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> Agreed, but I don’t think there’s a realistic world where you have dense urban cores immediately juxtaposed with forest, especially considering how m any peop

> Agreed, but I don’t think there’s a realistic world where you have dense urban cores immediately juxtaposed with forest, especially considering how m any people are advocating for accelerated urbanization (moving people from suburbs and rural areas). At this point, maybe, because we’ve leveled any forests immediately around cities for suburban sprawl. But in the general case, if you’re starting fresh, urbanization makes it easier to leave the forest intact than if you sprawl out with low-density housing. > Sure, that park looks pretty legit. I think that’s with pretty exceptional or those photos aren’t telling the full story—my city has similar parks but behind the photographer would be rows of houses and the city would still be loud around us. I’ve hiked there a bunch and the photos are representative. If you’re near the edge of the park you’ll be able to hear cars as there are unfortunately large roadways nearby, but for the most part the trees tend to block out the noise.

throwaway894345 4y ago
> At this point, maybe, because we’ve leveled any forests immediately around cities for suburban sprawl. In the general case, we've leveled forests for food production--originally Native American tribes cleared forest to help them harvest bison en masse and then the descendants of Europeans cleared forest for agriculture. Cities and suburbs eventually came to displace land that was previously used for agriculture. But in the general case, if you’re starting fresh, urbanization makes it easier to leave the forest intact than if you sprawl out with low-density housing. > But in the general case, if you’re starting fresh, urbanization makes it easier to leave the forest intact than if you sprawl out with low-density housing. I mean, this is true in a contrived sense--if you plan your city from its initial settlement and create strict nature preserves then yeah, you can probably have your urban/natural juxtaposition, but that's pretty hard to achieve in a democratic context (good luck keeping this a popular priority over the decades and centuries). Your best bet is starting next to a federally-protected forest so residents of your city can't easily decide they want to expand into it. In whatever case, "starting fresh" is the least realistic option.

throwaway894345 4y ago

> At this point, maybe, because we’ve leveled any forests immediately around cities for suburban sprawl. In the general case, we've leveled forests for food production--originally Native American tribes cleared forest to help them harvest bison en masse and then the descendants of Europeans cleared forest for agriculture. Cities and suburbs eventually came to displace land that was previously used for agriculture. But in the general case, if you’re starting fresh, urbanization makes it easier to leave the forest intact than if you sprawl out with low-density housing. > But in the general case, if you’re starting fresh, urbanization makes it easier to leave the forest intact than if you sprawl out with low-density housing. I mean, this is true in a contrived sense--if you plan your city from its initial settlement and create strict nature preserves then yeah, you can probably have your urban/natural juxtaposition, but that's pretty hard to achieve in a democratic context (good luck keeping this a popular priority over the decades and centuries). Your best bet is starting next to a federally-protected forest so residents of your city can't easily decide they want to expand into it. In whatever case, "starting fresh" is the least realistic option.