
Urban nature: What kinds of plants and wildlife flourish in cities? - Mz
https://theconversation.com/urban-nature-what-kinds-of-plants-and-wildlife-flourish-in-cities-71680
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throwanem
I live in Baltimore, and have seen some of the described research work going
on. I also spend a lot of my free time tramping deer trails and generally
wandering all over creation. Those who don't are regularly surprised to learn
just what extent of wildlife our city supports!

To the author's question of how city dwellers find green space and
ecodiversity improvements of this sort - I think it's going to be hard to find
anyone who feels these efforts and their results other than a material
improvement in quality of life.

What concerns me, though, is that we're recently seeing a pattern, in a lot of
neighborhoods, where formerly vacant - and thus vegetated, if not always
ideally so - spaces are being bought up cheaply from the city by developers
who proceed to fill them to the edges with housing that does not fit the
neighborhood, is not welcomed by established residents, and is priced out of
reach of anyone save the sort of rich formerly urban professional who has
found downtown life insufficiently welcoming once a first child comes along.

That such people do not wish to move to soulless suburbs, I understand - but
they seem fine with converting long-extant neighborhoods, with their own
unique microcultures and community lives, into exactly that which they seek to
avoid. And they seem unconcerned with inflicting the closure and
privatization, of what have been de facto common spaces for in many cases
decades, to whatever extent is necessary to achieve this short-sighted, ill-
conceived, and universally destructive goal.

If anyone has a suggestion on how to deal with _that_ problem, I'd love to
hear about it...

~~~
mabbo
> If anyone has a suggestion on how to deal with that problem, I'd love to
> hear about it...

My knee-jerk reaction is to call you an anti-development NIMBY, but that's not
actually solving any problem. So let's set that aside.

Your neighbourhoods have benefited from the existence of this vacant land. The
city, meanwhile, has costs to maintain that land, police it, etc and have even
more costs to maintain the infrastructure of low-density housing in such
neighbourhoods. Cities need to increase density, and they need to be able to
afford to maintain themselves[0].

Selling vacant land removes a cost and creates desperately needed income in
times where all a politician is allowed to do is lower taxes (or else their
opponent next election will say that _they_ will lower taxes and get elected).

If you want to have low-density residential areas with lots of green space,
you need to petition your government to raise your taxes so that you can pay
for it. Campaign for politicians willing to invest rather than lower taxes.
Have them convert the land into a local park, using your increased taxes to
maintain it.

[0] See everything on
[https://www.strongtowns.org/](https://www.strongtowns.org/)

~~~
xkcd-sucks
Does policing and maintaining vacant lots actually incur any meaningful costs
on a city?

Do undeveloped zones within a high density area help mitigate any
externalities of high density development, by providing habitat for predators
of urban wildlife, dense plant growth to improve air quality and soak up
stormwater, etc.?

~~~
mabbo
> Does policing and maintaining vacant lots actually incur any meaningful
> costs on a city?

Vacant, unmaintained lands tend to attract crime. I say this from first hand
experience- I was a teenager once, and we went to vacant, unmaintained land to
commit crimes. We were good kids, mostly, but we weren't the only ones there.

> by providing habitat for predators of urban wildlife, dense plant growth to
> improve air quality and soak up stormwater, etc.?

I'm all for having dense forests near high rises (more birds! more plants!
yes!) but that land is expensive to buy, expensive to maintain, expensive in
terms of lost tax revenue.

I simply argue that someone has to pay those costs, and getting mad at the
city of being fiscally tight when politicians are elected promising exactly
that is silly. You want to have a park/forest/whatever? Fine, but acknowledge
that it's expensive and then pay your fair share of it.

~~~
throwanem
In the most recent case I've personally tripped over, the land sold for
$110,000. That doesn't seem very expensive to me. Judging by the look of the
pads they're laying out, there will be at least six houses soon abuilding,
priced per the developer's sign "starting from the low 400s."

I'd say the city is getting rooked, but this is Baltimore. Somebody bought
somebody. If you think that's a problem which is susceptible of solution by
political processes designed to work in the absence of rampant corruption,
then I'd love to hear how you see that working.

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wcummings
NYC has the highest concentration of Peregrine Falcons anywhere in the world.
Lots of tall buildings for nests and lots of rats.

~~~
twobyfour
My understanding is that the falcons prey more on pigeons than on rats.

Of course, we've got plenty of pigeons, too.

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wcummings
I stand corrected.

~~~
o_nate
The general rule of thumb is that falcons prey on other birds and hawks prey
on land animals.

~~~
twobyfour
I thought the red tailed hawks (enjoying a resurgence in NYC recently) also
were thriving on pigeons?

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newswriter99
Some of the less developed areas immediately surrounding downtown Houston have
raccoons, opossums, rabbits, turtles, you name it. There's even been an
armadillo or two.

This is primarily thanks to the bayous running through the city, as well as
large swaths of empty/overgrown lots, mixed with a few unoccupied
buildings/warehouses here or there.

As far as plants go, there's all kinds of flora blossoming in the city, some
of which is edible, though the pollution/contamination factor leaves me
suggesting that it is NOT a good idea to eat anything growing wild.

~~~
throwanem
Can't speak for Houston, but we have about a million raspberry bushes in this
town, and I never pass one in ripe fruit but I pick off a few to snack on as I
walk. Hasn't poisoned me yet, but I would be curious to see what a mass
spectrometer would reveal about their elemental composition.

Unfortunately, it's been years since I had even colleague-of-a-colleague
access to any lab that'd be likely to have the requisite equipment and
expertise on hand. Perhaps I might get in touch with Dr. Swan? Judging by his
article and the nature of his work, this seems like it'd be the sort of
investigation that might pique his curiosity.

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briga
While my city has destroyed the environment of the majority of animals, there
are some notable exceptions. Crows, ravens, pigeons, rabbits, squirrels--all
of these animals seem to flourish in a city environment. They live in a much
higher concentration than the animals you see outside of the city. Over time I
think the story is going to change. These are just the first animals that have
adapted well to a city lifestyle, and they will be selected for as time goes
on.

If we could lose our obsession with monocultures, i.e. grass lawns, I think a
lot of the world's biodiversity could be preserved.

Are there any notable startups devoted to making our cities more habitable for
plants and animals?

~~~
arethuza
Grey squirrels and foxes seem to thrive in UK cities - sadly I've never seen a
red squirrel in a city.

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michaelleslie
Even smaller parks in San Francisco, like Buena Vista, have surprisingly large
amounts of wildlife despite being in dense areas.

I've seen coyotes and raccoons in my neighborhood. In preserved areas like the
Presidio and the Headlands, I've seen Bald Eagles while cycling.

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justforFranz
STDs.

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grasshopperpurp
My favorite thing about St. Pete (FL) is the plants and wildlife. Today, when
I arrived at work, I was greeted by a Wood Stork - just hanging out in front
of the office. It walked around out front for about ten minutes before
leaving.

I hear mockingbirds from 5 am to 10 pm (sometimes later). About 150 yards from
our backdoor, there is a Norfolk Island Pine, which is the tallest tree on the
southeast skyline, and there is always a mockingbird singing at the top. Every
minute or two, the mockingbird's song overflows into a spinning leap. We never
get tired of it.

We also see blue jays, mourning doves, ibises, and cardinals daily. Jacarandas
are very common, as are banyan trees and frangipanis. It's also normal to see
great egrets hanging out at the corners of busy (by St. Pete standards)
intersections or on front lawns.

The actual city, as you'd think of a city, is small, so no matter where you
are in St. Pete, you're 10-20 minutes from relatively undisturbed nature,
where you can see alligators, manatees, gopher tortoises (one of my personal
favorites), and other fun stuff. In our yard, we have wildflowers like
spiderwort, climbing dayflowers, and pink wood sorrels, among others. Oh, and
if you've never been to Florida, there are tons of lizards - mostly varieties
of anoles

More than the specific types of plants and animals, as cool as they are, the
density of plants and wildlife makes it vibrant. We talk about moving, but we
always derail that conversation with talk about the nature we'd miss.

