描述
Amidst city concrete and suburban sprawl, Americans are discovering newways to reconnect with the natural world. From community gardens in New York’s LowerEast Side to homeless shelters in California, the search for a more sustainablefuture has led grassroots groups to a profound reconnection to place and to thenatural world.Studies of the health consequences of renewing a connection withnature support the urgency of providing green surroundings as cities expand and themajority of the earth’s population lives in urban areas. Medical research results, from groups as diverse as healthy volunteers, surgery patients, and heart attacksurvivors, suggest that contact with nature may improve health and well-being.Engagement with nearby natural places also provides restoration from mental fatigueand support for more resilient and cooperative behavior. Aspects of strongercommunity life are fostered by access to nature, suggesting that there aresignificant social as well as physical and psychological benefits from connectionwith the natural world.This volume brings together research from anthropology, sociology, public health, psychology, and landscape architecture to highlight howawareness of locale and a meaningful renewal of attachment with the earth areconnected to delight in learning about nature as well as to civic action and newforms of community. Community garden coalitions, organic market advocates, andgreenspace preservationists resist the power of global forces, enacting visions of adifferent future. Their creative efforts tell a story of a constructive and dynamicmiddle ground between private plots and public action, between human health andecosystem health, between individual attachment and urban sustainability.
