Politics of Urban Runoff: Building Relations through Active Citizenship - Politics of Urban Runoff: Nature, Technology, and the Sustainable City - page 177

process of exposure opens the imagination of residents to the hybrid rela-
tions that constitute the city. However, it comes at a cost; while exposing
the messy relations between human and nonhumans along the creek, the
Longfellow Creek Legacy Trail has had unintended impacts on the biologi-
cal and physical health of the creek. An SPU staff member notes, “In some
places, the trail is right beside the creek and the stormwater runoff from
the trail goes right into the water. In other places, riparian zones that are
crucial for salmon habitat have been removed to make way for the trail.
And there are great opportunities to daylight the creek and link it to the
existing fl oodplain but the trail goes right between them.” 86
There is a shared understanding by the neighborhood residents that
they are not trying to return the creek to predevelopment conditions but
rather to use the creek as a cognitive and physical connection between
residents and their surroundings. A Seattle Parks and Recreation Depart-
ment staff member sums up this position, stating that “common sense
guides restoration [projects]. In an urban area, restoration is going to be
a balance between the built environment and what you can achieve to
create connection and bring back the [preexisting] processes.” 87 There
is an emphasis on process rather than product, and activities of negotia-
tion, mutual learning, consultation, and hands-on work by community
members. A community member active in the trail planning deliberations
states, “I was impressed when we held . . . community meetings that there
were at least 50 people at each meeting. That was a good indication [that
the community was interested in the project]. Two or three people at each
meeting would be really upset, but 99 percent of the people there were
really excited and wanted to see it happen.” 88 Overall, this approach leads
to the realization that the work on Longfellow Creek is as much social as
it is biological. 89 There is clearly an interest in restoring biological habitat,
but this interest is balanced with the experiential aspects of the trail. Urban
water is interpreted here as an opportunity to reveal and experience nature
while building community.
Many urban drainage activities in Seattle focus on neighborhood creek
projects in residential areas because of the visual and physical proximity
to urban inhabitants. However, urban water activities also occur in highly
urbanized areas where the original waterways are no longer present. These
projects often piggyback on another form of urban nature: community
gardens. Seattle's P-Patch or community gardening program started in the
early 1970s as part of the back-to-the-land movement. 90 In the interven-
ing decades, the program has grown to include over fi fty gardens serving
seventy neighborhoods and six thousand urban gardeners on twenty-three