Biophilic design as informed by women can foster healthier and more beautiful places and holds the potential to rectify the negative impacts that brutalist architecture descending from modernist planning has codified in sterile and unsociable housing schemes.
Nestled within the lively and restless Leith neighbourhood stands the iconic curved structure of Cables Wynd House, immortalised in Irvine Welsh’s novel “Trainspotting” and referred to by locals as the Banana Flats. Constructed in the 1960s, Cables Wynd is considered one of Britain’s greatest post-war buildings designed in the Brutalist concrete style, widely deployed within the ambitious urban redevelopment initiatives of the time. As one of Scotland’s premier examples of ‘Brutalist’ architecture, the building received an “A” listing in 2017 from Historic Environment Scotland. This designation signifies the highest level of historic recognition a building can attain in Scotland. How is it to live in such a building from a woman’s perspective?
A voyage from brutalism to biophilia. Credit: May East
In my recent research conducted through walking interviews with 274 women in Perth, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, which culminated in the book What if Women Designed the City?, several participants referred to how they learned to live but not love modernist social estates.
Cables Wynd a striking piece of modern architecture. Credit: May East
There are multiple ways to describe the capacity of a system to change and reinvent itself. What follows is an exploration of how biophilia could bring more vitality and viability to the bio-cultural-spatial uniqueness of brutalist-inspired social housing of the past through the eyes of women, seen as experts in their housing estates.
Why is Brutalist architecture so uncanny?
Brutalism is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in Europe and the United Kingdom before spreading to other places of the world. In the UK, it informed the reconstruction projects of the post-war era intended to replenish the battered housing stocks while raising the living conditions of the inner-city population residing in Victorian tenements throughout the country.
Brutalism emerged at a time of urgent need for large-scale, affordable residential architecture (van Huyssteen, 2022). Modernist planning was a popular idea and used as a solution to subdue, rescue, and transform the crowded, dirty, lively experience of street life, replacing them with the sterilised functionalism and alienating environments of new peripheral social housing estates. This process in the United Kingdom became known as “slum clearance”.
The overarching philosophy behind Brutalism focused on developing functional buildings with no ornamentation. Its distinctive architectural language is characterized by exposed raw concrete surfaces, heavy geometric forms, small windows with a minimum amount of solar exposure, rough and unfinished surfaces (Calder, 2012). Despite its blocky appearance, the term “brutalism” does not directly refer to the harsh or brutal appearance of the buildings. In fact, it’s a word play on the French term for raw concrete ― “béton brut”. Concrete is the second most utilised material globally, following water.
Regardless, the perceived indestructibility of béton brut was unfounded and the materials posed recurrent challenges for residents. Indeed, it did not take long for walls and structures to begin to deteriorate from the inside due to damp penetration, leaking balconies, and localised flooding. The outside realm was no less challenging, characterised by often badly lit streets and walkways, and windy, pointless, lonely, and dangerous open spaces empty of receptacle-like properties of the khôra (Derrida,1993) for the community to gather.
“What the planners gave us was houses, they gave us car parks and roads and nothing else” (Mary Queen, The Huts, Channel 4 documentary on Wester Hailes housing estate, 1985).
Over time, Brutalism became associated with urban decay and decline, due to the architectural style, flimsiness of materials, and an absence of meaningful public spaces between the buildings. It was suggested that the modernist style was to blame for a series of social problems such as segregation, drug trafficking, and crime. Before becoming a historic expression of architecture, Brutalism began to fade away in the 1980s, where it increasingly came to be regarded as cold, alienating, and detrimental to residents’ well-being.
Design and construction materials affect people, their sense of place, and stimulate health or illness. Credit: May East
The Functional City
Brutalism was deeply rooted in the concept of the “functional city”, which had shaped earlier modernist architectural principles. These principles were formed during recurrent conferences of architects in the Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM), founded in 1928, and exemplified in Le Corbusier’s famous Unité d’Habitation in Marseille, France ― a post-war social housing project for 1,600 people.
The Athens Charter, supposedly produced by CIAM IV in 1933 (Gold, 1998) advocated for a functional and methodical land policy, with a rational separation of living, working, mobility, and leisure activities. Large-scale, tall, and widely spaced apartment blocks spread through rigid functional arteries and rational plans (Giedion, 1951) began to dominate over pre-existing aestheticism and the chaotic mesh of streets, shops, and residences.
“The short narrow street of the slum succeeds where spacious redevelopment frequently fails.” British architects Alison and Peter Smithson, who led a breakaway from CIAM in 1956.
The Athens Charter remains one of the most controversial trends in urban planning and still informs the core planning techniques adopted in zoning approaches, even if applied more flexibly at times. The urban form and spatial planning it promoted have had a lasting effect on the lives of contemporary women, particularly those residents of modernist housing schemes such as Cables Wind and Wester Hailes in Edinburgh and Drumchapel in Glasgow.
Infusing Biophilia into Brutalism
The word biophilia originates from the Greek, “philia” meaning “love of” and bio signifying “life”. It refers to the inherent bonds humans can form with the other species and living systems they rely on. Biophilic urban design attempts to address the disconnect between people and the natural world brought about by the built environment and urban lifestyles.
Embedded in their everyday experience of the city, the participating women of my recent research were invited to reveal existing and potential opportunities for bringing more vitality and viability into the heart of their urban worlds. Based on these rich exchanges, women identified several biophilic leverage points that may infuse liveliness into their Brutal housing estates while supporting them and others who live in the areas to enhance their sense of belonging.
Awakening biophilia as a collective urban exercise. Credit: May East
Reconnecting Broken Links
A participant of Wester Hailes in Edinburgh argued that “there is a broken link between inside and outside, with most of the community buildings such as the churches, social hubs very closed in, meaning you sit inside and cannot see outside”. In this context, and in particular with those members of the community who have ill health, “all they do is they go to these hubs, and they go back home’, and consequently they go ‘from one inside to the next inside”.
To open people up and lift their senses, women proposed bridging indoors with outdoors, spreading colour, natural materials, and paving the way to enlivening pockets of green.
A Drumchapel participant suggested the need to “start from inside and look out”. This means carefully observing the outside spaces you see and can access from communal spaces and consider widening windows, relocating doors, providing reassuring and uplifting pathways, and installing covered outdoor structures of varying sizes to facilitate informal play, gatherings, and local cultural events in natural spaces. Together, such changes can reconnect the broken links between indoors and outdoors.
Gardening for health and community
Healthy communities can only flourish in healthy environments. Sedentary lifestyles within social housing have created problems, especially a lack of outdoor stimulation, a rise in obesity, and Vitamin D deficiencies. The UK’s tradition of allotments has its roots in the industrialisation period of the 19th century when land was allocated by local authorities to the poor for the provision of food growing (NSALG, 2021). Allotment culture grew and consolidated during the World War years. Currently, in the cities of Edinburgh, Perth, and London, there is typically a seven to ten-year wait before a plot is allocated. Women I interviewed in these cities expressed their desire to expand existing food growing activities to improve health, social connectivity, as well as reduce food miles and the cost of living.
Murrayburn and Hailes Neighbourhood Garden attracts residents weekly to work in the gardens and socialise. Credit: May East
The initiative Growchapel Community Allotment Garden was originally developed as a way to tackle mental health and anti-social behaviour in a specific area of Drumchapel in Glasgow. Raised beds have been set up in an area of approximately 6.000m2 motivating and teaching community groups on how to grow food. The level of community engagement has been such that plans are in place to extend the allotments with additional growing plots, an outdoor learning area, an orchard, wildflower meadow, and foraging hedgerows.
Creating conditions for wildness returning
In general, women shared the view that they liked to spend time in green spaces that feel natural. How to make the existing green spaces less tidy while restoring the area to a wilder, less cultivated state was a recurrent topic in the walking interviews. For instance, a participant shared her experience of creating willow tunnels and planting wildflowers with kids ‘who experienced that they could co-create with nature’.
Another suggestion was linking pocket parks to burns, allotments to parks, urban woodlands to regional landscapes, providing a continuous experience for residents of all ages ― from childhood to adulthood ― to nurture love for living things; and for other living beings to move through urban landscapes more freely. By fostering connections between human and more-than-human nature we can support social and ecological systems to co-evolve and thrive, weaving more vitality into modernist un-settlements.
Toilet block at Rocinha slum- women referred to how colour can lift the senses and engender a feeling that the world has been taken care. Credit: May East
Concrete-built Brutalism has left its mark in our urban environments. Biophilic design as informed by women can foster healthier and more beautiful places and holds the potential to rectify the negative impacts that brutalist architecture descending from modernist planning has codified in sterile and unsociable housing schemes. By reweaving broken links, fostering local food systems, and coevolving lively green arteries coursing through brutalist settlements, women may place biophilia at the heart of 21st-century urbanism.
To learn more about the 33 leverage points for making your city work better for women and girls, TNOC readers can pre-order the book What if Women Designed the City, by Triarchy Press using the promotional code TNOC2023.
Calder, B. (2016). Raw Concrete: The Beauty of Brutalism. Random House.
Derrida, J. (1993). Khôra. Editions Galilée.
Giedion, S. (1951). A Decade of New Architecture – Les Congres Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM). Zürich: Editions Girsberger.
Gold. J.R. (1998) Creating the Charter of Athens: CIAM and the Functional City. The Town Planning Review. Vol. 69, No. 3, pp. 225-247. Liverpool University Press.
The National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardens (2021). Brief History of Allotments. [online] Available at: https://www.nsalg.org.uk/allotment-info/brief- history-of-allotments/
van Huyssteen, J. (2022). Brutalist Architecture – A Look at the Development of Brutalist Design. Art in Context.
Story notes: Marianne Krasny and Keith Tidball of Cornell’s Civic Ecology Lab convened a workshop in Annapolis Maryland, at the offices of The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, or SESYNC. (I [David Maddox] facilitated.) The workshop was a gathering of 25 scholars and practitioners, come to talk about civic ecology.
But what is civic ecology? I asked each of the participants to give their short definition. This episode reveals their answers, and there is lots of nuance around some common themes. The work was supported in part by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and SESNYC. Special thanks to Jennifer Klein for directing the recordings.
You can also see a video version on youtube:
In order of appearance, the participants were:
Keith Tidball Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University http://dnr.cals.cornell.edu/people/keith-tidball Keith Tidball wants you to get a land ethic fit for the 21st century. He studies how people and nature interact to make communities more resilient.
Zahra Golshani Nature Cleaners, Iran https://www.facebook.com/Nature.Cleaners.IR Nature Cleaners strives to build community and a sense of environmentalism through voluntary trash collection in Iran.
Traci Sooter Drury University, Springfield, Missouri http://www.drury.edu/architecture/Traci-D-Sooter/ Traci Sooter uses her expertise as a green architecture to complete community-focused design projects with a focus on sustainability.
Rebecca Salminen Witt The Greening of Detroit http://www.greeningofdetroit.com The Greening of Detroit is invested in providing a greener future for Detroit by “inspiring sustainable growth of a healthy urban community”
Erika Svendsen U.S. Forest Service, Northern Research Station, New York http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us The Northern Research Station of the USFS works to understand forests in a human-disturbed landscape that includes NYC.
Jill Wrigley Collins Avenue Streamside Community
Baltimore, Maryland http://collinsavenuestreamside.org The Collins Avenue Streamside Community is a collective of households attempting social & ecological reconciliation in their neighborhood.
Veronica Kyle Faith in Place http://www.faithinplace.org Working with over 1,000 congregations of all faiths on issues of environmental stewardship. Based in Chicago.
Anniruddha Abhyankar The Ugly Indian, Bangalore http://www.theuglyindian.com The Ugly Indian is a community movement generating voluntary cleanup drives across India in hopes of changing civic standards.
Marianne Krasny Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University http://dnr.cals.cornell.edu/people/marianne-krasny Marianne Krasny wants to know how civic ecology practices affect individuals, communities, and the environment.
Dustin Alger Higher Ground Sun Valley http://www.highergroundsv.org Higher Ground Sun Valley gives individuals with disabilities, especially veterans, the chance to experience the outdoors through recreation and therapy.
Anandi Premlall Sustainable Queens, The Queensway http://www.about.me/aapremlall Sustainable Queens cultivates sustainable living, wellness, creativity, & empowerment through community gardens in underserved communities.
Laurel Kearns Drew Theological School, Madison, New Jersey http://users.drew.edu/lkearns/ Laurel Kearns trains religious leaders to understand the changing relationships between people and the environment.
Robert Hughes Eastern Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation http://epcamr.org/home/ EPCAMR is a coalition of individuals & organizations that supports abandoned mine reclamation for community use.
Rosalba Lopez Ramirez Kelly Street Garden, New York http://www.kellystgreen.com A community garden in the South Bronx. Their mission? To grow food, grow community, grow wellness, and grow leaders.
Carrie Samis Maryland Coastal Bays Program http://www.mdcoastalbays.org/ MCBP’s goal is to protect and conserve the watershed of Maryland’s five coastal bays through research, education, outreach, and restoration.
Lance Gunderson Department of Environmental Sciences, Emory University http://envs.emory.edu/home/people/faculty/gunderson_lance.html Lance Gunderson is an ecologist interested in how scientific understanding influences resource policy and management.
Kellen Marshall Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department, University of Illinois at Chicago https://sites.google.com/site/kellenmarshallgillespie/ Kellen Marshall is a graduate student with interdisciplinary interests related to stresses on urban ecosystems.
Arjen Wals Waginengen University, University of Gothenburg
https://www.wageningenur.nl/en/Persons/Arjen-Wals.htm Arjen Wals studies how to better engage the public in academic research in order to strengthen society.
Caroline Lewis The CLEO Institute http://www.cleoinstitute.org/ The CLEO Institute is a non-profit dedicated to improving environmental education of the public as a means to support climate resilience.
Dennis Chestnut Groundwork Anacostia River, Washington, D.C. http://groundworkdc.org GARDC’s uses environmental restoration goals as a vehicle for community development in communities around the Anacostia River.
Louise Chawla Environmental Design Program, University of Colorado, Boulder http://www.colorado.edu/envd/people/faculty/louise-chawla Louise Chawla is interested in integrating nature into our every day, particularly through the engagement of children and youth.
Rebecca Jordan Departments of Human Ecology and Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey http://www.rebeccajordan.org A one-time evolutionary biologist of Lake Malawi’s cichlid fish, Rebecca Jordan’s current focus is on science education and citizen science.
Philip Silva Treekit; Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University http://treekit.org Philip Silva studies how citizen science helps monitor urban forests. TreeKit makes tools for measuring, mapping, & managing street trees.
Karim-Aly Kassam Environmental and Indigenous Studies, Cornell University http://www2.dnr.cornell.edu/kassam/ Dr. Kassam’s research interests are broad, but generally include ways of knowing as they relate to ecology.
Every month we feature a Global Roundtable in which a group of people respond to a specific question in The Nature of Cities.
show/hide list of writers
Hover over a name to see an excerpt of their response…click on the name to see their full response.
Pippin Anderson, Cape TownTo think that one can turn a blind eye to the role of the different soil chemistry, atmospheric conditions of, or significant social presence in cities in exploring ecology in these spaces is naive.
Erik Andersson, StockholmEcology is framed by social dynamics, and anyone interested in more than ecological outcomes need to take the humans-in-nature approach to understanding ecological dynamics.
Marc Barra, ParisUrban ecology is an opportunity to reconnect people with nature.
Nathalie Blanc, ParisOur reading of urban ecology is based on the way in which the actors view their environment, according to political, scientific, and more largely cultural injunctions.
Marcus Collier, DublinUrban ecology is vexing because it is fraught with emotion, opinion, value and fear. Urban ecology is a topsy-turvy world of contrasts.
Paul Downton, MelbourneThe one thing that every ecologist should know is that the urban ecosystem is a designed system and an example of extended physiology at a very large scale.
Ana Faggi, Buenos AiresThe principal aim of urban ecology is to make cities more livable and environmentally resilient, but this is not an easy task as the social sphere is always decisive.
Niki Frantzeskaki, RotterdamThree elements are fundamental in the mindset of ecologists of the future, which is the current mindset of urban ecologists: asking different questions; curiosity in multi-disciplinary research; the courage to translate knowledge into policy.
Dagmar Haase, BerlinThe more ecologists accept humans and society being part of urban ecosystems—and the complementarity of the social, ecological, and infrastructure-technical systems—the more sustainable and resilient we will be.
Steven Handel, New BrunswickI hope every ecologist will someday know that the structure and function of nature downtown are as interesting and valuable as that memory of nature at their childhood summer camp.
Nadja Kabisch, BerlinCities are the foreground for experimenting with new approaches towards livability, sustainability and resilience; all of which are important parts of urban ecology.
Timon McPhearson, New YorkThe next generation of ecologists should take a more inclusive definition of ecology: that ecosystems are social-ecological systems. It will help us improve management in all ecosystems, not only in urban areas.
Harini Nagendra, BangaloreWe cannot be content only to study and to observe—we must simultaneously engage and act.
Steward Pickett, PoughkeepsieThe single thing that ecologists in general should think of when they hear the term “urbanization” is that urban change is very much like the contemporary, dynamic view of community assembly they already know.
Philip Silva, New YorkEvery ecologist should know that urban ecology is very closely related to the “sociology of scientific knowledge” when it starts asking questions about the production of knowledge used to manage urban ecosystems.
Mike Wells, BathUrban ecology is a framework for exploration and expression of the multiple strategies and mechanisms for positive, creative and supportive interactions between human beings and the natural world.
Weiqi Zhou, BeijingUrban ecology acts as the frontier where ecologists can effectively promote the science-policy interface for local, regional, and global sustainability.
Dr. Timon McPhearson works with designers, planners, and local government to foster sustainable, resilient and just cities. He is Associate Professor of Urban Ecology and Director of the Urban Systems Lab at The New School and Research Fellow at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and Stockholm Resilience Centre.
Urban ecology has expanded in the last couple decades as a major, global, interdisciplinary field that advances biodiversity, sustainability, and fundamental ecological research in the context of cities and urbanization. With all this accumulated learning, has urban ecology made its mark in the field of ecology more generally?
In some of the most important peer-reviewed ecology journals, and on social media, it seems even the most basic of urban ecology concepts have yet to be appreciated or incorporated in the broader ecology discipline. For example, it’s been 25 years since Humans as Components of Ecosystems was published, and yet many ecologists still don’t see humans as part of how we define and study nature—despite the fact that every ecosystem on earth is affected by, and has effects on, people.
The High Line in New York City. Photo: David Maddox
In November 2017, Nature Ecology and Evolution published a major review of the field of ecology, titled “100 articles every ecologist should read” (behind a paywall, unfortunately). It must be noted that the list was a product of a extensive survey of ecologists. Nevertheless, many ecologists around the world took exception to the lack of gender and racial diversity, and its general lack of inclusivity (see here, here, and here). Notably lacking from these academic discussions has been a recognition of core contributions from urban ecology to how we understand, manage, and plan ecosystems on our urban planet.
It begs the question: what would a reading list be for the discipline of ecology in the Anthropecene? But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
No one disputes that the 100 papers listed by Nature Ecology and Evolution are important in the history of ecology. Indeed, everyone should read these papers. But is this the right list of 100 papers to understand ecology today? There are other papers that should make a reading list for a complete understanding of modern ecology. An alternative version of a “key reading” prompt could be this: what are the 100 papers that every ecologist must read to understand ecology today, in the Anthropocene? Social ecology, biophilia, justice, poverty, gender, values, the Global South, design, climate change, policy; these are just some of the topics that are core material for understanding the broad science of ecology today, These topics are largely missing from the 100 papers list.
And also missing, of course, is urban ecology.
As it happens, urban ecology routinely includes the aforementioned list of additional topics: social ecology, biophilia, justice, policy, and so on. How does urban ecology advance the state of the art in ecology more generally? It advances our understanding of how our current world works, how it might work better, and it lays foundations to turn that learning towards pressing Anthropocene challenges, both urban and non-urban.
We asked a diverse group to help our non-urban ecological colleagues understand some of the most important contributions from urban ecology for advancing the field of ecology. We asked them this question: What is one thing every ecologist shouldknow about urban ecology? (We asked them to suggest a reading also—a start on a reading list.)
Along the way, let’s expand the idea of “ecology”.
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.
Pippin Anderson, a lecturer at the University of Cape Town, is an African urban ecologist who enjoys the untidiness of cities where society and nature must thrive together.
FULL BIO
To think that one can turn a blind eye to the role of the different soil chemistry, atmospheric conditions of, or significant social presence in cities in exploring ecology in these spaces is naive.
Ecology in cities is always different to its rural counterpart, and as a result often requires a more creative approach to understanding. I think as long as ecologists try to do pure ecological research in cities, overlooking the presence, and role of, the large human populations that define these areas, will always render their findings problematic. There is that great article by Emma Marris, Ragamuffin Earth, where she presents an analysis of peer-reviewed journal articles and ‘outs’ ecologists who in fact work in, or in close proximity to, cities but fail to engage with the significant drivers pertinent to cities (https://www.nature.com/news/2009/090722/full/460450a.html). To think that one can turn a blind eye to the role of the different soil chemistry, atmospheric conditions of, or significant social presence in cities in exploring ecology in these spaces is naive.
Traditionally trained ecologists, and by that I mean those schooled in pure ecological theory and methods who have been ‘raised’ in pristine environments, are often challenged by the urban context. Here challenges abound. Reference sites are often lacking, sample size and replication constrained by the urban form, access and sampling hampered by safety or issues of social distrust. Field work entails navigating dogs, walls and fences, and budgeting for the fact that at least some field equipment will likely go missing or be vandalized. Ecological study in cities requires something of a maverick attitude. This is by no means to say one can abandon the underpinning requisites of good science, but a creative and adaptive approach needs to be drawn on. In addition to this, an ecologist working in a city must be willing to engage with people. Access at the least, and social insights and perceptions, as well as engaging with land managers are all parts of the study of urban ecology. In addition to these more formal engagements, any greenspace in a city is likely to produce curious citizens, homeless people, and wily children.
These are all elements which must be engaged with or at the very least anticipated, and if encountered, navigated. In my view these are the bits and pieces that make urban ecology fun, and keep us in a learning space; resisting dogged views and mantras. It is possible of course that there may be bits and pieces of remnant land in cities where the system is ticking along as it was before the settlement of the city and in which case that would be a fantastic find. But I would still argue that even if you carried out ecological research in a city and demonstrated that a system was entirely pristine or original in nature your research would still need to first ask “is this urban remnant patch akin to its rural counterpart?” The research would need to include all the relevant urban dimensions to be able to really confidently state this system is unaffected by the myriad of urban drivers. At that point a further interesting question would be “why?” and at that point you are back to doing urban ecology research again!
Ecology is framed by social dynamics, and anyone interested in more than ecological outcomes need to take the humans-in-nature approach to understanding ecological dynamics.
The one thing? For the sake of diversity I will choose one of the many things I believe that someone with an interest in ecology and its place in our cities would benefit from being familiar with. I have always had a liking for landscape approaches, especially when applied to cultural landscapes (and yes, cities are very definitely cultural landscapes)—they often combine solid ecological theory with an application where people and their activities are embedded parts. Understanding both the processes driving change and the implications of emergent patterns is essential—and this ideally at a scale where we can try to influence things (always attractive for the more action oriented among us).
To this point, I would suggest two publications: R.T.T. Forman’s Land mosaics from 1995. It offers a solid background to drivers of change and the patterns they create, and the latter key principles for assessing the ecological outcomes. Ecology is framed by social dynamics, and anyone interested in more than ecological outcomes need to take the humans-in-nature approach to understanding ecological dynamics. Understanding this cumulative effect of multiple, sometimes complex, factors is essential if we are to make sense of our cities. And perhaps make them better places.
Suggested reading:
Forman, R. T. T. (1995) Land mosaics. Cambridge, UK.: Cambridge University press.
Marc Barra is an ecologist at the Regional Agency for Biodiversity in Paris Region in France, within the Institute of Planning and Urban Development of the Île-de-France. He is particularly interested in urban ecology and solutions to integrate biodiversity at the city, district and building scales.
Urban ecology is an opportunity to reconnect people with nature.
Despite warnings about the state of the planet’s health, ecology lacks recognition and is hardly known as a discipline in its own right. Furthermore, among the ecologist community, urban ecology struggles to find a place. Yet I consider it to be one of the most promising disciplines in our century, when nearly 50% of the population lives in cities and urbanization greatly affects biodiversity.
The one thing that every ecologist should know about urban ecology is that it gives ecology—often perceived negatively—a concrete project and useful applications for the people. Urban ecology has the potential to reconcile cities and their inhabitants with biodiversity. Urban ecology provides our society with solutions, all for better health and a better living environment. I like urban ecology because it is experimental, because it requires interdisciplinary knowledge, because it is uncertain and at the same time, it is a “no-regrets” ecology: increasing biodiversity and reclaiming ecosystems it cannot be worse than not doing it! Urban ecology takes its inspiration in nature: we say “nature-based solutions” for preserving, reclaiming and managing functional ecosystem in order to mitigate climate change and adapt to its effects (storms, floods, dryness, heat waves).
Urban ecology has a wide scope of applications from the building scale to the whole city. Urban ecologist can work together with city gardeners to create ecologically-designed and managed green spaces (zero pesticide, no-mowing policy, etc.). Urban ecologist are also working with city planners and urbanists to find space for ecological corridors in planning documents. At the district level, many solutions are being created by land developers and urban ecologist to create “sponge cities”, using soils as natural filters, and bioswales, rain gardens or phyto-purification basins. Under our feet, the challenge of urban soil rehabilitation is so important. Many research projects try to understand the role of urban soils and encourage “depaving” policies or phyto-remediation for polluted soils. Urban agriculture within community gardens is also an opportunity to enhance nature spaces, even cultivated, in urban areas. At the building level, a wide range of solution has emerged over the last few years to promote green architecture: green roofs and green living walls are becoming smart solutions to increase biodiversity while reducing urban heat effect and storing more rainwater. Some researchers try to understand how these new ecosystems can contribute to restoring ecological connectivity within cities as well as being new habitats for wildlife.
One of the challenges of smart green cities is to switch from grey to green infrastructure. So far, cities have always used civil engineering techniques largely based on “gray” systems that consume a lot of non-renewable resources and emit pollutants (CO2, NOx) involved in climate change. Green infrastructure based on urban ecology knowledge has reduced the urban environmental footprint and is cost efficient.
Urban ecology is an opportunity to reconnect people with nature. In the next years, citizen science programs or participatory events should play a major role in cities for the success of urban ecology.
Suggested reading:
Dusza, Y., S. Barot, Y. Kraepiel, J-C. Lata, L. Abbadie, and X. Raynaud. 2017. Multifunctionality is affected by interactions between green roof plant species, substrate depth, and substrate type. Ecol Evol. 7:2357–2369. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.2691
Nathalie Blanc works as a Research Director at the French National Center for Scientific Research. She is a pioneer of ecocriticism in France. Her recent book is Form, Art, and Environment: engaging in sustainability, by Routledge in 2016.
Our reading of urban ecology is based on the way in which the actors view their environment, according to political, scientific, and more largely cultural injunctions.
Since Rio in 1992, urban ecology has developed in three stages: a first step was built around the ideas of transversality of public action, and research grappling with issues of complexity and systemic thinking. The public policies and the urban ones were then sectorized, to the point of developing specialized and non-transversal actions. Research focused on environmental problems in terms of solutions. Today, we see a third phase of public action in environmental matters with a re-territorisalisation of issues and modes of governance around the management of territories. This, above all, represents the exploitation of urban nature considered, in most cases, primarily in productive terms. Nature is put to work, whether it is sewage treatment, agricultural yield, or green roofing, to name just a few examples. Nature is thus called upon to render services. This vision forgets the ecosociosystemic complexity of the human and non-human living.
In truth, we can speak of “locking” when it comes to urban ecology: a set of articulated operating regimes lock a trajectory, condemn to insignificance any possibility of creating other relationships (Stengers, 2014). Thus if it seems that lifestyles are taken into account though works of prospective, they are often not in sync with the current preference for techno-centered solutions in urban planning, and only at the margins address the broader questions of society beyond individuals and consumers needs. How do we strengthen the dynamic for moving toward of adapting populations, collectives and individuals? How to take into account the infinitesimal choices that weave ordinary lives, in the sense of creating an ecological transformation? Finally, how can one account for the dynamics tending to distribute “agencies”, that is, the power to act, to the elements of nature-culture, be they plants, animals, or elements of the substratum? Our reading of urban ecology is based on the way in which the actors view their environment, according to political, scientific, and more largely cultural injunctions.
Suggested reading, in French and English:
Isabelle Stengers, Une autre science est possible ! Manifeste pour un ralentissement des sciences, Paris, Les empêcheurs de penser en rond – La Découverte, 2013.
Braidotti, R. 2013. The Posthuman. Cambridge : Polity Press.
Marcus is a sustainability scientist and his research covers a wide range of human-environment interconnectivity, environmental risk and resilience, transdisciplinary methodologies and novel ecosystems.
Urbanised, novel ecosystems, replete with a plethora of urban-adapted species, escaped garden plants, remnants of the past, and unusual species associations, tell us quite a lot about ecological processes in general.
There are so many things that ecologists don’t yet know about urban ecology, none the least of which is the very real likelihood that there is no longer a distinction between what is urban and what is not! The urban landscape is itself an ecosystem, within which there are diverse habitats not too dissimilar in form and function to their wilder, distant counterparts. Can we distinguish between the urban and the urbanising? But that debate is for another day!
Personally, I love urban habitats and urbanised / urbanising species. They are truly resilient; having rapidly and efficiently adapted to the relentless, unsettling pace of human progress. We hear of novel, mongrel, hybrid, chance, unplanned, brownfield habitats. We hear of chance discoveries of rarely seen species and plagues of all-too-often seen species. We marvel to see certain iconic species in cities that we don’t get to see in the wild, we revile at many others. Urban ecology is vexing because it is fraught with emotion, opinion, value and fear. Urban ecology is a topsy-turvy world of contrasts. While scientists will often agree that it is difficult to do urban research (in any field, not just ecology), it can also be very revealing and sometimes wonderful to explore.
For me, what every ecologist needs to know about urban ecology is that urbanised, novel ecosystems, replete with a plethora of urban-adapted species, escaped garden plants, remnants of the past, and unusual species associations, tell us quite a lot about ecological processes in general. However, perhaps they go further and tell us so much more about ourselves, our society, our crazy values, our attitudes and emotions, and what we think of as progress. Urban ecology is the study of the palimpsest. It provides us with glimpses of the past, snapshots of the distant, and potential directions for the future.
Writer, architect, urban evolutionary, founding convener of Urban Ecology Australia and a recognised ‘ecocity pioneer’. Paul has championed ecological cities for years but has become disenchanted with how such a beautiful concept can be perverted and misinterpreted – ‘Neom' anyone? Paul is nevertheless working on an artistic/publishing project with the working title ‘The Wild Cities’ coming soon to a crowd-funding site near you!
The urban ecosystem is a designed system and an example of extended physiology at a very large scale.
It is difficult to hazard any sense of optimism about our cities when times are such that “To be aware of the wonders of the living planet is to take on an unbearable burden of grief.” The urban world is more commonly regarded as a blight on the planet than a wonder and offers countless examples of burdensome human behaviour but if we can’t unearth beauty and purpose in its Frankenstein ecology then how can we hope to place our cities “in balance with nature”? Humans are now collectively one of the largest forces in the biosphere and nowhere is our perverse exercise of that power more evident than in the morphology and metabolism of our urban systems.
Barry Commoner’s first law of ecology is that “everything is connected to everything else” and it’s one of those statements of the obvious that wasn’t obvious to a lot of people until he said it. Another obvious fact that doesn’t have anything like the same degree of familiarity is the connected (of course) idea that the built environment is an extension of human physiology in the same way that termite mounds are extensions of termite physiology. Where does an organism stop and its environment begin? In The Extended Organism, J. Scott Turner describes how structures made by animals are “the agents whereby organisms adaptively modify flows of matter and energy through the environment.” And how structures like termite mounds, which transform wind energy to serve their termite colonies, are examples of organisms co-opting the environment “into a physiology that extends well beyond their conventionally defined boundaries”. Which is what humans do. It’s what our cities do. Humans modify their environment to make it more suitable for humans. The ability to make shelter is a fundamental requirement for human survival. It is much easier for social creatures like humans to build shelter together, rather than as individuals. Even if an individual was able to make useful shelter through their own efforts, they would still be relying on collectively generated knowledge and most likely collectively developed and manufactured tools. The most simple human settlement is a result of complex interactions between multiple individuals and the end result of their efforts is a means of co-opting and modifying their environment to improve their chances for survival.
In considering the ecology of urban systems it should perhaps be considered that all human settlement is fundamentally about extending the capacity and resilience of human physiology through environmental means and our present-day urban ecologies are extraordinary but flawed attempts at maintaining homeostasis to sustain life.
In The Tinkerer’s Accomplice, Turner continues his exploratory thinking to show “How design emerges from life itself.” After a while you begin to see how the human impulse to design may be an evolutionary result of a basic need to modify our environment in order to survive. I can’t identify just one paper in particular that explores the idea, but I would argue that the one thing that every ecologist should know is that the urban ecosystem is a designed system and an example of extended physiology at a very large scale. Now that this human device is affecting the entire planet it is clear that because consciousness and the propensity of humans to design and manipulate the environment for their own benefit is integral to the function of urban ecosystems, they should be abiding concerns for any ecologist.
Ana Faggi graduated in agricultural engineering, and has a Ph.D. in Forest Science, she is currently Dean of the Engineer Faculty (Flores University, Argentina). Her main research interests are in Urban Ecology and Ecological Restoration.
The principal aim of urban ecology is to make cities more livable and environmentally resilient, but this is not an easy task as the social sphere is always decisive.
When an area is urbanized, important transformations take place in soils, climate, water bodies and native biota. So far, nothing new for an ecologist that understands that any biotic or abiotic disturbance can trigger changes in the geochemical cycles and in the assemblages of species.
The consequences of city sprawl on the urban ecosystem`s resilience are long-lasting and in most cases irreversible, just as it happens in Nature: think of the destroying effects that a hurricane or a devastating fire may have on a coastal ecosystem or on a forest.
Most theoretical concepts of classic ecology that deal with populations, communities, ecosystems and landscapes are applicable to cities; from viability, niche theory, density dependence, succession, interspecific relationships, gain and loss of species, intermediate disturbance, to island theory, edge effects, corridors, significance of habitat heterogeneity, and even the tragedy of the commons.
But the urban ecosystem is a very special one. It is comprised of physical, ecological and social spheres. In the city, humans are the dominant species. Their decisions in city planning and management may make it intricate for the different components to reach a new ecological balance. Cities differ in traditions, history, economic and political power. Because of these socio-cultural characteristics it is more difficult to develop a consistent general theoretical framework.
To get into the subject, and develop an understanding of the cross-disciplinary nature of urban ecology, every ecologist should first read Pickett and Cadenasso (2017) How many principles of urban ecology are there?.
One of the most applied theories in urban ecological studies is the gradient theory of Mc Donnell and Pickett (1990), recognizing general ecological patterns from the city center to the peripheries. Nevertheless, the theory does not always work in cities where growth is poorly planned such as in Latin America, suggesting the need for more local studies.
What every ecologist should know about urban ecology is that it is mainly an applied discipline where human needs and impacts on the ecosystem are integral parts to solving problems. It principal aim is to make cities more livable and environmentally resilient but this is not an easy task as the social sphere is always decisive.
Most of these problems are wicked ones: difficult to solve because of incomplete, contradictory and changing requirements. Because they are interdependent, socially complex, and involve behavioral changes, an interdisciplinary approach that goes beyond ecology is the only way out.
Suggested reading:
Mc Donnell, M. J. and Pickett, S. T. A. (1990) The study of ecosystem structure and function along urban-rural gradients: an unexploited opportunity for ecology. Ecology 71,1231–1237.
Dagmar Haase is a professor in urban ecology and urban land use modelling. Her main interests are in the integration of land-use change modelling and the assessment of ecosystem services, disservices and socio-environmental justice issues in cities, including urban land teleconnections.
The more ecologists accept humans and society being part of urban ecosystems—and the complementarity of the social, ecological, and infrastructure-technical systems—the more sustainable and resilient we will be.
The one thing every ecologist should know about urban ecology is the role humans play in social-ecological systems which cities are. Even more important is to acknowledge the role of humans and society in past and future dynamics of social-ecological systems. Ecologists have great ideas on how to identify and to explain the role of humans in ecosystem functioning, stability and change. But it is only together with the work of social scientists and economists are they able to understand the magnitude and direction of change to the environment and ecosystems on the one hand, and their impacts on humans, their socio-economic well-being, and the associated short- and long-term.
Ecologists have to acknowledge and to know that society is shaping patterns and flows in urban ecosystems, and that green, blue, and grey are complementary to providing for human well-being. Co-evolution and co-development is thoroughly existing and evident in cities, thus if urban ecologists would know one thing about urban ecosystems, this is it: Humans and nature share the same habitat and they share it together—the more readily ecologists accept humans and society being part of urban ecosystems and the more actively they accept the complementarity of the social, ecological, and infrastructure-technical systems, the more sustainable and resilient our co-evolution will be. Suggested reading:
Alberti, M. 2015. Eco-evolutionary dynamics in an urbanizing planet. In Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 30:2, pages 114-126. http://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/fulltext/S0169-5347(14)00249-3
Niki Frantzeskaki is a Chair Professor in Regional and Metropolitan Governance and Planning at Utrecht University the Netherlands. Her research is centered on the planning and governance of urban nature, urban biodiversity and climate adaptation in cities, focusing on novel approaches such as experimentation, co-creation and collaborative governance.
Three elements are fundamental in the mindset of ecologists of the future, which is the current mindset of urban ecologists: asking different questions; curiosity in multi-disciplinary research; the courage to translate knowledge into policy.
Every ecologist should know that urban ecosystems evolve and relate to the community/society that lives, being maintained and relates to them. Urban social-ecological systems are coupled, meaning that are interrelated and erosion of social conditions and the institutions therein manifest in unprotected, and unrestored urban ecosystems as. And in turn, deteriorating or unhealthy urban ecosystems do not allow for human to nature relations and fail to support human wellbeing, resulting in depriving urban environments for humans.
For this interrelationship to be balanced and ensure mutual benefits, adaptive institutions that guide open, innovative governance for healthy resilient urban socio-ecological systems are very important. Dividing (1) understanding in how urban ecosystems function and benefit humans from (2) understanding how institutions and governance processes that ensure a human-nature relation creates chasms in knowledge and misfit knowledge for urban planning and policy. What therefore every ecologist should know about urban ecology is that he/she needs to be open to interdisciplinary collaborations with social and political scientists for making knowledge of urban ecology relevant and actionable for better institutions and good governance to be realized in cities. He/She needs to recognize not the limits to his/her knowledge but the opportunities to research, learn and apply knowledge in collaborative and co-creative ways (involving also citizens and urban communities) for progressing urban science on socio-ecological systems. It is about the way knowledge is acquired that is changing and how it becomes socially and policy relevant and actionable that changes the role and the skills required for ecologists to “know about urban ecology”.
Three elements are fundamentals in the mindset of ecologists of the future: first, openness in asking different questions and asking questions differently to allow for interdisciplinary inquiry to be relevant; second, curiosity in engaging in multi-disciplinary research processes and learn from them; and third, the courage and passion to translate knowledge on urban socio-ecological systems for policy and society to act upon restoring and protecting urban ecosystems. The ecologists of future cities work in teams, learn from and with other scientists and communities, recognize the value of the discovery of knowledge and of making knowledge actionable for policy and community to pursue livable, just, resilient and sustainable cities.
Suggested reading:
Frantzeskaki, N., and Kabisch, N., (2016), Designing a knowledge co-production operating space for urban environmental governance – Lessons from Rotterdam, the Netherlands and Berlin, Germany, Environmental Science and Policy, 62, 90-98.
I hope every ecologist will someday know that the structure and function of nature downtown are as interesting and valuable as that memory of nature at their childhood summer camp.
I think most people think that nature, ecology, is where we go when you want to get away from our frantic lives in urban centers. Similarly, adding ecological habitats into urban parcels is so often considered a romantic gesture, a Walt Disney-style decoration. I always want to remind ecologists that for all our affection for the wild places on Earth, it is our metropolises, our most densely populated areas, where ecology is most valuable to people.
Ecological services are well understood to advance human health and happiness. I am sure that is true whether one is in New York’s Times Square or Yosemite Valley in California. But, if one integrates the value of some trees to clean the air with the density of people around those trees, the value of that planting enhancement is magnified by the number of people nearby who will experience less respiratory distress. A line of trees improves the microhabitat for thousands of people on this city street, but only the occasional hiker in that pristine mountain valley. Think of a shade structure, such as tree canopy, in a quiet rural hot spot. The occasional person who passes by gets relief from the brutal sun. Whoopee-do. But, if we put that shade structure near a constant line of commuters or laborers, the value of the local shade is multiplied by the density of people that experience it. It is urban centers where ecological structure has most value to the human population. We must talk about this constantly with decision-makers in our cities.
Planning to enhance ecological features in cities often gets push back from people who define nature as a rural feature and thus inappropriate in a commercial zone. It is certainly true that a hectare of landscape pays less property tax than a strip mall or high-rise; its values don’t usually appear on a municipal balance sheet. But people who are oblivious to the concept of ecological services can be educated, understanding can be enhanced, and urban ecology can eventually be celebrated. Attitudes change. Thousands of people who once considered aluminum cans and bottles as garbage now define them as recyclable resources. People who today see a patch of woodlands as “empty space” can learn the new taxonomy of valuable ecological structure.
Many urban designers and planners today are learning how to include ecological structures and function into their work. Through new curricular offerings and the action of many public groups and media outreach, such as TNOC, new design renderings and criteria are more frequently including ecological features. There is a slow moving increase in the expression of urban ecology in designs, which I believe will become the new normal.
Many public and private land managers/clients have become aware of and are requesting ecological zones in cities. We must continue to stress the real value of these ecological parcels in the mosaic of city plans. The ecological spaces have value beyond the aesthetic aspects of nature that most city slickers see and will someday insist upon. I hope every ecologist will someday know that the structure and function of nature downtown are as interesting and valuable as that memory of nature at their childhood summer camp.
Suggested reading:
Elmqvist, T., Setälä, H., Handel, S.N., van der Ploeg, S., Aronson, J., Blignaut, J.N.,
Gómez-Baggethun, E., Nowak, D.J., Kronenberg, J., and de Groot, R. 2015. Benefits
of restoring ecosystem services in urban areas. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 14:101-108.
Nadja Kabisch holds a PhD in Geography. Her special interest is on human-environment interactions in cities taking co-benefits from nature-based solutions implementation for human health and social justice into account.
Cities are the foreground for experimenting with new approaches towards livability, sustainability and resilience; all of which are important parts of urban ecology.
In a tele-connected world, ecosystems are increasingly interacting with social systems—most obviously in urban areas. In the Anthropocene, cities are the primary human habitat and in the demand to deal with social-ecological transformations. Given the current global changes of climate change and urbanisation, and their associated effects on natural systems, social systems and their interactions worldwide, cities are the foreground for experimenting with new approaches towards livability, sustainability and resilience; all of which are important parts of urban ecology.
With increasing densification, loss of open spaces, the environmental burdens of air pollution, noise and heat, developing and maintaining the ecosystems are increasingly important in urban areas. To increase knowledge about the quantity and quality of benefits that urban residents may gain from ecosystems is to increase their quality of life, health and well-being. All known as ecosystem services, understanding their function necessitates interdisciplinary research in urban ecology which bridges knowledge from natural and social science. Even more, the recent scientific advances to include transdisciplinary approaches to interdisciplinary projects opens the field of urban ecology for assessing the implementation of socio-ecological, governance and technical innovations in terms of planning approaches, governance modes and policy experiences across disciplines, policy domains and governmental departments.
I believe that taking an inter-and transdisciplinary social-ecological systems approach to cities, and assessing how urban ecosystem services are provided to city residents in quantity and quality, are important parts of urban ecology to understand social-ecological transformations under global challenges of climate change and urbanisation. This goes hand in hand with potential new avenues for governing and managing urban systems in a knowledge co-production operating space in which scientists, urban planners, policy officers or practitioners can learn from each other and establish relationships and trust in mutual dialogues to find solutions to environmental problems for increasing resilience and sustainability in urban areas (Frantzeskaki et al., 2016).
Suggested reading:
Frantzeskaki, N., Kabisch, N., McPhearson, T. (2016) Advancing urban environmental governance: Understanding theories, practices and processes shaping urban sustainability and resilience. Environmental Science and Policy, 62, Special Issue, Pages 1-144.
Dr. Timon McPhearson works with designers, planners, and local government to foster sustainable, resilient and just cities. He is Associate Professor of Urban Ecology and Director of the Urban Systems Lab at The New School and Research Fellow at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and Stockholm Resilience Centre.
The next generation of ecologists should take a more inclusive definition of ecology: that ecosystems are social-ecological systems. It will help us improve management in all ecosystems, not only in urban areas.
It has been 25 years since Humans as Components of Ecosystems (McDonnell and Pickett 1993) was published, so it is a bit shocking to think that decades of research linking social and ecological systems is not part of the main stream of what every ecologist should know. Of course, urban ecology goes back much further to Herbert Sukopp’s work in Berlin post-World War II (Sukopp 2008) and to early Chinese scholars even earlier working on integrating ecosystems into urban life (Wu 2014).
McDonnell and Pickett’s book was seminal to launching urban ecology in the US. Urban ecology is fundamental social-ecological systems research intended to open the eyes of all ecologists to the fact that every ecosystem on earth has human drivers, influence, and impacts on both structure and function of the system. Ecologists of every stripe must fundamentally understand that humans are not somehow outside the domain of ecology. In Europe, China and elsewhere, there is a wide embrace of ecosystems as being fundamentally social-ecological systems (Niemela et al. 2011). Translation: humans are part of ecosystems, and humans and other biophysical components of ecosystems are deeply intertwined, with reciprocal influence. There is not an ecosystem on earth that does not have human influence. It feels like going back to basics to argue this point, and yet if there is one thing all ecologists must realize, it is that to study ecology in the Anthropocene, on this urban planet, we must consider ecosystems now as not simply biophysical systems somehow operating in a closed box without human interaction. That box must be opened to link exogenous drivers like climate change but also direct endogenous human actions.
It is an unnecessary, biased, and even counterproductive approach to define what is important in ecology as somehow distinct from the human dominated natural world. Ecosystems do not exist in a biophysical vacuum. Ecosystems exist in the Anthropocene like the rest of us and humans are part of these systems exerting influence on them and affecting fundamental ecological processes. The broader ecology field must recognize that social-ecological system research is an area of study that has made significant advances in how we think about, study, and manage ecosystems in urbanizing and human-dominated socio-ecological contexts all over the world (Vitousek et al. 1997; Grimm et al. 2008). Ecology cannot afford to completely miss the Anthropocene context that all ecosystems exist in, nor the enormous potential that lies in reflexive and respectful human-nature interaction (Alberti et al. 2003).
Urban ecology is a field that is expanding rapidly (McPhearson et al. 2016). The next generation of ecologists should be encouraged, not discouraged, from taking a more inclusive definition of ecology where ecosystems are social-ecological systems which can help us improve management in all ecosystems, not only in urban areas. This is a fundamental step to advancing ecology as a source of knowledge that can help shift the needle on some of the most important challenges we face, from climate change, to environmental injustice and pollution, to social inequality in access to health and well-being benefits ecosystems in and outside of cities provide.
Harini Nagendra is a Professor of Sustainability at Azim Premji University, Bangalore, India. She uses social and ecological approaches to examine the factors shaping the sustainability of forests and cities in the south Asian context. Her books include “Cities and Canopies: Trees of Indian Cities” and "Shades of Blue: Connecting the Drops in India's Cities" (Penguin India, 2023) (with Seema Mundoli), and “The Bangalore Detectives Club” historical mystery series set in 1920s colonial India.
We cannot be content only to study and to observe—we must simultaneously engage and act.
Over the 25 or so years that I have worked in the area of ecology, I have been privileged to witness an overall transformation of the discipline, from one that was overwhelmingly interested in “pure” evolutionary and ecological processes in “pristine” areas (i.e. areas where there was no obvious human footprint), to a field that now recognises the ubiquity of human-nature interaction—embracing social-ecological approaches to frame, investigate, interpret and intervene in issues of ecology and conservation. Thus, for instance, while many ecologists once believed that protected areas should be kept isolated from people, we now overwhelmingly recognise the role that so many indigenous communities have played in creating specific ecologies unique to many protected landscapes across the world.
Yet cities remain a particular blind spot for many ecologists—though the field of urban ecology has grown almost exponentially in recent years. Urban systems are arguably one of the most human-dominated of all ecosystems, and it is practically impossible to conduct studies on “pure” ecological or evolutionary processes in a city without acknowledging the role of people. Social-ecological framing lies at the heart of urban ecological research, and this is something that most traditional schools of ecology, across the world, continue to be uncomfortable with.
What should every ecologist know about urban ecology? They need to know that the urban now affects every part of the world—however distant, or seemingly pristine. It is futile, indeed impossible to study ecology in isolation from the human thought processes, industrial systems, cultures of consumption, and teletransfers of money and data that imply the urban. But this does not mean that ecology and conservation are doomed—quite the contrary, ecology has entered a most exciting period of knowledge discovery. The interconnectedness of cities, culture and nature requires collaborations between ecologists, economists, social scientists and scholars of the humanities to advance the frontiers of knowledge. And, given the speed at which things are changing, we cannot be content only to study and to observe—we must simultaneously engage and act, which demands further collaborations between scientists, practitioners, city government, activists, and regular citizens—all too often, one of us carries these various categories within ourselves as well, wearing multiple hats!
Thus, at times, I am an urban ecologist, at others I am a mother of a child who loves her local park and lake, the daughter of another mother who is a fierce proponent of urban nature, as well as an educator, an activist, and a neighbour with different—but equally compelling responsibilities to society, community, nature and city. All of us carry these multiple identities within us. Within or outside, we need multiple perspectives for urban ecology to flourish—the knowledge of a street vendor who spends decades selling flowers under a Ficus tree canopy is of as much value as that of a rag picker who keeps the city clean by recycling its trash, and the insights of a cattle grazer who has seen a healthy lake transform into a polluted mess are as important as that of an urban ecologist studying surface water hydrology.
In short, urban ecology can bring much to an ecologist in terms of insights into the interconnectedness of everything—nature, culture, and concrete. For me, at least, this is what it has brought over time—and the complexity is at once humbling and deeply fascinating and educative.
Suggested reading:
Elmqvist, T., M. Fragkias, J. Goodness, B. Guneralp, P.J. Marcotullio, R. I. McDonald, S. Parnell, M. Schewenius, M. Sendstad, K.C. Seto, C. Wilkinson, Eds. 2013. Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities: A Global Assessment. Springer Netherlands. 755 pages. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-94-007-7088-1
Steward Pickett is a Distinguished Senior Scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York. His research focuses on the ecological structure of urban areas and the temporal dynamics of vegetation.
One Thing That All Ecologists Should Know about Urban Ecology
The single thing that ecologists in general should think of when they hear the term “urbanization” is that urban change is very much like the contemporary, dynamic view of community assembly they already know.
Urbanization is like succession: It doesn’t have a single pathway; it doesn’t have a single end point; it influences all ecological systems; and it results from a continuous interaction of migrations, extinctions, interactions, and accidents.
Succession is one of ecology’s oldest ideas. But in its contemporary form, it is poorly appreciated. Too often, it is summarized as the old textbook generalization, involving facilitative species replacement, a regular sequence of dominants, and ending with a stable community. This textbook rendition has fortunately been replaced over the one hundred-year history of the discipline. (Frederic Clements’ magisterial but flawed book that first codified succession theory was 100 years old in 2016.) So succession, or if you prefer, community dynamics or community assembly, now is the epitome of a contingent, dynamic process conditioned by fluxes of organisms, resources, disturbance, and stressors across complex landscapes.
Urbanization can be considered similarly to the evolution of successional thinking. It used to be that urbanization was defined simply as conversion of rural, pastoral, forest, or wild lands to urban cover. That is, urbanization produces cities and towns. The subsequent trajectory following conversion was modeled on North temperate cities that “developed” through the industrial revolution, often changing from focus on natural resource commodification, to industrial production, to sanitary engineering, and finally to post-industrial service. This is urbanization like Clementsian succession. It is directional, step-wise, and terminates in some sort of “advanced” stage. It is also implicitly universal, with all cities following the same logic. Urbanists will immediately see the flaws in this analogy with classical succession. But the similarities with contemporary thinking about succession or community assembly may actually be useful in urban ecology itself, as well as helpful in linking urban ecology with the ecology in general.
If we hypothesize that urbanization and succession are conceptually analogous, the following principles can help guide research and comparison:
Urbanization doesn’t have a single pathway. This is especially clear in countries or regions that are only recently industrialized. Even more pointedly some regions have become “cities of consumption” without passing through an industrial or a sanitary state. China, India, and countries in Africa, for example exhibit distinctive trajectories of urban change.
Urbanization isn’t only unidirectional. Within urban regions, there are places that grow, and places that thin out. Change in cities, towns, and their connected regions is patchy, just as heterogeneous ecological mosaics of any type can be. Treating urban change as a “red blob” that continuously spreads across a region is one model of urbanization, but it is one that ignores important internal dynamics.
Urbanization, like succession, is everywhere. Urbanization isn’t just the production of cities. Urban conditions influence both nearby and distant ecosystems. They do so by distal changes in livelihoods, lifestyles and consumption choices, investment shifts influencing both hinterlands, wild places, and central cities, and infrastructural diffusion across broad regions. The percentage of land covered by cities and towns is a poor index of urban influence in regions and the world.
Urbanization, like biotic community assembly, reflects a multitude of interacting processes, influences, and “actors” (that is, species, social groups, institutions, environmental changes, etc.). The complexity of ecologically familiar processes such as feedbacks, priority effects, spatial legacies, indirect effects, natural disturbances, and social perturbations, combine to make urbanization a contingent process. Some drivers will be intentional, and some with be accidental.
The single thing that ecologists in general should think of when they hear the term “urbanization” is that urban change is very much like the contemporary, dynamic view of community assembly they already know.
Suggested reading:
McHale, M. R., S. T. A. Pickett, O. Barbosa, D. N. Bunn, M. L. Cadenasso, D. L. Childers, M. Gartin, G. R. Hess, D. M. Iwaniec, T. McPhearson, M. N. Peterson, A. K. Poole, L. Rivers, S. T. Shutters, and W. Zhou. 2015. The new global urban realm: complex, connected, diffuse, and diverse social-ecological systems. Sustainability 7:5211–5240.
Philip's work focuses on informal adult learning and participatory action research in social-ecological systems. He is dedicated to exploring nature in all of its urban expressions.
Every ecologist should know that urban ecology is very closely related to the “sociology of scientific knowledge” when it starts asking questions about the production of knowledge used to manage urban ecosystems.
Every ecologist should know that urban ecosystems are, in large part, shaped, structured, and governed by human activity. That much seems obvious—but still worth unpacking for a moment before getting to the one thing I believe every ecologist should know about urban ecology. Some cities are home to patches of landscape that seem untouched by urban development. The municipal park system here in New York City, for example, boasts more than 10,000 acres of grasslands, forests, and wetlands designated as “natural areas”—little bits of Eden that offer an escape from the bright lights of the big city. Yet these natural areas are often manipulated and managed with the same purposeful intensity as any of New York’s hundreds of community gardens, tens of thousands of acres of landscaped parks, and hundreds of thousands of street trees. It takes real human effort to manage even the most “natural” of natural areas, not to mention all the other manicured greenery on offer in a place like New York City. And it takes a working knowledge of urban ecosystems and their many components to guide those efforts. Human knowledge, then, is itself an element of urban ecosystems, and it follows that the social process of creating, codifying, contesting, sharing, and applying that knowledge can be an object of urban ecological research.
So, here’s my main point: every ecologist should know that urban ecology is very closely related to “sociology of scientific knowledge” when it starts asking questions about the production of knowledge used to manage urban ecosystems. Where does the knowledge to manage urban ecosystems come from? A good deal of it likely results from “pure” or “basic” scientific research. Ecologists publish peer reviewed journal articles and well-informed managers read, interpret, and apply that knowledge in practice. Yet urban ecology is a young field of inquiry. Sometimes the knowledge needed for day-to-day management is missing from the scholarly literature. In these cases, professional managers and volunteer stewards construct knowledge outside the bounds of formal science. They may create useful and reliable knowledge through iterative cycles of adaptive management, making incremental changes in practice and collecting data on the outcomes to inform gradual changes in their work over and over again. Or, just as likely, they may create knowledge-in-practice without any use of formal data collection or monitoring, building up storehouses of knowledge about effective practice through daily observations of trial and error. The methods of surfacing and studying these knowledge-making practices—through formal science, through adaptive management, or through communities of practice—should be part of the urban ecology research toolkit, and every urban ecologist should have at least a passing familiarity with the concepts behind those methods.
Suggested reading: Pickering, Andrew. “Chapter One: The Mangle of Practice.” In The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science, 1–34. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.
Dr Mike Wells FCIEEM is a published ecological consultant ecologist, ecourbanist and green infrastructure specialist with a global outlook and portfolio of projects.
Urban ecology is a framework for exploration and expression of the multiple strategies and mechanisms for positive, creative and supportive interactions between human beings and the natural world.
The one thing that every ecologist should know about urban ecology is that it can provide us with the tools we need to inspire mankind the consumer to save global biodiversity. It can provide the wisdom to help us fulfil a pressing duty as human beings and stewards of the natural world.
By understanding the intense interactions between human and non-human possible in the urban realm and the particular impacts that these can have to those in ‘nature deficit’ we have an opportunity to reinvigorate, rekindle and super-develop the oft -diminished sense of excitement and amazement that we can feel when we experience other species with which we share this fragile planet—species which we are wantonly, systematically and oh-so rapidly wiping out. In the urban realm we have a ‘captive’ audience—and a very large one—one in regular attendance. One that passes habitats, features and installations sometimes several times a day and draws meaning and wisdom from them directly and indirectly. We can welcome nature actively in new (re)combinations and often strengthen its populations to sally forth into the surrounding denuded and sprayed-out countryside. We can supersize it, display it, give it precedence, celebrate it, place it under the lens at the doorstep of every citizen regardless of income and advantage. We can graphically, artistically and eye-catchingly illustrate its wider global destruction and deterioration, explaining the rates of change in myriad ways, artistic and technological for mass public view. We can illustrate how our consumerism is driving these losses.
All the things that nature does for us in urban and rural areas are vitally important and can nurture respect and interest. But without deep love and wonder at the bizarre, extraneous, not-us, other, startling, gorgeous, frightening, instructive, aesthetically stunning nature of non-human life—the endeavour to widen the constituency for nature will fail. It will fail in the face of the lobby of destruction and ignorance that is currently taking the ascendance amongst certain administrations around the world assisted by progressive technological denaturalisation of our world and lifestyles.
Urban ecology is a framework for exploration and expression of the multiple strategies and mechanisms for positive, creative and supportive interactions between human beings and the natural world that, appropriately applied and expressed, may just redirect mankind away from its current role as they key agent of a new mass species extinction.
We have not much time.
Suggested reading:
McKinney, M.L. 2002. Urbanization, Biodiversity, and Conservation: The impacts of urbanization on native species are poorly studied, but educating a highly urbanized human population about these impacts can greatly improve species conservation in all ecosystems. BioScience, 52:10, Pages 883–890. https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2002)052[0883:UBAC]2.0.CO;2
Dr. Zhou is broadly interested in urban and landscape ecology with respect to spatial heterogeneity of the landscape. He integrates field observations, remote sensing and modeling to understand the structure of urban socio-ecological systems, and its link to ecological function.
Urban ecology acts as the frontier where ecologists can effectively promote the science-policy interface for local, regional, and global sustainability.
The one thing that every ecologist should know about urban ecology is that urban areas are hybrid social and ecological systems, and understanding such systems requires ecologists working collaboratively with scholars from all the sciences—natural, social, and engineering, as well as practitioners and decision-makers. For ecological research to be of greatest use, urban ecological studies must extend well beyond scholarly and research disciplines.
The social and biophysical nature of complexity and hybridity of urban ecosystems require urban ecology to take a strong interdisciplinary lens that brings together scholars from disparate fields. This is because discrete research disciplines are inadequate to fully address the complex multi-dimensional nature of urban ecosystems. In fact, urban ecology has been increasingly growing as a field that integrates social, biophysical and engineering sciences, and links directly into practices such as urban planning and urban design. Such need, however, still remains as a grand challenge even after a few decades of development in urban ecology.
Additionally, urban ecology acts as the frontier where ecologists can effectively promote the science-policy interface for local, regional, and global sustainability. Cities play an increasingly important role in each of the three main pillars of sustainability—social, economic, and environmental, and their impacts reach far beyond the boundaries. In fact, cities are essential to a sustainable future. Ecological knowledge about urban ecosystems has become central in understanding the present and future of cities, and therefore, the living conditions of the majority of humans. As cities are where the practitioners and decision-makers live, work, and play, they provide ideal places for ecologists to work together with them to solve real-world urban problems. Consequently, urban ecology provides a platform for ecologists to interact and collaborate with practitioners and decision-makers, and therefore, accelerating uptake of ecological knowledge by practitioners and decision-makers. Consequently, urban ecology can set a model on how ecological research can be adequately directed to real-world problem applications, and thus can be of greater use in solving real-world problems.
Suggested reading:
Pickett S.T.A, M.L. Cadenasso, D.L. Childers, M.J. McDonnell, and W. Zhou. 2016. Evolution and future of urban ecological science: ecology in, of, and for the city. Ecosystem Health and Sustainability 2 (7).
How much is a tree worth? My tree was somehow both priceless, and utterly inconsequential.
Writing this during National Forest Week here in Canada, I’m reflecting (as I frequently do) on the urban forest. As a scientist, I often find myself collapsing the beautiful, multidimensional, urban forest into a few general measurements: stand density, canopy cover, biomass, etc. But as an urban resident, I cherish these trees as individuals, too. Not long ago, I wrote elsewhere about measuring my life in trees; today, I have a new tree to introduce you to. A relationship that I’m afraid may not last as long as I had hoped.
So, how did my new tree acquaintance and I come to meet? Amidst a world that seems increasingly to be crumbling, I often find myself counting my blessings. Keeping a mental gratitude journal, if you will, of the many ways in which I have been incredibly lucky during a time in which luck is elusive for many. Among those blessings is the recent end of a year-long house hunt in a new city, resulting in access to a small yard. A yard! The height of luxury after six months of apartment-bound pandemic-living here in Montreal. However, the real blessing, to me, is that our small yard came with a tree. For the first time in my adult life, I was to become the new caretaker of a beautiful, mature canopy tree of my very own.
Photo: Carly Ziter
We signed the papers to our house on a sunny morning, smiling—and a little nervous—under our masks. Within an hour, we received a phone call. “I’m so sorry, but the neighbours’ inspection has discovered an issue with a pipe. The tree will have to go.” You see, the attached house next door was for sale too, and the tree—my tree—was quite close to the property line.
I like to think of myself as a relatively calm, positive, measured person. You could describe me as friendly, neighbourly, and perhaps above all, as non-confrontational. At least, when it comes to most matters. Yet my response to this news was neither calm, measured, nor neighbourly in the least. (In fact, I believe my reaction to my husband was something along the lines of “they will not take my tree” but peppered with language much less suitable for print). Our realtor—more suspicious than us of the auspicious timing of it all—commiserated with me, “I’d be upset too. You know, that tree is worth something!”
Photo: Carly Ziter
Here was the crux of the issue. Of course, my tree was worth something! Yet suddenly, I, a researcher who continues to devote much of my time to understanding—and professing to anyone who will listen—the myriad ecological benefits of urban trees, was faced with this question in a very different light. What was this specific, decidedly non-abstract tree actually worth to me, personally?
In the days following our phone call, I try to look at the situation with objective, ecologist eyes.
My tree is a box elder, or Manitoba Maple. Acer negundo. A weed among trees, some might say! (Although… native to Canada… another voice in my head whispers).
At 45 cm diameter, and slightly tilting, our tree may even be past its prime for a species that typically lives only 60 years. (But we’d take such good care of it, the voice whispers. And I’ve certainly seen larger ones in the city).
This really requires a landscape perspective, I think to myself. It’s just one single tree and we could replace it, plant new trees of species that would bring increased diversity to a neighbourhood of other maples! (But they won’t grow up for years… and our neighborhood is a heat island, now. Plus, look at the way its leaves catch the light outside your office window).
I try and remind myself how utterly lucky and privileged I am to have access to a yard at all but it’s no use. So, how much is a tree worth? My tree has value beyond measure.
…
Now, after a few weeks to sit with my emotions, I have calmed down considerably. I even explain the problem to backyard visitors without fuming. My friends are shocked by this seeming nonchalance, saying, “Carly…this is your tree? Do they know who they’re dealing with?” Nevertheless, my initially angry internal voice has quieted to a murmur.
Perhaps, with a little time, I’ve simply managed to remember that my “problems” are in fact minuscule compared to the incredible systemic injustices and climate breakdown the news confronts us with each day. The knowledge that while I recently packed boxes to move into my home, my colleagues on the flame-engulfed west coast were packing bags to evacuate theirs. How much, again, is a tree worth? My tree was somehow both priceless, and utterly inconsequential.
Or perhaps my change of heart is a result of the lecture I gave this week to a new class of undergrad biologists, on the principles of urban ecology. “Cities are dynamic,” I explained to my students. “Constantly changing as a result of changes in land use and management. Human and natural process also interact in cities.” Built infrastructure (say, a leaking pipe) is inexorably linked with nature (a towering tree). Setting down roots in the city, I now realize, means coming to terms with these principles, even when they come home to roost in your own backyard.
Make no mistake. I still fully plan to—calmly, and non-confrontationally—seek out a tree-preserving solution when our new neighbour moves in next month. But if need be, our tree will be replaced with a new sapling—or maybe even two. Our very small piece of the city will change, just as the broader urban landscape always has, and will continue to do. And, next summer, I will undoubtedly write a new personal essay here in TNOC about my backyard vegetable garden (full sun!)that I can’t imagine living without.
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.
Victor Beumer, DelftUrban ecosystems have no insurance value, but that does’t mean the industry can’t have an impact on ecosystem services.
Henry Booth, West ChesterResearch demonstrates that it would behoove the insurance industry to back urban decision making that promotes natural ecosystem solutions and enhanced resilience. Yet, insurers are hesitant. Why?
Mitch Chester, MiamiOur maturing century of an evolving new environmental reality demands more proactive community involvement by casualty and property companies and re-insurers, which assess and thrive on hazard exposures.
Thomas Elmqvist, StockholmThere is an urgent need to scientifically explore methodologies and conceptual frameworks for assessing the insurance value of nature and to integrate this into the disaster risk management agenda.
Alexandros Gasparatos, TokyoDespite certain benefits, I am skeptical about the final acceptability of nature-based solutions in disaster-prone environments such as Japan.
Jaroslav Mysiak, VenicePublic authorities and private insurers should liaise to explore mutually beneficial partnerships. If nothing else, an open public debate about the ‘insurance value of ecosystem services’ may contribute to exploring synergies between ecosystem preservation and disaster risk reduction.
Rob Tinch, BrusselsInsurance values of green infrastructure should be thought of as precautionary and adaptive, not in expected present value terms.
Frank Vorhies, Divonne-les-BainsHow do we articulate the environmental and social co-benefits of disaster risk reduction so that it is clearly understood by the insurance industry and its customers?
Henrik von Wehrden, LüneburgRecognizing trade-offs is, in my opinion, one strongpoint of the ecosystem service concept. Understanding the interplay between a variety of services and their temporal long-term dynamics can help us to build a better system-level understanding.
Koko Warner, BonnResources to protect and restore ecosystems can be generated through a variety of insurance tools, such as parametric insurance approaches (trigger-based insurance payouts happen when a parameter like rainfall or wind speed reaches a certain threshold).
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.
Insurance is the common modern hedge against risk. We pay in advance as a bet against later uncertain, but potentially larger, costs. The insurance industry (and sometimes society) helps mediate this risk mitigation strategy for us.
Urban life in a climate changed world presents risks to life, livelihood, and property. These risks, when they materialize, are costly, and sometimes catastrophic. When should they be borne? By whom? How much should be invested in risk reduction in advance? These are questions for our societies and for the organizations that contemplate and mediate risk, including the insurance industry.
Nature-based solutions and urban ecosystems (through the services they can provide) mitigate some of these risks. So, it is logical to ask: if nature-based infrastructure — such as wetland buffers, storm water catching bioswales, etc. — are effective mitigations for ocean surges and storms, what is their insurance value?
As an example, in the New York metropolitan region, Hurricane Sandy caused approximately 50 billion $US in damage, much of which was paid as claims to insurance (or lost altogether). What if we paid some of the costs of risk mitigation in advance by building on green infrastructure that provide protective ecosystem services? This is what insurance underwriters require of us when we insure our homes against, say, fire—that we reduce the chance of risk in advance. Should we not take the same strategy for resilience?
Or is the construction of nature-based mitigations and adaptations to climate change, in the form of large green infrastructure, solely a issue for government?
The insurance industry surely has a stake in this topic. What is it? What role can or does the industry take, either in a formal way, or to propel policy discussions?
Urban ecosystems have no insurance value. Let me elaborate this statement with an example of the application of ecosystem restoration for the purpose of climate adaptation in urban riverine systems.
In the region of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, we are active in a consortium whose ambition is to make urban river shores more natural. It concerns the river Meuse that flows through the city and has a tidal dynamic. The different partners have different goals — the city itself is trying to find ways to the increase livability in the city, especially in their water system, but also to create awareness among its citizens of living in a tidal water system. The Port of Rotterdam has the interest of balancing its portal growth with environmental quality and practicing circular economy. Worldwide Fund for Nature has set their goal to increase natural value in the tidal river system in and around Rotterdam, while the Dutch State water service (RWS) has requirements to generate a certain amount of natural shores to reach the criteria of Water Framework Directives (WFD). Deltares is developing knowledge that is combining these ambitions in nature-based solutions and strategies to implement them.
Examples of restoring tidal ecosystems in the city (artist impression)
You may notice that no partner is committing itself to the ambition of climate adaptation, while it would perfectly fit in the program. I think two reasons may have resulted in this. First, it might be unclear who is responsible for climate adaptation, not only because measures toward climate adaptation are extremely complicated and expensive but also because of the complex governance behind it. In the Netherlands we deal with water boards, provinces, municipalities, and the state itself regarding these issues. I can imagine some countries may have even more complex structures, or an absence of structure at all. Second, despite the extensive research on climate adaptation and accompanying solutions, it is very hard to pinpoint the effectiveness of riverine ecosystems on the mitigation of climate change effects in urban settings.
Now back to my statement: urban ecosystems have no insurance value. I think there are three clear reasons that underlie my statement:
It is rather uncertain how much the restoration of an urban ecosystem will provide in the mitigation of climate change effects; for example, to what extent restoration would prevent unwanted flooding. Top-end research institutes already have trouble making a quantitative correlation between restoration measures and mitigation benefits; therefore, an insurance company will never invest in such measures.
You must consider that an insurance company works with a proven business model. If it were not for highly extreme weather events (of which most are excluded from the insurance contract), damage costs are consumable. After a season of high damage costs, the insurance company will simply increase the yearly insurance premium to their clients in order to balance the business model again.
If measures for the mitigation of climate change effects would have an insurance value, why isn’t it that dikes and drainage measures with a civil-engineered character are financed with insurance capital? In such cases, it is much clearer what the exact quantitative benefits are from building a dike or setting up a drainage system than in cases of restored ecosystem services.
It may seem I have no faith in the potential impact of the insurance industry in the restoration of ecosystems for the purpose of mitigating climate change effects. But it is the opposite — I think the insurance industry is a major stakeholder in these situations. They have the ability to initiate processes of spatial change because of their position in a society: their lobby-power and their indirect effect on the attractiveness for citizens to live in a city where insurance costs are rising.
Henry Booth has worked for over 31 years as an insurance archaeologist. He specializes in the reconstruction and analysis of historical liability insurance coverage for US policyholders.
The insurance industry has experienced, and counted the cost of, severe hurricane damage, protracted drought, and other natural catastrophes and has been described as “being on the front line” of climate risks. It would seem axiomatic that those working in insurance have an interest in supporting efforts to mitigate the consequences of disasters exacerbated by, or even wholly attributable to climate change. Readily available statistics (see, for example, National Association of Insurance Commissioners & The Center for Insurance Policy & Research on climate risk) regarding losses incurred since the turn of the 21st century provide further evidence that it would behoove the insurance industry to back urban decision making that promotes natural ecosystem solutions and enhanced resilience.
In the course of considering this question, I came upon various analyses in which the value of ecosystem benefits and initiatives was quantified. The cities involved were geographically diverse and included Toronto, Canada (greenbelt benefits, annual value $2.7 billion CDN) and Canberra, Australia (tree planting initiative, value over 4 years $20-67 million US). Belgian and Chinese ecosystem value assessments, sponsored by ICLEI-Global.org, were also detailed. These reports described the insurance value for ecosystem services as the contribution of green infrastructure and ecosystem services to increased resilience and reduced vulnerability to shock.
I also saw a treatise titled “Estimating the insurance value of ecosystem resilience” which analysis included calculations leading to the actual quantifying of the insurance value. The subject of the study was an area of farmland north of Melbourne, Australia, that is threatened by salinization due to rising water tables. The authors concluded that ecosystem resilience provides a sizeable economic insurance value. Here, at least theoretically, was some kind of hard data to support a discernible value that should be recognized by the insurance industry, who can underwrite accordingly.
It seems, however, from various studies by organizations such as Ceres, a non-profit advocating sustainability leadership, as well as by reference to articles in the news media, that the insurance industry is not exactly hurtling into the leadership role that might have been expected of them in this area. As a practical matter, for there to be a real insurance value of urban ecosystems and their services, I suppose that the industry has to be engaged in a way that, at least thus far, they are not.
Why not?
I have seen the phrase “ecological threshold” (ET) used in this connection and I think it provides one reason as to why most insurers in the US marketplace have provided a poor response in terms of leadership in the face of the worsening global impact of climate change . The ET is defined as “the point at which a relatively small change in external conditions causes a rapid change in an ecosystem”—in this sense, the ET is a measure of resilience. To the extent that the ability to quantify the insurance value of ecosystem servicesis affected by the distance to the ET (i.e. the closer the distance to the ET, the more susceptible to error any such valuation is), the riskier the underwriting of insurance for entities, such as cities, that may be at the margins of the ET, becomes.
Another reason that the insurance industry doesn’t want to engage natural solutions may be found in the evaluation of their exposure to underwriting losses by the Association of American Insurers (AIA). The AIA has said that most of their property/casualty product lines have limited or no exposure to climate-change-related losses. For the lines that do have exposure, weather is only one among a number of covered perils bringing in premium. This spread of product lines allows for stability, at least for the insurers, who can offset a possible loss-making line by multiple lines bringing in premium revenue. In addition, it is worth remembering that in the USA, flood and crop insurance are federal programs in which the insurance industry participates through administration—including policy issuance and claims handling—but not in terms of any negative financial exposure. This calls into question their incentive (at least financially) to support urban ecosystems as a means of mitigating risk.
Still, the AIA talks up its ability to respond and adapt in the face of changing conditions and generally supports sustainable development initiatives, provided they have been thoroughly examined and determined not to have the potential to create new hazards. The Ceres’ survey I mentioned above quotes the NAIC as encouraging insurance industry leaders to take the challenge presented by climate change more seriously. Couched in terms of relieving possible financial insolvency and protecting the insurance consumer, they say that insurance industry is uniquely positioned as a risk-bearer to reduce the impending impact of climate change.
Based on what I have seen, the “talk has been talked” by insurance industry regulators and commentators and the potential insurance value of ecosystem services has been ‘actuarialized’. But, for the reasons discussed above, so far this has not yet convinced the US insurance industry to “walk the walk.”
This may also be due to fear of the unknown and a desire not to let history repeat itself. My work is concerned with latent injury claims such as may arise through exposure to asbestos or as a result of environmental contamination. In this world, case facts and appropriate proof of coverage permitting, Comprehensive General Liability (CGL) insurance policies written as far back as the 1930s may respond to a modern claim. Because the insurance industry was marketing its new CGL product in the late 1930s (as well as related coverages over time), it was keen to point out that CGL covered everything that was not expressly excluded. The greed of the marketplace and breadth of coverage written caused massive insurer insolvency from the 1980s forward, including (almost) bringing down Lloyd’s of London.
Likewise, in 2004/2005 I worked on behalf of a large mid-western city whose liability insurance included coverage for their airports. After a convoluted process, the case—involving environmental property damage at, and adjacent to, the airport—settled for cents on the dollar relative to the actual limits of liability purchased by the city. There were some solid reasons for this, but also some knee jerk insurer activity designed to reduce their dollar exposure which, in order to get out from under the case with some not trivial money, the city accepted. This illustrates several things which a city seeking “insurance value”—e.g. a reduction in premium—on account of systems put in place to mitigate possible future losses from climate change-related events would do well to remember.
As a result of cases like these, claims are picked through in the utmost detail before any payment is made. And new frontiers, such as the evaluation of ecosystem for insurance purposes, are a long time in the reaching.
Mitchell A. Chester, Esq. is a trial attorney licensed in the State of Florida. In practice for 37 years, he is focused on identifying and seeking solutions to emerging legal and financial issues created by sea level rise (SLR) and climate impacts.
Insurers, bond rating companies, and local governments as proponents of natural fortifications in vulnerable communities
As Naomi Klein points out in her excellent work, This Changes Everything, some insurance industry giants have been very vocal about climate risks, but have not done much to promote proactive climate policies to assist local communities.
Our maturing century of an evolving new environmental reality demands a more proactive community involvement by casualty and property companies and re-insurers, which assess and thrive on hazard exposures. Should they fail to take a more active public stance to deal with rising seas, significant opportunities to insure will soon be lost to the industry, insurance consumers will suffer, and society will fall further behind in needed adaptation and mitigation measures. The end result of such neglect may hasten the day when “retreat” strategies are utilized with more urgency than would be necessary if we had started to connect seemingly unrelated tools.
A curious opportunity thus presents itself. How can the risk industry use natural systems to prepare our towns and cities to maintain public and private economic resources, jobs, and infrastructure? Can a link be made between nature based coastal defense systems and insurance boardrooms? How can large insurers promote utilization of coastal forests, beach and dune restorations, fortified berms, wetlands, coral reefs, mangroves, oyster formations, and reforestation efforts to shore up their premium providing markets?
What stakeholders can be recruited to forge a financial nexus that will empower a partnership between political leaders and insurers to facilitate the public good? In the multiverse of climate change psychology, we can start thinking differently.
Let’s connect some major players.
Insurers depend on the need of local communities to have financial security so that underwriters can continue to provide their varied products. When those markets are challenged by climatic events such as progressive sea level rise, underwriters need to extend their current horizons beyond their usual annual financial risk analysis and partner with communities in natural and urban eco-system fortification strategies. The stakes are very high; the need for new economic strategies to prepare is urgent. According to RiskyBusiness.org, in the United States, “by 2050 between $66 billion worth of existing coastal property will likely be below sea level nationwide.” That’s just the beginning, and probably a conservative estimate at that. Mid-century is not that far away.
The goal is to extend the insurability of the very same risk-vulnerable communities that create yearly premium revenues for insurers. A successful enterprise-level public initiative joining insurance-oriented public-private partnerships with other financial stakeholders is a key opportunity. For example, bond rating companies which team up with insurance industry stakeholders to support nature-based protection solutions can forge an intelligent strategy to help local and regional governments answer tough questions about readiness for some climate events.
This formula would be a positive for both the insurers (by promoting the opportunity to retain insureds as customers for as long as possible in communities threatened by encroaching waters) and political leaders (who need solid bond ratings for public infrastructure). An important by-product of this type of teamwork would be a more durable coastline that protects the “built environment.”
There are historical examples of the insurance industry acting beyond current modes of insurer operations. According to Dr. Evan Mills, Staff Scientist for the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, insurers were a motivating force in the creation of early fire departments and acted as advocates for building codes. Now there are new opportunities. Dr. Mills adds, “While the primary focus in recent years has been on financially managing risks, physical risk management is receiving renewed attention and could play a large role in helping to preserve the insurability of coastal and other high risk areas.”
A new partnership: Coastal Defense Allies
How can we move insurers beyond improving building codes and into nature-based risk reduction? Insurers can structure their proactivity to support construction of natural coastal defense systems through these strategies:
Education of vulnerable insurance consumers about how adapting to climate events using nature-based defense strategies is a good place to start to create public support for the innovative solutions that can be employed by public officials. Grassroots endorsements of such programs, combined with public advocacy for the use of natural systems to protect regions, is a way to spark political will currently lacking in many public officials. According to the Insurance Information Institute, in September 2014, there were already examples of insurance industry advocacy for revised building codes. For example, in some parts of Southeastern Florida, new structure standards are being proposed and implemented in reaction to scientifically peer-reviewed studies about sea level rise. Beyond such efforts, promoting the use and construction of natural coastal defenses should be added to the list of insurer tools to reduce risk and to promote mitigation.
Large insurers can agree to insure multi-million dollar (or more) coastal developments with certain criteria as pre-conditions. For example, large projects on estuaries, inlets, and other coastal areas can be required to construct substantial wetland protection zones to help safeguard the insured’s investments and the risks assumed by the carriers. In locations where wetlands and other coastal defenses cannot be built or properly restored (and meaningful set backs are not physically possible), insurers can decline to accept the mounting risks that will be associated with such construction, while at the same time inducing potential insureds with financial incentives if they move their projects to more sustainable locations. Such incentives can be a major factor in motivating strategic, climate-smart placement of new hotels, office buildings, other commercial properties, and private residences in areas which are less susceptible to sea level rise and more affordable to insure when losses occur. The lesson is clear: Natural systems for coastal areas equals reduced risk. This approach takes insurers beyond the important but limited “green building” approach, such as LEED Certification, to what can be called a “green footprint” policy, which advocates environmental responsibility beyond the walls of built structures and into their surrounding neighborhoods.
Insurers can partner with municipal bond rating agencies to induce responsible governmental and insurance consumer action in promoting natural system defenses in coastal areas. This relationship can help identify needed infrastructure improvements at the “micro” level. “Local government credit quality,” which is measured by the health of municipal bond ratings when viewed from the perspective of climate threats, is already being watched by powerful entities such as Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investor Service, and Fitch Ratings. If local governments are not proactively able on their own to handle climate risks such as swelling oceans, they will ultimately receive lower credit ratings. Ignoring this naturally symbiotic fiscal relationship will produce a cycle of lower willingness to insure in areas that are suffering from lower bond scores. However, by enthusiastically working with municipal rating agencies to prevent credit downgrades, property and casualty and re-insurers can help consumers and local governments act stronger with regard to the risks they face. Intelligently slowing advancing waters can also fortify bond ratings so local governments can entice continued investments for public infrastructure needs.
Insurers can direct their investment dollars toward sea level rise adaptation projects in exchange for user fees. Public-private partnerships are great at such relationships. Just as Dragados USA invested in the expansion of Interstate 595 in Southeastern Florida in return for user fees on express lanes, insurers can infuse dollars into construction of natural defense systems in exchange for receiving neighborhood impact fees paid by local beneficiaries such as businesses, municipal governments, and homeowners.
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Government has limited financial resources. The same is true for private sector stakeholders. Each is interdependent with the other in the fight to fortify, for as long as possible, threatened coastal areas. They have an emerging role to play in supporting natural systems to reduce the risk in advance of storm surge, progressive sea level rise, saltwater intrusion, and tidal flooding. As the science of sea level rise advances, so too must our collective economic psychology to bring new players to the adaptation and mitigation fight.
Thomas Elmqvist is a professor in Natural Resource Management at Stockholm University and Theme Leader at the Stockholm Resilience Center. His research is on ecosystem services, land use change, natural disturbances and components of resilience including the role of social institutions.
To date, the insurance value of ecosystems has been largely overlooked in research and practice and mostly discussed in relation to its role as a metaphor for the value of resilience. However, the concept has recently gained a lot of interest. The latest is an initiative within the EU to base economic development in Europe on nature-based solutions, where maintaining and strengthening the insurance value of ecosystems is a cornerstone.
The reason for this interest is partly that global natural disasters have shown a clear increasing trend. The annual reported economic damages from natural disasters have risen from less than 100 billion $US in 2000 to above 300 billion in 2011 and, between 2002 and 2013, natural disasters led to more than 80,000 fatalities and several hundreds of billions euros of damages in the European Union alone (European Commission, 2014). At the same time, studies have demonstrated the benefit of investment in natural capital and green infrastructure to reduce risks of disasters. For example, according to Korea Environment Institute (2011) for the year 2010, a 1 percent increase in size of green infrastructure, which includes parks, urban forests, and green roofs, is estimated to bring 6.4 percent reduction in economic loss caused by flooding in the cities of Korea.
So how do we include these values in development and urban planning?
Several attempts are now made to develop and operationalize the concept of insurance value of ecosystems. Currently, there are two definitions of the insurance value of ecosystems. The first emphasizes the capacity to generate ecosystem service benefits by maintaining a system within a given regime, despite disturbance and management uncertainty. This definition is closely linked to definitions of resilience and includes a more explicit economic approach. The second definition puts more emphasis on the value of the sustained capacity of ecosystems to reduce risks to human society caused by, for example, climate change-related excess precipitation, temperature, or by natural disasters (Expert group DG Research 2015); it more specifically targets disaster risk reduction.
A combination of the two seems like a way forward: where the insurance value of an ecosystem results from the system itself having the capacity to cope with external disturbances, and includes both an estimate of the risk reduction due to the physical presence of an ecosystem (e.g., the area of upstream land/number of downstream properties protected) and the capacity to sustain risk reduction (i.e., the resilience of the system).
Recognizing the effect of green infrastructure, the European Commission (EC) has initiated EC Green Infrastructure Strategy to promote green infrastructure in the EU. In fact, Target 2 of the EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy requires that “by 2020, ecosystems and their services are maintained and enhanced by establishing green infrastructure and restoring at least 15 percent of degraded ecosystems.” This project aims to enhance quantity and diversity of urban green areas to increases security against natural disasters, which are projected to increase with climate change.
There is an urgent need to scientifically explore methodologies and conceptual frameworks for assessing the insurance value of nature and to integrate this into the disaster risk management agenda. This could be done, for example, by working with financial institutions and insurance companies to develop innovative ways for promoting nature-based solutions for risk management.
One strategy could be to translate risk reduction capacity into value through calculating benefit/investment ratios in landscape management and restoration. Here, the benefits would represent the reduced risk and potential lower premiums of land and property insurance policies. A new legal framework that serves to create incentives for maintaining or enhancing the insurance capacity of ecosystems should be explored. It would be important to first develop a framework where the models and data (including downscaled climate change scenarios) capturing the capacity of ecosystems to reduce risks are made compatible and harmonised with the risk assessment models and data used by the private insurance sector.
A complementary strategy would be to develop an economic approach to understanding ecosystems as representing the stock that generates the flow of services and to explore how to capture the long-term benefits of maintaining and enhancing that stock.
Thirdly, we should explore the cultural dimension of the insurance value of ecosystems and people’s perceptions of risks and insurance.
Alexandros Gasparatos is Associate Professor of Sustainability Science at the University of Tokyo. As an ecological economist, he is interested in the development, refinement, and application of sustainability assessment and ecosystem services valuation tools.
Living in Tokyo, you become no stranger to the occasional typhoon or earthquake. And you can’t help but notice how the natural environment has been completely shaped throughout Japan, partly to reduce the risk of such events. Indeed, the need to ensure the safety of the population and the resilience of the socioeconomic system does not need to be overemphasized in a metropolis which is both the home of over 35 million people and the economic heart of the world’s 3rd largest economy.
As an ecological economist, I have been trying for several years to persuade others about the multiple benefits that we derive from nature. I whole-heartedly believe that urban ecosystems can indeed insure against certain environmental risks and offer co-benefits such as biodiversity conservation and cultural ecosystem services (e.g. recreation).
However, I also see three highly interconnected reasons that will make it very challenging to adopt such solutions, at least in the short-to-medium term. This is especially true in highly disaster-prone countries such as Japan, where the safety of the population following the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake sometimes overrides economic rationalities.
The first reason that urban ecosystem-based insurance solutions will be difficult to implement has to do simply with the several unknowns surrounding the feasibility and effectiveness of urban ecosystems to insure against different natural hazards, let alone the “reproducibility” of nature-based solutions, especially if we aim for their widespread adoption. More importantly, are there certain thresholds over which ecosystems cannot insure against these risks? And what are these thresholds?
Engineered mitigation strategies usually undergo a series of tests and refinements, both under laboratory and real-life conditions. So there is usually a threshold of (un)certainty about what these strategies can achieve and under what conditions. Undertaking this process with ecosystems (particularly undisturbed ecosystems) is a much more complicated task that is highly reliant on natural experiments. As a result, it can be subject to longer and more difficult verification processes.
The second reason has to do with public acceptability of mitigation solutions and how it can vary not only between different types of natural hazards (and severity levels), but also between cultural and socioeconomic settings. In some settings, “using nature to guard against disasters” equals “taking no mitigation action”. While I do not subscribe to this viewpoint, I cannot help but acknowledge that in such contexts it would be next to impossible to adopt nature-based solutions for disaster risk mitigation. This is because a decrease in the intended benefit of nature-based solutions, i.e. disaster mitigation to ensure the safety of the population at risk, will trample the provision of any other co-benefit that could be added in the equation.
The third reason has to do with assigning (and accepting) responsibility in the event of failure. Even if a nature-based solution is acceptable to the public, it is the decision maker adopting it that will ultimately be scrutinized in the event of a failure. I tend to believe that a nature-based solution will not be preferred over an engineered solution even if it was acceptable by the public, in part because a line of responsibility can be traced from the decision maker to the provider of this solution. A level of “quality” could be assured for an engineered solution, but would it be feasible to assure a level of “quality” in a disaster mitigation service offered by an ecosystem? Who would make such an assessment? An academic or a consultant could quantify (one way or another) the monetary benefits delivered from such an ecosystem service, but could they put their reputation on the line and “vouch” for the level of quality of the service that was ultimately delivered by an ecosystem?
I strongly believe that research could bridge several of the current knowledge gaps and possibly allow for the assurance if the “quality” of risk mitigation ecosystem services. Ultimately, I am highly skeptical that it will be easy to enhance the acceptability of ecosystem-based solutions for the public and decision makers. This might prove to be a too difficult hurdle in high disaster-prone environments such as Japan.
Dr. Jaroslav Mysiak is the director of the research division ‘Risk assessment and adaptation strategies’ at the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change and senior scientist at the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei. His research concentrates on environmental economics and governance, and climate risk and adaptation.
The recent upswing of interest in disaster insurance from European policy makers and the revitalised appreciation of ecosystem services and nature-based solutions has coalesced into a notion of insurance value of ecosystem services. This term should not be understood as implying that insurers gain from or make a profit out of ecosystem services. Rather, it should be explored what role disaster insurance can (or should) play for conservation and restoration of environment.
In many places, ecosystem services (ESSs) attenuate natural hazard risks, locally or regionally, and hence have an economic value in the context of natural disaster insurance, even if no price actually is paid for their provision and/or maintenance. The implicit value of ESSs is the price difference of insurance under marginal changes of ESSs provision. In other words, it is the price differential for risk premiums homeowners pay for having their property insured, and what they would have to pay if the existing risk-mitigating ecosystem services were somehow eroded. Where, for example, ecosystems such as forests or wetlands in the upstream basin area do reduce or delay peak flow discharges, the flood risk and hence insurance prices are lower than in other places where no similar risk-mitigating ecosystem service is available.
Insurers do not trade with the ecosystem services; the latter are a part of the baseline risk calculations. ESSs are a public good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous. Their implicit utilisation does not distort the market and competition because all insurance undertakings have equal access to ESSs. The question is whether insurance prices can be used as an incentive for ecosystem conservation or an instrument (one of many) for recovering the ensuing costs?
Individual commercial insurance contracts are perhaps less suitable as incentives to this end, but other forms of insurance, including mutual and community-based schemes, may foster reduction of negative environmental externalities such as surface water drainage discharges. Because flood risk increases as a result of collective externalities, co-operative insurance can reward individual efforts to reduce surface runoff from one’s own property. Whether insurance is a better way that land or property taxes or rainwater collection charges should be explored by targeted research and policy trials.
Using insurance contracts for recovering costs of ecosystem restoration and maintenance is more prone to controversies. Whereas the ‘polluter-pay-principle’ (PPP) is firmly rooted in the European Treaty and secondary environmental legislation, the ‘beneficiary-pays-principle’ (BPP) is not. The European Commission (EC) does consider flood protection as a water service, the costs of which are to be recovered by water prices. But the sentence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in the case Commission against Germany did not back-up the position of the EC, and the ECJ ruled that, as long as the (environmental) objectives are met, it is at the discretion of the national governments to choose the best suited policy instrument. But even in this case, the ecosystem services were not at the heart of the dispute.
There are practical and ethical aspects in the application of BPP. From a practical point of view, it is difficult to trace the individual benefits of ecosystem services. Hence, any attempt to apply BPP in practice will result in burdensome evidence collection and high transaction costs. Because those property owners who benefit most from existing ecosystem services are those who see the largest saving in risk premiums, the BPP would possibly need to use inverse proportional charges and transfer of collected revenues to areas where the ecosystems are degraded and need to be restored. From an ethical point of view, the BPP clashes against arguments related to social justice and historical responsibility for environmental changes. It is worthwhile, however, for public authorities and private insurers to liaise to explore mutually beneficial partnerships. If nothing else, an open public debate about the ‘insurance value of ecosystem services’ may contribute to exploring synergies between ecosystem preservation and disaster risk reduction.
Should we value the insurance services of urban green infrastructure?
Resilience of urban systems is an increasing concern, and urban green infrastructure has an important role to play in providing services and enhancing resilience. It may seem logical that we should attempt to value this ‘insurance value’, to incorporate these values in decision support and urban planning. And there is excellent research being carried out into this issue, on both theoretical and practical levels.
McPhearson et al. (2014) argue that insurance value reflects “the maintenance of ecosystem service benefits despite variability, disturbance and management uncertainty”. Pascual et al. (2015) make space for ‘natural insurance value’ (NIV) as a component of ‘total economic value’, with the more conventional components (use and non-use values) being classified as ‘total output value’ (TOV). Pascual et al. further divide NIV into ‘self-protection’ (lowering the risk of a disturbance event) and ‘self-insurance’ (reducing the size of loss from an event). NIV is quite a specific concept relating to “the value of one very specific function of resilience: to reduce an ecosystem user’s income risk from using ecosystem services under uncertainty” (Baumgärtner and Strunz, 2014:22).
Source: Pascual et al 2015
There are problems in operationalising this framework in valuation. Private discount rates are high, so private decisions about green infrastructure and insurance are likely to be socially sub-optimal. Non-linear relationships (edge effects, minimum viable areas, network effects…) will play an important role, making marginal valuation challenging and reducing scope for value transfer.
But these problems are not insurmountable, and valuation can be attempted. For certain types of infrastructure (e.g. natural flood defences) this could be done via expected damages and/or conventional prevention costs avoided. NIV can also form the basis of a stated preference instrument. For example, Figueroa and Pasten (2015) value local climate regulation services of forests via the change in insurance premium that risk-averse individuals are willing to pay when forest cover changes.
If, however, we’re thinking about long-term resilience to extreme scenarios and threats—as in adaptation to high-end scenarios of climate change—then conventional valuation faces serious limitations. We’re talking about different people, preferences, social-economic structures, technologies. There is high uncertainty about risks of disturbances, extrapolation well beyond current experience, unknown tipping-points/thresholds, irreversibilities and feedbacks. Under these circumstances, conventional valuation and CBA break down: their numerical ‘clarity’ becomes “especially and unusually misleading” (Weitzman, 2007). Standard welfare functions work for stable/increasing consumption paths but fail to reflect views on overshoots, fluctuations, and long-term threats to existence. Reducing complex, uncertain paths to expected present values destroys information on distribution across generations, on uncertainty regarding outcomes, and on risks of catastrophic/unacceptable outcomes.
Within a decision support context, therefore, the question of the ‘value’ of insurance might be of rather less interest than the question of the range of scenarios for which green infrastructure provides resilience, either in terms of security of a particular service, or more generally in terms of flexible natural capital stocks that could be designed to buffer against a wide range of possible scenarios. Aiming to pass flexible stocks and opportunities to future generations may be a much more useful goal than aiming to optimise expected present values given huge uncertainties. Attempting to value insurance from green infrastructure runs a risk of bringing a short-term, expected value focus to inherently long-term, resilience-providing investments. While attempts to value natural insurance are academically interesting, the insurance role of urban GI should be considered in the light of precaution, flexibility, adaptation and resilience-enhancing criteria, not expected values.
Acknowledgement: The ideas presented in this note have been prepared during work under European Commission contracts n° 603416 IMPRESSIONS (http://www.impressions-project.eu/) and n° 308393 OPERAs (http://www.operas-project.eu/ )
References:
Baumgärtner, S., Strunz, S., 2014. The economic insurance value of ecosystem resilience. Ecol. Econ. 101, 21–32.
Figueroa, E., & Pasten, R. (2015). The economic value of forests in supplying local climate regulation. Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
McPhearson, T., et al., Resilience of and through urban ecosystem services. Ecosystem Services (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2014.07.012i
Pascual, Unai, Mette Termansen, Katarina Hedlund, Lijbert Brussaard, Jack H. Faber, Sébastien Foudi, Philippe Lemanceau, and Sisse Liv Jørgensen. “On the value of soil biodiversity and ecosystem services.” Ecosystem Services 15 (2015): 11-18.
Weitzman, M.L. (2007). A review of the Stern Review on the economics of climate change. Journal of Economic Literature, 45:3, 703–724.
Yes, we can mitigate disaster risk by investing in nature-based protection scheme areas. This includes natural areas set aside and managed for storms and floods. Such measures will reduce the costs of insuring for disasters, and the industry is capable of estimating cost reductions and adjusting insurance rates accordingly.
Importantly, investing in urban disaster risk mitigation can also have important economic and social co-benefits. Natural areas managed for risk mitigation can also be important areas for conserving biodiversity. The management programmes for these areas can also engage local communities, raise awareness on environmental protection, and provide learning opportunities for young and old alike. And, of course, natural areas can be important areas for recreation and relaxation.
Thus, investments in nature-based risk mitigation can strengthen environmental and social resilience within an urban area. In so doing, these investments further enhance the capacity of the area to mitigate disasters when they do occur. This in turn further reduces the potential costs of disasters and hence should lower the rates for insuring against these disasters. Do insurance companies recognize these savings?
This implies that there is both a public and a private benefit to more clearly articulating the co-benefits of disaster risk reduction.
But who will undertake the work needed to make these benefits transparent to the local policy makers and to the insurance industry? Perhaps this is a task for university researchers or for civil society organisations. Or perhaps the information scientists are providing is somehow not of the right form and this is a task for communicators.
How do we articulate the environmental and social co-benefits of disaster risk reduction so that it clearly understood by the insurance industry and its customers?
What is the optimal sustainable size and management strategy of a city? Adding to the rising debate on optimal city sizes, the ecosystem service concept is increasingly recognized in urban planning. However, much of the literature to date focuses on biophysical entities of ecosystem services. Of course, planning of biophysical aspects of ecosystem services such as climate regulation or flood protection are surely necessary and helpful, but recognition of the perceptions and needs of citizens is also important. More research is needed that considers both normative perceptions and engages in transformation towards a more sustainable state of the given system.
Normative perceptions demand recognition of stakeholders, a labor intensive and often context-dependent task. However, recognition of stakeholders and their perception is crucial when it comes to recognition of the insurance risk, as it is stakeholders who will ultimately endure potential risks and claim compensation. Many urban settings are designed for the people, when they should be designed by the people. When cities started to grow massively, urban planners attempted to separate living from working, and commuting drastically increased. This potentially also led to higher disparities of risks between different neighborhoods, where some areas are at higher risk of catastrophic events than others. This concept was dramatically illustrated by the effects of Hurricane Katrina, where some neighborhoods suffered higher impacts than others.
Today, there is a global trend towards a recognition of functional diversity within cities, meaning that separation of different functions in urban settings often decreases. Neighborhoods with a higher diversity in function and ecosystem services may support a higher quality of life for citizens and a better resilience against drastic changes or catastrophes we face today. The concept of ecosystem services should therefore enable a diverse and resilient setting of services.
Urban planners should, in my opinion, not make the mistake of focusing on short-term optimization by using the ecosystem service approach. In contrast, planners need to include long-term effects of different ecosystem services signatures into their planning process. Costs that protect urban setting from rare catastrophes, especially, may only pay off on a long-term perspective. Planners and citizens need to recognize the value of these long-term services, where settings that are tightly planned may not allow for systems to tackle extremes, and may fail to deliver a just urban setting. Many stressors of urban environments are extreme by nature. Calculation of average system entities is relevant, but current challenges also demand the integration of extremes, including the interplay of extremes. For example, if heatwaves alter soil infiltration capacities, torrential rainfalls later in the year then create devastating floods. Recognizing trade-offs is, in my opinion, one strongpoint of the ecosystem service concept. Understanding the interplay between a variety of services and their temporal long-term dynamics can help us to build a better system understanding. While this is, in part, context dependent, many solutions are also transferable across different neighborhoods and economies.
Disparities are not only found within cities, but also between different economies. While insurance risks are comparably well accounted for in parts of Europe and North America, urban environments in most of the world are not covered by insurance, but are often threatened by risks. Insurance often focusses on individuals, but risks can threaten whole neighborhoods or even cities. Insurance can thus increase injustice within cities, where only those people that can afford insurance are protected. The costs of long term planning endeavors need to be added to the costs of urban settings, both for urban planners and citizens. While urban living would thus become more expensive, it may create a more just setting for all citizens. This may enable more sustainable planning for future cities by increasing equity and justice in cost calculation of urban areas. If this price is too high for citizens and planners, then we will continue to rely on insurances and tackling catastrophes only after they hit us.
Dr. Koko Warner is a Senior Scientist at the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security, where she leads the Environmental Migration, Social Vulnerability & Adaptation Section.
People living in growing urban centers around the world face a variety of risks today related to climate change — storms and extreme weather, sea level rise, water availability are a few of the kinds of risks to people’s lives, livelihoods, and property. When these risks materialize they can be costly. For example, Hurricane Katrina caused around $US 125 billion in the wider New Orleans area when it made landfall in August 2005. Today, we primarily manage risk through insurance. We pay in advance to receive financial protection against future uncertain and potentially larger costs. The insurance industry (and sometimes society) offers us this financial protection.
Urban ecosystems and risk management
In some cities, trees, water systems, and other ecosystem services are increasingly viewed as resources for managing risks of climate change. For example, in coastal areas in tropical zones, mangroves reduce the overall impact of storm surges, reduce coastal erosion, and other risk factors to cities. Coral reefs play a similar role of buffering strong wave action and protecting vulnerable coastal settlements. Such ecosystems provide an important source of buffering and risk reduction.
These ecosystem services are also vulnerable to damage, however. In part because of the public goods nature of ecosystem services, innovative risk management solutions have begun to think about managing risks to them like public infrastructure using tools like insurance. Such infrastructures—natural or man-made—can be insured against damage.
Urban ecosystems and insurance
Resources to protect and restore ecosystems can be generated through a variety of insurance tools, such as parametric insurance approaches (trigger-based insurance payouts happen when a parameter like rainfall or wind speed reaches a certain threshold). Such tools can be combined with early warning systems linked with special training for urban populations on reducing risk to property and life. In case of an approaching storm, affected people would receive a prior warning and by applying knowledge gained through their training, secure their belongings effectively and relocate to a safe area. This scenario would reduce the overall damage to their livelihoods, while ensuring their eligibility for a payout if the storm crossed the predefined thresholds.
Especially in the case of ecosystem services in urban areas, the underlying risk can be ameliorated if the provision of such services is managed comprehensively. For example, in dense low-lying delta regions such as the Mekong Delta that are flood prone, insurance against damages caused by flooding is crucial. However, this insurance must operate hand in hand with the development of more climate resilient infrastructure, the application of building codes, or zoning regulations and other forms of adaptive planning that reduce the potential damage as much as possible.
The insurers we talk to emphasize the importance of risk reduction. By already reducing your risk through early warning systems and climate proofing infrastructure, you can better withstand the medium-frequency impacts and still get a payout from insurance in cases where damage exceeds what individuals can cope with. Some insurers even apply clauses in their policies that require insurance holders to exercise risk reduction. This way, a track record of effective risk reduction action could also lead to a reduction of insurance premiums in the long run. Our research shows that it’s not enough for people to just receive payouts; rather, the support they receive needs to be more holistic for them to be resilient in the face of climate change and other challenges.
Insurance basics. How does one best approach risks of different magnitudes and frequencies? The very frequent and less severe risks (25 years). These risks can only be addressed through insurance and other forms of risk transfer because they usually far exceed the coping capacities of the individuals at risk. However, insurance alone is not enough.
In the case of extreme but infrequently occurring risks, insurance approaches that are organized as public-private-partnerships, such as an insurance solution connected to a social safety net programme, might be able to provide better and more comprehensive protection. Such a solution would combine the strengths of all actors and divide the risks among many stakeholders. However, the important issue to keep in mind is to always link whatever insurance approach is selected to a comprehensive risk management approach.
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.
Pedro Camarena, Mexico City If we want to conserve the landscapes that save us and give us gifts, then we should always call them sacred places. The intervention in a territory should be seen as a ritual in which man can only play a small role, and tries to pass unnoticed.
Jayne Engle, Montreal We may find the sacred in places where we escape—a quiet, contemplative garden or eave on a highrise roof where there is life around, not too far away, yet distant enough to not force interaction. Or where one steals a magical kiss with a lover in a busy alleyway so lush with vegetation that it provides secret nooks at twilight.
Emilio Fantin, Milan The “sacred” manifests itself in the relationship between man, as a spiritual being, nature and culture.
Mickey Fearn, Raleigh How can public agencies, community organizations, and residents of poor urban communities create a collaborative initiative that will empower, organize and support citizens to create sacred spaces, that increase civility and improve wellbeing?
Divya Gopal, Leipzig Bangalore’s sacred trees have multidimensional relevance – cultural importance, inherent protection and high utilitarian value.
Patrick Lydon, Seoul Think urban nature is important? Hug a tree. Really mean it. Tell your friends.
Jimena Martignoni, Buenos Aires Those who think and plan and design the places for people—meaning cities and urban spaces that make up the cities—have now an opportunity to rethink the sacred.
Maria Tengö, Stockholm Deeply held or sacred values of species or natural sites represent a “social-ecological capital” for local stewardship of urban green spaces.
Naomi Tsur, Jerusalem While the fact that Jerusalem is a spiritual destination for the three monotheistic faiths has caused much conflict and bloodshed, could the nature that is shared by all, and which is the key to our continuing life here and everywhere, become a common denominator, not only in Jerusalem but in all the holy cities around the world that are destinations for pilgrims?
Gavin van Horn, Chicago If social realities are dependent upon ecological realities, then it is important to consider how matter, well, matters.
Shawn Van Sluys, Guelph Urban green spaces, like the arts, are resonant spaces for thinking and being
Diana Wiesner, Bogota Landscape is not just a place, but also has its own cultural image with millions of stories rooted in the ground. It can help people identify with the contexts of their lives, work and leisure, and to strengthen individual and collective knowledge and belonging to the society.
Kathleen Wolf, Seattle Civic sacred should be designed into urban nearby nature—another goal for green infrastructure and sustainability design.
Mary Wyatt, Washington In the last two decades, the TKF Foundation has supported the creation of more than 130 open and accessible urban greenspaces. We believe nature is inherently sacred and has the power to heal and transform.
The sacred can refer to the spiritual, to the ethereal, but can also refer to the material and tangible—whether they be objects or landscapes. In the act of recognition, humans put value on certain aspects of their lives, albeit somewhat subjectively, and sense or give greater or lesser value to things. The values ascribed are not necessarily specific or in a utilitarian sense, but, in the end, things have ascribed and understood value. Landscapes themselves comprise diverse attributes and, in a broad sense, are inclusive of all parts; but are also more than the sum of parts. The word landscape is as great as its defining object and this makes landscapes enormously rich.
It is so hard to make a single accurate definition of landscape because of the breadth of things that represent it. It is rich soil, flora and fauna. It is the great number of interactions between the elements of the landscape that makes a precise, fixed and unchanging definition difficult. The landscape is rich, which together lives, evolves, changes and is renewed. Its richness evolves. But the dynamism of landscapes, sometimes imperceptible, perhaps is the greatest element in which to recognize the sacred. It is precisely the infinite change of scenery that amazes us, that can be sacred to us—the sacredness of landscape.
But, anthropomorphized landscapes are often modified in a banal way, monotonous, and without feeling or reason, which undermines the landscape’s sacred meaning. However, there are also times when man knows how to integrate into the landscape and make it both of landscape and of man. Cultures that protect the landscape and know how to be part of it better understand the concept of the sacred. They have understood that the landscape is a nonrenewable resource and therefore you should not intervene if you do not have the utmost respect and knowledge.
If we want to conserve the landscapes that save us and give us gifts, then we should always call them what they are: sacred, open places that nuture the spirit. Intervention in a territory should be seen as a ritual in which man can only play a small role, and tries to pass unnoticed.
“To give voice to the non-human, to listen to them, becomes a political and creative act, because it opens a new public space, a cosmic forum or parliament of things.”
—Bruno Latour 1999 Politics of Nature
Lindsay K. Campbell is a research social scientist with the USDA Forest Service. Her current research explores the dynamics of urban politics, stewardship, and sustainability policymaking.
Inherent in the meaning and etymology of the word “sacred” is the active role that humans play in consecration, the act of designation. Because so many of our sacred sites are ancient (stone circles, ruins, mountains, earth mounds), we can sometimes forget about the activeness and liveliness of the sacred. But the sacred is certainly not relegated to history. As well, the sacred is not only found in the religious realm (such as churches, synagogues, and mosques). By examining the use and stewardship of urban natural resources, we can see the active role of humans in making things sacred, even in our ordinary, everyday landscapes.
We create monuments in parks, we build cairns in the forest, we leave shrines on the waterfront, and we write graffiti and paint murals in remembrances of places and people throughout our streets and lots. Sacredness is imbued throughout the landscape in the ways we remember the dead, honor the living, and connect to the spiritual plane. Green space in all its varied site types and forms create ample opportunities for humans to connect to nature, as refuge from everyday life and as symbol of the life cycle. Across cultures and throughout time, people have designated sacred trees and groves as special places to meditate alone, to enact rituals in the company of others, or to connect with higher powers.
In our work studying environmental stewardship, we found that the urge to use nature in ritual acts of designation remains powerful even in our contemporary, urbanized lifestyles. We found hundreds of landscape-based memorials in honor of September 11, 2001 across the United States. These range from single tree plantings, to commemorative parks and plazas, to forest restoration sites. The creators of these sites specifically used the word sacred in describing these places. They felt that sacredness was conveyed through location, through symbolism, and through the social processes of creating these sites. But September 11, although a singular and tragic event, was not unique. Stewards commonly name community gardens in honor of elders who have passed on—often times those who were involved in helping to create the garden. Further, we can see that different cultures bring their unique understandings of the sacred to how they interact with urban greenspace. Around the Jamaica Bay waterfront in New York City, we find numerous ritual objects—shrines, incense, coconuts, flowers, and milk—that were left as Hindu ritual offerings to the water by the substantial Guyanese population in this culturally diverse region.
These acts show the fundamental need that people have to make and re-make connections to nature. They show the vital, socio-cultural importance of our urban greenspaces. As policymakers and decision-makers increasingly think of parks as “green infrastructure”, we must not forget these places have layered social and historic meanings. For through these practices, people are cultivating their connection to place and strengthening social cohesion through action. The creators of these sacred sites are some of the most vigilant stewards of the land. And as keepers of the city’s collective memory, they help to realize a truly sustainable, resilient, and inclusive city.
Dr. Erika Svendsen is a social scientist with the U.S. Forest Service, Northern Research Station and is based in New York City. Erika studies environmental stewardship and issues related to hybrid governance, collective resilience and human well-being.
Jayne Engle is Curator of Cities for People and is a PhD candidate based in Montreal, Canada. She practices participatory community planning and development in the global north and south.
The Sacred in the city: Escape and Enchantment in Everyday Environments
The late Robin Williams famously quoted C. S. Lewis in the film Dead Poets Society: ‘We read to know we are not alone.’ This aphorism resonates for me the meaning of the sacred in the city: that is the spaces, places, and experiences where individual revelation connects with collective meaning, and which enable escape and enchantment in city life.
The sacred conjures notions of mysterious powers, human flourishing, the search for nature within ourselves, biophilia, oikos—or home. Being at home with ourselves. Home in the city, in our everyday urban environments. We may find the sacred in places where we escape—a quiet, contemplative garden or eave on a highrise roof where there is life around, not too far away, yet distant enough to not force interaction. Or where one steals a magical kiss with a lover in a busy alleyway so lush with vegetation that it provides secret nooks at twilight. Or in places with intense visual stimulation. The sacred, and sacred landscapes, can give expression to an essential nature—of an individual, of a collective, of a place, of a city—where we engage with others or where we retreat to in order to nourish our spirits, regenerate our souls, and reconnect with primal instincts and forces. The sacred in the city is also about a sensibility that heightens awareness of the emotional dimension of humans; of sensory perceptions (smell, sound, sight, touch and taste); of desire, spirituality, enchantment and conviviality.
How can we design and manage urban spaces to nourish the sacred and enable enchantment in everyday environments and contribute to more green and livable cities? Here are four ideas.
1. Treat space as sacred. Every site matters. Sacred spaces can flourish if we have the mindset that ‘the site is to the city as the cell is to the body’. Land should not be commodified or consumed, but cherished. Truly valuing space in cities calls for us to consider the use and evolution of sites on a case-by-case—rather than a formulaic, traditional zoning—basis.
2. Make visible in urban space stories of the past, values of the present, and possibilities for the future. Elucidating temporal dimensions in space involves elevating the imagination—individual and collective—into action, through citizen expression and movements such as Jane’s Walk and 100 in 1 Day Festivals. Artists can engage with people to invent ways to more meaningfully symbolize in urban space what was sacred in the past, represent what nourishes spirits of people now, and what possibilities people dream of for the future.
3. Articulate and map what is sacred. Through participatory planning and active citizenship people can acknowledge the sacred and decide what is worth preserving. Examples are: 1) participatory mapping, photography, video and crowd-sourcing of sacred spaces that identifies places or environmental elements that people care about and want to keep; and 2) storytelling and local lore—constructing livability narratives that reveal the sacred place of nature in the city and precious natural places that are nourishing to the spirit.
4. Relax rules to let people create. Citizens can collectively create and dream together in spaces of their cities when regulating bodies relax the rules at times, such as by supporting urban experimentation through pop-up urbanism installations, guerrilla gardening projects, and human-nature collaborations, and by not thwarting spontaneous street celebrations.
The nourishing of the human spirit needs daily space and has everyday expression, and can flourish when people imaginatively—and often collectively—appropriate space in parks, coffee shops, asphalt plazas, rooftops, wherever.
At the end of the day, to find the sacred in the city is to know we are not alone.
The Mud Maiden, a living sculpture by Sue Hill and Pete Hill in collaboration with nature. This site in Cornwall, England is sacred to me because of her ever-changing beauty and symbolism. Photo: Jayne Engle
Emilio Fantin is an artist working in Italy on multidisciplinary research.
He teaches at the Politecnico, Architecture, University of Milan, and acts as coordinator of the “Osservatorio Public Art”.
The “sacred” manifests itself in the relationship between man, as a spiritual being, nature and culture.The urban structure of the cities of the world, presents important differences, and, though it is not possible to generalize, we can consider some common aspects. We can evaluate a city for its livability, sustainability, and for its environmental friendliness. I have seen urbanized centers where nature predominates, where the quality of life is “poor” and the social development inadequate. I have seen other cities with a certain level of urbanization rather than green spaces, where the quality of the life was good enough.
The quantity of nature seems to be necessary, but not sufficient, to determinate the quality of the life in a city. What it is necessary and sufficient is the quality of the relationship that man is able to develop with nature and the environment. It is necessary to know and respect the natural element=culture; to recognize the vital forces=nature; to consider the spiritual activity in everyday=the human being. Biodynamics affirms that the processes of growth, flowering, and fruiting of plants are to be attributed to spiritual forces. These same forces also act on man, as for example, the vital force.
If we find difficult to understand what is meant by spiritual forces, let’s think how a plant can overcome the force of gravity and raise itself autonomously. Where does this force come from? We can describe the process with which a plant grows without however being able to define what makes it grow. In conventional agriculture, the study of plants in recent years has been focused on the seed, in complete agreement with the reductionist theory, which tends to isolate the field of study to only one component of the plant organism, as, for example, through genetic manipulation, as if this force were contained in the seed itself.
But the gene is only an instrument to drive this force: it has nothing to do with the causes that produce it. Thus, this is the wrong direction because no force exists in nature that is self-referential, that produces force in and of itself. The first step in recognizing what this force is, it is not to observe only the seed, but rather, the entire growth process of the plant. By investigating the growth process of the plant we can “see” the different phases and interpret the action of the seeds, the roots, the stem, the leaves and the flowers. We can recognize this force in the animals but also in the mineral realm, where it assumes a crystallized form.
In recognizing that the same force lives inside us is where the sacredness of any relationship lies. The city is the place where these relationships are made explicit through an organization created by man. It is the respect for the quantityand quality of natural elements that coexist in the social organization with social, economic and cultural necessities, upon which every ritual and devotional moment is based. The “sacred” manifests itself in the interest for the human beings, when we fight for clean air and water, when we fight the abuse of noises and images, or stop the silly tourism and consumerism.
The “sacred” means to consider architecture in a profound relationship with the space rather than just a housing need; it means to have a concept of time far from the idea of profit. Money is sacred; a powerful instrument to create a system of equitable distribution; an economic system that runs as an organic process, as the blood circulation. Blood has to circulate everywhere in the body, or you have a gangrene. We can make the sacred our own if we know how to learn and live the natural processes and to carry them on to the end. This will bring us to encounter death, which is a crucial point to pass on the way of evolving from our physical world to a spiritual one.
Mickey Fearn has been a parks, recreation, and conservation professional for over 45 years. He is currently a Professor of Practice in the North Carolina State University’s School of Natural Resources.
Using the development of Sacred Spaces in Building Community, Civility, Health, and Citizen Stewardship
“Contact with nature is a basic human need not a cultural amenity, not an individual preference, but a universal primary need. Just as we need healthy food, and regular exercise to flourish we need on-going connections with the natural world.”
—E.O. Wilson
The environment of the urban poor is characterized by:
—Density
—Psychic residue (physical evidence of poor economic and political decisions and choices)
—A complex set of overlapping jurisdictions —Socio-cultural systems characterized by diverse ethnic, cultural and demographic populations and diverse lifestyles
—Residents who “seem” alienated from nature
—High concentrations of disfranchised residents
—Food Deserts
—Various kinds of toxicity and pollution
—Complex interlocking social maladies
—Tension between the built and natural environment
Our environment positively and negatively influences the lifestyles, preferences and values of residents. Despite the constraints of the urban poor environment, it can accommodate many residents’ needs for improvisational spontaneous play, some organized play and gathering spaces. However, there are few spaces conducive to stillness, silence, and reflection.
Living environments should reflect the wisdom of our decisions. The environments of the urban poor too often reflect, racism, classicism, or poor individual, business, community or political decisions.
Human spirit is as asset. It is an undeniable aid in both enduring and confronting many of the challenges confronting the urban poor. Using nature to sustain the human spirit is critical. We must be committed to the elimination of urban blight (structures no longer fulfilling their original intent) that drains the human spirit. We are all entitled to live in proximity to places that:
—By their beauty and serenity, are concurrently stimulating and relaxing
—Calm us when we are anxious and stimulate us when our spirits are low
—Insulate us from daily tugs, pulls, stresses, anxieties and distractions and help us transcend our sometimes ordinary, routine, pedestrian lives
—Encourage a receptive attitude of mind, a contemplative attitude, an attitude that is prerequisite to being in the moment and to the apprehension of reality
—Stimulate personal reflections, spiritual thoughts and interactions, meditation, contemplation, personal transformation
—Inspire discussions that would never rise to a conscious level in any other environment—that stimulate thoughts regarding the true meaning of life and the spirit that binds all living things together
—Inspire civility by providing opportunities to interact with nature and help us understand that being around living, growing things creates, in all of us, a deep and abiding respect for all life
We all, at some point, consciously or unconsciously, benefit from the natural beauty of natural sacred places.
Those living in habitats void of nature often revert to alternative experiences to simulate the feelings that result from frequent interactions with sacred places.
These alternative experiences may take the form of anti-social behaviors including, substance abuse or crimes against people and property. Human beings are forced to rely on each other for things they can’t consistently supply. Without accessible opportunities to explore and experience nature, the urban poor, especially urban youth, often come to think of nature as dangerous. They experience stillness, and silence reflection, and meditation, not as vital to physical, emotional and spiritual health, but as boring.
In places where public spaces are scarce, communities and organizations are reimagining underutilized spaces for new and creative uses. Many organizations are now engaged in initiating long-term, carefully crafted initiatives that complement common short-term experiences and result in deeper sustainable engagements.
Civic leaders and environmental experts are not responsible for leading or developing these solutions. Stakeholders must resist the inclination to rescue the urban poor, fix them, reduce their suffering or show them a way out. Every phase of these efforts from planning to community engagement to contruction to maintenance must be accomplished combining their energy, intelligence, ingenuity, knowledge, commitment of participants the resources on public and other community agencies.
We must reaffirm the value of vibrant beautiful spaces regardless of size. The creation of modestly sized, human friendly open spaces in the midst of blight may seem a feeble approach to a large complex problem. However, when we mobilize, organize, support and resource citizens to create sacred spaces that increase civility and improve the physical, emotional and spiritual health of residents and communities by restoration, revitalization, and repurposing of abandoned, underutilized, or financially distressed properties in their communities will also benefit from:
—Building the capacity of communities to address their neighborhood ecology, recreation and environmental justice challenges and improve their communities while avoiding gentrification
—Repairing the disruption that may have occurred between the urban poor and nature
—Reconnecting communities and young people with nature and providing opportunities for STEM education, and career skill development
—Inspiring true collaboration between community organizations and disfranchised communities
—Creating the next generation of environmental leaders and stewards
—Breaking restrictive cycles of racism and poverty that limit social and career choices
“…Man’s heart away from nature becomes hard; lack of respect for growing and living things soon leads to lack of respect for humans too. We must keep citizens close to nature’s softening influence.”
In creating this narrative several times distractions caused me transposed letters. I typed Scared Places instead of Sacred Places. After catching the mistake for the last time I realize that the difference between scared and sacred is stakeholder focus, concentration, commitment, and dedication to purpose. Creating urban sacred places can make the difference in our communities being “sacred” versus “scared.”
Deeply etched in the cultural and spiritual realm of the society, sacred ecosystems across India are immensely valued resources. In the urban context, there seems to be a clear difference between sacred tree species and other species. The hunger for infrastructure development is causing immense pressure on land in urban areas, often resulting in massive tree-cutting drives. Indian cities, therefore, seem to be part of a paradox. While India is often referred to as the land of spirituality, religion and nature worship; the flora and fauna in both urban and rural areas seem to be on a constant decline. In this context, one wonders what ‘nature worship’—tree worship in this case—means.
In contemporary Bangalore (the southern Indian city where I come from), ‘sacred’ refers to trees, shrubs and herbs that are described in religious texts. ‘Sacred’ also means that which is worshiped and that which ‘should’ not be harmed. While a sacred tree in the neighbourhood or a religious institution is considered to be auspicious bringing good fortune, cutting the same makes for bad karma (in simple terms—bad deeds). ‘Sacred,’ therefore, also seems to imbibe fear wherein—if that which is sacred is harmed/destroyed, one may have to face consequences for the bad deed. With this, cutting a sacred tree becomes a taboo. There might not be written rules about this taboo, but it is generally understood and practiced by both civil society and the administration.
Pete, the old city centre of Bangalore, is an important commercial and residential area. We conducted a study in this locality to find that the tree cover in the area was rather poor (as is in most historic city centres across the world). However, almost all the trees in Pete were sacred. Although little is known of the tree cover in Pete in former times, sacred trees seem to be the only survivors of green cover in this extremely congested locality—portraying the level of protection sacred trees have. In another study we carried out in the slums of Bangalore, slum dwellers were seen to incorporate sacred trees into their neighbourhood, despite the severe space crunch in slums. They seemed to have a deeper relationship with sacred trees which went beyond worship. Slum dwellers were often seen socializing and gathering under the canopy of sacred trees, treating them as active community centers. These spaces also seemed to contribute to income generation as seen in the photograph.
While the first example portrays the immense protection that sacred trees enjoy, the second is an example of how cities can be both green and livable. As an intrinsic part of the Indian culture and with keen observation of people around me, I feel that the fear of earning bad karma often overshadows devotion. As an ecologist, the combination of the two emotions prevalent in the Indian society seems to bring a ray of hope for a city with rapidly depleting tree cover. Most sacred trees like the Ficus species (Peepul, Banyan, Cluster fig, etc.), neem (Azadirachta indica) and Indian blackberry (Syzygium cumini) are native species with medium to dense canopies—well suited for tropical and sub-tropical climate.
In urban India, sacred tree species have multi-dimensional relevance wherein they are culturally important, protected and have diverse uses including medicine, food and shade. Urban planners should acknowledge and tap this potential of sacred green spaces in making cities both green and livable.
Flower vendors (left) and two women (right) having a chat, under the canopy of a sacred space in a residential locality of Bangalore. Photo: Divya Gopal.
Patrick M. Lydon is an American ecological writer and artist based in Korea whose seeks to re-connect cities and their inhabitants with nature. He writes The Possible City series, is co-founder of City as Nature (Daejeon). He is an Arts Editor here at The Nature of Cities.
Three years ago, while interviewing Yoshikazu Kawaguchi—a Japanese natural farmer and author of multiple books on the subject of living with nature—I asked how a person can maintain peace and sanity a city when the city contains far more asphalt and concrete than nature.
I expected an answer from Kawaguchi that reflected on how we need more nature in cities, or conversely, how we just need to give up and move to the country for that kind of peace.
But instead, he happily bulldozed these preconceptions, telling me simply that “the only way to live with peace in our soul while in a city, is to understand that you don’t live in a city.” On hearing his answer, I double checked my trusted translator with not one, but two raised eyebrows. I had no understanding of what he meant. Of course I live in a city. How can you say I don’t live in a city?
The slow and gentle Kawaguchi smiled, and continued to say that we don’t live in a city, we live in a universe, and until we realize our lives from this perspective, we will never be able to truly have peace within our souls, regardless of where we physically dwell, concrete-lined city or tree-lined nature.
On the surface, this idea seems to remove any reason for worrying about nature within a city. But if we look a bit deeper, we see that Kawaguchi’s perspective also unveils something more rooted; it shows us a framework wide enough to allow the sacred to enter everyday life.
To clarify, many of these natural farmers—though they follow different religious practices—generally refer to concepts such as ‘Nature’ and ‘God’ as one in the same. With this mindset, we could say that (1) all of what we typically term ‘nature’ is seen by them as sacred, and (2) this sacred nature not only surrounds us constantly, but is also within us.
Looking at the city with these two points in our pocket, from within the city we can look up and see the clouds, and they are sacred. Our buildings are often made of stone, and although removed from its home in the mountain, this stone too, is sacred. Our small urban farms, trees, even the weeds which pop up from the cracks in the sidewalk, all of it contains an element of the sacred. All of it is a part of us. Yet only if we see it this way, and only if we have a mindset which is open to treating the earth and universe in which we dwell as sacred.
I get that this might sound like crazy talk, and that few may see any point, and even fewer will walk around hugging urban trees, saying hello to weeds, and gently touching stone buildings.
But if we claim to take urban nature seriously, why don’t we?
I would like to offer a challenge to you today. If you believe that nature is truly something to be held in high regard in our lives, if you believe nature has an essential role to play in our lives—city or not—I challenge you to walk out into your city and hug a tree.
Don’t just do the action, mean the action. Hug it like its your best friend. Hug it because it is a part of you. Hug it and release your mind, let go of logic for a spell and listen to the tree.
If you feel something change inside of you, congratulations; you are not crazy, you are connected. You know something of the role of ‘sacred’ in urban nature. N ow comes the real challenge: write about it, design it, plan it, tell a friend about it, sing about it, and perhaps, suggest that those around you do it, too.
Jimena Martignoni is an Argentinean architect, freelance writer and curator. She specializes in urban and landscape architecture projects in Latin America.
Cities, also, are infernal machineries in which we, most of human beings, spend our everyday life—that is to say, live our lives there. Only decades ago no one would have imagined how cities would grow, how it would be to be a city dweller, how much nature around cities—or the original landscapes in which cities are born and developed—would be changed.
In principle, we respect all that is considered sacred: places and people, texts, music and objects, gods in whatever form they are conceived. But it seems we haven’t really respected nature. And I wonder, what could be more sacred than nature? We only have to think about simple sacred creatures such as a small bird or an orchid, or larger formations such as woods, rivers and mountains. Pre-Columbian civilizations, in all Latin America, thought about these elements as sacred ones, they revered them, they built their lives, work and food production around them. This was all gone of course, long ago, when other stronger civilizations decided their gods and their sacred objects were better or more reliable. Who knows?
That’s all in the past. Future is what we want to preserve, for the generations to come.
Now we live in a world where the most sacred is the art of consumption, in whatever form this god is conceived. Sad, but true.
Those who think and plan and design the places for people—meaning cities and urban spaces that make up the cities—have now an opportunity to rethink the sacred. The presence of the green is an unquestionable sacred component in any urban context. Green spaces, of course, but also all that comes with it: the possibility of walking, wondering around, meeting with others, gathering, relaxing, sunbathing, playing, resting, breathing fresh air. Place-making would be then understood as a sacred action. And if truly sacred, it should be humble too.
By rethinking cities and places for people to live their lives, we’ll be rethinking life too and making our lives something sacred. We know our lives are sacred; we have to preserve our lives as such, but not only ours but the life around us. Today, our planet is almost an endangered species; we are all trying to rethink how to use the natural resources that make this (sacred) planet and we all are trying to internalize new related thoughts and behaviors.
Those who are in charge of thinking about and creating cities have in the present day a higher (and sacred) responsibility. This is good news. The future is sacred. The past is sacred too. Our present, our lives—both individually (with all the beautiful complexity this is) and collectively—are sacred.
Maria Tengö is a researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, interested in how strong human-nature relationships can contribute to social-ecological resilience.
Prevention and mitigation of the negative impacts of human activities on ecosystems is critical. However, there is significant untapped potential for sustainable governance of urban ecosystems in additional focus on the positive connections between people and nature. The TNOC blog carries numerous examples of people’s engagement in protecting, restoring, and mobilizing around the values of parks, wetlands, trees and more.
Sacredness in relation to species or natural sites can be seen to represent a “social-ecological capital”, to draw upon when crafting co-management and enabling local stewardship of urban green spaces. Sacred natural sites and species are manifestations of a strong bond between people and nature in an interdependent social-ecological system. In the city, sacred trees, groves, or wetlands, provide memory and in some instances continuity of historical social-ecological interactions, such as the harvest of medicinal resources and religious practices. They also serve as a reminder that biodiversity and ecosystems play an important role for human well-being—including spiritual and psychological.
Sacred nature is often described in the context of religious beliefs or traditional cultures, and in a rural and marginal context. However, as is shown in Divya Gopal’s contribution to this panel, sacred trees do exist in a modern, contemporary, urban context and play important role for maintaining ecosystem services for the benefit of people in the city. Furthermore, the notion of sacred as deeply held values associated with nature can be interpreted beyond religious beliefs and traditional cultures. For example, in Stockholm, the planned felling of a large oak tree, presumably more than 500 years old, in a central part of the city, led to protests and around-the-clock civic protection for several weeks until it was finally cut down with the help of police in November 2011. Trees on cemeteries have a special significance in Stockholm—as well as in Muslim and Christian burial sites in Bangalore.
In our modern world, the underpinnings of sacred values, may they be religious or cultural, are often forgotten, but the respect and reverence of the ecological features remains. In Bangalore, sacred trees and temple sites were found to be actively managed and nurtured—generally by a temple foundation, but in many cases informally by people in the vicinity. Management includes replanting of trees that die in a city that is rapidly losing much of its former tree cover.
Together with colleagues, I argue in a forthcoming article that, in particular in the urban environment, emotional and cultural ties to ecosystems provide a gateway to nurture and build on people’s engagement in the sustainability of urban green and blue areas and the ecosystem services they generate. To enable stewardship, a valuable approach for urban planners and managers may be to select places with existing strong values and capacity for management (formal or informal). These may not necessarily be the places where ecological and biodiversity values are highest, but rather places where untapped “social-ecological capital” can be mobilized in support of urban ecosystems generating multidimensional benefits for human well-being.
Readings:
Special issue of Current Conservation on the scope for nature in cities, including articles on sacred trees in Bangalore and heritage trees in Cape Town http://www.currentconservation.org/?q=issue/8.1
Andersson, E., M. Tengö, T. McPhearson and P. Kremer. Cultural Ecosystem Services as a gateway for improving urban sustainability. Forthcoming in Ecosystem Services
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.
In the urban environment, nature has not yet been granted the status it deserves, and is usually not even on the town planner’s checklist of accountability. When open spaces, parks and gardens are integrated into planning, it is usually on the basis of their recreational value for city-dwellers, with no thought for conservation or for the city’s potential contribution to the protection of biodiversity.
Throughout many years of work in Jerusalem, I have come to realize that it is truly inspiring to think that the indigenous flora and fauna of our holy city were the backdrop for a great part of the Bible, Old Testament and New, and that this knowledge should in turn be a source of spiritual inspiration for pilgrims who visit Jerusalem, be they Jewish, Christian or Muslim. While the fact that Jerusalem is a spiritual destination for the three monotheistic faiths has caused much conflict and bloodshed, could the nature that is shared by all, and which is the key to our continuing life here and everywhere, become a common denominator, not only in Jerusalem but in all the holy cities around the world that are destinations for pilgrims? Could the pilgrim’s journey be transformative both spiritually and environmentally, so that he or she would return home a more responsible citizen of the world?
This thinking creates an entirely new and refreshing platform for inter-city and inter-faith dialogue and action, calling on faith communities and pilgrims to “leave a positive footprint”, while encouraging pilgrim cities to respect and conserve their nature assets, which constitute part of their religious and cultural heritage. This philosophy finds expression in the Green Pilgrimage Network, in which the ICLEI cities’ network is a partner, and in the work of Green Pilgrim Jerusalem, established in 2010.
Approaching the interface between green and sacred from another angle, people of faith will undoubtedly agree that it is important to consider urban nature and indeed nature in general, not only in terms of the increasing threat to biodiversity, but also in the context of the sacred duty we have as stewards of God’s creation. In this context, in cities that are not officially “holy”, but which are blessed with an abundance of flora and fauna, it could be hoped that the local faith communities would be the first to lobby both to defend and to enhance their precious green areas.
In a more philosophical vein, is the concept of sacredness to be the experience only of people who adhere to a formal faith doctrine? Can we conceive of non-believers for whom nature is sacred, and whose spiritual, cultural and emotional world is enriched by nature in a way that results in a bond of commitment to protect?
In my city, Jerusalem, there are many examples of the spiritual inspiration drawn by pilgrims and locals alike from the incredibly powerful natural backdrop of the Judaean Desert in the East, and the green Jerusalem Hills in the West. The desert beckoned prophets in the Bible and Jesus himself to meditate, and the green agricultural terraces around west Jerusalem look much as they did two thousand years ago. When the swifts visit Jerusalem on their annual migration route, they come in a multi-faith team, covering their long journey together, but splitting up in order to nest according to their faith, in the crevices of the ancient Western Wall, in the eaves of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or in the nesting places they have in the Dome of the Rock. They then proceed on their journey together, after enjoying the sustenance provided by Jerusalem’s parks, gardens and forests.
Although I present the case of the multi-faith swift migration with a touch of humor, it has been posited by Prof. Uriel Safriel, a world expert and head of the Israel Man and Biosphere team, that swifts and other migrating birds that nest in sacred sites meet all the criteria to be classed as pilgrims, since they consistently fly to a specific destination at a specific time of year…
To sum up, it is surely appropriate to view the reverence invoked by natural landscapes in and around cities as a meeting ground for believers and non-believers alike, which can inspire them to work together to preserve their shared natural heritage for the benefit of future generations.
Gavin Van Horn is the Director of Cultures of Conservation for the Center for Humans and Nature, a nonprofit organization that focuses on and promotes conservation ethics.
If social realities are dependent upon ecological realities, then it is important to consider how matter, well, matters.
The meaning of the sacred to urban green spaces is visible at the intersection of 51st Street and Greenwood Avenue, on Chicago’s South Side. If you stopped a passerby and asked what was sacred about that lot, I’m guessing most people would point to the striking, historic central-dome sanctuary that occupies the space. But in recent years a person might also gesture toward what surrounds the sanctuary.
I spoke with Robert Nevel, the president of KAM Isaiah Israel (KAMII), about the transformation of this land since 2009. A general tendency exists, Nevel told me, for congregants to view their houses of worship as “a mass in a sea of grass” and treat their larger properties as “leftover space.” For most of the synagogue’s history, the grounds were indeed an afterthought, something to walk through on your way to what was truly important. Nevel, an architect by profession, has perspective on this. More than architectural expertise, however, a religious sensibility infuses his understanding of the highest and best use for the synagogue property. “The land is not ours,” he said, “It is on loan to us.” He didn’t mean on loan from the bank, either—unless you understand God as the ultimate account manager.
As a congregation in the Reform Jewish movement, KAMII considers social justice a core part of its identity. Nevel saw an opportunity to connect the dots between social and environmental justice, with the lawn as a canvas of opportunity. He knew, however, that tearing up the lawn was going to be a tough sell. Noting the devotion of Americans to their lawns, he wryly remarked, “In its own odd and ironic way, lawns have become a sacred space.” His solution was to ease his fellow congregants into an alternative perception. He proposed designs for a hexagonal garden in the front lawn of the synagogue, in the shape of a six-pointed Star of David. Each of the star’s points would grow food; the negative space would remain lawn. The proposal was approved. Work began in 2009. The Star of David remains, now anchoring a much larger transformation: gardens surrounding the synagogue have doubled every year and the former lawn on the 2500 square-foot property is hard to find between the vegetables.
Further connections, both religious and secular, have come quickly, and the evidence radiates into the larger community—from the White Rock Gleaning program, to summer leadership training for young people, to “Crop Mob Constructions,” to ongoing produce donations to local soup kitchens and shelters (4500 lbs. in 2013). Some of the most remarkable stories Nevel told me were about the way in which the gardens mediated interfaith relationships and understanding. He recalled a moment when he watched Muslim children attentively listening to an 80-year-old member of the congregation read a book about growing carrots. “Food and care for the earth is common to all of us,” he observed.
The gardens at KAMII serve a very practical purpose—feeding people—but they also represent lifelines that reach still further, connected by the aerial surveys of goldfinches, foraging bumblebees, soil organisms, and a hundred different iridescent beetles. The value of such vital places—their sacredness—is an emergent property of relational depth.
“I think that anybody who works in this program is changed when they work in it,” Nevel remarked. “They see their responsibilities to each other and the land differently.” The meaning of the sacred is more than a concept. “They see it under their fingernails. They see it on their knees. They feel it in their back. They can see, and feel, and taste the difference that they’re making.”
Perhaps gardens like those at KAM Isaiah Israel reveal how the sacred is cultivated. It can be seen under one’s fingernails.
“Being is the interconnectedness, the resonant ecology, of things.”—Jan Zwicky (Wisdom & Metaphor, 2003)
When writing about the role literature plays in shaping who we are as individuals and as societies, Philip Davis describes the arts as ‘resonant spaces for thinking and being.’ These conceptual spaces make room for imaginative thought to reach beyond what we currently know, to imagine possibilities for the future. Imagination is the most profound aspect of our being, originary to our existence as a species and world-shaping in the most expansive sense. Imagination is a priori to ourselves; it is on invention and reinvention that our knowledge of self and others depend. Therefore, our imagination is our sacredness. And so the self, the sacred, and the imagination exist in harmonic relation.
While we see conceptual ‘resonant spaces’ revealed through artistic creation, we can also find physical ‘resonant spaces’ for thinking and being in the form of urban green space.
Our world is plural, consisting of multiple stories many of which aren’t told in the commodified world we have constructed in much of our urban design—shopping malls, suburban sprawl, big-box developments, and incoherent spaces for consumption. Rather, the compelling stories of our sacredness are told artistically through continual reaching of the imagination and through careful contemplation of the natural world. Our earliest metaphors—which gave form to language, to meaning—were shaped over millenia of evolution through observation of the physical, natural world around us. (Things fall, heat rises, solids contain, fluids flow, and so on.) And its on the roots of these metaphors that human evolution continues to expand. As Canadian poet Don McKay wrote, “It is as dangerous to act as though we were not a part of nature as it is to act as though we were not a part of culture.” (Vis àVis: Field Notes on Poetry & Wilderness, 2001). Resonant spaces of culture and nature depend on each other.
Guy Davenport points out in The Geography of the Imagination that the etymological root of the word ‘culture’ is ‘cultus’—the ancients’ name for the dwelling of a god. These dwellings were imagined into being as architectural expressions embedded in nature—in the form of groves, mounds, dolmens, and earthworks. Over time they became part of the vernacular ordinariness of daily life. The cultus of cities today is the urban green space that nourishes our soul and inspires our imaginations. The decline of such vernacular, ordinary sites—the decline of the cultus of our cities—would contribute to the demise of the sacred, the diminishment of the imagination, and the loss of the world. A culture that no longer knows its natural origins—where its imagination began—is in a state of decay.
Don McKay also wrote that “the poetic frame permits the possible to be experienced as a power rather than a deficiency; it permits the imagination entry, finding wider resonances, leading us to contemplate further implications for ourselves.” (The Shell of the Tortoise, 2001) He, along with other Canadian poet-philosophers such as Jan Zwicky, Tim Lilburn, and Karen Houle, address ecological and environmental issues with a lyrical aesthetic rather than a realist one, believing that the urgency of ecological decline must be addressed both through our imaginations, poetically, and through reason, scientifically. But too-great dependency on instrumental reason in modern society has quashed our imaginations, limited our perception of the world, and now we are at risk of erasing ourselves and other species.
Great are the capacities of the imagination to draw poetic lines of meaning that invite all of humanity into sacred, resonant spaces for thinking and being. Artists can help with this. Urban green spaces are the soul of it.
“Unquelled in this flood of earth- where seeds end and augur nearness- you will sound the choral rant of memory, and go the way that eyes go. There is no longer path for you: from the moment you slit your veins, roots will begin to recite the massacre of stones. You will live. You will build your house here-you will forget your name. Earth is the only exile.”
Paul Auster
¿…or the meaning of landscape?
The landscape possesses a large diversity of components, as well as a whole plurality of views. The geographic reality is nourished by its representation, images and meanings. Therefore, the landscape is not just a place, but also has its own cultural image with millions of stories rooted in the ground. It can help people identify with the contexts of their lives, work and leisure, and to strengthen individual and collective knowledge and belonging to the society.
The Muiscas, who are the predominant pre-colombian people of Cundinamarca, use to have a sacred relationship with the land. Unfortunately, that relationship has changed over time as other priorities took hold. Priorities have changed from colonization to the modern age, giving rise to different ways of perception and connection with the landscape, tied to a productive and functional view, thus putting sanctity aside.
Over recent decades, there has been a methodical resurgence of meaning and value of the landscape, joining emotional, historical, interpretative and symbolic values without reaching the previous spiritual dimension.
Bogotá is a 468 year old city. Since its foundation, the city has grown across the cold high plain of the Andes. As a consequence, the hills are full of cultural and symbolic sites and values, from a single rock, “el árbol del ahorcado” (The hanged tree), the Virgin, a cave, to the christmas stars. Fundación Cerros de Bogotá promotes the recovery of the mountain’s sanctity value and the forms of relationship of the inhabitants with the hill, to articulate symbolic and affective dimensions, given priority to children and young people as cultural transformers.
Intangibles will bound to that sum of individual perceptions, when matched can motivate movements in defence of something lost.
The continuing work of the foundation and the engagement of the community are having results: not only recognized by media but also by the government. In June 2013, a land protection pact was approved by the mayor, and ratified by government in November 2013. Establishing mechanisms for social change was considered a precondition to the successful implementation of the project. The legislation acknowledges stakeholder rights and protects an area of 415 hectares of the green belt for ecological preservation and recreation.
First, we seek to establish social pacts that gradually stretch up into the physical breathing spaces in the hills adjacent to Bogota. These actions would sow seeds of social change and recover sacred ties of nature to contemporary man, who now goes lost in Bogota’s landscapes of transit and digital tablets.
El palo del ahorcado (The Hangman’s Post). Photo: Barbu Bogota Guide
Cities all around the world have made rapid (and astounding) progress in their integration of sustainability design and green infrastructure into development standards. Can the innovators that are driving these changes imbed a sense of civic sacred within urban landscapes?
Planners and elected officials typically shy away from the concept of sacred when discussing green infrastructure, parks, and open space systems. Sacred is an ambiguous word, often interpreted as aligned with faith or spirituality and not an appropriate subject in the public realm. And sacred can also imply exclusion, by either the social or cultural group that acknowledges a sacred place, or in being a landscape that is distinctive and away. Yet as our cities grow and lives get busier people seem to be craving the respite and opportunity for mindfulness that a nearby sacred space can offer.
The 19th century could be viewed as the era of the sanitary city as civic leaders and public works departments perfected the engineering practices of sanitation and hygiene. Within that framework nature was seen as nice to have, but not essential. The 20th century might be viewed as the period when city services and operations integrated ecological function. It became obvious that pipe, drain, and paved solutions might not be adequate to handle the demands of rapid population growth and urbanization.
In the current century, and the prospects are exciting, nature is regarded not as a mere aesthetic trinket or bobble of the affluent. Landscape is being explored as a substantial contributor of solutions for the most important challenges of cities and nations—the urban forest for air quality and stormwater management, living walls for air quality and building energy conservation, roof farms for food security, and parks as elements of walkability programs to combat obesity and enable active transit.
Most integrations of nature and ecological function with built environments have an underlying utility function. The justification for investment in natural systems that were once viewed as just being ‘pretty’ hinges on sustainability metrics, performance criteria, and, perhaps most importantly, cost-benefit analysis. The professionals and organizations that advocate for more green cities have developed the analytic tools that provide evidence of key functions and services. In some instances, sophisticated economic modeling suggests that nature, while less tangible than pipes and paving, should be included in capital investment planning and funding in cities.
More recently, extensive evidence about the health benefits of nearby nature in cities is garnering attention. Urban life is stressful, and modest nature encounters are effective in alleviating stress symptoms. Gardens are effective healing environments, and are included in hospital construction plans. Mental health is an emerging health concern in many cities and nations, and the presence of quality nature near one’s home may provide both direct and indirect therapies.
Where is the sacred in these trends and innovations? We no longer make the the distinction in many regions that cities are barren and rural areas are natural. Yet the discourse about nature in the city continues to have a commodity-based tinge—that the only reason that nature is introduced into urban enviroments is because of the bullet list of benefits and services that it provides.
Nature and green systems can multi-task. We can and should imbed sacred with a small ‘s’ within the functional landscapes of cities. Effective planning and design should generate civic, inclusive sacred spaces that augment green infrastructure and sustainability functions. The discussion around this set of essays may provide insight about the built elements and programs that can support sacred experiences.
Green infrastructure for stormwater management that includes opportunities for sacred experiences. Photo: Kathleen Wolf
In the last two decades, the TKF Foundation has supported the creation of more than 130 open and accessible urban greenspaces. We believe nature is inherently sacred and has the power to heal and transform. Our mission is to provide the opportunity for a deeper human experience by inspiring and supporting the creation of public greenspaces that offer temporary sanctuary, encourage reflection, provide solace and engender peace and well being.
Open Spaces Sacred Places are the result of a collaborative design process within each partner community. In addition to the presence of nature (community gardens or landscaped areas) our small public spaces include design elements meant to elicit and represent historical features of sacred spaces. Spaces set apart and dedicated to moments of respite. The design elements draw one into these pockets of urban nature:
Portal—An entrance through a gateway, natural or built, that delineates the reflective space from the surrounding environment; a stepping “out of” and intentionally “into”.
Path—Whether linear and well-defined, or more meandering, a path allows one to focus attention and achieve mindfulness about the surroundings. A path can ground one with the earth while offering a sense of connection to a greater reality that is sacredness.
Destination—An appealing feature or end point(s) that further draws the visitor into the space, and in doing so encourages quiet, fascination, and spiritual connection with nature.
Sense of Surround—Design elements that provide a sense of boundary, safety, and enclosure. They create a sense of “being away” and temporary separation from the emotional stresses and challenges of life.
Once drawn into these spaces, community members can share their thoughts with us via journals stored in benches. We were struck by how many seem to recognize and embrace time spent in urban nature as an opportunity to connect with something larger than individual consciousness. The journal entries reveal recognition and value of protecting and nurturing the environment as both an end in itself, and because it is critical to quality of life. The sense of reverence, awe, and peace that time in nature may elicit gives us something that money can’t buy, and it is available to everyone. As one of our partners once said—“Nature is the great equalizer. Trees know no war.”
These powerful narratives begged us to push further for evidence that open, sacred greenspaces can be community sources for health and wellbeing. Scientific evidence suggests that the experiences of city trees, parks, and gardens can aid with attention restoration and stress reduction, contribute to positive emotions, and can promote social engagement and social support. As our foundation sunsets, our legacy continues in the Nature Sacred award initiative to integrate urban landscape design with an empirical research component. Six diverse multi-disciplinary teams are working together to document the healing power of urban, sacred, nature spaces. While we were cautioned about using the term “sacred”, we found that to the contrary, teams were eager to embrace and use the language—as if the permission to call nature sacred had been granted. A significant number of people recognize and embody the need for sacred nature in their lives, but just don’t call it out as such.
The research component of our initiative will provide quantitative evidence of the need for sacred, urban nature opportunities. Open Spaces Sacred Places spaces support livable, sustainable, and healthy cities. Cities around the world have an opportunity to create these mini-places of respite within larger existing greenspaces, or make valuable use of scraps of vacant land which plague all cities. These small remnants may quite easily be transformed to provide sacred moments for our urban populations—the open spaces, sacred places where people can let out their breath and just “be” for a moment or two in time.
A cuisine is a “culinary language” that communicates values and forms bonds between people just as effectively as words. This was one of the messages of Mr. Gastón Acurio Jaramillo, Peruvian chef and “ambassador of Peruvian cuisine”, in his keynote speech at the 4th World Congress of Biosphere Reserves in Lima this past March.
The production, preparation, and consumption of food products is a language with which to “read” the landscape.
Acurio is known as Peru’s top celebrity chef and founder of the renowned restaurant Astrid y Gastón among others, and also for being partly responsible for the recent recognition of Peruvian cuisine as one of the world’s best food traditions. In keeping with the idea of the Biosphere Reserve, he attributed the richness of Peru’s culinary tradition to its people’s strong respect for nature.
It is easy to see how food embodies both nature and culture at a basic level, but this idea of cuisine-as-language also illuminates how food can support a kind of biocultural connectivity across the wider physical and cultural landscape. Promising lessons can be found here both for cities and for protected areas.
“Biosphere Reserve” is a protected area designation in which sites are designated for “science and sustainability” under UNESCO’s Man and Biosphere programme. The 4th World Congress of Biosphere Reserves was both the first World Congress held outside of Europe and the first in Latin America. With the Biosphere Reserves programme’s emphasis on reconciling biodiversity conservation with its sustainable use, it was fitting that the Congress should be held in Peru, where culture has cultivated mutual benefits with nature for millennia.
Major outcomes of the 4th World Congress of Biosphere Reserves were the “Lima Declaration” and the “Lima Action Plan”, which provide direction and concrete steps for the future development of Biosphere Reserves. This follows on the previous “Madrid Action Plan”, which was in effect for the ten years leading up to the 4th Congress, and is intended to bring the programme into agreement with newer developments, including the UN’s post-2015 development agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Biosphere Reserves do not generally encompass urban areas, but rather consist of three zones: a core zone where the ecosystem is most strictly protected; a buffer zone with human activities compatible with sound ecological practices; and a transition zone with a higher level of sustainable economic and development activities. This model—areas of increasing human activity radiating outward from a strictly protected area—makes an interesting mirror image to a city, where human density tends to decrease radiating outward from the urban core.
Connectivity is thus key to conservation in the Biosphere Reserve concept. So holding the first World Congress in a so-called “developing” country in Lima highlighted how cities can be thrown off balance, in part thanks to a lack of connectivity with nature, as shown by the city’s stark contrast with the natural areas shown in many participants’ presentations.
As a first-time visitor to Lima
My apologies to any colleagues from Lima, but to a first-time visitor, Lima seems mostly notable as an example of an unhealthy relationship between people and nature. Don’t get me wrong—there are many great things about the city—its important historical sites, fashionable shopping districts, and, as mentioned earlier, world-class food scene. But it is also a city that has more than tripled in size since 1970 to become the second-largest city by population in South America, and its infrastructure and services have struggled to keep up. Much of the city is noisy, dirty, crowded, and experiences high poverty and crime.
The most prominent geographical feature in sight as soon as I walked out of my hotel was a hill called the “Cierro el Pino”, and it makes an illustrative case. It was designated as a “human settlement” in 1972 after many indigenous and other disadvantaged people had moved to the city and settled on less desirable land, such as its steep slopes. Of course, its jumble of buildings lacked services and infrastructure, and became known for poverty and crime. Since its designation, it has received basic services, but progress is slow and it is still a far cry from the city’s affluent and fashionable districts.
The Cierro el Pino in Lima.
One thing that makes the Cierro el Pino a telling case, besides its official designation as a “human settlement” and the results it has had, is its contrast with the more famous landscapes in other parts of Peru. What does it tell us that the hilly areas of Lima are among the most dysfunctional places in the city, while it is precisely the steep slopes of the Andes that provide the most characteristic biocultural landscapes in Peru’s rural areas?
Steepness is not the issue
The mountain landscapes around Cusco are as stunning as you’ve heard they are. Terraces dating to the Inca Empire provide not only a great deal of arable land on slopes that should have been impossible to farm, but have also served as an important site for developing agricultural knowledge. Since each terrace on each slope represents a slightly different set of conditions than those above, below or to the sides of it, terraces in this “agricultural research station” could be used to systematically investigate crops’ suitability to different conditions and adapt them for use in different areas.
Terraced landscapes in the Sacred Valley near Cusco.
The terraces were still planted with local crops until quite recently, but since they have been designated as cultural artifacts and placed under the management of the Ministry of Culture, they only contain mown grass. This seems a shame, since from the perspective of my own work with the Satoyama Initiative, a population that actively relied on them for food would be most motivated to maintain them for the long term, providing mutual benefits between humans and nature. Plus, both quinoa and potatoes are beautiful when in bloom, so just think how these terraces would look if they were covered in purple, white, and red flowers.
Still, although these terraces are now maintained only for their cultural and historical, and not their biological and agricultural, value, the same kind of work is being revived and carried on nearby. In the Potato Park, my colleagues and I were shown potato research plots, managed and maintained by the indigenous Quechua-speaking communities living within the park itself. They grow and monitor different varieties of potatoes in steeply-pitched plots at 100-meter altitude increments to identify and record which are suitable for specific microclimates. Seed-banking to conserve the diversity of varieties and hybridization to develop new varieties are also underway.
A researcher explains an agricultural research plot in the Potato Park.
Because of the kind of biocultural diversity that has been maintained in the landscapes in the Andes, there are well over a thousand varieties of potatoes to be found in the area. By contrast, almost all of the potatoes found in supermarkets in the United States are of two varieties—the Russet Burbank and the Yukon Gold—while, in my experience, a good U.S. supermarket may have five or six varieties. For an afternoon snack in the Potato Park, the locals brought out a basket of at least that many different varieties of potatoes, which we ate sitting in a circle along with locally-harvested herbs.
Eating your words
If cuisine is a language, then what was being communicated high in the Andes outside Cusco was very different from what is communicated by the haute fusion cuisine served by Chef Acurio in Lima; “a potato served sitting on the ground by local indigenous people with local herbs” is a different statement than “Peking guinea pig dressed with rocoto and purple corn crépe”, one of Astrid y Gastón’s offerings. One difference is that the mountain landscape is more strictly faithful to locally unique traditions and conditions, while the city is a melting pot in which the local tradition is influenced by and blended into a fusion with many traditions from far afield.
It seems telling that words for foods are among the most untranslatable, and usually become incorporated into languages as new words—take recently trending words like “açaí” or “sriracha”—rather than translated. Living in Tokyo, I am sometimes asked the English word for some food item and find myself at a loss—the English word for sushi is “sushi”. Foods seem to exist unto themselves, and while they can be transplanted into other linguistic contexts, they remain essentially themselves.
This is true not only for their linguistic context, but for their context in cuisine-as-language. After all, potatoes originally taken from South America and used to make gnocchi in Italy are still thought of as potatoes—not transmuted or translated into a completely different thing, but recontextualized.
Looking at cuisine-as-language, then, “potato” is a word in the English language, but a potato is also a word in the language of cuisine. And, just as very different sentences can be made from the same words, steamed potatoes served sitting on the ground by indigenous people with local herbs is different, semiotically, from French fries eaten at a fast-food joint during a short lunch break in a huge city.
Put another way, just as language requires a great deal of knowledge and cultural background to be comprehensible, a statement in the language of cuisine becomes coherent due to a surrounding cultural and natural context that makes it possible and locates it within a larger tradition.
Seen in this light, food—the production, preparation, and consumption of food products—becomes a language with which to “read” the landscape. A landscape contains a diversity of natural and cultural elements—a biocultural system in which they mutually reinforce each other—just like each word in a language relies on all the other words to give it meaning and, in turn, gives them meaning.
This “meaning” is what gets lost when an area like the Cierro el Pino falls out of balance with nature. Cultural elements transported from other landscapes, divorced from their biocultural context, get thrown together into a disjointed babel, and it can take many years of hardship before they can be reconstituted into a functioning, meaningful system.
As has been pointed out in The Nature of Cities before, it doesn’t have to be like this. There can be a bright side to indigenous urbanization if it is done with proper respect for living in harmony with nature. People shifting from rural homelands to urban areas do not have to lose so much of their culture if production systems such as the terraces around Cusco can provide knowledge of food production and food traditions for all types of conditions. This knowledge, when put into practice, creates a biocultural connectivity between rural, urban and peri-urban areas—the kind of connectivity ideally found among the radiating zones of a Biosphere Reserve or a city—and improves environmental conditions and human livelihoods in all of them.
This is how we can take lessons from Chef Acurio’s conception of cuisine as language in understanding how seemingly very different areas—from urban centers, such as Lima, to protected natural areas, such as Biosphere Reserves—can benefit from the same management principles. All are integrated with varying degrees of success into wider biocultural landscapes, and are connected and given meaning, in part by food and its production, processing, and consumption traditions. If I have been successful, this should give readers of The Nature of Cities some “food for thought” (sorry!).
“Zoo” was one of the first words I learned to say, and the local zoo was my favorite place to visit as a child. I can’t be sure that it was that experience which led me to decide, at an early age, to pursue a career in conservation but I suspect that my mesmerizing encounters with captive wildlife, through barely-noticed bars or wire, had a lot to do with it. I have a pretty poor long-term memory, but those feelings remain vivid. And yet that zoo, which recently closed down due to financial woes, was a far cry from the modern concept of a zoo.
Children captivated by an aquarium exhibit. Photo: Andre Mader
My own experiences, and my observations of others’, demonstrate that zoos can leave a strong impression — especially on children. It is no accident that zoos are typically located in cities, where they are most easily accessed by the world’s majority-urban population. Zoos attract an estimated 150 million people per year in the USA alone. These days kids have plenty of other things competing for their attention (and their pocket money), but zoos do continue to attract, adding modern and technological innovations to enhance that competitiveness. These innovations are added to the undeniable uniqueness of the live wild animal experience.
Zoos typically celebrate exotic nature — in fact “the more exotic, the better” seems still to be the general view. Efforts are made to give the impression that exhibits are worlds of their own, transporting audiences’ imaginations away from the city surrounding them. Nevertheless, the fact is that zoos allow people to experience nature without leaving the city. They may or may not play a role in affecting perceptions of urban nature in particular, but I can attest from personal experience that they have the potential to do so after visits to the local snake park piqued my interest in local reptile species (the only ones to which I had access outside the snake park).
Crowds gather at hourly intervals in Cologne Zoo to watch an eagle alight on its handler’s arm as he stands among them. Photo: Andre Mader
To me, the two most important functions served by nature in the city (whether in the form of adaptive “free-range” urban species or captive zoo animals) are to increase awareness about nature so that its plight might be supported; and to enhance the lives of city dwellers. I would argue that zoos fulfill both roles remarkably well, and that the lower frequency with which they are visited, relative to city parks for example, is compensated for by the intensity of those experiences.
Having said that, I am also a great advocate of zoos that focus on native species and their ecosystems, and I hope to one day see, or hear about, an urban exhibit that truly links zoos with the cities that surround them. Neither would such an innovation need to be limited to rats and pigeons, as readers of this forum are well aware. While we wait for (or act upon) that possibility, it is good to note that zoos have come a long way, over a long span of time, and continue to evolve.
London Zoo Monkey House in 1835
A brief history of zoos
The oldest known approximation of a zoo was uncovered as recently as 2009, but dates back to 3500 BC Egypt. This, apparently private, menagerie included hippos, elephants and baboons among 112 animals in total. The first evidence of a more typical zoo came much later, in the 1200s, when Henry III of England displayed animals, given to him as gifts, to the public. This tradition continued over the centuries and, during the 18th century, the price of admission to see the king’s animals could be substituted by supplying animals to feed to them. The explosive growth of London in the 1800s led to an increased appetite for public entertainment. There was a concurrent increase in public interest in natural history as explorers brought back a seemingly inexhaustible supply of exotic creatures from far-flung corners of the colonial world, Together, these factors led to the founding of the first modern zoos. The Zoological Society of London was founded in 1826 and as an extension of it, the London Zoo — the world’s first scientific zoo — opened to the public in 1847. With a series of ground-breaking attractions such as the first live hippopotamus to be seen in Europe and the first elephant (the illustrious Jumbo) to be seen live in England, it became extremely popular with London’s burgeoning population. In 1907, another landmark was reached in the evolution of zoos when Carl Hagenbeck founded the Tierpark Hagenbeck in Hamburg. His zoo was the first without bars, instead using moats to keep animals from escaping and thereby creating a more natural feel for visitors. This also helped to approximate the natural habitat of the animals exhibited.
The history of zoos was, however, not one of unidirectional progress. Even with these advances, conditions for animals were notoriously miserable, and little attention was paid to their welfare. Nor were animals the only ones affected by these methods. As recently as 1906 the Bronx Zoo in New York (the current motto of which is “connecting people to wild nature”) included in their primate exhibit a young Congolese pygmy tribesman named Ota Benga, supposedly to illustrate the differences between people of European and non-European origin and illustrate the theory of evolution. It triggered protests — not from human rights activists but from the city’s clergymen, whose aim was to debunk the theory rather than the inhumanity of the exhibit. Various peoples of France’s empire were also displayed during the 1931 Paris Colonial Exposition, and as late as 1958 a “Congolese village” display featured at Expo ’58 in Brussels.
Bactrian camels at the Cologne Zoo. A decreasing population of less than 1000 persist in the wild. Photo: Andre Mader
A more enlightened era
With a growing public awareness of environmental issues in the 1970s, certain pioneers began to consider conservation as the central role of zoos. Among these were Gerald Durrell, who established the Jersey Zoo in the Channel Islands. Durrell was the closest I had to a childhood hero, and his reputation and work were magnified through a series of well-written books that are, today, still popular around the world. Durrell and a gradually increasing cohort of like-minded contemporaries began changing perceptions of the role of zoos. Along the major advances included the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) making conservation its stated highest priority. In parallel and likely related to this shift, many zoos also stopped having animals perform tricks for visitors.
Naturalized exhibits and modern materials enable audiences to get much closer to wild animals at modern zoos. Photo: Andre Mader
Leading zoos are now also employing ever-more innovative, high-tech exhibits. One of the greatest challenges in a zoo I took part in establishing in the United Arab Emirates was the design and construction of a tidal mangrove tank, but the result is visually arresting. At a much larger scale, in May 2014 Indianapolis Zoo is due to launch a multimillion-dollar project enabling orangutans to travel on an overhead cable system above the zoo completely unconstrained by cages or walls. Zoos around the world have taken to erecting non-obtrusive video cameras in cages so that animal fans can keep track of their favorite species between visits.
Sadly, however, even nowadays many zoos remain woefully indifferent towards either animal welfare or conservation. This, as well as some proportion of sub-optimal exhibits in even the most advanced zoos, and memories of zoos of decades past, keeps the anti-zoo lobby strong. Neither does it help that the stated primary aim of many zoos — conservation for the sake of reintroduction, is often difficult to prove or to justify in the case of most of the species in their care. While it is true that zoos are achieving increasing success in terms of rescuing species from the brink of destruction, the value in preserving and breeding them is limited if the habitat they rely upon continues to diminish, or if other threats, like poaching, persist.
Indeed, that may not be where the greatest potential of zoos lies.
Zoos and perceptions of nature
Zoos have another justification for their existence, which was introduced at in the beginning of this piece: a unique opportunity to communicate an appreciation of nature to their visitors, in disproportionately powerful and impactful ways. Recent studies in the field of conservation psychology indicate that a physical separation from nature, as epitomized by cities, leads to a psychological separation from nature. This means people who are less exposed to nature care less about it and are less likely, for example, to vote green. Nature in cities is critical here, in all its forms, including zoos. A three-year study involving 5,500 visitors to twelve AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums found that visits prompt individuals to reconsider their role in conservation action, and to see themselves as part of the solution; and that they believe they experience a stronger connection to nature as a result of their visit. It also has implications for human health: numerous studies in eco-psychology (as distinguished from conservation psychology) have shown that we need a dose of nature for optimal health. Zoos provide some of this medicine by bringing wild nature to the city.
A final word on zoos relates to our role. Just as zoos can affect the public’s views, so can the public affect the views of zoos. A more informed public will support the good work that zoos are doing and discourage the bad. It’s therefore easy to see the importance of a zoo being in sync with the conservation goals of its host city. The more zoos can involve their local communities (for example by providing discounts to locals or school groups; or partnering with local government, NGOPs, botanical gardens and others in city-wide awareness-raising initiatives), the greater their potential effect on those communities. Pay your local zoo a visit if you haven’t done so for a while. See whether or how it’s changed; note what innovative approaches are taken to educating and entertaining the public; watch the way people interact with these surroundings. I’d be interested to hear any of your thoughts before or after that visit.
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.
AustinFor nearly four decades, Austin has enforced tree preservation and replanting ordinances to balance land development with protecting trees and green space that bring so many people to our community.
ChicagoThe Chicago Region Trees Initiative has been working with its partners—including developers, communities, and home owners—to identify solutions to key issues impacting our oak ecosystems.
MiamiWhat is needed to make our natural areas thrive is mostly known and planned for, and implemented (sometimes slowly). Curveballs like climate change highlight the need for adaptive management and, at times, reprioritization.
New YorkDespite New York’s long-standing commitment to natural areas, our forests continue to face multiple challenges. Although 85 percent of our mature tree canopy is native, the next generation of native trees and understory flora and fauna are threatened by existing and emerging invasive species.
SeattleDeveloping and implementing an expanded stewardship timeline is essential to bring Seattle’s forests through the massive environmental and human change expected in this century.
Sarah Charlop-Powers is the Executive Director of the Natural Areas Conservancy, with a background in land use planning, economics and environmental management.
Despite representing the largest concentration of nature in cities, natural areas are under-resourced and unprotected.
Often the term “urban forest” refers to all of the trees within a city, including street trees, trees on private property, and forested natural areas. “Forested natural areas” are the “woods” in cities. The forests in cities are more than just trees: they encompass complex ecosystems of soil, microorganisms, trees, and plants in all stages of their life cycle. They are home to insects and animals. These spaces are critical for protecting biodiversity and mitigating the impacts of climate change. And they are important to the humans who live nearby, who visit and recreate in these forests. Natural areas make up 84%, or 1.7 million acres of urban parkland in the United States. Despite representing the largest concentration of nature in cities, natural areas are under-resourced and unprotected.
In the United States, four out of five Americans live in cities and urban parks are the nearest and sometimes only place that they have the opportunity to access nature. The Covid pandemic has further highlighted the importance of urban parks and natural areas as a critical form of infrastructure. Parks in cities across the country are currently receiving historic levels of use, as residents seek forms of respite compatible with shelter in place and social distancing guidelines. Natural Areas in particular offer the dual benefits of open space that allows folks to spread out, and access to the beauty and quietude of nature.
Forested natural areas have limited formal protection from city development and stressors and cannot take care of themselves; they need management and continued investment. The protection and management of urban natural areas requires sophisticated approaches as well as long-term planning and investment. Cities across the country and world are facing these challenges. In this roundtable we are introducing work from 12 US cities. These authors and the organizations that they represent are leading efforts to promote and ensure healthy forests in the complex urban environment.
The Natural Areas Conservancy (NAC) is a non-profit organization devoted to restoring and conserving New York City’s 20,000 acres (8094 hectares) of woodlands and coastal areas. In an effort to strengthen connections with leaders across the United States working in urban natural areas, in October 2019, we hosted a four-day workshop with the goal to strengthen a community of practice, learn from one another and improve management of the places where we work. As a group we discussed and developed case studies on the following topics as they relate to urban forested natural areas:
Assessment
Prioritization and Planning
Climate change Adaptation
Monitoring
Innovations in Restoration and Management
Cross-sector Partnerships
Organizing and Community Engagement
Urban Land Preservation and Policy
A special issue of Cities and the Environment was published as a product of this workshop. The issue contains an in-depth explanation of the themes explored in the workshop, as well as 25 case studies written by the city participants describing highlights of the work being carried out to manage forests in cities across the country.
In this roundtable, we are excited to bring this conversation to the Nature of Cities community.
Sophie Plitt is National Partnership Manager the the Natural Areas Conservancy. Sophie works to engage national partners in a workshop to improve the management of urban forested natural areas.
Clara Pregitzer is Conservation Scientist at the Natural Areas Conservancy.
She led the Forest Assessment component of the Natural Areas Conservancy Ecological Assessment for NYC parkland and the development of the Forest Management Framework.
Keith Mars, AICP, CA, is Community Tree Preservation Division Manager, City of Austin Development Services Department. Keith works for the City of Austin where he manages 35 dedicated public servants that preserve, plan, promote, and study Austin's urban forest.
For nearly four decades, Austin has enforced tree preservation and replanting ordinances to balance land development with protecting trees and green space that bring so many people to our community.
The City of Austin recognizes the urban forest, including natural areas, provides social, ecological, and economic benefits that enhance the quality of life for Austinites. Just like the parks where we play and the bike lanes we use to commute to work, our urban forest is a community asset. It is an important part of Austin’s infrastructure, but it is not static. The forest’s health, particularly our natural areas, are impacted by insect and disease infestations, invasive plants, aging trees, and wildfire. The City of Austin has long had regulations that protect individual trees and intact forest areas, but one stressor has been contact for the past decade—boomtown land development and how it is impacting individual trees in urban redevelopment and intact forested areas in the suburban areas of Austin.
Austin celebrated Arbor Day with a family friendly event at Austin Nature & Science Center. Photo: Jennifer Chapman, Austin Nature & Science Center.Five year tracking of tree impacts in Austin
For nearly four decades, our city has enforced tree preservation and replanting ordinances to balance land development with protecting trees and green space that bring so many people to our community (see the figure above). Keeping Austin’s tree canopy intact is important for our community’s quality of life.
Protected trees: Thanks to the City’s tree preservation ordinances, we have protected hundreds of thousands of trees from being removed or damaged during development. Complimentary land use ordinances, such as water quality protection zones and limits on impervious cover, protect intact forested areas.
Tree Removals: Trees are removed every year for a number of reasons, including land development and declining tree health. In 2017, more than 80,000 inches were removed because of development (12 percent decrease from 2016) and almost 42,000 tree inches were removed this year due to declining health (8 percent increase from 2016).
Tree Planting: The City tracks tree planting on development sites and city-sponsored initiatives. Trees planted through the development process totaled more than 30,000 inches in 2017. Tree planting on park property, riparian areas along creeks, rights-of-way, and private property has remained consistent over the past 5 years, averaging 6,600 new tree inches per year (6,400 in 2017). Tree species are chosen for ecosystem function and site suitability, and include large shade, small ornamental, and fruit and nut species.
Lydia Scott is Director, Chicago Region Trees Initiative. Lydia is the founding Director of the Chicago Region Trees Initiative (CRTI), a regional collaboration of ~200 organizations, founded by The Morton Arboretum.
The Chicago Region Trees Initiative has been working with its partners—including developers, communities, and home owners—to identify solutions to key issues impacting our oak ecosystems.
In the seven county Chicago region we have lost seventy percent of our native oak ecosystems and only 30 percent of what is left is owned by a public entity such as a community, park district, or forest preserve. This means that most of these areas are now in a wide range of unprotected ownerships and conditions including fragmented. Small fragmented sites are extremely vulnerable to external impacts such as invasive species and they are significantly impacted by surrounding land use.
The Chicago Region Trees Initiative (CRTI) has been working with its partners to identify solutions to key issues impacting these oak ecosystems. One that we are currently working on is a collaborative approach to land management to reduce threats. CRTI partners are developing a suite of resources to explain best management practices (BMPs) and make those practices cohesive across land ownerships. These resources are called Healthy Habitats. There are three levels to these resources: Healthy Hedges to eradicate and replace woody invasive species; Healthy Homes to increase planting of native species, reduce use of pesticides and fertilizers, and reduce run off; and Healthy Habitats to explain BMPs that may seem counterintuitive to the general public, e.g. prescribed fire and canopy. The most important aspect of these resources is that they are developed and sponsored by a wide range of partners validating their credibility.
The first effort —Healthy Hedges—is a resource to increase awareness and encourage removal of one of the greatest challenges to our forested natural areas: European buckthorn. Buckthorn is 28 percent of all of the tree species in the region. It creates a monoculture by outcompeting native species and changes the soil composition and chemistry making it challenging or impossible for desirable plant species to grow and inhospitable for some wildlife. For some private landowners, there is a lack of awareness of the existence of this species and its impacts on habitat health. Additionally, for some landowners it is deliberately left in place because it provides a screening buffer for their property. On the flipside, public landowners are well aware of its presence in their landscape and they are spending millions of dollars annually to remove this invasive species only to have it come back as seed is carried from private land to public land by birds.
Outreach and collaboration is needed. CRTI partners from the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association, Illinois Green Industry Association, forest preserve districts, mayors and managers, land trusts, community groups, nurseries, and individuals came together to discuss solutions. The result is a series of resources to guide landowners, managers, and individuals to increase awareness of the impacts of buckthorn, tips on how to remove it (including how to stage removal to keep privacy intact), desirable species to plant as replacement, how to work with a contractor (understanding that management of a manicured landscape is very different from a naturalized landscape), and where to find desirable species.
A webinar and in person presentations were sponsored by the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association to more than 400 individual contractors on how to engage their clients to remove buckthorn from their property. The same presentation was taken on the road for counties and followed up by presentations to smaller groups such as garden clubs and environmental groups. A poster was developed with the nurseries that shows alternatives for buckthorn. This poster has been distributed to garden centers and nurseries and a smaller version is being distributed to individuals and landowners to take with them when they shop. Two additional guides were developed with photographs and descriptions of desirable native and non-native shrub species. Finally, an online survey tool was created to help the landowner identify buckthorn on their property, direct them to management strategies, and then help them map their property and “pin” it as “Woody Invasive Free”. Those who achieve this designation are awarded a sticker for their window, mailbox or a property sign.
Matthew Freer is Assistant Director of Landscape, Chicago Park District.
He serves as Assistant Director in the Department of Cultural and Natural Resources, working on the Natural Areas Team.
Joseph McCarthy is Senior Forester, City of Chicago Dept. of Forestry. Since 1990, Joseph has worked to foster cooperation with other city departments ensuring that all reasonable options are explored to preserve and protect city trees in capital improvement projects.
Karen Miller is Executive Planner, Kane County. Karen is leader in the Chicago region on behalf of trees and the environment. She is a certified planner through the American Institute of Certified Planners and is an executive planner with the Kane County Development Department.
James Duncan is Environmental Resources Project Supervisor, Miami-Dade County. James is an environmental policy expert and coordinates local wildlife issues for Miami-Dade County.
What is needed to make our natural areas thrive is mostly known and planned for, and implemented (sometimes slowly). Curveballs like climate change highlight the need for adaptive management and, at times, reprioritization.
Urban forests in Miami-Dade County are best described as either protected, fragmented, and/or endangered. The urban and agricultural areas of the county are wedged between two national parks. Between them is a strip of land historically made up of wetlands dotted with tree islands, a higher and drier limestone ridge of upland forests, and along Biscayne Bay, a mangrove coastline. This strip of higher limestone accommodated development during the 20th century. Today, it’s occupied by renowned cities like Miami and important agricultural areas that serve as the U.S. winter crop breadbasket.
Biologically, natural areas in urban Miami-Dade are fragmented, modified through regional drainage, and suffering invasions by non-native species. Currently, less than 3 percent of the upland forest remains. Natural areas in the county are home to seventeen plant and fourteen animal species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) and well over a hundred more species are listed under similar state and county regulations. Many species are endemic. In 1990, Miami-Dade County voters created the Environmentally Endangered Lands (EEL) Program to acquire, preserve, enhance, restore, conserve and maintain native habitats. The habitats listed consist primarily of globally imperiled pine rockland, hardwood hammock, scrub, freshwater glades, and saltwater wetlands. Additionally, local and federal critical habitat designations have been placed on the vast majority of public and private natural areas in the county.
Outside the national parks, the county’s EEL initiative is the most important public lands project in Miami-Dade. EEL preserves support a diversity of species, outstanding geologic and natural features, and are a sustaining component of our ecosystem. Acquiring, protecting, and restoring these habitats benefits the public. These natural areas protect biodiversity and provide places for the public to see many species. These environmental resources recharge our drinking water aquifer, cool urban heat islands and lessen flooding during heavy rains. EEL preserves are a critical stop-over for the winter bird migration and are key in preventing the extinction of many species. The EEL Program, along with partners, has acquired almost 22,268 acres of land in Miami-Dade County from inception through July 2018. In total, EEL currently manages more than 26,000 acres.
Actions needed to preserve these areas have been developed by different agencies, ranging from the federal Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan to local management agreements. EEL efforts are encompassed in plans for all of these natural areas. Some of these restoration initiatives are starting their fourth decade of progress while others are constantly being modified and created. Aside from management, acquisition today is still a critical need.
Climate change poses new challenges and as the Miami-Dade County landscape changes in unanticipated ways, natural areas are needed more than ever to buffer our population from the most severe impacts. Climate change comes with new management and public land acquisition considerations. Many challenges and needs are easily grasped such as strips of buffer lands to mitigate storm surge and recharge areas to hold water during flood times and provide water during droughts. Other issues are nuanced, such as saltwater intrusion causing direct impacts via lifting a fresh groundwater lens into dry areas and its effect on legacy pollution. Some new dangers are biological. One major challenge to the outlook of urban forested areas is short term risks to forest structure from more resilient invasive vines and increased frequency of wind events.
Aroid vines (primarily Epipremnum pinnatum and Syngonium podophyllum) are sensitive to cold temperatures which historically kept them in check to a degree. These ornamental plants are found the world over in offices and malls, but in South Florida the small leaves and pencil thin vines climb up trees with vines as thick as a wrist and leaves the size of a human. Decreasing die back during the winter combined with tropical storm systems, infested forests have begun to collapse. After Hurricane Irma in 2017, preserve managers reported tornadoes touching down in areas infested with these vines. Tornadoes seemed to be the only way to explain the damage caused by this deadly combination. Control of these vines involve either complicated herbicide application or hiring tree climbers to manually remove resilient vines from the canopy. This challenge is increasingly a priority in many preserves.
In conclusion, what is needed to make our natural areas thrive is mostly known and planned for, and implemented (sometimes slowly). Curveballs like climate change undeniably highlight the need for adaptive management and, at times, reprioritization. Finally, the outlook is hopeful as large restoration projects get implemented and increasing attention to even the smallest natural area provides resources and thoughtful analysis to complex ecosystem problems.
Novem Auyeung is a Senior Scientist, Division of Forestry Horticulture & Natural Resources, NYC Parks. Novem guides conservation, research, and monitoring priorities for the Division.
Despite New York’s long-standing commitment to natural areas, our forests continue to face multiple challenges. Although 85 percent of our mature tree canopy is native, the next generation of native trees and understory flora and fauna are threatened by existing and emerging invasive species.
New York City’s forested natural areas cover roughly 10,000 acres across all five boroughs. In addition to NYC’s renowned cultural diversity, the city sits at the intersection of three physiographic provinces—Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and Appalachian—and is home to a wealth of flora and fauna, including globally rare communities such as post oak-blackjack oak barrens. From spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) to spring beauties (Claytonia virginica), our forests are great places to spot wildlife, wildflowers, and more. Based on USDA Forest Service research, NYC’s forested parkland provide disproportionately greater ecosystem service benefits relative to their size (Nowak et al 2018) and are more likely to provide visitors with a sense of refuge and place attachment than landscaped areas (Sonti et al 2020).
Left: Spotted salamander in Alley Pond Park. Photo: Ellen Pehek Right: Spring beauty in La Tourette Park. Photo: Desiree Yanes
Of the 10,000 acres, roughly 7,000 are managed by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation (NYC Parks). NYC was ahead of its time and established the country’s first publicly-funded urban natural resources management unit in 1984. Early work involved conducting inventories and assessments of natural areas on city parkland, which provided valuable information on NYC’s forests (e.g., NYC Parks 1995). This information was incorporated into management plans to improve specific parks and kick-started NYC Parks’ early forest restoration work and monitoring program. In addition, the Forever Wild program was created in 2001 to protect the city’s most ecologically valuable parkland. Thus, from the beginning, data from monitoring and assessments have been used to address the unique challenges of urban forest management in NYC.
Volunteer planting event in Riverdale Park. Photo: NYC Parks
When the MillionTreesNYC program was announced in 2007, NYC Parks was able to leverage two decades of forest restoration experience and apply lessons learned at a larger scale than ever before. The program brought together public and private organizations, researchers and practitioners, and professional staff and volunteers to plant one million trees citywide by 2017. This effort was led by NYC Parks and New York Restoration Project and was completed two years ahead of schedule, with over half of the trees planted in forested parkland (Campbell 2017). MillionTreesNYC also strengthened NYC Parks’ volunteer engagement in forested parkland through programs like public planting events (pictured above) and Super Steward training. The success of MillionTreesNYC illustrates the importance of building capacity and awareness for urban conservation through public-private partnerships and community engagement.
Social Assessment Field Researcher, Marcos Tellez, taking notes in Pelham Bay Park. Photo: David Chang
In 2012, the Natural Areas Conservancy (NAC), a non-profit organization, was formed and further improves NYC Parks’ capacity to conserve the urban forest. NAC’s kickoff project, a collaboration with NYC Parks and USDA Forest Service, was ecological and social assessments of the city’s natural areas and surrounding parkland. These assessments showed that NYC’s forested parkland is composed primarily of native tree species (Pregitzer et al. 2018) and that natural areas are well-loved and provide nearby nature to many New Yorkers (Auyeung et al. 2016). The assessments also informed the first citywide forest management plan, the Forest Management Framework of New York City, which quantifies the full scope of management actions and costs to improve NYC’s forests—$385 million over 25 years. Thanks largely to New Yorkers for Parks and their Play Fair campaign, the first year of the framework was funded, which enabled NYC Parks to hire new staff dedicated to improving NYC forests and speaks to the importance of planning that is informed by data and supported by diverse constituents.
Clara Pregitzer and Silvia Bibbo conducting the Ecological Assessment in Van Cortlandt Park. Photo: Natural Areas Conservancy)
Nonetheless, NYC’s forests continue to face multiple challenges. Although 85 percent of our mature tree canopy is native, the next generation of native trees and understory flora and fauna are threatened by existing (e.g., mile-a-minute vine) and emerging invasive species (e.g., jumping worms). Forests in the Bronx and Staten Island are under additional stress from herbivory due to the high density of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). NYC’s forests also face problems that affect forests globally like climate change, pests, and development. While the current COVID-19 pandemic has shown that public parks provide a vital service, anticipated budget cuts and decreases in revenue will likely have profound consequences for NYC’s forests and other parkland. What is clear is that continued data-driven management and planning (e.g., King & Auyeung 2020), advocacy and capacity building through public-private partnerships and community engagement (e.g., Forgione 2020, Henderson-Roy et al 2020), and inclusive planning that involves multiple constituents will go a long way towards addressing those challenges to NYC’s forests head on.
Lisa Ciecko is Plant Ecologist, Seattle Parks and Recreation. Lisa works as a Plant Ecologist for Seattle Parks and Recreation, directly managing Green Seattle Partnership restoration efforts.
Developing and implementing an expanded stewardship timeline is essential to bring Seattle’s forests through the massive environmental and human change expected in this century.
Seattle is known as the Emerald City, ringed by water, mountains, and at this time of a year, a spring green that can make newcomers dizzy. Skunk cabbage (politely renamed swamp lantern) with its hooded yellow flowers followed by an unfurling of massive green leaves, are a telltale sign of spring in forested wetlands across Seattle. Other early-bloomers in the forest include mid-story species like salmonberry and osoberry, whose names evoke the broader ecosystem connections present in Pacific Northwest forests. Up in the forest canopy reigns Western redcedar, a sacred tree that has provided shelter, transportation, and food for time immemorial.
Skunk cabbage in bloom.
This spring show in the middle of a booming metropolis can be contributed in part to community-powered restoration efforts formalized in 2005 as the Green Seattle Partnership. Our goal is to restore ecological form and function to more than 2,750 acres of forest across 230 parks while galvanizing community stewardship. With Seattle Parks and Recreation as the primary land manager, support from other city departments, non-profit organizations, companies and individuals have built a unique program that is working hard to heal and manage greenspaces long thought to “take care of themselves”. The program model has now been adopted across the Puget Sound Region, with 14 municipalities and 1 county following suit to build Green City Partnerships.
At 15 years old, Green Seattle Partnership is nearing the end of the originally conceptualized 20-Year Plan. This benchmark offers an opportunity to reflect on successes, challenges and next steps. It turns out that 20 years was a bold timeline. Invasive species cover has decreased rapidly, responding to our restoration interventions for the most part and offering a clear signal of success. Sites enrolled early in the program now have maturing conifer trees that optimistically have a lifespan of several hundred years. But even these sites are in the infancy of their renewal. We have lost our “ecological memory”; very basic natural processes like rotting nurse logs and robust wildlife populations are still hard to find in Seattle forests.
Developing and implementing an expanded stewardship timeline is essential to bring Seattle’s forests through the massive environmental and human change expected in this century. Climate change impacts are clearly taking shape in Seattle’s forests. We have to reconcile that the program’s resources don’t always match ecological priorities or timescales. Building understanding of the current program’s status and receiving sustained funding commitments are still our central challenge.
Seattle Needs Forests. Photo: Michael YadrickGreen Seattle Day 2019. Photo: Christine Stephens
A Green Seattle Partnership bumper sticker reads “Seattle Needs Forests” because the research results are loud and clear that human health and wellbeing depends on the multitude of benefits from nearby nature. The program has succeeded in its original intent to spur community involvement, marking a million volunteer hours invested in the program in 2018. Engagement has expanded to include restoration activities for toddlers to elders. Our leadership and job training opportunities, corporate events, school programming and a robust Forest Steward program are actively building community cohesion. Our challenge moving forward is to push harder to address programming inequities. Again, changing our timescale and perspective before and beyond 20 years may help us reconcile the city’s history of racism that is reflected in its greenspace care, use and distribution of benefits.
Green Seattle Partnership successes and challenges are not just our own. Work with the Natural Area Conservancy during the Forest in Cities Workshop confirmed that cities across the U.S. are facing similar issues. As we continue to tackle the task of shifting approaches, plans and methods to chart a course for what lies beyond the original 20-year horizon, learning from peers nationally is increasingly important. Hopefully the lessons in Seattle will be equally as valuable in restoring and supporting forests elsewhere in the world.
Michael Yadrick is Plant Ecologist, Green Seattle Partnership. Michael joined Seattle Parks and Recreation’s Green Seattle Partnership team in 2011. He has also served the land trust community, is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Bolivia ’02-’04) and former AmeriCorps volunteer.
Weston is as a policy and research consultant working on the social dimensions of urban natural resources. He currently chairs the City of Seattle's Urban Forestry Commission and holds adjunct teaching positions at Seattle University, the University of Washington, and Antioch University, Seattle.
A review of Great City Parks; Second Edition, by Alan Tate with Marcella Eaton. 2015. ISBN 978-0-415-53802-2/ ISBN 978-0-415-53805-3/ ISBN 978-1-315-75071-2. Routledge, New York. 344 pages.
In this thoughtful and detailed documentation of “great” city parks, which is enlivened by spare and insightful opinions, I am reminded of the series that started with the book Jane’s Fighting Ships, first published in 1898 by Fred T. Jane. The book was intended to aid in then-elaborate naval ship battle games. Over the next century, well after Jane’s passing, battleships and war planes have been similarly cataloged for the enjoyment of military history buffs under the catchall title Jane’s … In some very basic ways, Great City Parks is a park buff’s “Jane’s…”. But the author, Alan Tate, with Marcella Eaton, goes much further than cataloguing; he interweaves facts and figures with social and political history, design ethos, management and restoration plans, and, occasionally, subtle but incisive criticism
Having spent a lifetime in city parks, both as a citizen user and as a professional manager, I count myself as a member of the proud and sometimes eccentric community of park lovers and urban nemophilists. Thus, any book that comes out about the great city parks of the world immediately commands my attention. Dr. Alan Tate, planner, landscape architect, and professor and Head of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Manitoba, has just released his second edition of his 2001 Great City Parks, this time assisted by Dr. Marcella Eaton, also a practitioner and Associate Dean in the University of Manitoba Department of Landscape Architecture.
Park geeks and urban nemophilists, not to mention the “designers, administrators, planners and politicians with current and future responsibilities for city parks” that the author cites as the primary target audience, have reason to celebrate and pore over this lovingly detailed volume, richly illustrated with photographs (most of them by the authors) and simple plans of the parks, and heavily annotated with quotes, citations, and footnotes.
Birkenhead Park, Upper Park, Merseyside, UK. Photo: Marcella Eaton, Great City Parks
Great City Parks focuses on 30 parks, from the very earliest urban public park—Birkenhead Park in Merseyside, UK—to one that has just been completed—New York City’s High Line Park—and looks at a scale ranging from entire parks systems, such as that of Minneapolis, Minnesota (US) and the Emerald Necklace in Boston, Massachusetts (US), to a tiny, (1/10 of an acre) privately owned public space in New York City: Paley Park. The authors follow the same formula for each park so that comparisons can be made, looking consecutively at history, planning & design, and management & usage as broad categories of analysis, with important sub-categories including “Key figures in the establishment of the park” and “Original design concept.” In some of the analyses, the authors include rigorous, in-depth histories; for some parks, these are based on citing the work of other researchers, especially in writing about older and much-documented parks such as Central Park. For others, as with the High Line, the histories appear based on substantial personal interviews with the key players.
Central Park, Bow Bridge. Photo: Belinda Chan, Great City Parks
I have visited 18 of the 30 parks cited and have intimate knowledge of all the parks in New York City, some of whose creation or restoration I played a role in. So I paid particular attention to their descriptions of the NYC parks, checking for accuracy in their interpretations. On accuracy, based on my knowledge, they get an A+. In the descriptions of the five NYC parks, I could find only one very minor point to quibble with. The authors properly credited Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, Central Park’s first Administrator, founder of the Central Park Conservancy, and leader of the Park’s extraordinary restoration, for her huge roles, but incorrectly cited her for acknowledging “contemporary demands”— specifically, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “The Gates,” a Park-wide art installation of 2005, which was held long after Ms. Rogers had stepped down. (In fact, Ms. Rogers and then-Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis rejected the art installation in the early 1980s in a lengthy and eloquent treatise that cited the primary and urgent need to restore the then-devastated Park. With the enthusiastic support of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and First Deputy Mayor Patti Harris, I worked with a team to stage The Gates to enormous critical and popular acclaim in a park that was, by then, beautifully restored.)
That teeny quibble aside, I was astonished at the ability of the authors to capture so much salient information in what were very complex acts of park creation and/or restoration, both in digesting and summarizing many critical works on the parks and park movements, and in keen observations, one mirroring mine about Central Park: “It can also be construed as a precedent for Disneyland—with Main Street USA equating to the Mall and Sleeping Beauty’s Castle representing the Belvedere on Vista Rock.” That observation is contained in the important section of each chapter titled “Conclusions.” Few have ever so succinctly captured the importance of a park: “Central Park is the prototypical American pastoral park and remains one of the most powerful precedents in the entire history of landscape architecture. Latterly it has also become a model for philanthropic private support for public parks.”
Was Central Park’s Belvedere Castle (left) an inspiration for Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty’s Castle (right)? Photos retrieved from Wikimedia Commons
The “Conclusions” are also places for the otherwise restrained authors to reveal personal opinions of the various parks. For example, in evaluating Parc de la Vilette in Paris, by architect Bernard Tschumi, they shift from understated to quietly scathing: “The results on the ground do not justify the fanfare that preceded them…[Tschumi] produced an ultimately unsatisfactory exploration of non-place-specific architectural theories—a flat open space between government cultural institutions.” They close with this zinger: “Other park designers tend to recognize that they are responsible for creating places for users rather than for themselves.”
It would be tempting to see the authors as tilting toward the practice and practitioners of landscape architecture (and away from architects and architecture), and toward historic, pastoral exemplars as opposed to modern, architectural parks. However, they celebrate the designs of some very modern parks, including several constructed out of urban blight, highways, and post-industrial areas, such as Freeway Park in Seattle WA (US); Westergasfabrik Park in Amsterdam, Netherlands; Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord Park, in Germany; Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London (UK), and the High Line in New York City, NY (US), among ten parks built after the mid-20th Century featured in the book. And while Paris’s Parc de la Vilette takes some appropriate criticism, two other contemporary Parisian parks, Parc Andre Citroen and Parc de la Bercy, receive positive reviews.
Westergasfabrik, Water garden in excavated gasholder. Photo: Alan Tate, Great City ParksLandschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, recycling of site water into canal. Photo: Marcella Eaton, Great City ParksQueen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Wetland bowl and ‘Park Live’ during Olympic Games. Photo: Peter Neal, Great City Parks
Great City Parks is a 344-page treasure chest for park professionals and aficionados and catnip for city park enthusiasts. It is a book to which one can return repeatedly and which one can treat both as a great reference book and as a primer for how one might think about designing or restoring the next great park. In reading it, however, I found myself wishing for just a bit more of the author’s sparingly dispensed opinions along with more of a sensory exploration of what it is like to actually walk around these parks and experience the people, smells, sounds, and the overall genius loci. In the preface, Tate teases at one of the most intangible but important aspect of a park landscapes:
But what might constitute a great park? There is no easy answer. Well, there is. It’s like being in love. You know when you’re in it and that gels with Burke’s definition of beauty as ‘that quality or those qualities in bodies by which they cause love [“that satisfaction which arises to the mind upon contemplating any thing beautiful, or whatsoever nature it may be, from desire or lust”] or some passion similar to it’.
In other words, “greatness,” in a park, is not just what technically makes a park function at the highest level, but what puts the romance in the “Romantic Landscape.” In addition to the important “virtues” that parks bring to cities—as Frederick Law Olmsted enumerated in an 1865 letter to a newspaper, namely “increased real estate value…better public health, an amicable public gathering place, and promotion of safety and social order”—there are so many more values that parks both possess and provide. This book appropriately celebrates Prospect Park as the “less famous but more fabulous younger sibling of Central Park…the ‘anything goes’ counterpart to its more restrained older sibling.” In describing the park’s main entrance from Grand Army Plaza through a tunnel, the superlatives are earned: “The entry sequence through Endale Arch into the Long Meadow is one of the most highly praised human-made visual experiences in the world.” But they also quote Alexander Garvin, planner and educator (who has written his own highly regarded book on the topic, Public Parks: The Key to Livable Communities), in a pop culture-oriented comparison of that entry: “Dorothy opening the door of her black-and-white house to wander into Technicolor Oz, enters into a gorgeous landscape devoid of any trace of the city.”
Prospect Park, Long Meadow through Endale Arch. Photo: Marcella Eaton, Great City Parks
And whereas Tate is reserved most of the time in his explorations of the human experience of park space, it may be up to the reader of this book to understand the true soul of city parks and what makes them great, which is the people who use them and how they interact with design, nature, and each other (such personal responses can be found in Catie Marron’s lovely City Parks: Public Places, Private Thoughts, a collection of essays mostly by fiction writers, but including one by President William Clinton).
As someone who has traveled through that Prospect Park tunnel and explored the seemingly vast reaches of the Long Meadow and intimate byways of the wooded Ravine, I understand on a personal and tangible level what this book hints at in terms of the experience of place in great city parks. It’s almost a paraphrase of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous definition of hard core pornography: “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it…”
This book succeeds at defining what makes great city parks; what makes them truly great is up to the beholder. And we know one when we see it.
The wisdom of nature is the lifeline for our future and our most important ally in finding the pathways to transform the harmful exploitation of natural resources into a regenerative system that balances human aspirations with a healthy planet.
Winter may seem a quiet season when it comes to bird sounds, but when we listen carefully we may hear the starling, one of the most cheerful whistlers in the world. Mozart had a starling for some time and enjoyed the delightful singing of his bird friend, who was able to sing parts of his piano concertos (L. Haupt, 2017).
One of my favourite bedtime stories when I was little, was about two field mice, Millie and Tom. The poppy flower in the cornfield overheard Tom whispering a secret in Millie’s ear that the day after full moon, at 14h00 they would get married. The poppy flower told the little secret to the corn, the bellflowers, the wind and the sparrows, who said we will make the bells sound and sing for them on that day. And so it was, when the clock stroke 14h00, the breeze was blowing confetti of grass, the sparrows were singing and the bellflowers were ringing. At the end of the day Millie said to Tom: “it was a wonderful wedding, but I wonder who has told our secret?” Tom said: “it is not possible to keep secrets here, the flowers and the corn have ears.” And so many times I looked at the cornfields, their flowers and birds with a sense of admiration for their ability to hear our stories.
From book: “Verhaaltjes voor het slapen gaan, De Trouwpartij”
Another sound of nature that humans have hardly noticed is the communication between trees. Backed by a growing body of scientific evidence, Peter Wohlleben, author of the book, The hidden life of trees: what they feel, how they communicate, explains how trees are connected to each other through underground fungal networks, through which they share water and nutrients and communicate. At an international conference on forests for biodiversity and climate change in February of this year in Brussels, he said: “We do not know how many species we have in our forests. There are hundreds of thousands of the smallest creatures like bacteria, which form an indispensable part of the ecosystem. If we harm forests we don’t know what we lose. We have to be extra careful and not log more”. Most bacteria are decomposers that convert energy in soil organic matter into forms useful to the rest of the organisms in the soil food web. Some can even break down pesticides and pollutants (United States Department of Agriculture). Effective protection and management of forests and soil based on understanding the roles of all parts of the ecosystem are the most powerful weapons against biodiversity loss and climate change.
Ants are wonderful creatures, often admired for creating peaceful and highly productive societies. What you may not know is that ants are very strong ecosystem indicators, because they adapt quickly to their environment, interact with many other species, for example by creating homes for fungi and micro-organisms in their nests, and influence important process such as nutrient cycling and seed dispersal (Ensia, 2019). To learn more about the results of restored landscapes altered by agriculture production or mining, researchers distinguish different ant species in undisturbed lands and newly revitalised lands, finding that there is a strong association between ant species and environmental attributes such as the humidity of leaf litter on the ground.
Another fascinating but invisible natural phenomenon is found under water. Kelp forests, consisting of large brown algae, are marine environments that provide food and shelter for species at all levels of the food web and sequester vast amounts of carbon. Researchers Dorte Krause-Jensen and Carlos M. Duarte (Nature, 2016) estimate that around 200 million tons of carbon dioxide are being sequestered by seaweed every year, about as much as the annual emissions of the state of New York. However, they are increasingly threatened by climate change, overfishing, and harvesting.
Bat Conservation International has conducted a two-year experiment in cornfields in Southern Illinois to study the role of bats in agricultural production. The study confirms that bats play a significant role in combating corn crop pests, preventing more than $1 billion in crop damages around the world every year. Bats provide additional value to agriculture by suppressing toxic fungi and reducing the necessity for costly insecticides.
These are only a few of many examples that show the extraordinary wisdom and power of nature and how much we can learn from the natural world that surrounds us. However, in today’s highly urbanised world very often the voice of nature is not heard or not listened to…
Why we need to listen to the voice of nature, more than ever before
The world is watching the 6th extinction crisis, with an average decline in populations of birds, fish, mammals, and amphibians of 60 percent since 1970 (WWF Living Planet Report, 2018). The number of plants that have disappeared from the wild is more than twice the number of extinct birds, mammals and amphibians combined. In response, the global community is preparing to make path-defining choices for the future of our planet. We are embarking on the UN Decade of Restoration (2021-2030), the year 2020 is the UN’s International Year of Plant Health, and 2021, the 196 countries party to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity plan to gather in Kunming, China to decide on a new agreement for the global protection of nature until 2030. Nature is making the headlines in our news like never before, as we are losing forests, soils, wetlands, oceans and all the precious natural systems humans depend on. It is more clear than ever that this generation is the one that has to turn the tide.
Protecting biodiversity should not only focus on pristine habitats in remote areas, but on creating space for nature in the places where we live. If we bring this thinking into our increasingly urban world and the growing momentum for greening and reforesting, it is important to consider for which animal, plant and tree species we create a home in our city streets, roofs, parks and backyards. Cities do not only harbour a significant fraction of the world’s biodiversity, but can also be made more liveable and resilient for all living creatures, through nature-friendly urban design, learning from nature.
Throughout the world, natural ecosystems in and around cities continue to be fragmented or disappear as a result of urban expansion and development, with only modest regard for their function and contribution to the regional community and economy. Natural infrastructure and integration of biodiversity in urban planning, such as pocket parks, urban farming, green walls, tree planting and daylighting of rivers, offer innovative and cost effective solutions that improve quality of life and climate resilience.
London Hyde Park. Photo: Chantal van Ham
One of the London boroughs, Brent, decided last year to create a seven mile long “bee corridor” of wildflower meadows in parks and open spaces to boost the numbers of pollinating insects. More than 97 percent of the UK’s wildflower meadows have disappeared in the last 75 years, but many butterflies, bees, dragonflies and moths rely on these flowers (Powney et al, 2019).
The deep connections between nature and human health have been demonstrated extensively in research.Khoo Teck Puat Hospital in Singapore has applied this knowledge by integrating plants and nature in its design, on the basis of the belief that people relax and heal faster with views of trees and plants, and when hearing birdsong (L. Jones, 2020). The hospital has balconies, planters, waterfalls, green walls, roof gardens and an organic food garden with over 100 fruit trees where local volunteers grow food for the kitchens. This creates the feeling that the hospital is in a forest and provides natural ventilation and has its own microclimate.
Nadezhda Kiyatkina is a researcher and activist and writer for The Nature of Cities, who shared a story about the Cherished Meadow project in Moscow, describing her experiences with the development of a park on a three-hectare plot of land that housed car sheds previously called “barren land”. What is unique about the project is the interdisciplinary cooperation between biologists, architects, landscape architects, and the involvement of residents and local authorities. Residents were asked about their wishes for the landscape near their home, and the three main reasons they gave in response to the question “Why do you go to parks?” were walking with children; meeting other people; and having the possibility to admire and watch nature. 40% of respondents come specifically to listen to the birds sing. As a result, in the design of the park, lawns were ruled out, only native plants were used, bushes were selected based on their quality to provide nesting space for birds, and paths were made convenient not only for the pedestrians, but also for the insects. It became a success story for people and nature, winning the support of over 3000 residents, receiving two architecture awards, and gaining the support of the local authorities.
Field flowers, or “akkerbloemen”, as we call them in Dutch, are among the most threatened plant species in The Netherlands. Their diversity has evolved over thousands of years, but many that were growing in abundance when my mother was a child, living in a small South-Dutch village in the countryside of Limburg, have disappeared. Others are highly threatened, like the poppy flower, camomile and cornflower. Our current agricultural practices completely changed the soil, fertilisation, humidity and temperature. Combined with the use of pesticides and loss of biodiversity-rich field margins, the wild flower diversity in the Netherlands disappeared in less than a century. In 1995 in Limburg, Natuurmonumenten, one of the Dutch nature conservation organisations, bought an estate with agricultural fields and dedicated the land to the protection of field flowers, creating landscapes full of insects, butterflies, life and diversity to enjoy. It would be of tremendous value if farmers could, with support of the EU Agricultural funds, create field margins with indigenous field flowers across Europe (Puur Natuur, Natuurmonumenten, Zomer 2019).
Poppy flowers. Photo: Chantal van Ham
The Tana Delta in coastal Kenya, one of the most important wetlands in Africa, has been facing the growing pressure of commercial crop production of sugarcane, maize, rice and jatropha (for biofuels), as well as plans for the development of a port for further exploiting the natural resources, putting at risk the livelihoods of people and wildlife. Serah Munguti, finalist of the Tusk Award for Conservation in Africa, 2017, has initiated the Tana Delta Sustainable Land Use Plan, which helped in developing community livelihoods projects in the Tana Delta, supporting farmers, fishermen and pastoralist communities to make a transition to sustainable production methods, while increasing their income from crops, honey, fish farming and cattle. She believes that “nature matters to all of us, it is our food, medicine, fuel and clothes and we should all do our part in conserving the natural environment”. Conservation of the Tana River Delta is currently being enhanced through a forest landscape restoration project funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through the United Nations Environment Programme and with Nature Kenya as implementing partner. The project implements some elements of the delta’s land use plan, which provides for land and water allocation and will enable local communities, civil society, and national and county governments to come up with policy and institutional frameworks to implement restorative land use initiatives.
How can we reconnect with nature?
In 2018 the Wall Street Journal raised awareness of growing “plant blindness” in the United States, which means that fewer and fewer scientists are able to identify plants. There is less interest among students in studying plants, as they shift towards parts of plant science that have commercial applications, such as molecular biology. This raises the question of whether students can have an adequate understanding of nature without knowing what makes it up. Organizations such as the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management cannot find enough scientists to deal with invasive plants, wildfire reforestation, and basic land-management issues, and prompted botanical gardens around the nation to raise the alarm (WSJ, 2018).
Sign for tree planted in Leipzig ‘For our little sweetheart Mara Carlotta’s 1st birthday’. Photo: Chantal van Ham
Jane Goodall points out that we have broken the link between intellect and wisdom. Nature has tremendous wisdom, we can learn so much from the most important mind and voice of the planet. It can give us the ideas, creativity, energy, cooperative spirit and joy that can trigger the transition we need to live in harmony with our natural environment. Thankfully, there are some truly wonderful initiatives around the world that help us to hear, see and enjoy the magic of nature.Leipzig responds to the demand of citizens for more green in the city, to improve air quality and reduce noise. One of the ways to do is by increasing the number of urban trees. I noticed when walking near the railway station that many of the trees had a square copper plate with a message and the names of citizens. Through the “Baumstarke Stadt” (“Tree Strong City) initiative, set up by the City of Leipzig in 1997, which gives private people and businesses the opportunity to donate a minimum of 250 euro for the planting and maintenance of one or more trees (“tree adoptions”— Baumpatenschaften), 5,000 trees have been planted, adding 500 trees every year. Part of the beauty is that the tree is dedicated to individuals, and is often planted for a special occasion, like a wedding, anniversary or the birth of a child.
From book by Beth Moon: Ancient Trees: Portraits of Time, 2014
Beth Moon has made remarkable photos of the world’s oldest trees, which give us the power to connect with time and nature, in ways so much greater than ourselves. In 2018, the New York Times dedicated an article to the ancient cedar trees of Lebanon, some of the oldest trees have survived for more than 1,000 years and are World Heritage. They flourish on moisture and cool temperatures, an ecosystem unusual in the Middle East. Climate change is bringing critical challenges to this part of the world, impacting agriculture, water and food supplies and livelihoods. If climate change continues, in the future, cedars will be able to thrive only at the northern tip of the country, where the mountains are higher. The trees that are so symbolic for the country that they are in the center of the Lebanese flag, and existed for thousands of years, are highly threatened. Some years ago, Lebanon’s Agriculture Ministry started, with support of German, Korean and Swedish environmental and development funds, a landscape restoration project to plant 40 million trees, including cedars, aiming at increasing forest cover from 13% to 20% till 2022. Growing cedars back is not an easy task, as they grow slowly, bearing no cones until they are 40 or 50 years old, hopefully these restoration efforts will help to win the race against the climate change clock.
We all know that wolves hunt for their prey, but how wolves can give life to many species is less well-known. In 1995, wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park, after an absence of 70 years. Vegetation had been grazed away by deer, which had no predators. When the wolves came back, the deer started to avoid valleys and gorges, and these areas started to regenerate immediately, with rapidly growing forests and a great increase in songbirds, migratory and beavers. This created new niches for other species, such as otters, ducks, fish, reptiles and amphibians, more mice and rabbits, leading to an increase in birds of prey, such as hawks and eagles. The bear population also started to rise, because of the increase in berries. The wolves also changed the rivers, reducing meandering, making the channels narrower and reducing erosion, as the forests stabilised the rivers, creating wildlife habitats.
Many rivers have been depleted in most parts of the world. Forty years ago, Bangalore had over 1,020 ponds and lakes and 3 perennial rivers. Today there is hardly a trace of these rivers, as they have all been built over. Only 82 lakes and ponds exist, and about half of them are covered in sewage. A very inspiring leader, Sadghuru, a yogi from India, has mobilised millions of people through one of the largest ecological movements on the planet, a nation-wide campaign “Rally for the Rivers” aiming to implement long-term policy changes to restore India’s depleted rivers and deserted land. Four percent of Indian rivers are glacier-fed, the rest are forest fed. It is recognised that bringing back the forests and restoring the organic content of soil through agroforestry farm management practices will revive and slow the flow of the rivers, create water reservoirs in the soil, and improve the life of people, animals and plants. To turn this into practice, we need cross-regional policies and cooperation as rivers do not stay within country and regional borders. Over 70 percent of the land in India is owned by farmers, and according to Sadghuru, they need support to move from crop-based to tree-based agriculture along the rivers, in a way that marries ecology and the economy. People will only be involved if they benefit economically. The experiences of 70,000 farmers using forest-based agriculture through “Rally for the Rivers” have proved that income from crops can go up by 3 to 8 times. This transition will also increase the ecological quality of the soil and rivers (World Economic Forum, Platform for Shaping the Future of Global Public Goods, there is no planet B, 2019).
Let’s ask ourselves what we can we do for nature
The world’s economic wealth and profits have been created at the cost of the natural world and indigenous and marginalised communities who have always been the stewards of these natural systems. If we go back to the roots of the word corporation, we will see that companies initially developed with environmental and social aspirations at an equal footing with economic gain. It is time for business to go back to its founding principles and make our natural world truly part of the equation by developing regenerative business models and by making natural and social capital part of our economic system.
Listening to the words of living legend, Sir David Attenborough, humans are the mayflies of evolution, in comparison to the complex life forms that first appeared in the oceans around 540 million years ago. But we have evolved into the planet’s most dangerous predator. Considering our dependence on nature as our life support system, it is high time that we listen to the stories nature is telling us, to learn from its millions years of wisdom and to give a voice to the voiceless. Joaquin Phoenix stood up for the voiceless in his Academy Award speech for Best Actor in the film “The Joker”, saying that: “no one species has the right to dominate, control, use and exploit another with impunity. We have become very disconnected from the natural world and plunder it for its resources”. He added that “human beings are so inventive, creative and ingenious, and when we use love and compassion as our guiding principles, we can create systems of change that are sentient to all living beings and the environment”.
As the stories from all over the world demonstrate, the wisdom of nature is the lifeline for our future and our most important ally in finding the pathways to transform the harmful exploitation of natural resources into a regenerative system that balances human aspirations with a healthy planet. In addition, it is time to ask ourselves, what can we do for nature?
Since 1966, the Capital Regional District (CRD) in British Columbia, Canada (Map 1 below) has developed an outstanding park and trail system, which today is perhaps one of the finest regional park systems in North America [Note 1]. Primarily a natural areas system encompassing three biogeoclimatic zones (Map 2), CRD Regional Parks comprises 33 parks covering more than 33,000 acres and three regional trails extending more than 110 kilometres (Map 3). CRD Regional Parks recently prepared a new strategic plan (Regional Parks Strategic Plan 2012-2021) which sets the direction for the regional parks and trails system over the next decade. The strategic plan defines the long-term “big picture” framework for our regional parks and trails. As part of the preparation of the strategic plan, Regional Parks undertook extensive public consultation to find out what was important to people about the regional parks system. What we found was quite surprising – people expect the regional parks system to fulfill a wide range of wants and needs, apart from just a place to spend leisure time.
1 — Politically, the CRD is comprised of thirteen municipalities and three electoral areas (e.g. non-incorporated areas). The CRD has a population of about 375,000 and an area of about 245,000 hectares. Victoria, the provincial capital, anchors the region’s urban core.
Children at play at Witty’s Lagoon Regional Park. Photo: Bev HallMap 1. CRD Administrative Boundaries.
Expansive view of the Sea to Sea Regional Park. Photo: CRD Image Library.Map 2. Biogeoclimatic Zones in the CRD
Nationally endangered Garry Oak Ecosystem at Mill Hill Regional Park. Photo: CRD Image Library.
Map 3. Parks and Protected Areas in the CRD.
Photographing a rough-skinned newt. Photo: Mary Sanseverino.
What People Really Want from Regional Parks
Citizen involvement in the development of the strategic plan was an essential component of the planning process. To this end, a comprehensive public engagement strategy was developed to provide opportunities for regional residents to contribute their ideas into the preparation of the strategic plan.
Opportunities for residents to express their ideas included:
Creation of a regionally representative Citizen Advisory Panel (CAP) to guide development of the strategic plan
Public engagement at community dialogue sessions throughout the region
Engagement with secondary school students at seven area schools
Availability of an on-line and a hard copy response form
Presentations by interest groups
The public was asked to comment on the following themes:
Vision for the regional parks and trails system
Values and benefits of regional parks and trails
Opportunities and challenges for regional parks and trails
Recreational opportunities
Environmental conservation
Secondary students were invited to directly write down their comments on the following themes:
Types of recreational activities engaged in/desired in regional parks
Location of future regional parks
Meaning of regional parks to “me”
Environmental conservation in regional parks
The information received during the consultation process highlighted participants’ strong beliefs and opinions about Regional Parks. Through an analysis of the data, a number of key themes emerged which clearly indicate the public’s high valuing of, and expectations from, the regional parks system. You can see the full public comment report here.
Horseback riding at Island View Beach Regional Park. Photo CRD Image Library.
Ten of the most salient themes for urban nature conservation are presented below, in no rank order of importance.
(1) Expand the park and trail network; develop more connections, corridors, and linkages.
The public is vitally interested in seeing Regional Parks develop a network of parks and trails that provides connectivity for people, wildlife, and ecosystems. Representative quotes include:
“Maintain large swathes of area better able to sustain bio-diverse populations, instead of subdividing the parks into little ‘islands’.”
“Regional parks can help interconnect the many smaller patchworks of small parks into something bigger and better.”
“Parks should become hubs for re-establishing native ecosystems to benefit native flora and fauna.”
(2) Value parks for their ecosystem services and ability to mitigate climate change impacts
Many people are aware of the value of park lands for the “free” nature’s services they provide, including reducing the impacts of climate change. Representative quotes include:
“People are worried about climate change, so the time is right to protect natural areas that help counteract the negative impact of humans and human development on the climate.”
“Parks provide rain water filtration to ground water and act as a sink both regarding water and carbon, unlike cement/pavement structures. “
“Build on climate change awareness and community realization that we have to do more; parks and trails are the lungs of our region….our air and water.”
(3) Maintain biodiversity and ecosystem integrity; understand and monitor what we have, restore landscapes, and address invasive species.
Public concern with the environment came through strongly. The public is very supportive of regional parks’ role in environmental conservation and landscape protection. Representative quotes include:
“Protect and maintain the biodiversity of our parks in both a natural and environmentally safe manner, and remove invasive species once and for all.“
“Increase ecosystem restoration projects, education projects, and the development of more conservation corridors.”
“Use scientifically sound methods of preserving the plant and animal life in the parks.”
(4) Acquire more land while it is still available; target beaches, forests, lakes, rivers, and lands in the western part of the regional district; maintain open space within the urban fabric.
The public expressed strong support for continued acquisition of land for parks, particularly in light of continuing development pressures and increasing regional population growth. Representative quotes include:
“Public opinion is strong for land acquisition. More parks for reasons of conservation and global warming (more trees = less carbon dioxide).”
“Expand the park system; this is vital with the push for development.”
“We should have more parks. Parks can both preserve habitats, old growth trees, sensitive areas, and salmon spawning grounds, and provide more green space for residents to enjoy. It is a win-win for all.”
(5) Ensure that parks and trails are accessible and in close proximity to all regional residents.
The issue of easy accessibility to parks and trails was a predominant concern for many regional residents. Accessibility also involves parks being free of charge. Representative quotes include:
“I value that the parks are a quiet get-away from city life, yet still so close to home.“
“It is important that the parks are accessible to everyone in every area.”
“Parks are great places for everyone to go or use, especially those with limited incomes.”
The Selkirk Trestle on the Galloping Goose Regional Trail is a popular urban destination. Photo: CRD Image Library
(6) Keep the parks and trails clean, safe, and well maintained
Many people commented on how much they value parks being well cared for and maintained, and the importance they place on feeling safe in the parks. Representative quotes include:
“The parks are safe for everyone to use. They make the community better.”
“The parks are mostly very well maintained. It feels like wilderness and the CRD has lots of parks close to the city where a family can safely enjoy the outdoor life.”
“Please just keep the parks in good condition.”
(7) Recognize that parks and trails are important for exercise, fitness, health, and well-being
Public comments heavily emphasized the importance of parks for encouraging and supporting healthy, active life-styles, as well as being fun, spiritual, and relaxing places. Representative quotes include:
“Undisturbed nature, near the city but virtual wilderness, a place where almost everyone can connect with nature and keep physically and mentally fit.”
“The calming experience and relaxing exercise of walking, hiking, jogging, bird observation, and flora/fauna appreciation makes living in our area tolerable in an ever frustrating and populating world.”
“Being in a place that’s free of cars, loud industrial noise and commercial advertising is just an overwhelming relief—it feels like you can breathe again.”
“Parks bring the natural world to the doorstep of the urban dweller. They provide an indispensable place of peace and beauty, of plants and animals, a place to calm the soul.”
(8) Utilize parks as green space buffers to urban and suburban sprawl
Respondents strongly support parks and trails serving as buffers to development and regional sprawl. Representative quotes include:
“Parks serve as natural green space and a buffer to traffic and the spread of urban sprawl.”
“Parks are pockets of accessible green space in an increasing urbanized environment.”
“As Victoria gets more crowded with houses and commercial real estate, parks are going to be our oasis of green space.”
“As we build more and more, I think it is imperative to keep parks so we have places to be in nature and not on cement.”
(9) Encourage current generations to leave a parks legacy for future generations
A strongly expressed sentiment was a concern that we protect lands now and build a strong park system as a legacy for (and duty to) future generations. Representative quotes include:
“Parks and areas of nature are very important for future generations and the only way we can teach our kids about the environment and what it looked like before mankind came and logged it and built houses.”
“Parks are valuable for future generations in their naturalness.”
“We need to have parks to show our children and grandchildren nature as it used to be”.
(10) Celebrate public support of Regional Parks and its relevance to their lives
The majority of respondents support the current direction and focus of regional parks in protecting the environment and providing outstanding recreational opportunities. Representative quotes include:
“The regional parks provide access to nature, a place to get out of the car, to ride bikes and to walk. They connect urban areas and urban to rural areas.”
“I love being surrounded by a greenbelt. I look from my urban condo to the north and west. I can see an almost continuous green line on the horizon made up of parks all the way to Salt Spring Island.”
“The value of regional parks to me is that they provide a beautiful place that no matter how old or young, rich or poor you are, they are available and accessible to you. They also prove a valuable tool for protecting places for future generations to enjoy as well.”
It seems clear that public expectations of regional parks and trails is wide-ranging. And with time, these expectations will likely increase, as the stresses of urbanization, population growth, changing demographics, loss of natural areas and biodiversity, and climate change continue to affect the region. This presents many challenges for CRD Regional Parks, some of which are explained in more depth below.
Black bears at Sooke Potholes Regional Park during the fall salmon run. Photo CRD Image Library.
Challenges Facing Regional Parks (From the Regional Parks Strategic Plan 2012-2021, pages 56-66)
Managing for Growth:
By the year 2038, the regional population is expected to increase from a current level of 375,000 to 475,000, with anticipated continuing growth well beyond 2038. The population structure will also change with marked increases in older age groups. This has profound implications for Regional Parks, including:
More visits to regional parks will result in increased demands for facilities and services;
Crowding and pressure for recreational space will create a need for more and more varied places to recreate;
Utilizing the existing land base for development will result in the loss of natural areas, greenspace and biodiversity; and
Existing parks will become more valuable as places that conserve biodiversity and offer people a place to get away from urban and suburban development.
Visitors enjoying a summer afternoon at Sooke Potholes Regional Park. Photo: CRD Image Library.
Maintaining Ecological Integrity: Regional Parks represent remnants of the region’s original ecosystems. It is important to ensure that these ecosystems continue to function, evolve and remain viable over the long-term. Ensuring this ecological health is a challenge for Regional Parks:
Most parks are fragments of altered landscapes and do not protect complete ecosystems
Park boundaries have often been determined by administrative rather than ecological considerations
Park environments are subject to impacts from urban, suburban, and rural land uses on surrounding lands
Park ecosystems are subject to impacts from visitors and visitor facilities
Native plant and animal species in regional parks are being altered and displaced by invading non-native species
Nationally endangered Bluegrey Taildropper (slug). Photo by Kristiina Ovaska.
Connecting with Nature:
People visit regional parks to participate in activities such as hiking, walking, horseback riding, cycling, camping, swimming, boating, beachcombing, fishing , nature study, and organized group activities. These activities can be enjoyed year-around and they contribute to a healthy lifestyle. However, this high level of use impacts the very things these visitors come to enjoy. Regional Parks is challenged to ensure a sustainable harmony exists between sound land stewardship and outdoor recreation activities.
Hikers on Mt. Wells Regional Park. Photo by Mary Sanseverino.
Funding Existing Demand:
Regional Parks is supported primarily through property taxes, with a 2012 operating expenditure budget of $10,014,290. Regional Parks faces significant funding challenges and effective financial management is essential to ensure the long-term sustainability of the system. The organization must sustain the capacity to operate and manage the system in a fiscally responsible manner, while providing stewardship of natural and cultural resources and built infrastructure, and continuing to deliver excellent services to park visitors.
A section of the new E&N Rail Trail in the Capital Regional District. Photo CRD Image Library.
Acquiring New Regional Parkland:
In 2000, the CRD Board established a ten-year Land Acquisition Fund at a rate of $10 per average residential household. The fund generated approximately $1.7 million per year to purchase land for regional parks and trails. In 2010, the Board extended the Land Acquisition Fund for another ten years and increased the fund by $2 per average residential household per year, to a maximum of $20 in 2014 through to 2019. The Fund will generate approximately $3.4 million per year at the $20 rate. In 2010, Regional Parks made significant acquisitions of parkland and the financial commitments for those purchases extends to 2015. As a result, Regional Parks will not have significant funds for further land acquisition until 2016.
Waterfall at Sandcut Beach in the newly acquired Jordan River Regional Park. Photo: CRD Library.
Integrating Land Use Planning:
Regional parks and trails help define the regional landscape, and it is important to manage them in the context of their relationship with the rest of the landscape. However, the regional parks and trails system is only one part of the land use planning in the CRD. It is important to manage land use both inside and outside of regional parks and trails boundaries. This is one reason why Regional Parks must collaborate with others involved in land use planning. This collaboration is also critical in establishing landscape corridors in support of biodiversity.
A rural section of the popular Galloping Goose Regional Trail in autumn. Photo by Bev Hall.
Looking to the Future
In spite of the many challenges facing Regional Parks, we are very optimistic about the future of the region and the regional parks system. The CRD is fortunate to enjoy high levels of public support for the protection of green and blue space as well as continuing demand for accessible opportunities to connect with the natural world. Regional Parks is committed to providing residents and visitors with a world-class parks system that both protects the environment and provides for outstanding recreational opportunities. This commitment is reflected in the Strategic Plan’s goals for regional parks. (See the Regional Parks Strategic Plan 2012-2021, page 74.
Goals for Regional Parks
Regional Parks are dedicated to:
Protecting the region’s extraordinary biodiversity in perpetuity
Providing for the health, inspiration and education of residents and visitors through human-powered outdoor experiences and activities that foster enjoyment of, and appreciation and respect for the region’s natural environments
Child with dragonfly at one of CRD Regional Parks’ interpretive programs. Photo: Deborah Kerr.
Adding to this, one of the most exciting initiatives included in the Strategic Plan is promotion of the idea of managing half of the land and waters in the CRD for the conservation of nature. Otherwise known as “Nature Needs Half”, this idea is explained in the vision statement as:
In this century, regional parks and trails will become part of a larger integrated and connected system of natural areas. Subscribing to the idea that “nature needs half”, policies and actions are explored through sustainability planning to significantly enhance the system of natural areas in the region in order to sustain life supporting ecological processes. By conserving at least half of the Capital Region’s land and water base for nature, residents may live and work in harmony with the environment.
View from Babbington Hill, East Sooke Regional Park. Photo: Mary Sanseverino.
Regional Parks is starting to act on this concept by collaborating with CRD Regional Planning to embed Nature Needs Half as a policy direction in the development of the Regional Sustainability Strategy. This multi-year planning process will result in a comprehensive regional growth management plan that addresses issues such as transportation, population change, settlement patterns, and resource management. Discussions are now taking place to define what “nature” and “half” mean in the context of the CRD, and how this concept can move from idea to implementation over the next several decades.
In support of this, Regional Parks has included a graphic long-term vision for completing the parks and trails system in the Strategic Plan (Regional Parks Strategic Plan 2012-2021, pages 79-82). Realizing this proposed system will take time and require innovation, collaboration, financial resources, public support, and political direction. Map 4 shows the proposed system, with areas in orange identifying areas of acquisition interest for Regional Parks.
Face-painting at a CRD interpretive event. Photo: CRD Image Library.Proposed Regional Parks and Trails System.Baird’s Sandpiper at Island View Beach Regional Park. Photo by Dave Appleton.
Conclusion
It seems clear that Regional Parks are very important to residents of the CRD and very much a part of their everyday lives — their relevance to the public is high. But, as we have seen, this creates numerous challenges in trying to meet these expectations in an era of budgetary constraints, limited capacity, and changing conditions and demands.
Regional Parks has recently developed a comprehensive strategic plan which lays out how we will meet these challenges over the next ten years, and which describes our vision of at least half of the land and water base being managed for nature conservation. With continuing public and political support, we feel confident that we will be able to meet these challenges and continue to offer the public outstanding opportunities to connect with nature close at hand and on demand.
Pope Francis visits the United States in late September 2015. He will speak in Washington, D.C., New York, and Philadelphia, including an address at the United Nations and to a full Congress. His visit will be an opportunity for reflection and—who knows—might possibly be a turning point in the United States’ long, tortuous debate about climate change. The Pope’s recent Encyclical on the Environment and Climate Change, Laudato si, was certainly a welcome acknowledgement that an unimaginable crisis is upon us. His urgent appeal not only recognized the immensity of the sustainability challenge we face, but also called for immediate action.
By situating a duty to care about environmental degradation squarely within the Catholic religious tradition, Pope Francis may have shown us a path beyond the political and ideological thicket that has for too long stymied any genuine public conversation about climate change here in the United States. As Rob Verchick put it, Pope Francis has the power to “vouch” that climate change is real, that it is happening now, and that urgent action is required. With any luck, his visit to the United States will give him many opportunities to be the climate change “voucher” we so desperately need. Speaking directly to the likes of Oklahoma Senator Inhofe, the infamous “Senator with a snowball,” the earnest chemist turned priest might be able to open hearts and minds too long closed to the frightening changes going on, and to the deep injustice that climate change perpetrates against the most vulnerable among us. Barring unforeseen catastrophes, Pope Francis’s words will dominate the news cycle. That means that he has a unique opportunity to focus global and national attention on the looming ecological catastrophe that is climate change, and to bring its tragic consequences into the popular media’s 24/7 coverage of his visit.
Catholic Church England and Wales/Mazur-catholicnews.org.uk/flickr/cc
I was recently asked by Newsday to reflect on what I would say to Pope Francis. What came to mind immediately was a line from the New Union Prayer Book: “No longer can we tear the world apart to make our fire.” For me, this line from the prayer welcoming the Sabbath encapsulates the sustainability challenge—how to meet the needs and aspirations of 7.4 billion people while also keeping our impact on the earth within planetary boundaries.
As a species, we are failing miserably in this task. We poison our air, land, and water to “build our fire,” while pumping alarming amounts of carbon into our atmosphere in the process. Unchecked, human exploitation of the planet has created environmental “haves” and “have-nots”—permitting a “throwaway” lifestyle for the few, while leaving billions in abject poverty.
This disparity is as true within nations as it is between them. Looking more closely at how just one or two pollutants affect people in a single city can help make the distributional justice concerns clear. The New York metro region as a whole ranks unfavorably high for air pollution—the 12th worst metro area in the country. In 2014, Queens, the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island all received F grades from the American Lung Association for ozone pollution. The health impacts New Yorkers suffer because of these unacceptable levels of pollution are nothing short of disastrous. According to the New York Department of Mental Health and Hygiene, ozone and particulate matter, two common pollutants from combustion of fossil fuels, are directly responsible for 3,400 premature deaths in NYC each year. For perspective, that means that on average, eight to ten times as many New Yorkers are killed by just these two pollutants as are murdered in any given year.
The morbidity effects are even more striking. These pollutants are responsible for more than 2,000 asthma-related hospital admissions, and over 6,900 asthma-related emergency room visits, each year.
These statistics are grim and getting worse. And, the distribution of this environmental suffering is staggeringly unequal. Asthma rates rise dramatically as income goes down. In New York, asthma rates for those with annual household incomes below $15,000 is more than double the rates for households with annual incomes exceeding $75,000 (15 percent versus 6.8 percent). Over 17 percent of African-American children suffer from asthma, compared to 8.7 percent for white children and 11 percent for Latino/a children. Children under four years of age from low-income areas are more than four times more likely to be hospitalized for asthma than children from high-income areas. Here, in these few statistics about the relationship between one disease and one or two pollutants, we see the entire climate justice problem writ small.
The Pope has been an eloquent voice for the current and projected victims of climate change. Over the next few days, he will have the biggest possible platforms from which to try to turn that eloquence into action. Pope Francis will address the entire world as he opens the United Nations Sustainability Summit. He will then speak to the United States during an unprecedented address to a joint session of Congress. The Pope’s remarkable popularity with Catholics, non-Catholics, and, indeed, even with atheists, suggests that his words will matter.
Both addresses will give Pope Francis the opportunity to make real the crises of climate change. The ice is melting, the seas are rising, and we are on track for catastrophe. Those suffering first (and perhaps most) contributed least to the problem and benefited least from the development and exploitation that got us here. Pope Francis can help every-day Americans appreciate that climate change is far more than an esoteric scientific question—it is an immediate, moral one. He can breathe life into New York’s asthma statistics, and bring home the grave environmental inequalities our lifestyle creates.
I hope that Pope Francis will use his American visit to emphasize that while sustainability is a question of survival, it is also a question of justice—environmental justice. Billions of people live in penury, contributing virtually nothing to the planetary crisis, while we privileged few tear the world apart to make our fires. The children of New York deserve more; the children of the world deserve more!
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.
Adrian Benepe, New YorkMoney and politics. Many public officials and local governments, view parks and open space as simple amenities, a luxury to address after all the “vital” services have been addressed. But more civic leaders are coming to see parks and open space as crucial components of urban infrastructure, a desirable quality of life, and a civil and equitable society.
Paul Downton, MelbourneIn our complicated human world, with competing demands, shrinking resources and an increasing population, the promise of a technological, “smart” fix offers a kind of salvation. But reliance on algorithms can mean abdication of responsibility.
Ana Faggi, Buenos AiresThere is always large inertia for change. People, including politicians, institutions and the community have difficulties to move beyond short time thinking, and multiple agendas always slow progress.
Sumetee Gajjar, Cape TownWhile there is sufficient research and knowledge to produce cities which are good for people and nature, not all of it is applicable across the different urban contexts of both developed and developing countries.
Russell Galt, EdinburghConservation and development must be brought firmly into alignment. Mother Earth’s most effective foot soldiers may be those gunning for change outside of the environmental sector.
Rob McDonald, WashingtonThe way around the barriers to better cities is not more scientific knowledge and studies, as much as it pains me as a scientist to say it. What is needed is more inspiration, a passion to achieve a shared vision of what a thriving, green city could look like.
Huda Shaka, DubaiTo create better cities we—planners, designers, and policy-makers—need to find a way to work much closer with the residents and users of the city. Otherwise, even the best-intentioned plans may have poor outcomes. Data alone is insufficient. We require transparency and freedom of expression in all arenas.
Vivek Shandas, PortlandVision, Ethics, Tools, Champions, and Community are the drivers of what cities are. Each are essential though free-standing and exclusive; they work in concert to align the multiplicity of human-made systems to create the landscape that advance urban nature.
Phil Silva, New YorkVillainy, lag, inaccessible knowledge, lack of respect for different ways of knowing. These all play a role. We may have all the “research knowledge” we need in order to get to work, but we still need all the practical knowledge we can get. Practitioners, in turn, need help getting the knowledge the produce out in the open and available to their colleagues all around the world.
Naomi Tsur, JerusalemOne of the main problems is that the valuable, evidence-based research carried out by academic institutions around the world is rarely being translated into policy decisions for cities. I believe that a true partnership between academia and the not-for-profit sector, the latter acting not only as sponsors of research, but also as the defenders of its conclusions, is one way to impact public policy.
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.
There is a feeling among many—and certainly among readers of TNOC—that in broad brush, at least, we know what we need to do to make cities better for people and nature. That is, there is a belief that if we strive to make cities more “green” though various types of green and blue infrastructure, then cities will become more resilient, sustainable, and livable. In addition, these benefits must be available to all, and so cities become more just and equitable in the provision of the benefits of green. Yet, cities often, even typically, lag in their efforts to be more resilient, sustainable, livable, and just through greening. This failure suggests we aren’t making cities better for both people and nature, even though we largely have the knowledge to do so. Why? If green is so good, what’s the impediment?
We asked a mix of scientists, practitioners, and former public officials. There are some common threads in their responses. First is that research and data, and perhaps even “knowledge” is, by itself, insufficient. We need to have vision and awareness. Now, of course, vision and awareness needs to have a foundation in grounded knowledge, but data and facts are not enough. The ideas of green cities need compelling visions of what our cities need to be, and we need to engage with everyone to create and promote these visions, even people who don’t agree with us. One element of such visions is that they need to better make the the case that “green” (in a broad sense) is part of the “must haves” of cities, alongside other vital city elements such as housing and transportation. In this case green isn’t just about, say, biodiversity, it’s about how green infrastructure, including biodiversity, are fundamental to cities that are resilient, sustainable, and livable.
Second is that while we mostly have enough research knowledge to act, it doesn’t necessarily apply everywhere. Specifically, research and knowledge derived from the North may, or may not be fully useful in the South. We shouldn’t assume that it is, and so need to develop a knowledge base that is more nuanced to regional differences and needs.
A third common thread is that in the generation and spread of useful knowledge for cities, we all have to become activists for change toward better cities. Scientists need to get engaged with practice. Practice needs to spread their ideas more actively, in the spirit that there are many “ways of knowing”. Governments need to listen more. People need to rise up for what they want.
Finally, we need transparency and engagement across sectors of the public realm: government, institutions, civil society, education, the media, and the people. Only with such transparency can ideas and their intellectual basis truly thrive. It is in the darkness of a lack of transparency and openly available knowledge that corruption (at worst) and poor decision making (at least) thrive.
Adrian Benepe has worked for more than 30 years protecting and enhancing parks, gardens and historic resources, most recently as the Commissioner of Parks & Recreation in New York City, and now on a national level as Senior Vice President for City Park Development for the Trust for Public Land.
Money and politics. Many public officials and local governments, view parks and open space as simple amenities, a luxury to address after all the “vital” services have been addressed. But more civic leaders are coming to see parks and open space as crucial components of urban infrastructure, a desirable quality of life, and a civil and equitable society.
I work for a national non-profit organization (NGO) in the US. The Trust for Public Land (“TPL”) creates parks and protects land for people to help ensure healthy, livable communities for generations to come. National Programs guides the organizational strategy in the fields of Climate, Health, Equity, Community, and leads our national campaigns, such as our 10-Minute Walk to a Park Campaign. We work in tandem with our field offices, who deliver best-in-class park projects and land protection that bring a myriad of benefits to the communities they serve. We also have a Research & Innovation branch that collects vast quantities of data to create multi-layered GIS maps that can guide our—and our public and non-profit partners’—strategies nationally, regionally, and locally in park creation. TPL is also the premier organization for raising public funds for park protection and creation. Just recently, our Conservation Finance spearheaded a successful ballot measure in New Orleans which will generate $443 million for city park agencies over the next 20 years. In 2018, our successful ballot measures created $7.2 billionin public funding for parks and conservation.
Virtually everything we do is in collaboration with others, from many levels of government and the public sector in the US, to different kinds of funding organizations which provide philanthropic gifts and grants from individuals, foundations, and corporations, to other non-profits, corporate entities, and people.
While about half of our work is dedicated to conserving land for public use in rural areas—often turned over to national and state parks, the other half of our work is in cities. In urban areas across the US, we help cities acquire land, improve existing parks, and create new parks, public spaces, and trails. In some cases, we design and build the new parks and execute the construction or renovation of parks.
There are numerous obstacles to our work, as beneficent as it may appear to most. The classic obstacles are money and politics: Simply put, many public officials and local governments, feeling overburdened by demands or public safety, mass transit, transportation, health, affordable housing, education, sanitation, and other municipal and societal needs, often view parks and open space as simple amenities, a luxury to address when revenues are flush and all the “vital” services have been addressed.
Increasingly, however, civic leaders have come to see parks and open space as crucial components of urban infrastructure, a desirable quality of life, and a civil and equitable society. They also understand that parks, open space, and trails are critical to physical and mental health, to environmental sustainability, and to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Finally, progressive city leaders understand that government can no longer do everything by itself—that collaboration with all levels of the public, private, and non-profit sectors, and particularly with citizens, is not only important to creating livable cities, but is now indispensable.
Breaking down barriers between governmental silos and between government and the many potential collaborators is the key to successful cities that are better for people and nature. From my own experience both in my daily job and in my volunteer activities, and in my prior work as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, here are a few examples of how cross-sector collaborations are crucial to better cities:
Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs): In four decades in government and the non-profit sector, I have seen the tremendous, liberating benefits of PPPs. From the birth of the Central Park Conservancy in 1981, to the present day where more than 200 such organizations are now helping to improve and manage parks. According to TPL’s research as part of ParkScore and City Park Facts, these organizations, many known as “conservancies,” currently raise in excess of $750 million a year in private charitable funds to assist in the management, maintenance, and renovation of public parks, and they are part of the recent increase in expenditures on parks that have helped to improve parks in cities across the country. Absolutely key to the success of these collaborations has been government being willing to cede some aspects of power and management to their non-profit partners, incentivizing them to devote volunteer labor and charitable gifts to services that were once the sole province of government authorities—with decidedly mixed results.
Another example of collaboration is how TPL works in cities to renovate existing parks and build new ones. In more than 20 American cities, TPL has helped to create or renovate thousands of parks and trails, including transforming more than 200 New York City asphalt schoolyards into green community playgrounds. In each case these projects involve cross-sector collaboration between TPL and NYC government agencies, using a combination of public funds and private gifts, and engaging school children and neighborhood residents in a “community engagement”-focused design process. The result are improved spaces that help improve the local environment for underserved areas, while creating beautiful new community spaces that are less likely to suffer vandalism and neglect because of the “ownership” by the residents who were full partners in the playgrounds’ conception.
Public-Public Partnerships: Some of the best examples of new and innovative parks and public spaces have resulted from partnerships between various levels of government—in the US, that largely means city, county, state and federal. Two of NYC’s largest and most impactful new parks—Hudson River Park and Brooklyn Bridge Park—were the result of creative collaborations between the City of New York and New York State. In both cases, quasi-governmental development and management agencies were formed, with boards composed of members named by government leaders and including local elected officials. But they were liberated from some of the Gordian knots of bureaucracy, and were able to function more like the private sector in terms of issuing contracts and entering into partnership. Also, in each case the authorities set aside portions of the future parks as income-producing properties, to fund the enormous operating costs of these new waterfront parks. For example, in the case of Brooklyn Bridge Park, 10 percent of the former shipping piers and wharves area was set aside for the development of hotels and residential buildings at the edge of the future park. Those site now generate up to $16 million a year in ground rent, which is used to fund the operating expenses and capital upkeep of the park.
The above are just two of thousands of examples of the beneficial—indeed vital—need for collaboration in the interest of making cites that are better for people and nature.
Writer, architect, urban evolutionary, founding convener of Urban Ecology Australia and a recognised ‘ecocity pioneer’. Paul has championed ecological cities for years but has become disenchanted with how such a beautiful concept can be perverted and misinterpreted – ‘Neom' anyone? Paul is nevertheless working on an artistic/publishing project with the working title ‘The Wild Cities’ coming soon to a crowd-funding site near you!
In our complicated human world, with competing demands, shrinking resources and an increasing population, the promise of a technological, “smart” fix offers a kind of salvation. But reliance on algorithms can mean abdication of responsibility.
Smart may be dumb
Many cities have a handle on the rhetoric and cities which have achieved actual progress enjoy well-deserved time in the limelight, but it is hard to argue that the world’s cities are becoming better places for people or nature. Many are getting worse.
There doesn’t seem to be a lack of knowledge (we’ve known about air pollution as a problem for over a century), but the overwhelming amount of data has been too much, perhaps, for decision-makers to deal with. One result is that the current go-to hi-tech answer to the challenge of taking this knowledge and applying it to improve cities is to be “smart”.
But smart city approaches are fraught with danger. They depend on ubiquitous data collection of varying levels of intrusiveness. These approaches are commercially generated and treat citizens as consumers. They offer tidiness and efficiency but rarely ask for agency on behalf of citizens, just consumption and production by customers. Some smart city apps are scary, promising to intercept unwanted activity before it happens. Thought crimes, anyone?
In our complicated human world, with competing demands, shrinking resources and an increasing population, the promise of a technological fix offers a kind of salvation. But reliance on algorithms can mean abdication of responsibility. We all know instances of people excluded or unfairly treated because the logic of a computer system failed to align with the real world of being human. Then there’s the curious, evolving insistence that we all must possess a smart phone…
Arguably, if we’re already dragging our feet on making better cities because it’s so difficult, abandoning the use of any promising technology is irresponsible. Realistically, what is the alternative?
Politics. Not the politics of marching to left/right whose-side-are-you-on power play, but community level politics focussed on involving people in their immediate neighbourhood, local politics that builds from the daily concerns of individuals determined to make their place better for people and nature.
The research knowledge generated by experts needs to be out in the broader community so that it can be digested and understood as part of daily life. Ideas and actions at the community level need to inform, and be informed by, that expertise. It can happen.
It’s a big ask when so much of city government is determined by the interests of land ownership and capital, but there may be no supportable alternative. If the wider population isn’t engaged and able to contribute in an informed and substantive way to decision-making, then city management ends up being reactive and, at worst, in opposition to its own citizens.
The research and knowledge base is good and getting better, but it isn’t disseminated for the same reason that ownership and control of urban areas is concentrated in the hands of a few. Knowledge is power and those who have it don’t generally give it away without a fight.
There is increasing excitement about the capacity of large corporations like IBM to provide complete, city-wide smart solutions that greatly reduce the role of elected officials or, in the case of Alphabet (“Give us a city and put us in charge”) to develop and own entire urban areas built around the use of AI and smart technology. That’s not an excitement I share, rather, I get a creeping sense of dread and a feeling that we’re slipping further into the kind of divided dystopian future that science fiction writers have long warned us against.
Ana Faggi graduated in agricultural engineering, and has a Ph.D. in Forest Science, she is currently Dean of the Engineer Faculty (Flores University, Argentina). Her main research interests are in Urban Ecology and Ecological Restoration.
There is always large inertia for change. People, including politicians, institutions and the community have difficulties to move beyond short time thinking, and multiple agendas always slow progress.
To answer this question I would like to share with you two openings related to the revitalization of public space that took place the same day in Buenos Aires city (13 April 2019).
The first one is a bottom up project at a neighborhood-scale; a square in Floresta, a typical neighborhood with few square meters of green space per inhabitant. Since the 1980s, a group of residents has struggled to transform a site dedicated to the management of urban solid waste to a green area for recreation. These people have been trying to convince municipal managers for more than 30 years of the importance of this transformation. The process was delayed not only by the political ineffectiveness, also through conflict of interests of different sectors of the civil society who were unable to join a collective project. Finally, the square was completed, although with a smaller area than was proposed at the beginning, since a school was built on the area. Today it is a space that offers multiple recreational activities for different age groups.
Square in the Floresta neighborhood. Photo: Ana Faggi
The other project that responds to a top down governmental initiative took 15 months to complete and refers to the pedestrianization of the famous Corrientes Avenue. Such a project is comparable to initiatives already implemented in the Gran Vía of Madrid and Times Square in New York and sought to relocate the Avenue Corrientes as one of the great cultural and entertainment attractions of Argentina and Latin America. The avenue combines the largest concentration of theaters, a large network of bookstores and restaurants. Years ago, because of its deteriorated state, Corrientes was not an inviting place to walk, the insecurity and the economic crisis had taken away it attraction. This revitalization seeks to attract more tourism, which generates a lot of work in the City, including hotels, restaurants and entertainment.
Corrientes Avenue at night. Photo: Ana Faggi
The project began in January 2018 and consists of a comprehensive intervention that includes two lanes with night pedestrianization and two exclusive lanes for buses and taxis and the incorporation of rest areas. After 15 months of work, during which the avenue was more like a workshop than a cultural pole, Corrientes operates with two lanes for public transport and another two for private vehicles, with a dividing central mason. Vehicles will be able to circulate until 19:00h in the afternoon. From that time and until 0200h in the morning, that last section will become pedestrian. Many people opposed this work due to the inconvenience it caused—such as the decrease in theater audiences due to the difficulty of going to the area—its high cost at a time when the economic situation is bad in the country—as well as the rejection of the owners of the parking lots and some doubts of urban planners .
These two examples show that in projects there is always large inertia for change. People, including politicians, institutions and the community have difficulties to move beyond short time thinking. To this we must add that each project is triggered by multiple forces that can put the stick in the wheel of initiatives that are known to be successful in other parts of the world or that respond to participatory processes who seek the common good.
However, it makes clear that the engine to generate changes can be faster if there is the political power to make them.
Sumetee Pahwa Gajjar, PhD, is a Cape-Town based climate change professional who has contributed to scientific knowledge on transformative adaptation, climate justice, urban EbA and nature-based solutions. I currently work at the science-policy-research interface of climate change, biodiversity and vulnerability reduction, in the Global South.
My research interests continue to be focused on urban sustainability transitions, through collaborative governance, just innovations and climate technologies.
While there is sufficient research and knowledge to produce cities which are good for people and nature, not all of it is applicable across the different urban contexts of both developed and developing countries.
This question can first be addressed in terms of defining what is better for people and nature in cities. In the urban planning contexts of more developed countries, the concept of “green cities” has acquired an association with resilience, self-reliance, and the three pillars of sustainable development, achieved through eco-architecture, bicycle pathways, public transport, closed loop industries, and among more involved citizenry, environmental education and civic participation in conserving nature. There is arguably, sufficient research, history (even if recent) of implementation, and policy response to uphold this understanding of cities which are better for people and nature … in the Global North.
Would it be fair to question whether the same solutions apply to cities and city-regions of the Global South? The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN adopts a wider, people-centred foundation for green cities. Such a definition gives rise to the five principles of food security, decent work and income, a clean environment and good governance for all citizens, especially the poor and the rural migrants, for developing and implementing UPH (urban and peri-urban horticulture) in multiple cities of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Traditional ways of greening, such as horticulture, may not be visible. However, through innovative methods of action-based research, they can be potentially accessed and enhanced using technology.
The above project is one example of solutions which better cities in the Global South could harness. Other examples include cleaning and revitalisation of urban rivers, as well as surrounding land, to achieve a clean environment, provide employment, and connect people with nature. A case in point is the UNA: Rivers Project, whereby ICLEI Africa partially funded the rehabilitation and restoration of a site in Addis Ababa (Ras Mekonnen) with UN-Habitat and City of Addis Ababa. The site was historically used as an informal waste dump site, with much of the waste ending up in the river and affecting people drinking the water further downstream. The Minecraft Tool was used to plan for effective rehabilitation of the ecological functionality of the site, whilst at the same time providing access to nature in Addis Ababa and bringing nature, and nature’s benefits, back into the city.
It will probably be more accurate to describe the above as practice projects, rather than policy or research, although the knowledge domains of both research and policy can learn from studying such projects. For example, the wider and longer term impacts of the FAO projects, already in implementation since 2010 would serve to inform future project designs, as well as identify which policies support their success, and which drivers undermine their effectiveness. Similarly, a longer term view of rivers restoration projects would require revisiting the sites at regular intervals, and monitoring their physical condition, the ongoing governance mechanisms, and broader aspects of well-being, including health and employment status of neighbouring communities. The range of nature-based solutions being applied in developing country contexts, whether autonomously, or through grant-funded work, can be studied and strengthened, to identify the methods (governance, technological, civic, and cultural) through which their continuity is ensured. Researching these solutions could generate knowledge that feeds into context-specific policies in the Global South.
A potential mode of knowledge generation is self-reporting by cities on their paths towards greening or sustainability, which can become the basis for further investigation, using statistical or empirical methods. This would involve as a first step, making cities aware of various approaches for integrating nature into urban and regional development and planning. One such new initiative is the CitiesWithNature platform, with a dedicated knowledge and research hub, that will showcase existing research and generate new ideas for further research on urban nature, nature-based solutions and biodiversity. It will draw on the work of a range of global grant-funded research and implementation programmes, organising and translating knowledge in a relatable manner for local governments and practitioners.
Therefore, in response to the question asked of the round table, while there is sufficient research and knowledge to produce cities which are good for people and nature, not all of it is applicable across the different urban contexts of both developed and developing countries; new research is always relevant as it helps donors, practitioners, and administrators reflect on successes and failures of previous programmes, research projects and implementation methods; and cities and city governments can benefit from mapping and measuring their trajectories and learning from the experiences of others, while trying to integrate nature into their plans and agendas.
Russell Galt works for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) where he serves as Head of the Urban Alliance - a broad coalition of IUCN Members concertedly striving to bring cities into balance with nature.
Conservation and development must be brought firmly into alignment. Mother Earth’s most effective foot soldiers may be those gunning for change outside of the environmental sector.
Cities should function as the artificial reefs of the terrestrial world, festooned with foliage and babbling with birdsong. Entire cityscapes should be adorned with nature, delivering effective solutions to societal challenges. Yet, despite all the “research knowledge” attesting the benefits of urban nature, most cities have barely begun to realise their ecological potential. Predominant patterns of urbanisation are failing both people and wildlife. We have a global environmental emergency on our hands, so something has to change. But what?
I believe that conservation and development must be brought firmly into alignment. In seeking to do so, the doctrine of New Urbanism offers a helping hand. Its promotion of integrated transit and active travel networks can be exploited to enhance ecological connectivity—for example, Edinburgh’s extensive cycle network provides a web of ecological corridors that criss-cross the city. Its promotion of locally adapted vernacular buildings can be exploited to promote the ecological tenet of naturalness—for example, many of Singapore’s iconic biophilic buildings harbour rich native biodiversity. Finally, its promotion of mixed use, diverse neighbourhoods catering to a range of income groups, ages and sectors, can be exploited to promote the ecological tenet of structural diversity—for example, London’s multifunctional greenspaces, comprising forests, shrubs, wildflower meadows, grassy lawns and wetlands, render an assortment of ecosystem services, whilst offering a diversity of niche spaces for different species to fill. (Further reading.)
Aligning conservation with development will necessitate: articulating a bold and compelling vision of a healthier and greener urban future; putting nature on the balance sheet; redefining progress; and doggedly defending our human right to a safe, clean and wildlife-rich environment. Business, government, academia and civil society all have critical roles to play. Indeed, Mother Earth’s most effective foot soldiers may be those gunning for change outside of the environmental sector.
Dr. Robert McDonald is Lead Scientist for the Global Cities program at The Nature Conservancy. He researches the impact and dependences of cities on the natural world, and help direct the science behind much of the Conservancy’s urban conservation work.
The way around the barriers to better cities is not more scientific knowledge and studies, as much as it pains me as a scientist to say it. What is needed is more inspiration, a passion to achieve a shared vision of what a thriving, green city could look like.
I believe that there are three main barriers preventing us from creating cities that are better for people and nature.
Public concerns: Nature in cities is sometimes messy and problematic. Think about fallen limbs causing power outages, or trees and untended parks providing spaces for criminal activity. Until public concerns about these issues is addressed, the public will not whole-heartedly support our vision of a thriving, green city.
Silos: The opportunity to return nature to cities touches virtually every part of the urban landscape—from city streets and parks to private residential and commercial property. Yet the formally designated responsibility for nature often falls on just one municipal agency, such as a city’s Department of Parks and Recreation. As a result, it can be difficult for cities to efficiently identify opportunities to restore or expand urban nature that might be presented by the on-the-ground work of different municipal agencies.
Lack of financial resources: Trees and parks are often considered a “nice to have” item when compared to other critical municipal needs such as police and fire protection, education, roads, and other public services. This perspective, combined with the annual budget cycle of most cities (as opposed to longer-term planning considerations) leaves urban nature programs minimally funded, and often at risk of reductions.
The way around these three barriers is not more scientific knowledge and studies, as much as it pains me as a scientist to say it. What is needed is more inspiration, a passion to achieve a shared vision of what a thriving, green city could look like. The inspiration can come from the top-down, as mayors and other municipal leaders reimagine what their city can be. Or, as often, the inspiration can come from the bottom-up, from a set of activists in a neighborhood creating and advocating for their own shared vision of a thriving, green neighborhood. Inspiration can motivate public support, overcoming particular public concerns. Inspiration can bust through government silos, if there are enough people demanding that change. And inspiration can usually motivate municipal leaders to find funding for urban nature.
Humanity is in the period of fastest city building in its history. We are designing the cities of the future now, and those cities will only have nature in them if humanity passionately wants that greener future. We will choose the urban world we create, and we will get the urban world we deserve.
Huda's experience and training combine urban planning, sustainable development and public health. She is a chartered town planner (MRTPI) and a chartered environmentalist (CEnv) with over 15 years' experience focused on visionary master plans and city plans across the Arabian Gulf. She is passionate about influencing Arab cities towards sustainable development.
To create better cities we—planners, designers, and policy-makers—need to find a way to work much closer with the residents and users of the city. Otherwise, even the best-intentioned plans may have poor outcomes. Data alone is insufficient. We require transparency and freedom of expression in all arenas.
From the perspective of Arab, particularly Arabian Gulf, cities, there are three main barriers to creating better cities for people and planet: availability of locally-relevant knowledge, public awareness, and public engagement.
There may be an extensive body of knowledge available on the theory and practice of city planning; however, there remains a knowledge gap in the Arab world. There is a scarcity of local data and locally-relevant research. Planning for human and natural wellbeing would benefit greatly from recent and rigorous studies on environmental quality, social habits and behaviours, and cultural preferences and norms. This is particularly true for the newer and more culturally and socially diverse cities of the Arabian Gulf.
Similarly, a more accurate database of natural resources and their value to communities and the planet is required from an environmental perspective. Information as simple as habitat mapping or historical sea levels is difficult and sometimes impossible to access. In addition, the information may be available at a national level, and not at a city or regional level. This adds a layer of difficulty and uncertainty when assessing and interpreting the data.
Creating this knowledge requires capable research-focused educational institutions, as well as the funding and policy support to undertake the research. Some cities are starting to respond to this need through the support of world-class research institutions and the facilitation of data sharing through policy.
The second aspect is raising public awareness of the value and importance of our natural assets and the impacts of unsustainable planning and design. This is an important part of creating the “demand” and grassroots pressure for a more people and nature friendly built environment.
Most people I talk to recognize the symptoms of bad planning—obesity, stress, anxiety, loneliness, high resource consumption. What they fail to see are the causes, many of which relate to the built environment: air quality and noise pollution from cars and construction, lack of access to spaces for physical activity and chance meetings, disconnection from the natural environment…etc. Once people realise these connections, they also begin to realise the changes that need to happen to the way we plan, design, develop and operate cities and neighbourhoods. They become more aware of the decisions they can make to promote their wellbeing and that of others around them.
Once again, this awareness will come from education, and from disseminating relevant data and information to the public. It will also come from an informed discourse on environmentally and socially responsible city planning, design and operation in public forums. This requires a degree of transparency and freedom of expression in the media, in public forums, at schools and in the workplace. Data alone is not sufficient.
Public awareness will have a limited impact unless meaningful public engagement becomes part of city planning. This is currently almost non-existent in Arab cities, particularly in Gulf cities. I would argue that even where it does exist in other parts of the world, it is not effective because engagement is often limited to information or consultation. To create better cities we—the planners, designers, and policy-makers—need to find a way to work much closer with the residents and users of the city, current and future. Failing to do this will mean that even the best-intentioned plans may have unintended consequences and the remaining majority will go through even if they are not in the best interest of people or planet.
Professor Vivek Shandas specializes in integrating the science of sustainability to citizen engagement and decision making efforts. He evaluates the many critical functions provided by the biophysical ecosystems upon which we depend, including purifying water, producing food, cleaning toxins, offering recreation, and imbuing society with cultural values.
Vision, Ethics, Tools, Champions, and Community are the drivers of what cities are. Each are essential though free-standing and exclusive; they work in concert to align the multiplicity of human-made systems to create the landscape that advance urban nature.
Five elements to support thriving urban nature
Anybody who rides a bike knows that several factors have to come together to support stable and continuous pedaling. Physical strength, capacity and conviction, adequate space, encouragement, and of course access to the bicycle itself. Each of these factors have to work in concert to enable an individual to balance themselves as they propel themselves through space. Not surprisingly, many of our everyday activities—cooking, sleeping, commuting, defecating—require a series of systems to align, and harness the necessary elements to enable everyday life. In places where these systems are misaligned or maladapted, we witness challenges in supporting everyday necessities.
If we know that exposure to nature everyday is important to our health and well-being, and urban ecosystem provide essential services for our survival, then why are we not seeing an abundance—indeed thriving nature—in all human settlements? What systems are not coming together to enable the provision of natures services to the places where the majority of humans now live? Indeed, why do some places have more urban nature than others?
Creating cities that are thriving ecosystems continues to face challenges due largely to rapid urbanization, landscape homogenization, and the systematic removal of legacy ecosystems. While extensive research points to urbanization, landscape homogenization, and systematic fragmenting and conversation of remnant ecosystems as reasons for the lack of nature in cities, these factors are often the byproduct of more fundamental processes occurring in our cities. As a way to unpack the complexity of narratives for supporting urban nature, I’ve endeavored to organize five elements that are both necessary and complementary. The five elements represent the basis upon which decisions about our landscapes are made. I argue that claims about “more funding” and “tempering development” are symptoms of the visions and ethics that underlie the physical manifestation of our cities. Below, I describe each of the elements, and describe their potential role in aligning systems that can support and enrich thriving urban nature.
An essential element for creating cities that are better for people and nature requires a Vision. The vision is as much a symbol as it is direction for a community. Second, Ethics in this context represent the norms, behaviors, and activities of a community as they recognize the importance that urban nature plays in our lives. In other words, what is considered “normal” in the context of a community. In many cases, educational systems—from preschool through college—are instrumental in establishing ethical norms. If the vision and ethics are in place, communities will likely support the building of Tools that help to characterize, understand, and maintain urban nature. These tools can come in a variety of forms, including programs by local organizations, online platforms, policies and plans, and protocols. The classic Dr.Suess story The Lorax is the quintessential Champion for nature. These are individual, organizations, and other entities that use their agency to advance the integration of nature into our cities. Finally, a Community provides a means for sharing the collective benefits, rituals, and recognition of urban natures.
The creation of laws in Ecuador, New Zealand, and several other nations that recognize that nature has rights is arguably the culmination of all five of these elements. Each are essential though free-standing and exclusive. Similar to riding a bike, they work in concert to align the multiplicity of human-made systems to create the landscape that advance urban nature. We all have a role to play—indeed can be champions—to enable those systems that can help to advance a vision, ethics, tools, and community for supporting nature in our cities.
Philip's work focuses on informal adult learning and participatory action research in social-ecological systems. He is dedicated to exploring nature in all of its urban expressions.
Villainy, lag, inaccessible knowledge, lack of respect for different ways of knowing. These all play a role. We may have all the “research knowledge” we need in order to get to work, but we still need all the practical knowledge we can get. Practitioners, in turn, need help getting the knowledge the produce out in the open and available to their colleagues all around the world.
I see at least four dynamics at play when it comes to the perceived distance between “research knowledge” and action on issues of urban sustainability and resilience.
First, we always have to confront the presence of outright villainy in our efforts to apply scholarly research to the work of improving cities. Greed, apathy, ignorance, ineptitude, cowardice, prejudice, and laziness are all daunting barriers to getting anything done, no matter how much good research we have on hand to back up a progressive change in policy or practice.
Second, it’s reasonable to expect a lag between the production of scientific research and its translation and implementation into practice. “Science, if it can deliver truth, cannot deliver it at the speed of politics,” wrote the sociologists Harry Collins and Robert Evans. Scientific consensus takes time to form around even the most straightforward and linear of topics, never mind the multivariate, complex, and emergent issues we face in contemplating urban sustainability. So, in some cases, we may simply be witnessing a delay in the “uptake” of research caused by the very nature of science as a deliberative social process.
Third, we need to consider the different ways scholarly research remains inaccessible for most practitioners. Journal articles and academic monographs are locked up behind digital paywalls and inside research libraries that don’t offer open access to the general public. Scholarly research interests are, by their nature, too specialized and esoteric to resonate with the work of most generalist practitioners, making the mountains of literature on urban sustainability and resilience functionally irrelevant to many people tasked with making tangible change. And, as the organizational scholar Donald Schonpointed out, when faced with the choice between technical rigor and societal relevance, scientists will typically follow a line of inquiry that allows for greater control, generalizability, and stability (ensuring a higher degree of rigor) shying away from exploring messier “real world” problems.
Fourth, those of us straddling the domains of scholarship and practice know that science does not have a monopoly on the production of valid, rigorous, and reliable knowledge. And, by extension, scientists are not the only members of our society capable of producing the knowledge necessary for solving the problems of sustainable and resilient cities. “Citizen science” and other forms of “public participation in scientific research” have created opportunities for practitioners to “co-create” scholarly knowledge with researchers, but the products of their research collaborations are often subject to the same issues of accessibility I’ve outlined above.
What about all the knowledge produced every day in action—the humdrum knowledge forged, tested, and preserved in practice over time? The inherent pragmatism of this sort of knowledge makes it absurd for us to ask whether we’ve accumulated enough of it and whether we need to make any more of it before we can get to work. The very act of “getting to work” is the engine that drives the production of what Schon called knowledge-in-action, and practitioners couldn’t shut the engine off even if they wanted to—and why would they? Yet much of this knowledge wrought in practice is tacit and goes unspoken unless practitioners take extra steps to reflect on their work together and surface, to the extent possible, what they’ve come to know from doing. Becoming a “reflective practitioner” (another Schon-ism) takes serious effort, and most practitioners probably don’t even see themselves as being in the knowledge production business to begin with. After all, that’s what scientists are supposed to be busy doing.
We may have all the “research knowledge” we need in order to get to work, but we still need all the practical knowledge we can get. Practitioners, in turn, need help getting the knowledge the produce out in the open and available to their colleagues all around the world.
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.
One of the main problems is that the valuable, evidence-based research carried out by academic institutions around the world is rarely being translated into policy decisions for cities. I believe that a true partnership between academia and the not-for-profit sector, the latter acting not only as sponsors of research, but also as the defenders of its conclusions, is one way to impact public policy.
It is both strange and unfortunate that in a world in which cities are increasingly taking center stage, urban development does not necessarily focus on making cities and their neighborhoods as healthy, green, and community-friendly as possible. Why are citizens not viewed as valued clients, who with their vote have given their municipality the mandate to improve services, and make the public domain as user-friendly, clean and green as possible? This seems to me one of the most important, if not the most important urban enigma of our time.
After spending many years opposing or modifying unsustainable development at the local, regional and national levels, I found myself in the unenviable position of Deputy Mayor of my city, Jerusalem, with the portfolios of strategic planning, historic conservation and environment. I naively assumed that in this senior political position I would be able to change the urban agenda into one based on the triple-bottom-line principle of sustainable social, environmental, and economic development. However, I soon realized that while my views were respected (although my activist past was always ridiculed), I was severely outnumbered in the city council, and unable to follow through on a considerable part of my green agenda for Jerusalem. Indeed, initiatives that I supported, such as the Jerusalem Railway Park and the Gazelle Valley Park, have been completed in spite of municipal policy and not because of it. Their completion was made possible thanks to external funding, and not through funding from the municipal budget. It is interesting to note that the current administration views both these projects as flagship municipal initiatives.
I find myself unwilling to wallow in the acute pessimism of climate change hard-liners, who warn us that immediate action is needed to prevent the continuing rise of temperatures, rise of sea levels and massive loss of biodiversity. I am also convinced that it is not helpful to find excuses in the conspiracy theory whereby national and global corporations have taken control of the economy, and unfortunately their main goal is not global sustainability, but the single-bottom-line economic profit of their companies.
On the bright side, young people today are much more aware of the centrality of these issues, and of the importance of quality of life as a prerequisite for urban living, in a world that will be ninety percent urbanized by the end of the 21st century. I noted an excellent slogan on one of the climate march banners, which read: “In a world in which leaders are not taking action, children will have to become leaders”.
The real question is: What can “we” do to tip the scales and set the course for more sustainable cities? Then there is a need to ask: “Who are “we”?” “We” are all reading the Nature of Cities, are academics, activists and NGO’s working around the world, and some of us even attended the TNOC Summit in Paris in June 2019. However, the big corporations and heavyweight decision-makers are not yet part of the discussion. So instead of bemoaning this, I would rather think what we can do without them…..
One of the main problems is that the valuable, evidence-based research carried out by academic institutions around the world is rarely being translated into policy decisions for cities. I believe that a true partnership between academia and the not-for-profit sector, the latter acting not only as sponsors of research, but also as the defenders of its conclusions, is one way to impact public policy. Traditionally, of course, academic institutions are funded by national government or by business corporations. The non-profit sector should not hesitate to enter the arena to invest in urban development research, and to be prepared to campaign in order to have their findings acted on.
From my role as chair of the Israel Urban forum, which was established in 2016, as a platform for inter-disciplinary and inter-sectoral collaboration, I see the first signs of positive impact from this kind of open platform. I wonder whether this kind of thinking could be encouraged at a global level. This year, at the third Akko Convention on Urbanism, to be held in the City of Akko in September 2019, we will be hosting a few delegations from additional national urban forums, and will work with them to bring a coherent contribution to the next World Urban Forum, in February 2020. Can we expand this discussion through TNOC ?
With the camera rolling, Hernandez danced through crowds of people packed into the ten-acre park, giving viewers an unplanned tour of one of the city’s most celebrated—and, at times, contested—open spaces.
Shortly after the struggle to preserve Washington Square, Jacobs would go on to publish The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a critical look at the state of urban planning and design in the mid-20th century.
While it’s true that Jacobs changed the way we think about cities, relatively little is ever said about her views on urban parks. In honor of the 100th anniversary of Jacobs’ birth, we took a moment to revisit her views on “the uses of neighborhood parks” as she laid them out in The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
This podcast episode, produced by Philip Silva, catches up with Andy Hernandez (who goes by the stage name Coati Mundi) thirty-five years after his romp through Washington Square Park. We also invited two notable New Yorkers to reflect on the critique of urban park planning in Chapter Five of The Death and Life of Great American Cities: Mary Rowe, a Senior Fellow at Project for Public Spaces, and Adrian Benepe, the Commissioner for New York City Parks under former Mayor and open space enthusiast Michael Bloomberg, and current a Senior Vice President at the Trust for Public Land. Benepe and Rowe offer contrasting views of Jacobs’ legacy as it relates to urban parks.
I slump into the sofa of the hotel lobby. It’s been another exhausting day walking through India.
Across South Asia, an essential ingredient of livable cities—thoughtful urban planning—appears to be missing.
We squeezed ourselves through narrow alleyways where bicycle carts, cows, and mopeds also wrestle to move a few feet forward. We sidestepped the foil cookie wrappers, paper tea cups, plastic flour bags, and banana-leaf plates swept into a pile by an old, hunched over woman using a broom as tall as her thighs. We tripped over broken asphalt, got shoved by crowds of people rushing through the market, avoided eye contact with packs of barking street dogs, and stepped in cow dung. We managed to stay off the main road in and out of the city, where maniacal drivers aggressively fight for every inch of driving space—yet, the echoes of auto rickshaw, car, bus, and truck horns bounced in our ears. We would have loved to sit in a park, but none were to be found in the urban jungle of dilapidated buildings, colorful temples, and textile factories.
Vatic construction. Photo: Jenn Baljko
At this moment, we happen to be in the sacred historical city of Varanasi, where locals and people from around the world come to behold and bathe in the sacred (and polluted) Ganges River. But, really, after six and a half months on the subcontinent, we could have been in almost any Indian or Bangladeshi city. They all have this sense of urban planning hopelessness that’s hard to brush off with the ready-made excuse, “Oh, that’s just the way this part of the world is.”
Vatic construction. Photo: Jenn Baljko
Alfons, the Dutch traveler sitting besides me, confirms this feeling.
“What would you do to make this city more livable?” I ask him on learning that he is a retired urban planner.
“I would raze everything and start over,” he said—half-joking, but not really.
Sadly, if filtered through our Western standards of livability and our hopeful thoughts of urban areas as sustainable, resilient, and walkable places where citizens have access to green spaces, safe public transportation, and transparent governance, many cities in India and Bangladesh would fail the test.
Vatic. Photo: Jenn Baljko
The same frustration holds for planners, architects, and thinkers currently working in the region. When I asked TNOC contributor P.K. Das, a Mumbai-based architect-activist, via email how urban planning fits in the mindset of Indian city officials and the residents they serve, he wrote that “a peculiar Indian cocktail of a skewed, market-oriented development mantra and dominant real estate business is steadfastly breaking down our cities and towns to anarchy and chaos.” As a result, “planning and urban design are farfetched ideas.”
He continued:
The overwhelming thrust towards real estate business is steadfastly eroding larger public interest and colonisation of public assets, thereby leading to the slummification of Indian cities.
Interestingly in India, planning of cities are mostly reflected in the preparation of Development Plans of cities (DP). These plans are reduced to mere land-use maps with a maze of colours for different uses without any urban design vision. Neither do they reflect in any way the needs and demands of most city people. The various coloured blocks are then tossed around freely to suit the ruling class demands. DP’s of cities are backed by development control regulations (DCR). Governments including empowered senior officials have powers to change the various provisions in the DCR time and again. In this process, public participation that is highlighted as a requirement in the process of preparation of the DP and the DCR are given lip service. Public opinion for every amendment is called for, but not generally not accepted.
Neither is public dialogue in such matters considered important. Sadly, this process has reduced public understanding of city planning to the preparation of DCRs. There is a bigger issue, the commitment of governments in India to free market and new-liberal policies has in fact encouraged such a backward development trend. Markets must decide the priorities of development. This is also why governments are not giving priority to planning. Freedom of the free market is the mantra, adding a deadly poison to the cocktail.
But, that’s not to say there aren’t examples of cities, regions, and countrywide improvement projects to point to and after which other cities might model themselves. See also following slideshow, “India Under Construction”.
An imported idea worth embracing
While the mishmash of South Asia’s designated “city center” areas may be difficult subjects for urban revitalization and redevelopment initiatives, there are some existing urban concepts that can be extended to surrounding districts and new housing developments popping up around the country.
Chandigarh, the joint capital of the Punjab and Haryana states, offers an example.
The dream city of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, it is one of India’s most successful urban planning experiments, according to the city’s website. Built in the 1950s, it’s a unique place in India, and much of that is due to its European roots. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, the famous Swiss-French architect, designer, and urban planner known as Le Corbusier, planned the city.
Chandigarh park. Photo: Jenn Baljko
Citizens walk on clean, wide sidewalks lined with beautiful trees; bicycles and two-wheelers have designated lanes along main thoroughfares, and traffic flows in a more orderly way than in other cities, through street lights and roundabouts. Chandigarh’s neighborhood sectors are laid out in grid systems, with parks and open spaces featuring as an essential part of the design. There seems to be a good mix of housing and commercial space, alongside a modern bus system connecting different points in the city. There’s even a giant wall map in the main library, pinpointing the locations of other libraries in the cities. Chandigarh has an easygoing, safe, and comfortable feel, and compared to any other city we have passed along our walking route, it is a joy to be there.
Chandigarh street. Photo: Jenn Baljko
Even Indians have a romance with what Chandigarh represents, and seem to wish for similar urban planning successes for their own cities and towns.
A man selling bus tickets in Rishikesh, 200 kilometers away from Chandigarh on the the Ganges River, for instance, cooed when I told him I was heading there.
“Chandigarh… it’s known as the beautiful city. There are so many trees. It’s a pretty city,” he sighed wistfully.
Das actually disagrees. “I personally do not subscribe to gridiron planning,” he told me, specifically citing the style’s accommodations for cars as a problem. “Chandigarh has not been much favoured, nor is it seen as a replicable model,” he said.
Chandigarh plaza. Photo: Jenn Baljko
Following suit
Still, some of Chandigarh’s design elements appear to be influencing suburban development planning in other parts of India.
We see it happening in the many new housing projects under construction near Gurgaon, which itself has experienced a significant growth spurt in the last few decades, as international companies expanded, benefitting from the proximity of the city to New Delhi and the airport.
The Vatika India Next development offers another example emulating Chandigarh. It is spread across 700 acres of rezoned agricultural space, and is expected to house thousands of families when its various phases are complete. Selling itself as a “city within a city,” the integrated township will have various kinds of residential units (single-family homes; three-story buildings with spacious flats, and high-rise, condo-style apartments), marketplaces, commercial centers, open spaces and parks, schools, nursing homes, hospitals and clinics, entertainment venues, and a road system linking to national highways and major roadways.
The number of cranes, active construction zones, and workers around these newly evolving south Gurgaon sectors—and the many other suburban stretches we walked by—suggests that India’s upward economic mobility is shifting the way people want (and expect) to live.
It looks like locals are also getting tired of squeezing between auto rickshaws and mopeds. Like us, maybe they want to sit in and park, and hear the birds singing, instead of horns honking.
In my first blog way back in December 2012 I introduced you to the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 and the devastation that followed to our beautiful “Garden City”. And also to vegetation studies that I initiated in the “Residential Red Zone” (RRZ), where c. 8,000 properties were abandoned in Feb 2011. So what is happening now in the RRZ?
Greening the Red Zone
With property abandonment, the sudden cessation of mowing, weeding and spraying raised some interesting ecological questions for us: what plants will regenerate? Will they be native or exotic species? What native trees were on the properties anyway? Which ones should be saved? What were the threats to them thriving? And so on.
We expected to see lots of exotic species pop up, as many exotics have quite long-lived seeds. They can lie dormant in the soil for decades, and only germinate when the conditions are right — for example, when the soil has been disturbed. In comparison, the seeds of most native species aren’t long lived, and need to germinate in a year or two, or they will die.
So it was a bit of a surprise (and very exciting) to find that oodles of native species were regenerating — cabbage trees for Africa (Cordyline australis), akeake (Dodonea viscosa), karamu (Coprosma robusta), taupata (Coprosma repens), ngaio (Myoporum laetum), Pittosporums (P. tenuifolium, P. eugenioides), lacebarks (Hoheria sextylosa, H. angustifolia), hebe (Hebe salicifolia), ribbonwood (Plagianthus regius).
Hebe salicifolia seedlings that established in the red zone after the Feb 2011 earthquake. Photo: Glenn Stewart
Why? It seems that birds were the answer. About 75% of the tree and shrub species that were regenerating have fleshy fruits and were being dispersed by native (silvereye, bellbird) and exotic (blackbird, thrush) birds.
New Zealand native bellbird. Photo: www.naturewatch.org.nz
We also found quite a few exotic species. These included bird-dispersed species like yew (Taxus baccata), elderberry (Sambucus nigra), Prunus (plums and cherries), and some nasty invasive species like gorse (Ulex europeaus) and broom (Cytisus scoparius). But on the whole the future looked bright for a regenerating native forest.
We have continued to visit those properties and some new ones as well, to see what species are thriving. But sadly we are now being limited — contractors are mowing and spraying herbicide over properties to “lower the fire risk”. Not only that, but with demolition occurring at an increasing rate our treasured seedlings are being scrapped away by heavy machinery. Those diggers are also disturbing the soil on the abandoned properties and exposing the seeds that have lain dormant, which means a lot of those invasive exotic seeds are now germinating.
Cleared residential property in the red zone. Photo: Glenn Stewart
And there’s another force at play that’s giving the exotics the upper hand — species that were being controlled by gardening practices now have free rein. Buddleja davidii (butterfly bush), golden locust (Robinia pseudoacacia), elm (Ulmus), ash (Fraxinus), Prunus, blackberry (Rubus fruticosus), sumac (Rhus sp) and elderberry (Sambucus nigra), and many other species are sprouting up in lots of places.
In the course of our surveys we have also discovered some awesome native treasures that have survived on residential properties: a huge hard beech (Nothofagus truncata) in Avonside, several miro (Prumnopitys ferruginnea) loaded with fruit, a massive hinau (Elaeocarpus dentatus) in Dallington, kauri (Agathis australis), native beeches (black, red and silver beech), kanuka (Kunzea ericoides), kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides), totara (Podocarpus totara), the list goes on.
Native New Zealand podocarp tree Prumnopitys ferruginea (miro) in full fruit in the red zone. Photo: Glenn Stewart
There are some majestic old exotic trees as well, especially in older suburbs such as Avonside and Dallington — walnuts (Juglans sp.), weeping elms (Ulmus), maples (Acer sp.), magnolias, rhododendrons, and many others. We don’t need the silver birches (Betula pendula) though — they are allergenic and this could be a good time to get rid of them. As for sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus), now is also a perfect opportunity to get rid of this nasty, invasive tree as well.
One thing that has become quite noticeable on recent red zone visits is that many treasured old native and exotic trees are now dying for some inexplicable reason. Maybe it is exposure, caused by the removal of houses and surrounding tree that were sheltering them. Maybe the demolition heavy machinery is damaging their roots. Whatever the cause, these trees will be lost.
We don’t yet know what the future will be for this land. John Key (NZ Prime Minister) has said that by the middle of this year we might have a clearer picture. It’s now the middle of this year!
Parkland created by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) after residential property demolition in the red zone. Photo: Glenn Stewart
At the moment the cleared areas are being grassed and fenced into small parklands of scattered trees and shrubs. But that is not a long-term, biodiverse, or even sustainable solution. Grassed parklands need mowing and weed control. They are expensive to maintain. A biodiverse forest, dominated by native trees and shrubs but also containing components of the cultural and historical heritage of the area is a much more sustainable option.
We could speed up the return of our iconic wildlife by allowing the remaining small patches to regenerate and by supplementary planting of native species known to attract the native birds, invertebrates, and geckos that are essential in our native ecosystems. This would include the large, long-lived podocarps that naturally grew in parts of what is now the red zone: matai (Prumnopitys taxifolia), kahikatea and totara.
New Zealand green gecko – important pollinators for many native plant species. Photo: New Zealand Department of Conservation.
The native vegetation has tremendous resilience, but only if we understand nature and how it works. In years to come, our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren could have a huge biodiversity asset in the form of an amazing native forest running through their vibrant green city. But to achieve that for them, we need to take care of what is left and make sure the invasive exotic weeds don’t get a stranglehold.
You can help. We need to know what’s happening in all parts of the residential red zone. So we’ve set up a project on naturewatch.org.nz for people to post photographs of the plants and animals they see there. You don’t have to be expert. You don’t even need to know what it is you’re photographing — experts on NatureWatch NZ can help to identify species for you. But by contributing, you’re helping us understand just what’s going on.
The environment we leave for our children is in our hands. Help us to ensure it’s one they will thank us for.
To contribute to the NatureWatch Christchurch residential red zone project go to www.naturewatch.org.nz and search for “Chch residential red zone” under “Projects”.
I came to understand the garden as a space of sensual knowledge production, where sight, sound, smell, and taste serve to bring gardeners into intimate relations with urban ecology, building a sense of belonging that is both reminiscent of their homelands and a practice of placemaking in Philadelphia.
On Emily Street between 7th and 8th in Philadelphia lies the Growing Home community gardens—two discrete plots of land separated by an assortment of old and new construction rowhomes that are the architectural hallmark of the neighborhood. Chainlink fences separate the gardens from the street. Through them one can see dozens of raised bed planters packed into a tight grid. Despite the neat arrangement of planters, the gardens look unruly and a bit overgrown, which is to say healthy and well-used, with hoses and plastic sheeting strayed along the narrow dirt paths between rows. In late summer and early fall, the planters are full of herbs like roselle and basil, and vegetables like mustard greens, eggplant, green onion, and squash. By late November the beds are put to rest, although winter crops like garlic and onion remain active beneath the soil.
Growing Home community gardens, Philadelphia. Photo: Jake Nussbaum
The Growing Home community gardens (henceforth Growing Home) were started in 2010 and are primarily managed and maintained by Southeast Asian migrants—Nepali, Bhutanese, Burmese Chin, Karen Burmese, and Kachin—who have migrated to South Philadelphia over the past 20 years, many under refugee status. Other gardeners include Vietnamese and Cambodian community members who largely migrated to Philadelphia in the 1970s, some as refugees, and a handful of other African-American and white neighborhood residents. They work in conjunction with the Southeast Asian Migrant Aid Association Coalition (SEAMAAC), a nonprofit founded by a Vietnamese refugee in the early 80s.
The gardeners at Growing Home grow “culturally relevant” foods (herbs, spices, and vegetables commonly found in their home country’s cuisine) that can survive in Philadelphia’s climate. According to a report from the gardens’ first years, Growing Home produces over 5,000 pounds of produce each season, which provides economic relief and sustenance for what are largely low-income constituents.
While food is undoubtedly a major reason for Growing Home’s success, both for its gardeners and its various stakeholders (which includes the City of Philadelphia, who initially leased the land for the garden), my research there focused elsewhere. In particular, I came to understand the garden as a space of sensual knowledge production, where sight, sound, smell, and taste serve to bring gardeners into intimate relations with urban ecology, building a sense of belonging that is both reminiscent of their homelands and a practice of placemaking in Philadelphia. During many of my visits to Growing Home, gardeners would drop by to harvest only a few choice herbs or spices—sensational additions to the evening meal. This was an initial cue that this garden needed to be understood sensually, sensationally, and sensorially, in order to grasp just what (and who) it belonged to.
Building on conversations developed at the Center for Experimental Ethnography at the University of Pennsylvania and with sensory ethnographer Ernst Karel, I chose to approach my fieldwork at the garden through a practice of listening—paying attention to sound and using a variety of microphones and recording techniques to augment my ability to hear. This observational practice brought me into a specific kind of intimacy with the gardens and gardeners, one that was not based exclusively in language, but attuned to somatic experience, gesture, and physical sense.
The practice of listening immediately served to challenge my basic assumptions about the gardens and its context. To truly situate this place within dynamic ecological and cultural processes required listening past familiar categories like urban, natural, infrastructural, human/nonhuman, and giving myself over to a sensorial experience of place that, I hope, transcends more common intellectual paradigms.
What if a garden culture could flourish anywhere, regardless of how the structure of a city was designed? And what if, by allowing such a culture to flourish, we could begin to heal some of our most pressing ecological and social issues?
More than a century ago, urbanist Ebenezer Howard invented the concept of a “garden city”—a city with a bustling urban core, fanning out into green neighborhoods, and then farther out into farmland, all of it theoretically connected in a semi-closed sustainable cycle.
As a kid growing up in San Jose, California, I wondered why I’d never seen one of these cities, especially because the idea was so old. With its low-density swath of houses, far-flung shopping malls and tilt-up office buildings framed by varying grids of concrete and asphalt, San Jose seemed so thoroughly to reject everything that Howard’s garden cities were about.
Daejeon, South Korea, is a bustling modern metropolis, but the residents of the tightly packed Dae-dong neighborhood have used every available patch of earth to create urban gardens. Photo: Patrick M. Lydon
Two decades later, while studying at the University of Edinburgh, I realized a more depressing truth: San Jose was in fact a garden city, albeit a shallow version of what Howard had envisioned. San Jose, along with the numerous other economically productive, ecologically destructive wastes of time, space, and natural resources that we collectively call suburbia, are garden cities, built as a culture based on the dream of endless economic growth sees fit to build them. They are garden cities without garden cultures.
People who inhabit a place can have far greater potential for dictating how space is used.
But what if a garden culture could flourish anywhere, regardless of how the structure of a city was designed? And what if, by allowing such a culture to flourish, we could begin to heal some of our most pressing ecological and social issues?
During the past five years, my partner Suhee Kang and I have enjoyed the opportunity to engage somewhat deeply with these kinds of places—both in concrete-lined urban corridors and in lush fields of hillside natural farms. The experience has revealed, with impressive clarity, that the people who inhabit a place can have far greater potential for dictating how space is used than any physical design, designation, or government mandate.
Hyunsung Park, a retired policeman, is one of many people in the Dae-dong neighborhood of Daejeon, South Korea, that is carving a garden city culture out of a dense urban environment. Photo: Patrick M. Lydon
Dae-dong, an old urban neighborhood set into a hill beside the bustling city of Daejeon, South Korea, doesn’t look like an urban gardener’s heaven. Yet in this tightly packed, low-income neighborhood, almost no plot of soil—and in many cases no slab of idle asphalt—is left without some kind of tended plant, be it flowers, corn stalks, summer squash, Korean gochu red peppers, or whatever else the neighbors here favor.
The neighborhood is built to a human scale. It feels awkward to navigate Dae-dong’s broadest roads in even the smallest of cars, and most streets here are pathways, barely wide enough for two humans to pass comfortably. This smallness creates a close-knit, walkable atmosphere, but it also makes gardening very difficult, forcing utility of space in the strictest of senses.
And yet there is a proliferation of earth cultivation everywhere in the neighborhood, even in the smallest piece of soil, or in a patch of untended weeds in the park, or in an old bathtub left outside. It’s not always “pretty” in the western aesthetic sense, but what we find in Dae-dong is a thriving garden city culture, in a neighborhood with nearly zero planned space for gardens.
Love of nature
The neighborhood’s design does not have much love for urban gardens, but the residents overwhelmingly do. Love for nature is the guiding ethos in Dae-dong.
The people who garden in this particular neighborhood—I fondly refer to them as garden-hacking grandmas and grandpas—are generally from a generation who can still remember the times when they were starving. For much of the 20th century, Korea saw massive shifts in political organization, struggling through a forced occupation, multiple wars, separation, and a slow, often bloody fight for democracy that didn’t formally end until 1987. Understandably, the older generation here sees gardening as a means of survival.
One such man is Hyunsung Park, a 77-year-old retired policeman who lives in Dae-dong on a small pension. We first meet him by chance in the alley in front of his home, and immediately he begins to talk to us about his pepper plants. “They are not so big this year, but they’re plenty spicy. Here, try,” he says as he offers a bite to us. My weak American mouth burns intensely.
Inside his home over a cup of instant coffee, he talks about his struggles, of how his move into law enforcement was prompted by his father’s death, of how the neighborhood was home to refugees during the war. He smiles the entire time.
Park is animated and energetic. “I go to sleep at 9 p.m., wake up at 3 a.m., and immediately go for a long walk through the mountain and forest,” he says, pointing toward the hills on the eastern edge of the city. “After that, I come spend some spend time with my garden and with my family … my life these days is primarily about nature and family.”
South Korea has made a bold move to embody the capitalist Cinderella story, with much success.
Over the next few months of our filmmaking residency here, we make it a point to take daily walks, striking up conversations with more Dae-dong grandmas and grandpas, joining them for coffee, tea, and in one case, a bowl of boiled locally grown potatoes, presented to us with much pride. Several of them visit the house we are staying in to chat or deliver food from their gardens, and we often return the favor by bringing them back a dish cooked with their vegetables.
Through these interactions, we come to know Dae-dong as a garden city in ways perhaps unimaginable by planners such as Howard. But the stability of this kind of garden city necessarily relies on its culture, and the reality here is that in the years since this older generation of urban gardeners began their work in Dae-dong, the prevailing culture has gone in the opposite direction. Over the past half-century, South Korea has made a bold move to embody the capitalist Cinderella story, with much success. Most South Koreans under 40 are more concerned with work, study, and vying for a position at Hyundai or Samsung than they are about tending a garden or walking through the forest at 3 a.m.
But if a culture of nature-connectedness could be removed from a country in the span of a generation, so too could it be cultivated again in another.
Regaining a nature-connected culture
In nature-connectedness workshops we’ve conducted the past few years in east Asia, Europe and North America, we’ve found a pretty strong indication of this idea’s viability: As soon as we give individuals “permission” to cultivate personal relationships with nature, it comes quite easily.
In Korean wisdom traditions, or those of native peoples in nearly every other part of the earth, we find a vast history which speaks to this understanding that, yes, we had it once, but some of us lost it. Each of us has the ability to re-establish our relationship with this Earth, and a steadily growing number of individuals and organizations are working with this notion in context of our contemporary culture. From authors like E.O. Wilson, Wendell Berry, and Joanna Macy, to artists like Andy Goldsworthy, James Turrell, and Collins-Goto, to organizations such as the Biophilic Cities Network, the Intertwine Alliance, The Nature of Cities, and our own SocieCity, local, regional, and even global initiatives abound. They are not always visible, and they’re rarely featured in The New York Times or on the evening news, but we find them when we look—unreported and unadvertised yet in plain sight—in neighborhood gardens, living rooms, and tiny alleyways across this earth.
Nurturing a love for nature is an indispensable part of life.
All of this must begin within each of us. Whether we wake up each morning under eaves beneath trees, or on the top floors of towers among a forest of more towers; whether we walk our children to school through a park, or drive our car down the traffic-clogged streets to the market; whether we spend our mornings closed in meeting rooms, or tending urban gardens, each of us are the potential builders of a new culture, and each of our actions offers opportunity for transformation.
During our last week in Dae-dong, we decide to bake a cake for the couple, Yongdeok Han and Yangsoon Kim, who own a tiny corner store that we frequent. They stock the usual essentials and junk food that most convenience stores offer, but they also always have a cardboard box placed out front full of fresh vegetables from their garden, which, in Dae-dong tradition, is tucked into a thin strip of soil between a concrete wall and a house. The cake we bring them is made with pumpkins from this box.
They smile at the cake and offer us more pumpkins. Han, the husband, laughs and refuses payment. “Consider it a gift from my heart” he says, now laughing from his gut. “I don’t grow pumpkins for money, I grow pumpkins because I like growing pumpkins!”
In Dae-dong, and in many other such neighborhoods around the world, you can’t say that gardening is a hobby, or even a way to make money. It seems to have a far more fundamental purpose, one spawned by the realization within people, that there is inherent value in the action of tending a garden, and in the action of taking time every day to be with nature.
It’s a common thread among these people: Nurturing a love for nature is an indispensable part of life.
However simple that statement may be, it is also quite powerful to remember and use. Powerful enough to form a foundation where sustainable food, resilient cities, and nature can coalesce through a reconnecting of our culture to this earth with which we live—a culture that can perhaps, finally toss old Ebenezer Howard’s garden city plans into the compost bin.
The end of Zika doesn’t begin with the eradication of a mosquito: it requires a systemic, intersectional analysis to help identify how social, economic, urban, health and other structures shape women’s lives, power, and their vulnerability to climate impacts and access to resources.
Almost exactly two years ago, South America was swept up in a public health crisis that affected hundreds of thousands of women across the continent. In Brazil, more than 2,600 children were born with the microcephaly and other health complications resulting from the viral infection Zika. Brazilians quickly became accustomed to the unfamiliar name of the disease, which spread fast across the North East of the country and across borders to Colombia and Venezuela. By February 2016, the World Health Organisation had declared the Zika epidemic a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)—the fourth PHEIC it had made after the swine flu (2009), polio (2014), and ebola (2014). Zika, a mosquito-borne viral disease that emerged in South America in 2015, is carried by the mosquito Aedis aegypti and can also be transmitted sexually.
As someone who works with climate change adaptation, I was particularly struck by the climatic and systemic elements of the epidemic. In the North East of Brazil, the area most affected by Zika, droughts are not uncommon and are intensifying with climate change. Many households, particularly among the poor, store water to deal with shortages that result from inefficiencies in urban water supply. Struck by abnormally high temperatures in the region, the combination of heat, stored water, and poor urban infrastructure provided fertile breeding ground for mosquitoes. Studies published since the crisis have helped establish that the El Niño contributed to unusually high temperatures in the region and that climate change is a contributing factor to Zika.
A woman in a favela in Maceió, northeast Brazil, looks out onto open sewage. Photo: Pedro Trindade/Flickr
Another element which affected me was the evident gender inequality that marked the health crisis. As a middle-class white woman living in São Paulo, I felt far removed from the Zika crisis despite the incessant national and international media coverage and messages of concern from my friends abroad. Even Olympic athletes were considering not coming to Brazil and made elaborate plans to protect themselves. I was not concerned with my exposure to Zika. I do not, however, live close to informal settlements or suffer from water shortages or poor urban development, and neither am I stuck in poverty.
Six percent of Brazil’s population—almost 12 million people—live in informal settlements known as favelas. Amongst this population of slum dwellers, roughly half, or 6 million people, are women. The gender disparity of the crisis is emphasised by the law professor Debora Diniz in her New York Times article: “Lost in the panic about Zika is an important fact: The epidemic mirrors the social inequality of Brazilian society. It is concentrated among young, poor, black and brown women, a vast majority of them living in the country’s least-developed regions.” Many of the urban regions affected by Zika lack basic public services, such as water supply or waste treatment. In 13 of the 27 state capital cities in Brazil, less than half the population has access to municipal with sewage collection services. On average, only 42 percent of cities have installed appropriate municipal sewage treatment services.
The most devastating impact of the Zika crisis was the impact on women’s human rights and the sheer lack of power, access to resources and information, and control they had over their bodies. In Brazil abortions are illegal; 20 percent of all pregnancies are in teenagers and half of pregnancies are unplanned. Access to family planning and reproductive information is limited. Throughout the Zika crisis, women infected with the virus were not granted abortions, and initial government response to the crisis focussed on advising women only to withhold from sex and delay pregnancy. The onus to prevent Zika or minimise risks of infecting was shouldered onto women.
As the crisis unfolded, I found myself trying to gather insights into how Zika affected women from public health, racial injustice, water security, climate change, gender inequality, abortion, urban development, and human rights perspectives. I developed a sense of urgency that the epidemic afforded us an opportunity to understand and gain insights into how potential climate change impacts in cities must be understood from a systemic and intersectional approach. Climate change impacts are distributed locally and unevenly in cities, both spatially and socially. Given projected urban growth and climate change, how can cities ensure their most vulnerable citizens are protected from and prepared for climate change? More importantly, how can cities account for the varying impacts on climate change across diverse groups of people, identities, and individuals?
Two years on, and there seems to a collective memory loss about Zika in Brazil. Many articles in Portuguese have appeared referring to the forgotten state of the women affected by Zika. Many women have been abondanoned by the fathers of their children with microcephaly, receive no government support to deal with rising healthcare costs, and are unable to effectively cope with caring for a child who has special needs and uphold a full-time job. Urban services such as public transportation is often limited, which means that mothers have to travel long distances to reach medical and support services. The burden to prevent, cope and recover from Zika thus lies with these women who live in informal housing, tend to be brown or black, and poor.
In the English-language world, the recent and excellent report “Neglected and Unprotected: The Impact of the Zika Outbreak on Women and Girls in Northeastern Brazil”, published in July by the Human Rights Watch, analyses the long-term impacts of the Zika epidemic on women, with far-reaching analysis that goes beyond climate change and gender inequality. For example, the report looks at how public healthcare, abortion laws, and urban development structure women’s lives and realities and therefore influence the impact that Zika had on them. To prevent and reduce the impacts from future outbreaks, the Human Rights Watch report makes technical recommendations that address public health emergency response, access to health information, education and awareness raising, child support, people’s rights to water security and sanitation, sexual and reproductive healthcare, decriminalisation of abortion, climate change adaptation policy, and urban development amongst others. In short, the end of Zika doesn’t begin with the eradication of a mosquito: it requires a systemic, intersectional analysis to help identify how social, economic, urban, health and other structures shape women’s lives, access to resources, power, and their vulnerability to climate impacts such as Zika. Such an analysis should inform appropriate urban planning.
The term intersectionality was coined by critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw and is defined as “the interaction between gender, race and other categories of difference in individuals lives, social practices, institutional arrangements, and cultural ideologies and the outcomes of these intersections in terms of power.” Whilst Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality within the field of critical race theory, it serves as a relevant lense through which to analyse climate change impacts in cities. As researchers Anna Kaijser and Annica Kronsell point out, “since the effects of climate change are mediated through social, cultural, and economic structures and processes, the need for social analyses in relation to the issue has become more recognised”. Yet gender-responsive and intersectional analysis remain largely absent from urban climate change adaptation planning. Literature and research on climate resilience, in particular, has been critiqued for not addressing enough issues of power and inequality. For example, a study from 2015 analysed 123 papers and looked at how gender is incorporated into adaptation, resilience and vulnerability (ARV) studies published in the peer-reviewed literature. The research concludes that whilst gender is increasing in focus in ARV research, it is still marginal.
Adopting intersectional approaches can help reveal otherwise hidden information about groups of people or individuals that are useful for climate change adaptation planning and extreme weather events. Natalie Osborne notes that in disasters risk management research, for instance, intersectionality helped develop understanding that although vulnerability to extreme weather events is gendered, it is “also shaped by ability, family type, cultural/racial group, and class.” This type of knowledge can lead to more effective interventions to minimise vulnerability. As Osborne also writes in her paper ”
Here are some practical questions developed by Matsuda that city managers should consider when working on urban adaptation planning:
“When I see something that looks sexist, I ask, ‘Where is the heterosexism in this?’ When I see smoething that looks homophobic, I ask, ‘Where is the class interests in this?”
Asking such questions can help internalise a method for analysis and planning that can generate more nuanced understandings of people’s vulnerability to climate change impacts.
At this given moment, cities in Brazil are being dramtically impacted by climate change-driven weather extremes, such as droughts and flooding. Currently, the country’s capital, Brasília, is going through a historical drought and households have been subjected to a water rationing scheme whereby two days a week water supply to households is limited. As cities prepare to build capacity to plan for and manage climate change impacts, this process should ensure it is accountable to individuals’ and groups’ different needs, life experiences, power, access to resources and vulnerability. The Zika epidemic demonstrates how particular groups of women are more exposed to the outbreak and long-term consequences due to a set of social norms, institutional arrangements and physical structures over which they have little control. With a better grasp of the realities that poor, black and brown young women face, urban planners could have better identified the need to reduce the risks of mosquito proliferation and developed longe-term support structures to help mothers care for their children with microcephaly.
City managers and planners need to internalise and promote awareness of intersecting structures to identify particular needs and vulnerabilities that aren’t at first obvious and develop plans accordingly. Solutions to climate change will come through better governance, planning, and efforts to increase participation and social inclusion. It is crucial to derive lessons from the Zika epidemic that could benefit and improve urban climate change planning and adaptation in Brazil.
Concrete-built Brutalism has left its mark in our urban environments. Biophilic design as informed by women can foster healthier and more beautiful places and holds the potential to rectify the negative impacts that brutalist architecture descending from modernist planning has codified in sterile and unsociable housing schemes. By reweaving broken links, fostering local food systems, and coevolving lively green arteries coursing through brutalist settlements, women may place biophilia at the heart of 21st-century urbanism.
Nature-based solutions and urban ecosystems (through the services they can provide) mitigate some of these risks. So, it is logical to ask: if nature-based infrastructure — such as wetland buffers, storm water catching bioswales, etc. — are effective mitigations for ocean surges and storms, what is their insurance value?
On the surface, this idea seems to remove any reason for worrying about nature within a city. But if we look a bit deeper, we see that Kawaguchi’s perspective also unveils something more rooted; it shows us a framework wide enough to allow the sacred to enter everyday life.
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