The built environment has a number of benefits and dynamics all its own.
Small towns with a high street or a large city with its high density living and office buildings create different base points for humans to relate to each other. This is turn impacts on how we relate to the natural environment.
Small towns or villages allow for a closer interaction and relationships to form between the many levels of society. People know where the food comes from, because they know the farmer, the baker and restaurant owner. Kids are employed in town and are apprenticed in local industry. But there is a smaller pool to chose from.
Cities seem to have a disconnect from the land, and have a more romantic relationship with the environment. There are economies of scale including transport options and energy transfers. But there are larger pollution dynamics and health impacts.
But what about community in a big city. Big cities are usually feed from the suburbs were there are minimal interactions between people, and their environment consists of the back yard with a couple of trees. The community of the city is mostly limited to the path people take to work and associations they make at work. And the pub.
The built environment is dynamic. Things do change both in the city and country. The relationships we forge are up to us, but in both cases there needs to be a context with the natural environment. Not some romantic ideal, but a real understanding of our basic need for bio-diversity - our dependency on nature to sustain us.
The question is: is it about just planting more trees in the country and changing the transport options in the city? or is it a little of both in both areas. I don't really think its that simple.
Our Built Environment can shut out nature or it can open us up to it, or are we really that afraid of nature that we try to ignore it?
Small towns with a high street or a large city with its high density living and office buildings create different base points for humans to relate to each other. This is turn impacts on how we relate to the natural environment.
Small towns or villages allow for a closer interaction and relationships to form between the many levels of society. People know where the food comes from, because they know the farmer, the baker and restaurant owner. Kids are employed in town and are apprenticed in local industry. But there is a smaller pool to chose from.
Cities seem to have a disconnect from the land, and have a more romantic relationship with the environment. There are economies of scale including transport options and energy transfers. But there are larger pollution dynamics and health impacts.
But what about community in a big city. Big cities are usually feed from the suburbs were there are minimal interactions between people, and their environment consists of the back yard with a couple of trees. The community of the city is mostly limited to the path people take to work and associations they make at work. And the pub.
The built environment is dynamic. Things do change both in the city and country. The relationships we forge are up to us, but in both cases there needs to be a context with the natural environment. Not some romantic ideal, but a real understanding of our basic need for bio-diversity - our dependency on nature to sustain us.
The question is: is it about just planting more trees in the country and changing the transport options in the city? or is it a little of both in both areas. I don't really think its that simple.
Our Built Environment can shut out nature or it can open us up to it, or are we really that afraid of nature that we try to ignore it?