We can think about urban form as the streets, buildings, and open spaces of the city. But we can't separate these physical presences from the life of the city. Transportation, work, commerce, and play all go on in these "hardscape" spaces and play a mutual role in affecting, and being affected by them. So the urban landscape comprises both structures and the humans and their activities within.
But this framework still seems too simple. So much more is going on. The urban landscape is an open system that interacts with its environment. Light and heat energy, water, and movement all flow through the system. Tons of "stuff" are brought into the urban environment every day and they either stay or leave, sometimes in the same form and sometimes radically altered. Raw and finished materials, carbon dioxide, wastes of every conceivable sort move in and out of the city in a kind of steady-state flow that reminds me of cellular systems in living organisms. Art and ideas are also exported from the urban environment, less tangible but not immaterial.
In my blog "Botany Without Borders" I wrote about non-human life forms in the city. Everything from bacteria to algae, grasses, trees, and animals of every sort have a place in the incredibly complex urban web, all of them in close contact, sometimes intimate contact, with their human contemporaries. Urbanization has, in many ways, exerted a negative, simplifying effect on the larger ecosystem through paving, channeling, building, mining, and dumping. The changes are physical and chemical in nature, and have challenged once diverse lands and waterways. But inside the special ecosystem that is the urban space lies a unique, deep, well of diversity, unexpected perhaps, largely unseen, but powerful in that it influences the urban landscape in many ways we still may not understand.
As we continue to learn more about urban ecosystems the mutual influences inherent in these systems will come to make more sense. As my friend and colleague Margarita Iglesia states, sustainable things tend to stick around. Systems that are unsustainable disappear. So for example in fifty years we'll see with some clarity what the place of the personal automobile was in the urban setting. Our understanding of water use, energy consumption, and land use patterns will also come into better focus. How will issues of density, green space, and recycling be understood? And how will we reconcile urban form, especially in the broader geographical perspective, with global climate change?
This post relates to urban ecological frameworks #s 1 and 3. You discuss various life within the urban environment, including societal development that comes from presence of humans.
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ReplyDeleteThis article is most closely related to points number four and five. As you discuss, an urban landscape is not simply streets buildings and open spaces. An urban landscape is a complex system that incorporates people, transportation, art, culture, light, energy, etc. Everything is always interacting with one another, and continually changes over time.
ReplyDeleteAs you previously stated in our lab document, cities form their own ecologies. Urban environments impact ecological patterns in ways you described above. Because urban landscape openly interacts with its environment, and humans directly affect cities by manipulating and irresponsibly using the resources they provide, urban ecology is constantly changing and being negatively altered by peoples' influences.
ReplyDeleteThe urban landscape is a really cool thing to look at because if you think about it the landscape is always changing and adjusting to fit the new times that get brought up over time. For example in the picture above there was not always a bridge in this city, but as things changed in the urban landscape a bridge was needed to fit the needs of the people living in this city.
ReplyDeleteThis post reminds me of point 4
Urban ecology is a very interesting topic to study. Everything that goes into building a city is so complex and takes so much effort in the design process to achieve a sustainable environment. My favorite part about living in a city is that there are so many interesting and innovative architecture like the bridge in the picture above. Cities prove that building can be affective and interesting.
ReplyDeleteThis post can be related to your fifth and final point, in which you discuss the complexity and diversity of city environments. Cities are composed of many different peoples, plants, architecture, and landscapes that come together to form a beautiful and interesting environment.
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ReplyDeleteThis article sheds light on a few of the approaches to urban ecology. It acknowledges the interactions of the diverse organisms in the city while also discussing the development of human ecologies, such as transportation, work, and commerce. The 5th approach to urban ecology is mentioned in that “stuff” that is brought in to make the urban environment more complex and diverse, while also slightly changing its composition.
Number five talks about how environments change over time. Our carbon footprint grows over time and has a lasting effect on the natural areas around us. The growth of cities is inevitable. The building of schools, factories and such will also have a lasting impact on the environment.
ReplyDeleteThis post related to all five points because it is a perfect example of how things in the environment are constantly changing. Building are constantly being built or renovated, as well as the city as a whole has changed. During break I spoke to my friends parents, who went to BU when they were in college, and it was interesting to hear how different the school is from when they went here. New building were built, schools were renamed, although some things have remained the same.
ReplyDeleteThe post most relates to #2 when it discusses how the city affects ecology through paving, channeling, building, mining, and dumping. These negative outcomes affect not only the city, but other surrounding areas.
ReplyDeleteYour reference to an urban city as an "open organization that interacts with it's environment" bears resemblance to point 5 because it refers to cities as natural systems which are effected by natural phenomena (storms, weather…).
ReplyDeleteThis post definitely relates to the first framework because you discuss the different things in the environment and how the presence of different organisms can alter the environment. For example, the pictures you show all have some kind of natural environment element to them, but they also each show a way in which humans or other organisms have altered that environment.
ReplyDeleteWe often think that city dwelling is separate and somehow not really associated with the same environment located in the country. While landscape varies, the overall ecology is always effected by changes in the environment, especially caused by largely or overpopulated areas such as cities; as discussed in your third point.
ReplyDeleteThis post also makes it apparent that we need to take more consideration when planning urban environments, as you also discussed in your fifth point. We cannot wait for the next few decades to unravel the consequences of improper urban ecological dwelling.
I think it is interesting to think of sustainable things "sticking around" in an urban environment. If you think about it, this really is true. I think it is pretty incredible that so many different things are a part of an urban ecology that you would't normally associate with an urban ecology.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article, frameworks #1 and #2 seem the most fitting for this article. In the article, it is mentioned that urban ecosystems always contain elements that interact with each other/the environment, both biological/non-biological. It is very interesting to see this sort of observation as I never thought of city-environments as "ecosystems" as they consist mostly of non-biological matter (concrete buildings, etc).
ReplyDeleteThis can relate to number five. Urban environments are constantly changing and being introduced to new things. Because they are constantly changing we have to continue to find new ways to adapt.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading this post, I kept in mind the idea that the urban ecology is time sensitive and that no matter what form of ecology we observe (human or nonhuman), patterns change over time and evolve. Like you stated, this evolution could lead to the nonexistence of an entity due to its un-sustainability.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I forgot to sign in: While reading this post, I kept in mind the idea that the urban ecology is time sensitive and that no matter what form of ecology we observe (human or nonhuman), patterns change over time and evolve. Like you stated, this evolution could lead to the nonexistence of an entity due to its un-sustainability.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading this post, I most commonly found myself relating it to ideology #5. This is because it discusses the components that make an urban setting and the people that dwell in it also help to create the aura of a city atmosphere. This brief but intriguing article discusses the actions that are taken, or need to be taken, in order to maintain a sustainable city life.
ReplyDeleteTo me, this post reflected what you stated in the fifth point. Cities grow and develop over time and we need to monitor the health of our urban ecology as the cities continue to grow. Most of the material that flows in and out of cities does not sustain a healthy urban ecology. We need to find solutions that are sustainable in order to preserve our cities as they continue to grow.
ReplyDeletethis article spoke about the many factors in an urban environment, and how they are all apart of the urban ecosystem. now and the future we will learn better ways to sustain all the factors that contribute to the urban ecology, because everything affects everyone.
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