The Relationship Of Social Equity And Landscape Architecture

Overall, I believe both declarations had validconcerns and arguments for their respectabletimes. It makes sense that the first declarationwas expanding the profession of landscapearchitecture and that their “call to action”was about the education of new landscapearchitects creating a 4-point program to bridgethe gap between knowledge and practice. Forthis time in history, it was important to recruitmore landscape architects, educate them well,and only then, think about implementation ofpractice. They recognized that it takes peopleFIRST to make change in the world.The 2016 declaration was/is much moreabout the implementation of this knowledgeand change that needs to occur putting thepressure on the “land ethic.” This statement isa powerful one, “ landscape architectsare uniquely positioned to bringrelated professions together intonew alliances to address complexsocial and ecological problems”(LAF, 2016). The profession is still at workon the 2016 declaration’s “call to action” aswe have succeeded in extending research toprove environmental issues but we haven’tcompletely and successfully created acommunion between humans and the naturalworld. This will be the biggest challenge fortoday’s generation of landscape architects toovercome.Looking into the future, which the film“Less a Declaration than Some Thoughts”talked about, I see many opportunities andconstraints. As the speaker, Marc Treibspoke about, we can continue to talk aboutlandscape architecture in a way of bringingpeople and nature together or bringingdifferent disciplines together to createsomething better but in doing this, we arealso contradicting ourselves. We tend to viewour policies, implementation, and advocacyin many categories or as the Treib referred toit as “either/ ors.” As natural as it is to haveoptions, I think he was trying to bring to theviewer’s attention that we must stop lookingat change in options.The declarations have recognized in full thesignificance of human interaction with natureto create change. Socially, every person inthe world would need to be represented inacts of change which is almost impossibleas it is the nature of people to be different.There continues to be economic and politicaldivide which adds to the challenge of ‘gettingeveryone on the same page.’People claim independence and ownershipof the land yet we are not willing to change orsacrifice our lifestyles to create change.What are people’s rights to place?As landscape architects, we must stopviewing sustainability and beauty as twooptions because, in reality, they need to worktogether. As the Treib noted “ We [people]don’t care about the sustainability, we careabout the beauty” (Treib, 2016) and it iscompletely true. But instead of wasting ourtime thinking about the “either/ors” of whichis more important- sustainability or beautyand instead do what is right.Why can‘t design solve the “both/ands”? Wehave the knowledge, tools, and professionalsto make landscapes achieve both aspectswhich in turn will please both the naturalworld and society. If 700 landscapearchitects can come together to create acohesive, integrated call to action plan for theprofession of landscape architecture, whycan’t we create the same for implementationof change?(Unknown Author, 2018).

People’s Right to the CityTwo people in the mid-1900s drasticallyshaped the experience people have within thecity: Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs.Not only did they advocate for what theybelieve in but in that process they broughtmany different types of people together. Thisargument in history was one of the first aboutsocial justice and developing public space.Robert Moses’ wanted the city to become abooming urbanized, fast-paced concept. Inthe film, Jacob vs Moses: An Urban Fight,Moses said that “Cities are created by andfor traffic.” He wanted to implement majorveins of transport infrastructure throughoutthe city. In doing this he believed the citycould be this large, grand scaled system thatprovided large amounts of economic benefits.“Robert Moses did to the whole New Yorkmetropolitan region what Haussmann haddone in Paris. That is, Moses changed thescale of thinking about the urban processand through the system of (debt-financed)highways and infrastructural transformations,through suburbanization and through the totalre-engineering ” (Harvey, p.5). But whatMoses was really doing was presenting ideasthat were unacceptable for the lifestyle for thepeople living within New York. His plans wouldhave destroyed low-income and minorityneighborhoods and created a capitalist hub.of the tracks we are on and to what kind of consumerism we have access to(Harvey, p.9). Not only would Moses’ highways increase the divide socially but also physically,creating a separation between places and people.Jane Jacobs on the otherhand, believe in social justice or people having their own rights to theirenvironments. Cities to Jacobs meant being able to walk to work, having unique neighborhoods,short blocks, “eyes on the street” and mixed-use development within the blocks so that therecould be a variety of people, jobs, and population density. Because of Jacobs, people withinthe city of New York had a voice. Although her passion was writing, Jacobs stood up for whatwas right, and was also an activist. This speaks words to who she was and supports the reasonpeople of the city saw her as a leader and therefore readily and willingly followed her duringprotests.The disagreements between Moses and Jacobs, allow city planners and even landscapearchitects to begin to understand the power of people as well as capitalism and government.Although, this fight could have been a typical top-down scenario where money wins, the peoplewon instead.As Harvey said, “ [we] live in divided,fragmented and conflict-prone cities.How we view the world and definepossibilities depends on which sideMoses’s plan for huge expressway system cutting through Manhattan, NY (Sagalyn, 2016).

On page 1 Harvey writes, “ what kind ofcity we want cannot be divorced from thequestion of what kind of people we want to be,what kinds of social relations we seek, whatrelations to nature we cherish, what type ofdaily life we dire, what kinds of technologieswe deem appropriate, what aesthetics valueswe hold.” As future planners and designerswe need to remember this. There cannot bea balance if there is an imbalance betweenmoney/power and the citizens.Like Jane Jacobs, we need to advocate forwhat is right, what are rights are, and for ourdesires in public space, neighborhoods,community development and on a globalscale, the way we view our planet. Changecannot happen if we do not use ourvoices persistently and in unification. LikeHarvey wrote, “We have, however, yet to seea coherent oppositional movement to all ofthis [protection of the city] in the twenty-firstcentury. There are multitudes of diverse socialmovements focusing on the urban questionbut they have yet to converge on thesingular aim of gaining greater control over thesurplus ” (Harvey p.14). Because if we don’tspeak our opinion, “ man’s most successfulattempt to remake the world he lives in moreafter his heart’s desire. But, if the city is theworld which man created, it is the world inwhich he is henceforth condemned to live.Thus, indirectly, and without any clear sense ofthe nature of his task, in making the city manhas remade himself” (Harvey p.1).“The freedom to make and remake ourselvesand our cities is, I want to argue, one of themost precious yet most neglected of ourhuman rights”-Harvey, p.2Jane Jacobs actively participatingin protest again the expressway(Sisson, 2016).

People’s Right to the EnvironmentNow, in the 21st centruy, the world is not onlydebating the people’s right to the city butalso the environment. New technology andresearch has began the era of sustainability.We as a human civilazation are trying to figureout a balance between our needs and desiresof the city with the natural environment.In my opinion, the two environmental factorsthat are the most significant in shaping thebuilt environment are water and topography.Since the beginning of time, we havediscovered the benefits of water and howcrucial it is for living. Most cities were builtaround some presence of water. We useit as a place for transport both daily andrecreationally, importing and exporting goodsbetween cities, regions, and countries, andlastly, a place of visual importance. But whenliving by a type of water body, it does placethreats onto the development around it aswell as the water body itself. Water systemsdetermine where people can or cannot livedue to its risk of flooding and how closepeople can get to the water because of itschanging and instable banks. One problemwith developing cities near water bodies ispollution. Polluted stormwater runoff, wastedisposal, and some human interaction withwater are damaging. It risks the development’ssource of water and in result, until today,people in many places have turned their back,covered up the source, or have engineeredtechniques to mitigate the pollution in waterbodies.Topography is another environmental factor that influences development. Humans naturally buildin places where the topography is not as dramatic or instable. This is because it requires a lotmore money, effort, and time to do otherwise. For example, in most cases, we are more likely tobuild in the valleys of mountains rather than on the slope or on top of that mountain. Topographyalso changes more frequently over time than a more flat part of the earth due to erosion andvulnerability. In addition, water runoff erodes the earth much faster on steep slopes which makesthis much more vulnerable during storms or natural disasters such as earthquakes. It is also muchmore difficult to build dense urban environments on dramatic topographic zones because is notideal for reaching resources.I feel that these two factors are the most influential because they physically determine where societycan and cannot build.But do we, as a human population, have the right to build anywhere we want?Little intervention on extreme topography or near oceanside inCrete, Greece (Quincke, 2018).Building on topography and next to ocean in Santorini, Greece(Quincke, 2018).

The idea of integrating nature into cities isa very intricate and complex topic. In anideal world we could live with two extremeenvironments of nature vs the city as separateentities or completely fragment nature tointermingle with the city.The concept of completely fragmentingnature for green space to be integrated intocities has many positives and negatives.Through an environmental lens, this option isdestroying diverse communities of animalsand vegetational life. As we talked about inclass, if there is not enough space for allthe layers of the ecological processes tohappen, that ecological community is goingto be less resilient if affected by change. Incontrast, if you look at this solution througha social lens, then everyone has their “ownpiece of green space” plus it is accessible toall social classes. Fragmenting green spacedepending on the size of the green space (forexample, if it is a block vs a backyard) is verydifferent. If we were to strategically transforma block of the city into public green spaceand repeat this several times throughout theurban environment, it would be beneficialand allow more plants and animals to thrive.If green space was fragmented into strips ofbackyards, it would only be benefiting thepeople. Another constraint to giving everyonetheir own private “backyard” it is decreasingthe amount of social interaction betweenneighbors and social classes.Secondly, if we were to preserve all theremaining large ecosystems such as aprairie, forest, or national parks, ecologicallythat ecosystem is going to thrive andbe more resilient in the case of a naturaldisaster or indifference. This wouldrequire that all people and developmentbe contained within a certain boundary.Our cities would need to expand verticallyinstead of horizontally. If this solution wasachieved we could control the amount orwhat type of expansion we did into thepreserved areas of the natural environment.At the end of the day, to be sociallyequal and considerate of allorganisms on earth, we need toserve both animals and people asone cannot live without the other.The best option for survival of both humanand natural systems, would be mixed. Thebuilt environment can be contained andbuilt dense while the natural environment isbig enough to grow, strengthen, and build arich ecosystem. If we were to move towardthis model in the future, it could impactlarge mountainous and forested regions.Current practices are already putting theseecosystems in danger for deforesting toomany trees. The next blog will talk about thecorrelation between urbanizationand deforestation.ADENSEBMIXEDCFRAGMENTEDNature and City Interaction Diagram (Quincke2018).

Deforestation UrbanizationThere are many reasons as to how rapidurbanization has happened over the pastdecades.Some of the top causes are:1. Population Growth2. Rural Urban Transformation3. Employment DemandBecause there are more people in the world,there will be an increase in the amount ofpeople created as time passes. Unfortunately,though, the pace at which the populationis growing is too fast and causing seriousenvironmental damages as the world isconsuming, polluting, and spending more.The second cause is rural urbantransformation. People originally wanted tomove away from the cities because of thegross conditions and lack of space. But now,people living in the suburbs are realizing thedifficulty of access to daily necessities suchas transportation, the grocery store, socialenvironments, and even education for theirchildren. In result, “the world’s populationhas grown from 2 percent to nearly 50percent of all people living in an urban area.In 1975 only four megacities existed; in 2000there were 18” (Torrey, 2017). Today thereare approximately 46 and its still growing!(Science Museum, 2018).The third and final reason described inthis post is the expansion of employmentdemand. As all of the other factors are takingplace and people are moving back into thecities, of course living expenses go up. It isthe simple and logical idea of supply anddemand. Because of this, people need jobsand not just any job, a good paying one. “Ithas long been accepted that urbanizationattracts people to towns and cities becausethose are the places where jobs can befound. The pull of the city results from theexpansion of the urban labor markets”(Gottman, 1978).So, what are the effects of these three-rapidurbanization causes? The answer is complex,but in short, there are many environmentalconsequences. For example, because thereis a higher concentration of people withinthe cities, there is an increase in air pollutionas well as water runoff since there is lessgreen space and trees to absorb and cleansethe air and water. In addtion, because ofthe speed at which the cities are growing,we cannot build more or remodel theinfrastructure we have today which is mostlyfrom the industrialization time period. Thatmeans people are living in either insufficient,poor spaces or expensive, high-end livingcontributing to the social gaps within cities.Lastly, with more people, comes moreconsumption. As stated before, people aremoving to the cities for jobs so that theycan make money to live comfortably (Prugh,2016). As population increases, so doesthe amount at which those people consumebecause resources are readily available. Inresult of more consumption creates morewaste which our earth cannot accommodateor break down fast enough generating, yetanother pollution issue.

Affects from rapid urbanizationis killing strong, diverse, andindispensable forests around theworld. Almost all of our products we useare made from the forested ecosystem andits trees. In Singapore, for example, in 181282% of the country was covered in evergreenforest. Then in 1950, rapid urbanizationbegan. In total, Singapore has lost 90% of itsforest, less than 5% of its original mangroveshave disappeared, and 39% of all nativecoast-land plants are extinct (Mah, 2014).These numbers may sound fictitious, but thedestruction of forests is happening all over theworld.So how do we solve it? The issue is,we cannot stop gaining resources from ourforests. As stated before, we get nearly allof our built products from the trees. A fewsolutions to mitigating deforestation is throughclose management, implementation of forestcertification and legality verification as wellas promoting sustainable forest communitiesby conserving forests. Respectively, the laststrategy was implemented in Africa’s CongoBasin Rainforest and has been consideredsuccessful as “total deforestation averagedbetween 1-2% during the 1990s-2010 period,compared to about 3-4% for Latin Americanduring the two decades” (Yale University,2014). “In 1999 the Yaounde Declaration,where [the six countries of the Congo Basin]promised to cooperate to conserve the forestsof the Congo Basin. In the last 10 years more than 10% of the forest is now coveredby two massive conservation areas. And ata second summit in 2005, the DemocraticRepublic of the Congo committed toprotecting another 150,000sq km” (WWW,2011).Reusing the same land while conserving therest is a method currently being used in Krui,Indonesia. Many people within the countrywere taking advantage of the forests, cuttingto make profit and doing so without anylicenses. To combat this, “In 1998, a decreeissued by the Indonesian governmentenabled communities in Krui to register forconcession rights over the area of state forland planted with their agroforests thedecree has been instrumental in stoppingoutsiders’ attempts to appropriate theseagroforests” (Kusters et. all, 2007).Overall, as a city, region, country, andnation everyone needs to do their partin strategizing how forests are used fora resource. As a population, we need toremember that what we do to anotherforest in another cou

A Landscape Architect's Responsibility History of Landscape Architecture . How the Landscape Architecture Declaration has Changed People's Rights to the City . People's Rights to the Enviroment Deforestation Urbanization. Examples Political Fringe- The Pink Lake City. Social Movements Conclusion. The Marais des Cygnes River Osawatomie, KS