Beyond Borders: the notion of better cities, and doing away with the idea of "wilderness" and parks.

brianlux

I thought it would be interesting to propose the idea that we, and the planet, would be better off by having vastly improved  cities, abolishing the idea of "wilderness, and disbanding all parks.  Yeah, I know, sounds crazy.  But wait.

First of all, these are not my original ideas.  These idea are notions I gleaned from reading a book called Inside Passage, A Journey Beyond Borders by Richard Manning, and they are basically my distillation of that fine book.

Point one, Cities:  First of all, does it not make sense, considering our species vast numbers, to have the majority of humans live in well maintained, peaceful, humane and pleasant cities?  Not that every one should have to live in cities, but if they were created to be highly livable, would not more people want to live in them?  Suburbia was an attempt to imitate rural living but it is not sustainable.  Suburbia will die anyway, so we would do well to make our cities as wonderfully livable as possible.   

OK, point two:  Why abolish the idea of wilderness?  Because it isn't real.  In today's world, "wilderness" is a word given to areas demarcated as such by lines that primarily exist on maps.  If you have been in Carson Wilderness in California and breathed carbon monoxide that was blown in from the Bay Area and the greater Sacramento region, you might see these borders as being permeable.  Besides, we think of pre-European North America as all "wilderness"- vast lands that have not been exploited by human economic activity.   This is false.  North America has been exploited by humans and has  provided great bounty for humans for 10,000 years.  At various times, that bounty was relied upon heavily and the land and sea provided a greater amount of resources in pre-industrial times through use of native skills than they do today using chemicals and machinery.  Manning talks about how more fish were caught per year by Native American and First Nation using pre-industrial fishing practices than by motorized boats trawling with with seine nets.  It would take a long time to prove that here, but it's in the book, and it makes sense.  The same concept is illustrated with when bison grazed the plains vs grazing cattle grazing.  Manning points out that there were about 70 million bison on the Great Plains before European conquest and that same area now supports only 40 million cattle- with the need for subsidies! Which makes more sense?  Easy. 

Manning suggests that, "If we make everything wilderness by claiming 100 percent, then we have in effect made nothing wilderness , and that clearly is where this argument is headed". This is not easy matter and I don't mean to make it sound simple.    If we live within natures parameters and cycles, we will live better, the world will be healthier, and we will come closer to nature ourselves.  It's a whole different paradigm of thought.  And to me it makes good sense. 

And by the way, Manning is not anti-technology.   In most of one entire chapter, he talks about how GIS (computerized graphic information systems) has been very helpful in preserving nature, tracking species numbers, making logging sustainable, improved management of natural resources, etc. 

And three: Why get rid of parks?  I'm not saying we should exploit these areas.  In fact, because they are parks, they are already over-exploited.  Look at Yosemite.  It's like Disney land for families drive around in SUVs and stop for a few moments to snap off some iPhone photos to put up on Facebook.  If we lived in harmony and balance with nature, we would not need parks.  We would recognize the value of beautiful places like Yosemite Valley and would not exploit them but rather revere and care for them.

OK, fire away.

josevolution

Thank goodness I’m in my late 50’s I hope I’m dead before any of this happens ..

Meltdown99

I would rather destroy cities and return them to nature...

brianlux

josevolution said:

Thank goodness I’m in my late 50’s I hope I’m dead before any of this happens ..

There are a lot of things I hope will not happen in my life time but there are even more good possible things that could happen that would be great to see.

Meltdown99 said:

I would rather destroy cities and return them to nature...

The only way that will happen is if people are gone and then there will be nothing but time to let cities eventually erode.  I think it makes more sense to have a new vision of how cities work.