NYC

St. Ettiene church, France

Towards a Second Nature

Great article by Jordan Lacey at RMIT University on Biophilic design, citing recent projects in Melbourne and Sidney. Biophilic was proposed as an idea by E O Wilson back in the 1980s, stating that a love for nature and lifelike processes is inherently genetic. Jordan writes for cities to “celebrate the wild, not just efficiency and productivity.” Read the article at:

http://theconversation.com/building-a-second-nature-into-our-cities-wildness-art-and-biophilic-design-88642

URBAN NATURE PBS TELEVISION SERIES

Take a walk on the wild side with host Marcus Kronforst and WTTW tracking animal and plant life in the urban jungle of Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. Check out Season 1 which explores urban streams, vacant lots, green roofs and more at https://www.pbs.org/show/urban-nature/

Book Review: Darwin Comes to Town

Menno Schilthuizen is studying how our manmade environments are accelerating and changing the evolution of the animals and plants around us.

“With human populations growing, we’re having an increasing impact on global ecosystems, and nowhere do these impacts overlap as much as they do in cities. The urban environment is about as extreme as it gets, and the wild animals and plants that live side-by-side with us need to adapt to a whole suite of challenging conditions: they must manage in the city’s hotter climate (the “urban heat island”); they need to be able to live either in the semi-desert of the tall, rocky, and cavernous structures we call buildings or in the pocket-like oases of city parks (which pose their own dangers, including smog and free-ranging dogs and cats); traffic causes continuous noise, a mist of fine dust particles, and barriers to movement for any animal that cannot fly or burrow; food sources are mainly human-derived." And yet, as Schilthuizen shows, the wildlife sharing these spaces with us is not just surviving, but evolving ways of thriving. As example:

*Carrion crows in the Japanese city of Sendai have learned to use passing traffic to crack nuts.

*Lizards in Puerto Rico are evolving feet that better grip surfaces like concrete.

*Europe’s urban blackbirds sing at a higher pitch than their rural cousins, to be heard over the din of traffic.