The Place of the City in Environmental History

Abstract

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'

Climate, weather, and water in history

“…As these studies of vulnerability suggest, urban settlements have become productive sites for examining the ways in which the impact of climate events on hydraulic infrastructure can both disrupt and reveal human relationships with the environment. In the early 1990s urban historians advocated for the inclusion of the city in the field of environmental history to show its integral role in “a dynamic environmental system” (Melosi, , p. 18; Rosen & Tarr, ). Key to the advancement of the field has been the historical study of urban water.…”

Blinded by History: The Geographic Dimension of Environment and Society

“…Then, of course, there's Cronon's (1991) magisterial treatment of Chicago's resource-based economy. Still, environmental historians too often ignore nature within the city and the second nature of the built environment, as noted by scholars within the field (Melosi 1993;Rosen and Tarr 1994). Geographers have been studying cities much longer, and did some of the earliest studies of urban environments (e.g., Detwyler and Marcus 1972;Platt et al 1994).…”

The Varieties of Urban Experience

“…Thus the field combines the study of the natural history of the city with the history of city building and their possible intersections." 2 The collection of books reviewed here demonstrates that these themes remain critically important and are still being revisited and revised. David Stradling's The Nature of New York illustrates the interactive growth of the nation's largest metropolis within the context of its larger state and region, while Zachary J. S. Falck's Weeds creatively analyzes the persistence of nature and natural history (i.e., weeds) in the cities.…”