forms of agriculture that involve intensive small scale farms that have few negative environmental consequences.
For many cities in relatively temperate climates, Urban Agriculture contributes much to the sustainability of food needs.
In some jurisdictions, public policies that have encouraged large scale capitalist farming systems can actually restrict these small farms (small in terms of their area, not in terms of their volume of production per unit area) from developing because of restrictions on the creation of small property parcels. These Urban Agricultures already contribute to the food needs of large cities in their regions. Increasingly, the small-scale intensive farms have attracted much attention from particular segments of the urban market.
On the one hand, we note that in developed countries many informal small networks of consumers have been established which involve consumers from each network appointing someone to collect food produce from different farms and deliver the produce to other members of their small networks. The key is that these consumers seek out high quality food produce and develop confidence in the farmer producers they interact with, which means they do not have to question the veracity of labels on food products sold in supermarkets!
In addition, where these Urban Agricultures exist in temperate climates with good quality farmland resources, these Urban Agricultures can relatively easily adapt to changing climate conditions. At the same time, this means that they also have the potential to contribute to the food needs of certain developing countries where climate change and variability has already made it nigh on impossible for these countries to satisfy their own food needs, such as in several African countries. So even at distance, these Urban Agricultures (particularly those in periurban areas) can contribute substantially to the food needs of other countries and, in this respect, distance is not necessarily a major issue to food sustainability.
Such Urban Agricultures also need to have effective forms of marketing and communicating with consumers. This is not too difficult for market segments in nearby cities in many developed countries, as seen in the increasingly important development of informal consumer food networks and even the distribution of food baskets to consumers who are reasonably well-off financially, as well as those who are in dire need but who can benefit from certain social organizations. We also observe the development of food markets in many suburban areas that can respond to the need of many consumers to have some form of direct contact with farm/food producers. But in many developing countries which do not have the capacity to meet their own food needs, it would require other more innovative forms of moving produce to distant markets in these developing countries.
Easther is a political ecologist with an interest in land and agrarian studies. Her current research is centred on understanding urban poverty through the lens of food.
Green Economy, Climate Change, and Agrarian Intensification in the Urban Landscape
Attention to urban agriculture (or UA) has increased during the last couple of decades. UA is increasingly accepted and used as a tool for sustainable development and local food production. This commentary positions UA within the green economy development framework. In this framework, greening urban spaces, especially through UA, creates functioning ecological spaces, alternative sites for food production, and provides solution to the effects of climate change. This development paradigm has gained traction amongst government and policymakers in Southern Africa, particularly in light of the adverse effects of climate change on rural production and livelihoods.
Intensification allows urban agriculture to support both local and national food security.
We have therefore limited the scope of this paper to focus on how UA can contribute to sustainable local food production, nutrition, and security in the face of climate change, and become a significant component of the national agricultural sector and “an essential ingredient of city space”. We argue that through intensification of production on small pieces of land UA has the potential to augment national food reserves in the face of declining productivity in rural areas. Within a broader green economy framework, UA will make a significant contribution to sustainability and to the well-being of city dwellers—from enhancing local ecosystem services and biodiversity, to reducing urban footprints (Moreno-Penaranda, 2011).
The impact of rising temperature, increasingly erratic rainfall, and extreme weather events (flooding/droughts) has affected the agricultural sector in many rural localities in Southern Africa. Most households in rural areas rely on rain-fed agriculture and are susceptible to the effects of climate change, which lowers agricultural productivity and increases vulnerability to poverty. Within this context, former colonial cities/towns, like Harare, which are located in areas of high agro-ecological potential, are sites where UA can augment national food production and reduce food insecurity caused by low agricultural production in rural localities. The geographical location and design of these colonial cities with green spaces and residential gardens allow for the intensification of agricultural production. Agrarian intensification based on increasing crop yields per given area ensures that farming can be done productively on small/limited spaces. Intensification allows for UA to support both local and national food security and minimizes the dependence on rural areas for food production.
Based on a survey of low, medium, and high-income suburbs in three urban towns and two rural communities in Zimbabwe, our assessment of the 2015-2016 agricultural season—the driest and hottest in living memory—shows that urban farmers (albeit farming on small pieces of land) had higher crop yields than their rural counterparts, who, in most cases, experienced crop failure. A combination of factors such as soil fertility, higher rainfall, and access to inputs, agricultural extension, and weather-related information enabled urban farmers to fare better than those in rural areas. Further, we noted that there was a higher density of boreholes in these urban areas which were utilised by some farmers to irrigate crops and mitigate the effects of (a) delayed onset of rains and (b) El Niño induced drought. These factors show that urban farmers are more resilient to the effects of weather extremes and urban areas can be key sites for agrarian production and contributors to food security.
Livestock production based on rearing chickens and quelea birds (which are considered pests in rural areas) in backyards has grown across African cities as an urban-based farming activity. Chicken and quelea provide affordable meat to low income families. The rearing of these birds for domestic consumption as an alternative/and or complement to crop production is an adaptive strategy by urban farmers to mitigate climate and economic-related stresses. This mode of production demonstrate ways in which urban farmers utilize limited space and creative ways to contribute to food production, nutrition, and security.
Idah is an environmental geographer with a particular interest in environmental strategy formulation and behavioural patterns of smallholder farmers in the face of climate change.
Evan started thinking about agriculture and food systems while spending summers working on his grandfather’s fruit farm in Niagara. His work is on challenges to food security over the next two generations, during which time population growth and climate change threaten to make food harder to produce and more expensive to buy.
Theoretically, urban agriculture seems to offer huge opportunities to address food insecurity in both the global North and the global South.
In the global North, the promise held out by vertical farming or other intensive urban food production systems and suggests that we can virtuously shorten supply chains, reduce energy intensity, and reconnect consumers and producers, all while boosting the resilience of food systems. These issues are probably even more pressing in terms of the global South, where urban agriculture offers the opportunity for poor urban residents to enhance their livelihoods by providing an alternative means of achieving food security.
If there were more incentive for individuals to devote the time and resources to becoming good gardeners, then urban agriculture could play a major role in provisioning North American cities.
While in many contexts that have been carefully studied, the promise of urban agriculture is sometimes realized, in many instances the evidence suggests that urban agriculture rarely lives up to its promise.
For instance, in research conducted at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, on the potential for urban gardening in North America to be a realistic and viable contributor to food supply systems, we collected data on labour and productivity for urban gardeners. While a small number of gardeners were shown to be extremely productive and produced vast amounts of food on very little land, the majority of gardeners spent a huge amount of money maintaining extremely inefficient gardens. The conclusion we reached was that there is a massive skills gap and that if individuals devoted the time and resources to becoming good gardeners, then urban agriculture could play a major role in provisioning North American cities with a significant amount of fruit and vegetables during the summer months.
However, our society has moved so far away from this ideal that it is difficult to imagine policies or processes that would build these skills that have, to a large extent, been lost by current generations. Historic data confirms this, and we can look back to European gardening traditions that emerged during the Second World War and the Great Depression in response to economic deprivation as an illustration of how economic necessity can create a context where urban agriculture is a viable. That said, in the present day, there is very little incentive to develop the skills of an effective urban gardener while there are many other competing demands on our time.
Another aspect our research group looked at was the role of urban agriculture in the developing world and, in one study based on data collected in Malawi, we concluded that for extremely marginal households, producing vegetables to be sold on roadside stands provided meaningful income. Urban agriculture was far less important for even slightly better off households who could make more money working menial jobs. In addition, for the people who benefited from urban agriculture, we had to note that this was an extremely precarious livelihood strategy, as the most marginal families never had secure access to land; hence, they regularly lost access to their gardens and all of the investments those gardens entail.
The studies that our research team has been involved have mostly have explored urban agriculture at its smallest and least formal scales (the garden). We have not investigated whether larger scale, commercial, and peri-urban agriculture would be any different. However, our reading of the existing literature suggests that commercially viable urban farming may be possible in situations where land prices are low.
For instance, if well-skilled gardeners are able to obtain access to sufficient amounts of land such that they can achieve an economy of scale that makes them commercially viable, then urban or peri-urban food production may be a useful food production strategy. Case studies on this include urban farms that have emerged in inner-city America, where significant amounts of formal industrial land has been converted to farming. Similarly, examples from Asia suggest that extremely capital-intensive vertical farms can provide high-end products for affluent urban consumers. However, in most cases, the products that seem viable on such operations focused either on small amounts of high value-added protein or horticulture (especially fresh fruits or salad ingredients). It seems far less likely that urban or peri-urban farming will be suitable for carbohydrate, fats, or the large amounts of low cost protein demanded by sprawling urban populations.
Born and raised on a farm, Kelly's understanding of community food security incorporates a deep understanding of farmer livelihood (in)security, but also environmental and political issues, social justice, and inequality. She is project coordinator for Feeding 9 Billion and a research assistant on the Guelph Food Waste Research Project.
Patrick T. Hurley is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at Ursinus College. His research focuses on human-environment interactions and conservation politics in urban and exurban landscapes.
Beyond Agriculture: Finding Food in the City by Looking Out and Up
With more people living in cities, policymakers, researchers, and residents are pursuing new approaches to urban sustainability. How to design, manage, and use urban greenspaces, such as parks and street trees, in ways that support biodiversity, reduce pollution, and provide other benefits for residents have become key questions. Pursuing nature-based solutions that incorporate this “multifunctional” approach are seen as critical to providing for the well-being of nature and people in cities. This includes determining the relationship of food production within greenspaces. In the US and elsewhere, three overlapping approaches to edible urban greenspaces are emerging: 1) a (re)new(ed) commitment to food-producing gardens and farms in the city, 2) an increase in orchards and edible forests, and 3) a recognition by foragers that existing greenspaces already contain edible species.
Foraging for plants in parks and other greenspaces may keep important cultural traditions alive.
Much attention has focused on urban gardens and farms in addressing food insecurity. Cities such as Detroit, Oakland, and Philadelphia have been recognized for increases in food production, particularly through vacant lot transformation. While these efforts frequently build on and help reconstruct community food-producing traditions, other more intensive efforts seek to create urban farms in spaces that previously had none, including vertical farms. Whether or not production from these gardens and farms can fully meet the food needs of their residents, with secure land tenure, they can provide access to nutritionally and culturally appropriate vegetables and fruits for many urbanites, including lower income residents and minorities.
Foraging in Boston. Photo: Patrick Hurley
The rise of urban orchards and food forests represents an expansion of thinking about food from an agricultural perspective. Here, scholars argue that adding fruit trees and perennial berry-producing plants to the garden mix, within vacant lots, and as street trees will enhance food security. Orchard initiatives in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Seattle appear to be expanding the availability of fruits, with some neighborhoods experiencing concerted efforts to plant fruit trees. The efforts of organized groups, such as in Los Angeles and other cities, to harvest the existing and unused fruit from these trees—so-called gleaners—further contribute to efforts to find food for city residents, including the homeless. Outside the US, such as in Germany or Turkey, the presence of abundant fruit trees may also support gleaning efforts that accomplish similar goals.
Foraging provides yet another way for city residents to find food, including fruits, from wild and managed plants across diverse greenspaces (i.e. institutional campuses, cemeteries). Frequently, these harvests include species not fully appreciated for their edibility or nutritive values. Foraging also creates opportunities to learn about local ecologies and develop closer relationships to nature. Research by Melissa Poe (Washington Sea Grant), Rebecca McLain (Portland State University), Marla Emery (US Forest Service) and myself in Seattle demonstrates how residents incorporate myriad harvested materials from trees, shrubs, and groundcover into their daily lives (e.g., raw consumption, ingredients in meals, processed for later consumption). In Philadelphia, students and I have documented how the “Wild Foodies of Philadelphia” use social media to foster learning about diverse edible and medicinal plants in the city’s parks, cemeteries, and other greenspaces. As with foraging meet-ups in other cities, organized tours mean that individuals can learn about local plants, find interesting foods, and spend time with like-minded individuals.
Foraging is not just about recreational engagements with city plants. In New York City, Marla Emery and I have begun identifying differences in species sought out by distinct cultural groups and motivations for foraging. This research reveals how foraging may provide culturally appropriate—and sometimes unavailable—foods for immigrant communities. Foraging for plants in parks and other greenspaces may keep important cultural traditions alive. Such was the case in Seattle, where some residents foraged to maintain access to important foods associated with indigenous traditions. In New York, foraging may also contribute to the diets of individuals and households who are living below the poverty line. Or, as was the case in Syracuse, New York, foraging may be a critical component of meeting short-term food needs for an immigrant group whose urban garden was vandalized and crops destroyed.
Legacy olive trees. Photo: Patrick Hurley
Whether foraging can meet the full caloric and nutritional needs of urban residents is, as of yet, unclear. In some cases, foraging fosters recreational eating and belonging, while in others—as with gardens and orchards—harvests help maintain important cultural practices or meet critical short-term needs. Thus, our research suggests that foraging itself serves multiple functions for those who practice it. But more importantly, it provides another mechanism for thinking about the multifunctionality of urban greenspaces. This is true both for thinking about management interventions and how urban residents currently interact with existing urban greenspaces on their own terms. Our ongoing research suggests that in discussions about urban sustainability and whether cities can address residents’ food security, there is a need to think about intersecting goals and their application to a wider range of greenspaces.
P’têt Ben Qu’oui, P’têt Ben Qu’non (Maybe So, Maybe Not)
Can urban agriculture contribute to urban sustainability? A seemingly simple question, but a pretty complex answer. How to make a bold statement to ignite a debate? My provocative answer will be “P’têt ben qu’oui, p’têt ben qu’non“, which can be translated to “Maybe so, maybe not”. An expression—a stereotype—supposed to characterize the cunningness of Normandy’s farmers in French popular culture, this phrase means that you’re choosing not to choose (when you’re asked to choose), which is already a big choice. It means refusing to enter a simplistic framework for thinking.
The first thing to determine when dealing with the contribution of urban to urban sustainability is: Will this agriculture be at the service of the inhabitants?
Yes, while some types of urban agriculture can help make cities more sustainable, others may produce deleterious effects on the city and its inhabitants. Urban agriculture is not sustainable in nature. Basically, it is all about cultivating, processing, and distributing food in town. This being said, there are very different types of urban agriculture that don’t have much in common except that they are about growing edible plants in the city: intensive vertical farming, pockets of conventional farming—mainly orchards, cornfields and vineyards—incorporated in the city alongside urban sprawl, micro-farming, kitchen and community gardens, etc. These don’t have the same consequences on urban sustainability.
As I pointed out in a recent post, many economic and political players, as well as big farmers doing conventional farming, talk about urban agriculture as being inherently sustainable to sugarcoat this unsavory pill: without their veneer of sustainability, these activities would logically be rejected. Perpetuating the impression of urban agriculture as sustainable is a way of obscuring the issue of pesticides and fertilizer dissemination, as well as the wastes and by-products of industrial urban agriculture, especially in vine-growing or grain-growing regions. Grain and wine are agricultural products with high added value, and regions where they are grown frequently incorporate them in their cities. People are exposed to critical levels of pesticides on a daily basis without even knowing. Yes, cities, farmers, and their non-farming neighbors share more than fence lines, and it can be quite challenging to live near pockets of industrial agriculture.
To design a more sustainable urban future, we’d better focus on community gardens, kitchen gardens, crofting and micro-farming, land sharing, low-rise rooftop gardens, or schoolyard greenhouses—which are diverse modes of urban agriculture, but are nevertheless related in the sense that they all develop the potential for people to exercise significant influence over the place where they live.
Indeed, apart from the issue of pesticides and fertilizers, the relation between urban agriculture and the sustainable city is not just a matter of food or greening, it is also about inclusiveness and ownership. All things considered, when trying to make a city sustainable, there may be some good sense in promoting urban agriculture instead of manicured, sophisticated-looking green areas, as I advocated in a former post. Why not counteract urban sprawl by fostering what could be called “rural sprawl”, by introducing farming within the city? Such an urban agriculture should be considered as a common good, bringing people together and reshaping the whole urban fabric through long-lasting urban policies, especially those turning environmental “bads”—such as brownfields and wastelands—into environmental “goods”. Urban agriculture in interstitial, abandoned urban areas may be one of cities’ main seedbeds of creative innovation. The first thing to determine when dealing with the contribution of urban to urban sustainability is: Will this agriculture be at the service of the inhabitants?
What I love about geography is its inherent interdisciplinary nature. Geographers work within the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. Cross disciplinary work is key to finding solutions to our most pressing social and environmental issues in the 21st century.
The North American fetishization of urban agriculture, as a solution to urban food insecurity and dependence on rural agriculture, turns attention away more viable solutions to these problems. While the U.S. conceptualization of urban agriculture can certainly provide increased access for some small portion of urban dwellers to highly perishable food crops, it cannot provide yields needed to feed large urban populations. The recent interest boom in the U.S. in urban agriculture diverts attention from issues at the urban-rural interface that have a greater impact on urban sustainability.
Urban agriculture, like other green spaces, serves the public good, but it is unrealistic to expect that urban farms can provide sufficiency in the food supply needed for urban areas.
It is fallacious to proclaim that this is an urban age and so we should concentrate on urban systems in planning for sustainability, when much of the world’s population lives in sprawling settlements in the urban-rural interface. In the Global North, this most often take the form of suburban and exurban, automobile-dependent, sprawl. This sprawling development is problematic in terms of urban sustainability for several reasons. This pattern has a huge ecological footprint because of automobile dependence, embedded energy costs, and energy used to heat and cool large single family homes. Unchecked sprawl also threatens much of the world’s most productive farmland, as cities are often built near rivers and the rich riparian sediments that surround them.
North American urban agriculture is typically premised on a few elements. A farmer or farm director, along with a few part-time staff or interns, are expected to make a living from the sale of farm products to urban consumers, often in combination with income from educational programs or grants. This system, which must still compete in the market with more efficient rural production, cannot provide affordable food to the urban poor and leaves the farmer and farm employees struggling to make a basic income.
Even if this model exists in an urban area with large areas of abandoned land available, urban farms, because of their recreation and community building functions, tend to encourage redevelopment processes that increase land values and development pressures. Urban agriculture, like other green spaces, serves the public good, providing recreation, education, and increased social connections. Some urban agriculture should be protected as part of park and educational planning for cities, particularly to educate young people about food production, though it is unrealistic to expect that urban farms can provide sufficiency in the food supply needed for urban areas.
If we want to ensure food security and a localized food supply, a direct access strategy—like the Eastern Europe’s dacha system, where urban residents are provided with small farm plots within the urban-rural interface—rather than commercialized farming within urban centers might be more productive. These plots provide recreational and social values for their owners and contribute to household food security for low income families. A dacha-like system would also set aside productive farmland at the urban fringe, protecting it from harmful sprawl. Dachas are typically significantly larger plots than those that are available to urban residents through home gardens or small community garden plots.
The lack of affordable and secure access to land reduces the number of new U.S. farmers and threatens the economic viability of new small farms. Most small U.S. farms now rely on non-farm income to support their households. There isn’t enough land within central cities to grow significant amounts of food if we want to maintain urban densities, so land access must be made available in the nearby urban-rural interface by taking land off the market through public ownership, land trusts, or permanent conservation easements, thereby protecting land for small family farms and dacha-like plots. This would provide multiple societal benefits, and contribute to sustainability by ensuring food security for the poor, limiting sprawl, and by reconnecting urban people with the land.
Much of the work on urban agriculture in developing areas has focused on nutrition or contributions to household income, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. The focus has been on the political economy of the practice, rather than on social and environmental sustainability, which is a common lens in more economically developed places.
In Tanzania, urban farms are nodes of connectivity in the city that integrate farmers and passerby in ways that sustain their economic and social security.
In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where my own research took place, the practice is legally ambiguous: technically it is legal, but no spaces are zoned for it. Yet open-space farms—with five to hundreds of farmers cultivating individual plots of veggies—can be found throughout the city. While the debate over the legitimacy of farming remains mired in the environmental concerns of the practice, the social components of how these spaces are actually used and embedded in the larger urban system can tell us how, and what, it can contribute to an urban social sustainability.
Farmers here are resting in the afternoon shade after working since sunrise. Here they will talk about life, politics, farming and more, while they wait for customers. Photo: Leslie McLees
From my own work, I found that the ways these spaces are used contributes to the livelihood and ‘sustainability’ of individuals beyond nutrition and money (though of course, both of those are important). Most farms are organized into professional groups, which provide social and economic support when individuals experience hardship. They help each other when someone is sick or travelling. They work together to resolve conflicts or buy materials. These groups are often one of the most important social networks the farmers engage in.
I was in Dar during an election year (2010), and saw how farms were important political gathering spaces, both for the ruling party (CCM) to distribute kanga (decorative cloth) and hats for people to wear and display, and for political rallies. In fact, some farms had small concrete platforms with CCM flags that provided the base for those rallies. While many farmers did not personally support the CCM, they outwardly demonstrated their support in order to not face harassment by city and party officials and to ensure that they continued to receive (often informal) support from government officials.
People in the city use farms as safe spaces. Clearing an area of brush is valued as eliminating hiding spaces for thieves (real or imagined) and removing snakes and other dangers from the pathways people travel. Children walk to the farms on the way to school and are watched (and sometimes chided) by farmers. Women I talked to who travelled through said they feel safe walking through farms rather than other brushy areas, both because of the safe pathways and because of the people there who they eventually get to know.
A farmer part of a photo voice project took this picture of her son to talk about how proud she was to be a farmer and to train her children to be self-sufficient. Photo: Farmer in photo voice project
Which brings us to one of the most useful ways people use farms: creating social connections. Customers, people walking through, people who live nearby, people looking for a day labor job, and more, all interact with farmers. These are spaces of interaction and connection where farmers and people using the farm make contacts that may help them somehow in the future. In a city with no Craigslist or help-wanted advertising, and dominated by the informal economy, these almost ephemeral, yet very tangible, connections can find someone a new job, a better house, a date, tools they need, and much more. Farms are nodes of connectivity in the city that integrate farmers and passerby in ways that sustain their economic and social security. In a city where life and well-being can be fragile, being outside and in the path of other people provides a substantial network of resources to rely on.
And it must be said that farms are not all hard work and scheming for connections. In fact, while all farmers in my research talked about how difficult farming is, many (though not all) of them said that they were proud to be farmers, to be their own boss, to contribute to feeding people, and to be independent. They enjoy the sociability of farms; chatting with customers, other farmers, and passersby. Farmers, too, have a sense of pride that reinforces—nay, sustains—their continuation of the practice.
Urban agriculture (UA) can and should have a role in urban sustainability, but this role may be more indirect, perhaps even mental rather physical, than some of us may think. We cannot divide rural and urban sustainability when it comes to our food systems. Most people live in cities and, as such, the sustainability of the rural landscape that cities depend on to produce the large quantities of food they need must be viewed as a key urban sustainability priority. Urban and peri-urban agriculture I think may be a lynch-pin in decreasing the mental distance between urban consumers and “rural” producers, harnessing cities’ enormous purchasing power to benefit people and environments along the whole food chain.
Urban and peri-urban agriculture may be a lynch-pin in decreasing the mental distance between urban consumers and “rural” producers.
Much of UA research up to this point has focused on the local social and environmental benefits that UA may provide, and they are real; but they may not be the biggest contribution of UA to urban sustainability. Take for example my area of research: sustainable phosphorus management, an essential nutrient for plants. As cities concentrate people, they concentrate organic waste (food and garden waste, as well as human and animal excreta) which is high in phosphorus. If these wastes are not treated, they can create water quality and subsequent health concerns, but they also represent a resource if they can be recycled back into our food production system, contributing to a circular economy.
At first glance, UA provides a wonderful opportunity to recycle such nutrients, killing two birds with one stone: supporting and even increasing local food production by supporting high yields without increasing dependence on outside resources, while also helping to treat local waste. By definition, however, cities are quite dense and simply cannot recycle all urban nutrient waste streams. For example, UA would need to occupy three times the area of the island of Montreal to recycle available phosphorus in food and green waste from the city if farmers did not want to over apply nutrients (which could negatively affect water quality). Similarly, in Sydney, Australia, current organic waste contains 15 times more P than is needed by local farmers in the Sydney basin, and this gap is likely to increase as agricultural land is lost to urban expansion. I do not think that these examples mean that energy should not be put in to increasing UA and ensuring UA practitioners can contribute to sustainable nutrient management by recycling local waste streams. But we must also think about harnessing UA’s potential to change the larger urban food supply chain because, quantitatively, UA simply cannot do it all; it is not a panacea. With this in mind, the following question arises:
Can UA and sustainable practices in UA influence how cities use their purchasing power to influence their whole food system?
We require more research and practice to determine if and how UA can be an incubator to test technologies, practices, and policies that promote social equity and environmental integrity in cities, subsequently creating ripples through the global food system. Perhaps nutrient recycling technologies and distribution logistics, piloted with close-by urban farmers, municipalities, and private waste companies, can then be used to develop larger regional markets for recycled nutrients. By reminding urban consumers what it takes to grow food through UA, perhaps we can change how they purchase food from farther away. Cities, through their experience with regulating and supporting UA, could also decide to create policies that influence the full footprint of food (the total natural and human resources used to produce food) that is imported into their jurisdictional boundaries. Building sustainable and resilient food systems, which are an integral part of urban sustainability, will take a multi-pronged approach. I think UA can be part of this change and an important part of UA’s potential lies in changing how cities think of food globally.
Urban Agriculture has an important role in urban sustainability, but the key pathways are probably not the ones you may be thinking of.
There are numerous ways to parse the question on whether urban agriculture has the potential to contribute significantly to urban sustainability.
Let’s take the issue of urban sustainability first. There seems to be a widespread notion that, for cities to be considered sustainable, they need to produce or access resources from and process waste within the city boundaries. Classic examples are studies showing that the ecological footprint of cities are much larger than cities themselves.
Urban sustainability does not require sourcing resources from nearby. Food transportation is not the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions from the food system. And urban food production potential is limited in places where it could make a difference.
But I find this reasoning flawed. The sustainability question should really be considering the counterfactual question: will the total footprint of humanity be greater if people lived more diffusely? If people choose to live in dense environments, they will certainly have to draw resources from the unpopulated hinterlands. Consider this extreme thought experiment: What if all of humanity lived in a single really tall building? Would sustainability dictate that our footprint be smaller than the building’s footprint? No. As long as our footprint doesn’t exceed the area of the planet, we are fine. A proper assessment of urban unsustainability requires more than a simple comparison of its footprint to its boundary.
But then, you ask, are we not emitting greenhouse gases by shipping food across great distances to meet the demands of urban dwellers? Yes, this is a problem. But again, one needs to consider the counterfactual. Is it better to buy bananas from Costa Rica, or to grow bananas in a local greenhouse using lots of energy? The right answer is that it will be more sustainable if people in temperate regions don’t eat bananas at all, but rather eat apples.
But numerous “life cycle analyses” have shown that the emissions associated with transporting food are minimal compared to the emissions associated with producing food. From that perspective, it is more important to consider what you are eating (beef versus lentils) than where your food is coming from. Of course, it will be more sustainable to consider both. But, if we take particular foods, there will be many contexts where it will be better to import the food than produce it locally. So, while sourcing food from great distances is not the most sustainable option, it might sometimes be more sustainable than producing it locally; and more importantly, eating local might not be our greatest leverage point for achieving food system sustainability.
I will finally take up the question of urban food production potential. Again, let’s do a thought experiment. Currently, about 12 percent of the world’s land is cropland, while 0.5–3 percent is urban (there is large variation in estimates, bu the truth is closer to the former, in my opinion). If we devoted 100 percent of our urban areas to food production (no dwellings anymore), urban crop yields would need to be 4–24 times higher to replace food that’s currently produced in cropland!! That’s a tall order. My research team published a study on this in 2014, looking at just vegetables, which is the focus of most urban agriculture. We asked the inverse question—what fraction of current urban areas would be required to produce 300 grams of vegetables per day (the WHO recommendation for individual consumption)? We found that, globally, we would need to devote 1/3 of urban areas, but there was great regional disparity. In rich countries, where food availability is not a major issue, we found that little urban land is needed to meet the demand for vegetables. But in poor nations, where in fact urban agriculture could serve a critical need, greater than 100 percent of the urban area was needed simply to meet recommended vegetable consumption. Simply put, in countries where urban agriculture could serve a critical need, we cannot even produce a sufficient quantity of vegetables.
In closing, I feel that some of the often-proposed benefits of urban agriculture may be a distraction from dealing with urban sustainability challenges. Urban sustainability does not require sourcing resources from nearby. Food transportation is not the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions from the food system. And urban food production potential is limited in places where it could make a difference. I believe that the most important way in which urban dwellers can address urban sustainability challenges related to food is by fostering a transformation of the food system through changing dietary patterns, reducing food waste, arguing for better land use policies, and supporting sustainable farming operations through their purchases. And urban agriculture can certainly play an important role in this regard, by making people care about the food system, what they eat, where their food comes from, how it is produced, and so on, and by making them more active participants in the food system.
Kristin Reynolds is a critical geographer and urban food systems scholar in New York City. Her research focuses on urban agriculture and social justice using action research approaches. Her co-authored book Beyond the Kale: Urban Agriculture and Social Justice Activism in New York City (2016, University of Georgia Press) examines the efforts of urban agriculture activists, primarily people of color and women, to create more socially and environmentally just urban systems through farming and gardening initiatives.
Urban agriculture’s contribution to sustainability depends on a focus on social, economic, and political equity
Urban agriculture can provide many benefits to cities including increased access to fresh and culturally-acceptable food; venues for environmental and nutrition education; green space; and, as a form of green infrastructure, absorption of stormwater and support for urban biodiversity. Over the past two decades, planners, policymakers, and non-governmental funders have begun to recognize these and other benefits of city farms and gardens, and have lent more support to a practice that was for decades viewed as an inappropriate use of urban space.
Since urban agriculture can increase food access for low-income city residents, all forms of farming and gardening are presumed to do so. This narrative often gives short shrift to social, political, and economic equity.
In the United States, state-level and municipal governments are now supporting urban agriculture through measures such as formal food system or sustainability policy plans; changes in city zoning codes; and tax incentives for commercial urban farming. At the federal level, the United States Department of Agriculture has begun to recognize urban farming as a legitimate agricultural activity (defined as an operation grossing $1000 or more in sales each year) and has funded urban agriculture projects through a number of granting programs. Private foundations have also provided funding for a variety of activities that take place in gardens and farms such as nutrition education and job skill development for low-income youth.
Given all of its potential benefits, and the increased support for farming in cities, it is reasonable to see urban agriculture as a contributor to urban sustainability. Yet it is important to consider this question more deeply. The dominant urban agriculture narrative in the United States and many regions in the Global North often conflates potential benefits with generalizable characteristics. (For example, since urban agriculture can increase food access for low-income city residents, all forms of farming and gardening are presumed to do so, even though some commercial operations produce food primarily for sale to high-end outlets and other projects may grow mainly flowers or non-edible native plants.) This narrative, like mainstream sustainability and even urban resilience tropes, often gives short shrift to social, political, and economic equity. As urban agriculture has become more popular in the Global North, and as innovative or high-tech (e.g., rooftop agriculture; vertical farming) and commercial forms of urban agriculture are developed and expanded, critical social justice questions are often downplayed or ignored.
As I have examined elsewhere, projects led by individuals and groups with financial resources—often upper middle class and/or white people—are more widely recognized as important drivers of the contemporary urban agriculture system, and this feeds on itself: recognition begets more recognition, often in the form of financial or political support.
La Finca del Sur, South Bronx. Photo: Rob Stephenson
Meanwhile, there are many urban agriculture projects led by people of color and working class people, as there have been for generations. Many of these community leaders and activists use urban agriculture to address various forms of oppression and exclusion from mainstream economies and political decision-making in cities—in addition to growing food. Often they do this despite having minimal financial resources or being disconnected from policymaking processes through which they might advocate for resources to strengthen their initiatives. Examples of such groups include Friends of Brook Park, an environmental justice organization in the South Bronx (historically one of the lowest income congressional districts of the United States), which oversees a community garden and runs an on-farm alternatives-to-incarceration program for youth. La Finca del Sur, a non-profit farm and garden run by Latina and Black women (also in the South Bronx) focuses on community and women’s empowerment, as well solidarity with women farmers in the Global South. In Bed-Stuy, a historically low-income neighborhood in Brooklyn, members of Hattie Carthan Community Garden run a farmers market and provide a venue to realize self-determination through food production and related activities.
These and other projects like them use farming and gardening to explicitly address social, political, and economic equity in food and environmental systems. The question about whether urban agriculture can contribute to urban sustainability must include a discussion these critical social justice issues. Reconsidering urban agriculture along these lines; developing policy initiatives and funding programs to support social justice-oriented initiatives; and shifting the narrative about leadership in the urban farming and gardening movement will help us to realize urban agriculture’s full potential to help create sustainable and just cities.
Esther Sanyé-Mengual is Marie Curie Fellow at the Research Centre on Urban Environment for Agriculture and Biodiversity (RESCUE-AB) – University of Bologna (Italy)
What can we expect from urban rooftop agriculture in terms of sustainability?
It is a common phenomenon that people consider food production and consumption as a one-way road, whereby food products are transported from rural areas to the cities. But there are broader visions for food production in the future. Urban agriculture is taking up the idea that the city itself can be productive, too, while so-called waste products (like organic “waste”, “waste” water, or “waste” heat can be used or re-used for food production.
Can urban rooftop agriculture make a substantial contribution to food security in Europe? Not in its current state.
We find the topic of urban rooftop farming particularly interesting because we see that roofs are largely unused spaces in most cities, and they have a great potential for food production without competing with alternative uses in the same way that urban agriculture “on the ground” often does.
We follow the understanding that sustainability has three different dimensions (environment, society, and economy) which need to co-exist in a balanced manner. All three dimensions must be considered in order to avoid the generation of negative environmental or social impacts when exclusively promoting economic development, for example.
Depending on their geographical context and goals, urban agriculture can have very diverse effects. Recently, we investigated the effects of rooftop agriculture in different European cities. One of our studies demonstrates that rooftop agriculture could increase the current production of local food in cities by using those roofs that are currently without a function. Such production would signify food production at “kilometer 0”, since production and consumption are co-located. In the city of Barcelona, local tomatoes produced in a rooftop greenhouse could substitute the demand for imported tomatoes from Southern Spain. This effect generates the reduction of environmental impacts (such as greenhouse gas emissions or energy consumption) compared to the imported tomatoes.
Roofgarden. Photo: Esther Sanyé- Mengual
The different initiatives of rooftop agriculture can be differentiated in four main groups.
Rooftop gardens. Here the food production is not the unique aim of the system. These initiatives are devoted to address social gaps and educational needs.
Rooftop farms are business-oriented projects, where food production is the main goal, although it can be combined with other activities.
Rooftop engineering initiatives are research- and business-oriented types, where technology development is the major aim (e.g. research projects, start-ups).
Landscape rooftop projects are initiatives where, similar to green roof systems, the greening of the space is the main function.
These four groups contribute differently to urban sustainability. While rooftop farms have a large contribution to food security, rooftop gardens focus more on community development at the social level.
At the moment, rooftop agriculture initiatives in Europe are limited in number and area. This means that rooftop agriculture is not a main source of urban food products, particularly considering the large urban population. However, recent trends in food consumption indicate that the demand for local and ecologically-friendly food is growing and urban agriculture could be a source to feed these types of consumers.
Similar to rural agriculture, the environmental sustainability of urban rooftop farming depends on the applied farming practices (use of energy, input of fertilizers, etc.). Therefore, urban rooftop agriculture is not sustainable per se, and the production can be as unsustainable as in conventional agriculture, depending on management techniques. However, urban agriculture covers many particular urban needs beyond producing food, such as education and social inclusion.
If we are asked to answer if urban rooftop agriculture can make a substantial contribution to food security in Europe, we can answer: not in its current state. Even though it has high potential to increase production quantities in the future, it can only be considered a part of the whole food system at the moment and a “plus” to rural production.
References:
Sanyé-Mengual E, Orsini F, Oliver-Solà J, et al. (2015) Techniques and crops for efficient rooftop gardens in Bologna, Italy. Agronomy for Sustainable Development 35:1477–1488.
Specht, K., Siebert, R., Hartmann, I., Freisinger, U. B., Sawicka, M., Werner, A., Thomaier, S., Henckel, D., Walk, H., Dierich, A. (2014). Urban agriculture of the future: an overview of sustainability aspects of food production in and on buildings. Agriculture and Human Values, 31(1), 33–51.
Dr. Shaleen Singhal is a Professor at TERI School of Advanced Studies with 21 years of research and academic experience working on sustainable urban development issues in India and UK. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK and a Visiting Fulbright Fellow for Yale University, US.
Projections indicate that urban population rate of change will be significant in the Asia-Pacific region and particularly in China and India. It is also estimated that by 2020, there will be more than 500 cities with a million or more residents, and that the average size of the world’s 100 largest cities will be 8.5 million up from around 7.6 million in 2011 (UNHSP, 2011). While cities are considered to be the main engines of economic growth, accounting for 80 percent of global GDP while occupying only three percent of the land surface, they are severely responsible for unsustainable rates of resource consumption and environmental problems.
Urban agriculture directly contributes to the nexus of water, food, and energy.
In India’s aspirations for growth, cities and city-regions will have a very vital contribution. While promoting economic competitiveness, the particular focus has to be on human development indicators. To minimise unsustainable patterns of growth, optimise resource consumption, and deal with environmental and socio-economic degeneration challenges, cities will continue to be come into greater focus. The phenomenon of urban sustainability in India thus relates to the “cities striving to improve their performance by exploiting new opportunities for growth and development while counteracting inherited problems in a sustainable manner” (Singhal et al, 2010). The water-food-energy nexus is a vital component of sustainability significantly influencing the metabolism of rapidly growing large– and medium–sized cities and their associated peri–urban areas. Urban agriculture directly contributes to this nexus.
The growing practice of urban agriculture is expected to build the resilience of cities in India and other emerging economies for (i) longer-term sustainability as well as for (ii) short-term crisis management. These include the ecological dimension of the ecosystem approach, which focuses on minimising GHG emissions and the ecological footprint of cities for sustainability. Improved local food security and self-sufficiency, coping capacity to deal with change and unexpected food crisis, and reducing urban heat island effect, are some of the immediate known benefits of urban agriculture. Several rapidly urbanising cities, however, are faced with governance challenges; lack of availability of open space accompanied by fast land-use conversion of agricultural land; and poor structural organisation and representation of urban farmers. In such cities, as urban agriculture is mostly practiced along banks of rivers and natural drainage system, it is faced with a greater threat of pollution and polluted produce. This effect results from an increased pressure on already-inadequate infrastructure, such as poor sewerage, drainage, and solid waste management services (Singhal and Kapur, 2002), thus polluting water bodies that are expected to cater to urban agriculture.
To deal with this complex, multi-dimensional phenomenon of urban agriculture, comprehensive approaches need to be adopted for assessment and sustainable solutions for cities. A few emerging and innovative ways include: a system-based, dynamic approach to examine forward and backward linkages and boundaries of influence; an urban nexus approach focusing on the sustainable development goals; bottom-up planning of local areas and resources; and urban green infrastructure planning. Furthermore, a transdisciplinary learning process is the need of the hour to decode this very complex but extremely important phenomenon of urban agriculture in cities, particularly in emerging economies. Knowledge networks between cities in mature and emerging economies will facilitate such learning through robust collaborative research led by higher education institutions with contribution from practitioners, NGOs, and CBOs.
References
Global Report on Human Settlements 2011, United Nations Human Settlement Programme
Singhal, S. Berry, J. and McGreal, S. 2010. Linking regeneration and business with competitiveness for low carbon cities: lessons for India. In India Infrastructure Report 2010: Infrastructure Development in a Low Carbon Economy. Oxford University Press, New Delhi.
Singhal, S. and Kapur, A. 2002. Environmental management plans for the communities of Lucknow. International journal of appropriate technologies for water supply and sanitation – Waterlines. ITDG publishing, U.K. Vol. 20. No.4, April 2002.
Naomi Tsur is Founder and Chair of the Israel Urban Forum, Chair of the Jerusalem Green Fund, Founder and Head of Green Pilgrim Jerusalem, and served a term as Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, responsible for planning and the environment.
The camp of “believers” in the efficacy of urban agriculture is still small but steadily growing. There are those that say there is no point in talking about it unless you can prove that a city can be food-secure on the basis of food grown in urban and peri-urban farms. It seems that we are required to submit proof that Community Sustained Agriculture can indeed sustain the entire community. Others posit that a developed system of CSA might threaten the livelihood of “real farmers”.
Before reckoning the area available for peri-urban food-growing, we have to convince the consumer of the advantages of locally produced food.
We are currently debating the role of urban agriculture in the context of its potential contribution to sustainable urban life. In that context, before reckoning the area available for peri-urban food-growing, we have to address a deeper layer of consciousness and promote basic food awareness. I believe this means that, on a parallel track, we have to convince the consumer of the advantages of locally produced food. This is a social marketing campaign that is waiting to happen. If it is successful, then consumer demand should pave the way for increasing numbers of CSA initiatives.
Thus far the policy-makers have been out of the equation at the national level in most countries. This seems to be a result of the perception that agriculture is national business, and therefore food production cannot be addressed at the local level. This is yet another expression of the deep disconnect in most countries between local and national levels of government.
Are we at an impasse or are we progressing towards more edible cities? Is it possible to measure the positive footprint of CSA, set against the negative impact of cities that bring their food in from great distances?
I have just come home from a 2-day conference on the theme of agriculture, nutrition, and the environment. Nutrition and public health experts are bringing a new voice to the table, seeking to combat the global plague of obesity. In Israel, nutritionists are joining forces with environmentalists in the drive to encourage local food production, and to incorporate food growing and nutrition lessons in the regular school curriculum. Unfortunately, the Ministry of Agriculture sees all this movement as a threat to serious farming, whatever that may be, and I know this is true of many other countries.
I firmly believe that although quite a few pieces of the urban food puzzle are not yet in place, a global movement supporting local food production is part and parcel of an increasingly urban world. In this brave new world, not only will cities become major agricultural players, but they will also realize the need to have a strong and resilient local economy, which will draw its strength to a great extent from having a self-sufficient food system. The kind of food system that can give real food security to a large city will go beyond the city’s boundaries and spread throughout the bio-shed, and will prosper through constant interaction with all the local food players, restaurants, caterers, food cooperatives, and many others in the hospitality industry.
This process is well underway with a tremendous groundswell in the CSA movement. In Jerusalem, where we have been convening a “Food for Jerusalem” forum for the last couple of years, with as many of the urban food-growing stakeholders as we can find, I believe that for serious peri-urban CSA to have the desired impact on the urban food cycle, the CSA farmers should form a coalition. As an organized group of entrepreneurs, they would become a movement, instead of an assortment of farm businesses in competition with each other for the same clients. As an organized force, the CSA farmers could back the kind of social marketing campaign needed to expand their customer reach, together. I am interested to hear if other cities have reached similar conclusions about the strategy needed to expand the urban agriculture movement further than the limited market it has gained.
Andre Viljoen is Professor of Architecture at the University of Brighton. His research, usually undertaken with Katrin Bohn, focuses on sustainable design.
Second Nature Urban Agriculture: Designing the Productive City
In the future, successful cities will be productive in many ways: socially, economically and ecologically. Networks of open space will be essential if cities are to remain desirable and environmentally sustainable. Landscape, like buildings, will become multifunctional, thereby enabling beneficial exchanges between the constructed and natural environments.
The concept of Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes proposes integrating networks of connected open urban spaces that are designed to coherently include food producing urban agriculture.
The phenomenal pressures on cities are well known; the UN department of Economic and Social Affairs 2011 projection for urbanisation estimates that by 2030 the average world percentage of residents living in urban areas will be 59.9 percent and 82 percent in “more developed regions”. Pressure from urbanisation makes access to open urban space an urgent concern.
Furthermore, urban populations are experiencing an unprecedented increase in diet related ill health, such as diabetes and obesity. If cities are to thrive, then urban planners and designers need to radically rethink the way cities overcome these challenges, so that they become desirable and environmentally stable.
The CPUL concept. Green corridors provide a continuous network of productive open space containing routes for pedestrians and cyclists. A variety of fields for urban agriculture and other outdoor work/lesiure activities are located within the network and serve adjacent built up areas. Image courtesy of Bohn&Viljoen.
The concept of Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes (CPULs) was developed in 2004 by Bohn&Viljoen and aims to address these problems by proposing an ambitious but achievable strategy for integrating networks of connected open urban spaces that are designed to coherently include food producing urban agriculture. Urban agriculture, which refers to the production of fruit, vegetables, fish, and, sometimes, small animals, within cities, is not new, and each city and culture will have its own tradition to draw upon when establishing a CPUL. But what is new is the understanding of the multiple benefits, in addition to the production of sustainable food, that CPULs can bring to cities. It is likely that in the future, networks of open space will be as important to cities as clusters of buildings.
There is much evidence emerging for these assertions. For example, regarding urban biodiversity, in 2010 the United Nations University Institute for Advanced Studies issued a policy report on cities and biodiversity. It noted that, “as the rule of interdependent adjacencies in urban ecology has it: the more diversity, and the more collaboration ‘between unlikely partners’, the better the chances for biodiversity, sustainability, and resilience” (Hester, 2006). Linked to this idea is the concept of Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes (CPULs), which represents a powerful urban design instrument for achieving local sustainability while reducing cities’ ecological footprints (Viljoen, 2005)’ (UNUIAS 2010: 31-32).
We may conclude that biodiversity delivers or supports much needed ecosystems services and that it can be achieved by creating “more, bigger, better and joined” (Lawton et al. 2010: 3) resilient and coherent ecological networks…CPULs.
The CPUL concept is being applied internationally. Spiel/Feld Marzahn, Berlin, Germany was initiated in 2011 as a larger scale community food growing project commissioned by the local authority and was designed by Prof. Katrin Bohn with students from the Technical University of Berlin who worked with local residents. This project demonstrates how CPUL spaces can reactivate underused public space and result in “place making”. It has been recognised in Germany for its contribution to the UNESCO decade of education for sustainable development. Photo courtesy of Bohn&Viljoen.
Implementing the CPUL city concept
There is already a lot of experience in how successful urban agriculture projects are established. Using this knowledge and relating it to the concept of multi-stakeholder planning, a four-point plan of CPUL City Actions has been developed, intended to provide a clearly stated overview of the various processes and activities required to implement CPULs over the long-term.
These four actions are: Action U+D = Co-ordinated and mutually supportive Bottom Up + Top Down initiatives and activities; Action VIS = Visualising the Consequences of CPUL proposals; Action IUC = Completing Inventories of existing Urban Capacities for supporting new initiatives; and Action R = Researching for Change. It would be rare to find successful long-term projects with not at least three, but usually all of the four actions evident, although often they have not been articulated as such. The UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council is currently funding a research network to explore how policy pathways can be developed to support the large number of emerging productive landscapes; the network’s website contains further information.
Setting out clear processes, such as multi-stakeholder planning, policy development strategies and the four CPUL City actions, should assist future stakeholders in realising better and more resilient projects in the future, while discouraging projects that are fundamentally flawed. If successfully implemented CPULs have the potential to create more experience for less consumption.
The Urban Agriculture Curtain, designed as a prototype by Bohn&Viljoen in 2009, shows how the CPUL concept can be applied within buildings. A vertical hydroponic system was developed with Hadlow College for use in London’s Building Centre, to supply salad crops during the “London Yields” exhibition.
This paper on design strategies for the integration of urban agriculture and sustainable urban food systems into cities was first published in 2015 by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) as part of their international British Papers Series, “Current thinking on sustainable city design.”
Katrin Bohn is an architect and a senior lecturer at the University of Brighton. Together with André Viljoen, she has worked widely on the design concept of CPUL [Continuous Productive Urban Landscape].
It’s very obvious that we urgently need more urban agriculture in every city around the world, maybe until rural and urban areas become so interconnected that we all will live (again) in the Garden of Eden. I’ll leave the figures to my talented colleagues and focus on the many cross-benefits of urban food production and community gardening.
Cultivating land in the city opens up the gates to the transition to a decentralized mindset that can fix diverse problems.
An urban edible garden is the opposite of a viaduct. A viaduct has just one purpose (speed up traffic from point A to point B) and several terrible side effects for every form of life around it. The edible garden, however, even if it’s only one flourished square meter in the middle of a “bad” neighborhood, is a refuge for nature and people, a spark of hope for a better world.
Let’s ignore for a moment the big environmental challenges humanity is facing right now and that our food system is neither resilient nor sustainable. Even if nothing like these problems were happening, I’d still be here speaking for urban agriculture. Cultivating land in the city opens up the gates to the transition to a decentralized mindset that can fix so many other problems brought by globalization and an economic system based on the destruction of biomes.
In addition to the sheer fact that food is produced, relieving the pressure cities put on rural and wild areas, urban and peri-urban agriculture can improve urban sustainability in at least 10 other ways:
Improvements the local climate through controlling excessive heat and air dryness;
Depaving of the soil, which contributes to avoiding floods;
Providing refuge for small fauna, especially bees;
Reducing garbage production, since organic waste is used to make compost and self-grown vegetables don’t require packaging;
Adaptating to climate change (the small-scale and diverse beds are more resistant than big monoculture farms to unstable and unpredictable weather);
Conserving public space (where we plant food, others tend not to litter or damage);
Reducing crime, since edible gardens require lots of work and people are always around…
Empowering communities. Is there a better place to meet the neighbors and make acquaintances than in a garden?
Educating about nutritional: we rediscover forgotten edible plants, every harvest is a pretext to exchange recipes, and… we start to eat more and more vegetables!
Providing free entertainment and health benefits: gardening is a physical activity in the open air combined with the opportunity for sunbathing, chatting, and laughter.
I write this piece from my recent experiences with young and early career researchers at my University of Makerere in Kampala. It is a graduate conference organized by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and among students are those from the School of Forestry, Environmental and Geographical Sciences, with over 20 graduate student’s presentations. I interact with a couple of students following up on questions asked during the morning session. One of the students I interacted with is working on biodiversity conservation and livelihoods in a distant rural place in western Uganda, a place I had visited earlier at the end of October during the school retreat on curriculum.
With all the discussions on curriculum fresh, our discussion with the student lead me to ask whether she thought of, or knew about biodiversity existing in cities like Kampala. The answer was surprising but also revealing. An emphatic no about the existence of biodiversity and that ‘we’ cannot think of talking about biodiversity in cities nor even conduct research simply because, according to the student, there is no biodiversity in cities. This was quite revealing in respect to how either the paucity of knowledge about biological resources or pedagogical approach may be flawed. It also points to how the material and knowledge about biodiversity is under-utilized or lacking the urban dimension.
My interpretation is that this reinforces a flip of the ‘urban bias’ a term that is conceptualized by Lipton as the systemic bias against agriculture and the rural economy in governments’ policies and allocation of developmental resources. The flip in context here is a bias towards urban development seen largely as built-up form and thus resources allocated to such areas and less if not nothing for natural resources within urban systems. However, the inadequacy of curricula in addressing urban natural resources is largely due to the dominance of terrestrial and aquatic ecological studies at university that recognize ecological landscapes mostly as rural phenomena—urban and built-up forms of ecological landscapes are often ignored or masked out in the analysis.
In this essay, I raise a couple of points to illustrate the educational challenge around what knowledge is used and how pedagogical approaches have negated urban biodiversity but also how this can be integrated into the curriculum.
The urban biodiversity bias
The urban bias against biodiversity in cities has been perpetuated by the longstanding conceptualization of urban land uses as non-primary, largely separated spatial units that relate to each other in a complementary manner. Even when such is the transformation of natural landscapes and an imposition of artificial landscapes, little regard is generally given to biodiversity in terms of flora and fauna that comprise vegetation, small to medium sized animals as well as underground biodiversity that remains on the usually conserved or landscape designed surfaces.
But this also relates to the public awareness about biodiversity in cities. In countries that are rapidly urbanizing, opportunities for economic growth increase the land value leading to a very conspicuous pattern of transformation of natural landscapes replaced by high rising buildings, commercial entities, road infrastructure and industry. The pattern and nature of this transformation often disregards nature and again, other than the designed landscapes for aesthetics (which is in itself a good thing), ecological elements that would enhance or maintain biodiversity are not provided for in the planning standards.
Structure Plan of Kampala 1994 Source: Van Nostrand Associate and KCC 1994
Thus there is little incentive for the public to recognize and value biodiversity in cities such as Kampala. This is true also to the municipal authorities, which despite having recognized environmental land use in the 1994 Structure Plan of Kampala (shown above), the Valued Environmental Components (VECs) were limited to wetlands and lakeshore. Little has been done to conserve the wetlands, tree cover on hilltops while small to medium sized animals such as monkeys, rodents and reptiles are either eliminated or transferred to the Uganda Wildlife Authority.
Impala
For example, in Kampala’s over 100 years of existence as a city, the Impala, an animal that grazed the hills and after which the name of the city derives, has disappeared completely. Though there has been an effort to conserve the species in established conservancies, these medium sized animals are not found in cities as part of the landscape. Some of these animals, like monkeys, have adapted to the urban ‘jungle’ and found a way of living with humans—though with challenges as shown in the images below. Thus the disappearance of medium-sized animals in the city and within its immediate hinterland is not a coincidence but a systematic erosion of biodiversity due to habitat loss and change—but also due to deliberate clearance and hunting.
Urban biodiversity, Photograph taken in residential compound of writer. Photos: Shiaib Lwasa
The question which can be posed here is this. If animals and vegetation are hunted or cleared in cities like Kampala, then how can biodiversity resources be truly valued? Formal education largely relies on documented knowledge and less on experiential knowledge, the later built around continuous use of natural resources in locales. This is a big challenge for education to rely on Ex-situ conservation in education that has influenced the appreciation and valuation of biodiversity.
In other words: experiential learning by locals, in which biodiversity is not valued, contradicts and supercedes the ‘book-learning’ lessons of conservation.
Valuable urban biodiversity
Given the scenarios of the student’s knowledge about biological resources in cities, the lack of public awareness and lack of biodiversity valuation by institutions, it is important to reflect on what implications these scenarios have on the value of biological resources and urban future from the education perspective.
One the implications is the gap in education that is created by non-appreciation of local natural resources in urban systems. Experiential learning about own environment in locales is not an approach that is vigorously pursued in university education. This gap needs to be filled in curricula. There are plenty of natural resources, both flora and fauna, in urban areas like Kampala—from terrestrial, aquatic and underground that baseline research deems valuable in generating the knowledge required for the awareness-raising across the population. Research is required at various urban scales to establish knowledge of biodiversity resources, documenting resources for management and education purposes. If nature will be unimportant part of the future urban landscapes, the involvement of students in this process is key, undoubtedly just like the utility of knowledge to fill the gaps reflected by the scenarios above, This would enable rethinking animals, including rodents and monkeys, which are currently seen as vermin, mere vegetation cover, or as a security threat in cities. Despite the dangers they may pose, experiences show that in a controlled manner, animals in cities can live with humans and we can begin to value biodiversity in intrinsic terms, for its own sake.
Valuation of natural resources is a term associated with estimating the intrinsic monetary value of biological resources, although such monetary valuation is only an under estimate of true value. There is no known economic tool or framework that can accurately value natural resources that incorporates their temporal and spatial importance. This implies intrinsic value of biological resources transcends the current and anticipated future economic estimates. On this premise, it seems appropriate that a cultural valuation of biological resources in cities, one that recognizes the connectedness of people and nature, offers a more holistic approach to comprehensive appreciation of biological resources and a foundation on which such resources can be integrated in cities.
Cities as ecological landscape units
In tertiary education, biological resources on a spatial scale are thought of as landscape ecology, but studies are limited to terrestrial natural systems and less consideration is given to the landscapes that include urban units. It is the natural flora and the extensive forests around the present day city of Kampala that have been degraded. The process is ongoing with new developments continuously encroaching on the remaining forests, including “gazetted” and supposedly protected forests and wetlands.
This degrades biodiversity and erodes the genetic resources in areas where cities are built, such as Kampala. The concept of landscape ecology, in contemporary use, is an area containing a mosaic of land-cover “patches” that are distinct and can be spatially defined or mapped. Landscapes include traits, patterns, and structure of biotic and abiotic resources specific to a geographic area with the associated anthropogenic or social patterns (Lopez R.D et al 2002, EPA).
When studying landscape ecology the foci generally are distribution patterns of communities and ecosystems, the ecological processes that affect the patterns, and changes in pattern, and process over time and space. In this comprehensive consideration of landscapes, anthropogenic patterns include built-up form. Thus landscapes manifest in various forms of different mosaics of habitat types both terrestrial and aquatic as shown below. These are usually of varying shapes and sizes that reflect both natural and human influences. As illustrated in the picture below, spatially distinctive units of landscapes range from forest, grass, agricultural fields, water bodies to built-up form. Within these units are ecological processes that include the movement and flow of animals that have adapted to urban habitats, as exemplified in many cities like Kampala.
The interest in knowledge around ecological landscapes is growing, but much of it still at the level of sustainable development discourse framed as payment for ecosystem services, ecosystems-based adaptation, green infrastructure and urban greening. This knowledge needs to be amplified and transferred through curricula designed to deliver education for valuation of biodiversity in cities as part of the continuum of ecological landscapes. The future generation of urban managers and the young generation is perhaps the best group to influence in transition to sustainable consumption and utilization of biological resources.
Satellite image showing distinctive patches of landscapes.
Conclusion
The level of awareness and knowledge about urban biodiversity across categories of society varies and perhaps does not measure up to appreciation of the value of urban biodiversity. It is also evident that the built-up areas are rarely considered as part of the landscape ecological system. With the current discourses of sustainable development, green infrastructure and greening urban systems, terrestrial ecosystems in urban areas must be explicitly included and valued in education and research in order to educate the stewards of the urban future.
Documenting biodiversity can support an education program built on experiential learning by taking advantage of the local urban environments in cities like Kampala. This is an educational challenge that universities and institutions of learning need to address, to transcend the traditional classroom teaching and build research and experimental labs within the urban ecosystems.
Lopez, Ricardo D., Craig B. Davis, and M. Siobhan Fennessy. “Ecological relationships between landscape change and plant guilds in depressional wetlands.” Landscape Ecology 17.1 (2002): 43-56.
John van Nostrand Associates Ltd. with counterparts from Ministry of Lands Housing and Urban Development, Ministry of Local Government, Ministry of Justice, Kampala City Council, September 1994, Kampala Urban Study Final Report, Part Three Action Programs, John van Nostrand Associates Ltd., Kampala
My hope is that by exploring and better understanding the zone of reciprocity, urban residents can learn to appreciate how their own health and well-being (as well as that of their families and communities) is closely linked with that of non-humans.
According to modernist philosophy, cities are “human only” spaces built by and for the exclusive use of homo sapiens ― clean, sterile, artifacts of human imagination that symbolize humanity’s separation from nature. Aside from cultivated garden plants and a handful of companion or work animals whose presence is tolerated, non-human life in cities is regarded as matter out of place: inconvenient and unwanted at best and at worst, reviled and exterminated (Houston, 2018).
A new awareness is emerging, however, which problematizes the overly simplified nature/society dualism discourse. It brings to light the fact that cities have always been assemblages of multiple species, the product of numerous human and non-human co-evolutionary processes (Alberti, 2008). Critiques from disparate literatures, including zooarchaeology, animal studies, urban environmental history, multispecies ethnography, and the post-humanities have arisen to further unsettle the notion of urban human exceptionalism that has become ingrained in popular consciousness.
Running parallel with the multispecies analysis, the subject of urban biodiversity has matured greatly within a broader framework of the urban ecological sciences. It has grown from an “ecology in the city” paradigm study of “remnant populations” to a field that looks at the numerous ecosystem services provided by non-human life in the city, and how human/non-human co-habitation can be enhanced through appropriate design. There is an emerging understanding that cities may often support greater levels of biodiversity than surrounding areas (particularly industrial agricultural zones) and can function as refuges for certain threatened species (cite). As many of the world’s fastest growing cities are on the edges of some of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, research is being conducted on how urban development and biodiversity conservation can be co-managed, supported empirically by research fields such as “reconciliation ecology”. Urban biodiversity has now become an area of global urban policy, planning, and governance, documented in the extensive “Cities and Biodiversity Outlook” report drafted by the Convention on Biological Diversity (Elmqvist, 2013).
Paperback edition will be available May 31st. Please email the author at [email protected] for digital review copies.
Mainstream studies on urban biodiversity, however, typically examine the issue through a highly reductionist lens: focusing on quantifiable data that can be extrapolated into generalizable best practices, applicable to planning and architectural strategies in any city in the world[i]. Seldom is attention paid to questions of politics and power as they apply to urban biodiversity. Which populations benefit from the ecosystem services provided by non-human life in cities, and are those populations represented in decision making processes related to biodiversity? How might certain people’s survival be closely linked with the well-being of urban non-humans? How can justice, equity and fairness for human urban residents can be furthered by forming mutually symbiotic inter-species partnerships. Going further, it can be asked whether non-humans have just as much of a “right to the city” as humans do ― are squirrels, birds, insects, amphibians, fish, fungi, weeds, and microbes as equally entitled to life and liberty in the urban ecosystem as humans?
Admittedly, answers to these questions are hard to come by on account of the paucity of research related to them. For a long time, concerns related to social justice and biodiversity conservation have been at odds with each other, with considerable tensions between communities advocating for either. There are many examples of conservationists, arising from “edenic” traditions and ideologies, seeking to create wilderness preservations that are off-limits to humans, indigenous or otherwise, even when humans may historically have played pivotal roles in the creation and functioning of those ecosystems (Heise, 2016). The separation between conservationists and social justice activists is further complicated by the fact that the divide often corresponds to race and class distinctions, with more typically white, Northern, and affluent conservationists accused by the later of caring more about animals/plants/ecosystems than they do about the suffering of members of their own species (the same critique has been similarly applied to advocates of urban greening vs environmental justice). Surely, in low-income urban communities it can be difficult to convince someone struggling to put food on their table that they should care about the well-being of the birds and the bees living around them. This alienation is compounded in cities by the so called “luxury effect”: a phenomenon where wealthier neighborhoods are observed to have higher rates of biodiversity than poorer ones (Leong, 2018).[ii]
What work has been done to try and bridge the divide between social justice and biodiversity conservation? Are there concepts that can be used to reconcile these seemingly disparate movements?
One potentially bridging framework is “biocultural diversity”. The United Nations Environment Programme coined the term ‘biocultural diversity’ in 1999 to describe the ‘inextricable link’ between the interrelated and co-evolved manifestations of biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity manifesting in complex socio-ecological systems (Buizer, 2016). Primarily focusing on indigenous and traditional peoples, the study of biocultural diversity contrasts the retention of biocultural knowledge among indigenous groups against its loss as a consequence of socioeconomic modernization. With a primary focus on rural communities, urban biocultural diversity studies have been few. A few recent publications, however, have started this conversation. Focusing on changing and evolving agrobiodiversity practices in peri-urban spaces, they have put forth the key concept of ‘biocultural creativity’, or the creation rather than the preservation of biocultural diversity (Buizer, 2016). This concept can be extremely useful for framing the rebuilding of symbiotic mutualisms between humans and the non-human life in novel urban ecosystems, and for making linkages between biodiversity and social justice. Another interesting boundary concept is “multispecies environmental justice” (Haraway, 2018), that asks what environmental justice looks like when extended beyond the human.
Discussing urban biocultural multispecies diversity-justice is a complex task ― there are many angles from which to explore the relationship between humans and non-humans in cities and how they relate to broader questions of equity, fairness, and justice. Rather than producing a generalizing “unifying theory” of urban biodiversity justice that strips away the important differences, nuances, and fractal micro-stories that exist in multiple locales, I’ll instead attempt to explore broad patterns of these relationships and speculate how they may later lead to the development of a more robust theory.
My primary focus on urban human/non-human relationships is within what I refer to as the “zone of reciprocity”. This refers to a space of human/non-human relationality located in between the highly domesticated (dogs, cats, other pets, farm animals, garden vegetables, etc.) and the non-domesticated urban “wild” (non-food producing trees, wild birds, most insects, urban deer, foxes, and coyotes, for example)[iii]. Somewhere in the middle of this messy continuum is the reciprocal zone: a collection of species across the taxonomic spectrum with whom we engage in mutualistic symbiosis with on a semi-controlled, semi-chaotic manner ― a give and take based on an ethos of respect and interdependency that is resistant to both domination and diffusion.
My hope is that by exploring and better understanding the zone of reciprocity, urban residents can learn to appreciate how their own health and well-being (as well as that of their families and communities) is closely linked with that of non-humans. The direct, tangible exchanges with these handful of reciprocal species makes it clear how benefits to humans and non-humans are shared. While the survival of humanity is of course entirely dependent upon the continued health of the global ecosphere, urban ecological alienation often causes people to be under-aware of this truth. Synanthropic relationships can provide a first step towards cultivating connection, empathy, and the awareness of reciprocity with species on the outside (wilder side) of the zone, ultimately leading to the cultivation of a broader biocultural justice and ecological literacy.
There are a number of species, that while indeed synathropic, I am not including in the zone of reciprocity. For a relationship to be considered reciprocal, both entities must benefit in some way from their exchanges. This excludes so-called “nuisance species”: mice, rats, rabbits, raccoons, squirrels, skunks, and opossums. Despite, or perhaps because of their success at co-habitation with humans, these animals are commonly maligned, reviled, and systematically relocated or exterminated. While I fully support changing our relationship with these species and learning ways to co-exist with them that do not involve mass killing, disturbance, or poisoning, I am currently not including them within the zone of reciprocity as, honestly, I am presently hard pressed to see how our relationships with them could become genuinely mutually beneficial, and not just less toxic. This is not to say it’s impossible, or that models do not already exist that I am unaware of. Crows and pigeons, two other common urban “nuisance” species, have been studied for their relatively unknown and overlooked symbiosis potential (Klein, 2007). It is my hope that these two examples could serve as inspiration for creating improved human/non-human relationships with other “nuisance” species.
I’m also leaving aquatic species out this discussion, focusing instead on terrestrial animals and plants. While it is completely conceivable possible to have reciprocal relationships with aquatic life (oysters and carp are good examples), I discuss this at length already in the water chapter, and for the sake of simplicity will exclude them here.
So, then what species are within the reciprocal zone? In addition to the aforementioned pigeons, I include silkworms (and mulberry trees), bees (both honey bees and “native” bees), black soldier flies, maple trees, wine cap mushrooms, … This is admittedly a very short and limited list. There are countless other species of semi-wild edible and medicinal plants growing in cities that people have reciprocal relationships with, selectively harvesting them for food and medicine while providing protection, pruning, care, fertilization in return. Numerous studies on urban foraging detail these relationships in depth ( (Poe, 2014) (Shackleton, 2017) (McLain, 2014)), I will not replicate them here. Instead, I will discuss this handful of species as they are the few that I have had direct firsthand experience with and believe to show promise to be further developed.
Pigeons
Humans and pigeons have a fascinating and highly complicated co-evolutionary relationship. They are one of the few species that on its own accord has chosen to live alongside us in the built environment, and in so much has arguably domesticated itself. Prized by people throughout history for meat, manure, and message carrying, these beautiful birds are now commonly maligned by many urbanites, unlovingly referred to as “rats with wings” and subject to massive and costly campaigns of exclusion and extermination. Despite their undeserved poor reputation, pigeons make a fascinating subject for studying human/non-human relationships in cities. Representing true “boundary objects” (Akkerman, 2011), pigeons straddle the edges of domestic and feral, resist attempts at control, and defy modernist mythologies of cities as “human only” places.
History
The pigeon or rock dove (Columba livia) is a bird that has lived in proximity to humans for millennia and is likely the first bird to be domesticated by humans. Native to the Middle East, parts of Europe, and east to India, the aptly named rock dove would build its nests in holes in rocky cliffs, flying short distances to find food to fulfill their diet of grains, berries, and seeds. In approximately 3000 BC, the first cities were built by people in the region. Towers made of mud, stone, and clay closely resembled the native cliff habitat of pigeons and were soon colonized by the birds. Feeding off our wastes and enjoying the reduced number of predators (raptors) found there, pigeons quickly adapted to urban living, prospering among us and often preferring the built environment to their own.
The human/pigeon mutualism further developed when people became aware of their value for both meat and manure. In order to enhance their habitat, niches were carved into towers (literal “pigeon holes”) and clay pots were hung. Both served as nesting spots for the birds, a very early form of reconciliation ecology that allowed urban pigeon populations to increase. The designed habitat made it easier to catch the birds (“squab”, the meat of a young pigeon, is considered a delicacy in many places to this day) and to collect their droppings in concentrated piles (“guano”, the manure of pigeons, is a potent nitrogen-rich agricultural fertilizer)[iv]. Shortly afterwards, “dovecotes” ― structures designed purely for the use of pigeons for roosting and breeding – were constructed. Dovecotes were built in a stunning variety of architectural forms, at times resembling beehives or miniature castles, that were common features not only in early cities but on European estates as well.
The ability to keep pigeons and maintain dovecotes has not always been equitably permitted. In 17th century France, only those in landowning professional classes could maintain dovecotes, and the number of pigeon nests within was determined by the size of their lands. The pigeons of the nobility were despised by local peasants as they fed on and caused significant damage to their crops. The unjust nature of pigeon keeping and the resentment it brewed are cited as contributing factors to the French Revolution, after which many dovecotes were destroyed (Cooke, 1920).
Pigeons have a highly developed homing instinct that allows them to navigate back to their home roosts, even after being transported away for many miles. The exact mechanism that they use to navigate is still not completely understood by scientists, but it’s believed to be a combination of magnetic sensors in their heads along with their use of visual clues. Pigeon’s homing abilities were recognized very early after their domestication and were utilized for sending messages at a speed much greater than over land travel. Early pigeon message delivery systems were created where written notes could be relayed by pigeons rapidly over great distances.
Fast forward to the present day, pigeon populations are enormous in most cities, with an estimated one to seven million birds or more living in New York City alone. The birds, largely brought over to North America by Europeans in the 1600s as a food source, have readily adapted to life in the modern metropolis (Nigro, 2012). Regarded with disgust by many, pigeons are often regarded as dirty, foul creatures that make messes and spread disease. Much money is spent trying to exterminate or control their populations, with nearly one billion dollars alone in the US each year. The bad reputation of pigeons is largely undeserved, however. While it’s true they may leave droppings, about twenty-five pounds per bird each year, (Mooallem, 2006) on buildings and statues causing some damage due to their acidity, people’s concerns regarding them are mostly cosmetic. Pigeons, like all animals, may carry certain human pathogens, however they rarely pose any significant risk to healthy individuals or to the public health at large despite sensationalistic reporting that has claimed the contrary (Haag-Wackernagel, 2004) (Jerolmack, 2008).
Today, pigeon raising is still common in cities, though not as prevalent as it once was. In many cities, pigeon coops on the roofs of row houses are a common sight. The pigeons kept in these coops are typically not the average feral pigeon but are fully domesticated breeds that have been raised specially for purposes ranging from racing to homing to pure fanciful showiness. Pigeon coops are mostly wooden structures with wire siding that protect the birds and create nesting spots for them. The owner will typically release the birds each morning, allowing them to fly about freely. Because pigeons have such a strong homing instinct, they will typically return to their coop each night, especially if nests are present and food is provided. Rooftop pigeon flying, a urban pastime that transcends racial and class boundaries, is increasingly threatened by the forces of gentrification which view it as being “messy” and unfavorable to upscale development (Berger, 2013).
Pigeons, chickens
Pigeons and chickens have been domesticated for longer than any other bird species. Pigeons, the first to be domesticated, outnumbered chickens for hundreds of years. Today, however, the inverse is true ― the number of domestic chickens has greatly exceeded that of pigeons. While there are currently an estimated 250 million pigeons on earth, chickens come it at a stunning 22.7 billion, most of which are bred in confined industrial farms for human consumption (Bennett, 2018). How can that shift, and discrepancy, be explained? Pigeons, simply stated, do not grow as big as chickens, and produce fewer eggs (a hen in her prime can lay one egg a day while a pigeon may lay one or two over several weeks). Also, because they’re not capable of sustained flight, chickens are easier to contain. Taken together, these factors have made chickens more amenable to concentrated, intensive farming practices, and has led to their subsequent human-assisted global population explosion.
In consideration of this, why would anyone choose to raise pigeons over chickens? If their desired goal is simply to produce food, it wouldn’t make much sense. Raising pigeons, however, provides benefits that make it a complimentary strategy to keeping pigeons.
Pigeons are unique among domestic animals in that they still can feed themselves through foraging, an ability that has otherwise been largely de-selected for in other domestic species. In a dovecote system, pigeons are provided shelter and nesting sites (and wintertime food) but are still allowed to fly freely in search of food, returning to the nest daily to deposit manure and rear their young. In urban applications then, when permitted to forage, pigeons could be thought of as “free-range” urban birds who uses the entire city as their “pasture”.
Chickens, by comparison, are far more dependent on having food provided to them by humans. In an urban area, there are few areas where it’s possible to raise free range chickens. Most chickens will need to be put in an enclosure, in order to protect them from predators and to keep them away from gardens, which they’ll destroy if allowed to have access to them. In an enclosed area, they will very quickly strip it of vegetation. Aside from the occasional bug that hops through, enclosed chickens will be entirely dependent on food being brought to them.
By raising chickens and pigeons together, it is possible to engage in both intensive (chicken) and extensive (pigeon) parallel and complimentary agricultural strategies. Pigeon and chickens can even share the same coop ― a secure structure that can protect them from nocturnal predators[v]. Pigeons will however need separate nesting boxes high up in the coop that chickens cannot access ― chickens would likely disturb a nesting pigeon and would probably eat their babies too!
A concern that immediately arises when discussing free range pigeons is whether they are accumulating toxins in their bodies by foraging in potentially contaminated areas. One study, examining the potential use of pigeons as bioindicators of lead toxicity, has documented how pigeon blood lead levels correlate with those of children in respective New York City neighborhoods (Cai, 2016). This would suggest that their may be some concern about eating free range urban pigeons ― blood lead levels are not necessarily indicative of levels in muscle tissue. As use of pigeon manure as a fertilizer is more common than eating pigeon flesh though, I have personally run an analysis of pigeon manure with an x-ray fluorescence machine and had detected negligible amounts in the sample (1.2 parts per million). More research in this area is warranted.
Pigeons at Radix
The Radix Center provides a home to a sizable flock of pigeons who share a coop shelter with our chickens. The pigeons use the same door entrance as the chickens, but have designated nesting boxes built at the top of the coop where they are protected from the chickens (adult pigeons and chickens get along just fine, however chickens will attempt to nest in pigeon boxes and will displace pigeons and eat their eggs in the process ― the pigeon boxes are placed at a height unreachable by flightless chickens and are additionally secured with entrance reducers that exclude chickens). Pigeons build their nests in these boxes, gluing sticks and twigs together with their own manure, where they raise their young.
Many people are surprised to learn that the pigeons were initially intentionally placed at Radix and are not just feral street pigeons that moved in on their own ― pigeons on purpose, as we say. Our pigeon colony began with a group of ten birds purchased from Broadway pigeon supply in Brooklyn at six dollars each. They were an odd mix of colors and breeds, some of them having “Jesus saves” printed on their plastic leg bands. They were kept inside the coop for two weeks before being allowed to fly free ― a process called “re-homing” through which they’ll accept the new coop as home base. Once adjusted, the birds were let out and were free to come and go as they choose. They’ll often spend the day outside, perched on the roofs of neighboring buildings and coming back to Radix to sleep and feed. I do not provide any special food for the pigeons ― they peck at the leftovers of whatever the chickens have been fed and drink from the same waterers. This food, and in addition to whatever they forage, is apparently enough for them to survive and breed ― at any given time there are likely babies being raised. Over the years, the population of pigeons has fluctuated considerably. Predator pressure has pushed it down at times, and at others there seem to be twenty or more birds living in the coop. I must admit that I do not keep track of individual birds, so I truly don’t know if any of the pigeons I have now are descended from the original group of pigeons I started with several years ago or if they have been entirely displaced and replaced by feral pigeons. While I have never eaten any of our pigeons, I do occasionally scrape out their manure and use it as a garden fertilizer.
While their manure is valuable, my main purpose for keeping pigeons is for their educational and symbolic value. On one level, they are one of the few agents at Radix who regularly leave the boundaries of the property, interact with, and mix with the outside community, and return on a regular basis (honeybees may be the only other example). This helps to break down (at least my own) perceived feelings about the “permeability” of the space ― energetic and material exchanges with the world outside Radix’s fence line promote mixing and make it feel like less of an “isolated” system. On an educational level, I routinely enjoy bringing a pigeon out for people to pet or hold. Despite regularly being around them, very few people have ever had any direct contact with a pigeon. By allowing people to interact with a one, they may question their own internalized attitudes about these “rats with wings” and hopefully better appreciate these beautiful and underappreciated birds. Pigeons also travel well. When visiting local elementary schools, I have brought pigeons with me as a way to teach about urban biodiversity. After giving students an opportunity to pet the bird, we then collectively release it and watch it fly (typically) back in the direction of Radix. When the same students later come to visit, they can once again see the same bird. In this way, the pigeon provides a way for children to think differently about the spatial relationship between Radix and their school.
Figure 1 Inside of Dovecote
Silkworms/Mulberries
Silkworms (Bombyx mori) are an insect that has been raised for many centuries for their use in producing silk fibers. While more domestic than semi-wild (arguably silkworms and honeybees are the only two domesticated insect species ― a result of the extent of genetic alteration they have undergone through selective breeding), I include them within the zone of reciprocity because of the obligate symbiosis between silkworms and mulberry trees (genus morus), upon whose leaves they exclusively feed. While domestic silkworms are not naturally found anywhere in North America and depend completely on humans for their survival, mulberries are a common ruderal (disturbance tolerant) tree that grows and spreads prolifically in urban environments. The relationship between this domestic insect, wild tree, and humans makes an interesting subject for the exploration of reciprocal urban biocultural diversity.
“Sericulture”, or raising silkworms for silk production, is a practice originating in China that dates back thousands of years (Barber, 1991). In it, larval silkworms are raised in protected environments and fed the leaves of mulberry trees[vi]. As a larval caterpillar, the silkworm undergoes a rapid transformation from a tiny egg to a nearly three-inch caterpillar in a matter of weeks, gaining nearly 10,000 times its original weight. Once its growth is complete, the silkworm will spin a cocoon around itself and undergo metamorphoses into an adult silkmoth. In silk culture, this process is interrupted by placing the cocoons in an oven, or in boiling water. This kills the insect and allows people to begin unwinding the single silk thread that makes up the cocoon (about 1,000 yards in length). It is from these silk threads that silken fabrics are woven (unwinding the cocoons is a terribly labor-intensive process ― one of the reasons why commercial silk production was not widely practiced in North America[vii]). Were it allowed to complete its metamorphoses, an adult silkmoth would emerge from the cocoon as a flightless white moth that only lives for a short period, long enough only to mate and (for females) lay eggs. Because it can’t fly and contrasts so much against green leaves, it would have little chance of surviving predation in the wild and therefore poses no threat of being invasive.
While silkworms are not raised for their silk fibers at Radix, they are valued as a feedstock for animals. The mature silkworm caterpillars (or their pupae) make an excellent, high protein, fat, and calcium feed for chickens or fish (silkworm pupae are also commonly eaten by humans). By avoiding having to unwind silk cocoons, the labor costs of raising silkworms are hugely reduced. Furthermore, the droppings or “frass” produced by silkworms make a valuable fertilizer.
Apart from any utilitarian purpose, silkworms make a fantastic educational tool for children. For one, they are an extremely docile, slow-moving insect that will neither bite, sting, attempt to run away or escape confinement. Their skin is soft and fleshy and can easily be held in a child’s hand. These factors alone are great for helping children to extend empathy to insects, a group of animals that have a high “yuck factor” ― connection with them reduces disgust sensitivity and fosters compassion towards non-humans. Beyond this, their rapid growth rate and ease of care make them an effective learning tool for children with limited attention spans.
Figure 2 Silkworms
Mulberry Symbioses
Mulberries are a type of tree in the genus Morus consisting of several species found throughout the world. Morus rubra, or the red mulberry, is native to the Eastern United States and is often hybridized with the non-native white mulberry. Along with the black mulberry, these three species are commonly found in disturbed locations throughout urban environments. Producing delicious berries, mulberry fruits are enjoyed by humans and birds alike and are widespread on account of the latter’s dispersion of seeds. Some cities are home to large concentrations of mulberries (or “moriculture” farms) that are the surviving legacy of bygone attempts at establishing an American silk industry[viii].
I have found mulberries to be numerous enough in Albany that it is possible to collect enough leaves on my way to the Radix Center to sufficiently feed a colony of one-hundred plus silkworms without having any noticeable impact on the tree’s density of foliage. Regardless, I have planted them in numbers at the Radix Center for their multiple other uses. Extremely fast growing, I have placed mulberries around the periphery of the chicken run to provide shade and food for the chickens (by shaking the branches, I can cause multiple berries to drop inside the chicken’s fence, which they quickly devour). Berries not eaten by chickens become food for humans (great for jams) or for wild birds (who are far better at accessing berries in the tall, thin branches). Furthermore, the proximity of the mulberry leaves makes feeding silkworms a more convenient task.
Figure 3 Silkmoth
Maple Trees
In the late winter, when daytime temperatures push above freezing ― yet still fall below the freeze point in the night – and the number of daylight hours start to increase, the sap of maple trees (genus Acer) starts to flow from its roots to its buds as it prepares for the coming spring. The environmental triggers of temperature and light entice the tree to convert starches (stored throughout the winter in its roots) into sugars, which are carried in liquid sap upwards through the trees’ vascular system. By creating small holes in the trees’ bark, the sugary sap (a two-percent sugar content) can be collected and boiled down into maple syrup, a deliciously sweet product that is now known and sold worldwide. When employing best practices, maple trees can be sustainably tapped year after year without negatively impacting the health of trees (Berg, 2012). In this sense, maple tapping is regarded as a sustainable non-timber use of tree products, and has parallels with similar practices throughout the world including rubber tapping, pulque, and palm wine production (Osa, 2013). The flow of sap is one the first signs of spring in the region ― connection with it gives a feeling of movement, life, and animacy during a time of year that may otherwise feel endlessly bleak. While traditionally associated closely with rural life and spaces, maple tapping can be carried out in urban environments as well with little modification. A fun and multi-sensory activity, tapping urban maple trees is an excellent way to foster a sense of reciprocity, biocultural diversity and urban forest justice (Poe, Urban forest justice and the rights to wild foods, medicines, and materials in the city, 2013) among participating youth.
Maple tapping is a technology originally developed by indigenous peoples of eastern North America for whom it had great nutritional and cultural significance (Kimmerer, 2013), and is still practiced by their descendants today (Murphy, 2009). The practice was thereafter adopted by European settlers in the northeastern US and Canada (for a time maple sugar was regarded by Northern abolitionists as a morally-preferable, locally made alternative to cane sugar produced through slave labor (Sturges, 2018)). While traditionally carried out by hanging hand-collected buckets from taps or “spiles” in the sides of trees and boiling off water with locally harvested firewood, maple extraction in the later 20th century has expanded into a large-scale industry that produces millions of gallons annually. Employing yield-increasing technologies such as reverse osmosis and vacuum pumps, industrialized sugarbushes consist of miles of tubing crisscrossing the forest that deliver sap to fossil fuel powered evaporators. More recently, a high-yield method has been developed that involves cutting the tops off sapling maples that, when coupled with sophisticated technology, effectively transforms maple tapping from a perennial semi-wild practice into a highly controlled annual monoculture (Brown, 2013). The high capital costs of these innovations have made it extremely difficult for small-scale maple producers to remain competitive (Gorelick, 2016). The focus of this section will be upon more traditional technologies and practices requiring reduced capital and energetic expenses.
Within their North American range (primarily the northern and eastern half of the country, extending into southern Canada), maple trees form dense stands and are often the dominant tree species in particular ecosystems (Duchesne, 2005). The trees are abundant inside of cities within this extent as well, with maples consisting of eighty percent of all street trees in Worcester, Mass. (the trees were planted extensively in the 1950s on account of their availability and shading however they are now threatened by the Asian long-horned beetle) (Green, 2008). While the sugar maple (Acer saccharum) is regarded as producing the best quantity and quality of syrup, it is possible to produce fine syrup from any tree in the acer genus including red maples, silver maples, box elders, and the Norway maple (other tree species, such as sycamores, birches, and walnuts are also tap-able but will result in low yields) (Farrell, 2013).
At the Radix Center, maple syrup production is an integral component of our urban ecosystem justice curriculum. Each year we are granted a permit from the City of Albany to tap the stands of maple trees in neighboring Lincoln Park, as well as a number of trees on public school campuses. Youth are engaged in every aspect of the process including selecting trees to be tapped, drilling and tapping, regular sap collection, and sap boiling/syrup finishing. The finished maple syrup (which does not legally need to be produced in a commercial kitchen ― unlike jams, jellies, and other added value products) can then be sold by the youth throughout the year[ix].
Figure 4 Tapped Maple Trees – Photo by Cait DennyFigure 5 Boiling Sap
Scaling up
Once you have mastered small scale syrup making, you could consider scaling up your production. At Radix, we put out approximately (50) five-gallon buckets and taps to collect sap. Large buckets are too heavy to be hung from spiles when full, so they are placed on the ground and a length of sap tubing is run from the spile through a tight-fitting hole in the lid of the bucket (buckets must be kept sealed in order to keep out rain). Sap is collected on a regular basis and transferred to a large storage barrel/pot that is kept cool by being packed in snow (it is important to keep sap cool ― if it gets too warm it becomes vulnerable to bacterial contamination/fermentation).
Black Soldier Flies
Another insect within the “zone of reciprocity” that can be partnered with for purposes of both protein production and waste management is the black soldier fly. Black soldier flies (Hermetia illucens), or BSF, are a species of fly in the family Stratiomyidae that superficially resemble a wasp more than a fly. They have beautifully iridescent wings, stubby antennae, and streamlined bodies. Slow flyers incapable of biting or stinging, they can be picked up and handled without difficulty, often landing on humans while resting. As adults, they do not eat – all their feeding is done while in their larval states. Since adults have no interest in food, they do not buzz around picnic tables or come into kitchens and spread disease in the way that common house flies do (BSF larvae actively compete with house fly maggots, further reducing their pestilence). Upon metamorphosizing into an adult, BSF only live for a few days ― long enough to reproduce, lay eggs, then die shortly afterwards. A short, elegant cycle of living and dying.
Figure 6 Black Soldier Fly
While in their larval phase, BSF are voracious consumers of organic wastes, particularly “putrescent” wastes including meat, dairy, manures, carcasses, and cheese ― high nutrient materials prone to putrefaction, decay, and odors that are otherwise difficult to compost with conventional methods. Despite being historically regarded as a pest (Tomberlin, 2020), the ability of black soldier flies to rapidly consume putrescent wastes has now been widely recognized and studied and has been put into use throughout the world (Nguyen, 2015)[x]. BSF composting can be carried out on scales ranging from the mega-industrial to the micro-sized DIY and can be either rigorously controlled or minimally managed (Nana, 2018). This scalability and accessibility makes BSF composting a promising tool of both urban and rural communities for ecological regeneration, particularly for upcycling putrescent wastes into fertilizer and feedstock.
In addition to their waste reduction capabilities, BSF have also been heavily studied for their use as a livestock feed. Rich in both fat and protein, BSF larvae will be gleefully eaten by chickens, reptiles, and notably, fish ― therein potentially helping to reduce the aquaculture industry’s use of bycatch-based feeds (a significant cause of oceanic depletion and obstacle to the development of sustainable fish farming) (Swinscoe, 2019). While significant legal and cultural boundaries remain, there is also considerable interest in growing BSF as a protein source for humans (Wang, 2017). Not without precedent, BSF entomophagy remains a practice of some traditional societies (Chung, 2010)[xi]. Topping off their list of benefits are the facts that BSF wastes, a dark-crumbly compost, are themselves excellent gardens fertilizers (Sarpong, 2019) and that the fatty oils in BSF may be extruded and used as a fuel for bio-powered maggot-mobiles (Li, 2011). By upcycling waste products into a edible protein, BSF have promising potential to create more cyclical urban metabolisms in regards to both waste and food.
BSF are native to the Americas, although they can now be found throughout many tropical and temperate regions of the world, having been either intentionally or accidentally introduced[xii]. As adults are most active when temperatures are above 80F, low temperatures have limited their northward migration (Spranghers, 2017)[xiii]. Due to climate change, however, the range of the BSF will surely increase, along with that of many other insect species (Bradshaw, 2016). Without any solid data to support it, I have personally observed BSF in northern locales with greater frequency over the past decade. I suspect that their larvae are surviving winters inside of outdoor compost piles, which provide both heat a food source. It is possible that BSF occurrence in cities is greater than surrounding rural areas, with the urban heat island and abundance of organic waste giving them an edge on survival as it does similarly for other insects (Frank, 2020).
Figure 7 Soldier Fly Larvae
Relationships
Despite many years of trying, I have never been reliably successful in controlling the breeding and growth of the black soldier fly. My attempts at containing and intensively managing their life cycle have been hit or (mostly) miss, with successes often being accidental and short lived. A dense colony of BSF raised in confinement will frequently collapse for no apparent reason, some aspect of humidity, temperature, food, pathology, or other unknown variable causing them to tail-spin into a positive feedback loop of mass sudden die-off. This doesn’t mean I have not had robust BSF cultures on our land, they have just been in open-air compost piles under minimally-managed conditions, living, reproducing, and dying on their own terms. I provide them with food waste and in return they rapidly consume it, giving me finished compost as a by-product (along with the ability to occasionally harvest some of their larvae as animal feed). This resistance to total domestication and regulation is partly what makes BSF fascinating to me ― they thrive under open, chaotic, semi-wild, conditions, willing to engage in reciprocal ecological relationships, but with their own agency.
BSF’s resistance to being contained does not mean that it is impossible. On the contrary, there are industrial-scale BSF breeding facilities throughout the world that seek to reduce, mechanize, and standardize the fly’s life cycle so that it may carried out continuously while in confinement without regard for outside environmental conditions or seasonal fluctuations and producing neither odors nor offense ― an entirely regulated biological waste consumption machine fully compatible with the aesthetic demands of modernity. Environmental anthropologist Amy Zhang brilliantly explores this “circularity and enclosure” in an ethnography of a Chinese facility tasked with mending a city’s broken ecological waste metabolism with BSF while crafting an illusion of seamless techno-utopianism (Zhang, 2020).
Cultivation of BSF can happen on a micro-scale as well ― there are multiple online DIY designs for BSF composters that use little more than a five-gallon bucket and some tubing, as well as several pre-manufactured molded plastic BSF composters that are commercially available. They all feature a container where BSF larvae are kept and where food waste is deposited for them to eat. The designs take advantage of the “self-harvesting” behavior of BSF ― upon pupation, the larvae will climb up a ramp to a drier, higher spot where it is easier to fly away from after becoming a winged adult. The deceptive ramp terminates in a hole through which the BSF fall ― into a collection bucket where they are then gathered. Unlike house flies, BSF do not lay their eggs directly into food but instead in a nearby location. When the eggs hatch, the baby larvae will crawl to the food source. The designs also take advantage of this trait, allowing the adults to deposit their eggs on the outside of the container, but leaving small openings for the larvae to crawl through.
It may be possible to keep a colony alive through the winter in an enclosed BSF composter. Soldier fly larvae produce a great deal of heat through their own metabolic processes. Provided they are sufficiently fed, this heat can be enough to keep the larvae alive and active. Although they will not be hatching into adults until the warm weather returns, the larval colony can still be kept alive and continue to process putrescent wastes. Raising BSF in cold climates is an active field of research (Alvarez, 2012).
Figure 8 Insectorium
The alternative to raising BSF in a designated composter is to instead cultivate them in a semi-wild manner where they can effectively reduce wastes without continual maintenance on your behalf (it will also be less convenient to harvest the larvae). The first step in building a reciprocal relationship with BSF is to establish a healthy local population. Compost piles make ideal sites for BSF colonization, providing both food and warmth to the larvae and offering the possibility of overwintering a population. If BSF are already abundant in your area, they will likely arrive in a compost pile on their own. If they are not already common, or if you want to speed up the rate of colonization, another strategy is to “seed” a local population. This can be done by purchasing a container of black soldier flies, commonly sold as a reptile food under various trade names. While the greater the number of larvae you initially inoculate a compost pile with will determine the likelihood of success, between 250-500 larvae is a good start. Once a population is established, a colony can grow at a nearly exponential rate, as the female BSF (which are attracted to pheromones given off by the larvae) will lay upwards of 500 eggs each (Givens, 2013). While compost piles dominated by BSF can have putrescent foods put in them, be sure all the food waste is being eaten before adding more so as not to create odor problems. Larvae can be easily harvested from pile, as they typically congregate at its top. Pushing aside the top few inches of material will reveal them, after which they can be collected with a small shovel or a spoon. Provided the compost pile is large and fresh enough, it may continue to produce enough heat through the winter to keep the population of BSF alive. During the cold season, the larvae may migrate to the core of the pile where it is the warmest and may not be visible near its surface.
Educational Applications
It would be hard to describe black soldier fly larvae as being beautiful ― admittedly the first time I ever saw them, they filled me with feelings of disgust ― super-sized maggots crawling throughout food waste slime in a compost pile. For this reason, they will likely trigger “disgust sensitivity” (Jensen, 2019) within most people, particularly among those unfamiliar with the composting process.
Honeybees and Native Bees
Honeybees are a type of eusocial (Gowdy, 2013) insect that has been kept, tended, or cultivated by humans for their honey and other products for over seven thousand years (Oldroyd, 2012). While the western honeybee (Apis mellifera) is the species most raised today, there are traditions of harvesting honey from several bee species throughout the world (including Melipona beecheii, a stingless bee which was raised by the Maya in the Yucatan (Villanueva-G, 2005)). The western honeybee, originally native to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East (Han, 2012), has now been spread by humans throughout the globe with an estimated ninety million kept beehives worldwide.
Industrial monocultural agriculture is highly dependent on Apis mellifera, relying on them nearly exclusively to pollinate a great number of flowering staple food crops including almonds, apples, blueberries, melons, broccoli, and others. Insufficient insect pollination results in low or no fruit set, and cannot be substituted by technological means (despite dangerous technofix attempts such as robot bees (Potts, 2018)). Making a migratory loop throughout the country (a process that is highly stressful to bees (Simone-Finstrom, 2016)), commercial beekeepers transport hives via truck bed to different farms as their crops start to bloom and are an integral part of the world’s commercial food system. While much concern has been raised about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a still-mysterious and multi-causal affliction that caused significant losses of beehives in the early 2000s (Andrews, 2019), CCD poses more of a threat towards industrialized food production than to insect pollinators populations in general (although many of CCD’s causes ― pesticides and habitat destruction ― are also contributing to the broader losses of “the insect apocalypse” (Goulson, 2019), and honeybees populations serve as a proxy for insect health at large).
Although modern day beekeeping is a highly managed practice that can involve genetic manipulation and the use of pharmaceuticals and pesticides, I still situate honeybees in a semi-wild, reciprocal zone category that is resistant to both domestication and domination. Even in the most chemically dependent and intensively monitored commercial beekeeping operations, there is a recognition of the bees’ own powerful agency in their relationships with humans along with a sense of collaboration vs. control that distinguishes bees from other livestock such as chickens or cows (Nimmo, 2015). For one, honeybees defy containment and property boundaries ― as honeybees have a typical foraging range of two to three miles (Beekman, 2000), no fence, netting, or structure can be built to confine them. Like the pigeons at Radix, bees are transgressive agents ― freely leaving the site and providing community pollinating services to neighborhood gardens abound. When a colony has grown too large or if conditions are less than ideal, the hive can abscond outright in full or in part by “swarming” – leaving their human manufactured boxes and taking up residence elsewhere in a tree, wall cavity, or other hollow structure. Visible as a dark and writhing mass of bees clinging to a tree branch, “wild swarms” originating from these feral colonies can with skill and luck in turn be “captured” and relocated to a bee box, providing a beekeeper with a free colony of local winter-hardy bees. In the springtime, when bees typically swarm, I often receive calls from panicked residents notifying me of a swarm in need of removal. Assuming they are dangerous, few realize that bees are exceptionally docile when swarming. Despite multiple attempts, I have yet still to be successful in collecting a wild swarm, a reminder to me of bees own wild agency and fiercely independent spirit.
Figure 9 Honeybees at Radix
Raising honeybees in urban environments has become more popular in recent years (Moore, 2013), with beekeepers maintaining hives in underutilized spaces such as vacant parcels, parking lots, and rooftops. Honeybees are kept at Radix primarily for their service as pollinators (we allow them to keep the honey they produce to improve their chances of surviving the winter). With thousands of young to feed and a willingness to forage from a wide range of plants, honeybees are highly effective pollinators, greatly boosting the yields of fruit trees and vegetables alike. They also are fantastic for educational purposes ― it is great for children to taste raw honey straight from a comb or to handle a non-stinging drone (male) bee.
It is made clear to visitors, however, that honeybee pollination is a parallel strategy to supporting native pollinating bees. Recognizing the challenges of beekeeping (CCD, varroa mites, nosema disease) and that Apis Mellifera is not native to North America, we simultaneously create habitat and food for the hundreds of species pollinating bees, wasps, butterflies, and other insects native to New York (Cornell, 2020). While not honey producing, when present in sufficient numbers these native insects can provide pollination services that are equal to (Winfree, 2007) or potentially better than (MacInnis, 2019) honeybees. For certain pollinators, such as mason bees, we will construct housing and nesting tubes called “insect hotels” to enhance their productivity (Fortel, 2016). Our main strategy for supporting native insects, however, is to allow spontaneous vegetation to arise and go to flower in the marginal spaces alongside of gardens, creating un-mowed urban meadows (Norton, 2019). Pollinators drawn to the flowers of the wild plants will also be attracted to the blossoms of the nearby vegetables and fruit trees, therein creating food security and biodiversity enhancement simultaneously. In this way, it is possible to illustrate biocultural diversity, demonstrating to urban youth clear linkages of how the well-being of insects is interwoven with food production and in turn their personal, family, and community’s health.
Figure 10 Mason Bees Emerging from Bee Hotel
Wine Cap Stropharia
The last example of semi-wild relationships I wish to describe, if only briefly, is the cultivation of the wine cap stropharia (Stropharia rugosoannulata). Wine caps are a gourmet edible type of litter decomposing fungi that thrive in non-sterile environments, growing rapidly throughout substrates such as soil and wood chips. At the Radix Center, wine caps are grown in the chipped walkways between garden beds and the mulch donuts around the bases of fruit trees. When conditions are right (typically spring and fall following a rain) the mushrooms will fruit and grow to enormous sizes approaching ten inches in diameter (thus the reason for their moniker “garden giants”). The mycelial lenses, or clusters of woodchips tightly bound with fungal hyphae, can be transplanted into new areas to start new wine cap colonies. Provided they are “fed” new wood chips on an annual basis, stropharia patches will reliably produce each year. I include this fungal species within the zone of reciprocity on account of its predilection for non-sterile habitats. Many other edible fungi species demand highly specific growing substrates and conditions and must often be initially cultured in sterile laboratory conditions with technical expertise and significant capital costs. Furthermore, sterilizing or pasteurizing the grain or straw substrates needed by these fungal strains is time and energy intensive. The technical and financial requirements of these fungi limit the number of people on a global scale who may be able to cultivate them. The fact that wine caps may be grown in literally dirty conditions, and then may be propagated and shared through simple division, greatly increase the potential for them to be grown on a broad scale. While their fruiting times may be somewhat irregular and defy attempts at precise control, they nonetheless can provide a fairly reliable protein source to their human counterparts, placing them in the category of “semi-wild”.
Beyond being a food source, research has revealed the potential of using wine-caps for mycoremediation of a number of organic pollutants that contaminate urban soils (see the Urban Soil Justice chapter for more details) (Pozdnyakova, 2018) (Valentín, 2013) (Castellet-Rovira, 2018). Their ability to rapidly spread through the soils of polluted vacant parcels while oozing enzymes makes them a promising candidate for remediating toxins in the heterogynous, uncontrolled, wild and dirty environments that are urban brownfields.
Figure 11 Wine Cap Stropharia – photo by Ben Atwood
Conclusion – Zoonoses and the Limits of Nature-Society Reunification
This chapter has demonstrated relationships and pathways between humans and the semi-wild that attempt to bridge the duality of nature and society, a false dichotomy that I believe lies at the core of many of the attitudes and behaviors that drive ecological degradation and human exploitation. An emerging area of study (that is underexplored in this chapter) is around the idea of urban microbial rewilding, or designing urban spaces to maximize their microbial diversity for public health benefit (Flies, 2018) (Mills, 2017). This is a fascinating and important field of research as studies have suggested that many autoimmune disorders may be attributed in part to a lack of exposure to beneficial microorganisms in early childhood (Wasko, 2020) (Panelli, 2020). Are there, however, potential negative consequences that might result from the haphazard mixing of species and their associated microbiomes? Even before the creation of the nature-human dualism, were there still some codes of respect, distance, and balance that maintained the discordant harmony between human and non-human worlds that must now be remembered? Despite these codes, did unintentional crossovers still occur that created disruptions? Zoonoses, diseases with origins in non-human animals (chiefly viruses and bacteria), are a reminder and manifestation of what potentially can occur when species overlap and combine in novel configurations.
The Earth’s virosphere is vast, with estimates of potentially ten trillion species yet to be discovered (Zimmer, 2020). The vast majority of those viruses co-exist with humans non-threateningly, with viral endosymbiosis being a major driver of evolutionary transformation (Margulis, 2008). Occasionally, however, a virus will jump from one species to another and cause illness in its efforts to co-evolve (generally to a less virulent strain). The human consequences of these zoonotic illnesses can be devastating, with the histories of bubonic plague, smallpox, measles, certain influenzas, HIV, rabies, Lyme disease, and Ebola illustrating the potential effects. Many of these zoonoses are the result of agricultural intensification, animal domestication, and ecological disturbance (Jones, 2013) ― when species are driven out of their normal habitat or when they are newly hunted, opportunities are created for viral spillover (Quammen, 2012).
As I write this, we are in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, another zoonotic virus originating in bats that has crossed over to humans, taking over a million human lives so far (Mega, 2020) and wreaking havoc upon the world. Coronavirus is very much a disease of the Anthropocene, with ecological disturbance, social inequality, hyper-connectivity, and political ineptitude compounding to amplify the suffering created by it (O’Callaghan-Gordo, 2020). In this way, COVID-19 has served as a grim reminder of our planetary inter-connectivity, exposing the myths of individual or national isolation and separation for the dangerous illusions that they are.
With so much effort now to control the spread of the disease through its focus on vaccines, contact tracing, masks, and so on, the public health discourse frames the coronavirus as a uniquely human challenge. While appreciating this urgency, and acknowledging that good work has been done in mapping the socio-economic and environmental inequities of the disease (Bowleg, 2020) (Lenzen, 2020), I would hope that a parallel discourse could be undertaken that frames covid-19 and zoonoses in general as a more-than-human phenomena, planning prevention of future pandemics with the most holistic strategies. Specifically, I am eager to avoid an overly technocratic response to future disease threats that creates greater ecological alienation, further separating nature from society and placing blame upon the world’s poorest. Such holistic frameworks are already being developed, with the platforms of one-health, eco-health, and planetary health providing global systems-level analyses of the interrelationship of human and ecological health (Lerner, 2017). Further philosophical work needs to be undertaken that frames pandemic response as a post-normal science embracing complexity, and that re-narrativizes the human-nonhuman relationship (Waltner-Toews, 2017). In this analyses, concerns about social justice, power, politics and global equity must also remain central, resisting the tendency of affluent researchers in the Global North to place the responsibility for causing and preventing disease upon subsistence farmers and hunters (Asayama, 2020) (Scoones, 2018).
I’m eager to avoid policies enacted to prevent future pandemics that favor practices of agricultural modernization that would further erode traditional lifeways. For instance, there has already been a push to confine chickens to darkened and cramped enclosures to prevent any possibility of them mixing with wild bird populations and being exposed to avian flu (Davis, 2006). Along with the forced preventative culling of backyard chicken flocks, such actions were taken in Cairo, Egypt in 2005 under the logic of “biosecurity” recommended by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (Hinchliffe S. a., 2008). These measures unquestionably increase the profits of a handful of centralized industries and destroy a critical component of food security for the urban poor. While the threat of disease is serious, I believe it is important to implement more measured approaches that:
Emphasize best practices of health and safety for small-scale poultry flocks (recognizing that birds that are well-fed, non-stressed, spaced apart, genetically diverse, and exposed to sunlight are less likely to get sick than their inbred counterparts in confined operations)
Question the dynamics of power and access as they relate to who controls the food supply
Recognize that cities are multi-species environments where inter-species entanglement is inherent (Nading, 2013).
Keeping these principles in mind, and in anticipation of the authoritarian technocratic policies potentially to be rushed in following the end of the coronavirus pandemic, I believe it is time to re-examine the “politics of conviviality” (Hinchliffe S. a., 2006) that describe the “recombinant ecologies” of cities and the multi-species co-evolutionary assemblages they are. Let us hope that biosecurity mindsets driven by fear and the impulse to control do not further modernize urban ecosystems by segregating and exterminating species, but rather foster relationships of reciprocity and respect that recognize the enormous fluidity and interchange that occurs between species and their exchanging virospheres. It is my hope that the relationships outlined in this chapter may provide a few examples of how just and reciprocal urban biocultural diversity may be cultivated.
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[i] See concepts like “biophilic cities” (Beatley, 2011)
[ii] The exact causes of the luxury effect are debated – it may result from wealthier resident’s preferences for more biodiverse areas, or be a consequence of the large “cultured diversity” of cultivated ornamental plants found in wealthier neighborhoods. In my own experience and that of others (Ryznar, 2001), I have noticed multiple exceptions to the luxury effect where low-income neighborhoods seem to have higher rates of biodiversity on account of the preponderance of un-maintained and forested lots/parks/cemeteries that unintentionally function as biodiversity refuges.
[iii] I will emphasize by restating that this is indeed a continuum – in no way intend to reify the false dualism between the domestic in the wild. Rather, I see “domestic” and “wild” as vague poll points of reference along a spectrum of possible relationships. Many times, species will easily move from one poll towards another. “Feral” animals are a good example of this – once domesticated species or their descendants becoming less co-dependent on humans. Similarly, formerly wild species can become synanthropic – tolerant of humans and successful at co-habitation with them.
[iv] Later in history, pigeon manure was used for both tanning leathers and for manufacturing saltpeter, an additive in gun powder. Additionally there are stories of British and French armies fueling their war machines with the huge guano piles commandeered from the pigeon coops of wealthy landowners.
[v] It should be mentioned, though, that pigeons are definitely at risk from aerial predators, such as falcons and hawks. Many birds of prey, in fact, choose to nest in skyscrapers, attracted to cities by the abundant pigeon food supply. There’s not much that can be done to protect free range pigeons from raptors. You just have to hope that, considering how many pigeons live in cities, statistically your birds are less likely to be hunted).
[vi] While Bombyx mori is the most commonly raised species of silkworm, there are other domestic and semi-wild species of silkworm that eat other species of plants besides mulberries.
[vii] It should be noted that the global silk industry has often relied upon bonded child labor (especially in India) in order to produce its products – essentially a form of slavery with terrible working conditions for children (Human Rights Watch, 2003).
[viii] Florence, Massachusetts is one example. The 19th century utopian community “Northampton Association of Education and Industry” (of which Sojourner Truth was a member) once ran a cooperative silk industry there (Clark, 2019).
[ix] Before the project began, we were concerned about the potential for lead or other contaminants to be soluble in the liquid sap and to concentrate in the finished syrup. After being unsuccessful in finding any published studies regarding the safety of urban syrups, we partnered with researchers at Siena College to run an analysis of the finished product. Their testing with an X-ray fluorescence machine revealed concentrations of metals in the Albany syrup that were comparable to those found in a control sample taken from a rural location.
[x] The internet is full of time lapse videos displaying soldier fly’s ability to reduce various animal carcasses to bones in matters of hours.
[xi] Care should be always be taken to be certain that BSF are dead before being consumed as they are capable of otherwise surviving in the human digestive track, resulting in the horrific condition of myiasis (Lee, 1995).
[xii] The potential impact of black soldier flies on ecosystems to which they are not native is understudied, however at least one study has rung the alarm bell following their apparent escape from a breeding facility (Jonsell, 2017)
[xiii] Inaturalist data shows BSF ranging into the northeastern US and parts of northern Europe (Villazana, 2019)
One of the root causes of inequity is urban and rural differentiation
I previously wrote about how 
But more visible than the negative and stereotypical portrayals of Aboriginal peoples in mainstream media is their absence in film, literature, etc. Of particular interest for me is that absence within children’s media and in school curriculums (the latter of which is emphasized as a key call to action in the TRC). Less than 1 percent of children’s cartoon characters and 0.09 percent of video game characters are Aboriginal (Leavitt et al. 2015). In Canada there are few children’s books written by Aboriginal individuals that make it onto school reading lists or library and bookstore displays, especially in large bookstores such as Chapter-Indigos. Yet there are many wonderful Aboriginal authors. For example, my daughter has a great book called 
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Foraging is not just about recreational engagements with city plants. 
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