The Ecological Cities Project is affiliated with the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. It was founded in 1999 by Dr. Rutherford H. Platt, a familiar figure in the Valley. The project website currently features “The Humane Metropolis”, an article by Neal Peirce. Peirce champions the cause of greenspace in urban environments:
A metropolis (i.e., metro region or citistate) is considered green if it fosters humans’ connections to the natural world — an idea Anne Whiston Spirn promoted in her seminal 1984 book The Granite Garden. Spirn rejected the idea — easily absorbed if one watches too many “concrete jungle” films, or even televised nature documentaries — that the natural world begins beyond the urban fringe. “Nature in the city,” she wrote, “must be cultivated, like a garden, rather than ignored or subdued.”
…antidotes to the “urban heat island” phenomenon and the spread of global warming-inducing greenhouse gases…
Closely allied are “green blue” strategies — handling urban water in more sensitive, planet-protecting ways, by “daylighting” streams once enclosed in concrete pipes and by filtering stormwater more slowly through swales and other forms of landscaping that avoid big engineering solutions in favor of nature’s more modest but ecologically sound ways…
The “humane metropolis” advocates, bent on shared streets and spaces, have no single solution. Their idea is simply to protect and create all possible natural areas — parks, greenways, forest tracts — fostering a shared sense of “ecological stewardship.” They’re strongly for promotion of urban gardening and farm markets. They support efforts toward environmental justice, so that low-income areas are not burdened with undue, damaging pollution.
See also:
“Nature in the Suburbs”, by Jane S. Shaw
Published in A Guide to Smart Growth (The Heritage Foundation and The Political Economy Research Center, 2000)
This essay underscores how greater natural diversity can be achieved through distributing greenspace throughout a city, as opposed to exclusively sequestering it to the edge of a dense urban core…
…humans may be more compatible with wildlife than most people think…
In his book Edge City, journalist Joel Garreau discusses the newest suburbs, the towns on the edge of metropolitan areas to which people increasingly gravitate. Garreau says this distant suburban growth has put people back in touch with nature…
One example of the positive impact of growth is the rebound of the endangered Key deer, a small white-tailed deer found only in Florida…
…since 1970 the deer population [in New York State] multiplied 7.1 times in suburban areas (an increase of 610 percent) and only 3.4 times (an increase of 240 percent) in the state overall…
[Geologist James R. Dunn] explains that the forests have been allowed to regrow without logging or burning, so that today they lack the “edge” that allows sunlight in and fostered vegetation suitable for deer. That is why the counties with big cities (and therefore with suburbs) have seen a greater increase in deer populations than have the isolated, forest rural counties.
Certainly, the regrowth of Eastern forests is a dramatic occurrence that unfolded thoughout most of the 20th century… Forested land in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island increased from 35 percent to 59 percent [from the 1880s to the 1980s]…
[Observes environmentalist Bill McKibben,] “Here, where ‘suburb’ and ‘megalopolis’ were added to the world’s vocabulary, an explosion of green is under way.”
…Joel Garreau cites black bears, red-tailed hawks, peregrine falcons, and beaver in his list of animals that find niches in the new, distant suburbs…
According to the Rocky Mountain News, state wildlife officials estimate that 2,500 elk live in the area between Denver and the Continental Divide. “The increase has occurred entirely in the residential subdivisions such as Evergreen Meadows, not in the area’s vast expanses of national forests, according to state wildlife biologist Janet George,” the article stated…
Suburbs have grown in large measure because people have the wealth and mobility to move into less-dense environments. Economic studies show that as income rises, people begin to take better care of their surroundings and show greater interest in protecting their environment. Although they may rely on shopping malls and drive on highways, they also like open space, gardens, and trees–all characteristics that are likely to attract or nurture wild animals…
It is intuitively clear that for many people one reason to move to the suburbs, including the distant suburbs, is to be closer to nature…
Photo Essay: Our Woods in Winter
Photo Essay: The Forest Behind View Avenue
Topographical Map Shows How Kohl Condo Proposal Will Eat Into a Rare Stand of Mature Trees in Downtown
Smart Growth with Balance: The American Planning Association [emphasis added]
Core principles of Smart Growth include:
…CREATION OR PRESERVATION OF A “SENSE OF PLACE”. A “sense of place” results when design and development protect and incorporate the distinctive character of a community and the particular place in which it is located. Geography, natural features, climate, culture, historical resources, and ecology each contribute to the distinctive character of a region…
The American Planning Association and its Chapters support protection and enhancement of biodiversity through the planning process. Planning for biodiversity should use the best available science to assess natural resources and determine areas of environmental vitality as the first step in incorporating “green infrastructure” into human settlements…
All development — including redevelopment, infill development, and new construction in urbanizing areas — should plan for biodiversity and incorporate green infrastructure. Green infrastructure helps to maintain natural ecosystems, including clean air and water; reduces wildlife habitat fragmentation, pollution, and other threats to biodiversity. It also improves the quality of life for people.
EPA: Urban Heat Islands
The term “heat island” refers to urban air and surface temperatures that are higher than nearby rural areas. Many U.S. cities and suburbs have air temperatures up to 10°F (5.6°C) warmer than the surrounding natural land cover.
The heat island sketch pictured here shows a city’s heat island profile. It demonstrates how urban temperatures are typically lower at the urban-rural border than in dense downtown areas. The graphic also show how parks, open land, and bodies of water can create cooler areas….
UMass Press: “Natural Land: Preserving and Funding Open Space”
Open space plays an important role in moderating the climate in urban areas. Street trees and other vegetation cool urban areas, which because of the high percentage of buildings and paving are much warmer than surrounding rural areas (Botkin and Keller 1995). Urban trees also remove dust and pollutants from the air. For example, research in Tucson, Arizona, estimates that “planting 500,000 desert-adapted trees over five years could be worth more than $236 million to the city” in the form of savings on air-conditioning and other costs (McPherson quoted in Lawson 1992, p. 42). In the city of Stuttgart, Germany, corridors of forest land have been preserved to provide a natural airflow through the dense urban environment, bringing clean air from the surrounding rural areas and diluting urban air pollution, as well as moderating the climate (Spirn 1984)…
Randal O’Toole: “The Folly of ‘Smart Growth'”
Open space in valuable locations such as people’s backyards, urban parks, and golf courses will be transferred to less valuable locations such as private rural farms that are unavailable for recreation…
Bozeman Daily Chronicle: “Bozeman’s Growing Pains” (9/7/05)
Open space for recreation [in Portland] is at risk after 10,000 acres of parks, fields, and golf courses were rezoned for infill development.
Irony of Infill: You Have to Drive to Enjoy Nature
A key assumption built into infill is that walking access to amenities associated with civilization takes priority over walking access to nature. If developers are permitted to aggressively pave over green spaces downtown, more residents will be compelled to drive if they want to enjoy parks and woods. Most likely their overall time spent in ‘unbuilt’ environments will decrease.