Connecting Past & Present – Urbanization & Parks

March 4, 2023 By: Jason Senna

Thomas R. Detwyler and Melvin G. Marcus claim that the urban ecosystem rarely restores water and air to the wilderness in the same beneficial condition they were collected by the municipal. The reading “Ecosystems and Air Quality” posted on the United States Environmental Protection Agency website connects to Thomas R. Detwyler’s and Melvin G. Marcus’ views in “The Place of the City in Environmental History” by Martin V. Melosi. The “Ecosystems and Air Quality” media item states how “aquatic life, watercourses, protected natural areas, and plant communities” suffer acid and eutrophic devastation through ozone, sulfur, and atmospheric nitrogen. One learned by connecting these readings that urbanites harm urban ecosystems through chemicals, so much so that water and air dispersed back into nature are often contaminated and possibly poisonous.

https://www.epa.gov/eco-research/ecosystems-and-air-quality

The article titled “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” by William Cronon includes a topic that one was challenged by in this course to contemplate. This topic is that wilderness is not natural and is created by human cultures. Cronon states explicitly that the wilderness “seems so natural” because it is what human beings “desire” in their industrial world. The media item titled “Then and Now” by Kate Siber touches on how park sites have evolved, how the over-exploitation of wildlife and resources at parks has been controlled through law enforcement, and the importance of natural ecosystems and that they undergo alterations. This last part is how this media item connects to the William Cronon article. Both readings describe how wilderness is not particularly natural and how it is a viewpoint that the public will not agree with because of a lack of comprehension.

https://www.npca.org/articles/1157-then-and-now