Assignment 1 - Defending Urban Green Space

Hawks in the City: On the one hand I believe that if the hawks are making people happy then they should stay, but I am also not sure what I feel this situation means for hawks and nature in general. It is not natural for hawks to be living in a city environment - I wish that I knew more about how hawks live, and could know whether they might be adversely affected, but the food they must be eating (trash?) and the pollution, among innumerable other unnatural factors, is definately far from a wild environment. Even if the hawks are perfectly fine, I feel that their existance in an unnatural environment denigrates them in a way - it makes them a bit like pets who can be watched, etc. But on another level I support their precense if only because it serves to connect humans with nature. We have cooexisted with nature for millenia and a huge factor in determining whether people will care to conserve wild spaces depends on whether they have had any contact with the wild, and identify with it. A child who grows up watching tv indoors will not care about preserving a nearby marshland in her adulthood.

Machetes and Marigolds: I think community gardens are a beautiful thing. I love how they connect neighbors who otherwise might not talk, in an informal, fun atmostphere. They are relaxing and bonding. The community garden in the story does not fit my idea of a garden where everyone gardens TOGETHER - people have taken the idea of possession to a disturbing level by padlocking their vegetables and so have destroyed a beautiful idea.

Guerilla Gardeners: I don't know how severe the law against gardening on public property is, but I don't see anything wrong with taking ugly dead space and trying to improve it through plants. These people sound punky and rebellious and cool, working for what they believe in, and I support them. I want to make seed bombs too.

Defiant Gardens: This story is an excellant overview of the intense relationship that humans have had with growing things, gardens, for millenia. Gardens are relaxing, promote creativity, and provide food, and in the most stressful situations, particularly so, they cannot be abandoned.