Urban Jungle: Prečo mestá potrebujú na prežitie divokú a nespútanú prírodu

by Ben Wilson, Martina Jurinová (Translator)

Parížski trhovníci, Nemci žijúci v stredovekých mestách obklopených lesmi, Aztékovia v plávajúcom meste Tenochtitlán a mnohí ďalší sú dôkazom, že medzi ľuďmi a prírodou v minulosti existovalo silné puto. Postupne sa však stratilo, keď sa voda do miest začala privádzať potrubiami a potraviny dovážať zo vzdialených kútov sveta. Ben Wilson v knihe Urban Jungle hľadá v napätom vzťahu medzi prírodou a mestom kľúč, ktorý umožní planéte Zem prežiť v období klimatickej krízy.

Dnes sú mestské oblasti najrýchlejšie rastúcim biotopom na Zemi a konečne sme pochopili, že ľudské inžinierstvo nestačí na to, aby nás ochránilo pred extrémnymi výkyvmi počasia.
Aby mestá odolali klimatickej núdzi, nevyhnutne potrebujú ochranu, ktorú ľuďom poskytujú koruny stromov, rieky, obnovené mokrade a revitalizované prílivové močiare. Ak si skutočne chcete predstaviť mesto budúcnosti, predstavte si menej smart technológií, lietajúcich áut či mrakodrapov a viac kaskádovito rozmiestnenej zelene, strešných fariem, nedbalých mestských lúk či hustých lesov.

Kniha Urban Jungle nás zavedie na miesta, kde prebiehajú snahy o znovuzrodenie mesta: do Los Angeles, kde rieka pochovaná v betóne konečne opäť vychádza na povrch, do New Yorku, kde sa odporná skládka odpadu mení na rozsiahlu trávnatú rezerváciu, či do Amsterdamu – cirkulárneho mesta, ktoré neprodukuje odpad a vyrába si vlastnú energiu.

Urban Jungle ponúka nielen pohľad do histórie prírody v mestách, ale aj úžasnú víziu zelených metropol budúcnosti.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Urbanism, History, Science, Urban Planning, Environment

368 pages, Paperback

First published March 7, 2023

About the author

Ben Wilson was born in 1980 and educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a first class degree and an MPhil in history. He is the author of three books and was named in 2005 as one of Waterstone's 25 Authors of the Future. He has consulted on scripts for various TV history progammes, and has himself appeared on TV and on national radio in the UK, Ireland and the USA. He has given lectures at Tate Britain, Cambridge and Zagreb and at book festivals in the UK including the Edinburgh Festival. He has written for the Spectator, Literary Review, Independent on Sunday, Scotsman, Men's Health, Guardian Online and GQ.
He is the author of five previous books, including What Price Liberty?, for which he received the Somerset Maugham Award, and the Sunday Times bestseller Empire of the Deep: The Rise and Fall of the British Navy.

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

Good read about how much nature there is in the city. Lots of interesting historical details about land management, nature, and the rewilding of city areas (which people have been trying to do a lot longer than you think) plus the unexpected natural diversity in cities. There is an incredible amount of green space to be clawed back with roof gardens and brownfield and edgeland (railway sidings and the like), and it can make a genuine environmental imact as well as protect against flooding.

Also very interesting on the kind of nature you get: rosebay willowherb was a rare Scottish plant a hundred years ago, but it likes crappy disturbed land so it's all over London now (it was the 'bombweed' of the Blitz). Foxes are literally evolving to be less aggressive and bolder, which is changing their jaw shape (I can attest to all this, they're all over my North London garden in broad daylight).

Basically a book that makes you both aware of how badly we've trashed the planet and hopeful that we can still pull it back in some form, if not the original one. Very interesting.

[ancientreader]

Got this out of the library *instantly* on the basis of KJC's review. I note with pride that we have already let our minute backyard go wild, though what now reads as environmental virtue started as indifference to gardening.

[Byram · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this book as it took us through the ecosystems of cities old and new, deliberate and accidental, and how our relationship with nature has changed as we seek to control an uncontrollable world. There is both messages of hope about adaptation and integration, as well as warning and call to action in telling us to be careful about how divorced from wildlife and plant life we have already become. It made me look into my own city in a new way, as well as urban planning, and inspired to think about becoming a Master Naturalist in my own city some day. Would recommend for anybody who lives in a city and seeks connection to the environment

[Dr. des. Siobhán · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant and very accessible book about our relationship with nature in cities, climate change and what we can do to adapt. I learned a lot and had lots of "DIDYOUKNOW" moments with my partner, which is a good sign. It's informative and fun, so 4.5 Stars

[Kevin Gielen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gave me some new insights. A positive message for the bleak times we live in. Would certainly advise Bart De Wever the mayor of Antwerp to read this book.

[Zara Chauvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved it so so so much!!!
Im studying urban ecology so this is very much my jam.
Full of amazing present and historical case studies and information but written in a very chill plain-language fun way, almost novel vibes.
I marked it down one point because it doesn’t consider politics and sociology that much which is so important, and it also is pretty distinct in its nature:culture binary, as much as it promotes integration of “wilderness” / nature and human civilisation and cities, it never seems to quite take it to the level of human-as-animal-in-habitat which I believe in.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating! The second half of the book was my favorite, especially the parts about closed loop nutrient cycling and the short time frame evolutionary changes seen in organisms that make their homes in urban areas.

[Kiziah · Rating 3 out of 5]

(2.5 stars, audiobook)

Ugh, just too many examples and not enough point-making. I don’t know if I would’ve gotten through this if it wasn’t an audiobook. This is an interesting topic and I think this book could’ve been a lot more engaging if presented better.

[Rick B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Filled with fascinating information. This book is a very interesting read. Strongly recommend.

[Lola May · Rating 5 out of 5]

God I love cities god I love nature. Many plans in place

[Twirlsquirrel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of this book explored some very interesting concepts but overall felt too focused on tangential details, like the names of people who did things and the dates they did them. I read books like this for the larger conceptual pictures they paint and the patterns they can identify in our world, so I dread such factoid lists. They're also always biased toward wealthy literate people in wealthy literate nations, which just gets sillier with age and repetition. Let's move past the age of pretending these people weren't for the most part stealing their fame from subordinates, assistants, slaves, colonial subjects, illiterate sources, and colleagues who lacked the parasitic capitalist instinct.

Rather than a story of facts, I'd much rather hear a story about how those facts are connected, why their connections are important, and what the author thinks we should do with this knowledge. Thankfully the book does much more of this as it progresses, with its primary focus switching more toward complex conceptual ideas and away from rote history lists in paragraph form. This brought the book from 3 stars in the first half to 4 in the second.

The rating dropped back down to 3 stars when the author began promoting better capitalist practices as the solutions to our ecological crises. To be fair, the author was premising his capitalist aspirations on Singapore rather than, say, the U.S. - a significant improvement in many ways, at least from an ecological perspective. However, technological utopianism in a capitalist framework cannot address our currently ongoing existential emergencies. At a fundamental level capitalism is premised on infinite growth and expansion, and is therefore incompatible with sustainable management of space, land, life, health, pollution, cancer rates, mass extinctions, ecological collapse, rapid climate change, or anything else capitalists wish to pretend is either a disposable resource or an ignorable externality.

I'm not even sure this is purely an ideological commitment on the author's part. A few passages make me think he possibly hasn't yet recognized the relevant problems inherent in capitalism. For example, at one point he discusses the massive level of waste and pollution in the textile industry and uses that as a starting point to talk about the importance of recycling, reusing, and so on. It never even seems to occur to him to ask why is so much unnecessary shit being made in the first place? Nor does he ask why is necessary shit being thrown in the garbage instead of given to the people who need it?

The absence of these questions is deeply unfortunate, because once you ask them it becomes much easier to realize that the fundamental logic of capitalism itself is the critical flaw here. A similar critique holds for the related concept of colonialism, which in the modern age drives capitalism and vice versa. (Colonialism, like capitalism, necessitates the domination of large ecologies by a small number of people.)

That capitalism and colonialism are incompatible with a healthy world is an irreplaceably important realization for everyone concerned about the sustainability not only of human life but also that of the greater ecology we inhabit. This book fails to lead the reader or itself to that realization, which considering the subject matter is a critical flaw in a work that is otherwise pretty good, if also quite unevenly structured.

That said, I do think this book should be read by city managers everywhere. It'll lead to better things than what most city dwellers are currently getting.

In the end, my rating climbs back to a four because of the good writing paired with the sheer amount of fascinating information in this book that keeps me thinking about it long after finishing. Some of my favorite sections of the book included: A fascinating exploration of the history of Britain's enclosures from an ecological perspective (while sadly failing to mention that this is widely considered one of the primary initial steps in the creation of capitalism); the deep evolutionary origins of various plants that eventually came to colonize specific built environments (such as glacial origins that resemble crumbling city surfaces where "weeds" grow well); and the ecological histories of river trade, sewers, delta cities, and especially New York City (all standout sections, even if they mostly failed to explicitly address the obvious capitalist and colonial imperatives at work in those histories).

[Ivona Urbanova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vynikajúca téma. Pre mňa ako environmentalistku až také potešenie. Množstvo zaujímavých mikro príbehov o prírodných biotopoch v mestskom prostredí - o tom ako ich potrebujeme viac než si myslíme.
Ale ten infantilizovaný štýl a jazyk... keby to bolo občas na ozvláštnenie, prosím, ale takto to pôsobí nasilu romantizujúco, menej seriózne a po čase únavne. Preto 1* dole

[Peter Baran · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked Metropolis by Ben Wilson which I thought was an open-minded and eclectic bounce between history, geography, and futurology. Urban Jungle, a book about cities and nature, has a similar tone but feels very much like an addendum. The big theme of biodiversity within cities could have been another chapter in Metropolis, and so while this is more detailed than that would be, a chapter of plants, a chapter on animals, and a chapter on urban farming seem like overkill.

Much like in Metropolis, Wilson wants to dispel the idea that cities are bad. Here that cities are bad for nature. He admits pollution and the destruction of natural habitats but spends much of the time marveling at how nature endures through it. Trees that grow off of brick walls, the weeds that spring from the cracks. Biodiversity numbers are often to be queried, there might be 300 separate species on a bomb site but how sustainable are those species in the long run (not least if the city then paves them over), but he does a good job of cataloging cities which have accepted this transient form of nature. He is also good at showing how rewilding is actually protection from some of the harsher effects of climate change, and the cities that have particularly destroyed their local environments are in more trouble.

Its a good, swift read, and as per Metropolis full of excellent tidbits of information, and namedrops the places you know (so the wilds of Hackney and the River Lea Wetlands centre get a tick, as does the canopies of Shanghai's French Concession). It does feel like it is not a subject that close to his heart though, he loves cities, and he loves nature in cities but only in as much as they are part of the cities. There is notably no manifesto here, no real suggestions of what cities should do (he was equally unprescriptive in Metropolis though it felt the weight of case studies there suggested pathways). Partially this is because his theme is that nature will out whatever we do. Whether we will out with it is the question he seems surprisingly ambivalent on.

[Annarella · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the perfect book If you are a gardener aor interested in how the nature is reconquering spaces in our cities.
There's a lot to do, a lot of food for thought and the author did an excellent job in keeping the attention alive.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wilson argues that for vast stretches of history cities were more closely linked to their rural surroundings, relying on the plants and animals of nearby farms to sustain and feed the population. Comparing the market farmers of Paris, Germans in medieval forest cities, night-soil sellers of Edo and Peking, or the Aztecs in the floating city of Tenochtitlan, Wilson traces these cities essential bond with nature. Today, urban areas are the fastest-growing habitat on Earth and modern humans are returning to a closer relationship with the wild.

Why I started this book: Look at that gorgeous cover! Plus, I wanted to learn more about urban solutions to climate change and happiness.

Why I finished it: Great ideas, rough listening experience. This is my second Wilson audio, and I struggled both times with his organization, flow and listening experience. I'm going to have to read his next books, because I do like the research that he's producing. Very interesting to learn that cities are more biodiverse than countrysides because they have a greater selection of plants, animals and insects. Fun to learn about Asian sanitation practices in comparison to European cities before and after the creation of modern plumbing. Very heartening to learn that urban bees are thriving because of the huge varieties of garden plants and the lack of large scale pesticide use. I want to plant more city trees to combat the city heat signatures, to protect costal areas, lower pollution levels and to increase mental health.

Buddy read: The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative which argues that city dwellers need more time in nature away from cities. Or Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains which talks about how humans define animals (and plants) based on their usefulness to humans and not on their place in the greater ecosystem.

[Angie Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the premise of this thoughtful book and enjoyed the references to the many places I’ve visited including the parks in London. Much of the book was pretty technical and didn’t hold my attention but the conclusion is especially great.

No number of trees, clean rivers and ecological parks will reverse the looming climate disaster. The concept of nature in the city has become increasingly important but more important is the question of the city in nature. A current day city needs to be able to react to unpredictable environmental shocks.
- more
Circular-

When cities ceased to be self-sufficient in terms of energy, fuel, food, water and raw materials they placed heavier burdens on the planet. The Dutch capital has an ambitious plan to reimagine capitalism in the 21st century. Striking a balance with nature, learning to live with water and flooding and functioning more like a natural ecosystem. At the heart of the problem is energy so Amsterdam will soon produce 80% of its energy with nearby solar arrays wind farms and biomass generators. Cadiz also owns its own power company. Cities possess greater power to control their flows of resources and implement large scale changes to their needs and that of the central government. Amsterdam wants to halve consumption of
Raw materials and become fully circular which requires recycling, reusing, repairing, and repurposing on large scale. Amsterdam is prioritizing the recycling of textile fibers into high quality clothing and by sponsoring repair services.

Cars take up 40% of public space- remove them!!!
And suddenly you have more rooms for hollyhocks and trees! Part of Amsterdams plan is to create a city for people, plants and trees. Car dependency wreaked havoc on cities. Weaning ourselves off of our private vehicle will not be easy.

Density is good for the environment too- when we stop spreading out we leave more land for nature. We also burn less gas: we walk, cycle, and take public transit more. We are weaving wildlife into urban fabric and are discovering urban ecosystems have a vital role to play in planetary health.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book and hearing some of the history of attempts to make nature and cities beautiful together. At times it certainly could have been edited for conciseness. I also would have loved more discussion of the Asian and any African continent traditions (he did discuss modern day Singapore though) as much was focused on Western cities.

I liked:
1. The history of ancient gardens.
2. The British history of gardens.
3. The discussion of the suburbs (hint: not all bad things)
4. The discussion of the benefits of a variety of plant life
5. Hearing how humans have organized to save common parks in cities
6. The discussion of weeds. I told my dad who grew up on a farm about how we need not view weeds as bad things, how they can set the stage for nature in cities, can have their own beauty and about their psychological symbolism being associated with poverty and decay despite their benefits. He aptly pointed out that doesn't exactly apply on a farm though. Touche.
7. Thinking about balancing the burdens of nature maintenance or fighting invasive species and figuring out when less is more.

At any rate, I would love for us as a society to engage more with planting a variety of grasses, bushes and trees in our cities and communities. It's always been hard for me to look around at concrete. After reading this book it's now also hard for me to look at large simple grass lawns too and not feel a sense of loss.

I hope Ben Wilson keeps up his work researching cities and cross-pollinating the best ideas to make our planet and living spaces more beautiful.

[Rudi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Een mooi boek waarbij ik denk dat het mss nog mooier zou zijn als luisterboek ,
Van steden weet ik niet zoveel net als geschiedenis, het boek deed me wel sommige dingen afvragen, bij de Maya’s en andere (zuid en noord ?) Amerikaanse stammen die het paard niet kenden was er waarschijnlijk veel transport en beweging via rivieren, moesten er nooit geen paardachtige organismen geweest zijn zouden er dan transporten en waterpaden zijn ? Ik kan ook moeilijk visueel voorstellen hoe Londen , Mumbai, New York enz eruit zagen in Bv 1670, 1770, 1870 , ... nu dus kan ik me moeilijk voorstellen hoe deze de afgelopen 300 jaar veranderd zijn mss kan een computersimulatie mij daar wat bij helpen ( ik heb er niet echt een idee van , grote, wegen , gebouwen enz door verschillende series kan ik me beter het oude Rome voorstellen )
Het hoofdstuk over voedsel verbouwen in en rond de steden met de .. merde ( non de jus : ) was ook wat curieus, hoe er de laatste 100 jaar meer .. humus in de zee verdwijnt ( bestaan er zeekevers? )
Mss mocht er nog een hoofdstuk over wegen en paden bij om 5 sterren te halen er is veel beweging in en tussen de steden en ik vraag me af hoeveel dat er Bv 300 jaar geleden waren hoe dit geëvolueerd is en wat voor toekomstplannen er daar voor zijn , een boek over stad structuur zonder wegen en auto’s heeft een hoofdstuk tekort , ...mss een boek zoeken over de geschiedenis van auto(wegen )

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A city is an ecosystem, part and parcel of a larger ecosystem. A city's boundaries are porous, exchanging energy, water, nutrients, and life with its surroundings. A city's interior hosts a number of diverse habitats and microclimates and is protected (by humans) from extreme events such as droughts and floods. And cities as we know them -- as I've known them my entire life -- are also hard, gridded, and isolated from wilderness.

In Urban Jungle, Wilson explains how these design patterns can endanger the residents of cities as city populations grow with climate change and resource scarcity risks. He presents many examples through history that show how, across the world, mismanagement of water, waste, and wildlife has caused much suffering and warns us that history does repeat itself. However, he also presents a number of alternative design patterns and new research into biodiversity, adaptation, and urban design that show how we may sustainably coexist with nature, rather than trying to control it.

I thought that Wilson did a good job of explaining these topics without being preachy, though I also think he could have focused on a number of recurring themes such as resilience, circularity, and evolution. I'm not complaining, though; the bibliography is highly valuable! Overall, I think that this book is a great resource to change your perspective on cities and to learn more about a wide breadth of related topics.

[Valerie Madsen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm generally very interested in this topic, but the book itself gives me whiplash by jumping, without harmony, between seemingly random and specific examples.

For example, in less than three pages alone, the book discussed Leipzig, Nurnberg, London, NYC, then jumped back to London. Yet, what was discussed felt disjointed, and like I was being information dumped facts with no conclusion. As you continue reading, you continually revisit these places again and again within the same chapter. I understand the chapters are broken up by theme, not by place, but unifying the information that pertains to each place within the chapter would be better and would allow the reader to fully understand the ecosystem that is each city, as the author so wished to convey.

Furthermore, the presented examples themselves feel like an amalgamation of quotes, specific cultural references, and meandering, where the author spends too much time writing whimsical and lyrical sentences, while neglecting something more substantive to accompany them.

In summary, I would have preferred a concentration on one area at a time, and an analysis of why each example matters or why it connects to the others. It feels as if the author authenticates his convictions with a volume of brief, disjunct stories and examples rather than an actual synthesis of them. As a result, I couldn't get very far into this book.

[Jolie Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting book!
It really made me think about nature in the city in ways I never had before, and the narrative tone was engaging and accessible. I did have to read it for class, which always puts a slightly dreadful tinge on a book, but it was cool to learn about the history of parks and urbanization, how nothing is truly native in a city because cities are novel ecosystems, and how since we've so drastically changed the environment, we need new solutions.
One example I thought was very intriguing was how everyone seems really into "native plants" and replacing pretty plants with native ones, which of course has merit because most city nature was purely for aesthetics. But the book goes on to say that we've changed the environment so much that native plants may not be so successful anymore, and that we might need tougher species. Of course native plants are great, I just thought that was an interesting perspective.
Also he talks about how parks are great as public green spaces, but are deceptive because they have incredibly limited biodiversity and represent man's desire to dominate nature, which is a whole other thing. Really cool stuff.
Overall, a bit of a slow read, but worth it.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

As much as we have tried to take the nature out of cities, it adapts and dwells among us, though perhaps in forms that we don't like so much, such as rats, pigeons, crows, squirrels, cockroaches, ants and weeds. We try to have nature in limited and managed forms, with carefully designed urban landscapes, lawns, parks and gardens. Sometimes it works and is beautiful and life affirming. But wild nature always impinges and strives to reclaim its place. And when we have natural disasters, such as floods and fires, we often find that the damage is multiplied by our cleansed, hardscaped unnatural environment. So there is a movement to restore urban rivers and wetlands, to increase the green areas of cities with woodlands and meadows and to let them take on the natural form of the local environment. It turns out that there are many advantages to this approach to urban design beyond the mere aesthetic. Of course you can never fully build back the thing that was destroyed, and often you wouldn't want to do so anyway. Swamps were not drained solely to create more land for real estate developers. There were also bona fide health concerns. We'd all like to have our cake and eat it too. That will never be completely possible, but maybe we can come close to that if we try.

[jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked Ben Wilson's last book Metropolis, and was looking forward to reading this one. At first "Urban Jungle" appeared quite daunting as it looked at the history of nature in our cities whilst including, among many topics, climate change, pandemics and their impact on our surroundings. Whilst these subjects are enormous in scope it was the small details that stood out as he gave us an unusual insight into the everyday things we take for granted in our cities. A great reminder to us all to reflect more on what we see around us and nuggets of facts to recount to friends and family.
As with Metropolis the structure of the book allowed me to handle the considerable depth of content into manageable parts whilst maintaining a consistent thread. Overall a fascinating and timely read as we all deal with environmental pressures both locally and potentially catastrophic ones globally.
Thank you to netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating foray into the relationship, however fraught, between urban areas and nature.

The author interweaves both history and modern practice as he considers various aspects of the urban/nature relationship: the dramatic expansion of the wildland-urban interface as urbanity spreads; plants and urban areas; animals and urban areas; wetlands and water flows and urban areas; invasive plants and animals; and the prospect of greater greening of cities.

The author demonstrates how cities already are biodiversity hotspots and have the significant potential to develop into greater such places if cities are better engineered to be open and receptive to flora and fauna. He points out the health benefits of doing so and how cities historically have been much more interconnected with nature, wild and domesticated.

Very interesting and insightful and worth considering.

**--galley received as part of early review program

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Urban Jungle by Ben Wilson and both loved it and, at times, found it frustrating. I disliked the constant jumps between times and places - it could be exhausting. For example, in the chapter Crack in Concrete, we’re in Germany in 1945, and a page later we’re suddenly in 1660s London. Tracking those leaps took some effort.

But the other side of the book is brilliant: an enormous wealth of information - places, eras, species. Wilson explores urban landscapes across the world, with a strong focus on London, plenty about Berlin, some vivid descriptions of Indian cities, and bits on New York and elsewhere. The detail about London’s green spaces over the past few centuries, especially communal areas in North East London, completely drew me in. Perhaps that’s because I live here and know many of those places.

After reading, I even started identifying trees and shrubs in my neighbourhood, and learned a lot about how plants have travelled across the globe. It also inspired me to visit the British Library’s Unearthed: The Power of Gardening exhibition - something I probably wouldn’t have done before reading the book.

A rich and engaging read. 4.5★

[Anne O'Connell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read and enjoyed Ben Wilson’s previous book, Metropolis, so felt sure I was in safe hands with Urban Jungle. And so it proved; what could have been a plain regurgitation of disturbing facts and figures is saved by his always clear, never dull writing. This time he set himself the task of writing about the ‘wild side of cities’, including the water, plants and animals that survive and sometimes thrive alongside the built environment. In setting out the reasons for changes in urban ecology, it provides a social history too.
One thing that surprised me was the sheer diversity of species in urban settings, even greater than in places we might think of as ‘nature’, but often at the expense of native species. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though: choosing those species that can thrive needs to be offset against preserving what has gone before.
It’s always a good sign when a description in a book sends me scurrying to an atlas or Google Street View. The sections on New York alone made me realise how little I know about its history, never mind its natural history and geology. And I don’t need much of an excuse to fancy visiting Paris but I now have a new place to interest me there – Nature Urbaine, the world’s largest rooftop farm.
At times it is pretty bleak reading about what has gone wrong and been lost but for each tale of impending doom there’s a happier one. Cities have been reclaimed by nature and subject to climate catastrophe before. Post-war Berlin and many places mid-pandemic have shown us the speed with which plants and animals can become established in undisturbed areas. There is room for hope. We might, with more knowledge, do better next time around.
I received a free proof copy of this book via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

[Robin Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Ben Wilson: reading his books has taught me more about urban life, past, present and future, than living in London and Liverpool, and enjoying an excellent education ever did. His skill lies in being able to present all the dry and dusty (and often depressing!) facts in a punchy, engrossing style. He makes it possible for me to share in his passion for his subject matter without expending any effort whatsoever.
This book is chock full of eye-opening detail about nature's ability to fight for survival amidst the man-made concrete jungles we have littered across the globe and the insects, birds and animals that now call our cities home.
Anyone looking for a bit of an academic fix about wildlife in our urban fortresses won't find a better book than this.

[Rita Walton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really interesting with a broad scope and a lot of information that was new to me - it gives an overview of nature in cities: how we've used water and waste and animals and plants throughout history in cities, and how we're using them now, and what's the best way to use them moving forward in this new climate. He makes a case for not necessarily pushing for the use of "native" plants anymore - and just accepting that these new "invasive" plants are actually thriving in their new environments so we should live with them. Has a lot of interesting facts - like that some pigeons in London have learned to take the tube a few stops for better food! It was slow going at first, but once the author got going, it was an excellent read.

[Mick de Waart · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was well-researched and well-written. Still, somehow it didn’t really manage to fascinate me in the way his previous book (Metropolis) did.

I really enjoyed many of the historical anecdotes and the book certainly had its moments. Overall, though, I felt like slightly too many of the points the author was making were a bit too obvious for my liking. This might have to do with the fact that much of what he writes about is part of my job so it may not be as obvious to everyone. However, the same could have been true for Metropolis but there Wilson managed to hold my attention despite the fact that much of what he wrote about concerned stuff I work with on a daily basis.

7/10

[Eric Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of good information and perspective about urban ecology and the relationship between cities and their environment. Unfortunately suffers from uneven treatment of the topics; some early chapters are over-detailed and tend to devolve into lists of species and cities; other later chapters read well but seem to skimp on the subject matter. The final chapter in particular seems to diverge from the rest of the book and puts forth a number of ideas without much support. I think this one is an unfortunate miss - with a better editor and more time to expand on some of the ideas, I think this could have been a great one.