Having worked in rural land-use and rural development for almost 40 years, that question has confronted me many times. Here is my answer.
Nature is not a city. The natural world is constantly interacting with, and adapting to, changing conditions, including weather, climate, flora, fauna, fire, drought, wind, storms, erosion, earthquakes, volcanos, human construction projects, bombs, poisons, etc. If nature did not – or could not – adapt, the earth would resemble the moon, empty, barren and incapable of supporting life of any kind.
The idea that we, humans, can restore nature to some “healthy” moment in time, would require us to put nature in a cage, assume the role of “nature’s zookeeper”, and control its supply of food, water, air, sun, and moon shine – and reproductive genes. The absurdities are measured in acres.
There are 2.3-Billion acres of land in the United States. And yet, more than 80% of Americans live on a measly 3% (69.4-million acres) of the entire land area in this country. We call these built environments cities. America is so big we could accommodate another billion people and no one would even notice they were here. In fact, China has already done it. Just about the same size as the U.S., China has a billion more people.
Crazier yet, the 100 largest private landowners in America, currently own more than 40 million acres of land (an area larger than whole the state of Florida). By comparison, all of New York city is a pitiful 193,700 acres. Crazy – right?
The remaining 19.3 percent of Americans live in various human developments, nestled between, in and around, 538.6M acres of forest land, 391.5M acres of crop land, 654M acres of pasture/range land, and 237.5M acres of land designated “special use” and “Misc.”
Crazy again, Weyerhaeuser Co. is the largest private owner of timberlands in the U.S. The company controls 2.3% (12.4 million acres) of all commercially available timber, an area nearly the size of West Virginia. Crazy – right?
Rather than adapt to nature, we attempt to force nature to conform to us. Instead of building sustainable communities, we’ve crammed 80% of our entire population onto 3% of the available land. A patch of land that small cannot support so many people, plus all their stuff, including buildings, cars, factories and billions of tons of asphalt, cement, glass and steel. The oceans are rising and the land beneath large cities is sinking. Sink holes are swallowing cars, buildings and people. Water is filthy, polluted, expensive, running-low and laced with chemicals and toxins. Food and basic supplies must be trucked in – and trash, poop, urine, vomit and industrial waste must be hauled out. The cost is exponential – the more environmental damage we do, the higher the price of food, water, products, housing, transportation, services, education, etc. and so on and on and on.
Instead of segregating people and nature, we need to integrate them. If we start building more small and mid-sized cities, we will make room for more natural spaces inside cities. Talk about stimulating economic growth, the competition will be fierce. I could go on and on, but it’s not worth my time, or yours. Until we are a self-governing people, we will continue to serve our masters, who insist we live on top of each, rather beside each other.
