You almost never see a cow in a tree. That’s why I was so surprised that day in February when I encountered one at the Docklands, a new green redevelopment district in the City of Melbourne. The Cow (and tree), it should quickly be noted, were in fact part of an unusual art installation, and while I certainly knew immediately what it was, I was still pleasantly taken a back at seeing it, and seeing its interesting setting. It is the work of artist John Kelly, and was inspired by efforts in World War II to disguise Australian airstrips by putting out paper mache farm animals. One day Kelly wondered what would happen to these camouflage pieces in the event of a flood, and thus we have “cow up a tree.”
This specific piece of artwork epitomizes for me the intrinsic value of public art, and the sense of intrigue and interest and beauty that such pieces can bring to the city. The cities that I enjoy the most are places where there is much to see at pedestrian level, and where there are surprises like this around the corner. I think we enjoy a bit of mystery in streetscapes as well as a bit of whimsy. I have been impressed that some of the cities that have made the most progress in promoting sustainability are also ones that have emphasized the importance of community art, and have put into place some of the most creative ideas for stimulating and providing avenues for our creative impulses.
The city of Melbourne has shown a remarkable commitment to infusing its streets and public spaces with art. And it is probably not a surprise that its citizenry has responded with an enthusiastic embrace of its public spaces and pedestrian streets. Melbourne has an emerging and well-deserved reputation as a city that has sought to transform its downtown into a vibrant pedestrian district. Jan Gehl has called it the “Melbourne Miracle.” It has gone, in the course a couple of decades, from being a largely car-dominated city-center to one where people are relishing time outside walking, strolling, eating at outdoor cafes (Melbourne went from having only 2 outdoor restaurants in 1973, to a remarkable 356 by 2004). Melbourne has taken many steps to enhance its downtown: more housing, extending the city’s grid to encompass and accommodate new growth (the Docklands is a notable case in point), creating new public spaces like the extremely-popular Federation Square, re-paving the pedestrian spaces throughout downtown with bluestone, installing new street furniture, encouraging flower shops and other smaller kiosk businesses, and encouraging new outdoor restaurants and café. And the commitment to funding and installing new public art is a big part of the story here, it seems to me, and a significant aspect of what makes spending time there fun. It is the larger art pieces in important places like the Docklands, but this city has thought creatively about other places where art might help to entice exploration and re-discovery.
Melbourne funds a laneways art program, for instance, that has seen some of the most interesting installations in the city’s extensive set of laneways and alleys. Here the goal is to nudge residents and visitors into venturing off the beaten path a bit. These installations have included: a faux bank safe, wedged high above one alley, as if the robbers had been caught in the act; a set of drainpipe periscopes offering unusual views of the city’s skyline; a harp powered by the wind; and even a gurgling water installation that encourages pedestrians to step into and on this flowing pavement. Public art here becomes a useful strategy for to encourage the exploration of otherwise forgotten and hidden parts of the city.
There are equally impressive artful stories from other Australian cities. Brisbane, for example, has a program to encourage the painting of otherwise drab signal boxes. Originally meant as a strategy for combating graffiti, there are now some 900 signal boxes that have become metal canvases for an impressive array of art. Neighborhoods and local residents are encouraged to employ design that builds on their community history and heritage. I especially like the idea that art, public art, is not just something that is the domain of the professional artist. Every city, every community, harbors an immense reservoir of creative energy, something that can be put to good use in strengthening commitments to place, making places more profoundly unique and different, and in just generating urban experiences that are fun and joyful.
And there is just simply a need to give people artistic outlets, places and opportunities where they can be expressive, where they can stretch those (largely dormant) artistic muscles. People and kids just seem to need to draw, to doodle, to see how lines and color can add up to something unplanned. But we have too few opportunities for this, too many inhibitions perhaps in adulthood. Here we might learn from kids, who seem to have a limitless pool of creative energy to tap into, and seize the chance whenever it presents itself. Street closings and block parties can convert, if only briefly, hard surfaces of asphalt and concrete into large linear canvases. Bridges and building facades provide opportunities for community mural projects, and leftover neighborhood spaces offer the chance to build and erect things that bring a sense of delight and pride.
My own City of Charlottesville has for a number of years operated a unique and sometimes controversial public art program called Art in Place. It selects each year, through a competitive process, about ten works of art, mostly sculptures. A small amount of funding is provided for the artist. The art is installed on very visible sites (largely along major roads and mobility corridors) throughout the city, where they remain for a year, when the process is repeated and a new batch of pieces replaces them. The controversy comes sometimes in the selection of the art, and disagreement about the artistic merit of the pieces chosen -a kind of controversy that is to me one of the interesting and valuable things about the program. It has exposed us (collectively, as a community) to a variety of different artistic expressions, that sometimes demand a degree of aesthetic stretch, and that provoke some interesting discussions among friends and neighbors. The city also occasionally purchases one of the pieces and adds it to its permanent collection.
The value of this program has been made clear to me in some very personal ways. While there have been plenty of pieces that I’ve disliked, there have been many that I have been fond of, and some that have become beloved. One of the most dramatic pieces of art to have come out of this program is one produced by my talented artist neighbor, Tom Givens. It is a full-size Sperm Whale’s tail-we affectionately refer to it as the “Whale’s Tail” or just the “Tail” sometimes. It is perched on a spot of forgotten turfgrass, an awkward space occasionally mowed by the city, but otherwise sandwiched between a bridge and several high-volume neighborhood roads, and mostly forgotten.
The story of the producing and transporting whale’s tail is interesting in itself, almost a community legend (certainly a neighborhood one). Tom worked tireless to assemble and shape this beautiful and unusual piece, all from left-over wood strips acquired from a local high-end furniture maker. The tail was so large that it required a crane to lift it up and over the Givens house, then slowly transported by flatbed truck in the very early hours one morning.
I don’t think it is an overstatement to say that the installation of the Whales tail has transformed this space and our neighborhoods’ appreciation of it. In some ways it is as though we suddenly noticed a spot of land that we just hadn’t seen or cared to see before. The Tail is now a landmark and has created a bit of a gathering spot for the neighborhood and community; people assemble there to watch the city’s fireworks show on the fourth of July, for instance, and the tail seems to have become a bit of a rendezvous site.
I enjoy seeing the Tail everyday, and I know many others do as well. But the value of this kind of art is multifaceted. My hunch is that the more of these sort of encounters we have during our day, and the more we see our communities as grand canvases for creative expression, the more we will see our homeplaces as distinctive and special, and in turn (hopefully) the more we will relish and care for them. But I don’t know that research will necessarily bare this out. What if it doesn’t? What if all that Whale’s Tail does is make me smile, make me feel good on a bad day, or give me that reassuring visual cue that home and family are not far away-it would still serve an essential role, one that illustrates well the art of artful places.
I don’t think we talk enough about wonder in planning schools today. That sense of fascination, awe, of being spellbound by the immensity, delicacy, beauty of something, is an essential ingredient of our human spirit, and to making life joyous and meaningful. Yet it goes virtually undiscussed in professional planning programs, with few insights offered about how to go about designing and planning places and communities that provide these experiences. Planners are a wonkish bunch, more likely to wax on about special use permits, density bonuses, and sliding-scale zoning. Important tools and concepts, no doubt, but a little uninspiring to those who are not members of the planning tribe. Perhaps we need to think more in terms of the ultimate experience and meaning of life, the potential for daily discovery, for encouraging in humans the very best virtues of curiosity and attentiveness to the life and wildness around. Does planning have a critical role to play here? I believe yes.
But what can be done to bring about, or facilitate, or induce—one is not even quite sure how to talk about this—the wonder or awe that makes life truly interesting and magical? There are probably a few essential aspects. Access and proximity are critical (are there sufficient parks, natural elements, natural spaces nearby?), and here planning plays a very important role of course. But it is also true that it is virtually impossible to wall ourselves off from nature (though we seem to try mightily). If one only looks around there are incredible opportunities to connect with and understand this nature—a spider web, a bird flying by, a summer thunderstorm. Yet, that said, we often need help in seeing the things right in front of us. Sometimes, then, the mission is about educating, about simply encouraging us to see, to notice, to pay attention, to look at the world with a wondrous lens and frame of mind and when we do we see things that we have missed earlier.
There are many opportunities in designing and planning the built environment, to actually incorporate these moments of wondrous learning. Part of the difficulty is that many of the most wondrous things in nature are beyond our immediate sight and field of experience and require some imagination. Understanding the full ecological nature of trees, for instance, requires some knowledge and help in visualizing the underground roots structure, and when understood is even more wondrous than at first blush. The subterranean habitats of ants and many other creatures are elaborate and extensive and truly amazing when understood, but difficult to see directly. Part of the challenge, then, is making visible many of the things in nature—the common nature all around us. Opportunities for fascination and wonder require creative ways that show what is otherwise hidden. Perhaps community plans should be recast and re-written in more engaging ways that emphasize this narrative of wonder and wildness; at least as much as they emphasize the technical and sometimes bland accounting of demographic trends, development patterns, and policy recommendations.
Much of the wondrous life around us is hidden from view, and finding effective ways to highlight and give visibility to this is a major challenge for planners. One of my favorite examples can be seen in the work of Florida State University entomologist Walter Tschinkel, and his efforts at making dramatically visible the subterranean nests of ants. We see only a small portion of an ant’s world, but with some creative research techniques—in Tschinkel’s case, using orthodontic plaster to make casts of these underground nests, and to render visible the nest architecture of species like the Florida harvester ant (Pogonomyrmex badius). Reassembled as a single connected plaster model showing the shafts and chambers of these nests elicits, at least in this author, surprise and they are in Tschinkel’s words “undeniably spectacular.” Tschinkel’s research has already generated new knowledge about the biology of these ants (that there is a “vertical social structure by worker age and life stage”) but the functions of this elaborate next architecture are mostly unknown. Nevertheless, the plaster casts—shafts of 12 meters long, connecting some 135 different chambers, lend a sense of awe to ant biology that few of us are familiar with.
I’m not quite sure how we incorporate this kind of knowledge into community plans that often emphasis the larger scale, but there must be some creative ways to highlight as well the smaller wildness around us. It may be that we need to spend as much time (re)kindling a sense of the fascination and wildness around us, at whatever scale, as we do in developing actual plans.
E.O. Wilson is right, I think, that we need to foster this wonder and fascination at an early age. I agree with him that encouraging the natural impulses kids have to collect things from nature is one step. I recall the endless delight my two young daughters experienced in collecting coquina shells in the sandbars off of Sanibel Island. Coquina (Donax variabilis) show a remarkable diversity of color in their shells–some are purple, pink, blue, brown, and seemingly every color and shade and design is represented in nature. Collecting them takes a degree of delicate strategy, in order to preserve to the two halves in their attached form. This allows the mounting of the shells later, like so many butterflies, on paper or in a frame. The process of collecting coquina responds to several different values—for kids of course it is fun, and involves running, diving, extruding handfuls of sand and gleeful delight about what is discovered. There is a kind of hidden treasure, and one is never sure about what gem will be uncovered. It focused the attention of the beauty and detail of nature—as the shells are washed, the true colors uncovered. And there is much to be said for any family activity that keeps kids outside, out-of-doors, hands and feet immersed in the natural world.
The objects of childhood collecting will vary, of course, depending on geography and setting, but there will be many equivalents to the coquina shells wherever one happens to live. Perhaps we need to look for ways to tap into this fun of looking for and finding things in nature at a community or collective level? One powerful process of this sort is the BioBlitz, a 24-hour search for and accounting of all of the biodiversity, large and small, in a defined space or area, often a public park.
The potential of bioblitzes was brought home vividly to me last year in watching (and filming) one unfold over a day and night in San Diego. Organized by the San Diego Museum of Natural History, and focused on recording the biodiversity of Balboa Park, the evening hours directly and viscerally involved kids. There was an opportunity even for kids to spend the night at the Museum, which many did, immersing themselves in the science and fun of this event. Several nighttime observation stations were set up, and especially entertaining was the moth station. Scientists from the Museum draped a white sheet over several dangling lights, in an effort (largely successful) at attracting moths. Much appeared that evening, and between the “oohs and awes” the kids learn a great deal, I think, about the biology of these species. But perhaps the most important benefit was the fostering of curiosity and fascination, and the mystery the evening holds for what it will bring out in the form of unusual looking fauna. Moths impressed me that evening with their ability to evoke a sense of mystery and magic. When people hear the number of different species of moths that can be found in North America—almost 10,000—they are amazed, kids and adults a like.
The tally from that day and night in San Diego was impressive—more than 1000 species recorded at Balboa Park. I came away appreciating how valuable such a process might be in service of community planning. The bioblitz should be viewed as a useful source of information and insight about patterns of biodiversity in a community and certainly helpful (if not essential) in developing a community plan that takes adequate account of nature and environment. Organizing one or more community bioblitz’s as part of the community planning process also makes some sense, as might it would at once serve to give visibility and importance to a process sometimes lacking in excitement or perceived relevance. Making the connection between policies and actions in a plan, and the fascinating and wondrous nature and life all around would be a positive thing indeed. And perhaps every neighborhood holds an annual bioblitz focused on learning about and understanding their special place and nature qualities—it becomes the biological block party, if you will.
There are many other planning implications of a focus on wonder, of course. Conserving and protecting natural areas close to where urban populations live, and working hard on behalf of integrated, urban ecological networks, is important. An agenda of wonder further supports the effort to creatively design-in green features into every urban neighborhood (from green walls and forested courtyards, to rooftop gardens and steam daylighting). And it is as much about the program as the space—neighborhood bioblitzes can happen anywhere, even in the most degraded of hard-surface settings. Understanding the ecological assets of a place as opportunities to educate and nurture: One example can be seen in the visionary sustainable redevelopment Noisette, in North Charleston, SC. Restoration of the Noisette Creek is a cornerstone of that project and through a network of trails and paths neighborhoods will be able to connect to this natural system. An interpretative nature center is planned, and the creek is envisioned as a new and important educational resource for the fourteen schools within two miles of the creek.
What ultimately will be the payoff from fostering a sense of wonder, and an appreciation of the wildness in and around our communities? It is hard to know whether such a sensibility will really change much about how we live or our choices in life. It’s also not clear that injecting wonder into the planning process will change our planning policies or priorities, or the decisions made by the local planning commission. But it’s possible. It might lead us (individually and collectively) to look differently at the small and seemingly insignificant spaces around us that we know to be valuable pockets of nature. And perhaps we will take steps to better care for and preserve them, and take time to enjoy them. A local planning process that fosters a reverence for the biological world will pay many dividends down the road, and lay the foundations for a wondrous and meaningful life—what every planner, wonkish or not, should want to see.
Two weeks ago I had the chance to visit the Los Angeles Ecovillage (LAEV), and spent time with its visionary creator Lois Arkin. The story of the LAEV is inspirational and instructive. Located 3-miles west of downtown, the Ecovillage represents a compelling model of how to begin to transform dysfunctional and unsustainable urban (and suburban) environments into real places, places with soul and meaning and commitment to community and environment. Arkin’s work in Los Angeles provides an unusual but telling pathway for other cities.
Arkin’s story begins more fifteen years ago, when she and a handful of others re-imagined how this small piece of LA, home to the former Bimini Baths in the early1900s, support an urban ecological community. The immediate neighborhood looks like a cross section of many American cities—apartment buildings, a nearby school, auto repair shop, strip malls not far away, The Ecovillage owns two buildings now, but the boundaries of the village actually extend to include the larger two-block area, an area which they seek to positively influence and steward over.
In approaching the nucleus of the village, you realize that you must be somewhere different indeed. There are marks of creative community building everywhere in sight: a vividly painted pole, chairs carved from large tree trunks, an extended sidewalk plaza, a beautiful cob-built community bench. A main part of the LAEV is an intentional community of around 35 people, who live in the main building. This is a primary hub, the center of activity and life at the ecovillage. There is a lot of socializing here, a palpable sense of community, always something going on: there are potluck dinners, workshops and meetings, even films shown on the wall of the ground level common area. Part of this urban restoration the LAEV seeks, then, is social and human. The residents of the intentional community serve an important social anchoring role, building community, and establishing a visible outpost of hope (and help, when needed) to the larger neighborhood.
The lessons from this remarkable story are many. One derives from the location of this creative energetic mix of ideas and people—in an urban area. Mostly our notion of an ecovillage conjures up something more rural and agrarian, and many of the best examples of ecovillages around the world occur in rural or exurban settings. Arkin’s vision is decidedly urban—it’s not about laying down ecological concepts on a tabula rasa, it’s about tackling the much harder job of retrofitting, restoring, retooling an already formed and damaged urban landscape. If we are to truly aspire to Green Urbanism, a celebration of living in dense, joyous, ecological cities, then surely the LA model is a more relevant one indeed. There are other urban examples to cite, for instance the Cleveland Eco-Village, but there are (unfortunately) not very many.
Much of the emphasis on the LAEV had been on living a life less dependent on cars. About half of the residents of the intentional communities are living car-free, and with there is now an impressive degree of transit options (another important part of the story)—buses, metro, and of course walking and biking. Residents of the intentional community without a car even get a break on rent.
Arkin and her colleagues have worked hard to shift the attitudes of car drivers who drive through (as car drivers are apt to do) the neighborhood with little regard for the pedestrian and social life of the place. They occasionally hold traffic-calming breakfasts where they set up a table in the middle of the street, and also occasionally undertake what Lois refers to a car re-training session. This involves standing together with a small group again in the middle of the street, as drivers are forced to divert around them. It sounds a little dangerous but car drivers (they are almost referred as a kind of alien species) apparently get the idea pretty quickly that this is not just another piece of pavement but a beloved home and neighborhood requiring special care and caution when moving through by car.
With the city’s help they have recaptured some of the street in front of them, extending the sidewalk and installing a demonstration permeable paving. Projects like this use recycled and salvaged materials, a common strategy at the Ecovillage. The beautiful courtyard of the main structure is home to vegetable gardens, a number of fruit trees (guava, fig, lemon, banana, you name it), and even a solar cooking oven.
The LAEV is home to many demonstration projects that show how the scarified and paved might be de-sealed and life restored. These include a multi-level rainwater collection and infiltration project, utilizing recycled bricks in its retaining walls, as well as native vegetation. The gradual renovation of the main ecovillage structure has also demonstrated sustainable materials and techniques (e.g. recycled flooring). And, a new green park on the edge of the ecovillage that recreates a portion of the slough system that existed before settlement, inserting needed nature as well as intercepting and cleansing runoff from nearby roads. The ecovillage shows the power of a place where new ideas can be visibly tested, where residents and visitors can see what might actually be possible in a highly urbanized setting.
The ecovillage has also served as an incubator for new community businesses and nonprofits. One of the more interesting is the Bike Kitchen, a community bike repair center with tools and help for anyone interested in learning how to repair their bike (and charging a per-hour rate). It was started by an LAEV resident in empty kitchen of one of the village apartments (thus the name). Lois Arkin hopes to create more spaces for start-up green businesses and community enterprises.
Another key lesson is the critical role to be played by ecological outposts like the LAEV that are able through the power of demonstration and personal passion, leverage for change in many ways beyond the small size of the place itself. The LA Ecovillage holds special promise, it seems to me, as a node of urban experimentation and learning, a place where new ideas and methods of low-footprint urban living are tested and played out, and then serve as a practical model for other urban neighborhoods.
Much has been accomplished here already, but Arkin has even more ambitious plans for the future. She hopes that to tap into the subterranean geothermal waters a mere 2000 feet below the surface, and the origin of the Bermini Baths that brought people here in the first place. She has plans for converting a remnant parking area behind one building into a mixed-use live/work space for hatching new sustainable businesses. She imagines orchards where there are now streets and pavement. And she will undoubtedly continue her energetic involvement in the design and planning of the larger neighborhood and city in which this unique place is embedded.
Arkin talks of the importance of the LAEV as a repository of learned experience and wisdom about how to live sustainable lives—personal knowledge about such things as growing food, pruning and maintaining fruit trees, capturing and recycling rainwater, building with sustainable local materials (like the lovely cob-constructed community bench), essentially what it will take to live rich lives with less (less oil, less energy, less water, less waste; and fewer consumer goods that rely on the former). This skill and knowledge will increasingly be needed in an era of declining oil and need to use global (and local) resources more sparingly and creatively.
I would liken the ecovillage to a kind of community seed bank, with the potential to spread these inspiring ideas near and far. Lois is herself a kind of Johnny Appleseed, spreading the message, stoking sustainability pots all over the city and region, serving as catalyst and inspiration for others who understand the need to change the cities in which we live.
It would be an interesting exercise to inventory the “things” we have in our homes and offices—the objects, the equipment, specialized things, electronic and otherwise, that occupy space. Along with this accounting, might be some estimate of how recently the thing has actually been used, and how frequently. My hunch is that much of our home “inventory” consists of things that are used rather infrequently, if ever. Given the tremendous carbon and energy footprint associated with producing and transporting goods, not to mention their economic cost and disposal problems, it behooves us to find creative ways to reduce our material consumption, to de-materialize if we can. One category of possibilities is to return to that time-tested idea of sharing, and establishing new community institutions to facilitate sharing.
One of the most impressive local services we discovered when we lived in Australia, and we thought quite unusual at the time, was that of the local toy library. Seemingly every local council ran one, and sometimes it was a local non-governmental organization. When we lived in Fremantle, in Western Australia, we were frequent visitors to the council toy library. The concept was essentially the same as a lending book library—and indeed these toy libraries are organized in similarly efficient ways—bags of kids blocks each with check-out barcodes, games, even small cars and other rideable objects. In the case of our own Fremantle toy library, the service extended to helping you carry or push (often in a shopping cart) your new cache of toys to the car. With two small children there was palpable delight at each new toy, and by the time the toys had to be returned, they had run their course in terms of interest to the kids—they were ready for a new batch.
We came back from Australia duly impressed with this idea, only to learn later that there are toy libraries all over the world. There is even an international toy library association with an annual international conference no less! (I’m tempted to wonder what wild things toy librarians do when they get together, but I will leave this for another day).
Another similar idea is the tool library. A number of American cities actually already have them, including Francisco and Philadelphia. Columbus, Ohio, even runs a mobile tool library. Communities like Takoma Park, Maryland, have operated a community tool library directly behind their book library for many years. They offer just about any tool you can think of, with a few exceptions (chainsaws, for instance, perhaps for obvious reasons). And these make a lot of sense as well. Why spend limited family dollars to buy a commercial length ladder, for instance, that you may only need for that home paint job (every how many years?) or that post-hole digger, or specialized garden or woodworking tool?
Atlanta is home to probably the largest tool library anywhere, and a terrific story of sharing in itself. The Atlanta Community Toolbank, as it’s called, is really about institutional or organizational sharing—it’s a membership organization that schools, parks, churches, and other community organizations are able to join and for a small fee are able to access a large array of tools (rakes, shovels, pruners, hammers, ladders, etc.) for use in various community renovation, restoration or clean-up projects. Wandering around this modest building I had never seen so many tools in one place. And toolbank is embedded in a inner city neighborhood, and has been a major force in helping repair and renovate homes there. It serves as a staging ground for a host of community projects and volunteer efforts throughout the city and in that sense represents an example of time- and labor-sharing of generous Atlantans, as much as anything.
The benefits to these kinds are community sharing regimes are many, and extend beyond environment and energy. Use of one’s public library has been frequently cited by communitarian advocates as evidence of connection and commitment to the public realm. In economic downturns (such as this) sharing may represent an effective coping strategy, and the personal interaction and sheer fun of it are also not be underestimated.
But there are also obstacles to sharing, of course. It is often observed that Americans are rabidly individualistic, that we revel in not just the value and services provided by the objects we buy, but by the actual owning of things, and the status imparted through that owning. I’m not sure that is fair, and there is much evidence in our history as well of a generous and sharing culture. The surge of interest in car-sharing and in community bike systems (such as Paris’ Vélib’) may be sign for optimism. Perhaps sharing is something we’ve just gotten out of the habit of doing. Perhaps we just need to re-learn how to share?
When I lived in Oregon many years ago there was a humorous expression: “Oregonians Don’t Tan, they Rust!” There was much truth to that as much of late fall and winter in the Northwest is damp and rainy. Yet, this weather system is one of the aspects of place I remember most fondly; I can still recall the look and feel and smell of that rain. There was certainly not the sense that the rainy season was to be dreaded, rather it was one of the aspects of place that contributed positively to the special sense of place there.
Perhaps today in too many parts of our country, there is a profound disconnect from the climatic conditions and forces that shape those environments. It has become too easy to withdraw to the warmth (or cool) of our homes and offices buildings, experiencing the outdoor elements primarily when we move from car to building and back again.
Does it have to be this way? Might there not be a sensibility that accepts, indeed celebrates, the climate and weather conditions that exist? Could learning more about, and actively celebrating and enjoying the outdoor weather, serve to deepen our appreciation of, and commitments to, place? To be sure, these are some of the most important ways in which communities and regions vary, part of the inherent uniqueness of place.
Partly this is about the attitude to the places we live. I’m reminded of the experience of outdoor strolling and eating in Copenhagen, Denmark. As Jan Gehl, one of the most passionate advocates of pedestrian culture reminds us, the gradual (though dramatic) conversion of much of central Copenhagen into a pedestrian district met with considerable nay-saying. People said “Danes are not Italians”, he is fond of remembering. But of course the Strøget and pedestrian walking areas have proven them wrong, and the season of outdoor eating has been extending each year. One interesting accommodation is that many restaurants now provide their customers with blankets (along with the menu). You are encouraged to enjoy sitting and eating outside. There are many reasons to encourage outdoor living and lifestyles (health, social benefits) but at the end of the day it’s about enhancing quality of life.
Australia is a country and part of the world where a similar appreciation of native weather and climate can be seen. Again it is partly a function of attitude and culture, and partly a matter of design. Heat and sun, often quite severe there, are parameters to work around. When we lived in Western Australia, writing the book Green Urbanism Down Under, my daughter and her primary school classmates spent much time outdoors, but with the critical provisos: No hat, no play!. The importance placed on being outside can be seen in many design and planning decisions. Virtually every park or outdoor area came equipped with a barbecue, and there was never hesitation about multiple families sharing these to make their lunch or dinner.
In bigger ways, the climate became a key design element in city planning and city building. Brisbane’s Queen Street Mall is good example: an open-aired pedestrian district with extensive shading, enticing residents to be outside, but effectively moderating the impacts of sun and heat. And through its CitySmart initiative, Brisbane is seeking to dramatically expand its tree canopy coverage and thus the natural shading and cooling benefits. Throughout Australia, moreover, there is a return to building and project designs that incorporate awnings and other low-tech shading devices, and windows that permit cross-ventilation and natural cooling.
There is an element of delicious delight in the weather that often goes unappreciated. We are often so harried in our day-to-day existence that we fail to look up to see the remarkable moving show in the sky above us. We are not paying much attention to clouds and sky (daytime or nighttime), and we often lack the ability or even the terminology to speak about or share our observations. Living in Western Australia, we were treated to the most remarkably orange evening sky; unlike anything we had ever seen before. Even through the eyes of wonder-struck temporary visitors, we probably didn’t give the sky its due; we were distracted by other things, as most of the permanent residents around us were.
In what ways could we design and plan American communities with greater sensitivity to weather and climate? How could weather and climatic conditions become aspects of places and regions in which we live, and of which we are cognizant of and indeed proud about?
Perhaps because we are such Olympians at moving, at shifting and transitioning to new lives, new jobs and new houses, Americans know relatively little about the places in which they live. Much of my own work has been about the creative ideas for educating about place and region, and for deepening connections to nature and landscape. There are many possibilities, some tried, others only pondered.
Part of the task I think is to make learning about community and place fun; something that you would want to do, and that would compete well with the many other life diversions available. We review a number of innovative strategies in out book Green Urbanism Down Under. These include, for instance, efforts in the Perth region to educate and stimulate interest in fungi—turns out there are 250,000 species (potentially) of fungi in Australia, and they are absolutely essential to the ecology there. Beyond a handful of mycologists, however, there is little popular knowledge of fungi, specific fungi, or broader patterns of diversity and value. A program in Perth aimed to change this through public workshops and publications, but also by organizing “fungi forays”—walks in the urban bush to discover, identify and collect mushrooms.
There will also be especially opportune times to educate about native flora and fauna. One especially promising time is when residents are moving into the neighborhood, when they’ve bought a new home or rented a new flat. They may be especially open to learning about the larger “home” that they’ve just joined. In the Sydney, Australia, metro region there is an interesting community environmental center called The Watershed that runs a promising initiative called “Welcome to the Neighborhood.” Working with local real estate agents, the idea is to convey informational material and tips about living more sustainably to new residents as they’re moving in. While the information conveyed is definitely tilted towards sustainable living (e.g. where can I recycle?) the basic concept of trying to reach people about nature and place at the time they move in makes much sense.
For a number of years I have advocated the idea of an “ecological owners manual” that every new homeowner or renter would receive as they move in. Mostly what new residents receive are things related (narrowly) to the equipment and running of the house. And these are not unimportant—that manual for the dishwasher may come in handy! But it is the larger manual for responsibly living in the watershed, in the bioregion, that is needed even more. Such an ecological owners manual might include basic information about the ecosystems and plant and animal communities in which the home or apartment is located, ways in which a homeowner or renter can help in small ways to restore or repair these.
An even more strident approach would be to impose some form of (dare I say) mandatory short course about the nature, natural history, ecology of the community and region. We don’t think it’s unreasonable to require all those wishing to drive an automobile to obtain a license (and to pass a test demonstrating minimum levels of knowledge and competency). Similar testing and licensing is needed to fly an airplane, or operate heavy equipment, or even to engage in fishing and hunting. As one model, several years ago I had the chance to visit a beautiful marine park north of Honolulu, Hawaii, called Hanauma Bay. Before you are permitted to descent into this pristine beach and coral reef you are required to watch a 9 minute film about the park, its biodiversity, its fragility, and the standards of care expected of visitors. The film was quite good and effectively conveyed not only helpful information, but more importantly a sense of the sacred and unique nature of what was beyond the gate of the visitors. I don’t know if there is any evidence that this short film has changed the behavior or attitude of visitors, but my hunch is that the mere step of requiring visitors to watch it infuses a heightened reverence about the park they are about to explore.
I’m not sure how we might devise an analogous tool for imparting a similar kind of reverence to new residents of a community or region (would it be a film, as well?) but I think it not an unreasonable request.
Much of my research and writing over the years has focused on telling stories-innovative efforts at moving cities and urban neighborhoods in the direction of sustainability, at finding ways to build economy, reconnect to place and environment, and at once to enhance quality of life and reduce ecological footprints.
Recent books, such as Green Urbanism Down Under, with Peter Newman, involve this collecting and telling of compelling and inspiration stories. I am more likely these days to describe myself as a storyteller than a Planning scholar.
Recently I have discovered the power of film and the increasingly egalitarian nature of this medium as a way to educate about place and community and to tell these compelling stories, and I continue to ponder where this might lead. This year in my Sustainable Communities course at the University of Virginia students were charged with capturing local sustainability stories by producing 5-10 minute short documentaries. Our digital media lab put the students through a kind of filmmaking boot-camp, offered them cameras, and nurtured them along as they learned the art of shooting and editing.
Most of the students shot their films with very small, and relatively inexpensive, Flip camcorders. The model we used recorded up to an hour of video and plugged directed into a computer USB port for quick upload. So small that they fit into one’s front pocket they offer the possibility of capturing events and thoughts and fleeting elements of place that might otherwise be lost if a larger camera shoot were required.
The results of our film experiment have been spectacular: eighteen unique and compelling stories that captured at least a bit of the green energy and passion of the people and businesses in our region. They are at once educational, inspirational (many of the stories were of people launching a new business or community venture, involving a certain amount of personal and professional risk, driven by a sense of wanting to make a difference, wanting to make a significant personal contribution to their community).
One of the virtues of this kind of exercise is that you begin to better appreciate the range and extent of things going on in the community and region. While Charlottesville might be a bit unusual in the extent of its green activities, every community will have things to report and stories to tell. The range of activities and initiatives and businesses profiled in our films was remarkable. One film followed a group of students on their Friday forage for food—with the epiphany of how much edible there actually is, by accident or design, around town. Another film followed a local non-profit bike advocacy group on a community bike ride, an innovative program (called Discover Transportation Freedom) designed to tempt and nudge residents onto bikes, and to help in overcoming fears and inertia.
Another film profiled a local farm, offering a visual image and family history of a farm that many in the area know by name. Yet another film profiled a unique kind of farm that sustainably converts the City of Charlottesville’s supply of fall leaves into salable, valuable compost, and recently started taking organic food waste from a UVA dining hall. This is a story most don’t know.
The winning film—the film thought the best by the students in the class—was a documentary about a program to provide bicycles to refugees that recently moved to Charlottesville, most of whom do not have a automobile. This film was produced by Todd Gerarden, a third year Engineering student, who both participated in the program and eloquently tells the story in film (Here is a link to the film, now up on YouTube:)
Each film is its own gold nugget, some of course are more refined and polished than others. It will be interesting to see what life these short documentaries will have beyond the class—some will be used I think in promoting the mission of some of the organizations profiled, others may provide good ideas for other communities, perhaps hundreds of miles away. Perhaps in some small way the films will help our community further build up its pride of place. We shall see.
I would love to hear about how film and filmmaking is creatively used in other parts of the country and world to tell stories about place and sustainable placemaking. Please share some of these stories here!
As we come to the end of another holiday season, it is a fair question to ask whether, for those of us concerned about sustainability, if any of the giving (and holiday consumption) has had any sort of positive effect on places in which we live and care about. Those who view consumption as a generally positive act of citizenship will probably reply in the affirmative, but many of us are troubled by the amount of “stuff” that we buy and give and receive.
A couple of weeks before Christmas I received a call from one of our local Charlottesville newspapers doing a story about greener gift options. They asked me to participate as a strong advocate of localism and to suggest some possible local gift options. Partly because I was immersed in end of semester grading I reluctantly declined, but it was mainly because I had few immediate good ideas or suggestions to offer. What might we give that could help strengthen community, and help to reactivate commitments to and interest in the places in which we live? It was a good question.
After declining the newspaper’s offer to participate in this interesting exercise, I found myself thinking a lot about what I would have suggested had I had the time to give it more thought. Some of the possibilities for place-strengthening gifts might include:
Any gift that helps support local and regional farms and farmers. Giving a share in a CSA (community-supported agriculture) is an excellent idea (one suggested by others), though it can be a bit pricey as an average seasonal share in a CSA probably costs around $500-600. Perhaps a half share or a quarter share might suffice, if you can find them. Could other gifts help in reconnecting us to the farms and farmer who ultimately supply the food that nurtures and sustains us, such as gift certificate (if available) for a purchase from a metropolitan buying club or other direct farm-to-plate service or business. Buying local artisan cheeses, preserves, and other foods would also similarly show commitment to local food producers and help to keep dollars circulating locally.
Any number of gifts that support other local businesses, craftspeople, artists. We have a local art center that provides space for a variety of incredibly talented artists that produce art of a functional—nature-glass-blown objects of various kinds, pottery, plates and lamps, and many others things both beautiful and local.
Anything that will help kids and adults alike to re-connect to the nature and natural environments around them. These might be things not necessarily produced locally—telescopes, microscopes, stream monitoring kits, etc.—that might help to educate about and stimulate interest in the environments around us.
Gifts that nurture new understandings of, and new perspectives and insights on, the places and regions in which we live. Books of course fall into this category, but perhaps we need to be even more creative here. Some communities have produced creative (and frameable) maps that depict both the ecology and history of a place. A great holiday project might be producing—with the help of kids—a map or series of maps like this, that could then be given as gifts. A few years ago the nonprofit Ecocity Cleveland produced a lovely map of the Cuyahoga Bioregion, showing the larger watershed and topography of the region, and sold it as a gift (partly to raise money for the organization). One of the most impressive examples of a place-strengthening book is one I mention in my new book Green Urbanism Down Under. It’s a book by Michael Smith called Bush Mates, and its essentially a very specific guide to the flora and fauna (and stars and native foods) one will encounter in the Tomaree Peninsula, in northern New South Wales. It’s an example of phenology, or noticing by week and month particular creatures and natural processes and phenomena. It would make a marvelous gift!
Gifts that nudge us to participate and become more engaged in the communities—natural and human-made—around us. A membership in the local birding club, or the native plant society, or the gift of a class or workshop about the natural history and ecology of a region, would serve this function; a coupon for a wildlife tracking class would be a very unique gift to be sure.
Giving the gift of time. Making a commitment to volunteer a certain number of hours to a local charity or organization, or to serve on the board of a community non-profit, or to attend and participate in local planning commission and city council meetings would be a significant local gift. The time commitments made could also be a very personal and family-oriented offering to a family member. For instance, you could offer as a gift a certain number of hours to babysit, to repair a roof, or to otherwise perform upkeep and home repairs, to grocery shop for an elderly neighbor or family member, and so on.
Gifts that help us to live more sustainably and more responsibly in place. While it may be the wrong time of the year to plant a fruit tree, perhaps a gift of a pear, apple, or pawpaw tree—something that produces for potentially many years—could be purchased for redemption in the spring. We have a marvelous business called Edible Landscaping that sells every imaginable tree or bushes that can produce food for human and non-human members of our community;
Of course from a sustainability perspective perhaps the most compelling idea is probably to reduce the overall amount that we give (and sending out the signal to friends and family that receiving less is appreciated). But for most of us the giving and receiving of gifts at Christmas an inevitable, indeed an enjoyable, part of the holiday season, and we need to look for creative, place-strengthening options.
Now that the items that you gave and received are fresh in our minds, I’d like to collect other good ideas. What creative place-nurturing gifts did you give or receive? Please describe them as well as any ideas you might have for helping to harness our admirable gift-giving inclinations on behalf of place and environment.
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You almost never see a cow in a tree. That’s why I was so surprised that day in February when I encountered one at the Docklands, a new green redevelopment district in the City of Melbourne. The Cow (and tree), it should quickly be noted, were in fact part of an unusual art installation, and while I certainly knew immediately what it was, I was still pleasantly taken a back at seeing it, and seeing its interesting setting. It is the work of artist John Kelly, and was inspired by efforts in World War II to disguise Australian airstrips by putting out paper mache farm animals. One day Kelly wondered what would happen to these camouflage pieces in the event of a flood, and thus we have “cow up a tree.”
graffiti, there are now some 900 signal boxes that have become metal canvases for an impressive array of art. Neighborhoods and local residents are encouraged to employ design that builds on their community history and heritage. I especially like the idea that art, public art, is not just something that is the domain of the professional artist. Every city, every community, harbors an immense reservoir of creative energy, something that can be put to good use in strengthening commitments to place, making places more profoundly unique and different, and in just generating urban experiences that are fun and joyful.
Timothy Beatley is the Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities at the University of Virginia. He co-authored Resilient Cities and Green Urbanism Down Under and is the author of the upcoming Planning for Coastal Resilience.
