Every Inch Counts
Are You Living in Your Own Private Manhattan?
“If New York City were an isolated entity without connections to other parts of the country, it would collapse – in less than a week…[Manhattan] is not, by itself, a sustainable ecosystem.”
This quote from Doug Tallamy’s book, Bringing Nature Home, hit me hard. Tallamy’s point is that, cloaked as it is in concrete, asphalt and steel, Manhattan generates almost no ecosystem functions. It is not, to any appreciable degree, producing oxygen, cleaning water, controlling flooding and pests, photosynthesizing, pollinating crops, moderating severe weather, building and protecting topsoil or removing atmospheric carbon. Yet the 1.7 million people who reside in the island’s skyscrapers depend for their very lives on those exact services.
So where does Manhattan get those ecosystem services it needs? It essentially imports them from other parts of the state and country where the ecosystems haven’t yet collapsed.
I <3 NY, don’t get me wrong. It’s an endlessly inspiring and energizing place. And I don’t blame Manhattanites for their predicament. At this point they have little choice about the largely nature-free circumstances in which they live.
But it was something of an eye-opener for me to realize that Manhattan is utterly reliant on the healthy functioning and excess capacity of natural systems that are beyond its borders and largely beyond its control. It made me realize how vulnerable the borough really is.
Of course, Manhattan is not alone here. It’s just a particularly illuminating case study of a much larger global problem: namely, that we’re on an unsustainable trajectory of humans consuming more ecosystem services than nature can produce.
And in truth, it’s not just the cities that are problematic. Urban and suburban areas take up only 3.6 percent of the land in the contiguous 48 U.S. states, even though that’s where 80 percent of Americans live. Agriculture, on the other hand, takes up about 20 percent of the country, and an additional 33 percent is used for grazing livestock. Next time you’re hankering for a burger, consider that, between grazing and growing feed, 41 percent of the acreage in the lower 48 revolves around livestock, primarily cows. The replacement of natural areas by urban sprawl, croplands and pastures comes at the direct expense of biodiversity and ecosystem functions. And lest you hoped our wonderful national parks could save us, bear in mind that they make up only 14 percent of the total US land area.
Back to the idea that an isolated Manhattan would collapse within a week, though. It just brings home how critical it is to ensure that any land that’s not covered in concrete or cows is ecologically productive. Yet for all the environmental good we’re doing, those of us who live in houses or apartments surrounded by turfgrass and other non-native or invasive plants might as well be living in our own private Manhattans.* We’re really just outsourcing our life-support systems to other places and blithely hoping for the best.
The residents of really densely-populated, high-rise metropolises may be stuck with their situation, but those of us who have yards, balconies, stoops or even roofs are not. We have the opportunity – dare I say the responsibility? – to make sure any bits of soil over which we have influence are producing as much in services as we’re consuming. Better yet, let’s produce more than we consume.
If you have a little patch of land, or even a simple flowerpot, it’s not actually that hard. It’s a matter of planting native species, which will in turn support native habitats, promote biodiversity, and generate ecosystem functions. Doug Tallamy would call these places “homegrown national parks.”
As we make our spring gardening plans, let’s think about how we can offset some of the ecological wastelands that surround us. If you have a choice, aim for a homegrown national park rather than a private Manhattan. Every inch counts.
*Who remembers this gem from the B-52s?!
Resources
Iman Gosh, “Mapped: The Anatomy of Land Use in America,” Visual Capitalist, January 14, 2020.
“The U.S. Has Nearly 1.9 Billion Acres of Land. Here’s How It’s Used.” All Things Considered, National Public Radio, July 26, 2019.
Dave Merrill and Lauren Leatherby, “Here’s How America Uses Its Land,” Bloomberg, July 31, 2018.
Sundra Chelsea Atitwa, “What Percentage of the United States Is Protected Land?” World Atlas, December 6, 2018.
HIGH5! Well said. This info should catch like a wild grass fire. What a better world we could make if we connected our property by air as pollinator highways drawn from the thoughtful work we could do on the land we steward. So much good to reflect on in your post.