Staying Sane in the City

It’s great to see evidence for what is intuitively obvious. But here’s the thing: I don’t think cities and the natural world need to be mutually exclusive. Well, okay, of course a city will never be as natural as a wilderness area or a national park. But the connection can be much, much better than our current incarnation of cities. First thing we need to do is to massively reduce cars, or rather, stop designing our cities around cars. Right now, every single block of a city has to have a road for a car. That is unnecessary; cars don’t need to go to every single block of a city (hell, even most parks in cities have roads through them … cant’ we even get one place — a park no less — without cars?!). Instead, the majority of roads should be for bikes and pedestrians and then there would be a handful of major and minor thoroughfares for buses (and to some degree, cars). And of course, trains/subways would be underground. So, by doing this, you 1) reduce the surface area of a city which must be concrete/asphalt and can instead turn into into green space (and I don’t mean grass (though some parks will still have it), but native plants, which in turn attract native animals and insects … and don’t require watering, mowing, weeding, etc.), and 2) you reduce the noise (and not just the ever-present roar of the engine, but the overused horns, thumping car stereos, and useless but annoying car alarms) which is hugely under-rated in terms of how it takes us humans out of our natural environment (imagine hearing nothing but birds and the voices of other humans talking instead of roaring cars). Another thing we need to do is have a certain percentage (say 10-20%) of the city’s area, spread randomly throughout the area, preserved as natural habitat. Now, this doesn’t mean parks with grass and non-native trees (though this are useful too), but rather preserving the native ecosystem that was present before the city. Say, perhaps, 1/2 of a block every 5 blocks must be preserved in it’s native habitat. And also, some of this would be for community farms. Also, we need to leave natural drainage systems in place. Instead of turning streams into concrete-lined aqueducts, they should be left with a 50-100 yard buffer on each side to allow them to evolve naturally over time (this is also excellent for filtering the water). And of course, almost every street should be lined with trees. And roofs, if they don’t have solar panels or mini-wind turbines, should be green roofs covered with either native plants or crops. Again, all these suggestions are just things we can do to make our cities more natural which, as the above article states, is good for us, even necessary I would argue. There are many, many more things that can be done other than the ones I’ve listed, but I truly believe that there is no reason that wanting to live in close-contact with others and all the culture and excitement this brings has to be mutually exclusive with experiencing nature. I still believe we can have a future where our cities are as exciting and vibrant as they are now yet still keep us connected to nature.

I recently attended a showing at Portland State University of the film Portland: Quest for the Livable City, which was produced by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and Northern Light Productions. The film looks at the area’s approach to defining quality of life in Portland and 24 other contiguous cities, and preserving land for recreation, agriculture, and forestry: the instantiation of a regional growth board, called Metro, and its controversial urban growth boundary. In general, the film falls a little flat in dealing very deeply with the productive and strained relationship between the Portland metro area and the surrounding agricultural areas, as well as the impact that Portland’s incredible urban growth and livability have had on poorer city residents. It is this latter aspect, in particular, that seems to be dismissed too easily in the film by citing the development of compact, affordable, contemporary housing units in the best inner-city neighborhoods of Portland. Staying within the urban center is a problem that middle-income Portland residents continue to face even in this time of economic recession: we can’t afford to live in the city we helped make livable by supporting public transportation, parks, and local businesses (in particular, the smashingly successful Portland Farmers Market).Nevertheless, I do encourage others to watch the film (and others put out by the institute in its Making Sense of Place film series) if it is being shown your area: I found it was a great way to start a pretty good conversation not only about urban livability, but rural livability, regional governance, and even documentary filmmaking for causes. ··· Description of the film series Making Sense of Place at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy website: http://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/film_series.asp. Note: There is a link to a schedule of showings around the country in the left-hand column on this page.

Hey jdrx, I like those ideas a lot. If we could dedicate a half a block to the land’s original ecosystem, that’d be great. It might be better even to do what NYC does and have one big wild(ish) space in the middle of the city. At any rate, I wonder what kind of immersion in nature you need to get the psychological benefits. Would a half a block of trees be enough or do you need to forget the city entirely?

Andrew: good points. I obviously don’t know exactly “how much nature” it takes to soothe our souls; more research should be done on this to try and quantify it better. But in the meantime, we definitely know that we don’t have enough green space, so we should always be working towards more. I believe that we, especially in the West, have gotten wrapped up in technology and have been pushing it just for its own sake will almost completely neglecting the fact that it is changing our lives so fast that we aren’t adapting our social institutions and behavior. Or rather, we aren’t trying to understand how technology affects us. Our motto is: if we can, we should. If we can take a car that will get us there faster, then let’s do it. If we can make more consumer electronics that provide us more “pleasure”, then let’s do it. Etc., etc. In the meantime, our souls are suffering: our planet is being destroyed, we are growing more depressed, crime is increasing and we need more laws to “tell” people what to do because nobody cars about each other to just do the right thing in the first place, our health is declining (in the sense that, though we may be living longer, the quality is worse since we are mostly obese and malnourished (even though we have enough food … again, thank technology for pushing the Green Agricultural Revolution which has made processed and mostly corn-based foods cheap rather than health foods like fruits and vegetables)), and I would argue our level of happiness is declining. Technology has taken us away from our natural roots and most people are not trying to understand this. But here’s my point: one part of technology which we as a society place on a pedestal and would never question as being anything other than necessary — the car — is destroying our planet, our health, and our urban culture and connectedness in so many ways, and simply by no longer designing our cities around cars (not that we can’t have them at all, just that we stop prioritizing them), I believe we could affect massive positive change. I believe that it will reconnect us with each other, protect our environment, and yes, soothe our souls.