Its 11 o’clock on a Saturday night and my husband and I have just returned home from a dinner party. Driving home we encountered Chital deer (Axis axis) grazing outside the Table Mountain National Park boundary and right on the verge of a busy highway. These deer don’t belong here, and by here I mean Cape Town South Africa, but also, and more significantly in the immediate moment, on the side of this busy highway. Their history is a common colonial story of strategic animal introductions. The fact that they are grazing next to the highway where they could cause a nasty accident is what gets the good citizen in me worked up. (I have some purist conservation issues on this score too, but I set these aside for now.*)
I call the after-hours number for the National Park to report animal related issues. I feel some urgency and when I get through, am astounded by the operator’s nonchalance. He suggests they are out a little earlier than usual, and that perhaps (with a laugh) this is because it is Saturday night. I feel the wind out of my sails and he goes on to assure me that they will stick to the verge, as they do on many nights of the week and that I can go to bed now and have a peaceful night’s sleep. His cheerful and tolerant tone prompts me to ask if he gets a lot of calls like mine reporting seemingly bizarre nature encounters around the mountain late at night. He says his best ever was the tow-truck driver who called in, terrified, to report a ‘giant goat’ walking through down-town Cape Town at 3 am. Evidently a Himalayan tahr (Hemitragus jemlahicus), from a pair of zoo escapees in the 1930s that formed a population on Table Mountain. A tahr downtown at 3am is a stirring thought. I go to bed smiling at the uncomfortable bed fellows of nature and city.
Living with so much nature right in the heart of your city can be a challenging business. Its funny really because it is often nature that informs where we put our cities in the first place (that thought-provoking cartoon by Matthew Diffee comes to mind). How we manage the process of taming, ‘making benign’, and what we choose to harness, and what we choose to discard in the ongoing process of city building is something that changes through time and across space. I am intrigued by this; the experience of nature in our cities and how what we see and brush up against is different for all of us, different to people at different times, and different to people at the same time, and it begs the question ‘how do we forge a nature that works for everyone?’
While the formation of the City of Cape Town is not a singular story, contemporary Cape Town is in many respects unique. Cape Town is small city of about 3.7 million people. The City is sprawling (an area of 496.7 square kilometres or 191.8 sq mi) and retains the separatist spatial form of an apartheid city with the more affluent and still whiter suburbs close to Table Mountain and the city bowl, and dense lower income housing and extensive informal settlements out to the north of the city bowl on the sandy flat lands known as the Cape Flats. The gini coefficient (57.8% in 2011 for South Africa) is stark, and pressure to supply services and housing and broadly to address development discrepancies is intense. Situated on a peninsula, Cape Town has an extensive coastline, hosts the 221 square kilometer (85 square mile) Table Mountain National Park at its heart, and has a staggering 3350 plant species within its metropolitan boundary. Of these, 190 are endemic to the City itself. The City hosts 19 of 440 National Vegetation Types and of 21 nationally recognized critically endangered vegetation types, an astounding 11 are in the City of Cape Town. Both the conservation and development agendas are high. How nature is experienced — and note here I do not say how it is valued, but how it is experienced — is hugely varied across the City.
If we cast our gaze way back we see the first inklings of these varied views and uses of nature. As much as 2000 odd years ago the Khoi, cattle keeping people, started to include the Cape in larger transhumance patterns. The Cape was by no means unoccupied and they found the San hunter gatherers already well ensconced. Here two different scales of engagement led to natural resource conflict. Evidence suggests that the San manipulated the natural environment with small scale patch burning to stimulate bulb species, and attract mammals to localized patches with the new flush of grazing where they could be easily stalked and hunted. The Khoi however took a much larger view of landscape management necessitated by their large herds of sheep and cattle that needed to be fed and watered. They too actively burnt tracts of the indigenous fire-prone and fire-adapted vegetation to stimulate grazing for their herds, but on a scale that was undoubtedly disruptive to the environmental engagement of the local San. In turn, as the San hunters looked around in vain for the mammals to hunt, now chased off by large scale fire, they naturally turned their bow and arrows to the next most edible thing on the landscape, the Khoi cattle. Substantial conflict ensued.
Contemporary fire management and use: a prescribed burn on the lower slopes of Devil’s Peak, Table Mountain as part of an ecological restoration project. Photo: Penelope Waller
Just as the perennial water had attracted the Khoi, and was no doubt a significant asset to the San, it was the strategic factor that put the Cape in such high demand from European trade vessels. The long journey around Africa to secure spices from the East following the shut-down of the overland route with the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, was arduous in the extreme. What was needed was a place to stop, grow a few veggies, trade for some fresh meat from the locals, and restock the water casks and wood supplies.
The ‘Cape of Good Hope’, as it was known then, checked all these boxes. From on board the ship, after a few months at sea and a few less teeth to show for the trip, the majestic mountain, its vegetated slopes and sparkling springs were most alluring, and no doubt bound up in the thrill of the ‘spice rush’. Of the various traders plying the route around Africa, it was the Dutch East India Company who managed to secure the Cape as a key point in their global economic endeavors.
What they found all too quickly was that while the Cape had the natural environment to meet many of their needs, once on shore the environment was extremely harsh. Early diaries have dreadful descriptions of blood curling encounters with the abundant wild animals. The station commander (supposedly sent to this particular post to be out of the public gaze for a few years following a social embarrassment) wrote of a lion entering a dwelling and taking a domestic dog from inside. Another writes of a young lady being taken off the back of an open wagon, again by a lion.
Can you begin to imagine the horror? Quickly a bounty was placed on the head of large carnivores and so the process of ‘taming’ began. The first century of environmental engagement was severe. Wood reserves were rapidly depleted, uninformed attempts to emulate the locals in the use of fire saw extensive, ill-timed and uncontrolled fires, animal populations were decimated, and fresh water reserves were frequently fouled. The pier that had been built into Table Bay had to be extended as it became inundated with eroded top soil from the rapidly denuded mountain slopes.
Despite these harsh conditions, to many Cape Town meant freedom from testing circumstances in Europe and numerous of the early writings of the City are also of its great beauty, and many chose to stay.
Table Mountain from Cape Town’s Waterfront. Photo: Merritt Polk
And slowly the City of Cape Town came into being. Later eras saw rapid growth with the event of gold and diamonds in the interior. The switch to British rule opened the city up to a myriad of new, and largely problematic, plant species. And so a new series of environmental manipulations (the consequences of which we continue to manage today) was added to the ongoing process of sifting, sorting, harnessing and discarding nature in the process of city building.
For example the introduction of Australian Acacias to stabilize dune fields — a welcomed intervention at the time when massive dune fields, historically impassable, were stopped in their tracks, but hugely problematic once these plants who shared many of the key characteristics of our own indigenous flora took off at a great pace in the absence of their natural enemies. Loathed by conservationists, these extensive stands of alien trees are an important source of fuel wood to poor households in Cape Town today. Forests of alien Pine trees are similarly viewed by conservationists; black-booked for their excessive consumption of water in a water-scarce city, contributing significant fuel loads and shifting fire regimes, and altering soil properties and shading out indigenous species. In turn these forest patches are revered by middle-class suburban dog-walkers who have fought vehemently for their retention in the urban landscape, taking out double page advertisements at considerable expense in local newspapers declaring their affinity for these trees in the a ‘shout for shade’ campaign.
Fishing on Cape Town’s Sunrise beach, False Bay, is a livelihood activity for some and recreation for others. Photo: Pippin Anderson
And there are just as many views on remnant patches of indigenous flora. The few remaining patches of indigenous flora are of considerable conservation value and come under ongoing development pressure in particular for housing. These are often seen as harbors of criminals and their dirty dealings. The protection of these ever-shrinking patches is championed by city and national conservation agencies as well as numerous civic groups from all areas of the City. They are also used by Abakwete, Xhosa male initiates, who are required to spend time a period of time in the wilderness as part of the process of reaching manhood. In cities they are limited to these remnant patches.
Cape Town’s rivers canalized historically to address flooding issues in the developing city are now significantly ecologically degraded, victims of dumping, and socially shunned as sites of criminal activity. Photo: Pippin Anderson
So there you have it: different views through time, and different views at the same time. A solution in one century, and a curse in the next. A threat to one contemporary agenda, and a livelihood solution to another.
Some things we have not managed to tame, and parts of our city most certainly remain wild. In these instances it is my belief that we turn to managing our urban population around these factors. Cape Town has a fierce wind, historically called ‘the Cape doctor’ especially by those returning to Europe from India, for whom the cool wind was a welcomed change.
It is strong wind though (wind speeds of 160 km/h or 100 mph have been measured in Table Bay) and early settlers were astounded by its ferocity. One wrote a vivid description of seeing fully grown cabbages pulled out of the ground by the wind (next time you pick up a cabbage in the grocery store and feel its solid weight in your hands give this some thought). We also have a water table that bubbles up in the winter months on the Cape Flats. The Cape Flats remain largely dune fields. It is to these outer realms, these wilder sides of our city, that the poor are relegated. It makes me think that just as that early Dutch commander was sent to the wilds of the Cape in 1652 to be out of the public gaze for a while, so too do we relegate our urban poor to the wilds of the contemporary city. How nature is experienced from the different vantage points around the mountain is assuredly different.
This poorly planned coastal road that circumnavigates the Cape Flats is the setting of an ongoing battle between nature and the built city. Photo: Pippin Anderson
It brings us back to the difficult question ‘how do we forge an urban nature that works for everyone?’
While we may all agree that we do not want lions roaming our streets, where do we draw the more subtle boundaries in the process of taming, and how do we avoid winding up with something that is sterile and vulnerable This is a significant social challenge.
Its messy, but I like a mess and one might well ask who would get into urban ecology if they had an aversion to some degree of muddle? I take heart in the writings of the likes of Evans (take a look at this great paper) who presents the city as a place of experimentation and suggests that it is from among the very muddle of cities, with their social and structural diversity, that we are likely find our solutions to the complexities of living harmoniously in cities, and living with and securing nature in our cities.
Pippin Anderson
Cape Town, South Africa
*Both the Tahr and Chittal deer populations have since targeted for removal from the Mountain. The eradication of these problematic species is a necessary and welcomed conservation move.
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.
Elmaz Abinader, OaklandHere I sit in California where fire is consuming the hills. Today, they say, prepare to evacuate. The city of my obsession is in shambles: Beirut is changed forever. Lebanon, we are at the beginning again. You reach out. I take your hand.
Anne Brochot, ParisTo support oneself in a vacuum does not mean believing in a possible vessel that carries the vacuum. No, emptiness is merely our condition.
Joyce Garvey, DublinI will commit to persuading a prominent local business to commission from me a piece of environmental art which I will complete without charge, in return for their public commitment to appoint an environmental officer to their business.
Leslie Gauthier, New YorkMy deck is an ecosystem: bumble bees and blue-winged wasps, grasshoppers, ladybugs, spiders. More, too. But I’m still learning.
Jane Ingram Allen, Santa RosaDuring these months of isolation, I have had time to reflect and make art and also to start a vegetable garden; to make paper “from scratch” in my garage studio using the bark of the mulberry tree in my front yard.
Frances Mezzetti, DublinA world with making less the pressure as we set Zoom up and move in our respective garden or spaces and tune into each others movements through the flatness of the screen to connect and open up a space of consciousness, to imagine, to create!
Munira Naqui, PortlandI settled down to be in the gentle rhythm of nature. Watched the signs of Spring as the snow heaps diminished and the woods slowly stirred into life with shades of green. This is when I started to pine for human presence and got restless.
In order to keep a trace of the major collective experience we all went through during quarantine time, Anne Brochot, and myself as an invited artist at Cour Commune, launched a program called « Et Après? » (what’s next?) throughout the Summer. Cour Commune is a third place that includes a printing studio, visual art residency, and communal garden, based in an ancient 19th century shop located in Voulx, a small village 100km south of Paris.
We invited neighbours and friends to write about what they lived during quarantine, what they learned, what became obvious to them and what they wished for the future while confined in their homes. We are extending here, on The Nature of Cities platform, our collective inquiry, opening it to a larger network of artists living around the globe and focusing on the relationship to nature. We are exploring here how artists’ relationships/or non relationship with nature have moved them during lockdown. What kind of nature experience did they have during quarantine? How did it manifest itself? What teachings did those experiences convey?
To you too, who is reading these lines, we invite you to reflect on how your relationship to nature has been or is shaped by this time: what is standing out that needs to be remembered and put into practice?
In 2012 Anne created CourCommune, an artistic third place located 100 km from Paris, which she animates in the spirit of Robert Filliou: "Art is what makes life more interesting than art". The way of life, around a workshop space and a garden, is participative and inspired by the regrowth movement.
To support oneself in a vacuum does not mean believing in a possible vessel that carries the vacuum. No, emptiness is merely our condition.
EN
I created CourCommune in 2012 and we moved into an old village grocery store in 2016. We welcome artists in residence and organize many other events. A month before the lockdown we needed to shore up the cellar, which was threatening to collapse. We are in full lockdown, we realize that our foundation is fragile and the building could collapse. We cover the entire studio and the masons tear up the floor. I move my office upstairs, just above where they are working.
The sky, with the edge of the roof of CourCommune’s house. And far away in the middle, the moon. Photo: Anne Brochot
May 5th. Since 8 a.m., the jackhammer has been breaking through the concrete mass supporting a brick pillar in the cellar that has exploded under the weight of the two-storey building. Several tons rest on a few poorly mortared bricks. Suddenly, I hear a crashing, metallic noise and feel vibrations, then, silence. In the wall just behind me, a series of crystalline, musical sounds; the particles of the plaster tearing. For two seconds, the floor shifts, almost imperceptibly. A barely audible crackling sound and it’s over. Gravity has provided the structure with new-found stability.
During the few seconds it takes for the weight to transfer from one reinforcement to another, I feel the words of the psychoanalyst Jean-Pierre Lebrun “to support oneself in the void” pass through me. To support oneself in a vacuum does not mean believing in a possible vessel that carries the vacuum. No, emptiness is our condition. Yet, we need to exist and possess skills, to reflect and to concentrate during the moment when, for however long and for whatever reason, individually or collectively, we will have only the void as our only support.
FR
J’ai créé CourCommune en 2012 et nous sommes rentrés dans une ancienne épicerie de village en 2016. Nous y accueillons des artistes et bien d’autres choses. Un mois avant le confinement nous avons dû étayer une cave qui menaçait de s’effondrer. Nous sommes en plein confinement, nous constatons que nos fondations sont fragiles et le bâtiment nous parle d’effondrement. Tout l’atelier est bâché, le sol est ouvert, les maçons travaillent. J’ai monté le bureau à l’étage, je suis installée juste au dessus des maçons.
5 mai. Depuis 8h, le marteau-piqueur défonce le massif de béton supposé soutenir un pilier de briques dans la cave et le pilier lui-même. Ce dernier a explosé sous la charge de l’étage et du toit. Plusieurs tonnes reposaient sur quelques briques mal maçonnées. Puis des bruits de masse, un bruit métallique, des vibrations, et le silence. Et là dans le mur juste derrière moi, des crépitements minuscules, une série de sons cristallins, musicaux ; les particules du plâtre qui se déchirent. Pendant 2 secondes, l’étage se repose sur un appui qui descend, imperceptiblement. Un craquement à peine audible et c’est fini. Le principe de gravité a redonné à la structure une nouvelle stabilité.
Pendant les quelques secondes nécessaires au transfert d’un appui à l’autre, j’ai senti passer en moi l’expression du psychanalyste Jean-Pierre Lebrun « se soutenir dans le vide ». Se soutenir dans le vide ne veut pas dire croire en une possible propriété porteuse du vide. Non, le vide est notre condition. Mais il faut des étais, du savoir faire, de la réflexion, de la concentration autour du moment où, pendant un temps plus ou moins long et pour quelque raison que ce soit, individuellement ou collectivement, nous n’aurons que le vide pour seul appui.
Elmaz Abinader is the author of two poetry collections, a memoir, Children of the Roojme and several plays. This House, My Bones was the Editors Selection 2014 for Willow Books, and In the Country of my Dreams won the Oakland PEN award for poetry. She is a co-founder of VONA—the workshop for writers-of-color. She lives in Oakland, CA.
…imagine looking down on earth, seeing marionette strings that once kept it afloat in the black current. Think of every moment breath swept through you, unremarkable. Your heart squeezing a handful of red petals//… — “After” by Ruth Awad in Set a Music to Wildfire
Here I sit in California where fire is consuming the hills. Today, they say, prepare to evacuate. The city of my obsession is in shambles: Beirut is changed forever. Lebanon, we are at the beginning again. You reach out. I take your hand.
Lebanon, I had put you to rest this summer. Smoothed the last page of the book that cost years of research, interviews, translations, and visit. Thrashed out the differences between interpretations, replayed old news videos like they were dear home movies, called out to the soldiers in every army, to the children hiding under the bed; to the women cooking hot in the bomb shelters. I studied your war — our wars — more deeply than my family tree.
I had put you, the book, Almost a Life, to rest in the quiet. World struck with fever, I had to figure out how to sustain and develop the story of Dede from the shelter of my porch overlooking the looming redwoods and blossoming peach tree. There was no other way to approach the chaos of the civil war, except in the company of the fierce rotations of nature, where death brings life, and decomposition feeds new bodies. I sat in gardens filled with wild tomato vines, in giant forests where treetops fused together, on empty beaches, feet dug into sand, words resting on my knees. Dreaming in an Arabic that was colloquial, illiterate and insufficient, I finished, confidently, I thought.
But Lebanon, you did not let me go. My eye drifted from one news story to the next, to the view of Beirut: the port, the Corniche, the night clubs, the restaurants, Pigeon Rock. I stepped in the shoes of my mother and father’s promenades, my own strolls along the beach, the lingering on the rail watching the fishermen and their long rods.
And then you exploded: the first time, a tremor in the chest; the second — I rose and fell and rose again. A gasp that has not exhaled. When a city explodes, the air becomes inhabited with flying glass, the sea burns a sickening ash, the trees in Martyr’s Square collapse as if they were never rooted. When a city ignites, all is fire: the frantic rush to rescue a body, the words calling for help, the hearts who don’t imagine what can survive or how they can live. Just like that, the cells have shifted, in every living thing.
I have not let go, after all. Here I sit in California where fire is consuming the hills. Today 367 wildfires. Today, they say, prepare to evacuate. Where I wrote is off-limits; do not go outside. The city of my obsession is in shambles: Beirut is changed forever. Lebanon, we are at the beginning again: wondering how it will go, how the story will end. You reach out; I take your hand.
Frances is a visual artist and works in live art, video and sound, with performances nationally and internationally. At present she is exploring connections through technological inter - actions in various groups. Her work is mostly collaborative, choosing to develop projects on relationships with other humans within the environment.
A world with making less the pressure as we set Zoom up and move in our respective garden or spaces and tune into each others movements through the flatness of the screen to connect and open up a space of consciousness, to imagine, to create!
Lockdown, a halt to the free flow of coming and going, for some, the age of privilege is gone. The choice of how, where, when to travel or not is curtailed, for now, for how long? The concept of time is challenged.!
It’s Springtime. Nature is taking her time. The red poppy welcomes the bumblebee! There is a quietness, a silence in the sky, an absence of the heavy reverberation of jet engines overhead, no white tail streaks across the blue. Blackbirds, robins and twittering sparrows, thrill us with their singing. Pause in the still morning barefooted on the grass, the ground is hard for lack of rain. Feel blessed to have this space to go outside! The streets are empty. It’s the script of a movie of the end of the world. The questions is: Is it ? What have we done? What are we doing to this beautiful planet to these/us endangered species? Busyness is slowing down. Fear meets us from the TV, the pandemic, with daily statistics of contagion and deaths. This is not just a local hiccup, a town in flux, a city ground to a halt, a country watching, waiting, a continent, a globe suspended in time. While borders are closing, people are opening up to each other across fences, balconies, reaching out but not touching, sending vibrations of care like the opera singer in Milan!!
Time to reflect and to envision for the future!
A kinder, compassionate world, softer, listening to nature, to her creatures, to what matters. A world with making less the pressure as we set Zoom up and move in our respective garden or spaces and tune into each others movements through the flatness of the screen to connect and open up a space of consciousness, to imagine, to create!
Jane Ingram Allen creates environmental art projects around the world using natural materials and collaborative processes to raise public awareness about environmental and social issues. Allen also curates international environmental art projects and writes about sculpture and environmental art for publications such as SCULPTURE, PUBLIC ART REVIEW, and ART RADAR ASIA.
During these months of isolation, I have had time to reflect and make art and also to start a vegetable garden; to make paper “from scratch” in my garage studio using the bark of the mulberry tree in my front yard.
I have been quarantined at my home in northern California since mid-March. Most of the US, California and our county still have a rising number of COVID-19 cases, so we expect to be quarantined longer. The future is very uncertain, and my art projects have mostly been postponed until 2021.
During these months of isolation, I have had time to reflect and make art and also to start a vegetable garden. One art project I set for myself is to create a mixed media painting each week on handmade paper I create from plants in my own yard. I call these works “Quarantine Flowers”. I wanted to do something hopeful and uplifting, and the colorful flowers were particularly appealing. These paintings depict flowers that were blooming in my yard during the Spring months of quarantine: pink apple blossoms, blue oxalis, cream orchids, golden poppies, yellow sunflowers, and red nasturtiums.
During the quarantine I made paper “from scratch” in my garage studio using the bark of the mulberry tree in my front yard. Making paper from plant materials involves gathering the bark, cooking it, beating it to a pulp and then forming the sheets. Mulberry bark is one of the best plant fibers for papermaking; paper mulberry bark is used in Japan to make some of the finest paper in the world. My mulberry tree is not the same one that is used in Japan, but it is from the same plant family. The mulberry bark paper is thin and strong when done in my modified Asian style. This Zoom program now available online shows my process for making paper directly from plant materials.
Dr Joyce Garvey is a Scottish born visual artist and writer, living and working in Ireland. She is a graduate of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin with an ANCA and BA majoring in Fine Art and holds an MA in Film and a PhD in Creative Writing. She has written a trilogy of books on "women living in the shadow of famous men".
I will commit to persuading a prominent local business to commission from me a piece of environmental art which I will complete without charge, in return for their public commitment to appoint an environmental officer to their business.
CHANGE
One of the few positives of the COVID-19 pandemic has been lockdown’s beneficial effect on the environment.
Although climate change has temporarily slowed, because of Covid restrictions, it is still accelerating the destruction of the planet’s life support systems and the decline of species that humanity depends upon.
Since being presented with a beautifully preserved and intact dragonfly during an art residency in Courcommune, Voulx, France, my particular interest has been this wonderful insect whose symbol is change.
Therefore I was disturbed to read a UN report (March 2019) which noted a catastrophic decline in the abundance and diversity of insects, particularly the dragonfly.
Change is the key?
Every day during lockdown I walked to a local graveyard where I sat quietly and undisturbed and drew the glory of nature.
The question I asked was: Could I do anything through my art to preserve this beneficial effect that lockdown was having?
Inspired by the dragonfly, I devised a plan called:
“The Art Challenge”
Simply: I will commit to persuading a prominent local business to commission from me a piece of environmental art which I will complete without charge, in return for their public commitment to appoint an environmental officer to their business.
Through social media’s art societies, I will create a viral campaign challenge involving tens of thousands of artists in every city/town and village worldwide.
Challenges on social media, like the ice bucket challenge, promoting awareness of the disease ALS, worked incredibly well for charity. They can be equally successful for nature.
The positive publicity would raise the profile of artists, and businesses involved would save money too in sustainability.
But the greatest beneficiary would be us, and the wonderful, natural world we live in.
Leslie Gauthier is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times and Paste Magazine. Leslie wrote, produced and performed in 23-Year-Old Myth as part of Theater for the New City's Dream-Up Festival. Her short film, “The Astronaut Hour”, was recognized by the International Independent Film Awards in 2019.
Every morning since April I wake up and greet the plants. We prepare each other for the day.
My deck is an ecosystem: bumble bees and blue-winged wasps, grasshoppers, ladybugs, spiders. More, too. But I’m still learning.
We watched the neighbors chain smoke and move back to Moscow because “they just can’t with America right now”; the refrigerated trucks come and leave Brooklyn; the arrival of the house finches and mourning doves in May, and their departure in July when the airplanes returned.
In June, protests streamed by the apartment nightly, and the plants grew with the movement. They stood in solidarity when the helicopters hovered, trying to intimidate.
The garden shook as I did when the mysterious professional-grade fireworks exploded in the peaceful summer sky. Are they trying to desensitize us?
Photo: Leslie Gauthier
We wilted in July: dried leaves, aphids, high heat / anxiety and insomnia. Remedies: hydration, potassium, Klonopin, early-morning yoga, the courage to try new spaces and the trust to grow into them. There were miracles — a cucumber on what I thought was a tomato plant. There were casualties: the cilantro, RIP.
A fighter jet flew over Brooklyn yesterday. The windows rattled, worse than the fireworks.
How can an American — an immigrant — right the wrongs done to this land? How can I make myself indiginous to a place my ancestors didn’t know? How will I survive the conflict I fear is coming? Do people garden in wars?
Manhattan’s buildings stand empty and gray across the river. My old life a backdrop to a smaller but generative one — full, colorful, and a home. My deck is an ecosystem: bumble bees and blue-winged wasps, grasshoppers, ladybugs, spiders. More, too. But I’m still learning.
Munira Naqui is a visual artist who was born in Chattogram, a bustling port town on the coast of Bay of Bengal which is now Bangladesh. She now lives in Portland Maine, a beautiful coastal town at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and works in her studio tucked in the woods across a pristine lake. Her work is abstract, concrete and reductive in nature. To her painting is a form of language that gives shape to a space for contemplative engagement.
fragile, unique, volatile, ethereal.
But of unbearable lightness.
Let me dream reality, another reality
—Fernando Pessoa
I settled down to be in the gentle rhythm of nature. Watched the signs of Spring as the snow heaps diminished and the woods slowly stirred into life with shades of green. This is when I started to pine for human presence and got restless.
It was still deep winter here in Maine. COVID-19 was sweeping across continents shutting down the world. My quiet little town went into “lockdown”. The winter skies were grey and there was an ominous feeling of doom as people stayed in and everything closed. After several weeks of isolation in town we took refuge in our cottage on the lake near my studio in the woods. I thought I would work on my unfinished paintings in my studio while I waited for the crisis to be over. I found it hard to concentrate even harder to continue working on the work conceived in the past as I felt the ground shift. I realized a pause was needed.
It was very quiet at the lake. Not unusual for that time of the year. Most of the cottages were closed down for the season. The lake and nature here was on its normal schedule. Nothing had changed here. I found that reassuring as I felt the human part of my world descending into chaos.
I settled down to be in the gentle rhythm of nature. Watched the signs of Spring as the snow heaps diminished and the woods slowly stirred into life with shades of green. The chartreuse of leaf buds changed into deeper forest green, the drama of the ice melt on the lake as its surface changed from white to dark patches and finally into the color of water. The birds got busy building nests, the tree frogs chirped. The sun had changed its angle and I discovered new shadows. The lake was ready for people to return but no one came. This is when I started to pine for human presence and got restless. We also realized with the way the public health crisis was handled we were in for a long haul. It made me sad to think that all my travels were cancelled. I wouldn’t be going to Cour Commune for my residency this year. Worse, I would not be able to visit my mother in Bangladesh or see my grandchildren in far away states.
We entered a phase of cloudy days with no rain. Then suddenly thunder and lightning lit up the sky accompanied by a heavy down pour. I stayed inside reading that day. At some point I looked up from my book and saw the sun come out casting a magical light on the lake. The leaves on the trees were shimmering in the golden light. It was still raining, but gently. I stepped out on the deck to capture the sight. I stood quietly in the rain watching the magic. Something lifted off my heart. I felt the lightness of being.
Want less, and cleaner stormwater runoff? Buy an electric car. Or, abandon your car and get your city to invest in renewable energy public transportation.
The literature has established that electric vehicles are better for the environment—they produce less pollution than a conventional gas vehicle, regardless of the electricity mix used to fuel the vehicle.[1] They are more efficient, and in part thanks to many state policies[2]—the costs of ownership are decreasing and the vehicles are becoming more ubiquitous. School districts are investing in electric school buses, transit districts now deploy fleets of electric buses, and even ports are converting heavy equipment to run on electricity.
Will Moore’s Chevrolet Volt produces far fewer stormwater pollution-causing substances than a comparable gasoline-powered vehicle. Photo: Will Moore.
Will Moore, the proud owner of a Chevrolet Volt, popped open the hood of his car. Inside, there’s just an electric motor, a battery, and a controller.[3] When compared with a typical gas engine car, the electric vehicle has no petroleum-based fluids, lubricants, antifreeze, or other chemicals. There is no need to change the motor oil. Because there is no tailpipe on an electric vehicle, the car won’t produce particulate matter, ground-level ozone, nitrates or sulfates because an electric vehicle is as clean as the grid behind it (which in California, where Will lives, is close to 40% renewable).[4] When he bought the car, Will understood that his car purchase would reduce the carbon pollution that causes climate change and result in cost savings over the lifetime of the vehicle, but he did not know that his Chevy Volt could have immense benefits for reducing toxic stormwater runoff and groundwater pollution.
In California, there are routine warnings posted after storms for swimmers and surfers to stay out of the water. That’s because the rains cause an alphabet soup of toxins, stagnant on our roadways, to runoff into our stormdrains. That toxic soup is comprised of chemicals and heavy metals from gasoline-powered vehicles, pesticides, herbicides, and other compounds. The capacity of storms often exceeds the ecosystem’s natural ability to filter out the petroleum-derived compounds from oil, grease, vehicle exhaust, heavy metals, benzene, tar, and vehicle coolants.[5] Instead, the pollution enters our waterbodies—urban streams, lakes, estuaries, and eventually the ocean—polluting humans as well as other urban wildlife.
There are severe stormwater pollution impacts on urban watershed health and wildlife. Studies in Seattle, Washington have found that the dissolved copper in vehicle exhaust impairs the ability for salmon and steelhead to detect the environmental cues necessary for upstream spawning.[6] Exposure to copper can inhibit predator avoidance behavior and therefore reduce the chance of survival. Once-productive shellfish beds are now barren because heavy metals (like cadmium, chromium, copper, zinc, and lead) bioaccumulate in mussels and clams, which are then toxic to other predators—including humans.[7] There are other human consequences as well. The decline of fisheries from stormwater pollution results in job losses. People can become sick and die from exposure to stormwater. While the cause of stormwater impacts results from pollution from many different sources, a switch to electric transportation is a mitigation strategy for the unique petroleum-based chemicals and heavy metals from gasoline-powered vehicles.
While we know enough to understand the pollution concerns from gasoline-powered vehicles, there have yet to be studies quantifying the potential stormwater benefits from a switch to transportation electrification.
In the U.S., there are regulations in place governing stormwater management. The Clean Water Act’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) targets point pollution sources and requires the adoption and implementation of a stormwater management plan.[8] While the NPDES can work for facilities that discharge wastewater directly, it is much more challenging to regulate pollution from millions of non-point pollution sources—e.g., gasoline-powered vehicles.
Another aspect of transportation electrification that will yield enormous benefits for urban watershed health will be the eventual phase-out of gas filling stations. Underground pipes and tanks often leach gasoline and other chemicals into the surrounding soil, eventually contaminating the groundwater.[9] Extensive and costly remediation is often required before a site can be redeveloped or repurposed. As we switch toward transportation electrification, the lingering groundwater contamination from these sites can be addressed. Although groundwater and stormwater are different aspects of the urban watershed, the benefits from eliminating pollution from our transportation system will play a critical role in improving overall urban health during the 21st century.
Signs at the beaches saying “DO NOT SWIM” are already too common. The pollution impacts from our urban transportation system are a negative impact on our urban watersheds, public health, and wildlife. While the switch to electric transportation won’t ameliorate all stormwater pollution, it will make a significant dent in reducing pollution from toxic chemicals and heavy metals prevalent in gasoline-powered vehicles and the fueling system that supports fossil-fuel transportation.
The switch to electric transportation is occurring at a faster pace than expected. [10] Norway, India, China, the United Kingdom, and France have all enacted plans to ban gasoline-powered vehicles in the next few decades. Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts that 50% of new car sales will be electric vehicles by 2040. Close to a third of all vehicles registered in Norway are electric. Many car manufacturers have announced that they will only offer new electric vehicle models in the future. Almost 130 new battery-electric vehicle models will be available in the next five years. All-electric bus fleets are being deployed to meet transit district needs.
Even though there is much positive movement on the road to transportation electrification, more needs to be done to advance transportation electrification, support climate goals as outlined in the Paris Agreement, and comply with air pollution standards. State and federal policies can help reduce the cost of electric vehicle ownership, support the deployment of public electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and encourage fleet ownership of electric transit buses or other heavy-duty electric buses. Comprehensive integration of electric transportation into an asset of a utility-managed grid can help facilitate the broad scale and comprehensive transformation of an urban transportation system. Adopting universal standards and establishing set protocols can help drive interoperability and facilitate a positive driving experience. These changes will not occur on their own, and the market needs support and guidance from state and federal policy, as outlined above.
Furthermore, a comprehensive strategy to reduce non-point pollution cannot rely on source reduction alone. Integrated solutions to reduce infiltration will be critical. This includes construction of semi-permeable surfaces that can absorb rainwater, rather than just letting the water travel into the stormdrain. Green roofs, rain gardens, and bioswales offer filtering and buffering capacity, and some plants such as sunflowers and mustard greens can even thrive in the presence of heavy metals.[11] These green infrastructure elements can remove pollutants and reduce runoff.[12]
Although this piece did not delve into the multitude of benefits that electric transportation can yield—from air pollution reduction to mitigating climate change—the stormwater pollution reduction potential certainly represents an underappreciated asset. It makes sense to seize upon these benefits and put them to good use in driving toward an electric transportation system. Individual actions like Will’s electric vehicle purchase, when aggregated over large scales, can have substantial positive impacts. We just need the policies in place to encourage the switch to electric transportation and ensure that it is comprehensive.
Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed in this essay are those of the author and do not necessarily represent official policy or positions of her employer or of its clients.
We need to reimagine the institutional landscape of urban disputed commons governance to accommodate diverse goals and management practices that simultaneously produce good and bad commons. On one hand, practices of good commoning produce bad commons. On the other hand, if disputes were to be resolved, the land would likely be privatized, halting the practices of good commoning.
Can practices that produce “good” commons also create “bad” commons? In some instances, practices of commoning spaces that are neither public, private, nor common can also degrade these spaces.
Mornings in my neighborhood of Wanowrie in Pune city, in the western state of Maharashtra, India are a charming sight. An undeveloped parcel of land also known as Kakade ground, approximately 48 acres in size, is the center of Wanowrie’s universe. An enthusiastic and dedicated youth group begins the day with volleyball matches. Running and cycling groups gather at the local tea seller’s semi-permanent structure on the land for their post-exercise banter. Street dogs playfully loiter around them, yapping for a stray biscuit. Residents may be shopping for fruits and vegetables at nearby popup stalls. The elderly may assemble at a corner of the land for their morning constitution and some healthy neighborhood gossip.
On some days, youth wings of local political groups organize cricket and soccer matches, bringing the passing traffic to an eager halt to watch the game. Strategically placed benches provide rest, and traditional water pitchers quench the thirst of the weary. Weekly and semi-permanent farmer markets save residents a trip to the inner city for produce. These decentralized produce markets provided an essential service during the COVID-19 induced lockdowns. Street vendors and fast-food selling hawkers take over the land in the evening. Approximately, five times a year, the land hosts artists and small businesses all over India, automobile exhibitions, book fairs, circuses, and fun-fairs. The land also provides space for local residents to learn and hone their car and bike driving skills. Occasionally, the land becomes home to migrant laborers and the nomadic Dhangar tribe with their sheep, camel, goats, and horses. Some trees on the land have threads tied around their barks, indicating that local residents may be worshipping the tree. Thus, a “good” commons results from these various uses that miraculously do not conflict with each other, but instead create a vibrant neighborhood.
Kakade ground in Wanowrie. Photo: Praneeta MudaliarWeekly farmer’s market. Photo: Praneeta MudaliarMigrant laborers in July 2021. Photo: Praneeta MudaliarA sacred Banyan tree keeps the water cool for humans in earthen pitchers and for animals in a water trough. Photo: Praneeta Mudaliar
With multiple people using the land as an open-access “good” commons, “bad” commons are close behind. The waste from the farmer’s market and street vendors accumulates on the land. Plastic bags, in which residents bring food for the nomadic and migrant communities, litter the land. A cow-shelter that pious residents constructed to house cows on the land generates a steady stream of waste. Housekeeping staff of the surrounding gated communities dump trash on the land. Burning the trash engulfs the neighborhood with noxious fumes. Passing men use the land as a urinal. Pigs, dogs, donkeys, camels, horses, crows, pigeons, and flies abound. Mosquitoes, in particular, pose a real threat of malaria and dengue. In the absence of a natural predator, pigeons are a growing menace with the city registering wheezing cases related to pigeon droppings. Thus, the very process of making the commons is also degrading the commons. In the absence of maintenance, commoning is endangering the well-being of residents and people using and accessing the land.
Good commons meets the bad commons. Benches to rest amidst the trash. Photo: Praneeta MudaliarPious residents feeding cows on the land. Photo: Praneeta MudaliarPigs amidst the trash. Photo: Praneeta Mudaliar
Such parcels of undeveloped land are common not just in Pune, but across India because these lands are usually entangled in a legal controversy. The Center for Policy Research, New Delhi estimates that 7.7 million people in India are affected by disputes over 2.5 million hectares of land, affecting investments worth $200 billion. 66% of all civil cases in India are related to land/property disputes and the average timespan of a land acquisition dispute, from the creation of the dispute to its resolution by the Supreme Court, is 20 years.
Like other undeveloped legally disputed parcels of land in India, the land opposite my home is similar. This dispute can be traced back to two land developers who earmarked the land in 1957 for a shopping mall, multiplex, restaurant, corporate park, and a hotel with exclusive apartment units. The dispute is complicated by the fact that the land was granted to the people to be held in trust and can only be sold with the District Collector’s permission. The departments of revenue and forest are also involved. These departments have passed a stay order against the sale of the land to the developers. In 2009, the Pune Cantonment court directed the police to inquire into the land dispute, which is still in progress.
When resources are legally disputed, who should have the responsibility for maintaining the “good” commons generated through commoning? Is it the police department that is conducting the inquiry? Is it the court or the departments of revenue and forest? Is it the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) that collects rent from the street vendors and hawkers but cites the dispute as a reason to not clean up the land? Is it the land developers who also collect rent from the vendors on the land? Is it the wealthy and middle-class residents of this plush neighborhood who are the main actors in the making of the commons?
Mumbai High court’s notice that the status quo of the land should be maintained. Photo: Praneeta Mudaliar
Sheila Foster argues that when governments are unable to provide essential services or are not able to oversee and manage resources, a situation called “regulatory slippage” arises. In such situations, the resource is vulnerable to degradation because of competing users and uses. When regulatory slippage occurs, a group of actors with high collective efficacy i.e., strong social ties and networks may fill the vacuum in governance. At Kakade ground, residents voice their concern at the trash and occasionally conduct cleanliness drives on the land, but these sporadic efforts do little to arrest land degradation. Thus, for Kakade ground, a 20-year-old practice of commoning to create a “good” commons may have built collective efficacy among residents, but the exercise of that collective efficacy for maintaining the commons is yet to be seen. Perhaps the land dispute[1] may be preventing them undertaking long-term action.
Practices that simultaneously produce good and bad commons on disputed spaces raise several questions for future inquiry:
What happens when the commoning of legally disputed spaces occurs without explicit or implicit intent to common that space?
What are the unforeseen, unpredictable, and undesirable consequences that emerge from the use and access to such disputed spaces?
What is the role of the state in such situations?
Would residents have maintained the commons if the space were not disputed?
On one hand, practices of good commoning produce bad commons. On the other hand, if the dispute were to be resolved, the land would likely be privatized, halting the practices of good commoning. Thus, with or without the resolution of the dispute, residents stand to lose the most. Therefore, what could be the form and nature of collective management for such legally disputed resources?
Despite critical advancements in the scholarship on common-pool resources, studies on rural commons dominate the field. While research on urban commoning is growing, scholars are yet to delve into the commoning of legally disputed resources. Where resources don’t neatly fall into categories of private, public, and commons, approaches to manage such kinds of resources are also missing. The undeveloped land in my neighborhood accommodates multiple uses, reflecting the diverse social goals of different groups of people. There is therefore a need to re-conceptualize and reimagine the institutional landscape of urban commons governance to recognize and accommodate diverse goals and practices that simultaneously produce good and bad commons.
A review of “A Local Neighborhood Traveler,” an exhibition of painting and drawing by Korean artist Se Hee Kim at the Boroomsan Museum of Art in Gimpo, South Korea.
On the outskirts of Seoul, tucked away into a traditional hillside garden is the Boroomsan Museum of Art. The museum sits on the edge of an enormous expanse of dry, dusty terrain. From the museum’s hillside vantage point, one can see dozens of trucks traversing the landscape in a two-file line, one in, one out. They carry away loads of soil. A few months later, a similar cadre of trucks will be pouring the foundations for what is to be another of South Korea’s ubiquitous “new town” developments.
Kim is thoroughly interested in co-discovering the relationships between people and their environments. She remains curious, not in the object of curiosity, but in the action of being curious.
Less than a year ago, this landscape was not they dusty, desolate, and Martian place it is today. It was an entire village, home to thousands of residents, small farms, schools, local shops, and marketplaces, and a small forested hill affectionately called Boroomsan (Full Moon Hill) by the villagers. It is after this hill that the museum was named.
The hill was bulldozed a few months ago, along with the rest of the village.
View from the front of Boroomsan Museum after the town’s demolition. Boroomsan hill, now excavated, would formerly have blocked most of the view in the left half of the image. Photo: Patrick M. Lydon, CC BY-SA
Looking at the landscape today, it’s almost unimaginable the swift pace and force with which the developer removed an entire town, hill, forest, and farms from the Earth. For most Korean people however, it’s just an everyday reality. The call to “modernize” the country has been going on for some decades now, and is still largely seen as a badge of pride by most elders.
Some members of the younger generation however—born from the 1980s onward, in the midst of a dynamic and active democracy—see things a bit differently. This, by way of lengthy introduction, is where we meet the work of South Korean artist, Se Hee Kim.
Inside the museum, we encounter Kim and her exhibition, A Local Neighborhood Traveler. At first glance the works, primarily small paintings and illustrations, are of ordinary scenes from life during her travels. Three distinct collections hang on the walls of the museum, comprising works created during stays in Japan and Taiwan, as well as Anyang, the town where her studio was located in Korea.
Three drawings in a series from Kim’s time in Taiwan. Images courtesy of the artist.
The most simple of these works are a series of pencil drawings; small scenes of individuals living and being within urban nature. Kim uses her graphite sparsely and suggestively. Figures are unmoored; people float in space together, sometimes comically, with the natural elements. The works convey comfort, curiosity, and playfulness. In these simple works, Kim seems thoroughly interested in co-discovering the relationships between people and their environments; she remains curious, not in the objects being contemplated, but in the action of being curious.
These small works are juxtaposed against a set of large-scale architectural panoramas, made while Kim was resident in Japan. The content of these larger works is broad, covering entire blocks of homes, complete with tiny urban gardens and their caretakers, parking lots, construction zones, and mailmen. These are quiet, contemplative moments, in urban nature. They take place in old, sometimes slightly crumbling towns, filled with character, with subtle diversity, with a feeling that these are spaces truly “lived” in the fullest and deepest meaning of the term.
Three cropped frames from a series on Kitakagaya, a small urban neighborhood in Japan. Images courtesy of the artist.
Kim’s form and color is whimsical to an extent, yet the making of these observations of place is not an unconcerned process. Even the smallest of works, sparse as they often are, feel as if an entire day could be wrapped up into one scene. You will not sense it in a busy onslaught of figures or activities, but instead in the attentiveness and intention that is conveyed in each work.
The work here at times brings with it a melancholic impression. Is it pure romanticism? Or, is there somewhere—wrapped up in Kim’s attentiveness to the slow, the old, the diverse-yet-grumose urban worlds we are fast destroying—a reminder of something missing in our own lives?
Whichever view you take, Kim’s illustrations do provide a stunning antithesis to what is happening just outside the museum—and in so many of our own backyards around the industrialized world.
The work on display here feels in search, not only of the nostalgic and simple, but of ways to build an authentic, creative, and meaningful culture and place within an economic atmosphere that is largely unsupportive of such notions.
In light of Korea’s ongoing pace and methods of development, one hopes that delicate and emotive works such as Kim’s might help us to re-appreciate the old, the diverse, the nature-connected urban landscapes; to trust our own curiosity, playfulness, and love for the places in which we live.
The urban heat island is a well-known phenomenon that affects all cities around the world. It is the difference in temperature between a city and the surrounding suburban area. In countries such as Greece, the peak summertime temperature difference between a city such as Athens and its periphery can be as much as 10 degrees Centigrade. The causes of this difference are multiple. In general, two of the main causes are the lack of natural green space in a city centre and the use of air conditioning for cooling.
Green roofs can cool a city such as Athens by a substantial amount—if we can install a sufficient number of them.
Natural green spaces that surround Greek cities lower the ambient temperature in those areas substantially. Over the last three decades, the use of air conditioning has grown and its implementation has accelerated. Air conditioning works by removing heat from inside a building and pumping it outside. This creates a vicious cycle. The air conditioning effectively heats the city while cooling the buildings internally. As the city gets hotter, more air conditioning is used to cool the buildings, making the city even hotter and increasing the requirement for cooling. Hotter cities mean more air conditioning, which means even hotter cities.
The Greek Treasury, Constitution Square, Athens. Photo: Andrew Clements
Studies conducted in Athens over the last thirty years have confirmed that the city is getting hotter over time and that air conditioning use is a major contributor to this heating. Other studies have shown that urban greening mitigates the urban heat island.
Cities in hot countries tend to have flat roofs and Athens is no exception. Currently, the rooftops typical of Athens, and of many other cities around the world, are a barren concrete wasteland of unused urban space. They represent a huge potential for greening.
A green roof is a perfect way to cool a building and also the surrounding space. A green roof cools a building in two ways. First of all, it shades the roof surface, protecting it from heat load and thereby reducing the temperature of the building. The second way a green roof cools a building is even more interesting in terms of city cooling. The plants on a green roof evapotranspire water through their leaves. This uses heat energy in the building. So the plants effectively remove heat from the building and, by extension, the city. Therefore, these two effects of green roofs lower both the temperature of the building and the temperature of the city. Consequently, less air conditioning is required and a “virtuous” cycle is established. Less air conditioning leads to less heat in the city, which, in turn, leads to a lowered requirement for air conditioning and on and on. How virtuous this cycle is depends on the amount of green roofs installed. The more green roofs the greater the cooling effect, the less air conditioning used and, consequently, the less heat produced and the more heat used.
Villas in Antiparos. Photo: Andrew Clements
If this is all true, and research suggests it is, one must ask: when we will start to green the roofs of cities on a massive scale?
A one square metre green roof plot. Photo: Andrew Clements
I am a believer in the power of the consumer. If we can get a critical mass of adopters, this could work. One idea would be for every resident of the city to fund and/or install one square metre of green roof on their building. Many of the apartment buildings in Athens have flat roofs of about 150 square metres and house 40 or more residents. So, under such a plan, each roof would have a total of 40 or more square metres of green roof. The total number of residents of Athens is five million. So that would be five million square metres of green space. This represents a green area bigger than the size of Central Park in New York (which is about 3.4 million square metres in area). This amount of cooling should lower the peak ambient temperature of the city to an extent that warrants much less use of air conditioning, yielding lower peak temperatures and less of a requirement for air conditioning; the aforementioned virtuous cycle kicks in. The point at which the virtuous cycle would start is not known empirically and is difficult to calculate because we are dealing with subjective human behaviour. A pilot study is required to prove the concept and, once proven, the concept would need effective communication to achieve a critical mass of adopters.
This is a simple way to cool a city appreciably. Once the model has been proven, it could be implemented worldwide. The one important consideration with this model is to not exchange the urban heat island problem for the bigger problem of water consumption. Appropriate green roofs should be installed and that means natural ecosystem green roofs which require much less irrigation, less other inputs, and less maintenance than inappropriate grass or sedum blanket roofs. Also, methods of winter rainwater harvesting for irrigation in the summer should be adopted.
Commercial building, southern Athens. Photo: Andrew ClementsResidential building, northern Athens. Photo: Andrew Clements
The opportunities that such a greening effort would provide are myriad, and include a wide range of business, employment, and recreational potentials not to mention the more important restoration of habitats for wildlife. In terms of business and employment opportunities, researchers of many varieties would be required to make the initiative a success, along with a list of green roof professionals, gardeners, installers, maintenance people, and so on. Communications and advertising professionals, as well as media people, would be required. Getting the public to support this idea is a matter of effective communication, in my opinion.
We could transform life in a city using this model with relatively little effort and with relatively little use of finite natural resources.
Fleischmann’s Glass Frog males use songs to attract females to copulate and reproduce. In urban areas, anthropogenic noise and light may affect reproductive success, so males sing differently—in duration, frequency, and pitch—to adapt to the situation.
Obstacles in nature are quite variable. Some are easy to observe: for example, a tree in the middle of an open area, a rock in the middle of a trail, or a lake in the forest. Others are not that easy to spot or identify as an obstacle. For example, wind currents, river noise, natural light, ambient temperature, or small gaps in the middle of the forest. Those obstacles may limit animal distribution and movement. Small insects like ants may move around the tree in the middle of an open area to pass from the nest to their feeding area. Tropical birds inside the forest will avoid moving through the forest gap or human trails. Wind currents, on the other hand, may limit the places flying insects can reach, because heavy wind currents push insects in opposite directions. Finally, ambient temperature limits the species distribution, due in part to the temperature tolerance that each species has.
Interestingly, in present days, animals not only need to deal with natural obstacles, but they also need to deal with artificial obstacles created by humans, many inside urban areas, but not limited to habitats like dams, roads, buildings, or windmills. Water dams are a huge obstacle for migratory fishes (e.g., salmon) to move along the riverbed. Highways and even small roads limit rodents, salamanders, and arthropods to move between both sides of the road. Natural or artificial obstacles not only limit animal distribution and movement between habitats, they also limit communication and as a consequence reproduction, territory defense, or social communication (e.g., food or danger advertisement).
Probably the communication most affected by natural and artificial obstacles is acoustic communication (animals’ songs and calls), because is a long-distance signal that attenuates and degrades when it hits different surfaces, travels throughout the wind currents, finds different temperature layers, or competes with other acoustic signals like other animal sounds or artificial sounds produced by humans (e.g., music, automobile motors, and factories). This will limit acoustic communication between individuals of the same species or between species. Therefore, many investigators around the world have invested the last 20 years in understanding the effect of anthropogenic noise and urban development on animals’ acoustic communication, including birds, mammals, insects, fishes, and amphibians. The amphibians (frogs and toads) are probably the less studied group in terms of the effect of anthropogenic noise on acoustic communication, especially inside tropical areas, because they are nocturnal, inhabit inside wet areas, and are not easy to spot.
Recently, biologists started to pay attention to another obstacle for acoustic communication, which at first sight does not look like an obstacle: night light pollution. How is night light pollution an obstacle to acoustic communication? Well, nocturnal animals like frogs, toads, crickets, or owls, avoid sites with a lot of lights at night to vocalize. Consequently, some places inside urban areas are losing populations of the night-singing species and the isolation makes the distance between individuals bigger, reducing reproduction chances. Additionally, animal species that vocalize during the day increase the vocalizing hours at night (they keep vocalizing during the night or vocalizing early in the mornings). This increases the number of sounds that occur at night and competes with the vocalizations of nocturnal species to reach potential receivers. For these reasons, night light pollution has been an obstacle to acoustic communication in nocturnal animals.
With all previous information in mind, we want to know what happens with the singing behavior and song characteristics of small frogs in urban tropical areas, when they deal with anthropogenic noise (mainly motors from cars) and night light pollution together. Do they move far from the noise and light-polluted areas? Do they stop vocalizing when the noise is higher? Is noise not important but they sing less in sites with higher night light pollution?
Night light pollution on the Fleischmann’s Glass Frog (Hyalinobatrachium fleischmanni) habitat in rural area. (Photo: Luis Sandoval)
So, this set of questions is what we investigated in recent years using the Fleischmann’s Glass Frog (Hyalinobatrachium fleischmanni) males that inhabit urban and rural areas in the Costa Rican Central Valley, the most populated and urbanized area in the country. This glass frog inhabits creeks inside urban areas, next to bridges and roads with higher levels of anthropogenic noise and night light pollution. Fleischmann’s Glass Frog males use songs to attract females to copulate and reproduce. Therefore, if light and noise affect their singing behavior, the populations that inhabit urban areas are going to have serious trouble surviving and keeping stable populations in the future.
Fleischmann’s Glass Frog (Hyalinobatrachium fleischmanni) male singing on top a leaf next to a rural road (Photo: Luis Sandoval)
The small Fleischmann’s Glass Frog males have two strategies to increase their probability of attracting a female with their songs inside urban noisier sites. First, males sing longer songs and wait more time between songs on urban sites, compared to males who live in rural areas with less noise. Second, males sing songs with higher frequencies in urban sites. Increase the song duration also increases the probability that part of the song reaches the potential female because higher noise levels are not constant over time. To wait more time before singing the next song is similar to being next to a busy avenue talking with someone else, and the talker stops to talk when a noisier car or motorcycle passes by, increasing the time between words, but allowing communication. Finally, the frequency increase is a very common response in animals (including humans) when there is a lot of noise and they need to vocalize to communicate. For example, when we are at a party with a lot of people and music, we need to increase our voice volume a little bit to be hearing for the others, the increase in voice volume also increases the frequency of our regular voice. This increase in voice frequencies is similar to the song frequency increase displayed by urban male frogs to communicate in noisier sites.
Visual representation of Fleischmann’s Glass Frog (Hyalinobatrachium fleischmanni) male song (Gutierrez-Vannucchi unpub. data)
We also found that anthropogenic noise has an effect not only on song structure but also on the singing activity patterns of the Fleishmann’s Glass Frog. The males of this frog (and possibly other species too) can respond differently to different sources of noise, at different times of the night, which can also be related to mating status, female availability, and energy levels in males. Because, late at night, independent of noise levels, males sing a lot, probably because it is the last chance they have to attract a female to reproduce that night.
Variation in the abundance of Fleischmann’s Glass Frog (Hyalinobatrachium fleischmanni) male songs per hour at night (Gutierrez-Vannucchi unpub. data)
On the other hand, night light pollution apparently is not affecting the singing behavior of Fleischmann’s Glass Frog males. Mmales in very illuminated sites started and finished singing at the same time that males did in darker sites. Frog males also sing with a similar quantity of songs per hour during all night in illuminated and darker sites.
In conclusion and to answer our title question, Fleishmann’s Glass Frog males did not want anthropogenic noise when they sing, but artificial light apparently did not affect their singing behavior.
There is still a lot that is not known about the effects of anthropogenic pollutants on the survival, reproduction, and communication of small nocturnal animals like amphibians, crickets, spiders, or rodents, especially in areas that are much less studied like the tropics. Also, anthropogenic pollutants can interact between them and produce combined effects on animals. Therefore, studying them together becomes important to better understand the overall effect humans and urbanization have on wildlife inside and outside the cities.
Luis Sandoval is a researcher and professor at Escuela de Biología, Universidad de Costa Rica. His research focuses on urban ecology, animal communication, and behavior and natural history of birds.
Story notes: A conversation about civic ecology between Lance Gunderson, a landscape ecologist from Emory University in Atlanta; Caroline Lewis, of Climate Leadership Engagement Opportunities, or CLEO, in Miami; and Arjen Wals, a professor of social learning and sustainable development at Wageningen University, The Netherlands.
Climate change and other stresses on cities represent great challenges to societies. Some of these challenges are systematic and somehow “knowable”—that is, we know generally what to expect, even if we aren’t sure how to respond. Other threats and stresses are unexpected, even random in the appearance. Things happen that put pressure on our systems, organizations, and communities that we didn’t expect, and didn’t necessarily plan for—freak storms, or economic stress, or the loss of a charismatic leader. Our ability to respond to the unexpected is one aspect to the idea of resilience. Are our communities flexible or brittle in the face of shocks?
This episode of This Is The Nature of Cities discusses these issues and role Civic Ecology plays is maintaining resilient and vibrant communities. What is civic ecology? Think community gardens, or faith groups working in sustainability, river restoration organizations, or friends of parks groups. Such organizations form key and critical elements to the functioning of resilient communities, not just in their direct action, but in their contribution to social cohesion.
“We need to have a beautiful place so we can live in dignity as human beings—that’s what we need the most: a place where we can go and speak to our ‘Older Brother’; to our brothers and sisters, the trees; to nature; a place where we can rest.”
In pondering the question: “Who should have access to the countless benefits and services that urban ecosystems provide?” We have put together a collection of eight first-person accounts that portray city dwellers’ dreams.
Luisa. Photo: Johanna Gonzalez
This series of Sketches of life explores both individual and collective human experiences as participants narrate their lives and reveal their innermost thoughts. These acts of remembrance provide a key to human identity and give meaning and substance to daily life (Cifuentes A., 2016).[1]
“I am Hernan Garcia, from the Barrancas-Quebrada el Cedro neighborhood located in Bogotá’s eastern foothills. I envision a movement that would revolve around the entire watershed basin … a territory that would take in both the brook and its basin … I dream about all of us forming a harmonious bond, one based on mutual interests and symbiosis with all the communities that live in the foothills, as well as with those located in the mid and lower basins which the Cedro brook flows through; I believe this is possible because part of this basin is located where the brook empties into the Torca stream, and further downstream into the Bogota River. So, I dream about this territory being held together by water: by crystal-clear water, by marvelous biodiversity. I also think that eco-tourism could contribute to the development of these communities.”
“My name is Neiphy. I’m 26 years old and I live in the Usme neighborhood in the southeastern part of Bogotá. The Tunjuelo River runs through it. I have heard that this river comes from a high mountain meadow. Being close to a river means that we live in a special place, but my kids don’t go out very much to explore the river and its surroundings because this a dangerous neighborhood. The only place for them to play outside is on a hilly area inside the housing project where only a few trees are growing.”
“My name is Jorge Enrique.I was born in 1953. I grew up in the country, but I had to leave during a period of political violence. I came to Bogotá with my family. I dream about Bogotá’s northern border being turned into a giant forest that would unite the eastern mountain range with the plateau below so that all the falling water could flow through it. This would make the eastern mountain range happy because it would be brought closer to the Majuy hills located west of the city. Right now, these two mountain formations can’t be together, but they are winking at each other and playing hide-and-seek, because they know that someday the giant forest will make their rendezvous possible.”
“My name is Enilfa. I live in a neighborhood in the southern part of the city, where I really don’t feel at home. Most of the houses are only half-built, and the streets are filled with dust that comes from the nearby open-air quarries. Progress means that some of the streets have been paved. The truth is that most of the people who live here don’t want to see any trees planted because they would only give the criminals with knives in their hands a place to hide behind. If the city wants to build us a park, we just want playground equipment and benches in it.”
Moses. Photo: Lina Prieto
“My name is Moses, but some people can’t pronounce it right and they call me ‘Moset’. I was born on April 4, 1928, and because of the political violence in the country I was forced to move to the northern part of Bogotá with my family. I remember that at that time everything was very pretty; we hunted capybaras, armadillos and wild turkeys. Every year we used to have barbecues with the corn we raised in our garden; it wasn’t just about agriculture, but about the ritual of being together. I have dreams that I try to thread together: I dream about a neighborhood where the young people and everybody else knows where they come from so they can work together within their own culture. I visualize a territory made up of waterways that starts where the water springs from the soil. I dream about us building a harmonious, mutually-dependent and reciprocal relationship with the communities in the mountains and with those who live along the banks of the Cedar Brook which pours into the Torca Brook and then into the Bogotá River.”
“My name is Ligia Hernan. Take for example the Bogotá River … you travel to other places and you find cities that have big rivers running through them. Why isn’t the Bogotá River the city’s most important feature? Instead, here you have the impression that the river is “just over there”, that it’s better to not even look at it, that it’s something of an eyesore, that it doesn’t even move … you should be able to walk along the river and come upon birds and fish. It’s something we’ve lost without even realizing it … it’s sad, isn’t it? So, what happened? People still strongly believe that they can only be living well if they have pavement beneath their feet.”
Granmother Blancanieves. Photo: Daniela Robayo
“I am the grandmother, Ichakaka Blanca. My words carry the most weight in the Council of Women here in Suba, located in the northwestern part of Bogotá. I belong to the indigenous nation of the Muiscas whose territory is called Bacatá (Bogotá). I have always lived in my territory. I am a daughter of Mother Lagoon because I was born in Aguascalientes in the region of Mother Lagoon, and it is where I still live. We lived here with my grandmother, Amalia, who was the doctor. She used traditional medicine from our territory to treat people. She applied the remedies herself. She also wove baskets and gathered all kinds of vegetables and medicinal plants to take to the October 12th Market Place where she bartered with them. It was a cultural exchange: she gave what she had brought for salt and cane sugar in return. Those are the things she would bring back home.”
“I dream about seeing our Pusmuyes (houses) being built. As the first nation and inhabitants of this sacred Muisca territory, we need to have our territory given back to us. We need to have sacred places where we can plant our crops; what I see every day in the city are just more and more playing fields for sports being built. We need to have a beautiful place so we can live in dignity as human beings—that’s what we need the most: a place where we can go and speak to our ‘Older Brother’; to our brothers and sisters, the trees; to nature; a place where we can rest.”
Photo: Andrés AngelMister Poveda-Romero with Sandra Valencia. Photo: Sketches of Life Team
“My name is Edgar Armando Poveda-Romero. I’m not a native son to these parts [I was not born in Bogotá]. We came here as outsiders 50 years ago. I was born in a gunny-sack where they planted potatoes, 59 years ago, on November 23, 1957. We had milk, farmer’s cheese and eggs, which meant that the country people really didn’t need any money for groceries because we raised our own food with our own hands. As a community, we all belonged to the same family; we lived in harmony. If you were at your neighbor’s house at noon, you all shared lunch from the same pot, followed by a cup of hot chocolate. It was a big family-style meal. What they call Bear Mountain here represents love for this place, for life, for the will to live. In the future, I would like to see everybody interested in this place because they really care about it from the bottom of their hearts, not because they have to be thinking about the environment.”
Sketches of Life Team: Daniela Robayo, Lina Prieto, Sandra Valencia, Laura García, Benoit de Santignon, Paula Faure, Johanna Gonzalez
The Sketches of Life Initiative includes real life-stories as told by inhabitants from different corners of Bogota. This Initiative, carried out by Bogotá Mountain Foundation volunteers, including Sandra Valencia, Johanna Gonzalez, Lina Prieto, Paula Faure, Daniela Robayo, Catalina Garcia, Benoit de Santignon, and Maria Alejandra Peña who recorded the observations which reveal that ecological services in a given place must be concerned with more than just the issue of nature itself: it must be remembered that these services are also loaded with meanings and memories that represent the soul of the community. Therefore, plans based solely on quantitative distribution and indicators are insufficient: the soulfulness of the area’s inhabitants must also be taken into account. In Bogotá, we have a long way to go in fulfilling this moral obligation: an obligation, which demands that nature and the landscape, make up part of a more equitable city. [2]
[1] Cifuentes, Andrés. 2016. Saberes de vida para dar vida historias de vida de comunicadores populares, Editor: Corporación Escuela de Artes y Letras. Bogotá, Colombia
¿A donde puedo soñar? Ocho relatos de vida en Bogotá
Mediante unos relatos reales pongo a consideración la reflexión planteada respecto a la pregunta sobre ¿Quién debería tener acceso a los innumerables beneficios de los servicios de los ecosistemas y la naturaleza urbana? y la coincidencia con ocho historias y ocho sueños ciudadanos.
“Nosotros necesitamos tener un espacio lindo, digno, como seres humanos para vivir, eso es lo que más necesitamos, ese espacio donde nosotros podamos ir a hablar con nuestro hermano mayor, con nuestros hermanos árboles, hablar con la naturaleza, poder descansar”.
Doña Luisa, Paramo de Guerrero. Foto: Johanna Gonzalez
Historias de vida indaga de las experiencias humanas individuales y colectivas, tomando la interioridad del personaje para darle voz a través de su narrativa de vida; permite construir una visión de la sociedad en conjunto, además de acercarnos a la memoria, elemento clave para la identidad humana, la cual da sentido y contenido a la vida (Cifuentes A, 2016)[1].
Me llamo Hernán García Cerros Orientales, Barrio Barrancas-Quebrada el Cedro. “me imagino una dinámica de cuenca, el territorio entendido desde el agua y la cuenca, es importante entender desde donde nace el agua y donde desemboca, entonces yo sueño con que nosotros establezcamos un vínculo armónico, mutualista y simbiótico con las comunidades de los cerros, y de las comunidades de la cuenca media y baja de la quebrada el Cedro, porque parte de esta cuenca desemboca al Torca y luego al río Bogotá, entonces sueño este territorio conectado a través del agua y con agua impecable y una biodiversidad maravillosa y creo que desde el turismo responsable puede haber ese desarrollo en las comunidades.”
Soy Neiphy, tengo 26 y vivo en un barrio al suroriente de Bogotá, llamado Usme. Es un lugar que lo recorre el rio Tunjuelo que desciende de un paramo de donde me cuentan viene el agua de la ciudad. “A pesar de parecer un lugar único, mis hijos solo cuando se arriesgan con temor de la inseguridad llegan a ver el rio. El único juego que encuentran es un rodadero en la mitad de lo que dejo la urbanización casi sin árboles”.
Mi nombre es Jorge Enrique, “nací 1953, soy de origen campesino, en medio de la violencia política, nos desplazamos a vivir en Bogotá. El borde Norte de la ciudad lo sueño como un gran bosque que posibilite un encuentro entre la montaña, la planicie y que las aguas discurran, fluyan como transmitiendo ese deseo que de pronto tienen los cerros de oriente se acerquen con los cerros del Majuy en el occidente, y con un guiño se hacen esquivos y entre ellos saben, que por ahora no van a estar juntos pero, que de pronto pueden tener la posibilidad de encontrarse en un gran bosque”.
Me llamo Enilfa, vivo en un barrio de la zona sur en el que no puedo ubicarme bien, predominan casas en proceso de construcción, calles cuyo cielo se llena de polvo que viene de las montañas excavadas por las canteras que aún funcionan o que dejaron abiertas. El desarrollo trajo la pavimentación de algunas vías, y la verdad la gente que vive acá no quiere que siembren árboles, pues pueden ser lugares de inseguridad, donde se esconden los cuchillos para robar. Preferimos que si nos hacen un parque solo tenga juegos y bancas.
Moses. Photo: Lina Prieto
Me llamo Moisés, “a veces se traban y me dicen MONSIETE, nací El 4 de abril de 1928, llegamos por la violencia desplazados a Bogotá por la zona norte. Me acuerdo que todo eso era muy bonito, había algo que cazar como Borujos, Armadillos, Pavas . Todos los años hacíamos asados con las mazorcas de la huerta; no solo ha sido un tema de agricultura, sino también un rito de compartir. Yo tengo sueños que he tratado de ir enlazando, sueño un barrio donde los jóvenes y todas las personas reconozcan el valor de su origen y se trabaje a partir de una cultura propia. Imagino un territorio entendido desde el agua y la cuenca desde donde nace el agua. Sueño con que nosotros establezcamos un vínculo armónico, mutualista y simbiótico con las comunidades de los cerros, y de las comunidades de la cuenca media y baja de la quebrada el Cedro, porque parte de esta cuenca desemboca al Torca y luego al río Bogotá”.
Ligia Hernán “por ejemplo el río Bogotá… uno va a otras parte y uno ve que dentro de las ciudades pasan ríos grandes, ¿por qué aquí el rio Bogotá no puede sentirse dueña de la ciudad? El rio esta como por allá, como que mejor no lo miro, esa destrucción que uno ve ahí , como que no se mueve nada, uno esperaría ver al lado del rio pajaritos, peces. Y eso es como una perdida que uno no fue consciente de que se dio, es como triste ¿no?, qué sucedió… se sigue pensando que lo que es bueno es que la gente vive bien porque tiene el piso pavimentado. ”
Abuela Ichakaka Blanca. Foto: Daniela Robayo.
Soy la abuela Ichakaka Blanca. “Soy la palabra mayor aquí en el consejo de mujeres de Suba, al noroeste de Bogotá, soy la abuela Muisca del territorio acá de Bacatá. Siempre he vivido aquí en mi territorio. Soy hija de Madre Laguna, pues nací en la Laguna Sagrada de Aguascalientes y aquí estoy. Nosotras vivíamos acá también con mi abuela Amalia, que era como la médica tradicional de territorio Y era la que daba la medicina, también era tejedora de esteras y también ella recolectaba mucho, todo lo que era la verdura y todas las plantas medicinales pa’ llevarlas a la plaza del 12 de octubre, para hacer el trueque, el intercambio cultural de todo esto; lo que no había acá, más que todo era la sal y la panela, así que era lo que ella traía de allá.
Me sueño una construcción de nuestros Pusmuyes (casas), y como primeros nativos y vivientes de este territorio sagrado Muisca necesitamos nuevamente nuestro territorio. Necesitamos tener espacios sagrados donde sembrar, pues cada día amanecen en la ciudad mas canchas deportivas. Nosotros necesitamos tener un espacio lindo, digno, como seres humanos para vivir, eso es lo que más necesitamos, ese espacio donde nosotros podamos ir a hablar con nuestro hermano mayor, con nuestros hermanos árboles, hablar con la naturaleza, poder descansar”.
Foto: Andrés AngelDon Poveda con Sandra Valencia Foto: Equipo Historias de vida
Mi nombre es Edgar Armando Poveda Romero, “no soy rasal de aquí de la región, nosotros lléganos aquí como forasteros hace 50 años, nací en unos costales en un campamento donde se cultivaba la papa, hace 59 años, el 23 de noviembre de 1957. Había leche, cuajadas, huevos, es decir, el campesino prácticamente no necesitaba tanta plata para completar la canasta familiar, porque la mayoría de producción alimentaria se generaba aquí, del trabajo de los campesinos y en el tema social, todos éramos una sola armonía, una sola familia, llegaba al medio día a la casa del vecino, así estuviera almorzando y siga para la olla del fogón, y le compartían, tómese un tinto un cacao, y se participaba de lo que estaban compartiendo en familia… La montaña del oso representa una convicción por el amor del lugar, a mi vida, las ganas de vivir, y a futuro me gustaría ver un conglomerado de personas que a conciencia valoren este lugar, no por necesidad del tema ambiental, sino por convicción”.
Algunos miembros del Equipo Historias de Vida: Daniela Robayo, Lina Prieto, Sandra Valencia, Laura García, Benoit de Santignon, Paula Faure y Johanna Gonzalez
En la iniciativa llamada Historias de Vida, narraciones reales de habitantes de distintos rincones de Bogotá la Fundación Cerros de Bogotá (www.cerrosdebogota.org), grupo de voluntarios ciudadanos, liderada por Sandra Valencia; Johanna González, Lina Prieto, Paula Faure, Alejandra Peña recogen los relatos que dan cuenta de que los servicios de la naturaleza van mas allá y están cargados de significado y memorias que representen un lugar del alma de esa comunidad. Por lo tanto, hay que ir mas allá de pensar en distribución e indicadores cuantitativos, hacia indicadores desde el alma de sus habitantes. En Bogotá, estamos lejos de cumplir ese imperativo moral para que la naturaleza y el paisaje participen en la noción de ciudades justas.
[1] Cifuentes, Andrés. 2016. Saberes de vida para dar vida historias de vida de comunicadores populares, Editor: Corporación Escuela de Artes y Letras. Bogotá, Colombia
A review of Hidden Waters of New York City: A History and Guide to 101 Forgotten Lakes, Ponds, Creeks, and Streams in the Five Boroughs. By Sergey Kadinsky. Countryman Press, Woodstock, VT. ISBN: 9781581573558. 336 pages. Buy the book.
There is something about a stream that just won’t let go of the imagination. People somehow accept other aspects of the environmental destruction required to make cities. Most folks don’t recall the legions of forests and acres of meadows that have been bulldozed for townhouses or that the soil must be encased in asphalt to make it easier for cars and bikes. Urbanites might find it sad, but understandable, that trillions of former wildlife inhabitants—birds, bees, bears, beetles, bobcats—have been swept from the cityscape to make room for people and our pet animals instead. But everyone wants to know, once they start to think about it: what happened to the streams?
A remarkable number of streams and stream fragments still exist in New York City, and Kadinsky tries to find every one of them.
Sergey Kadinsky’s new book provides 101 answers to that question for the five boroughs of New York City. For the 8.6 million citizens and the 50 million visitors to the city each year, Kadinsky’s book is your best guide to the lost and underappreciated hydrological features of New York City—not only streams, but also ponds, lakes, creeks, and the occasional spring. His is the modern incarnation of the same spirit that drove James Reuel Smith, a former merchant in lower Manhattan, to buy a bicycle and an early camera, and ride around snapping pictures and penning nostalgic accounts, which resulted in Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx from 1916 (later republished by the New-York Historical Society in 1938). Kadinsky trades Smith’s bicycle for the subway and buses, but their impetus is the same.
Smith and Kadinsky are not alone in being drawn to running water. Paul Talling’s Lost Rivers of London, Joel Pomerantz’s Kickstarter-funded maps of the streams and springs of San Francisco, Mary Miss’s artful explication of the White River in Indianapolis, Jessica Hall’s creek freak investigations in Los Angeles, Steve Duncan’s fearless expeditions into the sewers, Robin Grossinger and Erin Beller’s detailed studies of the streams of Silicon Valley (formerly “The Valley of Heart’s Delight”) and our own work on the Welikia Project in New York, testify to the same obsession. Maybe e.e. cummings said it best, writing in his Greenwich Village apartment not far from the former shores of Minetta Water in Manhattan: “For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), / It’s always ourselves we find in the sea.”
A remarkable number of streams and stream fragments still exist in New York City, and Kadinsky tries to find every one of them. His book is divided by borough, with convenient finding aids on the page edges. Place names are written in bold text to catch the eye, and numerous figures of historic maps and images (unfortunately all in gray scale and rather small) provide context. After giving a brief historical walking tour of each stream or pond, their descriptions end with directions, places to see, and recommendations to learn more. At the end of the volume, Kadinsky includes a bibliography organized by borough and waterway, including valuable references to long-lost newspaper accounts and historical volumes.
Kadinsky’s descriptions of waters invoke the flow of time. Gabler’s Creek in Douglaston, for example, reminds us not only of the fight to preserve the narrow ravine of Udall’s Cove Park Preserve in the 1970s, but also the construction of Overbrook Street in the 1930s, and the Battle of Madnan’s Neck in the 1650s, which drove the last Native Americans from their homely abodes along Great Neck Bay. In the Bronx, Rattlesnake Brook still rambles down through Seton Falls Park, over an eighteenth century diversionary waterfall, and through a nineteenth century ice pond, once used for winter skating and summer cooling, before slipping into an underground pipe, to emerge down by Co-op City and slip silently, and mostly unnoticed, into Long Island Sound.
Perusing Hidden Waters is fun for both the armchair historian and the modern urban eco-adventurer. Without sermonizing, there is a distinct historical rhythm to these accounts. Most begin with a colonial description of a typically beautiful, formerly long-lasting, watery feature of the environment, many of which formed during the last Ice Age—that has been co-opted for industrial purposes. Nineteenth century New Yorkers largely regarded waterways as places to get power, launch vessels, and/or dispose of sewage and garbage. Once these ponds, streams, and other waters were fouled, the city government and private actors, on the hunt for more land to develop, filled and paved them, a process that played itself out in fits and starts from the late 19th century through most of the 20th century. The natural waters we have left now are largely the result of neglect—so little time, so many streams to fill—until the environmental movement of the late 20th century finally created the legal and regulatory tools to stop their destruction.
And now it’s the 21st century’s turn to do something for the wet nature of the city. Kadinsky’s day job is with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, which has its own natural resources group, and is engaged in a large number of stream, pond, and wetland restoration projects across the five boroughs. The city even has a wetlands strategy. Contemporary New Yorkers are perhaps more willing than our peers in the past to see nature as part of the infrastructure of the city. Climate change is part of that: green, wet places help cool the city and, at the shore’s edge, may contribute to blunting the adverse effects of wave energy and storm surge. Returning precipitation and snowmelt to the ground also has an effect on water quality. The city has only so much room for water treatment plants and infrastructure; the soil is an efficient sop that keeps water out of the treatment system; and water in the ground will help fill ponds and make streams perennial again. For a city that drinks more than a billion gallons per day, returning a modicum to nature seems like the least that we can do.
One of us (Sanderson) remembers giving a historical walking tour and stopping at the intersection of Maiden Lane and Pearl Street in downtown Manhattan, only a few blocks from Wall Street, in the shadows of skyscrapers, to describe the stream that once flowed there. Maiden Lane got its name from the Dutch washing women who used to leave the palisades of New Amsterdam to do their laundry along the “Maagde Paetje” or Virgin’s Path. In the old sources, the stream is invariably described as sparkling over a bottom of smooth pebbles. As I was describing this on a dank, unpebbled street corner at the height of rush hour, one of the guests on the tour abruptly interrupted, and asked, in a rather loud voice: “where has the stream gone now?” I pointed to the manhole cover in the middle of the street and the storm drain at her feet. For most of the city, gutters are our streams, and the water isn’t hidden when it rains; rather, it pours out in fast, furious floods and swirls down into dark places not to be seen again. I told the ensemble about all the ways that we can bring streams back, by daylighting them, revegetating them, or, at the very least, in our mind’s eye, re-imagining them. The woman looked less than convinced. But at least someone wanted to know and was ready to shout into the cacophony: what happened to the streams?
Eric W. Sanderson and Christopher Spagnoli
New York City
Christopher Spagnoli Program Assistant at Wildlife Conservation Society's Conservation Innovation program. Since 2014 he has worked on the development of the Welikia Project and Visionmaker.nyc.
A review ofThe Lost Rivers of London, by Nicholas Barton and Stephen Myers, 2016. ISBN:1905286511. Historical Publications Ltd . 224 pages. Buy The Lost Rivers of London. …andLondon’s Lost Rivers, by Paul Talling. ISBN: 184794597X. Random House UK. 192 pages.Buy London’s Lost Rivers.
How many travellers are aware that there is a river flowing over their heads? It’s one of the wonders of London. But abuse of the rivers was one of the greatest failures in London’s evolution as a great metropolis.
The Lost Rivers of London by Nicholas Barton and Stephen Myers, was published in 2016 by Historical Publications. Originally published in 1962 by Nicholas Barton, this is a substantially revised and extended edition of this classic work. Alongside this there is a photographic exploration of London’s Lost Rivers, 2011 by Paul Talling, Random House. They are very different works, the first being a scholarly and comprehensive description of the lost rivers and their history, with numerous detailed maps charting their course. The second provides a more popular illustrated journey through the lost rivers and associated waterways.
Beautifully written with a wealth of detail, The Lost Rivers of London, by Barton and Myers, provides an invaluable historical perspective on the fate of many small rivers that still flow beneath the streets of London. The course of each river has been identified from historical records, paintings, photographs and maps, including one of the earliest maps of London dated 1559.
But the book is far more than a history of the rivers. It tells the story of London through the treatment of its rivers; how development and expansion of the city depended on availability of fresh water; how the rivers were modified and canalised to provide water for many different purposes including defence, navigation, agriculture, fishing, mill-power and industry.
The book paints a picture of great changes overwhelming the rural landscape as London became an industrial metropolis. Clear bubbling streams and rivers, with numerous wells serving local communities, were replaced by urban squalor. As the city grew the rivers were progressively covered over and converted to subterranean conduits, lost from view. Out of view, out of mind. With the impact of industrialisation and rapid population growth the rivers became sewers. What had been some of London’s greatest assets were allowed to become so polluted that they became a major hazard to public health. Abuse of the rivers was one of the greatest failures in London’s evolution as a great metropolis.
The Westbourne near Knightsbridge, as portrayed by G.F. Phillips in c. 1825 not long before the river was culverted. Illustrated on page 81 of Barton and Myers, this is one of many historical pictures that bring the book to life.
Creation of the great Victorian sewer system for London by Joseph Bazalgette in the 1860s was seen as a great success and his system of building sewers along the contours to intercept the natural drainage pattern was copied across the world. But most of the lost rivers of London are still there today. The book brings us right up to date with a discussion of problems associated with increased frequency of severe rainfall events, almost certainly due to climate change, when localized severe flooding overwhelms the so called “combined-sewers”, resulting in discharge of raw sewage into the River Thames. We learn that a massive new sewer, the Thames Tideway Tunnel, is currently being constructed to cope with these new conditions. It will be 25 km long running mostly under the tidal section of the River Thames through central London. The tunnel has a diameter of 7.2m, and is designed to provide capture, storage and conveyance of almost all the combined raw sewage and rainwater discharges that currently overflow into the river.
The Lost Rivers of London looks ahead and sees prospects for bringing back some of the hidden rivers. This has already been achieved for sections of small tributaries south of the Thames. Barton and Myers argue that it would be possible to do the same, even in the centre of London. The key to success of such a scheme is the fact that several of the lost rivers were naturally fed from unpolluted springs and streams on Hampstead Heath. At present this water is diverted straight into the local sewage system; a complete waste of a valuable asset. The authors suggest that this water could be channeled by gravity through a new pipeline into central London where it would certainly be possible to recreate short clean stretches on the courses of the Fleet, Tyburn, Westbourne and Walbrook in the very heart of the city. Now there’s a vision; the Fleet flowing again through the capital as a sparkling stream! This book is a must for anyone dealing with urban planning and design, not only in post-industrial cities, the lessons are just as valid in new cities today.
Inside the Fleet Sewer. Photo: Paul Talling
London’s Lost Rivers, by Paul Talling, is a more lighthearted take on the subject, choosing many of the oddities that are the legacy of the lost rivers. Examples include the sewage lamp nicknamed Iron Lily on Carting Lane in the West End, which was designed to burn off sewage smells from below, and the “stink pipe” performing a similar function at Stamford Brook. Other memorable features are the remains of numerous wells that once dotted the banks of the Fleet River and now grace street corners in Hampstead and Camden. It is a photojournalist’s book that provides a quick guide to London’s waterways that have disappeared, including docks, wharfs, canals and other man-made features that have little to do with lost rivers. But the sections dealing with the rivers provide an interesting perspective on the story, with magnificent photos such as the vast brick lined chambers of the Fleet Sewer built 160 years ago. The photo on page 41 says it all.
The River Westbourne in its iron pipe crosses Sloane Square underground station over the heads of commuters on the tube trains. Photo: Paul Talling
Paul Talling suggests that perhaps the most surprising thing about the hidden waterways is not that they have virtually disappeared into obscurity, but that there are so many of them. He points out that London is riddled with watery relics and clues to the past. There is abundant evidence if you know what you are looking for. His book provides an inspirational resource for schools, local historians, artists, poets, and even tourist guides. It’s a good size too; something that fits in the pocket whilst you explore the city.
Both books have a photo of the River Westbourne in its iron tube where it crosses the platforms above the underground line at Sloane Square station. How many travellers, I wonder, are aware that they have a river flowing over their heads? For me it’s one of the wonders of London.
“Lakshmamma thought sadly of her grandchildren, growing up in the city, in a crowded slum with no thope to run around in or trees to climb.”
This excerpt, from our bilingual book “Where have all our gunda thopes gone?”, is a story of loss and hope—loss of nature as a city expands and hope that our readers will be encouraged to protect nature in their neighbourhoods.
Though the characters are fictional, the setting and experiences are based on conversations we have had with residents living in a village in peri-urban Bengaluru—and one of the sites of our research on commons.
Gunda thopes (or wooded groves) are an important common once found across the state of Karnataka in Southern India. Historically, thopes have been an integral part of the rural landscape, planted with fruit and timber yielding trees, and cared for by the local community. But, in recent times, there have been transformations to these thopes especially in the peri-urban interface of cities such as Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka. Our story is about one such thope that transformed from a grove of towering mango (Mangifera indica) and jamun (Szyzygium cumini) into a landscaped park with lawns and ornamental plants.
The original gunda thope on which the story is based.. Photo: Seema MundoliThe thope after it was transformed into a landscaped park. Photo: Raghavendra Vanjari
We have brought out this booklet at a time when rapid urbanisation with its challenges of sustainability and equity is being witnessed in the Global South.
Our story follows Lakshmamma, who lives in Bengaluru, and who has returned on a visit to her natal village after many years. Lakshmamma is amazed at how much had changed—the village situated now in the peri urban interface of Bengaluru, looked more like a city to her. On her last evening in the village, she retraces her steps past commons, like the pond and lake, making her way to a gunda thope she visited often as a child.
The village pond with stone steps leading down to the water. Illustration: Sukanya Basu
Lakshmamma is shocked at what she sees. Instead of a thick grove with trees, what she sees is a landscaped park—similar to the parks in the city she lived in now. A large fence, a signboard with “do’s and don’ts”, exercise machines, a playground, and perfectly trimmed trees greet Lakshmamma.
The signboards with “do’s and don’t’s” in the park, once a thope: A common sight in many urban parks. Illustration: Sukanya Basu
Walking through the park, Lakshmamma is filled with bitter-sweet memories. She then spots a majestic peepul (Ficus religiosa) tree—she had fondly named Maranna (tree brother) as a child. The rest of the booklet is a conversation between Lakshmamma and Maranna about the changes to the thope.
Maranna the majestic peepul tree. Illustration: Neeharika Verma
The conversation weaves through Lakshmamma’s childhood, the many happy hours she had spent in the thope—playing with friends, eating mangoes, grazing her goats. But it soon turns sad as Maranna tells her about how the thopes and their uses had changed over time—and the slow erasure of thopes from even the community’s memory. Lakshmamma mourns the loss of the commons, thinking sadly of her grandchildren living in the city who will never experience the abundance of gunda thopes that Lakshmamma did as a child.
Lakshmamma in conversation with Maranna. Illustration: Neeharika Verma
The story of this story
Though the characters are fictional, the setting and experiences are based on conversations we have had with residents living in a village in peri-urban Bengaluru—and one of the sites of our research on commons. The thope has indeed been transformed as described in the story. But is not an exception. Other urban and peri-urban commons such as lakes, ponds, cemeteries, and grazing lands have witnessed a similar fate. Some commons have been converted to schools, roads, bus stops, community centers, housing, and so on. As a result, the ecological benefits that these green and blue spaces provided have been lost forever. Others, like the thope in the book, have been converted to parks and spaces of leisure. Stripped of their native vegetation, we now have perfectly manicured lawns, fenced walls, and several rules and regulations that prioritise recreational use of the urban elite and middle class. Meanwhile, the conversion, enclosure, and gentrification of what were once commons have all marginalised traditional users and the local community who had livelihood, social, and cultural connections extending across generations.
Our research on the transformation of and contestations around thopes and similar urban and peri-urban commons has been published in peer-reviewed journals (Mundoli et al 2017, 2018) and used as a teaching case study in the MA Development programme at Azim Premji University. Students have also visited our field sites to undertake land use and biodiversity mapping.
Students learning about transect and quadrats to map plant biodiversity in the thope. Photo: Seema Mundoli
But one of the questions we asked ourselves is:
“How can we communicate our research to a wider public, and partner with them in protecting the city’s environment?”
The story of Lakshmmamma and Maranna is our attempt to do that and, in order to make it more accessible, the booklet has also been illustrated.
We decided early on that illustrations would be an integral part of the story. The first step for us was to identify what illustrations could fit the storyline. Once this was done, the illustrators read some of the field notes and publications and looked at photographs taken during field visits over the years. Next, rough sketches were drawn by the illustrators and, if the sketches resonated with the storyline, the sketches were completed by adding details.
From a photo to an illustration. Photo: Seema Mundoli; Illustration: Sahana Subramanian
Illustrations as a new way of conversing about urban commons
We did not want the illustrations to direct too much attention away from the story. Rather, we wished to complement the story. The simple hand-drawn black and white line-art enabled us to achieve this effect. It was an added advantage that, while there were three of us illustrating, our styles were similar, enabling us to achieve a consistency in the illustrations. Apart from adding power to storytelling, the illustrations also act as a tool that allows readers to imagine the story of the thopes. Through the illustrations of Lakshmammas lined face, the spreading branches of Maranna, the lake surrounded by agricultural fields, and several others the readers are able to visualise the landscape of the village as it once was. Similarly, through the illustrations of the park and the school into which the thopes were converted, readers are able to relate to what the thopes have become. We feel that this allows the readers to sympathise with Lakshmamma and Maranna’s story more deeply. Illustrating a book was a new experience for the illustrators—and it was an exciting venture to convert an academic publication into a more widely accessible format. This experience also provided us an opportunity to converse about urban commons in a new way.
A wider outreach of the story
India is a country of many languages, and also of many similar thopes, albeit by different names, spread across the country. For a wider reach, the booklets were conceptualized as bilingual and were translated into two languages—Kannada, spoken in Karnataka, and Hindi a language familiar across other states. Printed copies of the English-Kannada version have already been distributed through the Department of Panchayat Raj and Rural Development across 6400 rural libraries in the state of Karnataka. In addition, we prepared illustrated worksheets for teachers and educators on the topics of commons, benefits of trees, and maintenance of commons under the rights-based legislation, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The worksheets elaborated include activities that involve students identifying commons and engaging with nature around them. The objective is to create awareness among children and encourage collective action to protect the disappearing commons. The Department is also considering an awareness campaign that includes identifying thopes and working with the local community in planting and maintenance for which we are collaborating as well.
Conclusion
We have brought out this booklet at a time when rapid urbanisation with its challenges of sustainability and equity is being witnessed in the Global South. We especially recognise the important role that commons play in countries like India, and the contestations around commons as cities sprawl into the peri-urban adversely impacting local communities and ecosystems. But we also realise that communicating these challenges and raising awareness is the first step towards forming partnerships in protecting commons. And our illustrated book “Where have all our gunda thopes gone”, seeks to do just that.
Neeharika Verma received her undergraduate degree in biology from Azim Premji University, and is currently pursuing her master’s in marine science from the University of Massachusetts, USA.
Sukanya Basu was a Research Assistant at the Azim Premji University and is pursuing her PhD in Sustainable Food Systems from University of Göttingen, Germany.
Seema Mundoli is an Assistant Professor at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. Her recent co-authored books (with Harini Nagendra) include, “Cities and Canopies: Trees in Indian Cities” (Penguin India, 2019), "Shades of Blue: Connecting the Drops in India's Cities" (Penguin India, 2023) and the illustrated children’s book “So Many Leaves” (Pratham Books, 2020).
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 live in a fast-paced society. Walking slows us down.” — Robert Sweetgall, walking guru and president of Creative Walking Inc.
Walking. It’s a natural, human thing to do. Whether we wander through wide open green spaces or ramble around in cities, the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other makes everything around us feel more intimate. Walking puts the unreachable within reach.
Starting in mid-January 2016, Lluís, my partner for 10 years, and I will add a new dimension to our walking habit. We’ll fly to Bangkok, Thailand and walk our way home to Barcelona, Catalonia. Our planned route will take us through about 20 countries and hundreds of cities, towns, villages and unheard of corners of the world. It won’t be a straight line, and there will be detours and places that are politically shut off to us or geographically too complicated to cross. But we intend to try and cover as much ground as possible on foot.
What are we looking for? We are seeking goodness in the world. It’s our anti-fear approach to living life well. The ubiquitous headlines screaming about all the wrong being done everywhere have created a world that seemingly wants to surround itself with fear—fear of uncertainty, fear of “those people,” fear of our neighbors. We don’t buy into that. Our live-our-best-lives intuition and longtime backpacking experience tell us that there is more good in the world than bad. And we believe that if we start with the humble (or perhaps lofty) ideas that the whole world belongs to each and every one of us (not just a chosen few in wealthy, developed countries), that we all belong to each other, and that everyone deserves respect, kindness and compassion, then something that looks like goodness naturally flows.
Goodness comes in an endless number of varieties. It’s that moment when a complete stranger invites you into their home and offers you tea, or walks with you to the place for which you’ve asked directions. It’s the helping hand, or the smile of understanding that breaks language barriers. It’s also birds singing in a tree-filled park where people stroll hand in hand and children play. It’s listening to waves roll in while strolling along a beachside pedestrian promenade, and watching and helping people plants seeds and harvest vegetables in community gardens. Goodness is appreciating the clean, potable water from your sink, and having a safe place to sleep every night.
Goodness, also, is the balance struck between accessibility, aesthetics, resourcefulness, sustainability and usefulness. This is where our Bangkok-to-Barcelona walk intersects with The Nature of Cities’ mission to encourage the development of just, resilient cities and to promote citizen equality, participation and stewardship.
Lumphini ParkFountains, Montjuic, Barcelona
As the borders between urban, rural and natural areas blend and fade, citizens the world over are hard pressed to find and invent new ways of living together while maintaining the core elements that keep us connected to the Earth. Urban planners, community activists and development organizations struggle to create sustainable footprints that accommodate the increasing needs of city dwellers while also protecting water supplies, natural resources, biodiversity and delicate ecosystems.
Globally, the expansion of urban boundaries brings with it dozens of questions. Who has access to green spaces in growing urban areas? How can livable spaces and industrial areas co-exist without harming residents? How is nature integrated into megacity and mid-size city plans? How are urban areas in emerging countries and developed nations making themselves resilient? What are cities and citizens throughout Asia and Europe doing to improve equity and inclusion among their residents? How are cities creating opportunities for their citizens and incorporating social justice while also balancing environmental needs and natural resources capacity?
As we travel across continents, we’ll explore the idea of Just Cities and share our perspectives, photos and podcasts of what we find in different corners of the world here on The Nature of Cities. We’ll submit stories and slideshows about parks and open spaces that would make great parks, and share insights about what we think urban graffiti says about a place. We’ll look at how urban life spills into rural areas, and what’s happening as more people move from farms to cities. We’ll walk with open eyes, ears and hearts and witness ways human connect to each other and the world around them.
We hope you’ll follow our footsteps and join the conversation. Maybe we’ll even meet some of you along the way.
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.
Molly Anderson, Cape TownWhimsy is often a privilege. And whimsy is also a very human experience, and one that emerges from sharing. How do we articulate the potential found in these shared moments without romanticizing their part in ongoing, uneven, violent processes?
Pippin Anderson, Cape TownLighter points of entry, playfulness, an element of surprise, are all useful mechanisms to draw people in to ideas that can feel overwhelming or too distressing to engage. The desire to look away from the climate catastrophe is strong and lighter approaches can make people turn their heads.
Emmalee Barnett, SpokaneThe general public’s eyes will glaze over a poster declaring we need to “save our earth”, but they’ll shutter and pause if that poster has a silly ladybug in a superhero costume.
Nic Bennett, AustinWe laugh at ourselves. We laugh at the oppressive systems. And that laughter does something significant.
James Bonner, GlasgowCan the gentle weapon of the whimsy, in conversation with the “serious science”, subversively critique the systems of social, ecological, and climate violence we find so hard to escape from, and disarm their power?
Tam Dean Burn, GlasgowI’d suggest the most important question to look at with all this—and I do mean ALL—is WHY we laugh, the origins of laughter, and that is tied in with the origins of language and what made us human. There lies the key to understanding ourselves in nature
Ian Douglas, ManchesterI suddenly saw a mass of young trees and shrubs that had invaded the vacant space: a piece of wilderness in the commercial heart of the country.
Lisa Fitzsimons, DublinRather than overwhelming audiences with technical jargon and complex concepts, light-hearted communication invites them into the conversation and perhaps makes them start to think differently.
Elizabeth Frickey, New YorkIndeed, how could the presence of a keytar in a community garden be anything but whimsical?
Tony Kendle, Saint AustellHumour and whimsy may initially be seen as inappropriate responses, but they may give us the strength to act, and they may also inspire our thinking to be more creative.
Gareth Kennedy, DublinTo work together through compelling experience and knowledge to see how we might shed our neoliberal skins and entertain other subjectivities and ways of being in the world together.
David Maddox, New YorkGraffiti in an unexpected place, and with an unexpectedly peaceful subject. It causes us to pause for a moment and linger too, and think about that imaginary woman. And also think about what the creator of this picture was thinking.
Rob McDonald, Basel]Maybe the right way to think about whimsy is as a necessary first step. Much more than dry facts and figures on the return on investment of urban nature, whimsy motivates and inspires people to try new things.
Bill McGuire, GlasgowCan the gentle weapon of the whimsy, in conversation with the “serious science”, subversively critique the systems of social, ecological, and climate violence we find so hard to escape from, and disarm their power?
Claudia Misteli, BarcelonaIn Colombia, we often say, El que no llora, no mama—if you don’t cry, you won’t get fed. But I’d better say, El que no ríe, no aprende—if you don’t laugh, you won’t learn.
Richard Scott, ManchesterHumour and whimsy go hand in hand. They take you somewhere else. Didn’t Einstein stare at passing clouds for inspiration, and didn’t Newton need the apple to fall on his head?
Hita Unnikrishnan, WarwickTo me―an urban scholar―this festival represents perhaps some of the most dramatic and whimsical examples of how engaging with urban nature can bring joy, hope, and a sense of romance.
Ania Upstill, New YorkThe absurd can be used to highlight problems in our world, and whimsy can help spark our innate human ability to be flexible and invent solutions.
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.
Whimsy: Playful or fanciful ideas that bring a sense of fun and imagination.
Whimsical: Full of playful charm and imagination, often with a touch of unexpected delight.
Release your balloons and wonder at them as they float around a roomful of ideas.
Sometimes, we see something that makes us laugh out loud because it surprises us with an unexpected new perspective, or a funny joke that makes us understand something in a new way. Or an element of joy or romance. Or maybe a bit of melancholy. Or a bit of wry non-sequitor. One-frame cartoons are often whimsical. Weird cool. Clown performers do it all the time. (OK, unless you think clowns are scary.)
Whimsy can be slyly subversive of dominant narratives.
Whimsy. Rooted in words that mean: to let the mind wander, a sudden turn of fancy, to flutter, a whimsical device, a trifle.
The science involved in biodiversity conservation, climate change, nature-based solutions, and sustainability can be heavy stuff, sobering, even upsetting. Dare I say sometimes boring? Maybe a whimsical note in some form can play a role in spreading knowledge and ideas. Maybe it can attract people to movements toward sustainability? Can it bring new people into the conversations? Can it help us see more clearly? Or see for the first time some essential thing?
Maybe it can just lighten our spirits a bit so we can dive back into the serious business of saving the world. That would be useful just by itself.
I think it is that and more, too. I think whimsy can help us learn.
So, we asked a diverse collection, from scientists to performers, artist to practitioners. Plus one professional clown.
Joy.
“Whimsy” is a playful, creative approach to seeing the world, marked by lightness, curiosity, and a sense of wonder. It invites us to break from rigid thinking and explore new possibilities, offering surprising, delightful perspectives that reveal unexpected insights. Whimsy helps us to question assumptions and view situations with fresh, imaginative eyes, opening pathways to new ideas and fostering innovation. Far from being trivial, whimsy is a powerful tool for expanding understanding, as it encourages us to approach challenges with openness, creativity, and a touch of joy.
NOTE: “Whimsical” can sometimes be defined in vaguely pejorative ways, like a grouchy curmudgeon might do: “capricious”, or “ridiculous”, or “a distraction from serious work”. The whimsy we are looking for here is something else. It may be funny, or weird, or sad, or laugh-inducing, or inspired, but it isn’t capricious in the “stupid and useless” sense.
Can you imagine adding a one-frame cartoon as an ironic joke to every policy brief? I can.
The word “whimsy” or “whimsical” doesn’t translate so well outside of English. Translating “whimsy” into other languages can be challenging because it captures a delicate blend of lightheartedness, imagination, and playful charm, which doesn’t always have a direct equivalent. In English, “whimsy” evokes a positive sense of spontaneity and innocent creativity—qualities often culturally specific or expressed differently in other languages. Some languages may have words that convey aspects of whimsy, such as “fantasy” or “playfulness”, but these can lack the same light, imaginative nuance or might even carry negative connotations.
Whimsy is both light and profound, imaginative yet innocent.
Romance languages such as French or Spanish have words for playful or fanciful ideas (e.g., “fantaisie” in French or “capricho” in Spanish), but these perhaps miss the purely innocent charm of “whimsy”, sometimes implying unpredictability or indulgence rather than lighthearted creativity. In German, “whimsy” might be expressed as “Laune” or “Einfall,” which relate more to mood or a passing notion and lack the childlike creativity that whimsy implies in English. In some Asian languages, where expressions can lean toward structured formalities or poetic metaphor, capturing “whimsy” may involve combining concepts, like creativity and playfulness, to communicate the intended nuance, perhaps through descriptive phrases rather than single words.
Ultimately, the challenge lies in the unique cultural and linguistic framework that “whimsy” embodies in English—a trait that’s both light and profound, imaginative yet innocent—which doesn’t always have a ready counterpart in other languages. It is the same difficulty that can arise in communication between disciplines speaking in the same language.
In whatever language, release your balloons and wonder at them as they float around a roomful of ideas.
Molly is a writer, researcher and creative practitioner from Cape Town. They are interested in how the city is constantly (re)made in rough edges, nests, holes in the road, snags in fences, paths the wind has cleared and places where the grass grows tall.
Whimsy is often a privilege. And whimsy is also a very human experience, and one that emerges from sharing. How do we articulate the potential found in these shared moments without romanticizing their part in ongoing, uneven, violent processes?
Whimsy. Rooted in words that mean: to let the mind wander, a sudden turn of fancy, to flutter, a whimsical device, a trifle.
I want to think with two moments of whimsy. The first is a truly magical fireflies-in-the-night-catch-your-breath-in-wonderment whimsy. I was driving home along one of Cape Town’s dark, tree-lined roads when the arc of the headlights brought into being a golden, molten, momentary caracal. Around the next bend was another glimmering being―this time a porcupine, and then an owl, and then a chameleon, and so on. These shy (well, not always the porcupine), endemic, and endangered animals were made real and enchanting by some clever person who had rendered them in reflective tape. These underseen lives were suddenly made visible, as was their precarity; gone in a flash as you drive through the night.
More recently, the artist behind this intervention teamed up with the folks at the Urban Caracal Project to highlight roadkill hotspots in Cape Town. You’re speeding along a highway when you see the glowing head body and tail of a big cat―maybe a caracal, maybe a rooikat―poised to cross the road. These works of art, of reflection, are compelling ways of making data visceral and of fostering curiosity. The whimsy is also cleverly targeted: you have to be driving a car (roadkill), in that place (hotspot), to see these animal visions. It only implicates people who are potential parts of the immediate problem. So here, whimsy arises from beautiful and considered moments of collaboration.
The other whimsy I am interested in is more difficult to articulate, is thoroughly imperfect, and very clearly implicated in issues of privilege and access. During the last few months of the impending day zero in Cape Town, South Africa, social media was filled with videos of water-saving contraptions from all over the city. Whatsapp groups were bombarded with messages bearing the tell-tale note “caution: this message has been forwarded many times”. One that stood out featured a young kid demonstrating how to use a plastic bottle and a straw to make a very effective squeezy low-water tap for handwashing. Within the week, the bathrooms at my university were filled with them. Another showed an Uncle from Goodwood giving a very amusing tutorial on how to wash the floor and get a workout at the same time, all while using minimal water. Radio stations played a 2-minute shower-along song every morning at 7 am. Ordinary people were using ordinary things to re-shape the fabric of their lives―and these innovations were being shared and understood by other people in very similar and very different circumstances. There was―among the stress and fear and frustration―a sense of enchantment with human cleverness, with human funniness, and the fact that this cleverness and funniness was so local, was responding so specifically to an experience we were all sharing…
Except, of course, we weren’t. The highly classist and racialized experience of Cape Town drought as an ongoing crisis for some and a temporary nuisance for others has been well documented. For most of the city, having to save and ration water was not a novel experience. Whimsy is often a privilege. But, whimsy is also a very human experience, and one that emerges from sharing. How do we articulate the potential found in these shared moments without romanticizing their part in ongoing, uneven, violent processes? Maybe, in this case, thinking with whimsy is part of that. The feelings of whimsy, of connection, of aligned irritation, and delight that emerge from shared(ish) experiences are well worth our consideration.
Importantly, this whimsy was not beautiful, or sleek, or slick. This was a moment when social media―often a space for clinically conformist, filtered images―became a space of scrappy sticky tape and cut up plastic bottles and dirty floors, and was used to share a kind of joy/liveliness/curiosity that was thoroughly decentered from aesthetics. The whimsy here was in the momentary wonder at our fellow citizens’ resilience, smartness, snarkiness. It was a whimsy in part derived from social media’s increasing role in offering us more diverse geographical connections, even at the local scale. It was evoked by people sharing a story of their lives in a city, and by people in different parts of that same city seeing themselves in that story, perhaps unexpectedly. It was charming.
Whimsy―letting the mind wander―whether prompted by beautiful art or by scrappy ingenuity can allow us to see that we, and other people, are already poised as part of the solution. To think with whimsy requires that we acknowledge that whimsy will not be whimsy for everyone. It also acknowledges that we all experience, and all deserve to experience, moments of whimsy. It begins to articulate something about our shared sensibilities of humor or delight or anger and about the political nature of our quality of life.
Whimsy is a rippling, a fluttering in the world that reminds us that, actually, we are part of the same conversation.
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
Lighter points of entry, playfulness, an element of surprise, are all useful mechanisms to draw people in to ideas that can feel overwhelming or too distressing to engage. The desire to look away from the climate catastrophe is strong and lighter approaches can make people turn their heads.
I’m a big fan of whimsy. The ethereal, the personally dictated, the hard to pin down, the amusing and nonsensical, the unexpected, and sometimes obscure and inexplicable. In fact, if they said they were going to cancel whimsy, remove it from society, and erase it from our dictionaries, I would definitely march to see it reinstated (I see it now, a small flock of people in hats with flowers and banners made of chiffon or holograms or some such, marching towards parliament chanting “Bring back whimsy, maybe”). There is an element of personal freedom in whimsy. And assuredly an element of joy. Whimsy must culminate in a smile.
But then my friend said maybe whimsy requires privilege. You can’t be whimsical if you are hungry or fighting for your freedom. And there are certainly a few places where whimsy does not emerge as useful. Gender-based violence, the Gaza genocide, micro-plastics to name a few. Perhaps climate change and biodiversity loss are on that list too. I also suspect whimsy may be something of a social sorting mechanism. A means through which we find like-minded souls or people who share our values and sentiments. Something of a secret handshake.
I might be wrong though. Years ago, artist Elsabe Milandri (@elsabemilandri) did a lovely piece―line drawing in ink on paper of a polar bear, and below it, she wrote (something along the lines of) “Remember that day we saw the last polar bear? I dropped my ice cream and cried and cried”. To my view she seems to use whimsy here (what is more whimsical that ice cream and a trip to the zoo?) as a counter foil to the terrible weight of biodiversity loss. She is of course using it to startle her audience in bringing together the mundane and the everyday with the shockingly absoluteness of the loss of species. I remembered this piece so clearly. I saw it years ago, hanging in another friend’s slightly edgy apartment in its black frame on exposed brick walls. I recall standing around drinking wine, small kids milling about us as we chatted and laughed. And all the time feeling the draw of that work on the wall.
My recollection of that piece of work inspired me to call Elsabe. As an artist and social activist, I wanted to get her views on the use of whimsy in garnering support for environmental causes I know are close to her heart. She felt very strongly that whimsy, or humour, is an excellent strategy to make connections. She said she feels those lighter points of entry, playfulness, an element of surprise, are all useful mechanisms to draw people in. In this way, she feels the more timid, or easily triggered, can come closer to ideas that can feel overwhelming or too distressing to engage. She feels the desire to look away from the climate catastrophe is strong and that lighter approaches make people turn their heads.
I think all these aspects might be true. As with all our current global crises, the role of privilege is highlighted again and again. We must certainly be mindful in all our engagements of our own positions and privileges. And it is possible that whimsy does sort us, into bands of like-minded garden gnomes or pods of mermaids. But I think Elsabe is right, there is certainly a role for playfulness and lighter approaches in drawing in the timid and re-igniting the interest of those who have given up hope.
Emmalee is a writer and editor with a B.S. in Literature from Missouri State University and currently resides in Spokane, MO. She is currently the editor of TNOC's essays and fiction projects. She is also the Co-director for NBS Comics and the managing editor for SPROUT: An eco-urban poetry journal.
The general public’s eyes will glaze over a poster declaring we need to “save our earth”, but they’ll shutter and pause if that poster has a silly ladybug in a superhero costume.
When I think of “whimsy” my mind immediately wanders to the strange, the fantastical. Stories such as Alice and Wonderland, The Little Prince, and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series where the impossible is possible and nothing quite makes sense. There’s a sense of randomness that everyone takes on board and rolls with. The path of logic is there, it just didn’t end where you expected it to due to a few wrong turns and a sideways explanation.
A lot of people seem to forget that ideas like “whimsy” and “wonder” can be applied to everyday life, especially everyday work life. If you get into the right mindset, there are ways to add a dash of whimsy to anything. It can be anything from adding fun colors to a spreadsheet, making graphics more abstract, or using an “out there” theme for your latest project proposal; there are countless ways to add whimsy to anything work-related. If people don’t get it, then that’s their fear of sticking out and trying something different raising its ugly head. Thinking about the absurd is also a good way to wrap your ever-expanding mind around what whimsy encompasses. Things that are a little off, not within the norm.
Working with NBS Comics, I’ve been introduced to many different, some might say whimsical, ways to negate climate change and the challenges the environment faces. I mean, we’re making comics to help raise awareness of Nature-based Solutions. That’s pretty whimsical to most “serious” practitioners. I believe it takes thinking “outside of the box” (what’s in this box, we’ll never know) to create new nature-based solutions; ways and projects no one has tried before. It also takes these approaches for people to care about such projects. The general public’s eyes will glaze over a poster declaring we need to “save our earth” with a drawn globe, but they’ll stutter and pause if that poster has a silly ladybug in a superhero costume on it.
It’s the small things we can start with to sprinkle more whimsy into the science world.
Nic Bennett (they/them) researches power, ideology, and belonging in science communication at The University of Texas as a doctoral candidate of the Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations. They engage arts- and science-based research and practice to critique, disrupt, and reimagine science communication spaces. Alongside scientists, artists, activists, and community members, they hope to expand the circle of human concern in science communication and STEM.
We laugh at ourselves. We laugh at the oppressive systems. And that laughter does something significant.
A new student on campus struggles to speak up to a professor. A daughter of an immigrant mother confronts her on the environmental impact of cruises. Someone forgets their values while trying to impress a crush. These are all real moments from students’ lives that we put on stage. Moments where we made decisions that made us feel stuck. Moments we caused harm. Moments “voices” in our head gave terrible advice.
We often internalize the voices of our peers, our parents, and corporations. Sometimes, these messages are meant to protect us. Sometimes, they tell us we would be happier if we bought our way out of our climate anxiety. Often, we mistake these voices for our own.
To explore our struggles with environmental issues, we use a technique from Theatre of the Oppressed called Cops in the Head. Cops in the Head makes visible our internalized voices of oppression by making them into characters. We can rewind the tape multiple times and try out different scenarios. While we may not be able to shut these voices up or defeat them entirely, this form of theater explores how we might relate to these “cops” in new ways.
When we turn to face our emotions about the environment with theater, it can get heavy. We try to ensure this container is as safe as possible. We bring in eco-anxiety counselors. We build community trust and agreements.
But a bit of silliness supports us as well. When we physicalize our voices of internalized oppression, we have them as clownish, exaggerated statues. They can move about and fling their barbs at us. They try to get us to do what they want, even when it goes against our values. If we listen to these “cops”, we can become stuck (freeze), collapse (flight), or lash out at others (fight). We turn to our trauma responses. But making them into characters affords us just enough space to pause. It allows us to examine the situation from a bit more distance. The “cops” can become silly to us.
The “cops” can be pretty silly, frozen in their stern postures. They might be cupping their mouth to shout at or pointing at us to get out of there. Because the “cop” is wobbling about like a statue and is a bit exaggerated, it gives us some breathing space.
Seeing a voice in our head as another character helps us get some distance. It helps us recognize that these stories are not ours. Getting multiple chances to intervene in a single moment reminds us of our responsibility and agency. We laugh at ourselves. We laugh at the oppressive systems. And that laughter does something significant. Where we were once ossified, we become limber.
We start to get unstuck. We see ourselves as able to transform and try new ways of being and relating. We often cry, but the tears are necessary. It means we are resensitizing ourselves.
It is normal to feel the enormous grief and anxiety of this moment. But it’s too much to hold alone, so we do this work together.
We face really, really hard things. We also goof off with one another. We poke fun at the clownish “cops” in our heads. We know we can’t shut them up completely, but we find new ways of relating to them, ourselves, each other, and the land. Laughter melts a part of us. It helps us become more like water and to slip into new fissures. When we laugh, we look up from our stuck postures. We notice the others around us. We reach for them.
Dr. James Bonner is a Research Associate at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. His interests and background are in a range of interdisciplinary research issues and themes including water, trees, place and mobility. He is particularly interested in the relationships between people and society to the places and spaces they inhabit and encounter.
Can the gentle weapon of the whimsy, in conversation with the “serious science”, subversively critique the systems of social, ecological, and climate violence we find so hard to escape from, and disarm their power?
Whimsy opens up possibilities for playfulness and possibility. Letting go of what is “accepted” or “normalised”. It allows for imagination and questioning the structures in which we are bound by. Structures of the “big systems” like our economy and way places are designed. But also, by playing with the structures of language, writing, conversations, the stories we share and hold.
“Dear Tree”. Whimsy from a child in Glasgow in conversation with a dear friend, a tree. From the Every Tree Tells A Story Project (both authors involved in).
Climate conversations can be dominated by certain groups and narratives—academia, science, policy, industry. They are valuable and useful to inform the public and decision-making. However, this creates a focus on the “working age” population of “experts”, and it is their views and actions that dominate the narrative, and how we collectively react.
But what are voices that are not necessarily heard or included? Children, who have an openness and capacity to think and feel anew? Also, what for older people who have a memory of a world that has past, but can recall ways we used to do things? Can giving space for the whimsical help to engage with these groups and their perspectives—allowing for the playful imaginary of a different future from a child, while being attentive to a hazy recollection of something no longer here from an older person? Both perspectives of “wonder”, and a challenge to preconceptions and expectations of how, and why, the world has to be like it is now.
Whimsy and place: what are our places for? Could they allow for more fun for all ages? “Whether it’s a smile, a conversation, or just getting people to think about the issues in a new way, I think the impact justifies the effort”. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crkd7861xgro
Can the gentle weapon of the whimsy, in conversation with the “serious science”, subversively critique the systems of social, ecological, and climate violence we find so hard to escape from, and disarm their power? Should we have more space for “why”?
James finds himself increasingly thinking about the ideas of play, for all ages, as fundamental to challenge ways we see the world, and how we might go about changing it. He often finds inspiration from how places are designed.
I’d suggest the most important question to look at with all this—and I do mean ALL—is WHY we laugh, the origins of laughter, and that is tied in with the origins of language and what made us human. There lies the key to understanding ourselves in nature.
A response from Tam:
The first thing I thought about comedy and climate was to contact the eminent climate scientist Bill McGuire as he has experience in this field and has written extensively about it, like here.
Bill and I have been looking to work together, and this looked like the opportunity at last. Bill was very positive about the idea and joined our email chat. But he was, of course, extraordinarily busy (not least in taking on Exxon in a court submission with a deadline the week before ours). Bill and I first met when I discovered his favourite film is “Local Hero” and I contacted him to say that’s the first film I’ve been in. A very whimsical film it is too, with a very ecological theme! I’ve suggested we look at making a new short cut of the film that offers something more to the situation we’re in now. Immediately, I thought off the top of my baldy head that one of my lines as Roddy the barman certainly rings afresh— “The Russians are coming!”. We’re going to look into that idea of a “Local Hero” new eco-edit, or some such description.
I also thought to look at master of whimsy Noël Coward’s songs and indeed there is “There Are Bad Times Just Around the Corner” which has much to offer. I’ve often rewritten song lyrics for greater pertinence in the past, and plan to with this, and found that it’s been done for a more recent American slant.
There’s also a wonderful eco-activist group “Ocean Rebellion” who are very big on visual humour that gains so much traction, and they happened to be holding their first ever exhibition just as I was passing through London very recently. We reacquainted and look to work together too. Here are examples of their work, and they were an inspiration for this critique I made of the aquaculture industry as an appeal to children— https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7w2moy (there may be an advert in the middle, which is quite funny too! 🤑)
I’d suggest the most important question to look at with all this—and I do mean ALL—is WHY we laugh, the origins of laughter, and that is tied in with the origins of language and what made us human. There lies the key to understanding ourselves in nature, as part of nature and not just the disembodied, alienated creatures that patriarchal class society has made us.
That’s why we emphasised returning to lunar rather than solar cycles last time we took part in TNOC. And this knowledge can be found in the discoveries made by the “Radical Anthropology Group”. It’s not surprising that their forthcoming book on the origins of language is entitled “When Eve Laughed”. Here’s a talk on it . It’s all brilliant stuff but go to 45 minutes in for the beginnings of authors Chris Knight and Jerome Lewis looking at play and laughter and how essential that is to us and how it makes us human and capable of rising to the challenges we face. We must revel in the fun of solving this puzzle quoted from the draft of “When Eve Laughed”.
The real puzzle is to understand why humans became the first species strategically committed to suspending reliance on the senses in favour of faith in the benefits of laughter, imaginative social games, and the shared virtual realms to which they give rise.
Tam Dean Burn has been a professional actor across platforms for over forty years and a performer, particularly of musical varieties, for even longer. He is also a very active activist in local, national and international campaigns. Most recently he has led a successful campaign to press Glasgow City Council to drop the plan for entry charges to the iconic 150 year old Kibble Palace in the city’s Botanical Gardens.
Bill McGuire is an academic, activist, broadcaster, and best-selling popular science and speculative fiction writer. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London, a co-director of the New Weather Institute, a patron of Scientists for Global Responsibility, a member of the scientific advisory board of Scientists Warning and Special Scientific Advisor to WordForest.org.
Ian is Emeritus Professor at the University of Manchester. His works take an integrated of urban ecology and environment. He is lead editor of the "Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology" and has produced a textbook, "Urban Ecology: an Introduction", with Philip James.
I suddenly saw a mass of young trees and shrubs that had invaded the vacant space: a piece of wilderness in the commercial heart of the country.
My moment occurred in 1954 when I was 18 and was in a group taken to visit the City of London by our History sixth former teacher. Our school was run by one of the City’s ancient Livery Companies and its Hall had been severely damaged by fire in the 1940 World War II blitz. Even nine years after the war ended, the Hall had not yet been rebuilt. As in many British cities in the mid-1950s, derelict bomb-damaged sites were still common around London’s central business district. Walking from Threadneedle Street to the rear of the Hall, I suddenly saw a mass of young trees and shrubs that had invaded the vacant space: a piece of wilderness in the commercial heart of the country.
As a boy brought up in the 1930s suburbia of NW London, there were few spaces with wild nature. During the war, the park opposite my primary school was converted into allotment gardens for people to grow their own food. The golf course on the other side of the railway tracks was given over to the growing wheat, but some of the bunkers remained as tiny islands of wild nature, with trees and brambles, that an eight-year-old and his pals could explore by trespassing through the wheat. However, that land had always been covered by vegetation of some kind. The wild nature on the concrete and broken bricks of the City bomb site was something far more impressive: nature as reconquest, fighting back across the sealing of the land surface and the removal or burial of all previous traces of nature, to bring biodiversity back into neglected spaces.
The image of the urban wild near Threadneedle Street has remained vivid in my mind. In 1959, I acquired a copy of R.S.R. Fitter’s London’s Natural History (1945) which has a chapter on the influence of the war on London’s plant and bird life. This confirmed the importance of bomb damage in creating opportunities for invasive species and for drastic changes in avian activity. It was the first book I read about urban ecology. In Berlin at that time, Herbert Sukopp was studying the ecology of derelict sites and formulating a pioneering innovative, framework for urban ecology (Sukopp, 1959, 2003). David Goode (2014) describes how the London Natural History Society used 16 permanent quadrats and transects to record changes in the vegetation on bombsites in Cripplegate, just north of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the heart of the City. Rosebay willowherb and Oxford ragwort colonised early and then persisted, by 1955, 342 species of flowering plants and ferns had been recorded at these sites. My 1954 moment was a realisation that we really can find nature on our doorsteps and throughout the cities where most of us live, but the problem is finding ways to retain the urban wild and to open access to it for everyone.
Goode, D.A. (2014) Nature in Towns and Cities, London, Collins New Naturalist No.127.
Sukopp, H. (1959/60) Vergleichende Untersuchungen der Vegetation Berliner Moore unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der anthropogenen Veränderungen, Botanische Jahrbücher, 79, 36–191.
Sukopp, H. (2003) Flora and vegetation reflecting the urban history of Berlin, Die Erde, 134, 295-316.
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!
Whimsy is no laughing matter. It is vital to our survival.
In the same way that whimsy is an organic and inevitable component of human discourse generally, so it needs to be understood as having a central role in mainstreaming knowledge and action in sustainability, climate action, and biodiversity. To enable prolonged discussion, serious discussion demands the interjection of levity. Given that these topics are inseparable from consideration of life’s future on what some may regard as a dying planet, then there will inevitably be gallows humour involved. The humour is a safety valve, part of a way of coping for people who may often be accused of taking things “too seriously”.
The most powerful messages are often conveyed with a strong element of humour. Particularly in times of war, when things are “difficult”―when there is an existential threat. The issues of sustainability, climate change, and biodiversity are all inescapably linked to existential threats.
A revolution in thinking is required for most of the world’s people to realise that the world is alive and relies on life to sustain itself. There is an increasingly desperate need to restore a sense of wonder to our world that is not mediated by Disney, screens, and mechanical devices. Easier said than done, perhaps, this requires exposure to the wildness that is nature, where mice don’t take the Mickey, rabbits don’t soft-soap their putative killers, vultures don’t chorus in four-part harmonies and elephants can’t fly. Having said that, one is compelled to observe that these creatures are quite whimsical creations. A forest may only be able to speak in trees, but it can speak to us through human intermediaries. Arguably, those are our roles as scientists, artists and creators, educators, economists and engineers, and, yes, even politicians.
And if our translations of nature’s languages tend to be too prosaic then we must add joy to the our dull, overly-pragmatic utilitarian body language, and dance!
Emma Goldman is frequently credited with the aphorism, or variant of the aphorism, that “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution”. She was talking about the necessity of joy, one of the powerful positive forces alongside hope and love. One might reasonably add that the need to be deadly serious about goals and outcomes when aiming to make the world a better place, or “save the planet”, you need to have a sense of humour. If I can’t laugh, chortle, giggle, joke or make whimsical commentary on the state of the world, or puncture the unintended pomposity or holier-than-thou-ness of myself or my colleagues when we lurch towards embarrassing seriousness with a heartfelt guffaw or carefully crafted whimsical comment, then I don’t want to be part of that movement for change because it carries the seeds of its own destruction.
Nature is cool. It can be jaw-droppingly stunning and laugh-out-loud funny. Climate change throws almost nothing but curved balls… Romance and laughter underpin all life-affirming human hope and striving. The targets for whimsy and humour can be anything or anybody, but the core issue always has to be the necessity for sustaining the forces on which life depends.
Whimsy is no laughing matter. It is vital to our survival.
Lisa holds a MSc in Climate Change: Policy Media and Society from Dublin City University (DCU) and serves as the Strategy and Sustainability lead at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in Dublin.
Rather than overwhelming audiences with technical jargon and complex concepts, light-hearted communication invites them into the conversation and perhaps makes them start to think differently.
Effective communication is critical to driving social change to motivate people to take action, change their habits, and push for policy changes, and how we frame climate change shapes how audiences understand and respond to it. Usually, the climate crisis is framed in terms of science, politics, economics, or ethics. While facts and data are important, data and scientific information alone will not inspire change. Indeed, audiences’ lack of emotional connection to climate messaging can explain why they aren’t taking action.
A cultural framing of the climate crisis, however, has a stronger potential to resonate meaningfully with audiences. Our understanding of the climate crisis and how we respond to it is shaped by our culture―our beliefs, values, traditions, and ways of thinking. Comedy and moments of levity in culture can help make the heavy topic of the climate crisis more approachable and relatable and can help diffuse tension, offering a potentially powerful tool for shifting communications and attitudes.
Comedy has always been an important part of cultural expression, from Ancient Greece and Shakespeare to memes and internet humour. Comedy’s power lies in its ability to hold a mirror up to contemporary society, to create a feeling, move us emotionally, or change our perception. Done well, it can communicate complex issues, such as race, inequality, and the climate crisis, in relevant and meaningful ways.
Indeed, throughout history, comedy has played a central role in social movements, serving as a tool for communications and mobilisation. African American comedian Dick Gregory used humour to highlight racial injustice in the 1960’s. Hannah Gadsby’s Netflix stand-up show Nanette blends humour with raw honesty about the struggles of being queer. And through shows like Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock, comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler successfully use humour to challenge gender stereotypes and to advocate for women’s rights. In all these examples, comedy serves as a tool for social mobilisation by making complex, often controversial issues more accessible, challenging power structures, and uniting audiences through laughter.
When we use comedy and moments of levity, we create a shared space where people can acknowledge the seriousness of the problem without being overwhelmed by it. Contemporary comedians are increasingly using humour to tackle climate change topics and, in doing so, help bring the issue into everyday conversations in a more engaging way. The Irish comedy group Foil Arms and Hog, for instance use insightful humour to great effect to communicate the ridiculousness of inaction in the face of the Earth Crisis. This kind of humour lowers the audience’s defences, allowing them to engage with the issue without feeling judged or isolated. Rather than overwhelming audiences with technical jargon and complex concepts, light-hearted communication invites them into the conversation and perhaps makes them start to think differently.
Laughter can break emotional barriers, making room for learning and, ultimately, action. When people laugh together, they feel connected. Shared laughter creates a sense of camaraderie, which can make people more willing to listen to different perspectives. And when people feel like they’re part of a community, they may be more open to considering new ideas or changing their views. Humour can tap into emotions such as joy, relief or even curiosity, shifting how people feel about an issue. These positive emotions can encourage people to be more optimistic and proactive rather than paralysed by fear or guilt. Irish collective We Built This City on Rock and Coal brings scientists and theatre makers to rural and coastal towns across Ireland for an interactive performance driven by research and comedy. It’s good fun and good for the planet, helping individuals and their community become part of a collective action.
That said, however, while levity is powerful, there is a fine line between engaging people with humour and making light of a dire situation. The key is balance. Levity should complement, not replace, the serious messages at the core of climate communication. Blending moments of lightness with critical information to ensure the humour supports the call to action without diminishing the issue’s urgency.
Chris Fremantle is a producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. He produces ecoartscotland, a platform for research and practice focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers.
Whimsy is adopting the ridiculous and taking it seriously.
Earnest is probably the opposite of whimsical. Climate change, nature-based solutions, the planetary crisis: they are all enormous and require earnest attention. Whimsy has perhaps two aspects. Firstly, it always exists in the face of overwhelming seriousness. Lord Peter Wimsey, Dorothy L. Sayers’ fictional detective subject of eleven novels, is the epitome of whimsey in the face of murder. His intentional, even affected, lightness is in the face of experiences as an officer in the First World War which have left him suffering what was called “shellshock” then and PTSD now. One of the other critical responses to the horrors of the First World War was Dada, the absurdist art movement. Being whimsical in the face of the planetary crisis might seem to be an absurd response, but the lightness allows for imagination, and the other key characteristic of whimsey is fancifulness. This invokes the possibility that there might be an alternative, albeit seemingly an improbable one. Whimsey’s fancies are by definition implausible (just as Wimsey’s solutions to the crimes appear implausible to start with).
We need to confront the horror of the planetary crisis, including how we are all bound into it through, not least, our dependency on ever-increasing energy supplies, and our disposable culture. But we also need to be willing to imagine our way to a different culture, one where exchange is the organising principle rather than consumption. The artists Helen and Newton Harrison framed this in terms of “putting back more than we take”―perhaps somewhat fanciful when we think about fossil fuels and plastics!
Design-thinking practitioners have developed some useful tools which can help with getting into the state of mind to be whimsical and fanciful. One is the Fast Idea Generator. Nesta, the innovation organisation that developed it, describes it as a tool to develop an existing idea by looking at it from a number of perspectives. Having used this tool, one of the things that is apparent is that for it to work, participants need to get into a somewhat whimsical state of mind. The tool can help, but like whimsy in general, it isn’t a solo state―everyone needs to be willing to participate. The tool asks you to do several things to your idea―to twist it and distort it. The tool says things like―invert the idea, exaggerate the idea, translate the idea to completely different circumstances. In this last case it means something like designing hospitals as if they were airports. This has been done and it does mean people get to their clinic waiting area (aka, departure gate) very efficiently! Whimsy is adopting the ridiculous and taking it seriously.
There is a role for earnestness. The planetary crisis needs, in its multiple facets, to be measured accurately and reported carefully. The place of whimsy might be in creating those ‘aha’ moments where there is realisation of an alternative. This is particularly true where we need people from different backgrounds and with different agendas to engage with a bigger picture, see things from a different perspective. “Aha” moments―moments of conceptual shifts, are the starting point for new thinking, the potential for capacity building, new practices, and policies, those deep cultural shifts we need. Here I am plugging the characteristics of a knowledge exchange evaluation approach, but actually knowledge exchange and, in particular, transdisciplinary approaches based on “problem specificity and societal relevance” might also require whimsy to balance earnestness.
After an apprenticeship in a small Parks Department, Tony studied Horticulture at the university of Bath.
A PhD on land restoration at the University of Liverpool was followed by researching and teaching landscape management at the University of Reading where he developed a specialism in urban nature, publishing one textbook and one popular science book.
Today he works with the Sensory Trust in Cornwall on helping communities take climate action with plants.
Humour and whimsy may initially be seen as inappropriate responses, but they may give us the strength to act, and they may also inspire our thinking to be more creative.
Humour and whimsey as tools to promote environmental care
Research has shown that humour can stimulate the release of neurotransmitters like dopamine and as a result it can enhance learning, memory, and creativity.
It is also widely recognised that humour can soften the stress and anxiety of dealing with difficult and terrifying topics including climate change.
People often laugh when exposed to an unexpected idea or one that changes their understanding. Somehow this seems connected to why surprising events and incongruous experiences strike us as funny.
A favourite quote of mine comes from Rob Hopkins who wrote that “tackling climate change is a challenge of the imagination” as in the face of a transformative crisis we have to re-imagine everything.
Bill McKibben has also written that we no longer live on the same earth as we used to climate change needs us to rethink everything.
So, amidst what UNEP calls the “polycrisis”―climate, biodiversity loss, health, and water―we seem to be firmly in the territory of the incongruous and unexpected; humour and whimsy may initially be seen as inappropriate responses, but they may give us the strength to act, and they may also inspire our thinking to be more creative.
The next issue is where should this humour be found and who gets to tell the story and the jokes?
The original root of the word museum was the home of the muses―places that curated creativity, inspiration joy more than information about random looted objects.
When I was first working on the establishment of the Eden Project, I tried (and failed) to inject whimsey into public interpretation. My thinking was that we needed to show that a concern for sustainability could be playful and that a greener life need not mean seeing all joy sucked away.
I quickly learnt that interpretation is a contested territory many people feel they have the right to own the narrative―interpreted knowledge rapidly becomes highly political if not actually weaponised, and it soon became clear there is no tolerance for whimsy in such contested spaces.
How then do we break the authoritarian hold on ideas in the public realm?
Inspired by Toulouse botanist Boriss Presseq, they are on a mission to raise people’s awareness of the importance of wild to our ecosystem. They write “we use a street art approach to name the flora we find. The outcome is not confrontation, but curiosity―curiosity is the first step towards learning for all ages. The pavements become an evolving canvas, just as the seasons change so do our chalkings”.
In a grass roots unauthorised fashion, the rebel botanists form part of the movement for informal Science Learning that takes education out of the classroom.
Maybe the iron grip of narrative control is beginning to loosen under the strain of today’s challenges?
Potentially, the polycrisis will force us to rethink the entire paradigm of “sustainability”.
As Glenn Albrecht has challenged―just what aspects of our current environmentally dysfunctional culture are to be sustained?
It may be time, in the spirit of Coyote the Trickster, to harness our humour and disruptive imagination and use them to dismantle the domains of traditional science and education and to scatter the pieces through the streets like confetti―they can be reassembled one day as the new world germinates.
Gareth Kennedy is an artist and lecturer at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin Ireland. Since 2020, he has been lead coordinator on NCAD FIELD. Ongoing course work continues to explore the FIELD as a Novel Ecology and how it might support the creation of new Naturecultures and transdisciplinary exchanges.
If I can’t Dance I don’t want to be a part of your (r)evolution.
To work together through compelling experience and knowledge to see how we might shed our neoliberal skins and entertain other subjectivities and ways of being in the world together.
The students line the counter of Vincenzo’s Takeaway and Restaurant on Thomas Street in Dublin’s Liberties. Student anticipation mixes with their lecturer’s slight trepidation with how all this will unfold. Today the students are joined in their studies by members of Fatima Groups United, an active Age group who have joined today’s session to meitheal[1] with the students to harvest this year’s crop. FGU’s presence affirms a key tenet of the day’s learning: that sustainability is an intergenerational exercise that must collaborate with those who came before, and those who come after. The potatoes in question are particular. They are genetically diverse non-EU registered potatoes from Swedish artist Asa Sonjasdotter’s 10-year project[2] where she has collected potato varieties and their endangered biographies. Most of these potatoes do not meet the standard for EU industrial agricultural scale production in terms of productivity and also aesthetics. Some simply do not meet the aesthetic of what a supermarket-bought, pan-continentally traded archetypical potato should be. They are weird. One, The Rote Emma (Red Emma), is a copyleft renegade being deliberately left unregistered so as to activate other modes and scales of exchange wherever it is grown and its story told. It is named after Emma Goldman, the proto-anarchist/feminist of the late 19th/early 20th century. Students are always inspired by how the authorities of her day described her as an “exceedingly dangerous woman”, and of her motto for instilling joy and abundance in her activism: If I can’t Dance I don’t want to be a part of your revolution.
The chips, handcut, multicoloured, and like no others, are boxed fresh from the fryer and are brought back to the site of their harvest and our unusual place of learning, the NCAD FIELD[3] which is just next door. They are consumed communally and with relish plein air. This gives occasion to unpack the morning’s lectures and seminar. To appraise the potato as a medium par excellence to discuss issues surrounding colonisation, monoculture vs diversity, food security today, and how a famine 175 years ago still resonates in an Irish context. Most of all we are smiling and enjoying a collective glee in gleaning this carbohydrate-rich meal from our immediate environment. A student takes the excess in a box and wanders onto campus to distribute free chips as a surplus of the day’s study. Unchipped potatoes are carefully set aside as seed to be sown the following Spring to continue the cycle as a nascent tradition now in its 4th year.
Week by week students move through coursework intimately tied to the seasons. Critical texts, screenings and discussion are paired with material, haptic and often gastronomic processes. Students are asked to bring their stomachs and taste buds to class as we try to reconfigure our senses and entertain the idea of a novel terroir in in the FIELD. At time of writing (October 2024), as we leave the bounties and abundances of Autumn behind, we have made a course larder we will continue to dip into as we go into the dark winter months: Jam made from what maybe Dublin’s oldest pear tree[4] situated near the campus will be judiciously enjoyed as we reckon with troubling course material; the excess litres of delicious apple juice poached from unpicked orchards including a Protestant Bishops and a Catholic Convent ferment into cider which we will use to Wassail the end of coursework in January; after the first frost we will integrate the FIELD’s feral Kale into our coursework. This Kale, introduced in the time of the hipster, is now in its 7th generation of self-seeding on the site.
We mark Samhain (Oct 31st), the ancestral beginning of Winter and of the Celtic new year in our bioclimate, with a Halloween Special. We will visit the rewilded estate of film maker and Lord Dunsany, Randall Plunkett, who originally let his estate rewild to shoot his zombie apocalypse film[5]. A tour of the grounds will be followed by some witchery when we cauldron-cook elderberry tonic into a winter tonic to aid our immunity. The making of this bloodred tonic will frame the discussion of Silvia Federici’s Caliban of the Witch and how 400 years of witch hunts in Europe are tied to the enclosure and privatisation of land, the eradication of a whole world of female practices, collective relations, systems of land-based knowledge and also the birth of aggressive capitalist markets. This exchange lays a basis for discussing how reinstituting commons might help us rally and work together to create resilient systems in the face of what is unfolding. Afterwards, students will return to the city on Dublin bus with crimson-stained hands and smelling of campfire. All of this is serious fun and in the spirit of being generative and not extractive. To work together through compelling experience and knowledge to see how we might shed our neoliberal skins and entertain other subjectivities and ways of being in the world together. Joy, fun, craic, and whimsy are very much part of this unlearning.
[1]Meitheal – from the Irish language which traditionally means collective work undertaken to bring in a crop or perform other labour intensive agricultural work.
[3] NCAD FIELD is a remediated and ‘guerrilla composted’ former carpark directly adjacent to the NCAD nested in the historic Liberties of inner-city Dublin. It was until recently a thriving site of urban horticulture before falling into disuse. The absence of human use, accelerated by the lockdown, led to a remarkable ‘wilding’ of the site. The eclectic biodiversity of the site today sees its reappraisal not as ‘brown field’, which speaks to a language of development, but as a Novel Ecology.
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.
Maybe the right way to think about whimsy is as a necessary first step. Much more than dry facts and figures on the return on investment of urban nature, whimsy motivates and inspires people to try new things.
A lot of the most inspiring and fun ideas for nature in cities, or for the environmental movement more broadly, arise from whimsy. Over the centuries, humans keep inventing new roles for nature in cities, in ways that satisfy our needs and desires, whether utilitarian or playful. For instance, we now think of street trees as a commonplace idea, but there was a historical moment when cities in the Low Countries began to experiment with street trees. The Dutch had used trees to stabilize canal banks for a while, and since, in their cities, the canals came into the city center, it began to feel normal to extend trees to other streets. It is worth remembering the rest of the world viewed this intrusion of a natural feature into an urban area as a little bizarre, since nature was viewed as the untidy antithesis to the urban. But the odd, whimsical idea of a street tree met a need for shade and a little beauty, and the idea spread eventually (and thankfully!) to cities around the world.
Whimsy, in this broad sense, is the source of inspiration, of new ways of imagining what urban nature could and should be. We are in a period when humanity is demanding new and different things from nature in cities, including climate resilience and “mental health” and fashion, and this is leading to an explosion of whimsy from landscape architects and designers. Think of the fantastical Bosco Verticale in Milan, designed by the Boeri Studio to playfully maximize the amount of greenery on the facades and balconies. Or the new WOHO-designed Pan Pacific Orchard hotel in Singapore, which cuts out blocks of the buildings exterior to create large spaces for green parks, many dozens of stories above the streets below.
Whimsy is seductive, and a bit dangerous. Some of these whimsical green designs are expensive, high-end designs that are supposed to push the frontiers of ideas, making beautiful photographs that are widely spread and admired online, creating a brand name for the designers and building owners. But whimsical inspiration does not replace a plan for how to integrate nature more broadly into cities, in a way that is equitable and sustainable. Green roofs and facades are expensive propositions, and while there is a place for whimsy, there is also a place for nuts-and-bolts engineering and economics, of helping think about how to overcome the messy realities of (for instance) retrofitting existing buildings. These sorts of everyday projects will not be as whimsical or as exciting but are far more important to making urban green a reality for the majority of humanity.
Maybe the right way to think about whimsy is as a necessary first step. Much more than dry facts and figures on the return on investment of urban nature (the kinds of stuff I admittedly often produce!), whimsy motivates and inspires people to try new things. It is a first step, but other steps are needed to upscale nature-based solutions so that they can help any more people. For instance, it is important to realize that Singapore has so many green hotels because, in part, it has created a set of regulations that require new buildings to have a certain green fraction and creating strong government support for the construction of green infrastructure. Getting these kinds of enabling conditions right involves dry policy work, over many years, but it is also essential to go from whimsical idea to a widespread innovation.
Since 1996, his work has been mainly freelance as a human ecologist, writer, speaker, researcher and activist. Alastair is a Quaker, an honorary senior research fellow (honorary professor) in the College of Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow, and as a Fellow of the Centre for Human Ecology was Scotland's first professor of human ecology at the University of Strathclyde. He has also held honorary fellowships at the Academy of Irish Cultural Heritages (University of Ulster), the School of Divinity (University of Edinburgh) and the Schumacher Society.
Through the eye of a potato: Tips on writing a thesis in Human Ecology
Enjoy your thesis, and open others up to visionary possibilities.
I would like to share a few words about what, in my experience, is important in writing a scholarly thesis in the relationships between the social and the natural environment, and having fun in so doing.
Let me assume that you are here to do a master’s degree, and your thesis, in the old model of apprenticeship learning, is your “masterpiece”. It is that with which you can show the world that you are a competent human ecologist. For this reason, choose something that is useful―something that you can do things with―like publishing it for others’ edification, or to influence people or a movement, or to bear witness. Your work may well serve personal intellectual or even therapeutic interests, but if it is constrained to that, it will be a narcissistic piece, which is not why we are all here. So, please, my suggestion would be to set yourselves a fundamental framework of operation by asking yourselves, “Is it going to be of service to either the poor or the broken in nature?”. If the answer happens to be “no”, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re off the track, but I would urge careful discernment―careful sifting of your motives―so as to reveal more clearly who or what it is that you serve.
As your masterpiece, try and integrate the fullness of human ecology into the wider framework. Ensure it has linkages to the social and the natural environments. Strive to convey the passion of the heart, guided by the reason of the head, applied with the practicality and sheer hard work of the hand.
But, and it is a huge “but”, in holding everything in a framework that is nothing less than your worldview―your cosmic experience of being alive on this planet―develop a sharp focus. If you don’t, you’ll be all over the place. You’ll get into a horrible flap, and be a considerable pain in the flapping parts of the anatomy to your poor supervisor.
Remember, a stone mason doesn’t start with the whole mountain, or with the cathedral that she is to build. She chooses a small part from the mountain, and contributes to the pattern of a whole that is greater than she herself.
How do we do this? My suggestion is to think of your thesis in terms of story. Ask yourself, “What is the beginning, middle and end?” Find a small question, a very small question, and ask it. But ask it well. As a 1965 Ned Miller hit put it, “Do what you do well”.
For example, don’t focus on saying, “I want to examine nutrition in Scotland, or England”. Run with a small question like, “I want to study who is buying organic potatoes in Edinburgh, or Liverpool”. Then you’ve got something that you can research and handle easily. Then you can go round all the shops―I guess maybe only 20 or so―and interview the shopkeepers or the customers. In a containable manner you can analyse your data, set it in the context of the relevant literature, and end up with a concluding chapter that reflects on the relevance of your well-grounded findings for your wider interest in nutrition.
Do you see from this small example how helpful it is to think in terms of telling a story? Your story would go like this: I was interested in this big picture, and I spent a couple of weeks thinking and reading around it. I then refined it down to one (or at most, two or three) questions. Over another couple of weeks, while still doing my literature review, I developed a robust methodology for how I was going to explore those questions. I tested my methodology on a few friends, tweaked it a little, until I was satisfied with the result. I then spent a couple of weeks carrying out the interviewing (if that be your approach), and then allowed four weeks for analysing what I’d done and writing draft chapters. This left me two weeks at the end to write up a polished version … which I was able to proudly deliver to my supervisor (with a large bottle of organic malt whisky).
There you are. Total job finished in 12 weeks, which is roughly what you need to be looking at in a typical master’s thesis if you’re going to manage your lives, and work well, and allow a little slack time for possible technical problems, sickness, a broken heart, a mind-blowing mystical experience, or … too much whisky.
And notice how, in all of this, you have never deviated from following the silver “faerie path” of your passion. The discipline you will have had to apply in following that passion will have been your “working under concern”, your calling, your vocation at least for the time being. It will leave you with a great story to tell, a very practical one because it is grounded, and something that may be, above all, a contribution to the cause, to “the great work”. Neither will your wider interests have been frustrated by choosing such a specific focus. Indeed, if your focus fell upon the vegetable realm, my bet is that you’ll end up finding that you can see the whole world through the eye of a potato.
You can see how such a thesis could easily be published. For example, a scholarly paper in a journal of agriculture or retailing, or an article in a permaculture newsletter, or in a greengrocer’s trade magazine. If you need to dress up such an honest-to-goodness approach to serve what Mary Daly called “academentia”, you can justify it in through such qualitative social research methodology as “grounded theory”.
One last thought … my late friend Ralph Metzner of Leary-Metzner-Alpert fame at Harvard in the 60’s, “stardust” and “golden”, had a wonderful saying. “Stories are what tell us of the past: visions tell us about the future”. Enjoy your thesis, and open others up to visionary possibilities.
As added whimsy, is an excerpt from the closing part to Alastair’s Sermon
“Lesson to The English on And Reform at Dark Mountain in Wales. The Sermon Application”
Sermon Application – Lifelines
A likely Gaelic derivation of Tom Forsyth’s name is Fearsithe, “the Man of the Faeries” or “Man of Peace”. But getting him to Llangollen (The meeting place for the event) had been anything but irenic. It had been a complex two-day journey by small boat, bus, and trains. Being in his eightieth year, and with reduced agility, we struggled with the tightly-timed connections between stations. Finally, the two of us were seated on Dark Mountain’s stage.
I spoke. Tom held silent presence. I invited his contribution. But he just sat.
After what seemed an age, he reached into his shirt pocket and held up on a chain an antiquated watch.
“I see that here you live by deadlines”, he said, referring to the journey.
“Where I come from, we live by lifelines”.
And then, he just sat there: slowly shaking his head, as if beguiled in wonderment.
At length, he added a little more. The butterfly may look as if it’s wander-ing aimlessly through the garden. But don’t be misled by the butterfly mind. It’s following its nectar to the source. That was Tom’s message, to Time to Stop Pretending.
I thought: “Is that it?”
Then, of course: that’s it!
And I raised my eyes to the balcony that ran around our seated auditorium. In full Highland Dress, appeared MacKinnon of MacCrimmon. (Ian is one of the most acclaimed Highland bagpipers of the Scottish Highlands and Islands tradition).
And I rooted my feet to the ground. And I shouted at the top of my voice.
IAN, WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY?
And the pipes skirled. And then he burst into an ancient Gaelic song.
And the assembled bards … and the Old Things on Dark Mountain …… stirred at the Gates of Dawn.
Social communicator, journalist and social designer, interested in how design, communication and social innovation can shape and reshape a more resilient and sustainable future. A strong believer that empathy, creativity, cooperation and the force of landscape opens up infinite opportunities to build better societies, more connected to nature and people.
In Colombia, we often say, El que no llora, no mama—if you don’t cry, you won’t get fed. But I’d better say, El que no ríe, no aprende—if you don’t laugh, you won’t learn.
Being half Swiss and half Colombian always made me straddle two cultures—Switzerland’s orderly landscapes and Colombia’s vigorous natural beauty—I learned to find magic in contrasts. My Swiss side loved the precision of alpine wildflowers, neatly arranged as if they were posing for a photoshoot. My Colombian heart, meanwhile, danced to the anarchic symphony of the green parrots squawking when the rain came down from the Andes mountains. Whimsy was not just an occasional visitor; it’s always been part of who I am, weaving stories that helped me bridge these two completely different worlds.
Today, as we stand at a kind of precipice of the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and political uncertainty, I ask myself: Can whimsy serve a purpose in our most pressing global, local, and personal struggles?
Imagine an aquatic field of Posidonia (Posidonia Oceania) waving tiny fans. (Why? To cool off as the ocean heats up, of course!). Or designing a crowdfunding campaign to save urban frogs titled “Give me a kiss and I give you back a prince”, where every donor receives the chance to “Kiss a Frog” challenge kit as an incentive. I think these ideas are not so silly at all; they’re strategic. Whimsy can slip past defenses, melt skepticism, and invite people into spaces they might otherwise avoid.
These heavy topics—climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental justice—often weigh too much for hearts already burdened or disconnected from these issues. But whimsy lifts, making it easier to carry.
Laughter is a shortcut to understanding
Take the example of the cotton-top tamarin, a tiny primate found only in Colombia, with its wild, fluffy white mane that looks like it’s perpetually having a bad sleeping night. Its whimsical appearance contrasts with the stark reality of its critically endangered situation, threatened by habitat loss and the illegal pet trade. Imagine a meme of a cotton-top tamarin with the caption: “When you wake up late but there’s no time to snooze when extinction is near”. Humor and whimsy don’t trivialize; they humanize, creating cracks in the walls of indifference where empathy can slip through.
Meme created by Claudia Misteli
In Colombia, we often say, El que no llora, no mama—if you don’t cry, you won’t get fed. But I’d better say, El que no ríe, no aprende—if you don’t laugh, you won’t learn. With its power to delight and surprise, whimsy can turn passive observers into active participants, bringing critical issues closer to the hearts of those who might otherwise look away.
Whimsy as a love language
One plant always stood out to me—the Alocasia, the Elephant’s Ear. But to me, always the Heart Plant. Its leaves, shaped like perfect hearts, seemed to pulse with a clear message: I love you. I still do not see those plants as just greenery; they are messengers sending quiet but profound signals of care, tenderness, and connection.
Claudia Misteli, Quindío – Colombia 2024
Whenever I encounter an Alocasia, a love letter from nature is etched in my heart. It’s a reminder that nature has been reaching out to us all along, expressing its love through intricate designs and quiet gifts. And now, I feel it’s our turn to reciprocate.
Can we write back to nature a love letter? What if our climate or NbS campaigns included love letters for glaciers or matchmaking services for lonely urban trees willing to give shadow?(Swipe right for the tree with excellent shade!) These small, whimsical gestures are not distractions; they are acts of re-enchantment, rekindling our sense of wonder.
So let’s dance with nature, tell her jokes, make some memes, and write poems or love letters. Maybe, just maybe, whimsy will save the world—or at least make the effort a little more fun.
Gareth has been involved in the sector for 30 years and has been CEO of NZ Recreation Association, National Sport & Recreation Manager for NZ YMCA, interim CEO of Outdoors NZ, and as public health planner in the health sector .
Bring on the whimsy! (but, as my daughters tell me, stop before you get the dad-jokes 🙂 ).
Imagine trying to explain the complexity of the message(s) contained in the Tom Torro carton below, using the English language (or other), full sentences, describing the context, the history, the present and the future and the science.
Tom Torro Cartoons. Produced under License #627245 accessed 19/10/24
Imagine putting forward in your argument against fossil fuel use (or nuclear bombs…) in a way that encapsulates the messages of naivety, cynicism, capitalism, cult-theory, power imbalances, and a fully dystopian future, using academic references, footnotes, conventions that are all unspoken but present in the cartoon.
Your audience would be asleep before they figure out what your message is, let alone take it on board.
The power of whimsy or humour is that your audience almost instantly ‘get your message’ and, importantly, will most likely pass this on/forward on a social media platform. They don’t need to demonstrate an academic or scientific or even philosophical understanding of the issue―it is there, in a drawing and a few words. Whimsy is the best sharp object I’ve come across at popping the conspiracy-theory balloon.
Some of my colleagues suggest that whimsy reduces the seriousness of the topic and the debate around it. But on the contrary, I have seen how an overly-serious approach to a topic can turn an audience off before they even understand the complexity of the message that is intended to be delivered.
Whimsy is understood at multiple-levels of engagement, and can deliver a message to where the recipient ‘is now’, in their education, their context, their role, their age.
Bring on the whimsy! (but, as my daughters tell me, stop before you get the dad-jokes 🙂 ).
Richard Scott is Director of the National Wildflower Centre at the Eden Project, and delivers creative conservation project work nationally. He is also Chair of the UK Urban Ecology Forum. Richard was chosen as one of 20 individuals for the San Miguel Rich List in 2018, highlighting those who pursue alternative forms of wealth.
Humour and whimsy go hand in hand. They take you somewhere else. Didn’t Einstein stare at passing clouds for inspiration, and didn’t Newton need the apple to fall on his head?
Be prepared to be educated by accident―It can lead to places
To many, whimsy sounds incidental, not real, and inconsequential. It is a bit of a laugh. The truth is, when we think about great leaps in ideas and creativity, it’s whimsy and curiosity that dance together, much like daydreams, which can lead to unexpected opportunity. It conjures both hope and mystery in grasping something new, and with the element of chance thrown in, it ripples with the sentiment of future possibility. Didn’t Einstein stare at passing clouds for inspiration, and didn’t Newton need the apple to fall on his head? There was a man for gravity. In The Importance of Living by Lin Yu Tang (1927), there is a chapter called “The Importance of the Scamp” which makes clear the importance of a scamp ideology in progressing civilisation, by cheeky irreverence and playful thinking.
It also takes us to the realms of Situationism and catching dreams, and the irony in Jamie Reid’s Nature Really Draws a Crowd, which inspired Danny Boyle’s unusual opening ceremony for the 2012 London Olympics.
The great Salford bard John Cooper Clarke spoke in his biographical poem “Ten Years in an Open Necked Shirt” (1982) of how he had been “educated by accident”: “There were days when high wind would festoon him with random information… bus tickets and timetables, bankrupt magazines, yesterday’s papers, wrappers and bottles… obsolete menus, ingredients, soya bean protein, monosodium glutamate, hydrolised milk solids… Exposure To Heat Could Cause Drowsiness… Open at Other End… Keep In a Cool Place, Do Not Bend…” At the age of seven, Jack had been educated by accident. Around the same time, when interviewed by student journalists about whether the themes of his poetry were changing, John replied, “I think there are a limited number of themes in the Platonic heaven… you just have to keep revising them”. Humour and whimsy go hand in hand. They take you somewhere else.
It is about what you fall upon, notice, drift across, and, of course, who you meet that can alter your direction in pursuit of something fresh and forthright, to gain powerful new steps—tangential perhaps—giving confidence to step out. Meeting by chance and circumstance, moments and atmospheres, just like who you fall in love with.
Also, many a true word has been spoken in jest. Shakespeare’s Court Jesters are the key to pathos— it pushes the drama forward, and cuts to the core. James Joyce thought the same—in risu veritas (in laughter, truth). In Indian culture, Krishna is depicted as the beautiful humble cowherd who captivated souls with his flute—symbolising the truth in simplicity and humility.
One of the most significant projects I have been involved in was made by stumbling across the novelty of something forgotten. An odd reference to deep ploughing at depths with teams of horses to establish tree planting on sandy and dry Danish soil, ploughing to nearly a meter, overturning the subsoil to the surface, and creating a great weed-free and reduced fertility zone to enable sowing. It seems ridiculous to many, though it was a good hypothesis when we tested it. But it was information lost; the Danish Forest and Landscape Institute had been deleted by the government and its researchers disbanded. We scratched our heads and followed a whimsy—there was an organization called the World Ploughing Organization that convenes agricultural ploughing matches. We found out the president that year was Danish and contacted him directly. Instantly, he replied with details, and the Danish manufacturer of a plough that could do this. It is a whole other story, reflecting the urban experience of soil and demolition landscapes in the city, and turning things upside down in terms of methodology, and the link between biodiversity, and the value of reversing the deal to give seeds the best chance. Now there are sites as little as 15 years old that defy biodiversity, with one rural site in Yorkshire recording the highest number of butterfly sightings in Yorkshire for the past four years in a row on what was industrial farmland, and a Shropshire site which has seen silver-studded blue butterflies expand from a tiny butterfly colony of 200 to over 54,000—when the national trend has sadly halved in the last 14 years.
In project work too, after winning Kew’s England Wildflower Flagship for Everton Park in Liverpool and Hulme and Moss Side in Manchester—a strategic economic slogan was the Northern Powerhouse—was instantly cannibalised by a joke at a Friends of Everton Park meeting, boldly stating “We’re the Northern Flowerhouse Now”, and so it remains a catalyst for wildflower change across Liverpool Parks and Greenspaces , now personalised further with a newly formed and infectious Scouse Flowerhouse Cooperative of like-minded groups. And how this links to bigger pictures, and shouting about the possible, together with the grand vision of the Eden Project, and WHAT NEXT at their new sites in Morecambe and Dundee or on the South Downs in Eastbourne. But it is the personal touch that makes everything special. Big narratives like this also came from dreaming the possible.
In Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man, in one of the most moving and telling moments of the series, he says, “To close the distance between push-button order and the betrayal of the human spirit… we have to TOUCH PEOPLE”.
Over the last year, I have been moved by craftivist artist and Liverpool football banner maker Peter Carney and the banners he has crafted for us, which touch the heart and lift it. Our time spent in Glasgow, and the interactions with children, and the passion and pride that Scouse folk have for their city, heritage, and future—this is what powers us forward with our vision to co-create and care for a Scouse Flowerhouse, sowing seeds for a wider Northern Flowerhouse, where wildflowers are recognized as part of our urban geography and sense of place. Waving the banner may be whimsical, but it is what stands behind it with a solid weeds-to-wildflower message. Like Blake’s “Heaven in a Wildflower” or harking back to the strength of Tennyson’s “Flower in a Crannied Wall” that fueled Frank Lloyd Wright’s creative thought.
Dr. Hita Unnikrishnan is an Assistant Professor at The Institute for Global Sustainable Development, The University of Warwick. Hita’s research interests lie in the interface of urban ecology, systems thinking, resilience, urban environmental history, public health discourses, and urban political ecology as it relates to the evolution, governance, and management of common pool resources in cities of the global south.
To me―an urban scholar―this festival represents perhaps some of the most dramatic and whimsical examples of how engaging with urban nature can bring joy, hope, and a sense of romance.
When a Grebe, Kestrel, and a Frog spoke beneath a silvery moon
October 19th 2024. Parkwood Springs, Sheffield. A place I had the privilege to call “home” for over three years. An almost full moon shines over the site of a former urban landfill―one that was operational between 1970 and 2015; one so toxic to other local nature reserves that it had to be shut down. Next to this, on a grounds formerly occupied by a deer park, over a 1000 people adorned with fairy lights, some of them with equally decorated dogs in tow, walk slowly―to the tune of two local Samba bands (the Sheffield Samba Band and the Sheffield Youth Samba Band) under the silvery moonlight, each with a willow lantern shaped like a bird or animal. The pièces de resistance are three giant lanterns lighting up the night―a magnificent kestrel, its beautifully decorated lit wings held aloft and flapping in the night, one of the leading artists Patrick Amber (the other being Jo Veal)―dressed and lit up as a great crested grebe, and a reclining Amalie―the beautifully decorated frog. To a casual onlooker, it is almost as if three giant, mystical representatives of the avian and amphibian worlds are speaking an ancient language known only to them.
The grebe, frog and kestrel. Photo credit: Nicholaus Hall
All along the path taken by this lively procession are other equally whimsical lantern creations―a Viking longboat, reindeer, dragons, bluebells, sunflowers, and other entities too whimsical to endow with a name or shape. Each lantern is carefully conceptualised, designed and handmade by local artists Patrick Amber and Jo Veal, together with The Friends of Parkwood Springs (a local collective that serves to protect and increase the visibility of this urban space), and members of the community through a series of workshops open to anyone with any level of talent and held a few weeks before the event itself.
The community workshop for lantern making, held within a local heritage building – dogs included. Photo credit: Hita Unnikrishnan
To me―an urban scholar―this festival represents perhaps some of the most dramatic and whimsical examples of how engaging with urban nature can bring joy, hope, and a sense of romance. First, there is the site itself. To someone new to the region and walking the many acres of land covered by Parkwood Springs, it is hard to believe that this was once a site that epitomised hostile, toxic facets of urban nature relationships. Today, it is a dramatic and seasonally changing landscape filled with grass, woodlands, heather, gorse, brambles, and―if you are lucky―the occasional herds of deer frolicking in the sunset. Almost every fortnight on a full moon here, a dystopic look out through which you can gaze for miles across this hilly city transforms dramatically. For on those days local artists and members of this tightly knit community come together for a night of shadow puppetry, music, dance, dog walking, and other forms of community building―under the light of the moon, and with giant community-made lanterns representing some element of the season in question―bluebells, for example.
One of the “Beneath the light of the silvery moon events” with shadow puppetry cast over the dramatic Sheffield sunset. Photo: Hita Unnikrishnan
And then there is the lantern festival itself. Nothing screams romantic and whimsical more than the sight of hundreds of lanterns bobbing up and down as their bearers walk past, the lanterns homogenizing people into an indistinguishable mass of humankind―united under the light of that silvery moon. While invoking a sense of fun, nostalgia, and community―with an enticing bit of whimsy, these events are also a way of reconnecting with the nature around, of appreciating what the spaces around us can give us, and of giving back. Giving back to nature through co-creating appreciation and joy, enabling a renewed interest in engaging with such spaces, so enhancing their value, and aiding their preservation for future generations. As Robert Macfarlane says in his Landmarks, “What we bloodlessly call ‘place’ is to young children a wild compound of dream, spell, and substance: place is somewhere they are always ‘in’, never ‘on’.” Parkwood Springs, and the activities there, continue to give to its inhabitants―its present, and future generations―that sense of connection by giving substance to dreams and weaving hopeful spells for the future. To me, these are visions of an alternate way of engaging with nature and the massive challenges we face―beyond the more common visions of doom and gloom and into a renewed sense of hope.
Ania Upstill (they/them) is a queer and non-binary performer, director, theatre maker, teaching artist and clown. A graduate of the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre (Professional Training Program), Ania’s recent work celebrates LGBTQIA+ artists with a focus on gender diversity.
The absurd can be used to highlight problems in our world, and whimsy can help spark our innate human ability to be flexible and invent solutions.
As a clown, the joy and curiosity guide a lot of what I create. I feel strongly that art that brings joy can also bring change―that laughter and delight can help open up the brain to be receptive to new thoughts, new connections, and new ways of being. I embrace whimsy to connect to joy and delight, and as an alternative way to approach knowledge-making.
Whimsy, to me, is not only connected to joy but is also connected to magic, to the unexpected, to the transformation that takes you by surprise and brings a smile to your face. Imagine: you are at a theater show. Through means you can’t discern, a plant sprouts suddenly from the middle of a dining table, disrupting the conversation. Through a whimsical stage direction (or directorial choice), the audience’s attention has been grabbed. Even if you don’t identify as an environmentalist, or a plant-lover, this sudden appearance would likely catch your attention simply through its novelty. Our brains are highly attuned to novelty, but bad novelty can make us scared, defensive, resistant. Whimsy, on the other hand, offers a non-threatening and joyful type of surprise. I believe that through this, whimsical experiences can offer a reset, a disruption, a re-tuning. It can be a provocation to curiosity and exploration. I don’t think it’s a surprise that whimsy is associated with children, or with adults who might be deemed ‘child-like’. Children are constantly discovering, learning, and adapting. Perhaps whimsy can help us reverse-engineer our brains towards a more flexible mindset, back towards the receptiveness we experienced in childhood. Through experiences that are fanciful, fantastical, joyful, encouraging a mindset that is more fertile for new ideas to be planted. New ideas like imagining solutions for, or new engagements with, climate change.
Let’s get back to clowns. Clowns live in whimsy. By that, I mean that we live in the “oh, I didn’t think that could happen!” and the “wow, look at that!”. When I teach clowning, I even use the word “wow” as my go-to for accessing the perspective of a clown: constantly in awe; using old, tired, familiar objects in new and novel ways; reinventing everything from how to walk to how to express love and desire. What calls for more reinvention than our attitude toward the environment? What deserves the word “wow” more than nature-based solutions?
Great clown and clown-adjacent comedy is often based in whimsy. Monty Python, Mr. Bean, Bill Irwin. For a concrete example, think about Charlie Chaplin’s film Modern Times. Has there ever been a more effective send-up of industrialization? And it is achieved through a popular form of art (film) and through the opposite of a didactic, lecture-based approach. Instead, we are led to see the effects of industrialization and while we laugh, we think. The absurd can be used to highlight problems in our world, and whimsy can help spark our innate human ability to be flexible and invent solutions. I’ve achieved this with my own solo show in regard to exploring and accepting transgender identities, and I have every reason to believe it can be done in regard to climate change and other environmental issues.
Whimsy asks for flexibility; it asks for believing in the impossible. I believe it has the potential to allow us to hack our own ideas of what the world is, and what it can be.
Visiting Director for the Contemporary Art Galleries at UConn in Storrs, Connecticut, Wendy Wischer is an artist and educator with a focus on artwork in a variety of media from sculptural objects to installations, video, projection, sound, alternative forms of drawing and public works. Much of the artwork is based on blurring the separation between an intrinsic approach to working with nature and the cutting edge of New Media.
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.
It is graffiti in an unexpected place, and with an unexpectedly peaceful subject. It causes us to pause for a moment and linger too, and think about that imaginary woman. And also think about what the creator of this picture was thinking.
Much of what we encounter as creative graffiti is whimsical. I am not talking about tagging here, but rather the story oriented graffiti exemplified by artists such as Banksy. Think, for example, a masked protester hurling … flowers (Bansy’s Love is in the Air). Love is in the Air juxtaposes rebellion and tenderness. It challenges perceptions by melding a violent act with a peaceful gesture, urging us to imagine alternatives. The unexpected image of a protester throwing flowers provokes thought about love, resistance, and societal change, inspiring us to reconsider our approach to power, protest, and hope.
TNOC started The Nature of Graffiti a few years ago to explore such juxtapositions in the context of nature. It is a gallery of nature-themed graffiti around the world, and there is a lot of it. Cape Town, Bogotá, and Calí are full of it. Other cities, too. Painted birds on walls. Chimeras of zebras with human heads. Scenes of people gathering food. Messages of environmental and social protest (“Belo Monte de mentiras“, referencing an Amazon watershed dam that has disrupted nature and communities). Funny juxtapositions.
One image has always lingered for me. It was up one of the steep hillsides in Bogotá, in a poor neighborhood. Almost all of the water used in Bogotá flows down from the hills next to the cities, in rivers and streams that pass through these neighborhoods. It is graffiti of a woman sitting next to an actual river and its flow. She is enjoying it. Contemplating it. Appreciating it. Lingering with it.
And it is graffiti in an unexpected place, and with an unexpectedly peaceful subject. It causes us to pause for a moment and linger too, and think about that imaginary woman. And also think about what the creator of this picture was thinking.
Graffiti in Bogotá, Colombia. Artist unknown. Photo: David Maddox
Elizabeth Frickey (she/her) is a Ph.D. student in musicology and MacCracken Fellow at New York University. Her current research examines the cultural, ecological, and political impact of community gardens and other urban greenspaces through the lens of music and sound.
How could the presence of a keytar in a community garden be anything but whimsical?
You’re walking down Houston Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City on a brisk Sunday afternoon. The busy throughway, with its four lanes of traffic, thrums with the usual sounds of wheels on pavement, distant sirens, and the voices of fellow pedestrians in jovial conversation. Seeking respite from the urban thrall, perhaps you stroll towards the nearby First Street Garden. However, as you approach, you are met not with the quiet you were seeking, but something else entirely. You aren’t even quite sure what you hear… there’s a mournful wailing sound… or a mechanical tapping sound met with a ghostly whirring… or is that a noise rock band playing around the corner?
I like to imagine the number of people to have had this exact serendipitous experience―to have paused at the fence separating the garden from the bordering sidewalk, surprised to find, not a secluded space of peaceful refuge, but a free jazz concert unfolding before their very eyes and ears. This is not an isolated experience, however, but merely one of the many iterations of the Arts for Art annual InGardens Festival which you have stumbled upon.
As a musicologist, I am often drawn towards networks of urban ecologies first and foremost through my ears. In the context of the InGardens Festival, for example, I wander into this space, wondering:
Why does this cacophony of free and raucous improvisation exceed my expectations for the garden’s soundscape, and am I alone in this impression? What do I imagine the idealized urban greenspace to sound like?
Formally founded in 1996 by dancer and poet Patricia Nicholson, Arts for Art (AFA) is, per its mission statement, a New York-based nonprofit organization dedicated to “the promotion and advancement of FreeJazz―an African American indigenous art form in which improvisation is principle.” For those familiar with the characteristically jagged and unpredictable sounds of experimental free jazz as a genre, the garden environment might come as an unexpected venue for this style of music. It is in its evasion of my sonic expectations that the InGardens Festival thus becomes whimsical to my ears. Indeed, how could the presence of a keytar in a community garden be anything but whimsical?
But then, from my vantage point in the comfort of this greenspace, I hear the high-pitched chirps of a song sparrow, and I swear the flutist in front of me chirps back in response. Helicopter blades chop overhead in time to the harsh tremolo of the double bass. A drummer catches the tac-a-tac-a-tac of the jackhammer on the other side of the fence. A saxophonist lays down their horn and yet, the music continues. I cock my head. Was it there all along?
Perhaps the power of the InGardens Festival, of the keytar in the garden, is not derived solely from the improvisations of human musicians, but also from the improvisational response of the more-than-human. If free jazz pokes holes in our conceptions of what music even is in the first place, the boundaries of music/noise, backdrop/performance, human/more-than-human become blurry to the point of indistinguishability. The garden itself is more porous than we once thought …
And yet, the whimsy remains. Newly attuned to the music of the urban greenspace–as loud, messy, and, yes, capricious as the free jazz which it had accompanied–we hear differently now. I laugh at myself for ever thinking the garden would be so sonically submissive, for thinking that I could be so easily separated from the garden myself.
In 2002, I was working full-time as a social science researcher for the US Forest Service in New York City. My colleague Lindsay Campbell and I visited with leaders of the urban greening movement at that time — from community gardeners and park volunteers to environmental justice activists and tree planters, to directors of community service organizations and long-time government program staff. The message was the same: we need a way to capture the varied and wonderful ways that people are caring for the environment in New York City.
During this time, I was working on my doctoral degree at Columbia University. I met a sociology professor, Dana R. Fisher, who was also excited by the prospect of creating new knowledge about civic action and the environment in cities. Shortly thereafter, STEW-MAP was born — in many ways as a celebration and further understanding of local people who have been inspired by the environment, in its various and restorative forms, to bring about change in their lives and communities.
The Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project (STEW-MAP) is a research project led by US Forest Service researchers and cooperators that seek to answer the questions: Which environmental stewardship groups are working across urban landscapes, where, why, and how?
Stewardship can be an awkward term for some, so we settled on a clear definition. STEW-MAP defines a “stewardship group” as an organization or group that works to conserve, manage, monitor, advocate for, and/or educate the public about their local environments. This work includes efforts that involve water, forests, land, air, waste, toxics, and energy use. Many civic stewardship groups work within, alongside or independent of public agencies and private businesses in managing urban places. Over the years, STEW-MAP has become both a study of urban stewardship socio-spatial characteristics and a publicly available online tool to help support those networks. To see our multi-city portal, visit here.
Inspired by neighborhood change and revitalization
Years before, when I was working as an urban and community forester in southwest Baltimore, I met many people whose work inspired me to think of the city as a place of innovation and change, of generosity and understanding, of deep ecological knowledge. In the early 1990s, Baltimore residents were coping with ways to deal with entire blocks of abandoned homes, open-air drug activity, the everyday threat of gun violence and severe poverty. Many of the people I met chose to address troubles in their community through civic action: cleaning up vacant lots, planting flowers, creating afterschool programs for neighborhood kids. Many of these people were neither saints or sinners, but self-directed in teaching themselves the fundamental skills necessary to grow a garden next to an abandoned row house, to carve out a bike trail alongside old railroad tracks, to restore a neglected park to its former glory.
During the course of my work, I met an amazing photographer, Steffi Graham, who began to document people throughout the city who were caring for public and neglected areas. One afternoon, we set out to find a garden that was rumored to be producing the ‘best greens on the east side.’ We walked through a seemingly endless maze of vacant lots and back-alleys, and after a few hours we were about to give up. Luckily, an encampment of old timers sitting on the corner, shouted out to us, “what you two doing here?” We replied, “Just looking for the garden.” We were provided an escort back into the alleyway and before our eyes emerged row after row of the biggest collard greens and cabbages I have ever seen. Interestingly enough, these prize specimens were planted in the back yards of homes that were boarded and abandoned. Further back, across the alley and along the wall of a warehouse was a make-shift, fenced in yard that was overgrown with vines. We peered through the fence and came face-to-face with a large, metal shovel. Holding onto this shovel in a not-so-friendly way, was a man in coveralls. Clearly, he was the steward of this land. We quickly stated our intentions and after a period of time, our questions were answered.
Why are you gardening here? It’s where I live.
How do you grow such great stuff? I read up on things and watch other people, especially that guy who grows over on North Avenue. Him and I been watching each other for years. This year I got my peas in earlier than him and you can still see some over here……
Who is planting outside your fence, in the backyards? I am. That’s for anybody who’s hungry. This way, they won’t mess with my stuff.
How do you get water? I watch the weather and figure on planting plants that can take the drought, and, when things get real rough, the guys at warehouse lend me the hose.
Such exchanges, and many others like it, have served as evidence enough for me that urban residents are ecological thinkers who care for the land with a sense of stewardship, not unlike their rural counterparts, helping to care for forests, farms, rivers and grasslands. As I learned more about these innovative people and their projects, I realized that many received encouragement, information and occasionally modest funding from a growing number of bridging organizations, groups like neighborhood associations, clubs, and environmental civic groups that serve as an interface between government agencies and the local community.
STEW-MAP Today
To date, STEW-MAP has collected information from thousands of local stewardship groups in New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. These groups range from neighborhood block associations and kayak clubs, to tree planting groups and regional environmental coalitions, to nonprofit educational institutions and museums. Other cities, including Los Angeles and San Juan, Puerto Rico, are expressing keen interest in developing a STEW-MAP study and application.
What is shown on STEW-MAP?
Stewardship maps tell us about the presence, capacity, geographic turf, and social networks of environmental stewardship groups in a given city. For the first time, these social infrastructure data are treated as part of green infrastructure asset mapping. For example, the interactive mapping website developed in New York City currently displays basic data for 405 groups citywide alongside other open space data layers. Other STEW-MAP cities continue to expand the NYC model and have created new maps and resources for their cities.
STEW-MAP data: A map of stewardship organizations in New York City
Why is STEW-MAP important?
STEW-MAP can highlight existing stewardship gaps and overlaps in order to strengthen organizational capacities, enhance citizen monitoring, promote broader civic engagement with on-the-ground environmental projects, and build effective partnerships among stakeholders involved in urban sustainability. Long-term community-based natural resource stewardship can help support and maintain our investment in green infrastructure and urban restoration projects. STEW-MAP creates a framework to connect potentially fragmented stewardship groups; to measure, monitor, and maximize the contribution of our civic resources.
Who should use STEW-MAP?
STEW-MAP is a tool for natural resource managers, funders, policymakers, stewardship groups, and the public. For example, managers in NYC have queried STEW-MAP to find stewards proximate to specific forest restoration projects run by MillionTreesNYC. Funders or community organizers can identify areas having the greatest or least presence of stewardship groups, taking into account organization size and focus area. Those seeking to disseminate policy information can target the most connected groups to quickly and effectively reach an entire network or a subset. Members of the public who want to know who is working in a particular neighborhood or who can provide technical resources for a project can search the database, which displays results as a list or on a map.
Example uses: Stewards in proximity to Flushing Meadow Park, New York
How is STEW-MAP implemented?
STEW-MAP is a research and application project that involves two stages. STEW-MAP 1.0 is the “lay of the land” data collection stage, during which the organizational population is inventoried, surveyed, and analyzed. This stage produces a database of stewardship organizations in the city, maps of where the organizations conduct stewardship activities, and social network analyses of the numbers and types of ties among groups. This work is accomplished in partnership between a local partner from the study area, a university partner, and a scientist from Forest Service.
STEW-MAP 2.0 is the “how do we use the data?” — the applied stage of the project. This stage includes the development of resources and tools that make the data easier to access and use. STEW-Map cities are exploring a range of visualizations for use in policy and practice. The Chicago team will be conducting focus groups in the coming months to enhance our understanding of user needs and applications. In Baltimore, federal and local participants in Baltimore’s Urban Waters Program are interested in using STEW-MAP data to facilitate their work: to increase collaboration, improve the flow of information and identify program gaps and overlaps. And in New York City, STEW-MAP data has been made available for a wide range of public uses, serving policy makers, program directors and the general public.
This blog post takes the form of a seminar report. It is a reflection of the work of the City in Environment class of spring 2013 at The New School, New York. It is also a reflection on urban practice. In this class student explored and interrogated many terms that surround the urban environmental debate. In particular the five big terms: nature, landscape, sustainable, ecosystem and ecology were discussed and documented in a glossary. In short, we didn’t start with an issued based or rights based approach, but rather we learnt from past and emerging urban design and ecosystem science theories, frameworks and spatial strategies in order to discover what new hybrid urban practices might contribute to making positive differences for neighborhoods.
Who creates the art of urban practice?
The neighborhoods, all in or near New York City, were selected from a layered analysis using four datasets on a crop that partially framed the New Jersey Meadowlands, Manhattan Island, Jamaica Bay and Long Island Sound. The four layers, shown in Fig. 1, include the megalopolis highway infrastructure (grey), the New York City Bike Map (orange), a FEMA map of inundation by Hurricane Sandy (pink) and shopping malls or big box retail (not visible at this scale). These conditions intersect fifteen times (black boxes). Thirteen students had a site each, and shared their work on the class blog as well as presenting informally in the seminar each week. The base map was created as a prompt, with shared urban environmental conditions, in different combinations that are current to the region within an easy fieldwork range of the university.
Fig. 1. Neighborhood location map. Credit: Victoria Marshall
The students come from a range of graduate and undergraduate programs across the university (MA MS International Affairs, MS Design and Urban Ecologies, MA Media Studies, BA Environmental Studies), and from around the world (Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, USA). The assignment is an academic exercise that leans on the full arc of a students learning, for example the International Field Program, and the Atlantis Program: Urbanisms of Inclusion. The class offers students tools through which to develop their own critical practice in a context of world politics. This means that student work was always discussed in relation to other urban environmental debates that surround development, democracy, participation, design, planning policy and imperialism.
The students’ final projects have been sorted into three clusters: chatting, extreme timing and after land use. Direct quotes and original drawings from the student blog posts are used here to share the project intent most clearly.
Chatting
These projects engage participation in urban change, through walking, chatting and online media. The term chatting is used here in the sense described by L. H. M. Ling from her forthcoming book The Dao of World Politics: Towards a Post-ˇWestphalian, Worldist International Relations. The book draws on Daoist yin/yang dialectics to move world politics from the current stasis of hegemony, hierarchy, and violence to a more balanced engagement with parity, fluidity, and ethics. She suggests new ways to articulate and act so that global politics is more inclusive and less coercive. One of the ways to act is chatting.
Emily translates chatting to mean a kind of informal, back-and-forth relationship with an environment through a walking tour. Alberto engages chatting as a relational circuit amongst walking and blogging and drawing and building and then more walking and so on. Samantha discovers that there is already online chatting going on, and her project plugs into this, inflecting it with new connections.
Fluid Experience
Emily Ball
“In the field of International Affairs, there is a strong concern with the categorization of economic and political processes. We have this notion that cities and even countries, basically any area that is formed by political boundaries, follow nice, non-overlapping linear stages that can be easily defined and organized. India is the world’s largest democracy. Pittsburgh is a post-industrial city. In using these simplistic descriptions we are able to simplify the complex processes within a geographical context and apply comparative analysis to otherwise distinct regions. However, in the study of cities, this urgency to define urban form and activity can lead to a sense that we have lost touch with important things happening in transition and have failed to fully realize the overlapping quality of stages …Have we lost sight of the integral relationship between human urban processes and the greater ecological systems for which we are a part? If so, in a chaotic climate era, how do we evolve to address our cities as ever changing and evolving urban ecologies? … With these questions in mind, I visited Red Hook, a neighborhood of 10,000 on the Southwestern tip of Brooklyn (New York), in early spring of this year and I was at once both more confused and utterly inspired.”
After a reflection on the contradictions she encounters, Emily then proposes a strategy of a changing walking tour as a generator for dialogue on urban change. She then offers her idea of the first walking tour of Red Hook including ideas for ways to engage and consider these urban spaces:
“I began to wonder how a waterfront community like Red Hook could redesign their vulnerable urban spaces in coordination with an alternative definition of stability. My proposal is a self-guided walking tour of the neighborhood beginning from the closest subway stop (The Smith St./9th St. F/G Station). The paths would change either seasonally or depending on topical events in the neighborhood so the physical path markers would be minimal and temporary and social media could be used to broadcast the route. The temporary nature of the paths would provide a broader metaphor for the shifting regimes inherent in our urban spaces. The path is a welcoming place for evolving ideas, concerns and desires in the community”Fig. 2
For example:
“The painting of waves presents a bold statement: “Some Walls Are Invisible.” The Mural is a project by Groundswell, a community public art program, and Miles4Justice, a Dutch human rights organization. They propose that the piece: ‘examines the ways that visible attributes of race and ethnicity can be invisible barriers to equality and justice. These barriers can be overcome with careful attention to our shared community and principles of human rights.’ This is such a strong statement of community engagement, I wonder if this work, or the area around it, could expand to include other visual representations of invisible barriers—in particular the community’s waterfront vulnerability. Perhaps an interactive flood marker could be installed which plays off of the waves in the mural.“
Fig 2. “Some Walls Are Invisible.” Photo: Emily Ball
Walkscapes for Seacaucus: A Nomadic Observatory for an Inclusive Design
Alberto Salis
“The trigger of this work … is to deal with a certain rhetoric embedded in urban practice. In the latter years debates and topics around urbanism are more and more engaging participation and inclusiveness in projects and proposals by thinkers, planners and designers. It appears quite paradoxical this doesn’t happen within the creative process as well. It has to be said, of course, this assumption yet keeps in mind of any precedent attempt in this track. But still the impression is transdisciplinary communicativity in urban practice needs a deeper understanding. This project, in this framework, wants to be a starting point for a personal (no less shared) research around this topic.”
“A second trigger is related to environmental debate within urban design, and the complexity of the relations among what are generally called ‘anthropic’ and ‘natural’ environments. This duality here is meant to be argued. If it exists in expressive terms, it doesn’t as an actual concept. Even if it does, the relationships occurring between the two has to be dialectic, that is to say ‘anthropic’ and ‘natural’ delineation is not completely fit to describe the complexity of an environment. This statement, still somehow not yet mature and defined, is supposed to be provocative in a positively and propositive way, rather than being a defeatist critique.”
Albertos blog is divided into three sections that together function as a nomadic observatory: derive mindset (a journal where story telling invites the reader to establish an involvement and to take a critic statement, whether positive or negative), visual derive (paintings, graphic novels, video footage), operative derive (to metabolize the information into an operational agenda, as a milestone) and sketchbook (making design process habits inclusive). He explains:
“Walking is put as a main carrier of meanings all through the project, as esthetic tool of urban investigation and urban practice … this project [is] the first spine of this practice, a proposal for walkable spaces leading to both psychological and environmental resiliency implementation in neglected and over-exploited urban spaces. In the design process it embodies itself in infrastructural intervention and reorganization in Secaucus, NJ.”Figs. 3-5
Fig 3. Walkscapes for Seacaucus Operative Derive key map. Credit: Alberto SalisFig 4. Walkscapes for Seacaucus Visual Derive. Credit: Alberto SalisFig 5. Walkscapes for Seacaucus Operative Derive Section. Credit: Alberto Salis
Scat: A sample of processing East Harlem urban design
Samantha Clements
“Public engagement as a method is used in development and urban design alike. In order to explore this further I have made a website that is a form of public engagement. It’s a sample of what I imagine would be a way of reaching out to the community through technology that already exists and combining information that is already presented in various forums online into one condensed website.
I used Tumblr as the host of the website because it is already a popular community orientated website (whether that be outside / established communities connecting online or communities forming around shared interests) and therefore there would not be an additional problem of driving traffic to the website, which is important because its an interactive extension of conversations already occurring in East Harlem.”
Samantha embedded a music video as a sound image in order to stimulate a better understanding of modern application of scat, which in itself is seemingly haphazard but really is a methodical chaos that is based off of set musical standards.
“The posts may seem a little disjointed but this is to simulate pieces of an urban design project coming together online. That is why there is a ‘site’ map updated to outline how all the pieces of the individual projects come together with any additional information needed. The hash tag system Tumblr utilizes allows for each post to be tagged with its project name any other relevant terms, users can then search for a particular term and see all posts tagged as such.”
Screen shot of blog. Credit: Samantha Clements
Extreme timing
Space, typically thought of as a territory, is also something that we generate through thought in movement. These projects engage frames of time as types of spaces that are generative of new urban form and new urban forms of democracy. The goal is to correlate different time frames. Extreme timing translates dynamics of urban change that are currently generating stress and friction both environmentally and socially into urban form, making danger sensible. The projects are therefore a new type of reasonable speculation.
Thomas translates extreme timing to be a project of drawing long cycles of urban ecosystem change into each other to form a sense of enclosure with a sensibility of sand as an urban actor. Luca engages extreme timing as a long-term restoration project that starts with a sudden overnight move; closing a duplicated branch of highway I-95 and opening it as a pedestrian parkway. Veronica carefully captures the temporal gap between the creative flexibility of residents in a neighborhood and the rigidity of governance systems, finding it as a site for a new extreme timing organization.
Dynamic Dunelandscapes: A framework for the Shifting Sands of Coney Island
Thomas Willemse
Thomas presents Coney Island in his blog through its long cultural, very long geological and very short seasonal histories. He notes that it is a history of inversion (the super-natural opposite of Manhattan) countermoves (reclamation) and extremes (the most recent being Hurricane Sandy.) Inspired by his fieldwork, he explains (Fig. 6):
“…in October 2012 the shores of the island were once again swept clean, this time by Hurricane Sandy. The remaining fun fair was once more heavily hit, leaving the rollercoaster in the middle of a sea of water this time. Sea Gate was struck by an equal force of water that swept through many of the beach houses. But something else has also happened: the artificial barriers between the clearly delineated patches, that protected the ‘super-natural’ inside, have been breached. The escapist ambitions of one realm were blurred with those of another. The ‘naturally restored’ dunes of the Coney Island Creek Park shifted and buried the delineating fence of Sea Gate—and the lower levels of some houses—erasing this once so sharp border. On top of this breaches were slashed in the social barriers, bringing alienated neighbors back together in the recovery afterwards.”
“Perhaps instead of ignoring the disturbances throughout its history and reinforcing the inversion of the natural and re-erecting the barriers between the patches, something can be learned from the blurring that happened after Hurricane Sandy. A new relationship with the omnipresent sand can perhaps be found and some badly hit patches can learn the resilient ecologies of their neighbors. It might even close the circle of its history where the artificial ‘super-natural’ meets the natural again, just like the sand that continuously finds it way in between the patches of the island.”
Fig 6. Fieldwork photo. Credit: Thomas Willemse
For example:
“If we focus on one section in particular, crossing the beach, park(ing) area and residential towers, we encounter highly volatile seasonal dynamics on the shore, with a rapid succession of ecologies, then the amusement park area alternating between very high and very low intensities, until the very slow dynamics of the residential towers.”
Fast, seasonal, slow dynamics map. Credit: Thomas Willemse
What if:
“A wooden framework can be grafted on an existing pedestrian bridge that connects the boardwalk with the elevated subway train station. Perpendicular to this bridge wooden structures, filled with reeds, form first of all collectors of the sand that blows inland from the beach and secondly permanently stabilize the dunes. These dunes are then organized in such a way that they form a framework for a car parking lot, temporary event structures or attractions of the fair. Other hills of sand that might have formed in between can easily be cleared to open the areas in between the stabilized hills that are reinforced by the wooden framework. But the structure itself also becomes a facilitator for other uses to reinvigorate the patches. In winter and spring the framework is a boardwalk in a dunelandscape with lookout posts for bird watching. But transforms completely in summer in a rollercoaster of activities with a stage, a busy metro hub and a major skating area penetrating the residential towers.”Fig. 7
Fig 7. Dunescape section and vignette. Credit: Thomas Willemse
“In Coney Island the sand presents itself as ultimate carrier of the dynamics of its ecologies—shorebirds, water animals, sunbathers—and relates to different spans of time. The sand alternates with the short seasonal histories of the ebb and flow of the migrating tourists. But this revised process still brings new sand on shore to re-nourish now, not only the beach, but also the whole barrier island. And finally, as pointed out before, the ebb and flow of sand could become a major attraction in itself, intertwining in this way the natural and super-natural, bringing the circle of the Island’s history to a new dynamic close.”
Dynamics of Fragmentation
Luca Fillipi
After an analysis of the disturbances created by socio-economic trends, Luca offers three integrated frameworks to guide change in the New Jersey Meadowlands:
“The first one, called an “Inaccessible Landscape,” starts from a ground observation that shows fragmentation as a landscape dramatically cut by infrastructural barriers that deny a real point of entry into it. The second part, called a “Resisting Landscape,” tries to do a qualitative evaluation of the effects of the different dynamics and agents of fragmentation by using an ecological framework that is usually not considered in this kind of evaluation: the non-equilibrium paradigm. In this specific case, it will mean evaluating fragmentation inside an ecological model that accept it to the extent that it contributes in generating a more dynamic, and eventually resilient, ecosystem. The third one, called a “Disturbance Landscape,” develops the argument of the previous chapter by engaging the fragmentation as a disturbance in a landscape of disturbances.” Figs. 8-10
Fig 8. New Mobilities: an inaccessible landscape. Credit: Luca FillipiFig 9. Restoration: a resisting landscape. Credit: Luca FillipiFig 10. Renovation: a disturbance landscape. Credit: Luca Fillipi
“I started this project close to the ground and I moved out from it for finding a way, a project, for going back there, in the middle of the swamp.”
I want to close this essay, started by quoting Bryan Zanisnik, referring again to his work. He writes at the end of his Beyond Passaic:
“…I took some steps to the east and looked past the facade, toward a paved parking lot with evenly spaced white lines and decorative lampposts. All this, along with American Dream Meadowlands, may soon be swallowed up by the marsh, I thought. But if not, the marsh may soon disappear or, even worse, be placed on maps”.
This quote, although absolutely beautiful, refers probably again to an idea of ecology that needs to be overcome. The interaction between human and nature in a way that do not exclude each other is possible and the project that we propose here try to show it. Time has maybe come to place the Meadowlands on a map.
The Metaphors of the City of Resilience
Veronica Foley
Veronica starts her project that engages parks, balance, and order with a discussion metaphors:
“Steward Pickett explains that the use of a metaphor helps create a connection between urban planning and the science of ecology”
“The past notion that ecosystems were constant and maintained a stable equilibrium has been replaced by the non-equilibrium paradigm that emphasizes dynamism, patch dynamics and resilience. Resilience is key to the non-equilibrium paradigm; it takes into account the many stable states of ecosystems. In order to evolve alongside the metaphors that have designed Jersey City, the city must plan for changes in the future. One way that the city can do this is by integrating its open and green spaces into a land trust. A land trust is a flexible urban infrastructure that can handle new metaphors of cities of resilience.”
Veronica introduces three parks, each of which are analyzed through the various metaphors that they engage: Liberty State Park, Reservoir #3, Harsimus Stem Embankment. Her proposal is to connect them as an urban forest trail managed by a land trust, which she describes as a new dimension democratic project:
“The proposed urban forest trail and the sites that would be connected increase the flexibility of Jersey City. These projects would help integrate the public into plans for the city’s future. The many organizations that have formed to support the already existing projects at the embankment, Liberty State Park and Reservoir # 3, have begun to rework how the city government functions.”
“A new dimension of democracy has emerged; these groups have organized to take care of the environment and also to fight for the same resources from the city. This democratization of the decision making process regarding the ecology of the city has lead to a system of governance that is more sustainable and a more sustainable ecosystem.”
“The land trust gives power to the people to create the spaces they want. The changing climate has prompted community to react with plans for sustainable change while sometimes city governments have different obligations that don’t allow them to be as flexible as community actors.”
“The democratic project that could begin once the land trust is established would transform Jersey City from the congested rail city of its past to a city of resilience. The land trust and the urban forest trail would be a platform for democratic and sustainable change.”Fig. 11
Fig 11. Three parks (blue) forest trail (green). Credit: Veronica Foley
After Landuse
Speculative turbulence always surrounds the process of land use reclassification e.g., wetland to commercial, industrial to park, farmland to residential, low density to high density etc. At the same time the fine grain, block, lot, rooftop, sidewalk scale of changes persist such as crisis, disaster, decline, renovation and redevelopment. These are sometimes prescient of a new turn in land use categories, again setting in place another type of speculative turbulence. Can urban practice help correlate the actors who generate land use turbulence with non-equilibrium ecosystems better? The projects in this section offer land cover as a public engagement tool toward this goal. (See my previous post: Patch Reflection.) This approach is also of use in cities where there is no strategic land use planning and a lot of contested speculative urban change.
Noora translates after land use as a tactic of proposing several interconnected micro-changes as tangible requests to be a participant in various disconnected macro-decisions. Wendy engages after land use as a vertical strategy that moderates and makes climate change sensible. Jonas captures the speculative turbulence that is occurring after Hurricane Sandy to create more options for residents to stay in place.
Creating a Patchy Discussion for Corona Park and Willets Point
Noora Marcus
“I analyze the park both as a land cover patch and as located in a larger area of multiple intersecting land cover patches. Through a focus on the patch dynamics of the area of Flushing Bay and three design interventions, the roles, divisions and potential interactions between the green infrastructure and grey infrastructure in the area, are brought into focus. The narrative offered here is for public debate, with the objective to enrich the discussion on heterogeneous urban ecosystem change and the ideal of sustainability.”
“The goal of this narrative is to enrich the area through a strategy that does not erase the existing layers, but works to integrate the layers in new creative ways. The design proposals presented here aim to transform different patches (different land cover mixes) into new types of infrastructure (physical, social and aesthetic). Beyond the designs themselves, the narrative presented here aims to encourage the people of Flushing Bay to view themselves as part of the urban fabric of the park and the city, and to hopefully assert themselves as actors that can influence the potential of this space.”Fig. 12
Fig 12. A simple sharable drawing using simple drawing tools showing sophisticated ideas for urban change. Credit: Noora Marcus.
Urban Strata in Transition
Wendy Van Kessel
“Lower Manhattan is different. Walking through the streets you will notice that it doesn’t conform to the street grid of the rest of Manhattan. The streets have names instead of numbers, and avenues don’t exist.”
Wendy explored a strata section, a vertical analysis toward classifying vertical heterogeneity according to microclimate. Her analysis started from the view from the street, as well as the view from the water, focusing specifically on what she calls the ‘shrub layer.’ Her proposal for a Shoreline Portico aims to intensify the transition between the different urban microclimates. It marks the former shoreline of Manhattan, creates a semi-public terrace, and amplifies the explosion of sky that emerges when a pedestrian walks from from the ‘canyon’ to the ‘waterfront.’ Figs. 13-15
“Altogether, the proposed intervention is a way to reflect the different micro-climates within Lower Manhattan and with that has environmental benefits: reduction of the storm-water runoff, maximize ecosystem diversity, mediation of the “heat island” effect, create shade, oxygen, and habitat for insects and birds.”
“The benefits however are not only environmental; it will give the people a tool to think about their environment as an ecosystem and to be able to understand the differences in micro-climates, the elements that cause these differences and the negative effects by revealing the risk of flooding and the role that the city therein has played.”
“Giving more space to different species, creating more awareness, but also creating a more mix-used area… reflecting the functional transition of Lower Manhattan into an increasingly tourist visited place, with more residential and the persistence of business and commerce.”
Adapting Meadowmere
Jonas De Maeyer
“Although belonging to the New York city area, you easily notice that Meadowmere is totally a different world. Together with Meadowmere Park, part of Long Island it was formed as a fishermen’s village, of which each part flanks a side of the slaloming Hook Creek. Together they are connected by a picturesque pedestrian bridge. The airport and the bay form physical borders and distance Meadowmere from the city and the city’s officials that have lost sight of it for a long time.”Figs. 16-17
Fig 16. Meadowmere environmental history. Credit: Jonas De MaeyerFig 17. Meadowmere and Venice comparison. Credit: Jonas De Maeyer
“In general I see three strategies to deal with afflicted places as Meadowmere; Rebuilding, depopulating or adapting. Homeowners ravaged by the hurricane overwhelmingly choose to stay and rebuild rather than to take a state buyout. But is it really smart to just rebuild everything as it was? I try to understand the stubbornness of the community to stay and try to design adaptive solutions for rebuilding. We have to adapt the community to new floods, but certainly we also have to incorporate the earlier problems (such as the weekly street floods and the forgotten character of the area) and future problems (cost of rebuilding and increasing insurance costs) in the design proposal. I want a Meadowmere that is economically less dependent from the city and physically more resistant to rain and storms.”
Jonas did an analysis of three ecologies, which he describes as three different ecosystems that influence Meadomere and each other: airport, Jamaica bay and suburbia. In his blog he then proposes urban change using a micro-patchy approach that expands out from the front yard:
“Every moon tide the street floods and becomes impassable. There is more that can be done than blaming the City. By replacing impermeable front yards, mainly paved to park cars, we can plant permaculture gardens to absorb the overflowing water instead of directing it straight to the saturated sewage canals. This is the first step.”
“Meanwhile, we can start another strategy by bringing limited tourism. Different from other afflicted suburbia, Meadowmere has a strong locality thanks to its unique relation with the bay. Although a few people try to sell their properties, most people don’t to think of leaving their homes. They prefer to take the risk because they enjoy a lot living there. The S-shape of the Hook creek resembles to the Grand Canal in Venice.”
“To encourage more tourism and to save future re-pavement costs we can make Meadowmere car free. Meadowmere’s relation towards the water is therefore upgraded and the relation with the motorway is downgraded. The relationship with the megasupermarket can be changed as they can sell local products to their consumers. We can create a deal to share parkingspaces for the few cars still needed in Meadowmere and we can create a pontoon so that Meadowmere citizens can still go shopping with their boat to the shoppingmall … We can think of expanding the strategies towards the giant boxes and parking places and towards recovering the oil storage plant.”Fig. 18
The assignment of creating a design project in a seminar, in a class of approximately half design and half social science students, was a request for a type of urgent reflection on our city models and the state of urban practice today. The students didn’t have the luxury of a semester long studio class to develop a deep design project, nor did the social scientists have an extended fieldwork and immersive literature review period. This rapid assimilation and expanded disciplinary experience is often the nature of professional practice today and therefore in itself and important experience.
The lessons of this class therefore position urban practice as an open topic with a physical and intellectual context, in particular learning from the Baltimore School of Ecology. [Science for the Sustainable City: Insights from the Baltimore School of Urban Ecology (Forthcoming) Eds. Steward T.A. Pickett, J. Morgan Grove, Elena G. Irwin, Emma J. Rosi-Marshall, Christopher M. Swan]
By offering the students two professional discourses; urban ecology and urban design, offering them a research neighborhood and asking them to put it all together in their own way in a collaborative classroom environment empowered them to see their ideas as important and generative toward new city models.
Who will create the next opportunities for these young urban practitioners to make more of a difference?
Victoria Marshall Newark, New Jersey USA
With:
Stefano Aresti, Emily Ball, Samantha Clements, Luca Fillipi, Veronica Foley, Kelsey Gosselin, Alma Hidalgo, Wendy Van Kessel, Jonas De Maeyer, Noora Marcus, Martin Mayr, Alberto Salis, Thomas Willemse
In the future, I could imagine a whole series of exhibitions—Who Takes Care of Paris? Who Takes Care of Cairo? Who Takes Care of Delhi?—featuring the faces and actions of stewards in each of these places combined with artistic perspectives on that work.
Civic leaders and community members regularly put time and energy into caring and advocating for the environment. We call these acts of care stewardship. Beyond improving green and blue spaces, stewardship can also lead to other types of civic action. Local stewardship groups can strengthen social trust within a neighborhood. People who come together around the shared love of a garden or park steward not just that space, but also their relationships to one another—making them poised to organize around any number of issues affecting their community.
It drew upon the USDA Forest Service’s Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project (STEW-MAP), which is a dataset of thousands of civic stewardship groups’ organizational capacity, geographic territories, and social networks. STEW-MAP has been implemented in approximately a dozen global locations; it was piloted first in New York City in 2007 and then updated in 2017, which was the source of the data that were used in this exhibit.
The show featured artists whose work aligns with the themes of community-based stewardship, civic engagement, and social infrastructure: Magali Duzant, Matthew Jensen, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, and Julia Oldham. Through photography, drawing, book arts, and performance, these artists reflected upon, amplified, and interpreted the work of stewards and the landscapes and neighborhoods with which they work.
This essay excerpts content taken from exhibition wall text, data visualizations, and artists’ work—interspersed with comments from the curator. The video below is a virtual tour of the exhibition.
What is stewardship?
When you take care of a place you love, you are engaging in stewardship. Whether you pick up trash that you see in your park, band together with a few neighbors to tend to the trees in front of your building, or teach the next generation about the importance of biodiversity, you are joining a network of care that keeps cities like New York green and flourishing. Caring for the environment happens at different scales, and there are roles for all sectors: public, private, and civic. Most often, civic environmental stewardship happens in groups—from a couple of friends, to small informal associations, to citywide or even international nonprofits. But sometimes the important work of these civic groups can go unrecognized. This exhibition aims to make these groups more visible.
The first artist perspective that I will highlight here is Matthew Jensen. Training his eye on the street tree, he reveals the incredible diversity and resilience of this form of nearby nature that is for many New Yorkers (including me) and for many urban dwellers around the world—their first entry point into stewardship action. As a qualitative social scientist interested in place meanings, I found many resonances with Matthew’s multi-modal approach to research (photo documentation, interview, mapping, archives). His process of walking and observing the landscape has taught me a great deal about the porous and blurry line between art and science. He is not only an observer, however, he is also a participant, as he trains himself in the practices and tactics of his subjects, such as becoming a Citizen Pruner to better engage in the care of trees.
Matthew Jensen
Selection from The Forest Between: Street Trees and Stewardship in New York City, 2019. Courtesy Matthew Jensen.
This photographic series celebrates the myriad of ways city residents care for street trees and the spaces surrounding them. Jensen is especially taken with what he refers to as New York’s amazing trees— distinctive for their impressive size, ability to thrive in unexpected locations and defy such obstacles as, extreme damage or abnormal habitat. Jensen’s project recognizes a diversity of practices—from homemade tree guards and creative support systems, to ornate gardens. Through the process of documenting, the artist also participates in his own form of tree stewardship.
Matthew Jensen is a Bronx-based interdisciplinary artist whose rigorous explorations of landscape combine walking, collecting, photography, mapping and extensive research. During his 2017/2018 artist residency at the NYC Urban Field Station he developed his current project The Forest Between: Street Trees and Stewardship in New York City.
Stewardship comes in all shapes and sizes
Stewardship territory reflects each group’s claim on space; it is their basis of power and their landscape of care and concern. Territory ranges in scale from a single tree, to a watershed, to an entire region. It varies in shape and can include rectangular lots, linear strips, curving shorelines, and blocky political districts. For some stewards, such as community gardeners, territory is the specific site where physical land management occurs. Other groups focus on advocacy across wider spatial scales, such as environmental justice groups running neighborhood air quality or green job campaigns. Finally, some groups focus on transformation of waste, food, or energy systems, and therefore have multiple sites across the city.
Stewardship territories. Image created by Pratt SAVI using USDA Forest Service STEW-MAP NYC 2017 data.
Stewards respond to disturbance
Stewardship is one of the ways that communities respond to social-ecological disturbances and stressors, including both disinvestment and gentrification, as well as climate change and its attendant weather extremes. This pattern has repeated over time here in New York City, with stewardship groups forming in response to the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, September 11th, and Hurricane Sandy. The act of caring for local places can transform not only the physical environment, but also our relationships to those places, and, perhaps most importantly, our relationship to each other. It is this shared sense of trust and reciprocity that serves as a building block for the radical changes that are required to steer our cities toward a more just and sustainable future.
New York City is facing a housing affordability crisis. Debates center on concerns around “green gentrification,” rezonings, and whether and how stewardship groups can be part of efforts to both stabilize communities in place and improve local environmental quality with and for residents.
Our changing climate has multiple impacts, including more intense coastal flooding and an increase in the heat island effect. Stewardship groups are on the front lines of observing these impacts, adapting to change, and enhancing the ecological function of sites. Map created by Pratt SAVI using USDA Forest Service STEW-MAP NYC 2017 data.
New York City is facing a housing affordability crisis. Debates center on concerns around “green gentrification,” rezonings, and whether and how stewardship groups can be part of efforts to both stabilize communities in place and improve local environmental quality with and for residents.
Julia Oldham’s artistic work helps us think through stewardship and connections to nature in the era of climate change. Across Julia’s body of work, she imagines both dystopian and more hopeful renderings of our future. She also points out spaces that are often neglected by humans—where human/nature/animal relations have undergone a radical reworking—as with her video “Fallout Dogs” about the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
I was excited to see what sorts of spaces or futures Julia might envision for New York City. At the same time, these futures are rooted very much in the embodied experience of being there—Julia is an intrepid explorer of wildernesses both urban and rural and never travels without her wellies. It also reflects the importance of talk. She interviewed dozens of government workers and volunteer stewards to find both their favorite wild places and to understand their hopes for the future of those places. In particular, Beaver Village reflects Julia’s truly inter-species affection for living things, and playfully imagines a different way in which we might cohabit with non-human others.
Julia Oldham
Beaver Village from Undiscovered City, 2018- ongoing. Courtesy Julia Oldham.
Oldham’s series presents an amalgamated vision of New York City’s future, inspired by conversations with those most intimately connected to its wilderness. During her New York City Urban Field Station residency, the artist used the STEW-MAP database, to connect with nearly 40 stewards of the city’s natural areas. Asking scientists, park rangers, gardeners, beekeepers, educators and volunteers to share their views—especially in regard to nature and climate change—Oldham collected projections ranging from the utopian to the less optimistic.
The visual narratives here are a combination of Oldham’s own methodical documentation to create a unique 360-degree photograph, followed by a process of digital collaging with satellite images, drawings, and found photographs. Julia Oldham’s work expresses moments of hope in a world on the edge of environmental collapse. Working in a range of media including video, animation and photography, she explores potential in places where human civilization and nature have collided uneasily.
STEW-MAP includes 720 groups with a combined budget of $5,301,875,991 and a total of approximately 633,000 people engaged as staff, volunteers, and members.
Stewards are agents of change
The power of civic environmental stewardship groups comes from their ability to create lasting change through direct action, management, education, and advocacy. Beyond environmental benefits, civic environmental stewardship groups provide opportunities for people to get to know one another and beautify their community in the process. These actions create a sense of social connection and a feeling of ownership and place attachment. Stewardship groups work on everything from restoring New York City’s oyster population, to protecting natural areas from development, to helping women get outside to exercise and form empowering friendships and civic ties. Taken together, these efforts can collectively transform our environment and communities.
How can we understand both the collective impact and individual experiences of these thousands of stewards? Magali Duzant’s work takes a deeper dive into the knowledge, practices, and actions of Queens, NY-based stewards, revealing that each of these dots on a map is comprised of important (and even sometimes humorous!) lifeways and histories. In order to uncover these stories, she queried the STEW-MAP database, scoured the internet, and talked with stewards. A self-professed outsider to the world of environmentalism, Magali shared that she found surprising resonances between the network of stewards and her existing world of artists and arts organizations. Everyone was just a few links from each other, and was happy to pass on another recommendation, a site to visit, and event to participate in. Magali navigated that network of relationships to create a new publication that could serve as a sort of “starter kit” for an interested novice to get involved in stewardship work (and play) in Queens and beyond.
Magali Duzant
A page from Whole Queens Catalog, 2019. Courtesy Magali Duzant.
Whole Queens Catalog is a free (limited run) publication commissioned for Who Takes Care of New York? Magali Duzant’s new commission, Whole Queens Catalog, takes inspiration from Stewart Brand’s 1960’s American counterculture magazine and product catalog (Whole Earth Catalog). Duzant has gathered anecdotes, recipes, disaster survival techniques, and other wisdom from stewardship groups throughout Queens that she identified from the STEW-MAP database and additional research.
Magali Duzant is an interdisciplinary artist based in New York. Her work spans photography, books, installation, and text. In collaborative and participatory approaches to projects, she couples research-based practices with a poetic knack for capturing where public and private experiences converge.
A page from Whole Queens Catalog, 2019. Courtesy Magali Duzant.
Stewards work together
Civic stewardship groups collaborate across a broad constellation of stakeholders. Whether they need more volunteers for an event they are holding, a bag of compost for their garden, or information about how to build their own tree guards, the larger stewardship network provides. STEW-MAP asked groups who they work with in order to visualize these vital connections of ideas, materials, labor, and capital. Over time, these relationships shape governance across civic, public, and private sectors, and influence the policy agenda and the form of the city.
NYC Parks, the largest land manager in the city, is also the most connected broker in the entire stewardship network. Partnerships for Parks is the central broker in New York City’s civic stewardship system. Working with hundreds of “Friends of Parks” groups across the city, they were removed from this visualization in order to see other connections between groups:
This diagram focuses on the civic-to-civic component of the STEW-MAP respondent network. Dots represent individual groups and lines represent collaborative ties between them. The network is organized by the types of places where groups work (athletic fields, urban farms) and their issues of concern (employment, seniors). Image created by Pratt SAVI using USDA Forest Service STEW-MAP NYC 2017 data.
Visualizing the power of sometimes subtle forces is not easy. How do we show the strength of a network? Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow’s work uses a patchwork dress, a picnic, a participatory performance—each of these forms demonstrate the way in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Lyn-Kee-Chow has created a series of picnic performances staged in various locations of the public realm of New York City—including streets, parks, and museums. While the artist herself anchors and orchestrates these performances, she engages others both as co-performers and as participants. For this piece, Lyn-Kee-Chow invited stewardship groups focusing on food justice work to share their wisdom, their harvests, and their relationships in a conversation and celebration on the outstretched dress-as-gathering-space. Throughout the rest of the show, a similar dress hung as a symbol of this gathering.
Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow
The Picnic: Harvest of the STEW, 2019. Photo: Christina Freeman
Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow’s participatory performance on September 15, 2019 honored stewardship groups in the five boroughs whose work centers around food justice issues. Lyn-Kee-Chow was joined by representatives from Edible Schoolyard NYC, Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center, Smiling Hogshead Ranch, and Sunnyside CSA, groups she learned about through the STEW-MAP database. These organizations serving The Bronx, Brooklyn, Harlem, and Queens were highlighted for their projects organized by and supporting New York City’s communities of color and immigrant populations.
Since 2010, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow has created a series of picnic performances that set up space for the public to have conversations. Inspired by the kitchen tablecloths of her grandmother, she sews together vinyl tablecloths from bargain stores, creating elaborate dresses that double as picnic blankets. Embracing her mixed Chinese and Jamaican heritage, her projects reflect on multiculturalism, food migration and the colonial food trade. Hailing from a lineage of farmers on both maternal and paternal sides of her family, food justice has a particularly personal connection for the artist.
Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow is a 1.5 generation Jamaican-American interdisciplinary artist living and working in Queens, NY. Her work often explores performance and installation art, drawing from the nostalgia of her homeland, Caribbean folklore, fantasy, globalism, spirituality, and migration.
Stewardship timeline
Stewardship groups not only exist, they persist. They have evolved along with the social, political, economic, and environmental histories of our city.
This animation shows the emergence of stewardship groups by year founded, including the proliferation of groups after the 1970s.
Stewardship animation. Video created by Pratt SAVI using USDA Forest Service STEW-MAP NYC 2017 data.
The timeline calls out selected key moments and turning points in New York City’s stewardship history.
Stewardship timeline. Image created by Pratt SAVI using USDA Forest Service STEW-MAP NYC 2017 data.
Stewards in their own words
Quotes were collected from interviews with a subset of stewardship groups. USDA Forest Service researchers asked stewards to share their definition of stewardship, stories of ways in which they helped to take care of the environment, and their vision for the future of stewardship work in NYC.
Stewardship stories. Image created by Pratt SAVI using USDA Forest Service STEW-MAP NYC 2017 data.
Finally, we have been gathering personal accounts of people’s stewardship stories from all over the world. These narratives range from cherished memories, to everyday occurrences, to sparks that started social movements. To add your own story to the map, go here!
In the future, I could imagine a whole series of exhibitions—Who Takes Care of Paris? Who Takes Care of Cairo? Who Takes Care of Delhi?—featuring the faces and actions of stewards in each of these places combined with artistic perspectives on that work. Not only global cities across the world, but also mid-size cities, smaller towns, and rural areas have their own stewardship stories to tell. Perhaps we can begin to see more clearly the ties of care and connection that bind us all.
Acknowledgments:Who Takes Care of New York? was organized by the NYC Urban Field Station, a partnership between USDA Forest Service researchers (Lindsay Campbell; Michelle Johnson; Laura Landau; Erika Svendsen), NYC Parks (Caitlin Boas), and the Natural Areas Conservancy, with a mission to improve quality of life in urban areas by conducting, supporting, and communicating research about social-ecological systems and natural resource management; Pratt Institute’s Spatial Analysis and Visualization Initiative, SAVI (Jessie Braden; Can Sucuoğlu; Case Wyse; Josephina Matteson; Zachary Walker; Lidia Henderson), a multi-disciplinary mapping research lab and service center within Pratt Institute that focuses on using geospatial analysis and data visualization to understand NYC communities; and Independent Curator, Christina Freeman. Thank you to the thousands of stewards across this city whose work we aimed to amplify in this exhibition.
Do larger trends associated with neoliberalism and xenophobia simply cancel out participatory efforts at urban planning? Are inclusive renewals inadvertently widening the gap between the haves and have-nots and contributing to local conflict?
In the last three decades, Copenhagen has shifted from an obscure Nordic capital to a leading global city. It is known for progressive environmental policies, an enviable public transportation and cycling network, and numerous public green spaces, earning it the European Green Capital Award in 2014. Moreover, Denmark is repeatedly pointed to as one of the happiest countries in the world by various indices. It is praised for having a robust social welfare system yielding comparatively high rates of equality.
On a meta-level these claims appear true, but what is often overlooked is the country’s slide into the same neoliberal order the rest of the world has faced. This entails tremendous pressure to grow, privatize, and become further entangled in the web of global finance capital. In Denmark, like other Nordic countries, this familiar move has begun to yank at the seams of the social welfare system, with a tendency towards a political shift to the right, replete with austerity policies and an increasingly xenophobic slant.
Evolving urban development practices and struggles for justice
While Folkets Park has seen managerial and aesthetic shifts over the years, it has endured as a battleground for environmental justice. During the 1970s and early 1980s in the traditionally working class neighborhood of Nørrebro, activists and residents demanding quality and affordable housing clashed with a technocratic, top-down municipality that aimed to renew what they deemed as a “disadvantaged” neighborhood. Inexpensive housing to accommodate a swelling population coupled with poor facilities had produced a dank, unhealthy environment. Allied with private development firms, the municipality instigated a sweeping demolition and reconstruction agenda. Residents, who preferred the renovation of existing buildings rich with local identity, resisted top-down development by squatting buildings. Moreover, residents wanted a greater say in how exactly their neighborhood would transform.
Aerial shot of Folkets Park taken between 1932-1967 displays the dense nature of the neighborhood before the renovation demolitions initiated in the 1970s. The rectangle displays where Folkets Park would be established. Photo by Nowico/Royal Danish Library as conservation institution.
In the midst of demolitions, residents were experiencing open spaces where they lived for the first time. They quickly laid claim to these sites, using demolition debris as well as trees and shrubs from local allotments to cultivate open, green spaces with their labor and new visions for the neighborhood.
While most plots were reclaimed and built up by developers, even despite violent resistance by activists, one small, half-hectare plot survived: Folkets Park. Yet it was not without a fight. Municipal authorities attempted to reclaim it several times, even sending in bulldozers in the middle of the night. But by 2004, the struggle for distributional justice of open, green spaces in the low-income neighborhood of Nørrebro succeeded, and Folkets Park was officially recognized by the municipality (KK 2004).
In the following years, the struggle for justice in and around Folkets Park continued to evolve. Following official recognition, the city determined the park needed a makeover. Several rounds of renewal ensued in the mid-2000s and again in 2012, alongside a notable rise in both local gang membership particularly among male youth of Middle Eastern descent, and the presence of homeless persons primarily of West African origin. The city pointed to these user groups as part of the justification for intervention, with the objective to establish greater security and a ‘space for all’. Early renewal attempts aimed at for local participation, following a global trend toward inclusive urban development but perhaps especially, in recognition of the legacy of contestation in the neighborhood. The early attempts at park renewal faced eventual criticism. Residents were frustrated with high costs, physical outcomes, and little meaningful change to the neighborhood’s persistent socio-economic challenges.
More inclusive processes were adopted in subsequent renewals—notably in a renovation that ran from 2012-2014—featuring intensive community interviews and eventually, physical park modifications that genuinely reflected the interests of marginalized users. Armless benches accommodated those sleeping outdoors. Track lighting left areas in shadow, providing some users with feelings of security (despite the municipality’s initial protests that more lighting was key to safety). That marginalized users’ needs were reflected in the park design showed promising signs of procedural justice taking hold in the area, reflecting an evolution in how city officials—or as in this case, private urban development consultants hired by the municipality—approached urban development.
Folkets Park today. Photo: Steve Johnson, courtesy of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. via Next City
Folkets Park and Copenhagen today
Copenhagen seems to have taken on a model of participatory planning as a reflection of its creativity, inclusiveness, and even reliance on residents to participate in urban development. In Nørrebro, diversity is celebrated (though some say commodified), with the official tourism agency labeling it as ‘colorful’ and ‘multicultural’. Its surge in popularity has led to dozens of new shops and cafes, garnering international press coverage and ranking in Vogue’s “Coolest Spots in Copenhagen”.
This, of course, has its consequences. Housing prices are skyrocketing. The country is embroiled in debates around the nature of “Danishness”, with divisive narratives being pushed by leading political parties against non-white Danes and legal non-white residents. New xenophobic housing policies like the “Ghetto law” aim to disenfranchise and expel certain residents. Meanwhile, city officials have launched a crackdown on homeless in Nørrebro, in an attempt to rid them from areas like Folkets Park that seem to increasingly cater to wealthier residents—thanks, in part, to its various makeovers.
A former housing rights activist tells the story of Folkets Park to University of Copenhagen students, 2017. Photo: Jens Friis Lund
This leads us to wonder, do larger trends associated with neoliberalism and xenophobia simply cancel out participatory efforts at urban planning? Are inclusive renewals inadvertently widening the gap between the haves and have-nots and contributing to local conflict? What happens after hard-fought battles for distributional and procedural justice are seemingly won?
Amidst these developments, there are lessons from analyzing four decades of struggles over Folkets Park. One: justice hangs perpetually in the balance and the struggle never ends. In the context of the neoliberal city, messy conflicts and local activists’ efforts to balance the scales in favor of social justice actually matters for securing rights to the city for marginalized and vulnerable groups. Without these efforts, urban managers would have long ago paved over much needed open spaces like Folkets Park and pursued top-down urban development agendas, irrespective of local residents’ needs or aspirations. Two: the resistance to top-down urban renewal, which appeared messy and unruly at one point in time, has come to be celebrated today in Copenhagen, and paradoxically contributed to changing norms around urban green spaces and urban development. Folkets Park thus continues to remind contemporary urban planners that their actions today will be judged, and celebrated or reviled, for generations to come.
Rebecca Leigh Rutt and Stephanie Loveless Copenhagen and Barcelona
Stephanie Loveless is a researcher at BCNUEJ focused on greening and urban renewal in European and North American Cities. She currently works as a PhD fellow on the GreenLULUs project at BCNUEJ as part of a team effort centered on investigating the relationship between urban sustainability planning and potential impacts on human health, well-being and environmental justice.
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 take a diverse bunch of people from different backgrounds, work place, and life experiences and put them in a shared space is a very unifying thing to do. At once we are all on the same page, faced with the same scenery, evidence and circumstance.
Celestine Collins, KisumuThrough engagement, we realized that small actions could actually make a big difference.
Julie Goodness, Cape TownThe walking workshop format seems to help to level power issues and allows more voices to be heard. During the walk, I observed people talking that had been largely silent when we were previously in an inside meeting room.
Odhiambo Ken K’oyooh, KisumuThe peer learning sessions—whereby all the different stakeholders shared success stories—made a great impact on me, changing the way I view urbanization challenges.
Viveca Mellegård, StockholmWe walk in African cities to put ourselves at the edge of knowledge and experience. It is a blurred boundary where ideas begin, where they reformulate and reshape, where they fill in at the point at which reality stops.
Benard Ojwang, KisumuIf we embrace the tinkering concept it will focus on local manifestation of such approaches wherein actors from across society create joint experiments to achieve common goals.
Aiuba Oliveira, NacalaThe ideas we exchanged as we walked became increasingly interesting. Now we look at our city differently and as we walk we think about the small changes we can make, making our city better in small steps.
Semakula Samson, EntebbaUrban tinkering is definitely worth trying out in our developing cities as it gives opportunity for small scale innovations which, when aggregated together, can result into large scale worldwide environmental solutions.
Ellika Hermansson Török, StockholmUrban tinkering functions by promoting a diversity of small-scale urban experiments that, in aggregate, can lead to large-scale, often playful innovative solutions to the problems of sustainable development.
Thandeka Tshabalala, Cape TownThe exchange of knowledge between stakeholders can improve governance, ultimately leading to long-term and sustainable interventions.
Jess is part of ICLEI’s Cities Biodiversity Center as well as ICLEI Africa’s Resilience team. She has a background in atmospheric science with a more specialised knowledge of climate change and its relationship with a sustainable approach to development.
I was standing in the street in the middle of Dar es Salaam. Every one of my senses was in overdrive as stimuli after stimuli overwhelmed me. Smells of plantain and corn being cooked on open fires. Traffic hooting and honking and people shouting and talking and laughing and running. I quickly move out the way as a donkey cart comes hurtling out of nowhere. A flash of colour as a woman wearing the most beautiful kanga almost bumps into me.
My colleague and city official grabs my arm and laughs. “You see how busy it is here. As more and more people come into the city this area gets busier and busier. But this area experiences flooding. How do we best deliver services to areas like this? How do we plan appropriately here when there is already so much going on?”
Searching for these answers keeps the ICLEI Africa team up at night. How does one support shifts in decision making and city planning to effectively allow future cities to deal with the rapid changes expected? How does one support cities to embrace and implement new ways of thinking and doing that can guide how society works? How can one help cities become solution- and action-orientated?
The Urban Natural Assets for Africa (UNA) programme is trying to answer some of these questions by implementing walking tours in multiple African cities. These walking tours are then combined with an urban tinkering approach in order to co-produce local participatory scenarios.
As expressed by the image above, urban tinkering is a socio-environmental theory that promotes small scale urbanism through adjusting and moulding the existing landscape through small-scale “experiments” that can result in dramatic shifts in the way the landscape works as a system. But does it hold the answer? Is it an appropriate method?
We asked a mix of scientists, practitioners and city officials who actively participated in the UNA walking tours to reflect on their own experience. Specifically, we asked: Why are we doing walking tours in African cities? What small actions made an impression on you? Why is urban tinkering an appropriate method?
There are many interesting and common threads in their responses. Those that stand out are:
Small-scale interventions that are possible might add up to wider-scale impacts. The big systemic problems seem impossible to solve, especially when there are insufficient resources. We become paralyzed. Perhaps the big fix isn’t available (or even understood sufficiently to address the challenges), but a collection of small interventions can add up to a pervasive impact.
Walking tours themselves are a beneficial collaboration mechanism, as they provide the space to effectively share knowledge, understand the local context, break down power dynamics and build relationships.
Understanding the local context is imperative when designing future interventions and dealing with rapid change. Walking tours and an urban tinkering approach allow a group of diverse stakeholders to grapple with the real context in a hands-on and interactive fashion.
There are already urban solutions being implemented at ground-level in many pockets of African cities. City officials should support and build on these opportunities.
Urban tinkering provides the opportunity for decision makers and communities to collaborate in more effective ways.
Decision makers are often overwhelmed by the thought of large-scale implementation. Especially coupled with limited budget and capacity for management and maintenance. Urban tinkering relieves city officials of this burden by providing an alternative planning and implementing approach that is better suited to their context and available resources.
Despite being an approach that focuses on small scale urbanism, the opportunity for up and out-scaling is large. Urban tinkering allows for a “safe-to-fail” approach, which allows for the discovery of innovative approaches that if tested at scale might be too complex. If successful they can then be used to explore ways for larger transformative interventions.
From the responses it is very clear that all authors are suggesting that we need to do more of this in cities everywhere. We need to get people out of their offices and shift the focus away from the operational day-to-day grind. We need to really talk to each other. More importantly we need to get people talking to communities that USE the areas of the city. That changes the dynamic. It produces new ideas that wouldn’t have been possible. It gets the mind, heart, and blood flowing.
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 take a diverse bunch of people from different backgrounds, work place, and life experiences and put them in a shared space is a very unifying thing to do. At once we are all on the same page, faced with the same scenery, evidence and circumstance.
We walk to think. Research tells us that the exertion changes our body chemistry with an increase in heart rate and the shunting of oxygen around a little faster, including to our brains, and that this aids brain activity both in the moment, and over the longer term. In his 2014 article on why walking helps us think in the New Yorker, Ferris Jabr talks of the manner in which walking provides a rhythm between our bodies and our mental state that resonates with our inner voice, and that we can change the pace or nature of our thoughts by changing the pace or nature of our stride. Walking aids thinking.
And what better way to tackle a problem than to walk through it? I had the pleasure of joining one of ICLEI Africa’s walking workshops in Kisumu in Kenya recently and was struck by the tremendous value of walking to problem solving. Here I got to be part of an urban tinkering workshop which sought solutions towards improving the state of a local river. The workshop spanned three days and involved city officials, people from state government, local academics, and academics from elsewhere. In addition to the individual benefits of improved thinking capacity and rhythms that allow our own thoughts and voices to bubble up, the collective walking proved to be very useful too. To take a diverse bunch of people from different backgrounds, work place, and life experiences and put them in a shared space is a very unifying thing to do. At once we are all “on the same page”, faced with the same scenery, evidence and circumstance. We are all feeling the heat of the day, stepping over the same discarded banana peels and plastic bags, and all smelling and hearing the river in front of us. This immediately brings everyone together through shared understandings and experiences. Locals could provide insights to questions from new comers, and ideas and solutions, their likely successes and short-comings could be discussed in situ.
In his article on the benefits of walking (New Yorker, 2014), Jabr gives us a quote from writer Virginia Woolf, who describing her great pleasure in walking around London, talks of the joy of being, “right in the centre and swim of things”. This is very true. A walk through any city will put you at the heart of its people, their energy, their joys, and their sadness. You will see what they eat, what they wear, and how they spend their time. You will be at the very “swim of things”. This proved very true of our walking workshop. The energy and collective understanding on returning to our workshop space to start designing solutions was palpable.
And why tinker? Tinkering—seeking out those small opportunities for change and influence—is a very appropriate approach in an urban, fiscally-constrained environment. The spaces around rivers in cities in Africa tend to be heavily occupied and well used spaces. In this particular circumstance a light touch with clever, initially small, wins is the order of the day. Tinkering, which tends to towards the considered, out-of-the-box thinking, novel interventions and solutions, builds on past transactions, and seeks where possible to running with current energies, is just the right approach to these collaborative urban environmental engagements.
Celestine Collins is the Director of Education, City of Kisumu (Kenya). She holds a Master of Education Degree. She is currently acting as the Assistant City Manager as an additional responsibility and the Focal Point for Disaster Risk Reduction with the United Nations for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).
Through engagement, we realized that small actions could actually make a big difference.
The term Urban Tinkering and Walking Workshop, when heard for the first time by Kisumu Residents, raised many questions as to their meaning. Would we actually understand and get the concept? It wasn’t long before we realized in our Walking Workshop that Urban Tinkering is all about embracing an approach that would simply guide the design of new (and redesign of existing) urban structures, while promoting innovative integration of grey, green, and blue infrastructure into achieving environmental and health objectives, while taking into consideration policies and interventions to deal with growing urban vulnerabilities.
Cities are currently experiencing adverse environmental challenges due to climate change, and the degree to which they need to cope with and adapt to such challenges continues to increase. Kisumu, as is the case with other cities, has been experiencing rapid urbanization, accompanied by an increase in environmental challenges that accelerate vulnerabilities. Realizing the need for deliberate action, the office of the City Manager (City of Kisumu) is committed to strengthening the capacity of the City (as an institution) towards resilience. It is for this reason that we as a city have identified our challenges and seek to address them for a more sustainable and resilient city. As a result, we have joined the UNA programme, which has been designed to support local governments in Africa successfully integrate nature-based solutions into land use planning and decision making processes. We embrace and plan to work together for a better course and embrace the Urban Tinkering approach, with the help of ICLEI Africa and are committed to achieving our desired goals.
The challenge we face as an institution is lack of capacity to effectively address issues that adversely affect the people and the institution as a whole, such as majorly floods and solid waste. It is for this reason that I feel that small scale urbanism should be given the attention it deserves. There is a need for institutional capacity building to support local governments with this approach. Local governments are the closest level to the citizens and communities and therefore have a responsibility to take a lead in responding to crises and emergencies and to ensure essential services to citizens (water, health, education, transport, etc.) are resilient to disasters.
Due to rapid urbanisation, population growth, increasing demands for effective service delivery, and infrastructure development and improvement on the City Management of Kisumu, there is immense pressure to deliver. This puts the City in the forefront of the agenda. In the week of 19-23 August 2019, Kisumu hosted the first ever Walking Workshop in their history. It gave the participants a direct view of the challenges we face as a City. This was so exciting as it moved away from the normal dialogue approach that most of the time does not actually give the true picture of the situation at hand.
Through engagement, we realized that small actions could actually make a big difference. A small action that made an impression on me was the fact that the community can be actively engaged in taking responsibilityfor the good of their environment. With a little empowerment, capacity building and monitoring, the City can reclaim its glory and move forward towards resilience. It is important to note that to achieve the best results we need multi-stakeholder engagement, instilling in people a sense of belonging and ownership.
Julie Goodness has a PhD in Sustainability Science from the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University; her research is focused on urban social-ecological systems, functional traits and ecosystem services, environmental education, design-thinking and design-based learning, social action and community development.
The walking workshop format seems to help to level power issues and allows more voices to be heard. During the walk, I observed people talking that had been largely silent when we were previously in an inside meeting room.
To me, walking workshops seem to enable a unique kind of communication and discussion that is not possible in a conventional meeting room setting. I had the opportunity to take part in the ICLEI Urban Natural Assets for Africa (UNA) Programme’s walking workshop in Kisumu, Kenya, during August 2019. The goal of the workshop was to utilize a walk through the Auji River catchment with stakeholders in the area (including community members, academic researchers, and government officials) to identify challenges along the river, and propose potential urban planning solutions. We made various stops along the walk so that workshop participants could point to and share thoughts on river challenges (for example, pollution and dumping of waste, flooding, invasive species, and locations where crossing the river was difficult because proper infrastructure was lacking). Participants also shared positive aspects of the river: how it was important for water provision to crops and livestock, for fishing, and was also a place of biodiversity.
As part of the photovoice activity, a participant in the walking workshop takes a photo to capture challenges along the Auji River. Photo: Viveca MellegårdThis shows farming of vegetables without a buffer zone. Enforcement of a buffer zone of 6 meters is needed, and fruit trees to be planted closest to the river to prevent erosion. If grass is planted on the buffer zone, this can be used for recreation by the nearby communities when not flooded. Photo: Viveca Mellegård.
I observed that the walking workshop allowed us to have a special kind of grounded discussion, because we weren’t in a closed, inside meeting space; instead we were actually out there in the environment in which we wanted to create positive change. The abstract suddenly became concrete, and we could take in and share experiences with all of our senses. This created a particular kind of understanding, empathy, and common knowledge among participants. It allowed us to reach a shared consensus on river issues, so that we could move towards thinking about potential solutions.
One thing that made a particular impression on me was how the walking workshop format seems to help to level power issues and allows more voices to be heard. When we were out in the field, doing the river walk, I observed people talking that had been largely silent when we were previously in an inside meeting room space. The people who were now talking more and speaking up were often the residents of that community (which is a crucial group to include and integrate insights from in any urban planning project). It seemed that suddenly being in their home environment enabled them to share their knowledge (i.e., they became the experts), and we could all talk about what we were seeing in the landscape together.
Another thing that made an impression on me was the experience of using a photovoice method during the walking workshop as an additional way to identify challenges and facilitate discussion. Photovoice is a method that invites participants in a project to take photographs as a way of telling their own stories through images that represent their perspective at a particular moment in time. Participants paired up during the walking workshop to take photos together. After the workshop, paired participants selected their most important photos and gave them captions that described the challenges the images depicted. Participants then used the captioned photos as objects for discussion, and this process eventually allowed participants to reach agreement about the most important issues to prioritize for action along the river. I think the photovoice was a useful activity to guide participants through this prioritization process.
From the winnowing of ideas, participants decided work on a section of the Auji River alongside a school, which frequently floods and prevents the students from being able to attend their classes. The participants would like to create a nature-based engineering solution that uses vegetation to help reduce flooding impacts. They would also like to involve the schoolchildren in the vegetation planting process and maintenance, and include environmental education as part of the project. This is an urban tinkering initiative that the workshop stakeholders will strive to implement in conjunction with ICLEI during the next year.
Credit: Viveca Mellegård.
Overall, I think urban tinkering is an appropriate method because it allows the implementation of positive action at any scale. While in many cases large amounts of human or monetary capital may not be available to create widespread changes across an urban area (particularly in under-resourced cities), urban tinkering can provide a way to utilize means available, test interventions, and provide learnings and seeds for future change that can be scaled up or out across new locations.
Odhiambo Ken K’oyooh is currently the Director in charge of Environment (Conservation and Stewardship) in County Government of Kisumu (which forms part of the Department of Water, Climate Change, Environment and Natural Resources).
The peer learning sessions—whereby all the different stakeholders shared success stories—made a great impact on me, changing the way I view urbanization challenges.
In equal measures, both man-made and natural assets characterize developing African Cities. Heavy capital investment is often channeled, by city authorities, towards man-made infrastructure at the expense of the natural assets. This is done in an attempt to open up the cities for aspired trade and other socio-economic growth. In addition, the rapid urbanization experienced in these cities coupled with inadequate basic infrastructures like decent housing and water recreation facilities puts immense pressure on urban natural resources, threating their very existence.
In the case of Kisumu City, a fast growing lakeside city in Kenya, we did a walking tour to identify the challenges along River Auji. The river is an important natural asset snaking through two important informal settlements of Manyatta (on the upper reaches) and Nyalenda (on the lower reaches). Siltation, and degenerated aesthetics characterized the stretch toured. The walking tour however also identified the opportunities to address the observed challenges.
What small actions made an impression on me?
The peer learning sessions—whereby all the different stakeholders shared success stories—made a great impact on me, changing the way I view urbanization challenges. Deep community participation approaches and learning appear to be the key element for the successful implementation of projects.
In addition, the practical action of walking, making stops and exploring opportunities at certain stop overs made the practical beat of our urban tinkering session a lot more sensible in coming up with appropriate solutions to challenges faced along River Auji.
Why is urban tinkering an appropriate method?
Theoretical aspects of urban tinkering well prepare the participants with what to expect. It lays the foundation on importance and the important aspects of developing solutions. While on the other hand, field tours bring out the practical aspects of this methodology. Practitioners, representatives’ from city authority and locals are able to freely share experiences and find practical solutions to observed challenges during urban tinkering approaches.
In the case of Kisumu City, the method enabled the team to identify appropriate measures to deal with the challenges faced by communities settled within the lower reaches of River Auji. Silt traps in certain locations, along the river course, appeared to be a preferred sustainable solution to control the river siltation on the lower reaches. Woodlots and greening complete with resting benches was preferred, as a way of improving aesthetics, within a government school bordering the river. A bridge to improve safety for school children was also proposed by community members. This is meant to help pupils’ crossing the river on their way to school, as a remedy to reduce the risk of drowning in the river during high flow periods. It is worth-noting that the aforementioned was only made possible through the participatory nature of the tinkering processes.
Viveca is a researcher and filmmaker. At the BBC she directed and produced long form science, history, and arts programmes. For the past five years she has integrated film and photography as methods in sustainability projects aiming to build better cities, to know more about human-nature interactions and to include marginalised or unheard voices.
We walk in African cities to put ourselves at the edge of knowledge and experience. It is a blurred boundary where ideas begin, where they reformulate and reshape, where they fill in at the point at which reality stops.
Connection, cooperation, creativity and caring
My pace slows down and gradually my ears attune to the layers of sound mixing and meandering in and out of each other. Our group stands next to a bridge over the Auji river and behind the voices discussing flooding, waste dumping and contaminated water, the stream gurgles over what looks like the remnants of a t-shirt caught by stones on the river bed. I begin to notice details that my eyes had overlooked. Tiny striations on leaves, an insect crawling deeper into the magenta belly of a flower.
Poet and forester, Gary Snyder, promotes this kind of perception with the body, the conversation between ourselves and our environments as “The way to see the world: in our own bodies”. Walking can make all of our senses come alive. A one-dimensional interaction becomes five dimensional. We stop for a moment and our ears attune to the layers of sound all around us. Our eyes pull focus between small details and the big picture. Our sense of smell picks up nuances and changes in scent. We touch and feel different textures, we might taste something.
Urban tinkering can be a way to bring about a whole person engagement with ourselves, others and a particular place because we enter into an activity that asks us to observe, listen, respond, inquire, be curious. In my view, when we walk together in African cities with a tinkering mindset, with the intention to understand more, several possibilities emerge for transformations within ourselves as individuals, between ourselves and others, and between ourselves and the urban landscape.
The first is connection. We connect with each other by communicating what we see and comparing our points of view and understandings of what we observe. There is also a connection to the places we walk through. We mingle with a place and it mingles with us.
The second is cooperation. With a shared purpose to tinker so that we can live in more climate resilient cities, our different experiences, skills and types of knowledge have the potential to become the material from which we shape a shared vision. In nature-based urban tinkering, nature is our partner in guiding and suggesting smart and simple solutions.
Thirdly there is creativity. We bounce ideas off each other, become inspired by what we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. Walking and moving through space, memories become dislodged and a creative flow begins. Perhaps it is the kind of potent force that can loosen the grip of fear, paralysis even and the feelings of helplessness when confronted by the scale and complexity of problems. (See psychologist R.J Clifton on the human response to catastrophe, in Kimmerer, 2013).
Then there is caring. After spending time somewhere, we become entangled with it and even in our over-stimulated mental landscapes, we find that images have been carved into our memory, our thoughts, and in our bodies. People make an impression on us, we make an impression on them. We are changed by a place and a place can be changed by us. Reciprocal exchanges might sometimes be invisible to the eye but in our imagination, the possibilities for how a city could or might be, has the charge of a creative spark.
Walking and urban tinkering complement each other by creating the conditions for a creative and collaborative mindset—the kind of mindset from which solutions that can lead to more climate resilience and equitable cities might emerge.
We walk in African cities to put ourselves at the edge of knowledge and experience. It is a blurred boundary where ideas begin, where they reformulate and reshape, where they fill in at the point at which reality stops.
Reference Kimmerer, R.W., 2013. Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions.
Benard Ojwang is the current Ag. Director for Environment at the City of Kisumu (Kenya). Benard holds a MSc in Urban Environmental planning and management, a BSc in Environmental Health and a Diploma in Environmental Resource Management.
If we embrace the tinkering concept it will focus on local manifestation of such approaches wherein actors from across society create joint experiments to achieve common goals.
Urban tinkering is “a mode of operation, encompassing policy, planning and management processes, that seeks to transform the use of existing and design of new urban systems in ways that diversify their functions, anticipate new uses and enhance adaptability, to better meet the social, economic and ecological needs of cities under conditions of deep uncertainty about the future” (Elmqvist et al. 2019).
St Mark’s primary school, which is prone to flooding when the Auji River bursts its banks. Photo: Benard OjwangRepurposing a foot bridge to connect two major access points that is St Marks School and the community area—to prevent loss of life as children cross the river during high flow periods. Photo: Benard Ojwang
In the context of cities, green and blue infrastructure is to be understood as natural and semi-natural elements, like hedgerows, parks, ponds, or water courses. Together they form a green-blue infrastructure which is an important component of the urban tinkering approach. Experimenting with different combinations of these natural elements and the human-engineered “grey” infrastructure to provide social, economic, and environmental values to a city and its surroundings is an important part of the solution.
Urban tinkering can function by promoting a diversity of small-scale urban experiments that, in aggregate, lead to large-scale often playful innovative solutions to the problems of sustainable development.
Small interventions—”tinkering”—can serve to make urban features more accessible and potentially more equitable (i.e., just). Indeed, such acts can expand the sense of ownership among the community members, and belonging and allow for the kind of civic partnerships that can be useful in managing cities, particularly those that face fiscal constraints.
An urban tinkering walking workshop that has recently occurred in Kisumu (as part of the UNA programme) was radical in that while it sought to grow local conservators to lead and manage conservation spaces, it was always with a view to improving local social engagement in conservation practice and spaces.
The walking workshop adopted a variety of reflective and reflexive practices, including listening to communities, hearing their stories, including their views and visions for green space in their communities in our discussions and involving them in planning and management strategies. Conservators were also encouraged to form their own communities of practice where they could share and reflect on failures and successes.
The concept of urban tinkering was first introduced in Kisumu by ICLEI Africa to help the city manage its urban natural resources and promote biodiversity conservation. This has helped the city to plan effectively for the protection of our resources so that we can build better resilience (through managing the natural buffer zones).
As City of Kisumu, we plan for biodiversity, rivers, and lakes within Kisumu city through:
Afforestation programmes, both national and local (tree planting in forests, catchment areas, schools, (wood lots) public institutions and open spaces.
Desilting of river channels to mitigate flooding.
Involvement of community in planning, management, conservation and protection of biodiversity and rivers.
Improving of research to inform planning, policies and programmes.
Continuous awareness and sensitization programmes.
Setting aside adequate resources for planning and mainstreaming for biodiversity and rivers.
Lobbying city and county leadership and County Assembly to consistently provide adequate resources for biodiversity and rivers.
Rivers are vital elements in the water cycle‚ acting as drainage channels for surface water. Most areas in Kisumu County are confronted with blocked drainages and bushy rivers leading to high rates of flooding and waterborne diseases.
Auji River was built by the World Bank in the early 1980s, but lack of maintenance has led to its current state: bushy shrubs‚ raw affluent discharge and soil chunks on its bed. It flows through Migosi ward‚ Manyatta B ward‚ Nyalenda A, and Nyalenda B wards.
Through the “tinkering walk”, we observed the following:
Sewer pipe constructed across the river at fly-over hindering the flow of water.
Continuous bursting of the old sewer pipe.
Emptying of sewer by exhausters in the river therefore causing contamination.
Farming activities along the river.
Solid wastes like bottles and syringes deposited along the river thus interfering with the flow.
Therefore, if we embrace the tinkering concept it will focus on local manifestation of such approaches wherein actors from across society create joint experiments to achieve common goals.
Reference:
Thomas Elmqvist; Jose Siri; Erik Andersson; Pippin Anderson; Xuemei Bai; P.K. Das; Tatu Gatere; Andrew Gonzales; Julie Goodness; Steven N. Handel; Ellika Hermansson Török; Jessica Kavonic; Jakub Kronenberg; Elisabet Lindgren; David Maddox; Raymond Maher; Cheik Mbow; Timon McPhearson; Joe Mulligan; Guy Nordenson; Meggan Spires; Ulrika Stenkula; Kazuhiko Takeuchi; Coleen Vogel. 2018. “Urban Tinkering”. Sustainability Science. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11625-018-0611-0
Aiuba is currently an advisor to the President of the Nacala Municipal Council (Mozambique) in the areas of Territorial Planning, Urbanization and Development Projects.
The ideas we exchanged as we walked became increasingly interesting. Now we look at our city differently and as we walk we think about the small changes we can make, making our city better in small steps.
Before the tour, when the UNA Coasts team announced that the next day’s workshop would be a walk, a walk in our own town, and that we should bring sneakers, a hat, and water bottles, I wondered: I walk this city every day, what will be the difference of this walk?
Then we were informed that the goal was to walk around the community and talk about how we could overcome the challenges we face in our city using the method called “Urban Tinkering”.
The idea aroused great interest in me because our city faces major challenges such as erosion that drags soil to our port, lack of drainage, poor access to clean water, decent housing, sanitation, and more. They are beyond local financial capacity and it is not easy to get money from the national government or other donors.
But while the challenges are great, we were asked that while we were walking we should think of small scale things that could help overcome the challenge and perhaps offer other opportunities, environmentally, socially, or economically.
The idea was interesting and made me start thinking differently about the need for big budgets to overcome the challenges we face in the city.
Before leaving, we examined alternative planning methods and how we can embrace informality and use what we already have in our city.
As we walked a little farther, we came to an area that was once a park, a place for children to play safely and where people from the community used to meet to talk. But now there were few trees and the play area was broken. While we were in the park under a tree, we talked about how if we started fixing the park, planting more trees and grass, fixing the swings and play area, then the kids would have a safe place to play again and we could stop the sand from being eroded into our port. Over time, when we received more money, we could improve the park more.
It was hard not to dream big, and instead to think about what we could do with smaller ideas to overcome the challenge. But we soon realized that we had enough to already solve part of the problem and provide other benefits.
We were told to talk and get involved with community members as we walked, to find out what they needed or how what ideas they had. We are not used to just talking to people about street work; we usually gather in a meeting lounge to discuss matters.
We walked a little further and found a building, which had a great view of the bay, with a large and beautiful free ground in front. But the building was in a very poor state. The ground floor was abandoned and full of rubbish. The residents pour dirty water from the balconies to the ground. The front had scruffy bushes. As we passed the building, under the blazing sun, we talked: what if we began to requalify the building, clear the ground floor, and put in some income-generating activities to ensure maintenance? We could clean the front yard and put in shade trees and seating benches for people to sit and watch the sunset in Nacala Bay.
These actions would not really require much money, but would make the place one of the most appreciable in the city because it has incredible views of the bay and this would have a good impact on city life.
The ideas we were exchanging became increasingly interesting. Now we look at our city differently and as we walk now we think about the small changes we can make.
Semakula Samson is an agricultural officer and environmental inspector for the Entebbe Municipal Council (Wakiso District), Uganda. Sam is the focal point for the Urban Natural Assets for Africa programme.
Urban tinkering is definitely worth trying out in our developing cities as it gives opportunity for small scale innovations which, when aggregated together, can result into large scale worldwide environmental solutions.
African cities experience unique, multi-pronged, and usually persistent localized environmental challenges. These otherwise local challenges are amplified by global environmental challenges like climate change.
Walking tours make it possible for us city managers to clearly come in touch with the issue at hand at the ground level, and as such enable us to come out with workable and sustainable environmental solutions.
During walking tours in the city you go on an excursion of you own city, like a tourist in a forest. Things that have become the ordinary for the local inhabitants begin to strike you and catch your sight. For example, you see the dirty stagnant water, mosquito larvae, think of the diseases that come with them. So, it is basically re-discovering the city.
It is correct to say that all cities are urbanizing, but they are all urbanizing slightly differently, owing to their localized opportunities and challenges. The spaces are urbanizing differently at the end of the day. Such small-scale difference are made apparent by city walking tours. After touring the city by walking you can then draw a conclusive picture of the city.
What small actions made an impression on me? Why is urban tinkering an appropriate method?
During the walk I was impressed by how well we all (city officials and members of the community) shared our vision of the problem in an area that has been hostile to other enforcement agencies. We are trying to develop a buffer between the wetland body and developments.
Urban Tinkering (UT), if well conducted, has the potential and energy to substantially aid conventional planning and development. UT allows for greater levels of flexibility and this complements finding multifunctional designs that can promote diversity, hence making it more likely to approach the unique challenges of urbanization in our cities. This results in greater levels of adaptability in planning. This is especially the case in our African setting, where development usually overtakes planning processes.
It contributes to the realization of Sustainable Development Goal number 11 (SDG 11) and the New Urban Agenda. It brings about a different mode of operation that brings together planning and management processes onto a similar platform and transforms the use of existing urban systems by helping design innovative simple and practical ways that expand their capabilities and functions. This enhances environmental adaptability to better meet the demands of the city.
UT is definitely worth trying out in our developing cities as it gives opportunity for small scale innovations which, when aggregated together, can result into large scale worldwide environmental solutions. UT also has close relation with improved systems approaches as it is a highly appreciated method which is critical to sustainable development.
It is hence worthwhile to undertaking UT as it creates a platform for interaction between the various environmentalists, planners, engineers, public health teams, and others city stakeholders. UT also works just as well in the peri-urban centre of our cities and this is where environmental challenges are best manifested.
Ellika Hermansson Török is a Senior Adviser for SwedBio at Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, and is responsible for SwedBio’s project portfolio of urban collaborative projects in developing countries.
Multi-actor action planning—informed and inspired by the urban landscape
Urban tinkering functions by promoting a diversity of small-scale urban experiments that, in aggregate, can lead to large-scale, often playful innovative solutions to the problems of sustainable development.
I had heard very positive things about walking workshops from colleagues, but I had not understood how helpful and powerful these kinds of place-based discussions can be.
Over the years, I have enjoyed many field trips at conferences and workshops. These often showcase practical examples related to the conference themes, and can provide valuable insights and new knowledge. But unlike walking workshops, field trips are seldom designed to actively advance the discussions or workshop processes. After having experienced the walking workshop in Kisumu, Kenya, I think of some of these previous field trips as “lost opportunities”.
I am working for the SwedBio programme at Stockholm Resilience Centre, a programme that devotes a lot of time and resources into facilitating dialogue on different scales between different actors that represent different knowledge systems such as research, policy and practice, including traditional and indigenous knowledge. Walking workshops have been used by some colleagues in close collaboration with our partner organisations in developing countries, but the walking workshop in Kisumu was the first time for me.
Some quick impressions and reflections: why are we doing these tours, and why urban tinkering?
Understanding.Research has shown that walking stimulates creativity, and it is well-known that learning processes can be improved by using multiple senses. When walking in pairs along the Auji River in Kisumu, we got to use all our senses when observing, identifying, discussing and analyzing problems and possible tinkered solutions. I am pretty sure this “physical experience of observations” helped the diverse group of participants—with very different backgrounds, expertise and language—to both better understand the challenges and opportunities, individually and mutually, and to generate more informed and creative ideas for solutions than in a more formal workshop setting.
Walking workshop along Auji River in Kisumu with participants representing the City of Kisumu, Kisumu County Government, Universities, NGOs, and Community Based Organisations from villages along the river. Photo: Ellika Hermansson Török
Sharing.Insights from previous walking workshops also suggest that discussions that take place in the landscape encourages practitioners and community members to actively share their experience-based knowledge. It creates synergies and innovations based on connections across knowledge systems, rooted in equity and reciprocity. Meeting outside the conference venue, in a local landscape guided by local community members or other local actors, helps to level the power within a group.
Engagement.Like everyone else at the workshop, I was aware of the widespread and severe problems of flooding. But watching local school kids play outside their school building, visibly stained by previous flooding events, made it clear to me and other participants the impact flooding has on the community. This observation effectively brought the reality of local communities into the discussions and injected energy into finding possible solutions. In my mind, engagement is necessary for creating long-term commitment and behavior change.
A local school along Auji River in Kisumu that gets hit by severe flooding and has to close for long periods twice a year. Photo: Ellika Hermansson Török
Prioritisation. The participants were instructed to take photographs of both problems and ideas for solutions identified during the walk. They did so using a method called Photovoice, which is often used for community-based participatory research to document and reflect reality. The photos taken by the participants, with explanatory captions, were helped with the prioritisation discussion. They helped us remember what we had observed and discussed during the walk, and they made the prioritisation process more informed and concrete.
Nothing is useless. By using the urban tinkering approach (Elmqvist et al. 2018), characterized by, for example, “build on what you have on the ground”, “integrate built systems with living systems”, and “see informality as an opportunity for innovation”, participants came up with a plethora of nature-based solutions for decreasing future flooding of the above-mentioned school.
Vegetables are grown on the river bank without any buffer zone. Proposed solutions to reduce future flooding and erosion included the creation of a buffer zone, planting of fruit trees, small scale interventions up-stream such as removal of constructed narrow channels and lowering of some built-up river banks. Photo: Ellika Hermansson Török
As suggested by Elmqvist and colleagues, urban tinkering is most useful and easily applied in rapidly urbanizing regions of developing countries, harnessing social and human capital for innovation. It functions by promoting a diversity of small-scale urban experiments that, in aggregate, can lead to large-scale, often playful innovative solutions to the problems of sustainable development.
The results from the application of the concept through the walking workshop in Kisumu are promising, and with financial support by SwedBio some of the ideas will be implemented. There is a lot that can be done with very limited resources, as long as there is creativity.
Reference:
Thomas Elmqvist; Jose Siri; Erik Andersson; Pippin Anderson; Xuemei Bai; P.K. Das; Tatu Gatere; Andrew Gonzales; Julie Goodness; Steven N. Handel; Ellika Hermansson Török; Jessica Kavonic; Jakub Kronenberg; Elisabet Lindgren; David Maddox; Raymond Maher; Cheik Mbow; Timon McPhearson; Joe Mulligan; Guy Nordenson; Meggan Spires; Ulrika Stenkula; Kazuhiko Takeuchi; Coleen Vogel. 2018. “Urban Tinkering”. Sustainability Science. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11625-018-0611-0
Thandeka Tshabalala is a professional officer in the Climate Change, Energy and Resilience work stream at ICLEI Africa. At ICLEI she is involved in implementing the Urban-LEDS II, Urban Natural Assets: Rivers for Life (UNA Rivers) and Reflecting Cities projects.
The exchange of knowledge between stakeholders can improve governance, ultimately leading to long-term and sustainable interventions.
African cities are very diverse. Most African cities are experiencing high migration rates coupled with a rise of informality. Through walking tours one is able to experience firsthand how urban challenges are interlinked and play out in reality. Walking tours offer an opportunity for exchange of knowledge from the ground up, an opportunity for the community, experts and local government officials to share ideas, and find practical solutions that respond to real needs of the community and/or urban residents. Further, walking tours give an opportunity for decision-makers in cities to immerse themselves in the physical context of the urban environment so that the proposed interventions are well suited to the local context. I have been involved in two walking tours and have witnessed these emergent benefits first-hand. For example, a walking tour in Nacala (a coastal city in Mozambique) took place at midday. The sun was scorching hot, which led to discussions about the provision of shaded areas in public open spaces and using building materials that can withstand the local weather conditions.
The exchange of diverse views during walking tours builds relations amongst stakeholders. This allows for shifts of power dynamic that can potentially remove barriers to effective public participation and interdepartmental collaboration. Given the complexity of urban challenges in African cities, sustainable interventions that rely on local knowledge are vital for creating targeted and responsive interventions that improve people’s day to day needs. The walking tours implemented by the UNA programme saw decision-makers and “experts” being taken on a tour by community representatives and users of the open public spaces. This provided the opportunity for local residents to explain their context (problems and opportunities) firstand, allowing attendees an opportunity to see things through the community representatives’ eyes. The “experts” learned.
What experiences made an impression?
During a second walking workshop (implemented in Kisumu, Kenya), I was particularly impressed by a community member who took the lead of the tour with pride. He showed off some improvements he was doing, such as planting a nursery along the river banks, which not only has potential for future income for his family but also protects the river banks from erosion. As part of the feedback after the Kisumu walking tour one of the municipal officials said she found the tour useful because “it forced her to be out of her office and to walk a site that she has never walked before”. As a result, the walking tour gave her a different perspective on how she could use her expertise and knowledge to enhance some of the activities that the community members valued, and were already doing. The session also offered an opportunity for city officials from various departments to understand how vital interdepartmental and intersectoral collaboration is in tackling certain issues. This showed me how the exchange of knowledge between stakeholders can improve governance, ultimately leading to long-term and sustainable interventions.
Is urban tinkering an appropriate method?
Urban tinkering allows decision-makers and communities to look at challenges and collaborate in innovative ways. It improves the understanding of the local context by providng the opportunity to observe how people use an actual site and analyse how existing opportunities can be harnessed. This includes understanding what kind of economic or social benefits are derived from the site. The methodology focuses on small scale solutions and local knowledge that can later be upscaled to respond to everyday challenges.
For many developers and city planners, it takes time and money to plan around trees and small forest fragments. Often, the message from conservationists is that we want to avoid fragmentation and to conserve large forested areas. While this goal is important, the message tends to negate any thoughts by developers towards conserving individual mature trees and small forest fragments.
Fragmented landscapes have value for a variety of species—stating that fragmentation is unequivocally bad can only lead to lost conservation opportunities.
To design around individual trees and small forest fragments, it takes a good deal of planning and, in some cases, extra costs. Roads have to be realigned, homes on lots have to be sited to protect trees, and a considerable amount of construction management has to be implemented to prevent earthwork machines from damaging conserved trees and forest areas. From an engineering/construction perspective, it is sometimes easier to wipe out all vegetation and start from scratch. So why should trees and forest fragments be conserved? Below, I discuss a few ecological and environmental reasons.
A view of the tree canopy in downtown Hartford, Connecticut. Photo: Hari Menon/Flickr and American Forests
Benefits for migrating birds
Long-distance Migrants
In and around urban areas, forest fragments could be used by an important group of long-distance migrants called Neotropical birds (Figure 1). These birds typically breed during the summer in the U.S. and Canada and they migrate south to spend the winter months in Mexico, the Caribbean islands, Central America, and South America (Figure 2). Migrating species make the return trip in the spring back to their breeding grounds. Along the migration route, forest fragments in urban areas can serve as stopover sites where migrants rest and forage for food. These stopover sites are critical, as the birds need to rest and forage in these sites in order to make their long journeys.
Figure 1. Neotropical migrants, such as the Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia, top photo) and Yellow-throated Vireo (Vireo flavifrons , bottom photo), migrate during the spring and fall. Forest fragments could be used as stopover sites during migration. Photos: Audubon, www.audubon.org
On their breeding grounds, a few Neotropical migrants use forest edges and open woodlands and are not very sensitive to forest fragmentation (e.g., Baltimore Oriole, Icterus galbula). However, many Neotropical migrants are sensitive to fragmentation (e.g., Cerulean warbler, Setophaga cerulea) and typically only breed successfully in large patches of forest (e.g., greater than 100 acres). Birds that primarily breed in large forest patches are called interior forest specialists. It is hypothesized that these species are vulnerable in fragmented landscapes because they are area sensitive, typically nest in open-cups on or near the ground, have small clutch sizes, and often do not nest again if a nest fails.
Figure 2: Yellow Warbler’s range map. All along the migration route, from the upper regions of Canada to the southern regions of Columbia, birds can use forested areas as stopover habitat. Image: www.allaboutbirds.org
In fragmented landscapes containing agricultural and urban areas, a variety of nest predators and brood parasites are more abundant along the edges of forests. Nest predators include mammals and birds, such as raccoons, cats, skunks, blue jays, and crows. The main brood parasite is the brown-headed cowbird, which lays eggs in a Neotropical migrant’s nest; the parents are tricked into feeding and raising the cowbird chick instead of their own. Cowbirds and nest predators thrive in fragmented forest landscapes containing agriculture fields, pastures, and residential development.
Some interior forest specialists (e.g., Canada Warbler, Cardellina Canadensis) breed in dense understory growth in the openings of large forests and use regenerating vegetation (caused by windfalls, fires, and clearcutting) when nesting. Although they technically breed along edges, they do so in large forested areas, and they are thought to be vulnerable to forest edges found in fragmented landscapes where urban and agricultural areas are nearby. This is because of increased predation and cowbird parasitism in fragmented landscapes containing agriculture and urban areas. Overall, interior forest specialists are vulnerable to forest fragmentation; many populations of these species are declining and are in danger of extinction due to human modifications of the landscape.
Short-distance migrants
Short-distance migrants are birds that breed in the U.S. and Canada and winter in the U.S. Many of these species include populations that are considered both as year-round residents (e.g., they breed and winter in the same area) and short-distance migrants. American Robins (Turdus migratorius ) are one example: a portion of the robin population breeds in Canada and migrates south to the U.S. during the winter. American robins can be seen year round in most states south of Canada, but of these robins, a portion of the population will migrate south during the winter, going across state lines. Florida is one state where robins do not breed but they can be found in Florida during the winter because some robins migrate there.
Sometimes, individuals in the same species can either be short-distance or long-distance migrants. For example, Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) are Neotropical migrants, with a majority appearing during the winter months in Central America and the Caribbean islands. However, a portion of the population winters in southern states, such as Georgia, Texas, and Florida.
Do migrants use forest fragments and trees as stopover sites?
Through a literature review that my graduate student (Jan Archer) and I conducted, we found that many Neotropical migrants—both interior forest specialists and migrants that breed in small forest patches and open woodlands—use small forest fragments as stopover sites. Thus, small forest fragments may not be appropriate breeding habitat for many interior forest migrant species but these fragments could serve as stopover habitat. Short-distance migrants also use forest fragments as stopover sites. We even found studies that found migrating birds using trees in residential areas. Thus, individual trees and small forest fragments are important features in urban landscapes for migrating birds.
In the literature, we found that a majority of the migrant species were from studies that surveyed in one or several similar-sized, small forest fragments. These studies listed migrant bird species that used these patches during the fall or spring. They did not explicitly compare forest fragments of different sizes. However, a few studies conducted surveys across a range of small forest fragments, and these studies found that relatively larger forest fragments contained more Neotropical migrants. These were still small fragments, but more birds were found in forest fragments from 10 to 17 acres in size when compared to fragments from 1 to 10 acres. Because of these studies, I suggest conserving relatively larger forest fragments when opportunities present themselves.
Carbon and energy benefits
First off, trees and forests sequester and store carbon. Trees perform an important function in the natural carbon cycle, helping to mitigate climate change. Through the process of photosynthesis, trees sequester, or capture, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to create energy for growth. This carbon is then stored in the tree’s biomass over its lifetime. Trees store carbon in their leaves, branches, trunks, stems, and roots, and their fallen leaves contribute biomass to the soil. In addition to directly limiting carbon emissions by storing carbon, trees can indirectly limit CO2 emissions when they are positioned effectively so that they shade a house. Providing shade and evapotranspiration near homes (see here) reduces building energy needs for cooling, allowing homeowners to avoid unnecessary carbon emissions. Trees shade homes, reducing building temperatures and the amount of sunlight entering homes (Figure 3). In such cases, the air conditioning unit will run less frequently and use less carbon-emitting energy to cool the home (see here).
Figure 3. A model home in Gainesville, FL where trees have been conserved to provide shading. Photo: Hal Knowles
Not all trees avoid, sequester, or store carbon at the same rate, however. Carbon sequestration rates and avoidance of carbon emissions are based on a tree’s species, age, size, height, crown characteristics, overall health, and its location in the yard. For example, a live oak (Quercus virginiana, Figure 4) will sequester and store more carbon than a magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) or a loblolly pine (Pinus taeda). A live oak will typically have more biomass than a pine or a magnolia for a number of reasons. First, wood density has a positive relationship with the amount of carbon stored. In general, hardwood tree species, such as oaks, tend to have a denser wood and a more open crown structure than softwood species. Greater wood density equates to greater biomass and, generally, a more open crown structure means more volume and growth and, therefore, higher carbon sequestration.
Live oak trees with resurrection fern and Spanish moss. Credit: Treehuggerimages.com
Summary
Overall, urban trees and forest fragments provide many ecological, environmental, and aesthetic benefits. In particular, the function of stopover sites for migrating species is very interesting and more research is needed to document the ecological benefits of urban trees and forests. I did not review all benefits, for example, how trees control stormwater runoff and improve water quality (see here). The trick is to convey information to developers and environmental consultants that make on-the-ground decisions. As conservationists, we have to be careful about our messages, as they may dissuade decision makers from doing the best that they can.
As mentioned in this essay, fragmented landscapes do have value for a variety of species and only stating that fragmentation is bad can lead to lost conservation opportunities. Providing local, model examples can help promote such communication and best management practices. Also, city policies can create the enabling conditions for urban forest conservation, such as the Urban Design Framework and Green Streets Policy in Melbourne, Australia, and the Tampa, FL Urban Forest Management Plan.
Smith and Kadinsky are not alone in being drawn to running water. Paul Talling’s 
.
Beautifully written with a wealth of detail, The Lost Rivers of London, by Barton and Myers, provides an invaluable historical perspective on the fate of many small rivers that still flow beneath the streets of London. The course of each river has been identified from historical records, paintings, photographs and maps, including one of the earliest maps of London dated 1559.
The Lost Rivers of London looks ahead and sees prospects for bringing back some of the hidden rivers. This has already been achieved for sections of small tributaries south of the Thames. Barton and Myers argue that it would be possible to do the same, even in the centre of London. The key to success of such a scheme is the fact that several of the lost rivers were naturally fed from unpolluted springs and streams on Hampstead Heath. At present this water is diverted straight into the local sewage system; a complete waste of a valuable asset. The authors suggest that this water could be channeled by gravity through a new pipeline into central London where it would certainly be possible to recreate short clean stretches on the courses of the Fleet, Tyburn, Westbourne and Walbrook in the very heart of the city. Now there’s a vision; the Fleet flowing again through the capital as a sparkling stream! This book is a must for anyone dealing with urban planning and design, not only in post-industrial cities, the lessons are just as valid in new cities today.
Walking. It’s a natural, human thing to do. Whether we wander through wide open green spaces or ramble around in cities, the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other makes everything around us feel more intimate. Walking puts the unreachable within reach.
What are we looking for? We are seeking goodness in the world. It’s our anti-fear approach to living life well. The ubiquitous headlines screaming about all the wrong being done everywhere have created a world that seemingly wants to surround itself with fear—fear of uncertainty, fear of “those people,” fear of our neighbors. We don’t buy into that. Our live-our-best-lives intuition and longtime backpacking experience tell us that there is more good in the world than bad. And we believe that if we start with the humble (or perhaps lofty) ideas that the whole world belongs to each and every one of us (not just a chosen few in wealthy, developed countries), that we all belong to each other, and that everyone deserves respect, kindness and compassion, then something that looks like goodness naturally flows.
Goodness comes in an endless number of varieties. It’s that moment when a complete stranger invites you into their home and offers you tea, or walks with you to the place for which you’ve asked directions. It’s the helping hand, or the smile of understanding that breaks language barriers. It’s also birds singing in a tree-filled park where people stroll hand in hand and children play. It’s listening to waves roll in while strolling along a beachside pedestrian promenade, and watching and helping people plants seeds and harvest vegetables in community gardens. Goodness is appreciating the clean, potable water from your sink, and having a safe place to sleep every night.
When we turn to face our emotions about the environment with theater, it can get heavy. We try to ensure this container is as safe as possible. We bring in eco-anxiety counselors. We build community trust and agreements.
The “cops” can be pretty silly, frozen in their stern postures. They might be cupping their mouth to shout at or pointing at us to get out of there. Because the “cop” is wobbling about like a statue and is a bit exaggerated, it gives us some breathing space.
We start to get unstuck. We see ourselves as able to transform and try new ways of being and relating. We often cry, but the tears are necessary. It means we are resensitizing ourselves.
Whimsy and place: what are our places for? Could they allow for more fun for all ages? “Whether it’s a smile, a conversation, or just getting people to think about the issues in a new way, I think the impact justifies the effort”. 
Where can you get more information? 
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