The Ecological Landscapes of Jane Jacobs and Rachel Carson

Kinkela, David

doi:10.1353/aq.0.0115

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 54 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Two of the most famous analysts of urban and environmental issues are women, Jacobs (1970Jacobs ( , 2000 and Carson (2002), respectively. Even though gender was not central in their analyses, the response to their research was gendered (Kinkela, 2009). Mumford's (1961) argument that the first settled humans were not organized in a patriarchy is provocative.…”

Section: Conclusion: An Environmental Sociological Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Urbanization and the Natural Environment: An Environmental Sociological Review and Synthesis

Clement

2010

Organization & Environment

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The relationship between urbanization and the natural environment has never been the focus of an environmental sociological study. This article is an initial attempt to address that gap. First, in the introduction, the author discusses how early traditional urban sociologists and human ecologists variably expressed the human exemptionalism paradigm when examining urbanization. Then, in the body of the article, the author provides an overview of the struggle in environmental sociology to find connections between urbanization and the natural environment. The main focus is on how environmental sociologists have theorized the environmental impact of urbanization, although other relevant topics (e.g., environmental justice in the city) are briefly addressed. Through the course of the article, several principles are developed to help guide a future environmental sociology of urbanization. In the conclusion, the author cites research done by other social and natural scientists to further elaborate on these principles.

show abstract

Section: Conclusion: An Environmental Sociological Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Urbanization and the Natural Environment: An Environmental Sociological Review and Synthesis

Clement

2010

Organization & Environment

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As he stated, "For Carson and Jacobs, nature was central to the human condition and they believed that the problems of postwar America resulted from scientists and citizens who thought themselves apart from nature." 22 For her part, Rachel Carson clearly remained in the camp who viewed humans as despoilers:…”

Section: Humans Nature and Citiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humans, Cities, and Nature: How Do Cities Fit in the Material World?

Melosi

2009

Journal of Urban History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

“…Jane Jacobs pioneered the idea of context complexity as the basic "raw material" for urban planning and design. Her work, characterised by a strong attention to the relationship between people and their living environment, can be placed within the ecological movement [2][3][4][5], as Jacobs herself recognised in the foreword to the Modern Library Edition of her The Death and Life of Great American Cities [6]:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Perhaps not coincidentally, the first edition of Jacobs's masterpiece was published around the same time of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) [7]. As Kinkela [4] (p. 905) noted, both books "invoked a common language to criticise physical geographies or landscapes that have often been considered incongruous", forging the underpinning of the concept of ecological landscape. The ecosystemic approach for understanding urban functioning proposed by Jacobs anticipated many now widely recognised principles of sustainable city, such as compactness, walkability, connectivity, accessibility, and diversity [8][9][10][11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neighbourhood Park Vitality Potential: From Jane Jacobs’s Theory to Evaluation Model

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We construct a method to evaluate the neighbourhood park vitality potential (NPV-potential), inspired by Jane Jacobs’s theory of urban and park vitality. The evaluation model produces an aggregate score of NPV-potential by combining information on the extrinsic factors of vitality, related to the park’s surrounding urban area, with evaluative judgements on the intrinsic factors, related to the park’s internal organisation and design. To showcase and submit the evaluation model to a preliminary test drive, we further present the results of an application on three parks in the city of Cagliari, Italy. The computed NPV-potential and the effective use of the three parks, obtained from direct observation, show a good degree of agreement. While far from a robust validation, which would require more extensive empirical studies with larger and more internally variable samples of parks, the reported agreement between the potential and the observed vitality on the ground is a preliminary indication of the possible usefulness of the proposed evaluation method for urban planning and design.

show abstract

The Ecological Landscapes of Jane Jacobs and Rachel Carson

Cited by 8 publications

References 54 publications

Urbanization and the Natural Environment: An Environmental Sociological Review and Synthesis

Urbanization and the Natural Environment: An Environmental Sociological Review and Synthesis

Humans, Cities, and Nature: How Do Cities Fit in the Material World?

Neighbourhood Park Vitality Potential: From Jane Jacobs’s Theory to Evaluation Model

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About