It is traditional, almost obligatory to regard the urban environment as opposed to nature, like the countryside or a forest. And it seems a logical one. After all, cityscape is man-made, while outside it we find wild, untamed growth of life, don't we?
In my opinion, the picture is much more complicated. Untouched natural landscape is something that probably exists somewhere in South-American rainforests or in the Himalayan mountains. Maybe in some highly protected areas in Europe. In Hungary, there is no such thing. We, humans are present here for thousands of years, and we have not left anything untouched. All our landscapes now are the results of excessive human activity, even if at some places this activity means we are trying to restore the way things were one or two hundred years ago.
On the other hand, Nature is present almost everywhere in the city. Okay, let's forget about shopping malls and underground parking lots. Apart from those, every square centimetre of earth, every crack in the pavement is a possibility for plants and animals to set their foot here. It is a source of relief for me that we cannot finally destroy life on this planet. As soon as we stop destroying animal and plant life, they are back again to sprout and grow. And if let be, the process is up to this:
All right, I accept that these pictures give a rather bleak suggestion about our future. But does it have to be so? I could imagine a city that is in symbiosis with Nature. I would be happy to live there. So I just collect those examples where, instead of plucking and clearing, we should try to find a way of coexistence.
A lamppost in Nature's hug:
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