Learn

Garfield Park (top left) and Douglas Park (lower right) are joined to Independence Square by Independence Blvd. and Douglas Blvd., respectively

In Chicago, the remains of several boulevards (see photo above) are apparent in a neglected southwest-side neighborhood. It’s easy to tell they are not what they once were (or intended to be), but biking along them illustrates the immense possibilities of these strips of vegetation. Or, more importantly, the possibilities of green spaces in cities.

Chicago’s Grant Park, 1929

Cities beautiful

Toward the end of the 19th century, public parks began to claim a more prominent place in the urban landscape.

An outgrowth of the City Beautiful movement, when Americans (the wealthier ones, at least) travelled and saw Europe’s many parks and boulevards and wondered why the USA was fast becoming an economic and military power but lagging behind in “moral and civic virtue”, people of means began to push for social reform under the guise of aesthetics. Though in the 21st century one might see such motives as the paternalistic views of a privileged class, the results are largely egalitarian if one simply takes in the Chicago lakefront in summer alongside elderly Eastern Europeans ladies strolling hand-in-arm, Hispanic families gathered around a makeshift barbacoa, Spandex and Lycra-clad volleyballers, and skate punks.

New York’s Central Park and Chicago’s Washington and Grant Parks, all designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, created a precedent that swept the nation and continues to the present day with major public works such as Millennium Park.

But, it is often the smaller moves that make city life bearable and sometimes, unexpected and wonderful.

Illustration for James Fenimore Cooper’s “The Last of the Mohicans”, set in a heavily wooded upstate New York of 1757

Can a tree be an amenity?

One normally thinks of infrastructure as parts of the human-made landscape - roads, bridges, power lines, water service, etc. They are amenities often taken for granted. Being from North Carolina, I am consistently surprised when a visitor says “oh wow, you have a nice view of a tree here.” I’m even more surprised that I think this way myself.

When researching my entry for the World Trade Center Memorial Competition, I corresponded with New York biologist Martin McGann about what the former WTC site was like years ago. In his words:

“The pre-colonial landscape of Manhattan was mostly deciduous hardwood forest with areas of open field created by the native Americans. The forest was prevalent, in fact early descriptions mention being able to traverse long distances (Albany to Niagara Falls) without having to step into the sunlight. The forest type was native hardwoods such as oak, beech, maple, hickory, sycamore, with white pine and hemlock. Shrubs and smaller plants would be found in areas of sunlight, which would be along the edges of the forest. The natives would periodically burn off parts of the forest when hunting. This would allow understory plants to emerge and also provide limited open space for growing crops.”

What struck me was not so much the change in landscape, but the perceived change in worth of the landscape.

Today, one would think that property values in lower Mahattan trump a bunch of trees, yet those trees have value which is often overlooked and recognized in differently packaged forms- nature abstracted. Floors of oak and maple are no longer as common as they once were, but now certainly a commodity. The health of the soil is a moot question in lower Manhattan, yet tasting a tomato grown in it would easily make one realize its importance with regards to color, firmness, nutrient value, and heck… taste (it would probably also put you in the hospital). Even harder to perceive, like the sewer lines that quietly carry things most people would prefer not to see away from their homes, a single mature tree can absorb carbon dioxide at a rate of 48 lbs./year and release enough oxygen back into the atmosphere to support 2 human beings.

Imagine a forest.
Maybe too difficult - how about a boulevard?

Question your infrastructure

The concept of infrastructure should be broadened to include even the little strip of grass between your the sidewalk and the curb. Some questions to ask of it might be:

1. Why is it there? For looks?
2. Could it be more efficient?
3. What should be growing there?
4. Does mowing it make sense?
5. Why is there a curb anyway?
6. When water falls from the sky or runs off my roof, where does it go? Can we use this water more wisely?
7. Why does water have to go all the way to the treatment plant and then come back to me? Could I do this myself? Would it be fun? Is this a cooler homework assignment for the kids than studying “Paradise Lost”?

These kinds of questions challenge the paradigms of the Industrial Revolution, that there is, for example, a correct diameter of pipe which will carry excess rainwater ‘away’ rather than reimagining the problem as how to use that water locally without sending it ‘away.’

Think of infrastructure as an animal or an early settler might. A video store nearby might be convenient and the grocery store is essential, but so too is fresh air, clean water, healthy soil, and open space.

Learn more about the concept of “green infrastructure”

1. Greeninfrastructure.net
2. The Conservation Fund
3. Green infrastructure valuation