Henry David Thoreau, that American transcendental marvel, in his essay on Walking, gave us a fine bottom-line when he took note of a fundamental necessity with respect to 'wildness' - which he neatly said is needed for "the preservation of the world."
No less fundamental is Nikos Salingaros' caution, in Principle of Urban Structure, that we need to 'appreciate how completely architectural patterns connect to social patterns' because 'architectural patterns help to define all the higher level social patterns.'
Perception of that interdependent reciprocal exchange, that fundamental connection between space as we occupy it and space as we behave in it, is the stuff of housing policy planners, keepers of community social consciousness. Although a number of fine poets - Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, Diane Wakowski, to name a few contemporary ones - would have us keep ourselves on our toes - even if Thoreau felt poets have no advantage despite the discoveries of science, the accumulated learning of mankind: "Even if," he said, "a poet's words were so true and fresh and natural that they would appear to expand like the buds at the approach of spring" ... no poetry can adequately express ... "the yearning for the Wild." Poetry, he opined, can only be tame in comparison to the wild itself, to Nature.
Foreshadowing the ills of today is discussed by Dr. Neala Schleuning in To Have and To Hold, her exploration of the idea of ownership. She focuses primarily on the transition in the modes and meaning of ownership since the emergence of the Industrial Revolution. Her primary argument is that the experience of ownership has been one of enclosure, which conflicts with the goals of democratic society.
Is "ownership" needed in order for people to behave like guardians? Native peoples did not think so. Why should we?
No less fundamental is Nikos Salingaros' caution, in Principle of Urban Structure, that we need to 'appreciate how completely architectural patterns connect to social patterns' because 'architectural patterns help to define all the higher level social patterns.'
Perception of that interdependent reciprocal exchange, that fundamental connection between space as we occupy it and space as we behave in it, is the stuff of housing policy planners, keepers of community social consciousness. Although a number of fine poets - Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, Diane Wakowski, to name a few contemporary ones - would have us keep ourselves on our toes - even if Thoreau felt poets have no advantage despite the discoveries of science, the accumulated learning of mankind: "Even if," he said, "a poet's words were so true and fresh and natural that they would appear to expand like the buds at the approach of spring" ... no poetry can adequately express ... "the yearning for the Wild." Poetry, he opined, can only be tame in comparison to the wild itself, to Nature.
Foreshadowing the ills of today is discussed by Dr. Neala Schleuning in To Have and To Hold, her exploration of the idea of ownership. She focuses primarily on the transition in the modes and meaning of ownership since the emergence of the Industrial Revolution. Her primary argument is that the experience of ownership has been one of enclosure, which conflicts with the goals of democratic society.
Is "ownership" needed in order for people to behave like guardians? Native peoples did not think so. Why should we?
