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Edens Lost & Found: How Ordinary Citizens Are Restoring Our Great American Cities
With Edens Lost & Found , award-winning filmmakers Harry Wiland and Dale Bell herald an exciting sea change in the relationship between ordinary citizens, environmental groups, and government. From across America they gather evidence of a new spirit of cooperation among neighbors, planners, architects and builders, city officials, and government agencies. Indeed, as urban issues have become undeniably urgent problems that demand answers, people from disparate backgrounds and political leanings are joining forces to recast life in American cities. As citizens take action where government has failed, they are finding support, encouragement, and help from their neighbors. Conversely, as progressive-minded government agencies and organizations explore nontraditional solutions, an energized community rallies to the cause. Neither exclusively top-down, nor grassroots, we are in the midst of an unprecedented movement that unites efforts from every quarter in a common cause. Focusing on Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Seattle—four cities that face vastly different challenges— Edens Lost & Found highlights the remarkable power of hope, pride, ingenuity, and chutzpah that characterize this era of collaboration. Bioengineering concepts—now increasingly understood by many to offer the most effective, cost-efficient solutions—are playing a central role. Working with —rather than in opposition to—nature is leading to such innovations as rooftop and urban gardens, restored parks, transformed vacant lots, the re-greening of city streets, and eco-friendly watershed management. Edens Lost & Found shows how working to reshape the land also transforms the relationships people have to one another.
- GenresEnvironment
306 pages, Paperback
First published September 15, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 30, 2008
The book focuses on urban environmental sustainability efforts in four cities in the United States: Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Seattle. It explores the various citizen initiatives that are revitalizing these four cities and making them more sustainable.
The book begins with an introduction to the subject of environmental sustainability and some background on the history of suburban sprawl and the problems with it. It proposes six main tools for creating livable, self-sustaining cities: open space and public parks, urban forestry, watershed management, environmentally conscious waste disposal and recycling, green building, and mass transit. It also explains why cities can be sustainable places: cities are dense, cities are pedestrian-friendly, and cities can mediate climate, build community, and encourage self-policing. The main message of the book is that ordinary people, with courage and persistence, can shape their cities for the better.
While the book focused more on environmentally sustainability than social and economic sustainability, all three aspects of sustainability were included. For example, it included statistics about the lack of park space available within walking distance of low income neighborhoods and the need for new sources of jobs in former industrial areas.
Limiting initiatives to four cities allowed the reader to really learn about each city’s history, struggles, and current efforts. The historical context and learning about so many sustainability efforts within each city truly allowed each city’s unique contribution to sustainability to shine through.
One of the best things about this book was that it provided such a wide variety of community projects that it was really able to show that so many small actions are part of one large movement. A wide variety of sustainability topics were included from free community wireless to river restoration to local food to community murals.
Unfortunately, because it provided such an overview of so many efforts, I did not feel that it did a good job of teaching potential community activists how to begin in detail. I also would have liked more information included about the coalitions that are possible to help the sustainability movement become less fragmented. It focused a little too much on visionary individuals rather than the coalitions of people that helped implement that vision.
The book begins with an introduction to the subject of environmental sustainability and some background on the history of suburban sprawl and the problems with it. It proposes six main tools for creating livable, self-sustaining cities: open space and public parks, urban forestry, watershed management, environmentally conscious waste disposal and recycling, green building, and mass transit. It also explains why cities can be sustainable places: cities are dense, cities are pedestrian-friendly, and cities can mediate climate, build community, and encourage self-policing. The main message of the book is that ordinary people, with courage and persistence, can shape their cities for the better.
While the book focused more on environmentally sustainability than social and economic sustainability, all three aspects of sustainability were included. For example, it included statistics about the lack of park space available within walking distance of low income neighborhoods and the need for new sources of jobs in former industrial areas.
Limiting initiatives to four cities allowed the reader to really learn about each city’s history, struggles, and current efforts. The historical context and learning about so many sustainability efforts within each city truly allowed each city’s unique contribution to sustainability to shine through.
One of the best things about this book was that it provided such a wide variety of community projects that it was really able to show that so many small actions are part of one large movement. A wide variety of sustainability topics were included from free community wireless to river restoration to local food to community murals.
Unfortunately, because it provided such an overview of so many efforts, I did not feel that it did a good job of teaching potential community activists how to begin in detail. I also would have liked more information included about the coalitions that are possible to help the sustainability movement become less fragmented. It focused a little too much on visionary individuals rather than the coalitions of people that helped implement that vision.
December 1, 2009
Sustainability bugs me. Its become such an entrenched buzzword, a part of what it means to be white and middle class in the united states, that everyone just throws it around as a means of denying culpability. Everything has a cost, even an aesthetic of little or no cost. That said I'll confess I'm reading this book to combat my irascible cynicism.
February 20, 2008
A little bubblegum but good info about local projects.
December 22, 2016
The 20th century was not kind to American cities, and the challenges of the 21st, resource scarcity and climate change among them, seem hardly more favorable, especially as the national government continues to flounder. But across the country, citizens are taking challenges for opportunities, and effecting positive change in their own cities. In Edens Lost and Found, the authors share stories from all stripes of people in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Seattle who are doing their part to make their cities more ecologically-savvy, resilient, and overall better places to live.
Adapted from a PBS series, the book is divided into four larger chapters, each containing a half-dozen or so sections of stories about individuals or groups making a difference. The chapter starts off with a history of its host city, one which briefly details the city’s unique challenges and strengths: Los Angeles, for instance, is or was in the strange spot of simultaneously stressing about flooding and having to import water for its citizens’ needs. The citizen-actions range from the small-scale (a man stubbornly removing trash from an abandoned lot so that his daughters could have a clean place to play) to the somewhat larger, as when citizen actions catch the government’s attention and it decides to fund their efforts, as it did when Chicagoans attempted to safeguard the prairies from further development. Not every action is done by an individual person: one section in Seattle, for instance, covers the decision of one sporting-goods store to become environmentally friendly and more compelling at the same time by catching rainwater and channeling it to safety in the form of a waterfall. Their actions address a variety of needs, all adding value but in different areas. There are artists here, who transform empty walls into murals, as well as those who convert an abandoned building into a hydroponics garden that doubles as an urban farmer’s market. The editor-authors also add sidebars for those who want to recreate the actions celebrated her: one such column offers advice on creating a nature trail.
Although the individual stories didn't mesh together well beyond sharing the same setting, the authors' attempt to create cohesion with an introduction to each city, and the marginal use of shared themes (managing watersheds, for instance), serves the book well. It succeeds less on narrative and more on substance: these accounts of citizens engaging in direct action and rebuilding their cities are most inspiring, giving reason for hope.
Adapted from a PBS series, the book is divided into four larger chapters, each containing a half-dozen or so sections of stories about individuals or groups making a difference. The chapter starts off with a history of its host city, one which briefly details the city’s unique challenges and strengths: Los Angeles, for instance, is or was in the strange spot of simultaneously stressing about flooding and having to import water for its citizens’ needs. The citizen-actions range from the small-scale (a man stubbornly removing trash from an abandoned lot so that his daughters could have a clean place to play) to the somewhat larger, as when citizen actions catch the government’s attention and it decides to fund their efforts, as it did when Chicagoans attempted to safeguard the prairies from further development. Not every action is done by an individual person: one section in Seattle, for instance, covers the decision of one sporting-goods store to become environmentally friendly and more compelling at the same time by catching rainwater and channeling it to safety in the form of a waterfall. Their actions address a variety of needs, all adding value but in different areas. There are artists here, who transform empty walls into murals, as well as those who convert an abandoned building into a hydroponics garden that doubles as an urban farmer’s market. The editor-authors also add sidebars for those who want to recreate the actions celebrated her: one such column offers advice on creating a nature trail.
Although the individual stories didn't mesh together well beyond sharing the same setting, the authors' attempt to create cohesion with an introduction to each city, and the marginal use of shared themes (managing watersheds, for instance), serves the book well. It succeeds less on narrative and more on substance: these accounts of citizens engaging in direct action and rebuilding their cities are most inspiring, giving reason for hope.
October 28, 2008
Watching the documentaries is much better. The book felt a bit basic. I didn't make it all the way through. Since I've already seen the documentaries, I felt like I wasn't learning anything new. The docs are phenomenal though--very uplifting that citizens are making positive environmental changes in their cities.
Want to Read
February 25, 2008recommended by Ruth
Want to Read
January 17, 2009I'm thinking to read it so I can be aware of that level of change going on.. isn't really my cup of tea to be involved as much as I'd like to be, but I like knowing it's happening out there.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews