In watching again James Howard Kunstler’s TED talk “The Ghastly Tragedy of Suburbia,” this line stood out:

And we’re not going to cure the problems of the urban by dragging the country into the city, which is what a lot of us are trying to do all the time.

Yet, one thing humans have done for a long time is to cultivate gardens in cities and communities. Think the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Or, urban farming in Detroit and other cities. Or, rooftop gardens. Urban gardens can, and have, thrived:

Humans will continue to garden in the city and cultivate plots of land or space. This is different than the “nature band-aid” approach Kunstler criticizes where slapping a few bushes or trees into a setting is viewed as adding nature.