Ecocities by Richard Register Chapter 3: The City in Nature

w/ synthesis including Ecocities Chapter 1: As We Build, So Shall We Live &
Green Urbanism by Timothy Beatley’s Chapter 2: Land Use and Urban Form

After reading the introduction and Chapter 1 of Ecocities, I really wanted to start reading the book from start to finish. In contrast to some of our earlier readings, I am finding Ecocities very easy to read and digest. However, since I had to pick one chapter to blog about, I decided to read Chapter 3: The City in Nature.

Summary of Chapter 3:
Despite the common disconnection between North American concepts of nature and cities, this is a very hopeful chapter -almost utopian in its vision of future human harmony with nature. Richard Register begins with the claim that cities should be able to build resources and biodiversity, not destroy them. Of course, using gardening metaphors throughout the chapter, he posits that we must start from the ground up. He thinks that many of the concepts inherent in city development are sound, but that we must rearrange urban structures, reduce population and cut demand in order to make them sustainable. Cities are a natural extension of human development, and they should not be considered apart from nature, but rather “a natural pattern of organization for cultural living: it is as natural as anything else about us might be natural.” (p.49)
Using the example of elephant gardeners, the Bay area Native American landcare practices, the Kogis of Columbia, and the Hopi tribes, Register points out how organisms can cultivate the land to create more biodiversity. These examples of careful stewardship are contrasted with the wanton destruction and exploitation of natural resources that has been the norm in European cultures over the past several thousand years.

Register incorporates the theories of the preeminent Jane Jacobs into his section on Bioregions, Hinterlands, and Cities. Jacobs theorized that cities are the main organizers and builders of economies. Jacobs also claimed that “import replacement” creates self-sufficiency in nascent cities so that regions may be weaned off the resources of their “parent” cities as they come up with new ways to make similar products themselves.(p.65) Examples of this phenomenon include Venice parenting many European cities during the Renaissance, and European cities parenting the cities of the New World.
As the examination of the meaning behind city development continued, Louis Mumford was also given credit for postulating that cities were originally started by our predisposition to bury our dead in a central location, and then set up camp nearby. One of the most surprising conclusions of the chapter is that cities may actually have begun with hunter-gatherer societies, and thus predated agriculture. This theory shows that “access by proximity” may be one of the most important foundations for city (and even agricultural) development.(p.67) Because of our car-scale development practices, access by proximity is precisely what has been lost by most of our urban development in North America.

Keeping in line with the need for cities with access by proximity, Register likewise pushes for unproductive regions that cannot meet these needs, such as the North American Great Plains/Great Desert, to be returned to the wild. Frank and Deborah Popper called this the Buffalo Commons metaphor, but say that you can use themes like this to create ideologies leading to “soft-edged planning.”(p. 71) This type of planning piques our imaginations first, and then pushes us to action.

Synthesis:
In reading Chapters 1 and 3 of Ecocities, I noticed repeated mentions of our need to reduce population levels. In both these chapters, Register only touches on this subject and does not offer any advice on how to do so. Reduction of the world’s population is one of Bill Mollison’s key principles of permaculture, but it is also one of the most controversial. What does population reduction mean in real terms. Is it supposed to happen “naturally” or does it have to be pre-planned? Are we supposed to kill ourselves off or just stop reproducing? Are only certain “special” people to be allowed to procreate? Are we to be looking at China's population controls? I just can’t get that old sci-fi movie Logan’s Run out of my head when I think about this topic. It is my understanding that the Aboriginal cultures of Australia, as well as other successful hunter-gatherer societies living on poor land, had very complex systematic population control measures built into their cultures. Does Register give examples of how we should go about doing this in Ecocities? If anyone else read a chapter that included this topic, I would be very interested in hearing about it. I agree that our human population could reach unsustainable proportions, but I do not think this is a very popular stance to take, nor would I want to be the one to try to implement control measures.

In Chapter 1 of Ecocities, Register says that ecological buildings should be constructed with relationships to the rest of the community. It makes a lot of sense that eco-buildings should be able to share resources, such as walls, with each other in order to be more efficient. What he seems to be criticizing is the fact that many “green” buildings are constructed as islands in the middle of a natural setting. Many of the green buildings that I know of are very far away from urban areas, and are almost green by default. That is, it was cheaper to build on-site waste treatment and solar power than it was to bring the typical sewage and electric infrastructure out to the site. Yes, the agricultural and rural areas need green building strategies too, but the cities need it just as much.

Beatley’s chapter on Land Use & Urban Form was very informative and had tons of interesting statistics pertaining to Europe’s superior urban development plans, but it is a lot less fun to read than Register. Beatley does a great job itemizing all the amazing sustainable activities in Europe, but it somehow lack the passion and idealism of Register’s Ecocities. Chapter 3 of Ecocites claims that with soft-edged planning, “Its objective is not to write laws and ordinances, General Plans, and zoning codes but to create the almost poetic images and understandings that lead such political agreements into a world where our imaginations do right by the place where we live.” Thus, the concept of soft-edged planning seems almost as if it is in opposition to the type of planning listed by Beatley.