Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
goes, and think of ourselves primarily as urban consumers, we have abstracted out
only part of the human experience and view that part as most significant or important.
What is forgotten or lost in this abstraction is the actual reality of interconnectedness
of life forms—the kinship we have with animals, plants, and soil. This concept is the
basis of the term “land” in the context used by Leopold as previously discussed. It is
crucial that any postmodern concept of community avoid this error because it comes
about from a kind of forgetting. It forgets that most notions of cities are abstractions—
separate from the natural setting it originated—and it mistakenly considers that city
as an abstraction for a final reality. A critical error involves mistaking the abstract for
the concrete perception of the urban environment. In modern models of community
certain features of human life are abstracted out, particularly the concept of humans
as part of larger, biotic communities. In these accounts, it is forgotten that humans
dwell not only with other humans but also within the land. Modern sociological and
economic theories that focus on certain abstract aspects of human existence, such as
people are fundamentally rational self-interested consumers, treat these abstractions as
fundamentally real features of human existence and ignore other equally real features
committed to this error.
An example from Las Vegas can help to understand this disconnect between the environ-
ment and human behavior. Human life in this area is possible through adaptations to this
extreme environment defined by the scarcity of water, yet so much of community design
in Las Vegas involves new ways to forget (or abstract out) this fundamental fact. The land-
scaping that involves grasses and other plants that require heavy water use, artificial lakes,
fountains, and other water shows for visitors allow for this kind of forgetting. What is
misplaced is the real concrete, the concrete fact that one is living in the desert and the dry
streambed that is ignored when building a subdivision will some time become a roaring
watercourse. In this case, the physical reality of the landscape is not the natural or the most
environmentally sound option for this part of the country.
The only way for postmodern accounts of community to avoid committing this error
is to maintain a continual recourse to the concrete facts of existence. Doing so is another
appropriate task for environmentally based community education, to help community
dwellers remember that they live in a much more extensive biotic community, that their
lives involve networks of energy and food productions more fundamental than personal
networks of shared social interests.
Fifth and finally, one of the key features that will set reconstructive postmodern com-
munities apart from modern ones is the degree of communality involved. Much of what
passes for community today is actually aggregate clusters of like-minded individuals who
engage in collective activities only insofar as those activities further the individual self-
interests of each member. Today much of urban living occurs in what are called lifestyle
communities such as the over-50 retirement communities that have sprung up across the
country, gay communities found in urban areas, and the student-centered communities
that group up around colleges and universities. Quite often in these kinds of commu-
nities individual interests and the short-term view predominates giving rise to a sense
of isolation, fragmentation, and loss of identity. Postmodern concepts of community
will seek to replace the concept of isolated, individuals-in-aggregates with the idea of
persons-in-the-community .
In short, in postmodern communities, the community as a whole takes on the responsi-
bility for its members, and the members take on a responsibility for the community. Part
of this responsibility includes a respect for the diverse individuality of the members of the
community. In this way a balance can be struck that provides an answer to the problem of
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