Nature in the city can be your best friend . . . or your worst. It is something utterly inescapable despite the efforts of infrastructure to tame it.
Nature comes to mean many different things to Edmontonians. First there is the natural beauty of the river valley. Gorgeous not only to look upon, but also to walk in, this area is a haven not only to runners and bike enthusiasts, but also to the homeless population on Edmonton, who use it for shelter from the elements during the warmer months. The river valley is also home to wildlife in the city, a sanctuary for bunnies, birds and bugs.
But there is more to Edmonton nature than just the river valley. When I think nature in Edmonton the first thing I think of, without fail, is the weather. I know, I know, I'm like a broken record when it comes to the weather. It's just that there's so much of it! To me the weather is an obstacle that affects my every day. How much time does the average person have to spend (per year) thinking about what to wear or what to pack to account for weather conditions. Just yesterday I was walking around 124th street with my friend. She wore cute booties and I wore rubber boots. I found that I was able to walk right through even the deepest of puddles, where as she was forced to weave complicated paths in an attempt to keep her feet dry, an endeavour that eventually failed.
I think that nature has a kind of adversarial relationship to the city. Nature is the very thing we try to tame by paving roads, erecting buildings, and clearing areas of plant life. Nature, though, is not by any means passive in this fight. Nature does anything in her power to destroy roads, erode buildings, and stubbornly grow regardless of man's attempts to tame.
*** On a related note, yes the puddles SUCK SO MUCH, but it means that the snow is melting. For that I am thankful.
I'm glad you decided to talk about Nature and the city. I think it's an interesting topic.
ReplyDelete"I think that nature has a kind of adversarial relationship to the city."
But can a city ever say that it is free from the founding influence of nature?
At the core of Edmonton lies the river and from that central division the city sprawls outward. It seems that the river is more of a central force, pulling the city together. Can you imagine Edmonton being all on the North side, or the South side?
If then, the city at its core has Nature as a founding guideline, wouldn't it make more sense to work with it then against it? In what ways can the city be constructed to function with nature instead of against it? Or is that just a semantic difference...
Just brainstorming...are roads in a city inherently oppositional to nature? An image of Venetian waterways comes to my mind, simultaneously allowing the water and human traffic to flow through the city. Obviously this isn't a practical solution for Edmonton, but I think it provides a neat example of a city entering into play with nature instead of fighting against it.