William Cronon\u2019s Nature\u2019s Metropolis <\/i>provided a new take on nature that other scholars we have read thus far have strayed away from, that the growth of cities and existence of nature can coexist.\u00a0 I found William Cronon\u2019s Nature\u2019s Metropolis<\/i> especially interesting because it expanded on some of the questions I posed as a discussant for The Great New Wilderness Debate.<\/i>\u00a0 The first two questions I posed were \u201cIs the \u2018concrete jungle\u2019 of cities its own form of wilderness?\u201d and \u201cIs modern society and western culture artificial or just advanced\/evolved nature?\u201d\u00a0 After reading the first part of Nature\u2019s Metropolis<\/i> it seems apparent that Cronon does believe that Chicago\u2019s metropolis is a \u201cconcrete jungle\u201d and that modern society (not necessarily the artificial aspects) is an advanced form of nature.<\/p>\n
As Ian stated below, many of Cronon\u2019s points have to be positioned around the idea that cities are the next step in ecological evolution, and that premise alone indicates that Cronon believes that the \u2018concrete jungle\u2019 is just a new form of nature.\u00a0 However, he does not believe that it is artificial.\u00a0 Cronon\u2019s belief that the surrounding nature and ideal location of Chicago makes the city\u2019s growth an ecological evolution contradicts with the idea that I initially proposed, that a city was artificial.\u00a0 This goes to Henry\u2019s point below, and how one defines nature.\u00a0 Henry brings together a key element of Cronon\u2019s argument well: \u201cPeople generally take nature to refer to features of the earth that are there independent of any manmade processes. However, to Cronon, saying that something is \u201cnatural\u201d means it is referring to something that seems to be in its normal place.\u201d\u00a0 By this definition, nothing in a city is artificial because it is a system of interconnected pieces, and because something is composed of elements initially derived from nature, it is just a further ecological expansion.<\/p>\n
Ian makes a good point building off of this, that \u201cSo many perceive nature to be something void of human contact and interference, yet there is probably no location on Earth that has not been inhabited by humans at some point in time.\u201d\u00a0 It is this point that really helps me buy into the idea that a metropolis and nature do not have to be exclusive.\u00a0 Humans are a part of nature, and the fact that they have advanced further than other natural elements (and have started to use those elements in ways that harm parts of nature) doesn\u2019t make modern society unnatural.\u00a0 Humans should try and preserve the nature they are harming, but as culture has evolved so has nature, even if for the worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
William Cronon\u2019s Nature\u2019s Metropolis provided a new take on nature that other scholars we have read thus far have strayed away from, that the growth of cities and existence of nature can coexist.\u00a0 I found William Cronon\u2019s Nature\u2019s Metropolis especially interesting because it expanded on some of the questions I posed as a discussant for … <\/p>\n