Blog #1: Urban Ecological Citizenship

March 3, 2011, 08:10
Filed under: Civic Environmentalism

(Photo Courtesy of the Center for American Progress)

Response to Andrew Light’s Urban Ecological Citizenship Article

1. Two places that we enjoy in the city are Rittenhouse Square and Penny Pack Park. We enjoy both of these places because both a quite green in the middle of a hustling and bustling city. Rittenhouse is a more open area that is small but pulls people from every walk of life in for a few moments of quiet and peace of nature. Penny Pack is more of a huge forest in the middle of urban areas. One can get so deep into Penny Pack that no streets are visible or in ear shot. This creates the serenity of getting away from the city entirely. Both are enjoyed because they are so easily accessible. Rittenhouse’s supporters The Friends of Rittenhouse are facing financial problems and are looking for new ways to support the financial needs of the square.

2. We would like to participate in civic environmentalism. Caring for parks helps a community become involved, and it also helps with energy consumption. Preserving the parks means keeping free space for people to socialize and convene. Taking care of parks helps to create a more aesthetic feel for the city making it more appealing to tourists. It also promotes involvement in an urban community which is usually a struggle. If people enjoy something and they feel like they have a piece of it with them they are more likely to want to take care of it.

3. The condition of ones urban environment directly affects them, so in turn the rights and responsibility of the environment should be given more to the citizens of said environment. “Adding an environmental component to a classical republican model of citizenship becomes then the conceptual basis for a claim that the “larger community” to which the ethical citizen has obligations, is inclusive of the city as space, place, and environment, as well as people. (Light, 51)” Citizens already has an obligation to the city they live in and adding the environmental aspect would be beneficial to not that space but the people that live in it. It also gives citizens a larger outlook on their role and impact concerning the environment outside of their city.

4. In the reading, Andrew Light greatly promotes the idea of hands-on ecological citizenship. He discusses how citizenship is not meant only for the betterment of the area in which individuals live, but for the betterment of their quality of life as well, which is a motivating factor for this idea of ecological citizenship. Light explains how ecologically based endeavors will succeed if there is more participation from those in the community it is affecting. He states, “The argument then is more simply that all levels of regulation are better when they are mediated through a robust form of local participation, be it in decisions over schools or over other public amenities such as environmental regulation” (Light 58). I completely agree with his urging of inhabitants of all communities to make an effort in their own way to improve the ecological and environmental conditions in their towns and cities.

5. They create an opportunity for people to come together for a great purpose. Not only are they preserving the city, creating an environment that people can socialize at, but they are helping with the suffering economy as well.

Written By: J. Shotwell, C. Demuth, S. Irwin, & P. O’Leary

Posted By: J. Shotwell