22/10/2014 The New Metropolitics of Nature «DIS Magazine

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The New Metropolitics of NatureBy Matthew Claudel and Katherine Eshel

Parks, dog walking, landscaping, ponds. These are the pinpoints of our immediate experience with nature incities, but far wider, deeper and messier urban ecologies form the skeleton of a sustainably habitable city.Human health is directly tied to those natural urban features and, in the age of the Anthropocene, it is crucial tofoster urban ecosystems that are resilient to extreme climate events, slow environmental transformations andthat can ultimately adapt to future climate in a stable way (Alberti 2013). The positive impact of nature on citydwellers is clear, from direct use to physical and mental health benefits to general ecosystem services (Wolf).Between air filtration, microclimate regulation, noise reduction, rainwater drainage, sewage treatment, andrecreational and cultural uses (Bolund and Hanhammar 1999, Tratalos et al. 2007, Pataki et al. 2011…), natureis incontrovertibly beneficial for cities. However, inviting nature into the city opens political, economic and socialdebates on implementation, maintenance and basic interactions between nature and urban societies. Movingbeyond parks as familiar expressions of urban nature, how might we achieve a truly vibrant urban biome?

Meurisse Frederic and Huyghe Lieselotte.

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The crux of the challenge is the difficulty of valuing ‘nature,’ – without a price tag, it cannot be sold or purchased.Natural elements are expensive to create and maintain and cities with deficits are wary of the vague benefits,particularly when a global agenda of “smartification” is driving global public investment. So-called smart citysolutions can be quantified – Intel estimates that Internet of Things alone will see 3.5 trillion dollars-a-year inbusiness, while McKinsey estimates smart urban systems at 400 billion dollars-a-year by 2020 – with impacts inemployment, IP, urban services and more. ‘Adding up trees,’ on the other hand, relies on complicated methodslike proxies, hedonic pricing, or willingness-to-accept. Valuation of ecosystem services opens a can of ethicallydebatable worms surrounding the relationship between man and nature – how do you assign a monetary valueto the knowledge that there are penguins in Antarctica, or to the splendor of a Grand Canyon sunset (Chee2004,Wallace 2007,Fisher et al.)? The (in)tangible value of ecosystem services provided by nature ultimatelyjustifies funding eco-initiatives, but cannot be logged into a spreadsheet.

Without a robust cost-benefit analysis, green initiatives often settle for the lowest (justifiable) denominator: one-size-fits-all greenspace policies that sacrifice ecologies of diversity for economies of scale—concrete and cost-effective. From an implementation standpoint, this means a single kind of tree planted many times over, such asthe ash trees planted on roadsides throughout the US. What was justified as “beautification” quickly became aregrettable lack of diversity that facilitated the propagation of the emerald ash-borer, an invasive insect that hassince stripped streets bare in over 20 states and continues to spread (Herms and McCullough 2013) (see mapbelow of EAB detection risk for 2014).

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Current programs for urban nature involve plants (technically “nature”), but they cannot last; far from solvingurban problems, ‘band-aid greenspace’ introduces unbalanced and fragile biomes, as in the case of America’sash trees. While less economically efficient in the short run, greater planting diversity can promote adaptationand renders urban biomes more resilient (Raupp et al. 2012).

The emerald ash borer has spread to over 20 states since its accidental introduction to the United States from Asia. At current rates, EAB could functionally extirpateash trees, with important ecological and economic ramifications. Produced by FHTET, © USDA

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Far from manicured urban parks, diverse and resilient nature is messy, muddy and often unattractive. Architectand urbanist David Gissen has put forward a polemic reconception of ‘urban other’ or ‘subnatures’: the dust,insects, pigeons, mud, waste, and sewage that architecture has traditionally exteriorized. These material flowsare actually some of the largest natural systems in the city, and may underpin viable ecologies. In this view, thecommon distinction between habitable space and environment becomes irrelevant, effectively neutralizing suchideas as ‘throwing away trash.’ Here and away are merged. Gissen “challenge[s] the instrumental value to whichnature tends to be relegated in the contemporary city, from the docile greenways of landscape urbanism to thegreen-washed facades of eco- cities,” (Harrison). If our goal is a sustainably viable urban ecology we mustdiscard the values we assign natural elements.

We cannot wait for the government to deliver nature, as if it were a metropolitan utility (see Trames Vertes etBleues below). The current paradigm of top-down initiatives for expensive but ecologically impotent naturalinfrastructure must be inverted: to achieve high-value, low-cost and diverse solutions, infrastructure must be non-physical and realized in a distributed way.

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Not physical infrastructure, but digital. Not nature delivered, but nurtured.

We propose a new model for urban ecologies. One that takes shape as a dynamic map of existing diversity,opportunities for enhancement – for example, the connectivity of green spaces – and is based on an overarchingmodel for diversity: a projective urban ecology.

Ecologists have a knowledge of the possibilities for urban-nature function, based on diversity, while citizensthemselves have the capacity and the willpower to get their hands dirty. Government is uniquely qualified toserve as a mediator between them, laying down the digital framework and setting the tempo of a diverse urbanbiome. A participatory digital platform breaks from the prescriptive model of ‘utility services’ with an atomizedimplementation model. In a strong joint venture, government-directed platforms will leverage the power of thecrowd to take urban nature from the community garden to the digitally-enabled urban biome. The platformorganizes, the citizenry activates.

The process is relevant to biologists and ecologists, but also landscape designers, politicians, architects,transportation officials, and others. The platform will bring together a wide spectrum of experts to set overarchingguidelines (essentially, what is native and what works) that frame the participatory and self-sustaining nature-ifying process.

Linux proved the power of the crowd to create software; the next challenge for a globally active community willbe to create greenware. In order to thrive, urban natures need diversity, active engagement, and flexibility –exactly the strength of the crowd. Natural ecology must go hand in hand with digital ecology. The seductiveaspects of the digital experience – ‘curating’ your online presence – are grafted onto physical locations,hybridizing material and virtual activity. The digital mediates between individual experience and place, andfacilitates meshing urban identity with ecology.

France’s Trames Vertes et Bleues (Green and Blue Grid) strategy seeks reframe ecology in the city, as in this regional plan for ecological coherence mapped for theNord-Pas-de-Calais region. The Green and Blue Grid is designed to enhance territorial ecological connectivity by superposing an ecological grid atop urban policy.However, this initiative remains flawed due to its top-down, hyper-centralized planning and implementation structure.© Institut National de l’Information Géographique et Forestière

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This proposed model goes beyond ecological resilience, toward a form of social resilience and sustainability,through a reexamined relationship between citizen and urban environment, building on the success ofparticipative platforms like SeeClickFix and other 311-style apps. In much the same way, citizens reap thebenefits directly – both tangible, such as food, and intangible, such as clean air. Furthermore, because thephysical implementation is individualized, people feel a stronger personal connection to their environment and asense of responsibility and ownership.

The projective ecological map can even become a platform for research: the model generates a new kind of ‘bigdata’: real-time monitoring of ecological diversity as indicator of resilience re-inputted into the map. Building onprojects like the Senseable City Lab’s bacteria-based mapping of the city biome by deploying sensors in thesewer system, we might gauge health in the city as well as the status of the flore microbienne – after all, ahealthy ecosystem is diverse from megafauna down to its bacteria. This kind of distributed sensing can happenthrough objective sensors (such as bacteria in sewers) and subjective response (community feedback regardingtheir individual quadrant of green space). As citizens participate, the platform shows how they value theirphysical surroundings (both natural and artificial), what natural elements will be most enjoyable, and mostimportantly, the nature of the interaction between the city and its natural ecology – something that is not yetcompletely understood.

A prototype of government / citizen collaboration has emerged in the form of “311” apps, allowing citizens to report problems in their urban environment and – insome cases – to come together and actively solve them. The MIT Senseable City Lab has mapped 311 reports based on number of calls, response time, andcategory of complaint.

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This government-mediated/citizen-actuated model lays the foundation for future auto-suffisance of naturalsystems in the urban environment. It is conceivable that this model, as it increases in participation andcomplexity and effectively ‘learns-by-doing,’ might usher in an independently flourishing urban biome. Meaningfulsmart city solutions are less about cohesive ‘city-as-computer’ solutions, and more about hybrid platforms thatspan two axes: bottom-up / top-down and digital / physical. The map of projective ecology that we propose willspan those dimensions in a meaningful, resilient and evolutive way. Most importantly, this model is completelyfeasible today – it asks for more silicon than concrete infrastructure, more investment of time and energy thanmoney. As the process gains traction, citizens not only depend on the city, but the city depends on its citizens,sparking a new metropolitics of urban ecology.

This is a map of air quality in Copenhagen generated by bike-bourne sensors.