Urban wilderness

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Urban wilderness refers to informal green spaces within urban areas that distant enough from urbanized areas so that human activities cannot be registered.[1] Urban wilderness areas within cities have been shown to beneficially impact the public's perception of wilderness and nature, making this an important element to future city planning[2]

Overview

Key traits of urban wilderness that differentiate it from other urban green spaces:

  1. Involves green spaces that are far enough removed from the urban areas, so human actions cannot be noticed.[3]
  2. Supports biodiversity - Urban wilderness efforts aim to enhance/improve a regions' local biodiversity through careful management plans.[1]
  3. A high degree of self-regulation - vegetation can survive with minimal interference or management by humans.[3]

Various urban wilderness areas have been established throughout the world. Examples include the Knoxville Urban Wilderness in Knoxville, TN,[1] Purgatory Creek Natural Area in San Marcos, TX,[3] the Danube-Auen National Park in Vienna and Lower Austria,[2] the Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area in Tulsa, and the Milwaukee River Greenway in Milwaukee, WI.[4]

History

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw the urbanization of cities. Jacob Riis and other reformers fought for parks in urban areas.[5]

While many societies had traditions of intense urban plantings, such as the rooftops of pre-conquistador Mexico City, these traditions did not reemerge on a larger scale in the industrialized world until the creation of naturalistic urban parks, such as the ones by Calvert Vaux[6] and Frederick Law Olmsted.[7]

More recently, groups such as

Reclaim The Streets have performed guerrilla plantings, worked in and on abandoned buildings, and torn holes in highway asphalt to fill with soil and flowers.[8] These actions have been effective in creating new planted zones in economically stagnant areas like urban Eastern Germany, where abandoned buildings have been reverted to forest-like conditions.[9]

See also

References

  1. ^
    ISSN 1618-8667
    .
  2. ^ a b Diemer, Mathias; Held, Martin; Hofmeister, Sabine (December 2003). "Urban Wilderness in Central Europe: Rewilding at the Urban Fringe". International Journal of Wilderness. 9 (3): 7–11.
  3. ^ , retrieved 2023-05-16
  4. ^ "Milwaukee River Greenway". River Revitalization Foundation. Retrieved 2023-05-16.
  5. ^ "Jacob Riis: The Photographer Who Showed "How the Other Half Lives" in 1890s NYC". My Modern Met. 2020-07-22. Retrieved 2021-09-14.
  6. ^ "Calvert Vaux Park Highlights - Calvert Vaux Park : NYC Parks". www.nycgovparks.org. Retrieved 2021-09-14.
  7. ^ Brookline, Mailing Address: 99 Warren Street; Us, MA 02445 Phone:566-1689 Contact. "Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov. Retrieved 2021-09-14.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. , retrieved 2022-10-10
  9. ^ "Urban Wilderness". Städte wagen Wildnis (in German). Retrieved 2021-09-14.