Abstract
In this showcase article, the author presents three exemplary instances of Ian McHarg’s effective, time-honored socio-ecological practice research. Each case is powered by an insightful idea he discovered in practice and articulated for practice. These are, respectively, the idea “to green the earth,” the intrinsic “unsuitability for urbanization,” and “a profoundly simple concept” for building ecological resilience. Together, these examples make a compelling case for the statement that “McHarg had it right” many times.
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Notes
A scholar-practitioner is a scholar who is dedicated to generating new knowledge that is useful to practitioners and enlightening to fellow scholars (Xiang 2019a, p. 7 and p.9).
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is a federal agency of the USA with a mission to “reach for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind.” For more information, see https://www.nasa.gov/.
Nor will it be the last—more good news are on the way. For example, “[e]cological restoration efforts are being ramped up globally”, report the authors of the 2016 “International standards for the practice of ecological restoration” (McDonald et al., 2016, p. 7). In this document, they also provide a concise list of ongoing ecological restoration projects around the world (Ibid., pp. 7–8). By definition, ecological restoration is “[t]he process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed.” (Society for Ecological Restoration, https://www.ser.org/, accessed March 18th, 2019).
“Once it has been accepted that the place is a sum of natural processes and that these processes constitute social values, inferences can be drawn regarding utilization to ensure optimum use and enhancement of social values. This is its intrinsic suitability.” (McHarg 1969, p. 104) For a reflective, systematic description of this innovative approach to ecological planning, famously known as McHarg’s method, see McHarg (2007, pp. 26–55).
Socio-ecological practitioners are people who are engaged in socio-ecological practice, including, but not limited to, planners, designers, engineers, conservation activists, forest rangers, community advocates, environmental lobbyist, land managers, and municipal administrators (Xiang 2019a, p. 8). “Socio-ecological practice is the human action and social process that take place in specific socio-ecological context to bring about a secure, harmonious, and sustainable socio-ecological condition serving human beings’ need for survival, development, and flourishing. It … includes six distinct yet intertwining classes of human action and social process—planning, design, construction, restoration, conservation, and management.” (Ibid., p. 8).
Did the socio-ecological practitioners delineate the buyout zones with or without the knowledge of the 1968 “Unsuitability for urbanization” map? No evidence has been found in the literature for either scenario. This may well be the case in which practitioners discerned and implemented a piece of existing knowledge efficaciously yet inadvertently and unknowingly.
In a strikingly parallel yet apparently independent way, this concept for building ecological resilience came along with an ecologist’s concept of ecological resilience. In 1973, Canadian ecologist Crawford Holling introduced the term resilience to describe an observed property of natural ecosystems and defined the resilience of ecological systems (that is, ecological resilience in the subsequent literature, see Gunderson 2000) as “a measure of … their (ecosystems’—the author) ability to absorb change and disturbance and still maintain the same relationships between populations or state variables.” (Holling 1973, p. 14) Since then, a wealth of new knowledge has been generated about the art and science of ecological resilience (for reviews, see Biggs et al. 2015; Gunderson 2000; Wu and Wu 2013), and substantive progress made through instantiated experiments of building ecological resilience in human‐dominated ecosystems—urban areas (For recent reviews, see Beller et al. 2018; Meerow et al. 2016; Romero-Lankao et al. 2016). As demonstrated here, it was around the same time Holling publicized his conception of ecological resilience that McHarg came up with this “profoundly simple concept” for building ecological resilience and implemented it efficaciously in practice without using the term ecological resilience. No evidence, however, is found in the literature that Holling and McHarg had any intellectual contact directly or indirectly. Does this coincidence of human achievements suggest that Holling and McHarg were “epistemically privileged” (Kidd 2015, p. 345) equally in discovering truth, one as a pure scientist and the other a scholar-practitioner who once referred himself humorously to be a “crypto-pseudo-quasi-scientist” (McHarg 2007, p. 21)? Yes, indeed. But what are the secrets, if any, of McHarg’s success in discovering the truth and articulating it as a “profoundly simple concept” in this exemplary instance? This question pertains to McHarg’s way of knowing and will be explored in a knowledge I&I (implementation and impact) research article the author is developing for this journal.
American ecological planner and educator John Lyle regards the implementation of this ““profoundly simple concept” in The Woodlands as an exemplary instance of “[t]he Taoist approach in recent practice” in his 1999 book Design for human ecosystems: landscape, land use, and natural resources (Lyle 1999, p. 237). He also provides a brief comparative review of Confucian and Taoist ideals of nature within the context of socio-ecological practice (Ibid., pp. 236–239). For a succinct review on the concepts of nature in various Western cultural contexts, see Spirn (2002, pp. 31–33).
After the ownership change in 1997, subsequent development in The Woodlands deviated from the original ecological plan McHarg and his colleagues developed (Berger 2007, p. 8; Forsyth 2003, p. 13; Yang 2019, p. 65). But the legacy of George Michell (the former owner and developer), of which McHarg’s ecological plan is an integral part, “is still an important part of the community” (The Courier of Montgomery County 2017), and reinforced through the 2017 Hurricane Harvey (Schwartz et al., 2017).
For the latest about The Woodlands, “a real community, with jobs, housing, and recreation” (Forsyth 2003, p. 13), visit the official township website https://www.thewoodlandstownship-tx.gov/.
A formal and more legible juxtaposition of these two maps can be found on page 358 in Steiner et al (2013).
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Acknowledgements
I dedicate this article to the fine memories of Professor Ian L. McHarg. During my first year of doctoral study (from Fall 1986 to Spring 1987) in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley, USA, Ian was at Berkeley on a sabbatical leave from his home institution—the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He taught two classes—A tentative theory for environmental planning and design (Fall 1986) and Man and environment (Spring 1987), both of which attracted a wide range of students and faculty members on and off campus. I took both classes and was privileged to complete my preliminary exam on human ecology under his guidance (he chaired the exam committee) in Spring 1987. Through many in-depth conversations during this memorable period of time, I was deeply moved by his love for Mother Nature and great “ambition of building something larger and more lasting” than himself [to borrow a phrase from Collins (2001, p. 36)]. My scholarly aspiration has been ever since inspired and professional path illuminated by his ideal of design with nature.
I thank the following individuals who provided comments, suggestions, and encouragements during the preparation of this article: Bill Cohen (Temple University, Philadelphia, USA), Tom Daniels (the University of Pennsylvania, USA), Wei Gao (South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China), Jinwu Ma (ESRI, Redlands, California, USA), David Orr (Oberlin College, USA), Fritz Steiner (the University of Pennsylvania, USA) who also allowed me to use his 2012 email (in “Appendix” of this article), and Bo Yang (the University of Arizona, USA). The research and writing activities pertaining to this article are supported in part by China National R & D Program entitled “Building strong ecological security patterns through elevating green infrastructure’s level of ecosystem services” (No. 2017YFC0505705).
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Appendix
Courtesy of Fritz Steiner, use with his permission.
Appendix
McHarg had it right. An email disseminated to subscribers of Planning Educators Electronic Mail Network (planet@listserv.buffalo.edu)
From: Planning Educators Electronic Mail Network [PLANET@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU] on behalf of Steiner, Frederick R [fsteiner@AUSTIN.UTEXAS.EDU]
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2012 12:05 PM
To: PLANET@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU
Subject: McHarg had it right
In light of discussions about Superstorm Sandy and planning, I thought that some of you might find this interesting. My colleague Neil Korostoff (Penn State, npk1@psu.edu) sent me the attached image. On the left are the areas of Staten Island evacuated as a result of Superstorm Sandy and on the right unsuitable areas for urbanization from Design with Nature (1969).Footnote 13
All best,
Fritz
Frederick Steiner
School of Architecture
University of Texas at Austin
310 Inner Campus Drive B7500
Austin, Texas 78712-1009
fsteiner@austin.utexas.edu
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Xiang, WN. History voted many times in Ian McHarg’s favor. Socio Ecol Pract Res 1, 165–169 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42532-019-00013-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42532-019-00013-7