Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
parks or its less overtly natural spaces engages in a conscious or subcon-
scious process of “inventing nature” that changes from day to day and sea-
son to season. Each person continually reconceptualizes his or her own
surroundings and relationships to nature in response to a variety of influ-
ences that range from the immediate physical environment to the vagaries
of the weather and the actions of other individuals sharing the same social
space. This individual invention of nature is further tempered by personal
predisposition, shifting moods, and the broader social climate created by a
multitude of complex and often competing cultural influences.
1
Planners, landscape architects, engineers, and ecologists obviously engage
in a process of mentally inventing Washington's nature before they commit
their ideas to paper, but so do families planning Sunday outings, individual
strollers, residents or former visitors ruminating on their real or imagined
experiences, or even people who never plan to set foot in the city but men-
tally formulate their impressions of what Washington's nature is, was, or
should be.Though intensely personal, most of these individual perceptions
can be related to broader social experiences and cultural trends.
Despite certain peculiarities stemming from its iconic status as the
nation's capital,Washington is fairly typical of the broader American expe-
rience and can serve as an illustration of evolving cultural conceptions
of nature in general and urban nature in particular. From a biological
perspective, the complex of flora, fauna, and other physical phenomena
we conventionally categorize as nature may have remained relatively
unchanged throughout human history, but the meaning and idealized forms
of nature have been anything but constant. Nature has been seen as a source
of fear and danger and as a fount of inspiration and enlightenment. It has
been presented as a positive moral, cultural, and political influence and as
an invitation to anarchy and indolence. The natural environment has been
viewed as an economic resource destined for economic exploitation and as
a biological entity deserving of protection for scientific reasons, for spiritual
purposes, or in its own non-anthropocentric right. Tracing the changing
nature of nature in Washington offers a fresh perspective on the develop-
ment of the nation's capital while expanding the boundaries of the term
“inventing for the environment” to encompass a broad range of cultural
processes and physical activities.
2
The cultural invention of nature in the
national capital region began long before 1790, when the federal city was
established.The fertile soils, mild climate, and abundance of fish, game, and
waterfowl made the area attractive to a succession of Native American
