Similarityes or differences bettwen nature in the city and nature in the country



Urban and rural living each have their own benefits and disadvantages. The environment you choose will affect your lifestyle, day-to-day activities and, possibly, your health. A person's personality, job and financial situation may influence the choice of environment.

Pace of Life Cities are more crowded and faster-paced while rural living is often more relaxed and less congested. The slower pace of rural areas provides a sense of community and the openness makes people seem accessible to each other. Cities have fewer homes with yards, but those living in rural areas have more access to open space and nature. In contrast, cities have state-of-the-art skyscrapers and offices that serve to create walls.

Pollution Cities are a hub for industrialization. There are more factories and businesses, making the areas more polluted. Additionally, the increased population in cities makes the ground more likely to be marred by litter and heavy use.

Convenience City life gives inhabitants the ability to be exposed to more culture. Museums, theatre, and monuments are often easily accessible in cities. Additionally, most cities have a broad range of multicultural restaurants accessible by public transportation or walking. In contrast, entertainment in rural areas may be more limited or require travel.

Personal Fitness Research conducted in 2003 by Saint Louis University's Department of Community Health and Prevention Research Center in St. Louis, Missouri, found that people living in rural environments were less likely to meet recommended requirements for exercise than urban residents. The research also showed urban residents were more likely to exercise in public parks or malls. Additionally, parking may be at a premium in cities, but the convenience of activities nearby may make it more conducive to walk as opposed to driving to a destination.

Cost of Living Generally, the convenience of cities makes them costlier. Larger cities with more industry, including Los Angeles and New York, are more expensive than smaller cities. Often, housing further from cities is cheaper, larger and may come with more land. However, the area of the city also affects the price. Space limitations may also make parking costlier in the city.

Green Living Comparisons City living may reduce the need for a car, encourage the use of public transportation or walking and, because of fewer yards, minimize the use of pesticides. Additionally, many people live in smaller living spaces, which use fewer natural resources for heating and maintenance. In contrast, the upkeep of larger country homes may require more natural resources. Available land allows residents to grow fresh food in the country

Nature is in cities? Isn't "urban nature" an oxymoron? People live in cities! Nature is "in the country!"

Cities abound with wild nature! In fact, a large percentage of Earth's biodiversity exists in urban or urbanizing areas, which are often adjacent to larger wild areas. It is more accurate to say that cities are in nature! Cities are embedded in the natural environment - the geology, watershed, climate and biodiversity - of whichever place on Earth where they devel0p.

Moreover, as of 2005, more people live in urban than in rural areas for the first time in Earth's history. Urban nature is critical for connecting half of the world's people with the natural environment. Connecting city dwellers with their local nature and watersheds is critical not only for building support for the conservation of faraway places, but also for the ecological restoration and stewardship of biodiversity at home.

Of course, more people means greater potential for continued destruction of our local natural environment. But if we change how we interact with nature, then we can turn people into a positive force for ecological restoration. Conservation of local urban biodiversity, everywhere unique in its own right, is as essential and paramount to global ecosystem conservation, sustainability, and human survival on the planet as is conservation of the Amazon rainforest or the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.

Having nature in the city is part of addressing urban environmental justice. Many urban people cannot afford to go out of town to experience nature and/or they have grown up without the benefit of experiencing wild nature. San Francisco has wonderful natural areas all over town. Our challenge is to tell people about local nature and help them obtain resources to experience it. Given the chance and the tools, many of the City's communities could connect with their nature.

Urban areas are the diverse, complex, intensely developed and decisive milieu in which we humans are confronted with the global challenge of how to interact more harmoniously, locally, with the rest of the natural world. Urban ecological restoration and stewardship is critical to urban and global ecological sustainability. Human-Nature Dualism

One fundamental problem behind all efforts to restore nature is the 17th Century philosophy of Cartesian dualism - the dichotomous separation of humans from nature. The Cartesian dichotomy or paradigm has reinforced other ancient western cultural expressions of nature domination by placing humans above nature, as if we were not interconnected nor interdependent. For centuries, western society has controlled and dominated nature and become more and more disconnected from it. The human-nature dualism has proven to be one of the most important modern causes of human degradation of the biosphere, and it has produced many cascading effects right here in the watersheds of the City of San Francisco. Nature in the City explicitly seeks to cause a paradigm shift away from this dichotomous relationship of humans with the rest of nature - to heal our physical and psychological disconnection from nature. Urban ecological conservation is the ideal cultural milieu in which to force this confrontation with our current relationship with nature. In the City, many of us humans are living in close proximity to our fellow members of the universe. We have to share our living space, our watershed. How do we consider the wildflowers emerging each winter down the street in our local natural area? What species of bird is that calling this morning? Why on earth did that coyote decide to take up residence in the City? If we are going to survive on this planet, we must learn how to restore a more harmonious and respectful relationship with local nature, urban and rural. We cannot "just let nature take its course" and expect it to recover from our massive urban disturbance. The current human-ecological question is not whether or do we interact with nature. The question is " how do we interact with nature? " Humans are of nature. Have we ever not interacted with nature? Our challenge is to change how we interact with nature - NOT "to leave nature alone" - including changing our definition of nature. Can we be truly connected to nature if our only "natural" experiences are annual visits to Yosemite and/or bimonthly day-trips to Point Reyes, interspersed with daily lives in front of TV, computers, and steering wheels? In order to reconnect with nature in a harmonious and sustainable way, we must learn that we can interact positively with nature in the city where we live. Ecological sustainability depends upon the restoration of our actual physical relationship with the rest of the natural world. How many San Franciscans know that the name of the first native wildflower to bloom each year by New Year's Eve is footsteps of spring? People deserve to be presented with the opportunity to heal their collective disconnection from nature. Local people need the tools to learn about what nature we have and what they can do to help protect and restore it. They need to know about their local watersheds so that they can benefit from the pleasure that comes with participating with their neighbors in community-based ecological stewardship. San Francisco's wildlands need people, and people need their local nature to improve the quality of urban life and to experience and become aware of their interconnectedness with nature and each other.

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