The Roots of a Living City

This project began with President Obama’s August 1 Call to Action to save American soil. While several land grant universities will deal with rural agricultural soil, the White House reached out to the University of Alabama to look at the problem of urban soils. In considering their request, leaders at the University realized that urban soil challenges cannot be solved in isolation, but must be considered as part of a larger system. As some of you know, I’ve served the University since 2002 in an architectural design review capacity, and over that time we’ve discussed many thing in the world of the New Urbanism (including the Lean Urbanism initiative) so they brought me in to help put the framework together.

The White House is steering the initiative, but the universities involved are seeking funding from foundations and businesses, so that the initiative can outlive this or subsequent administrations. The White House is particularly interested in this integrated approach proposed by the University of considering stormwater, energy sources, food systems, and equity as part of the solution. The goal is to develop regionally-calibrated toolkits which are then used on a series of pilot projects from the scale of the town to the scale of the metropolis. Based on feedback from the pilot projects, the toolkits would then be recalibrated and released nationally. The best places for pilot projects of this system are in marginalized communities, where virtuous effects of the system can have the greatest effect for good in overall neighborhood vitality.

Two things to note about the document: It isn’t a description of a toolkit; it’s the first draft of the actual toolkit for the Southeast. As such, it is written to the citizens of the neighborhood, not to academics or funding agencies. This means it’s written at about the third grade level, and in the rare instances where terms like “riparian corridor” are used, I quickly make clear what that means. Also, due to the fact that pilot projects are likely to be in marginalized places, I’ve calibrated some of the examples used to the socio-economic spectrum likely to be represented there.

~ Steve Mouzon

There are six roots of a living city: the four ancient elements of earth, wind, fire, and water plus the people who live there and the food that feeds them. Most cities today have the bulk of their life-sustaining things piped in from afar, like a patient on life support. A living city’s roots are fed from resources close around them. In modern American cities, there are serious challenges to each of these roots:

All building and street construction begins with stripping the topsoil, most of which is hauled away, so there is much less topsoil per acre in a city than in the countryside. And the soils that remain are likely to be poisoned with pesticides, broadleaf herbicides and fertilizers in places that are cared for too much, and by petroleum products and other contaminants in places that are cared for too little. Lead-based paint from old houses also flakes and falls off, contaminating the soil around the houses. Healthy topsoil is alive with countless microorganisms and other creatures; soil in the city is often mostly dead. Urban soil is also usually highly compacted, so it does not easily support life.

Most of the energy that powers a modern city comes from burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas, although wind farms are a small but growing source as well. Hydroelectric dam building ended in the 1970s because of environmental concerns. Fossil fuels supply 80% of our energy needs today, and are a major cause of climate change, bringing many threats such as sea level rise and drought that is beginning to bring about mass migrations of people as farmland turns to desert.

Impervious surfaces such as paving and building roofs shed stormwater much faster than a forest or field, and almost all of that stormwater runs through streets and gutters, picking up contaminants and carrying them to our waterways. Stormwater retention ponds attempt to solve that problem, but they separate buildings, lowering Walk Appeal and city vitality. Riparian corridor setbacks are meant to protect streams and rivers, but these force neighborhoods further apart, creating cities where everyone drives, burning more fossil fuel.

15 years ago, people talked about the “1500 mile Caesar’s salad,” but an increasing percentage of our food now needs a passport to get to our tables. For food to survive being jostled in the back of a truck for three weeks, it must be genetically engineered to be really tough, and must be picked weeks before it is ripe and chemically treated to retard ripening, reducing both taste and nutrition. Much food is processed before delivery, but processed food is now clearly identified as an element of our obesity and diabetes epidemics.

Americans have been moving from the country to the city in large numbers for over a century with hope of greater opportunity there; by 2030, 60% of all people on earth will live in cities. But in cities on life support from afar, hopelessness spreads in marginalized communities which feel they have no control over even the basics of their lives. This is due in part because Americans have lost so many skills as their jobs moved overseas in recent decades. Inequity and injustice thrive in such settings.