Category: Cities
Development and the Lifespan of Urban Trees
Tree Life Expectancy and the Cycle of Urban Development Since trees can live longer than buildings, development has an enormous impact on the lifespan of urban trees. While mature trees increase property value, they’re susceptible to damage from nearby development. Soil compaction from heavy equipment or storing materials, damage to roots from excavation, and regarding…
Is McCauley Edmonton’s Gardening Community?
Green In The Inner-City In the Fall of 2014, I found myself looking at a house off Church Street in the inner-city neighbourhood of Edmonton McCauley. I was familiar with the community due to frequent visits to the Italian Centre Shop and Coffee Shop Cafe, Zocalo. I was also familiar with the area’s reputation for…
The Long Tail of Agriculture
Agriculture is Missing its Long Tail Imagine we could arrange every food producer on the planet according to total productivity. On one end, we’d find highly productive industrial megafarms, and way down on the other end, we find marginal food-producing activities such as foraging or kitchen window herb gardens. Graphing our lineup of food producers,…
Slow Landscaping – Slow Trees in Fast Cities
The Long Now Cities are fast-paced, ever-changing places filled with fast fashion, quick commerce, short election cycles, and perpetual development. What does living in the fast lane do to our ability to see the big picture and tackle life’s biggest challenges? How might fast-paced cities influence what musician and producer Brian Eno coined a sense…
Decorative Tree Lighting Can Kill Trees
The Dark Side of Decorative Tree Lighting Edmonton has embraced year-round decorative tree lighting, and it’s hard not to love it! A 2015 Edmonton Journal article states that the City’s forestry department “installed lights on 1000 city-owned trees in six business revitalization zones.” Walking Whyte, Churchill, or Giovanni Caboto amongst twinkling giant elms is magical.…
An Edmonton Root Beer Opportunity
Edmonton Has a Root Beer Deficiency In June 2016, the City of Edmonton enacted an Herbicide Ban with the aim to “eliminate non-essential uses of herbicides on city-owned land.” It’s been a year since, and despite the fact that some people are losing their shit, I’m proud of the City for sticking with their decision – going so far as…
Nature Is A Verb – Your Parking Spot Wants To Be A Forest
Nature Is A Verb Imagine a parking lot: hot, grey, dry, and dead. Parking lots are uninteresting, uninviting, and inhospitable to life. And they are turning into forests. Nature is a verb. Even the most meticulously paved asphalt has imperfections. Expanding and contracting with the rise and fall of the sun, asphalt forms cracks. It’s even…
School Urban Agriculture Supports Local Food
Growing Food in Schools To Kickstart Urban Agriculture One of the best ways to kickstart a local movement is to provide early access to training. I saw this firsthand when culinary teacher and Pastry Chef Kelly Hobbs’ culinary students won more than 28 awards between 2009 and 2017. After graduation, a sizable number of them enrolled in…
The Nature of Cities
Why Cities are Good for the Environment Contrary to our cultural narrative, cities are good for nature. Why? Because cities are natural and governed by the same processes that create ecological systems. In fact, cities may be the most useful tool we have for tackling some of the world’s most pressing problems. One study out of Yale University reported:…
Gardening in Edmonton
Tending The Landscape I want to acknowledge the First Nations communities that have long lived and tended the land on which Edmonton stands. From passive actors, Indigenous communities were active participants who managed the landscape in ways that increased biodiversity and tipped ecologies in ways that benefited culturally significant plants and animals. For First Nations…
Beekeeping in Edmonton, 13 Steps to Get Started
A Step-By-Step Guide To Beekeeping In Edmonton Since 2014, beekeeping has been permitted within the City of Edmonton, and in that short amount of time, the City’s beekeeping community has steadily grown to hundreds of urban hives. If you’re here, there’s a chance that you’re interested in joining that community. Let me be the first…
Why The Magpie Should Be Edmonton’s Offical Bird
11 Reasons Why the Magie Should Be Edmonton’s Offical Bird No other Edmonton resident is more controversial than the ubiquitous Magpie (Pica hudsonia). While many Edmontonians resent its 4 am wake-up calls, many of us find the Edmonton magpie fascinating. It’s the bird that Bird Studies Canada refers to as a “charming and charismatic species…easily recognized by its…