In the last fifteen years or so, the study of urban environmental history has led to an outpouring of valuable research. Many books and articles have appeared on topics such as building technology, public works and infrastructure, environmental services, parks and greenspace, pollution and public health, energy, environmental reform and regulation, and municipal engineering. The volume of work is gratifying and adds considerably to pioneering research dating back to the 1960s, including Lewis Mumford'
This paper explores how historians-and others-continue to create a barrier between the natural world and the city, and why the so-called declensionist narrative-humans as agents of harmful physical change-still dominates our understanding of the urban environment. It suggests several ways to reconsider the declensionist narrative; to evaluate the connection between "first nature" and "second nature;" to better understand the relationship between urban and ecological systems; and to assess how cities are natural.
Keywords declensionism, urban environment, urban ecology, built environmentWhen a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse. Of an intermediate balance, under the circumstances, there is no possibility. The city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and more human tempter. There are large forces which allure with all the soulfulness of expression possible in the most cultured human.
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