Green Urbanism

A) In the chapter "Urban Ecology and Strategies for Greening the Urban Environment," Beatley describes, through many examples, the ways in which the city and nature can and should be incorporated. Rather than explaining it as a complete phenomenon however, he show writes fro the basic idea that the city and nature are fundamentally connected. Rather than showing that the greening of schools or bridges, for example, is something brand new, it is in a sense a return to the natural (the essential) relationship.

In the section called "Ecological Networks:National and Urban," the author describes the process and uses of creating mappings of ecological systems. It is something that doesn't immediately seem useful, but one can see that it is in fact quite important in making visual what already exists and what is possible. It seems important to be able to show people that there is actually a vision and a plan-- one that is feasible, also economically.

He goes on to describe some of Hundertwasser's work. It seems a central theme that it is our duty, our obligation, to replace the nature we cover with unnatural surfaces. Beatley also describes green roofs, green walls, green streets, green schools, and on. All of these things are possible, because the do already exist in the world.

B) There were a few things the author described or posed as new ideas that I thought were quite useful, both in a practical sense, and also for re-imagining the way we perceive and think about cities and nature.

The first, and most important of these, is in the first paragraph: "...cities are fundamentally embedded in a natural environment." (197) If we can begin to see the cities we live in as something more or other than an entity that is separate from the natural environment, than we can really begin to think holistically about the decisions we make. We might have a new imagination of the way cities are situated in nature. They are not city vs. countryside, but each part of something more.

Another was in the description of Hundertwasser's work and ideas. Namely that we are obligated to be in a two-way street relationship with nature. I especially enjoyed his idea that tenants in a house should have the right to do what they want with the facade of a building as far as they can reach out their window. Not only is the city not so separate from nature as we want to believe, but humans are not so separate from the built environment as we think.
We are active participants, whether we choose to do something or not.

C) My major criticism is that I'm not sure how practical it is to say American cities can learn form European. It is rather my impression that we can become inspired by the parts of European cities that are working well, but then address American cities for what they are. They evolved in different ways, especially in the last 100 years.

So he gives us example after example of these idealistic European cities that have done truly incredible things. I have been there and experienced it myself. But it might not be as simple as he says. Or is it?

Let's take the inspiration, and then live up to the best qualities of what it means to be an American-- to be innovative and brave-- and really try something new.