Trend Watch, June 2017

Soft cities for biodiversity:

The idea that city-dwellers live in ‘concrete jungles’ no longer holds true. According to a recent study, 30% of Australia’s threatened plant and animal species exist within urban landscapes.

So what does this mean?

Urban ecosystems aren’t an easy place for biodiversity to exist. But if we design our cities to manage biodiversity, argues urban ecologist Amy K Hahs, we all stand to benefit.

To build innovative, ecologically-designed ‘soft’ cities – cities that are healthier and more sustainable for both people and biodiversity – we have a lot of rethinking to do.

Read more about designing for urban biodiversity on Foreground.

Image: Moonee Valley Urban Ecology Park Scenario, Zoe Metherell.

The prophecies of Jane Jacobs:

“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”

These are the words of Jane Jacobs, a journalist, writer and activist whose considerable influence on American urban life continues to be talked about.

In books such as The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1984), Jacobs critiqued urban planning policies that led to the decline of city neighbourhoods.

She believed sidewalks, stoops, laundries and mailbox areas were just some examples of ‘social hubs’, and that sterile, vacant outdoor spaces served nobody.

Much of what Jacobs espoused has become conventional wisdom, but urban life remains vulnerable to poor urban planning. Read more or see Citizen Jane: Battle for the City at the upcoming Sydney Film Festival.

Photo: from the New York World-Telegram and Sun collection at the Library of Congress, Wikimedia Commons.