Quite frankly, trees inside cities are decorative. If you truly care about ecology and the ecosystem, you look at the forestry on a national or regional level. Theoretically, having the densest and hence the smallest cities possibles would be the best for the overall ecosystem. When I see a park in a city I am thinking “they force the city to grow its radius by that much”.
I’d rather have a very dense urban seed surrounded by natural reserves than a chill cityscape with a few scattered parks that are not big enough to sustain a full ecosystem.
Second, “merely decorative” isn’t even true. Trees lower both surface and air temperature in cities in a meaningful way (on the order of a couple of degrees on a well-treed street – that can be the difference between “ah, it’s a nice day for a walk” and “holy crap it’s hot out”.
Yes, I was a but cynical also for the sake of conciseness, but there is indeed and interesting point in green cities, that’s one question on which ecologism and environmentalism differ. The question is whether you are trying to preserve the whole ecosystem or an environment in which humans feel good.
To be honest, I don’t want to live in a concrete jungle. I think inhumane to live in a super dense city totally disconnected to nature. But I also would like that we collectively accept that this is a preference that is harmful to the ecosystem and that it is sometimes okay to have such preferences, if we manage to make them sustainable.
20 years ago a urbanist I was working with, when we were doing city simulations to help offset CO2 footprint told me “you know, the ugly truth is that if we want to lower our CO2 emissions to the max, we should all live in skyscrapers on top of a school, supermarket and incinerator.”
Thing is, we need to recognize the tension between an enjoyable environment, wildlife preservation, human health, the ecosystem’s health… And we need to see further than the current, petty, political compartimentalization of these questions. I wish one day we start consider these questions a bit more seriously
Looks cool as hell
Plant some more trees and rooftop gardens and you’ve got an official Solarpunk setting
Quite frankly, trees inside cities are decorative. If you truly care about ecology and the ecosystem, you look at the forestry on a national or regional level. Theoretically, having the densest and hence the smallest cities possibles would be the best for the overall ecosystem. When I see a park in a city I am thinking “they force the city to grow its radius by that much”.
I’d rather have a very dense urban seed surrounded by natural reserves than a chill cityscape with a few scattered parks that are not big enough to sustain a full ecosystem.
First of all, “merely decorative” has a big impact on our physiological and psychological well-being; urban greening appears to be able to improve things from respiratory difficulties to stress, anxiety and depression .
Second, “merely decorative” isn’t even true. Trees lower both surface and air temperature in cities in a meaningful way (on the order of a couple of degrees on a well-treed street – that can be the difference between “ah, it’s a nice day for a walk” and “holy crap it’s hot out”.
Yes, I was a but cynical also for the sake of conciseness, but there is indeed and interesting point in green cities, that’s one question on which ecologism and environmentalism differ. The question is whether you are trying to preserve the whole ecosystem or an environment in which humans feel good.
To be honest, I don’t want to live in a concrete jungle. I think inhumane to live in a super dense city totally disconnected to nature. But I also would like that we collectively accept that this is a preference that is harmful to the ecosystem and that it is sometimes okay to have such preferences, if we manage to make them sustainable.
20 years ago a urbanist I was working with, when we were doing city simulations to help offset CO2 footprint told me “you know, the ugly truth is that if we want to lower our CO2 emissions to the max, we should all live in skyscrapers on top of a school, supermarket and incinerator.”
Thing is, we need to recognize the tension between an enjoyable environment, wildlife preservation, human health, the ecosystem’s health… And we need to see further than the current, petty, political compartimentalization of these questions. I wish one day we start consider these questions a bit more seriously