Whenever I visit a new town or city, I always find myself asking my hosts why there is a city there. Did their city grow up because of a bay or river useful for shipping? A particularly fertile tract of farmland? A crossroads of railroad or highway to serve as a logistics hub? Or is it a city like Phoenix Arizona, for which one can find little reason for it to exist for natural reasons?
Some examples from my own life: Minneapolis, where I lived for 3 years prior to moving to Bloomington, grew up as a milling town around St. Anthony Falls. This is the only major waterfall on the entire Mississippi River, which combined with good farmland nearby made Minneapolis into the grain milling capital of the country starting in the 19th century. The city is still home to such food business giants as General Mills, Pillsbury (since bought out by GM), and Cargill. So say what you will about these corporate behemoths, at least they have a "natural" reason to be where they are.
I spent my high school years in Champaign Illinois, which was basically a swamp until the railroad arrived in the 1850s. The need for a stop on the new rail line caused the town to drain most of the swamps, getting rid of most of Champaign's forested areas. Now, aside from a few areas of town Champaign is mostly forest-less aside from a few nature preserves and protected areas. It should also be noted that Champaign is on top of a major aquifer, and surrounded by prairie that serves as prime farmland thanks to the glacial soil. So one wonders why people chose to settle in swampland?
McHarg discusses how human settlements should ideally grow up around terrains that are naturally suited towards these settlements, and how these areas should be developed according to their natural processes. So, Minneapolis and Champaign would be examples of what McHarg would consider "good" and "bad": Minneapolis grew up around a river and used that resource responsibly, while Champaign took swampy forested land and transformed it into something supposedly more fit for human settlement.
If natural or physical capital were taken into consideration when planning a city, perhaps a place like Champaign would look much different, and the swamps that were drained could play a role in water storage, especially given their pivotal point between surface water and a aquifer. Or maybe Champaign could have been a center of aquaculture, especially considering the recent introduction (and potential commercialization?) of Asian Carp into Illinois.
I find myself asking that same question quite frequently, especially when travelling. I was recently hiking in the Guadalupe mountains in West Texas, an area (naturally) arid and very remote. I was shocked when I came around a turn and saw hundreds of green circles off in the distance, an agricultural oasis obviously supported by an aquifer. This area was developed around an area naturally suited for settlement, provided groundwater stays constant. But if not? The town will go the same way as its crops. Sustainable resource use needs to be (and most likely is) a central tenet for towns like these.
ReplyDeleteThere is a real challenge with getting the public to understand the value of wetlands. Even when clear ecosystem services are identified, such as floodwater storage, which you mention, the benefits can accrue to populations downstream that are less likely to be flooded because the river can now spread out naturally. By contrast, the community receives few obvious (at least perceived) benefits and sees mainly huge potential economic losses from less agricultural land. I think the bioregionalism idea in Roseland offers one possible way to help identify the benefits of working within the existing ecosystem. Certainly, identifying the benefits that do exist already would be essential to changing attitudes.
ReplyDeleteReading your post makes me wonder - what is the difference between building sustainable communities within nature and building so we can use nature to our own advantages with little regard for the ultimate outcomes? It's obvious in some cases why cities were built where they are, access to water being one of the major influences. But just because a community or company was drawn to a place because of the availability of natural resources doesn't mean that those resources have been treated well since the human population began using them. On the plus side, there are some services out there now that understand the importance and the beauty in using nature the way it naturally works. Check out Integrated Water Strategies: http://waterrecycling.com/services.
ReplyDeleteI don't find that I truly have ever asked myself why people decide to settle in a certain area. Originally people came to Long Island because of its fertile farmland. Over time, however, its use has shifted and the land has morphed into suburbia. Instead of caring for the land people are pouring chemical fertilizers on their lawns and in their gardens; these chemicals can then runoff and contaminate our water supply. Making matters worse, the pine barrens which sit atop the aquifer from which Long Island residents get their water, used to cover one fourth of Long Island. To date much of it has been developed reducing the pine barrens to a fraction of its original size, posing a great risk to the water supply.
ReplyDelete[Please excuse my delay. Technical difficulties. These are my thoughts from last week.] Interesting questions. Bloomington is the first place that I have lived that does not hug a large body of water or is not near a port. We understand from the industrial age that ports, etc. are key to the transport of goods and services. Julie’s comment above and class discussion last week complement your question well. To what extent are we simply taking advantage of the resources we have vs. utilizing what the earth has to offer? For the first time, I am having an internal debate about whether urban or rural is the ‘more responsible’ choice. Thinking about this week’s reading in Wheeler & Beatley on human behavior and outside forces, I am curious to see how the Midwest farmland may morph following this year’s drought; an outside variable that has forced farmers to think about their communities differently and certainly changed the economics of our food, sourcing, and footprint.
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