Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
In visiting vast, primitive, far-of woods one naturally expects to
i nd something rare and precious, or something entirely new, but
it commonly happens that one is disappointed. . . . The birds for
the most part prefer the vicinity of settlements and clearings, and
it was at such places that I saw the greatest number and variety.
—John Burroughs,
Wak e -Robin
(187 1)
I'm not really a city person. I spent my formative years in small towns and
faraway places in Kansas, Montana, Arizona, and Maine. As a research biolo-
gist, I spend a lot of time in the woods watching birds, not people. So when in
1997 I took a job in Seattle, Washington, I was quickly out of my element. My
family settled outside the city, where trees cushion the view and neighbor-
hoods include extensive natural greenways. But as I commuted to the city
each day, I was struck by the extreme ways we engineer cities and how this
engineering alters fundamental ecological processes. Just consider water. In a
forest, rain is intercepted by leaves or soaks into the ground as it slowly carries
important nutrients downhill to lakes, rivers, and the sea. When buildings
and pavement replace forest, rain rushes to rivers in l ash l oods loaded with
