Transitional Ecologies

On a recent trip to Shanghai, China, I was struck by the sheer number of urban redevelopment projects happening there. The economy is booming in China, and it seemed that as soon as a residential district aged about 50 years it was slated for demolition and “renewal.” From the stacked elevated highways, the sprawling metropolis displayed dozens of recently bulldozed neighborhoods. The city was a checkerboard of grey concrete high rises alternating with walled-off rubble piles. Growing over the concrete debris were trusty early successional plants -- sumacs, grasses, plantains, and smartweeds. As a matter of fact, the rubble piles were one of the few areas where I didn’t see managed park-like landscapes in the city; they were about the only places that wildscapes can exist. 

This led me to think about economics as a driver of early successional landscapes in cities. It’s relatively easy to take down old buildings, it’s much more expensive and time-consuming to put new ones up. So the land often sits there while the wheels of economics spin. As the land waits, seeds blow in from nearby sites or emerge from the soil bank below. Flowers open in the first season, moths and butterflies dive in, spiders follow suit. Suddenly a thriving ecosystem occurs where none, and I mean none, existed before. Of course this doesn’t last long before new construction begins. But in the meantime, a foothold for new life begins its march into new territories. An age-old, time-tested march.

There are plenty of plants that follow human disturbances. Eastern American native peoples named the European plantain (Plantago major) “white man’s footprint” because it only appeared where the Colonists settled. Humans are a busy sort, and because of this, they continually create the way for opportunistic plants, animals, and diseases to thrive. Whether we like it or not, they are our constant companions and work to heal our landscapes. Urban renewal creates transitional ecologies, which in my book, can create important early successional plant communities. Maybe one will hopscotch near you.