Category: Health

Wild & Healthy: Urban Nature at Work for Mental Health and Climate Action

11/10/2017

(Photo by author)

Also posted on Medium.

(Based on my November 3, 2017, presentation at “Community Renewal and its Discontents,” a conference at Albany Law School’s Government Law Center)

Picture a vacant lot. If nothing comes to mind, the one in the photo will do. What would you find there? Litter, probably. Rats, perhaps. Maybe an old tire or two. Your first answer is probably not “climate change mitigation” or “better mental health.” But expectations aside, you could be getting both from that vacant lot and other accidental urban natural areas.

Weeds fight climate change? Well, yes, but not weeds especially - plants do. The list of ways urban trees mitigate climate change impacts is impressive, but they boil down to this: cleaner air, cleaner water and less flooding, cooler local temperatures, and better livability in the city generally. Trees aren’t weeds (except when they are), but any plant growing on that vacant lot shares some of the salient characteristics. They all photosynthesize. They all raise the relative humidity around them. They all sequester carbon within their structures. They all allow more rainwater to soak into the often-compacted urban soil. At core, “weeds” vs. “trees” is a distinction of human perception, and these climate benefits depend on what plants do and how they interact with the physical world, not how or whether we see those plants. True, some of the benefits of urban trees depend on the larger overall size of the trees to cast shade, but then again, some weedy species, like tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima) or buckthorn (Rhamnus spp.), can get pretty big. Bottom line: look at that vacant lot again, and take a deep breath.

While you breathe, relax, because that same urban wild is also benefiting your mental health. Again, the list of mental health benefits from urban trees is lengthy, and again, it’s mostly about trees. In summary, humans evolved in natural environments, and therefore, we do better in some important ways when we can see natural environments. We think better, we feel better, and we treat each other better. Research on these effects usually shows a small benefit, but a (statistically) significant one, and these are easy benefits to get, with little downside. The research on benefits to mental health falls into three categories: benefits related to getting more exercise, benefits related to better social cohesion, and benefits related to stress reduction. Do you get these benefits from weeds as well as from trees? Yes, at least some of the time, but what matters here is how we see the weeds. Is that vacant lot a danger or an oasis? Are those weeds wildflowers or a home for vermin? Is that a deer or an assailant hiding in the underbrush?

That ambiguity makes it essential that we know whose health we’re trying to improve with these urban wilds and their benefits. Who you are makes a difference in how you see a given wild, and who you are also often makes a difference in where you live within a particular city. The demographic group, particularly race/ethnicity and gender, of the viewer can make a difference in how s/he views unmaintained vegetation, particularly whether it is threatening or desirable. The level of environmental education a person has, as well as how urban or rural a place s/he grew up in, can also matter.

More useful than sweeping statements about perception and demographic groups: it matters where you are in proximity to the wild area in question. You might enjoy the view from your 10th floor office while I worry about the overgrown lot across the street, but we could be looking at the same vegetated land. Each health benefit of urban wilds has its own geography. Some benefits, like heat island reduction, are best experienced by those closest to the wild site. Some costs, like depression of property values, are, too. Other benefits, like vegetated views and downstream reduction in flooding, may be gained by people too far away from the wild site to be affected by nearby burdens like increased pollen count or disease-carrying ticks. The same urban wild can simultaneously provide benefits to some and burdens to others, or some benefits and burdens to the same people at the same time. It’s not simply good or bad. It’s…both.

The question that matters, then, is how to manage wilds in your city for the most benefit and least burden to those most in need. What parcels are more valuable as wilds than as redevelopment, and why? What neighborhoods have the greatest health needs and the fewest resources with which to meet them? For parcels that remain wild, how best can they be managed to be healthy for nearby residents and positively viewed by the general public?

Climate change and healthcare share an urgent need for on-the-ground action that transcends contentious debate. Both are complex problems poorly suited to soundbite solutions. Both are negatively affecting the health of countless people, right now, today. If you had something that could make a difference in both areas without the need for political will or legislative action, wouldn’t you use it, even if the difference it made was small? Look out your window. That small difference may be closer than you think.

"The Healthy Wild City" Lecture 11.3.17

10/10/2017

If you're going to be in Albany (New York) on November 3, stop by and say hello! I'm speaking about the health aspects of urban wilds on the panel on Shrinking Spaces and Community Development. Keynote looks great, and... it's free! For a bonus point, City Wild Seminar alum Jordyn Conway is helping plan the conference in her current position with Albany Law's Government Law Center. How can you resist? See you there!

Full conference info here.

New Study: Greenspace and Stress

8/29/2017

I'm pleased to announce I have a new study out this week, co-authored with former student Meghan Hazer and two Upstate Medical University faculty, Margaret Formica and Chris Morley. "The relationship between self-reported exposure to greenspace and human stress in Baltimore, MD," presents an investigation of the reduction of stress associated with spending time in or looking at green spaces. The article is available now online and will be out in print in an upcoming issue of Landscape and Urban Planning. As a journal article, it will be behind a paywall soon - but until October 13, it is available open access (that's free full text!) at this link: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Vbv0cUG56y~D

Single-Track Saves the City

8/22/2017

Also posted on Medium.

Call it biking the urban wild. Portland, Oregon, is developing a citywide off-road trail network, called the Portland Off-road Cycling Master Plan. Conventional planning processes will produce a network of single-track trails through natural areas, instead of the much more common paved bike/pedestrian trails. Portland is reported to be inspired in this effort by the broad popularity of mountain biking within the area, but the advantages of “wild” urban trails over conventional multi-use paths are worth considering anywhere. A network of single-track through the city is a network of urban wilds, with a built-in community of people to use them.

What are these advantages? First, there’s the array of benefits to physical and mental health that come with exposure to everyday nature, particularly vegetation. Key to this list are lower perceived stress, greater time spent exercising, and improved mental focus. These three benefits lead to a host of secondary effects, from lower blood pressure to better mood and social relationships. Research on this nature-health connection generally finds that benefits are significant, but small, meaning that the ideal way to benefit from them is through activities done on an everyday basis. Thus, the trail through the natural area across the street is potentially much better for your health than the trail at the state park twenty miles away. It’s the everyday that makes the difference.

Key to the the mental health benefits is mindfulness, or the necessity of being present and focused on the moment. The more rugged surface of unpaved trails promotes this, as does the narrowness of single-track. The limited views through trees and shrubs promote the feeling of being away from the city, even in locations well within city limits. This feeling of being away, or “extent,” is also key to achieving health benefits from nature, as is the feeling that a landscape can’t be understood completely at a glance, that it contains scope for exploration.

Biking or running on a trail is obviously good for the trail user’s health, but it’s also good for everyone else’s health, in terms of the climate change mitigation benefits of urban wilds. The abundant vegetation of natural areas in cities sequesters carbon, which aids in offsetting climate change. These same natural areas also help cities adapt to the impacts of a warmer, more volatile climate, through lowering the temperature of adjacent areas and creating more area for rainwater from storms to infiltrate.

Urban trail networks of any kind fight climate change by promoting human-powered transportation over cars, but an urban off-road network in an outdoorsy town like Portland goes further. If many people - Portland found 12% of county residents - are already doing single-track recreation, they are likely driving to those trails. Trails in the city eliminate at least some of those trips. This is not to say that trail users will never drive out of town, but as with everything having to do with lowering our impact on climate change, it is what you do routinely that matters, not the special occasion. It's the Tuesday night ride, not what you do one Saturday each summer.

An urban wild network promises major advantages to local wildlife and its ability to withstand the disruption of climate change. A substantial challenge for wildlife of warming temperatures and changing precipitation levels is the ability to move fast enough to keep pace with a livable climate. For some creatures, this means moving up in elevation or farther north to stay with cooler temperatures, while for others it means moving to stay with adequate moisture levels. Cities and many suburbs are obstacles to this movement, because they interrupt the habitat necessary to allow wildlife to travel. This fragmentation of habitat is offset by urban wilds, especially those that occur in a connected network, because the wild areas provide wildlife corridors, a kind of safe route for creatures to move through the city. Even manicured lawn, like in the top photo, is inhospitable to many organisms. Even though it’s green, it lacks sufficient shelter and may well lack adequate food and water sources as well.

There are more benefits - reduced maintenance, improved views from adjacent properties - but this short list illustrates the advantages of a wild trail network like this in an urban area, that are not available with a more conventional trail network. Intriguingly, a wild trail network may be much less expensive, and therefore far more feasible, to build in urban areas that already have ample amounts of vacant lots, brownfields, and other urban wild spaces. Traditional trails are surprisingly expensive to build, so the cost difference between simply adding single-track to existing wild areas and clearing those areas, establishing lawn, and constructing an asphalt trail, could be quite substantial. Since urban wild spaces are usually seen as waste space, using these spaces more or less as they are to get a desirable recreation and health benefit is well worth considering, for many places other than Portland. Maybe your town needs some killer in-town single-track, too.

Single-track trail traversing a "wild" urban area; in this case, a former quarry.

Conventional pathway in a manicured park setting.

#Inequalityis infrastructure failure.

3/25/2016

In case you’ve somehow missed it, our public infrastructure is falling apart, especially in urban areas, especially in older parts of the country. You’ve seen the headlines, including this recent one from Philip Kennicott at the Washington Post, and some of you will have seen my previous post on Neglect as covert sculptor of cities.

If you missed the media coverage, you still can’t have missed the power outages, the crack in the sidewalk you stepped over today, or that monster pothole you couldn’t help but hit on the drive to work. We’re all thinking a little more about urban infrastructure and its discontents in recent days, because of the news of the drinking water contamination crisis in Flint, MIchigan. How could this happen in an American city in 2016? Aren’t we better than this? Isn’t it our birthright as Americans to have safe, potable running water in our homes? Well, 1)it did happen and is happening, 2) apparently not, and 3) I bet people in Flint thought that, too.

Water pipes are about as mundane as it gets - out of sight (literally, below ground), and for most of us who aren’t civil engineers, out of mind. We notice when it doesn’t work, and when it doesn’t work on the caliber of the Flint crisis, it’s news. But here’s bit of the news not to let slip by you in the (justified) acrimony over who should have done what when and didn’t: Flint isn’t alone. Those headlines above mean this is a problem many places, not just in GM’s hometown in the Wolverine state. Their pipes break; our pipes break. Their river’s polluted; our lake is. What’s the lead content of the pipes in your house? How about the pipes under your street?

That’s a trick question of sorts, because the location of pipes made of outdated material is not really random. Tell me how old your house is, and I can guess what your pipes are made out of, especially if you also tell me what state you live in and how old the other houses on your street are. Your house is in a subdivision built in the 1990s? Stop worrying, at least for now. Your house is in a 1920s streetcar suburb? Maybe you should worry. You rent an apartment in a converted house near downtown? Worry.

So if there are patterns in where the worrisome pipes show up, are there also patterns in who’s doing that worrying? If I’m a non-Hispanic white highly (over)educated professional person, as I am, which one of those houses is most likely to be mine? If I’m an African-American single mother working for minimum wage, which one of those houses is most likely to be mine? There’s clearly a relationship here, between income (and race, often collinear in the US) and neighborhood age and type, and between neighborhood age and type and condition of water pipes. Poorer neighborhoods, which are often non-white, suffer more problems with failing water systems. It’s not true all the time, but it’s true enough of the time in enough places to be worrying. And to be inequality.

On top of that, add this: where one infrastructure system is failing, others are likely failing nearby. Old pipes tend to run under old roads to old houses served by old power lines. Old sidewalks run by them, built long before ADA standards. Old standards for storm water management mean that the rainwater there runs into combined sewers and occasionally overflows, sending sewage into the river. A lot of this is about age - that things wear out over time, and we’ve done a poor job of replacing and maintaining systems like these over the past several decades, especially in urban neighborhoods beset by public and private disinvestment. Some of this could be about other factors that make systems wear out faster - less stable soil, perhaps, or a higher water table. Whatever the cause, there’s at least some evidence that these failures of different parts of infrastructure can occur simultaneously in certain neighborhoods, like potholes and water main breaks in Syracuse. Add to this other urban systems that are shaky at best in too many of our cities: schools, certainly. Public transportation or any kind of non-motorized transportation. Social services. Constructive relationships with police, sometimes. Ask yourself where these kinds of system failures happen, and the answer, frequently, is the same kind of neighborhood. That is a disproportionate burden on the people who live in those neighborhoods, and that is inequality.

An ugly feedback loop here is the role of household income in this, and how income level dictates your options. Individuals have the ability to make choices, for their own good and for the welfare of their families. But money gives you options: options to move to the suburbs, options to buy water filters and generators, options to get your water tested and take your kids to the doctor for preventative visits. The other side of this coin is that lack of money limits your options. So the concentration of infrastructure and other urban system failures in poorer neighborhoods concentrates the impacts of these failures onto those least able to withstand or avoid them.

If my logic is correct about how the most vulnerable among us are the ones bearing the heaviest burden, this is a dismal state of affairs. But it’s also the beginning of a remedy, or at least a powerful tool to detect hidden infrastructure failures before they balloon into Flint-sized catastrophes. If points of failure in urban systems tend to align within the same neighborhoods or areas, and these neighborhoods also tend to be those with the most vulnerable residents, these system failures and vulnerabilities could form a set of conditions that reliably occur together. If they reliably occur together, it follows that where one or two or maybe three kinds of system failure or vulnerabilities occur together, it’s likely that the other kinds of failure or vulnerabilities also occur there - even if we can’t readily see them or measure them. What we need is a way to test this out, and ultimately to detect where visible system failures align, as a watchlist for other system failures. The name of the game is predicting where the next water main break or drinking water crisis will occur *before* it occurs, and this idea - that neglect accumulates in certain urban spaces - could be the crystal ball to do exactly that.

Flint: Water + Lead + Infrastructure

2/5/2016

If you've been following the news about the drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, or if you haven't, but you care about cities, their most vulnerable residents, public policy, politics, power, and the dismal state of public infrastructure, check this out. A simple guest lecture for my current class, Studio|Next, has grown into what promises to be an excellent session with a congressional rep from Flint and two local faculty members. Those of you in the Syracuse area around lunchtime on Tuesday are welcome to bring your lunch and come by the Center of Excellence. Those of you in other places can join us via the web. Either way, link is below for the free registration site. If you're missing City Wild Seminar or the first version of Studio|Next, this will remind you of old times in the postindustrial wild! Take a look-

-S

Flint:
Water + Lead + Infrastructure

Tuesday, February 9, 2016, Noon to 1:00pm

REGISTER HERE TO JOIN IN PERSON
REGISTER HERE TO JOIN VIA WEBINAR

Flint, a city of about 100,000 in southeastern Michigan, is known as the birthplace of General Motors and for subsequent Rustbelt decline. Two new words define the city nationally: lead poisoning. Contamination of the municipal water supply and a shocking list of resulting health problems are a product of uniquely toxic chemistry, politics, and power within the region and the state. However, aging infrastructure and social inequality, problems shared by many other American cities, were also key ingredients in this disaster, prompting the question of whether this could happen elsewhere, and how to prevent it.

Please join this panel discussion as Hon. Dan Kildee, U.S. House of Representatives, of Flint, Michigan. speaks from Washington, D.C. about the current drinking water crisis and its connections with the city's infrastructure. Rep. Kildee is a lifelong Flint resident who founded the pioneering Genesee County Land Bank and co-founded the Center for Community Progress, a national organization promoting urban land reform and revitalization.

This session was created as part of:
ARC 407 Studio|Next: Building the Post-Carbon City #citybynext

Panelists:

Telisa M. Stewart, Assistant Professor, Upstate Medical University
Paula C. Johnson, Professor, Syracuse University College of Law

Session chair and organizer:

Susan Dieterlen, Research Assistant Professor, Syracuse University School of Architecture, Faculty Research Fellow, SyracuseCoE

*There is no charge for participating in this event.

Heat: Faux Controversy and Next Big Thing

1/20/2016

http://unisci24.com/

This post begins with the foundational assumption - foundational fact, really - that the world is warming. Our climate is changing, and that’s not an assumption, that’s a fact. Last year was the second warmest year on record in the US; 2012 was the warmest year recorded. We experienced a series of climate-related storm/fire/flood events, and around the world we've seen several extreme droughts in the last few years.

It’s easy to find people, and when I say “people,” I mean pundits and politicians, who are eager to convince you that climate change is a theory, that it’s not proven, and/or that there’s nothing we can do about it. These claims are politically charged, and in the dark magic of our times, that makes the facts that we just saw politically charged, EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE FACTS.

Our task here is not to debate the cause of climate change or what actions should be taken to limit greenhouse gas emissions and eventually to reduce them. Our task, regardless of each of your beliefs and place along the political spectrum, is to discuss the city in a warmer world, and the facts demonstrate that it is a warmer world.

So: what next? What does the heat of a warmer world mean for urban environments and their residents? What does it mean for urban design?

We know quite a bit about climate change at this point. Once the Pope and 190+ countries get on board with something, it’s officially big news. We, in this class, know more about climate change now thanks to the readings recommended by Rachel May at SU Sustainability and tweeted @susandieterlen with #citybynext. Rachel also recommends Climate Wire, a subscription-only resource you can access here . She also recommended Vox and Grist more generally. New information is constantly coming out about climate change, so you need to stay up to date with resources like theses.

Some of the highlights (?) of climate change impacts at the scale of the postindustrial city include more unpredictable or extreme weather (called “global weirding”) and its impacts in turn, including flooding and landslides, extreme heat events, and power outages due to storm events. While some places (California?) are becoming drier, here in the Northeast we expect to become rainer, which brings a different set of challenges. There’s a substantial public health angle here, not just from heat and natural disasters, but from infectious disease shifts due to changing weather and climate refugees. Declining air quality due to more pollen and mold, as well as ground-level ozone, is an issue, particularly in urban areas where air quality is already poor.

In fact, one of the more insidious and sinister aspects of climate change and the city is that many climate change impacts turn up the heat, in a somewhat dreadful play on words, under existing urban problems. Climate change impacts makes these problems wicked-er. Combined sewers overflow more as rainfall and storm events increase. Inner-city asthma rates increase due to that declining air quality. Already-vulnerable populations take the brunt of extreme heat events, a killer that flies under the radar but that the CDC takes very seriously. Inequality matters more in a warmer world. Resilience becomes more necessary all the time.

Whenever you read this, chances are excellent that there will be a new story about some aspect of climate change and its impacts out today. We in environmental design fields are grappling with how to design, build, and retrofit places in this new context. It’s tempting to view this as a game of catch-up or a huge limitation - “climate change ate my design.” I propose that climate change impacts are a constraint, like any other constraint in that established design language of “opportunities and constraints.” And like any other constraint, it’s inspiration waiting to happen. The biggest obstacle to a great design is a blank slate. You need some boundaries, some context, to make it real enough to mean anything. This isn’t Sketch-Up.

Should you need it, there is ample motivation or inspiration in the need to reduce greenhouse gas levels - to reduce, not just mitigate. The challenge lies in breaking this global effort down to the scale of a single design decision. What does a warmer world mean for this flooring tile, this section of curb, or this window?

How can urban design simultaneously address climate change at multiple scales?

Let’s find out.

WHAT DO I DO FOR CLASS?

Read this post and click on all the links within it.
Read the articles; review (that means look through, but don’t read every word) the websites.
Think about what you agree with, what you disagree with, and what doesn’t make sense to you.
Come to class prepared to talk to your classmates about it.

Urban Greening Resources

4/21/2015

These two resources were recently brought to my attention. Current students may find them very useful for those upcoming final papers and projects (including your paper for City Wild!); everyone else, feel free to browse!

Green Cities: Good Health
University of Washington, College of the Environment
A comprehensive overview of benefits of urban nature, with many links to other resources and an extensive bibliography for further reading

The Nature of Cities
An online magazine/blog/community about all aspects of, well, nature and cities

Sprawl is (still) killing you

8/14/2014

From my old Purdue pal Craig:

The Suburbs Made Us Fat
People in dense cities are thinner and have healthier hearts than people in sprawling subdivisions. New research says the secret is in the patterns of the streets.
JAMES HAMBLIN AUG 13 2014,

Full story

"For the rest of your life, your job is to make the impossible possible.”

3/31/2014

New U.N. Report: Climate Change Risks Destabilizing Human Society
By Eric Holthaus - SLATE, 3.31.14

Full story

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About

Assorted drafts, previews, and outtakes from the book I'm currently writing about the impact of vegetation and neglect on urban life. I also take other thoughts for a test drive here, including nascent design and research ideas.

City Wild carries on the discussions and spirit of my 2011-2014 class, City Wild Seminar. This began as a forum for websites, articles, and other intriguing stuff sent to me (Susan Dieterlen) by current and former students, colleagues, and other well-wishers.

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City Wild
Unraveling Urban Life and Space

Wild & Healthy: Urban Nature at Work for Mental Health and Climate Action

"The Healthy Wild City" Lecture 11.3.17

New Study: Greenspace and Stress

Single-Track Saves the City

#Inequalityis infrastructure failure.

Flint: Water + Lead + Infrastructure

Heat: Faux Controversy and Next Big Thing

Urban Greening Resources

Sprawl is (still) killing you

"For the rest of your life, your job is to make the impossible possible.”

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