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K and I rounded out our August Challenge this past Labor Day Weekend just spending time here and there reading in the park, heading to the beach with friends, and simply thoroughly enjoying the perfect weather the weekend afforded.
If you haven’t read about it already, the August Challenge was a challenge K and I put to ourselves to spend August Saturdays outside in an effort to get out of the climate controlled boxes of the workweek and to experience what is actually happening in the world around us. While our expectations of the challenge were varied, it became clear through writing about the experience that the challenge to get outside led to an exploration of place.
In going to Humbolt Park, a few different stretches of beach along Lake Michigan, and a suburban farm last month, I noticed differences in how people choose to interact with the natural environment of a place. In Humbolt Park, the designers attentively preserved patches of prairie and designed structures to interact with the natural scenery; on the stretch of beach in western Michigan where I was raised, the ecosystem underwent changes despite human interference to stabilize the landscape; in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, industry flanked 15 miles of ‘protected’ lakeshore despite the impact that industry might have on the surrounding environment; and surrounding a suburban farm we visited was a homogenized design and lifestyle that did nothing to take into account how the design/lifestyle would interact with the landscape.
In every action we take, we make a decision about how we will interact with the people and the place around us. We can choose to take nothing into account about our surroundings like the developers swallowing up all types of land for the same purpose, or we can take a thoughtful look at our surroundings and then slowly move with constant reflection of the both the positive and negative impacts of our involvement with our surroundings.
For our August Challenge this past Saturday, K and I went with some friends to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. While the National Park system has some great-looking programming at the dunes throughout the year, we went for the beach. Much of the drive was through beautiful scenic woods and along a more undeveloped lakeshore than available in the city, making this a great destination for many Chicagoans who want to get away from the crowded city beaches. It was a beautiful day and we weren’t the only one’s taking advantage of the hot beach and refreshing lake.
As we started down to the beach after parking, we saw the beautiful color of the lake and could make out the skyline of Chicago on the far shore. We were surprised, though, as we noticed the huge steel mills directly west on the lakeshore, and then again as we looked to the east and saw steam billowing from a nuclear reactor. The stretch of beach we were on was a protected National Lakeshore, but it seemed that just outside of that protection the industrial world was booming.
A quick Google search revealed that there has been a century-long struggle between the preservation of the Indiana Dunes and the unchecked development of the shoreline. Thirteen of the forty-five miles of lakeshore are currently protected, but what impact might the industry on either side of that thirteen miles have on the greater ecosystem? Might it be possible to make better and more sustainable use of the natural resources that exist on the lakeshore?
My burnt back is testament to the power of the sun in the area, and from the beach I noticed two private residences with windmills to supplement their energy use. If industry and development along the lakeshore were reduced, couldn’t we harness the power of the sun through solar panels and wind-turbines that would have minimal negative impact on the dune ecosystem?
Overall, our day at the beach was wonderful. The water was cool, but not so cold that we couldn’t float at the sandbar and play in the swells that tumbled into the shore. Having lived so close to Lake Michigan for most of my life, I often take for granted time spent on the beach. This weekend reminded me, though, that while I might sometimes overlook the restfulness that the lake can offer, it’s important to never disregard the impact of how we choose to be a part of any ecosystem.
Living sustainably means redefining one’s life to better align with what exists in nature and what nature expects of its inhabitants. While it is important to recognize that our earth is fragile and commands our respect, living sustainably requires the understanding that a respect for the earth is not so much about the preservation of nature as it is about employing nature in such a way that it will continue to support human life; nature can exist without humans, but we cannot exist without the support of nature.
Living sustainably, then, means the deconstruction and re-actualization of the societal institutions that leach off of a one-way, negatively-impacting relationship with nature; it means slowing down from an industrial way of life and taking thoughtful action to renew a two-way relationship with the world. This shift might start with individuals making choices in their day-to-day lives about what they consume, how they interact and why they propagate a particular lifestyle, but it is essential that these individual choices progress into the larger transformation of unbalanced and unsustainable institutions such as the current corporate framework, class divides, undemocratic political structures, etc. into organizations that include the wellness of nature among other human needs.
Truly sustainable living exists in a world in which a sustainable lifestyle is attainable and championed by all. While it starts with individuals, sustainability requires the aggregate efforts of the entire world population. A sustainable lifestyle will take different forms for different people, and it would be arrogant of me to pretend to understand each step that must be taken to sustainably employ nature, but I hope to engage in the ongoing discussion of living sustainably and to encourage others to enter into that conversation as well. Living sustainably is a daunting but possible goal, and I am optimistic about our ability to achieve it.
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This post stems from the APLS Blog Carnival, a call for entries answering the question of “what does living sustainably mean to you?” See the APLS Blog for more information and to submit your own entires (no blog required).
Via Treehugger.com, I read an interesting article today from the upcoming edition of The New Republic called “Trading Places: The demographic inversion of the American city.” The article outlines the growing trend among US cities toward a more affluent population within city centers with affordable housing options inverting toward the city’s outskirts. Treehugger points out the reasons for this “demographic inversion” – a term that author Alan Ehrenhalt uses to distinguish the trend from gentrification – as the deindustrialization of city centers, a disillusionment with cars and traffic, and a younger generation “expressing different values, habits, and living preferences than their parents.”
What interested me about this article is the identification of a seeming shift toward a higher-valued sustainability within city design in the US. Ehrenhalt points out that many European cities have long followed a structure of city centers being a central hotspot for arts and entertainment; with US cities moving toward a similar model and with residents living closer to the recreation they value, both inefficient transportation methods and the land-waste of urban sprawl are reduced. Walking, biking and public transportation become more viable options for those who bypass suburban life for the concentrated efficiency of a well-designed city, reducing traffic congestion from polluting cars and increasing the healthfulness of more active residents.
With increasing value in downtown living, however, those who cannot afford the increasing housing prices are pushed to the outskirts of cities where car-free transportation does not seem as practical an option, and where – if one follows the model of many European cities – the poor risk being “walled-off” from the inner-city and largely ignored. Ehrenhalt points out, however, that the affluent who are choosing downtown living do so in part in dissent of the separatist mentality of previous generations of affluent suburbanites, and that in some cases the inversion to affordable housing existing in the outskirts of a city would mean closer proximity to the service and industrial jobs that are also moving into the suburbs. Whether this will be the case remains to be seen, but let us hope that the American city’s demographic inversion will mark a time of increased community and sustainability rather than simply a new landscape of an unbalanced and unsustainable class-division.
