THOUGHTS ON OUR BEAUTIFUL (UN)SUSTAINABLE CITIES
THOUGHTS ON OUR BEAUTIFUL (UN)SUSTAINABLE CITIES

Author(s): Flaminia Stârc-Meclejan
Subject(s): Energy and Environmental Studies, Environmental and Energy policy, Rural and urban sociology, Environmental interactions
Published by: Editura Universităţii »Alexandru Ioan Cuza« din Iaşi
Keywords: sustainable city; resilience; nature; birds and animals;
Summary/Abstract: We are crowding in ever-expanding cities, and as we do, we realize that we cease to be “alone”. Through true webs of non-human life, cities provide much richer habitats than today's heavily exploited agro-industrialized rural areas, only apparently green. Attracted by the abundant food and, to a large extent, protected from the danger of being hunted, in addition to the shelter from other natural dangers, a veritable menagerie of wild life, deprived of their natural habitats, also feels at home in the cities. The destruction of natural habitats and the rapid loss of biodiversity implicitly derived from it can no longer leave us indifferent. Any ecosystem comprises the physical environment and the organisms that in-habit it, interacting as a functional unit. Uniquely, as one author noted, urban ecosystems are designed primarily as spaces for the people who inhabit them, combining the built environment (buildings, transport infrastructure) with vegetation (that we call green space). Except for scientists, we usually perceive non-human organisms in cities only in terms of their usefulness or desirability (or undesirability): pets or pests. Of course, there are many progressive alternative spaces in the urban environment, but we need a profound shift towards understandings and practices of citizenship that involve living alongside several other species in a shared space. Will the existence of urban wildlife help us city dwellers understand the wider socio-ecological systems of which we are part?

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