Where to sit?

     I consider my Green Communities class to be the most openminded and progressive of my classes. I know we can talk about just about anything in there and come away feeling at least somewhat enlightened and without any hurt feelings. This is why I was surprised and yet at the same time unsurprised at the results of physically splitting the class by gender for a portion of our time last thursday. As people sat on one side of the room or the other spending on how they identified, male or female, a kind of tension arose that many of my peers pointed out was strange and unsettling. None of us really seemed to expect one thing or another from the division, but I believe that we were all taken by surprise at how much of a change we felt.

     It is apparent that we still segregate men and women in many ways in our society whether it be by the types of clothing we can shop for or the bathrooms we use or in the judgement of how much a person’s time and work is worth, and although the term segregate is avoided at all costs at present, I believe it is the right one to use now. In high school there was often a voluntarily followed non spoken rule that boys and girls would form their own clusters and stick to them in class, extracurriculars, PE, the lunch room … wherever really. This is completely outside the equally apparent trend for these same kids to separate themselves into any number of other subgroups such as race, age, and others. There seemed to be a certain comfort that came with sitting among people of the same gender, even if they weren’t necessarily friends. I can’t explain it, but it’s a problem! Not because it is wrong to find comfort in sharing space with people of the same gender, but because these early decisions of self segregation only reinforce gender inequality all the way down the road. 

     In our class I have never felt like I was a lesser of two genders. There has never been a time when I felt like them men held more power in the room. The women in our class are just as outspoken and confident, if not more so than the men. And Yet. Once we divided ourselves and set about having a chat about how it made us feel, there was a point made that I feel is a completely valid one: In academics, women feel pressure to try harder to keep the same standing as what men inherently have (again something unspoken that I feel to be true, even though no one demands it). Maybe this is true in our class as well. This outspokenness  that I have seen, the confidence as well, is maybe a sign of the pressures put on women to become “as good as” men. Then this need for confidence can be a good thing, but if it comes from a lack of equality, even one that is unspoken and/or unintentional, then it can quickly become a burden that discourages women from pursuing academics. When we divided ourselves in class this inequality that may never have been have been felt or discussed otherwise was actually recognized. Somehow the tension made us more able to speak about this issue and ones like it, but at the end of the day it was nice to go back to sitting wherever, genders be damned. 

Singapore: Biophilic city

     The video Singapore: Biophilic City gives me a feeling akin to culture shock. To see a city that has embraced this feeling of biophilia wholeheartedly is to see what I want my home to be. The urban integrated natural spaces seems as normal as breathing in Singapore. I know that it probably wasn’t all peaches transforming Singapore into what it is today, but it now seems as though the city could never be any other way. When Kelvin Kan, green wall designer in Singapore, spoke about his first implemented green wall, and how the idea for his design came into place I felt inspired by the amount of passion that you can hear in his voice talking about his work. The results of his project are so obviously successful; it is crazy to me that his style of green walls aren’t implemented all over the world. His goal of creating a lively green space was completely recognized, and I loved his description of the place as “the cathedral of green."

     Liak Teng Lit, Ceo of Singapore hospital, speaks about the garden space implemented in the hospital he works in, there were a few things that he said that I was surprised, pleasantly so, to hear.  While I can really appreciate that green space is great to incorporate into healing spaces, what I really enjoyed hearing was Lit speak about was how this green space incorporated into the hospital is a space that should be shared and open to the public and animals, not just kept for patients. As Lit says, "We should maximize the utility of this whole space… We want the birds here.. If you do this the birds will come, if you do that the butterflies will come.” I absolutely love how everyone in the film puts a large emphasis on the importance of bringing birds and insects and other wildlife into the shared green spaces of Singapore: “We, on purpose, plant trees that will attract birds, hopefully to attract hundreds of species of birds, and the fish” —Rosalind Tan.

  

     All of the people spoken to in this film are not only passionate about biophilia and biodiversity, but are so knowledgeable about these biophilic areas that they work within. It seems so obvious to them the benefits of the transformations taking place in Singapore and the need for this kind of work to take place. If we could transplant that passion and that attitude here in the US I can just imagine what we could do. Mohan Krishnamoorthy, primary school teacher in Singapore, has an attitude that I wish all planners could understand. Sometimes all you need to do to get something beautiful and functional created is to.. just do it:  “it wasn’t planned.. you’ve got a blank canvas, just start drawing … it’s not rocket science… It is nothing to design, plants grow if you give them what they need.” Let’s just do it!

SLC a Good Community?

     Freiburg, Germany is one of the many places around the world that has responded with strength, vitality, and ingenuity to catastrophe and destruction. After WWII, Freiburg had to rebuild not only its physical structures but its spirit and image as well. What they have made of themselves as an environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable city is a pretty damn impressive example of good planning. Places like Freiburg thrive because their citizens decide what is going to happen with their open space, their streets, their energy, and much more. I think that one positive side that comes from the sad situation of having to restart a community after a disaster, is that the whole community gets to be involved with each new detail that happens, and with the infrastructure that is put in place. Here in SLC we work from old infrastructure and add on bits and pieces without any real community movement behind any one decision. 

     Community involvement is an aspect that makes Freiburg stand out to me and I believe that it is something that my community in Salt Lake City could learn from. I live directly downtown at about 2nd West 2nd South, looking the Salt Palace (our convention center) dead in the eyes. It always feels to me like the decisions made in this city that largely effect the people who live and work in the area are made by, well, not us… and are made for, well, not us. This is a critical part of what makes Salt Lake City what it is, for while we are really good at hosting people to our city, we often do not consider what it would take to make this area (which will soon be home to many many more people) an engaging enjoyable place to live long term. We do function as hosts to tens of thousands of people with each of the larger conventions that comes to our city, not to mention other social (spiritual etc.) events that come to our city every year. 

     My neighbors and neighborhood business owners are all affected by this and more often than not are putting their efforts into making sure the little part of the city they are responsible for is ready and able to host people from out of state. Why wouldn’t they be? The community makes a lot of money! But this way of thinking does not always promote good decision making for the community. Prices for food, goods, housing, and parking all go up for everyone during these times when we have an influx of visitors. I often feel shunted aside as a local when I visit my favorite shops during convention time because servers and store owners know (or at least think they know) that convention attendees spend lots and tip large. My community is doing pretty great economically, but socially? environmentally? Well, it seems like there is hardly a thought in those directions unless it is for our “guests."

Biophilic City

    Growing up, I always felt connected to nature in one way or another. When I lived in San Diego as a little girl I developed a strong connection to the ocean and the many benefits of sharing space with it. Now, as a Utahn, I cannot imagine life without all the natural spaces the mountains provide. One thing that I think Utahns can pride themselves on is this connection to nature, and even though Salt Lake City is not biophilic by some standards, you can bet for sure that everyone around has a love for nature (in one way or another) in their hearts. I find that Utahns are also always looking for ways to incorporate the natural Utah environment into their daily lives, whether through their gardens or through the architectural design of their buildings. As we learn more about being efficient and environmentally friendly here in Salt Lake City, more and more people recognize the potential for beauty and life in the natural desert climate without imposing what we think our needs are on it.

     In his film,The Nature of Cities, Timothy Beatley shows green urbanism at its very best, presenting communities that are successfully incorporating the natural environment into their towns and neighborhoods and even their very homes. The greatest takeaway from this movie for me is the impact that these practices seem to have on the people who get to enjoy them. It almost seems like incorporating nature into the daily lives of the people brings them back a hundred years to a time when we gave ourselves more freedom to explore, and not just go from designated place to designated place. Often I find myself going from home to school to gym to home and nowhere else living in our city. I forget that there are other places that are open to me like parks and trails, although perhaps not as many accessible public outdoor spaces as there should be. I feel like most space that I see in my daily life is private and/or unwelcoming. In these biophilic places that Beatley presents in his movie, people aren’t scared to walk around, run around, bike around because they have natural public spaces that belong to the community, whether it is right in the middle of the neighborhood, or weaving between city buildings. Parking in front of buildings? Nah, walkways and gardens instead.  

     We as human being yearn to connect with other living systems. That is what the Biophilia Hypothesis by Edward O. Wilson says. Perhaps the tenseness and isolation found in so many urban spaces today is caused by our lack of connection with other living systems and can be relieved by the reintroduction of plant and animal habitat into our spaces. I think that opening the spaces we have claimed for ourselves up for nature to come back and take a place in our lives could do nothing but good. It is a selfish idea to think that the spaces where we live should only support human life, and it is also an unfortunate one, for it disconnects us from the earth.

Bicycle Mobility in Salt Lake City

     

     It seems like everyone that I spend time with is comfortable biking in Salt Lake City. My partner is a bicycle courier, my mother does Triathlons and trains in the city, and my dad uses his bike to get from place to place. This is CRAZY to me. I enjoy riding, but I don’t think I’ve been on a bike in Salt Lake City since I turned 12. Even on slower traffic days, I don’t feel safe even as a pedestrian, let alone as someone who has to constantly compete for road space with cars and buses (buses are great, but they can be terrifying to be around.. bus drivers just go). I think that my lack of confidence in my safety continues to get worse every year as I continue to not bike. Do I have the stability to signal with one hand off the handlebars? I don’t really think so. 

     Wouldn’t it be great if I could have a wide protected bike path or even a separate bikeway where I could learn to be comfortable on a bike again, and hardly ever have to worry about cars? I think so. I feel shamed whenever my partner asks me to go on a bike ride with him downtown and I say no. I don’t know if I should feel comfortable biking on our city roads. I don’t and that makes me feel like I am missing out on something that I shouldn’t be. I mentioned that my mom is an avid biker. She’s been in bike/car collisions many times as a biker, but just recently I asked her about a small dent in her car door, only to find out that she and a biker collided because of a lack of bike lane and a misunderstanding about a right hand turn. If you know my mother, then you know that this would NEVER have happened except for the complete lack of infrastructure around biker safety. Bikers feel like they have no space for themselves on the roads and sometimes make risky decisions because that is the only way to get where they need to go. 

Copenhagen Rocks. Look at that happy baby.

     I really feel that if we made safe space for cyclists (for ourselves as cyclists) on our streets that downtown would be a better place. This is where I spend most of my time, and I think that the more bikers we have feeling comfortable on our roads, the less car traffic there would be. The less car traffic, the healthier people would be, and the easier it would be to get around on foot. I would definitely ride everywhere that I currently take public transit to if I felt safe doing so. If bicycle riding was an accessible transportation option for people, I think that mental health quality would be greatly increased in Salt Lake City A) because you mentally realize that you are becoming more fit when you’re physically exerting yourself, B) because increased blood flow is good for you in general, C) because being able to see people as individuals as they go from one place to another is much better than seeing a mass of cars, and D) because, as my partner says, “bikes just make people happy."