Five big ideas to better integrate nature into cities

Eco-business, By Gregory Scruggs

May 5, 2017

Be “biophilic”

The biophilic city would include a set of design guidelines for non-humans.

Co-opt infrastructure

Green-roof bylaws in Toronto and Chicago are one example of infrastructure that treats nature as an integral component rather than an afterthought.

Leverage climate change

Kampala is planting 500,000 trees — a classic beautification project — under the guise of its new climate change action plan.

Consider gender

Just as advocates believe that gender should be taken into consideration when planning a transportation line, building new housing or allocating municipal resources, the same should be the case with environmental urbanism.

Watch out for populism

If big corporations and industrial polluters were once the foes of the environmental movement, now the pendulum has shifted dramatically to a working-class grass roots swayed by the populist rhetoric that is quickly shaking the world to its foundation.

Read the full article at https://www.eco-business.com/opinion/five-big-ideas-to-better-integrate-nature-into-cities/

City Nature Challenge 2020

Cities around the world will be competing to see who can make the most observations of nature, find the most species, and engage the most people in the 2020 City Nature Challenge.

April 24 – 27 Taking pictures of wild plants and animals.

April 28 – May 3 Identifying what was found.

More info at http://citynaturechallenge.org

Urban nature atlas

The Urban Nature Atlas is an online collection of 1000 nature interventions in 100 European cities. Excellent for precedent studies, the survey includes sections on project objectives, obstacles, governance and monitoring. Check out their website at https://naturvation.eu/atlas

Bird man

Bird Man, the artwork of Senegalese artist Soly Cissé, looms over the Banco National Park in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

Introducing the Urban Ecosystems Collection

PLOS ONE announces their Urban Ecosystems Collection "We felt it was particularly important to reflect the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary research in urban contexts and highlight some of the innovative approaches being used to explore important issues in these dynamic, complex environments."

see their collections of articles at https://collections.plos.org/s/urban-ecosystems

Urban nature, green cities, still life

Sherman Aronson is a visual artist, working with drawing, watercolor and digital tools, who earned his BA at Penn in the College in 1971 and his masters in architecture from Penn  in 1973. He is a practicing architect in Philadelphia and an adjunct professor of architecture at Drexel University.

Mr. Aronson has always made drawings, sketches and designs, from high school art classes through college and architecture school. It is part of how he looks at the world, thinks about his work and dreams. As an architect, he works in historic preservation and adaptive reuse, transportation renovations, green design and sustainable building. He has been an advocate for energy conservation and building preservation since the 1980s, working with professional associations and through his teaching. His art is an extension of that interest and passion.

“Enhancing our perception and conscious awareness of our urban parks and streetscape plantings can support our subconscious behavior and appreciation of climate change and human responses. Finding delight in the landscape around us, at home, while traveling and in many settings is a way to express our deep connection to the living world we love,” he said.

Courtesy of https://almanac.upenn.edu/articles/urban-nature-green-cities-still-life-at-the-burrison-gallery

Finding nature in your city

WildArk.org does a great job of describing where the wild places are in various cities around the globe. Their main mission is to preserve species and ecosystems through education and research. Check out their website at https://wildark.org