Opinionifying: Small is Good

From my vast experience of playing Sim City, I can tell you that if you let the fucking city get too big and don't give the people enough services, they are going to kick your fat ass right out of the Mayoral chair. Plus, you have to listen to all the City employees bitch you out most unsympathetically and whine about all the stuff they need, even as your city bursts into flames or the nuclear power suffers a meltdown or the greedy little bastids populating your city riot because you won't give them new or more stuff.

So when this article caught my eye, I totally agreed. Then I did a double-take. I mean, it makes sense. How could it ever happen? We don't have enough sensible people in the whole fucking country to fill one fucking town.

So then I agreed again and read it some more, and you should too. Because I really really like the idea of rustbelt cities (which are falling apart anyway) being small conglomerations of housing, business, and services surrounded by open space. Could we see wildlife coming back? Meadows?

See, this is what happened. Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County (where Flint, Michigan is located) met Barack Obama on the campaign trail, and discussed a revolutionary idea with him: Razing entire districts in shrinking cities, and returning the land to nature.

FTA:

Local politicians believe the city (Flint, ed.)must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.

[...]

Mr Kildee said he will concentrate on 50 cities, identified in a recent study by the Brookings Institution, an influential Washington think-tank, as potentially needing to shrink substantially to cope with their declining fortunes.

Most are former industrial cities in the "rust belt" of America's Mid-West and North East. They include Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Memphis

As Kildee points out, these cities are shrinking anyway. The big employers for these areas were the car companies, who have mostly gone out of business. Young people are moving away for better opportunities, like the opportunity to eat regularly, and all.

Kildee sez:

"The real question is not whether these cities shrink – we're all shrinking – but whether we let it happen in a destructive or sustainable way," said Mr Kildee. "Decline is a fact of life in Flint. Resisting it is like resisting gravity."

[...]

The city is buying up houses in more affluent areas to offer people in neighbourhoods it wants to demolish. Nobody will be forced to move, said Mr Kildee.

"Much of the land will be given back to nature. People will enjoy living near a forest or meadow," he said.

Prairie Wildlife Illustration by Kandis Elliott, Defenders of Wildlife

Mr Kildee acknowledged that some fellow Americans considered his solution "defeatist" but he insisted it was "no more defeatist than pruning an overgrown tree so it can bear fruit again".

Wot you t'ink? I like the idea. It could never happen where I live, though. This city just keeps growing. Unfortunately. However, the exurbs and suburbs nearby are shrinking as overleveraged people sell or fall into foreclosure and move back to the city, so that's a good thing. Kinda.

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Environment: Snippets

Environmental news over the past half year has been uniformly depressing, I'm afraid. Okay, there are little pockets of WTF? in a pleasant way, occasionally - the goddamned daffodils are finally blooming in the garden at Casa de Los Gatos, after who knows how many years - even the bougainvillea is blooming, it's like fall never happened, just an endless summer. But that's not good news, really. It's supposed to be cool and rainy, right now, not warm and sunny. Today the inhabitants of La Casa were sweating like pigs while fixing dinner.

In the meantime, over in Sulawesi, Indonesia, July brought rains with attendant mudslides, although a lot of that is due to the slash-and-burn farming practised there, and the absolute greed of loggers. Death toll so far, 66, and another 23 are missing. Aid helicopters are stuck on Borneo, unable to fly supplies to people desperately needing them.

A series of major earthquakes struck Sumatra island in Indonesia, killing 23 people, wounding 88, and damaging over 15,000 buildings. A small tsunami also hit the islands of Mentawai group, off Sumatra.

High winds destroyed 200 homes in the historic Kampung Ayer (Water Village) of Brunei, inhabited by some 30,000 people. The houses are built on stilts over the water, much like the kelongs of Southeast Asia, and are an important tourist attraction. Kampung Ayer pic from this Brunei site

At least China has begun acknowledging the serious impact of pollution, and is taking steps to reduce it, although with a population of 1.5 billion, the sheer magnitude of the problem must be overwhelming. China's Vice-Minister of State Environmental Protection recently authored a column acknowledging the existence of a Five-Year Plan and insisting that environmental protection is a priority. The Plan suggests that development should, in future, be measured in terms of "Green GDP." Let's see how it works.

Liu Jian qiang, a visiting scholar at Beijing University, believes that the growing environmental crisis is fostering greater openness and the growth of democracy, as China's population begins to fight the environmentally unsafe practices of its government.

The urbanisation of Asia is being blamed for an epidemic rise in cases of dengue hemorrhagic fever, a more serious variant of dengue fever which is caused by the Aedes mosquito. Kampuchea suffered 25,000 cases this year, resulting in the deaths of 300 children under the age of 15 years. Indonesia suffered 100,000 cases. Malaysia's infection toll rose by 50 per cent over the previous year, with 1,000 people being admitted to hospital each week in July, and 56 deaths recorded in June. Vietnam's toll rose by 40 per cent over the previous year, with 33,000 people infected and 32 deaths. There is no vaccine for any of the four known strains of the virus and no one strain confers immunity from any other strain.

Dr Axel Kroeger, a WHO dengue research coordinator in Geneva, said: "We always think next year it will get better but we always find next year it gets worse. There's a very clear upward trend."

An earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale hit the Pacific island of Vanuatu in August. No tsunami warning was issued, nor were there any reports of death or serious injury.
August in Japan brought some of the hottest temperatures the island nation has seen since 1933, resulting in the deaths of 13 people as temperatures soared to 40.9C (106F). Hundreds of people were hospitalized due to heat-related illnesses and injuries.

Typhoon Nari, with winds of 155 mph, is churning across the East China Sea, heading towards Japan at 20 kph. It is expected to bring heavy rain to southern Japan and Korea. Earlier, typhoon Fitow hit eastern and northern Japan, killing 2 people and injuring 82 others.

An earthquake of 6.7 magnitude hit the Solomon Islands in mid-August, striking 1.1 miles below the sea. Previously, the islands had been hit by an 8.0 earthquake and tsunami in April which killed 50 and displaced thousands. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no real risk of a tsunami but warned of possible local tidal waves.

Between June and September, the annual monsoons left 13.5 million stranded or displaced in India and Bangladesh. Over 2,200 people died in India, and over 1,000 more died in Bangladesh. The storms and flooding were reported to be the worst in decades. Additionally, landslides and floods have killed at least 185 people in neighbouring Nepal. The rains have also destroyed millions of acres of food crops, threatening food shortages. Victims of the flood are now trying to cope with water-borne illnesses.

Forest fires in Spain have forced 10,000 from their homes and destroyed 60,000 acres of land in the Canary islands in August. Special prosecutor for environmental crimes Guillermo Garcia Panasco described the fire as one of the worst ever suffered by the islands. High winds contributed to the conflagration while impeding firefighting helicopters. Low humidity and temperatures above 104F kept the fires going as well.

Meanwhile, voles have infested nearly a million acres of land in the Castilla-Leon region of Spain, leading farmers to use controlled burning as a means of coping with the rodents. Castilla-Leon's Agriculture Minister, Silvia Clemente, said

"There has never been a plague like the one we have now."

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Science News Of The Week - Get Dirty, I Mean, Happy

The science posts this week are mostly courtesy of my good friend Dave Manchester Kuczora, thanks, Dave! He rounded them up at Science Daily.

Science Daily - Bacteria found in the soil activated a group of neurons that produce the brain chemical serotonin.
mycobacterium vaccae

I couldn't agree more. I love getting down in the garden and running my hands through weeds and soil. It's what makes me happy when my insignificant little world is dark with despair - as it has been nearly every day for the past six years. No prizes for guessing correctly why this might be.

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Garden blogging

Oh, if only I weren't so sick! It's been nearly a week, and I still hear bubbling and rustling noises coming from my own lungs. This traitorous body with its sudden spasms of burning pain and breathlessness is stealing from me an otherwise perfect gardening day.
The blue fescue has come back to life - festuca ovina, I think - thready, almost metallic, next to the plush green straps of the Naked Ladies (Amaryllis belladonna, which flowers in the fall, pink-and-white pinstriped trumpets of the most delicate fragrance) and the paler swords, slightly fuzzy, of montbretia.
The montbretia will be flowering soon, holding up spears of vivid orange-red trumpets that will contrast gloriously (eye-achingly) with its flat-bladed leaves.
High on the top of the hill, the tibouchina (Brazilian princessflower? I forget its common name) is blooming, on rangy leggy stems, the flowers teacup-sized and a vivid reddish purple.

I cut back the bougainvillea really hard, because it was taking over the entire hill, but later next month it will surely grace us with its vivid magenta bracts. There's plenty enough left of the horrid, thorny thing.
My wildflowers are beginning to bloom, a good sign. The garden is dotted with various red and blue flax plants, and the Love-in-a-Mist (Nigella damascena?)
is starting to grow heavy with buds. The California poppy at the very top of the hill is all buds, too, even though the native bulbs, calochortus, dichelostemma, triteleia, brodeia, have not yet lost their leaves. The violet-scented irises (five patches, on the midpart of the hill!) are throwing out one or two last spears of blooms. They started in late January and blessed me with vivid deep-purple fist-sized blossoms all through February. It's time, I suppose, for them to go. Outside the kitchen, a new final stalk has thrust its multiply enfloresced head through the fan of leaves. I hope it gets to bloom before it's too hot!
Lower on the hill, near the very bottom, the yellow iris is getting ready - it's a spring bloomer, really, and the weather already feels like summer.
This year for the first time, the flowering plum saw its bare black branches completely swathed with tiny, fragrant pink flowers. Photo courtesy of the incomparable Ron Sullivan This is not my tree, but someone else's - however, mine is a single-flowered purple-leafed type that looked an awful lot like this one, till the last flowers disappeared this week.
The silly robins tore a lot of them off, but for two weeks there was a heavenly rain of tiny, scented petals, and now they're lying like sequins on the greenth below. Bronzy red leaves have burst where the flowers once blossomed.
The Santa Cruz hibiscus was cut back hard yesterday. Its fuzzy, heavily cut and lobed leaves clutched at me accusingly, like little hands, but I know it'll soon be laden with its purple flowers - as it is, it was so heavily laden, I had to cut it back - the flowered stalks kept breaking.Photo from UCSC Arboretum Gallery
The lantana seems to be quite dead, but I know its faking it. It's come back from all kinds of near-death before, although this year's cold snaps certainly wiped out the gardenia, and some of the African basil transplants.
Madu killed a mole and offered it to the Gardening Goddess - the Lady of The Beasts and Fields - probably to beseech her not to let me weed his ample cover off the hill. Little beast - that's probly why I'm so ill. I saw its tiny form, feet stiffly up in the air, the sable velvet of its coat unmarked, but unmistakably Madu'ed. He's horrid about leaving presents where I'm most likely to sit on them!
I cut all the buddleia back quite hard, except the Black Knight cultivars. I shall have to try to get that done today. Lilac, mauve, lavender, bluish-purple, and a nearly black purple. Very pretty, but bloom is not expected till late summer. Meanwhile the calendula has shown itself somewhat renewed from the frost - I see about a dozen egg-yolk-yellow rayed blossoms. And some of the toadflax survived. Also the California lilac (ceanothus producer of the most dreadful pollen!). And for the early-roused bees, finally, the echium fastuosum is preparing foot-high spikes of purple blossom, which will soon feature clinging hordes of somnolent buzzy, fuzzy, gold-dusted little bugs of every sort.
The Shasta daisies, regrettably, don't seem to appeal to our bugs. Pity. I did get several nice little families of fleabane, with its pink-and-white rays framing yellow polleny hearts. All echoed by a clump or two of feverfew, and veritable falls of white sweet alyssum.
Oh, and the hummingbird sage and pineapple sage both survived! Although the silly hummingbirds seem to vastly prefer the pineapple sage.
The manzanita is barely visible - tall, but much crowded by the Cecile Brunner climbing rose and the revolting thornless blackberry. Another thing to cut down. And fennel has sprouted wildly all over the hill. How to get rid of it?
In good news, the two clumps of big blue lily turf also survived, as did the heliotrope (a miracle!), and the gorgeous Gloriosa daisies, here and there, scattered over the hill.
Now we must prune the dietes vegeta as close to the ground as we can. Whatever possessed me to plant that?
The sweet William will soon be back - I see the leaf rosettes scattered among the white-blooming yarrow. The rare pink native yarrow also appears to have survived. The white-flowered oleander is lush with leaf, and barely breaking bud. The cherry-flowered oleander at the bottom of the hill is not doing as well. We'll see if it'll make it, but scale, mildew, and general damp and dark are not in its favour.
The nasty martians (nasturtiums) are coming down the hill - cascades of perfectly round, if a little raggedy, leaves, and flowers tending from palest yellow through deep cinnamon. Come summer, the scabiosa will bloom, white, pink, mauve, lilac, red, burgundy, purple, plum.
And the hyacinths and freesias all survived, although the freesias seem pretty overwhelmed by all the pineapple sage.
Oh, and the aquilegias survived and will bloom, and the dicentra (pink bleeding-hearts) has spread all over the small garden outside the kitchen. Interspersed with babiana (purple-red), harlequin-flower (cream with purplish-brown markings), feverfew, various pink and rose flowering oxalis, primroses, pink and purple, pink hyacinths, and blue Spanish bells, a poor final surviving polemonium, tiarella (foamflower) which may or may not have survived, and the most gorgeous prostrate veronica flooding over the brick walkway to mass up against a purple-flowered solanaceum. The camellia is hiding behind it, under an olive tree. I see buds, fat buds on the camellia this year. Perhaps I'll have some pinky-white blooms to match the rose there. Fortunately, the deer don't care for the taste of the camellia.
By the front doorway, the hard-pruned wisteria has set out huge buds - I was afraid it wouldn't bloom at all, but it's come back with a vengeance. It should be blossoming soon, followed by the honeysuckle, now that the helleborus is done (mostly) flowering. The false maple continues to bloom which is alright by me, and the cotoneaster also. Soon there will be native blue and yellow miniature irises under the big conifer, and if the luculia blesses us with its fragrant pink blossom in the fall, I will die happy. Last year, the weather caused it go straight from bud to burned brown detritus. The year before I could walk on the deck lost in a heavenly cloud of fragrance.
Perhaps I'll take my aching lungs down there, after all. All this talk of gardening is making me long to feel the soil in my fingers. I'll update this with more lovely pictures (disclaimer: none of these are mine) later!

Updated: 03/18/07
Well, I did go down into the garden. It made me happy, although my lungs still hurt!
Montbretia picture courtesy of the Weed of the Month page at BlueMountains, an Australian site. I had no idea! Perhaps Crocosmia crocosmiiflora is not as invasive in the U.S.? It is annoyingly persistent in the garden, and quite the spreader. Perhaps I'll get rid of it, after all.

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