Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 34(3): May 2008 development, or smart growth (Hall and Porterfield 2001), are related to both older theories of neighborhood design (Perry 1939) and development of community (Wilkinson 1991) and explicitly recognize the interdependence of economic, social, and environmental factors (Ahern and Fabel 1988). In progressive theory, development of community is more than enterprise development. Although economic goals are an overriding objective in many community development projects, economic gain without development of community can be divi- sive, exploitative, and unsustainable. Community development must include the experiences provided by attempts and successes of residents to strengthen themselves and their community. This work is facilitated by an interactional perspective of local society where channels of cooperation and communication are empow- ered and maintained, where human relationships are supported and strengthened, and where a shared concept of improvement is mutually developed. A developed community is both improved and its people empowered through skills and experiences, and a healthy physical and natural environment supports this type of progressive work (Kaufman and Wilkinson 1967; Wilkinson 1991). Community development focuses on places, economics, people, programs, and environments together. It is all of these and a well-woven, integrated social fabric resulting from ad- equate planning and integration of activities that meet peoples’ day-to-day needs (Kaufman and Wilkinson 1967). TREES AND NATURE AS SOCIAL ELEMENTS In addition to environmental (Dwyer et al. 2000), human health (Ulrich 1983; Kuo and Sullivan 2001), economic (Irwin 2002; Lutzenhiser and Nolusil 2002), educational (Nowak et al. 2001), youth (Taylor et al. 1998; Kuo 2003), and safety and civility (Kuo 2003) values, the natural environment plays a significant role in the healthy and successful social lives of people by pro- viding shared and structured symbols. These symbols (e.g., his- torical buildings and landscapes, monuments, trees, hills) help ground people in their everyday lives, and as change occurs, they provide residents with a consistent sense of place and comfort (Appleyard 1979; Hester 1990). Trees and landscapes can be shared and structured symbols, caring and supportive symbols that become part of the identity and features of a place that invoke pride, attract outside attention, and stimulate economic activity (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2002). Alex- ander et al. (1977) pointed out: Trees have a very deep and crucial meaning to human beings. The significance of old trees is archetypical; in our dreams they often stand for the wholeness of personality. The trees people love create special places; places to be in and places to pass through. Trees have the potential to create various kinds of social places (p. 798). Trees, parks, and other components of the natural environment become powerful social symbols when they are perceived as being part and representative of a social group (such as a neigh- borhood), especially when nature plays an influential role in relationship to social functions such as family, home, play, love, health, and equality (Appleyard 1979). Nature again proves im- portant because the sense of self in place is more important than simply a sense of place, and people’s relationship with their natural environment can help build a stronger connection to their 153 place (Hester 1990). As such, the significance of nature’s social role in reinforcing a sense of locality or place plays an influential role in community development. Trees and other natural features help to create and maintain a sense of place; that is a feeling of identification and belonging that is important to people’s enjoy- ment and well-being and to the process of community. Very strong emotional ties can exist between people and ele- ments of natural settings such as trees (Dwyer et al. 1991, 1992). Greider and Garkovich (1994) argued that landscapes can be “the symbolic representation of a collective local history and the essence of a collective self-definition.” Social meaning and in- tention can heighten in cases of environmental conflict or op- portunity, and inversely, environmental conflict and opportunity occurs in cases in which social meaning is especially critical (Appleyard 1979). Greider and Garkovich (1994) discussed the social connection between people and their natural environment: . . . That what is important in any consideration of envi- ronmental change is the meaning of the change for those cultural groups that have incorporated that aspect of the physical environment into their definition of themselves (p. 21). Taken together, these values of trees and nature support the capacity of community to develop and the process of commu- nity. They illustrate the important connections between people and nature even in highly urbanized places and their value in community development strategies. A DEEPER LOOK AT NATURE AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT Many early social ecologists viewed the natural environment as a featureless surface on which social patterns and relationships distributed themselves (Firey 1947). Today there are much dif- ferent ideas about the relationship of nature to social settings and processes (Wilkinson 1979, 1991; Nowak et al. 2001). Many authors suggest that ecological well-being is a critical compo- nent of both individual and community well-being. A sociologist named Wilkinson (1991) discussed this thought: Social and individual well-being cannot be achieved ex- cept in ways that also promote ecological well being. Eco- logical well-being, which in a literal sense means the well- being of the house of civilization, refers explicitly to natu- ral and other conditions that support and sustain human life. It is not accurate or appropriate to treat the environ- ment as though it was somehow separate from the social life it supports. An active interdependency characterizes the relationship between social life and its surroundings. References to human and environment separation cannot be justified on any grounds today, if they might have been justified heuristically in the past (p. 75). Wilkinson (1991) described the potential for increasing both human and community capacity as growing from an intimate relationship of trust of both self and society. Both the ability to establish trust and the potential for capacity is suppressed by deficits in meeting primary human needs and social and cultural patterns (housing, education, health care, safety, political repre- sentation, recreation) that discourage interaction and community work. These “patterns” also include environmental racism and ©2008 International Society of Arboriculture
May 2008
| Title Name |
Pages |
Delete |
Url |
| Empty |
Search Text Block
Page #page_num
#doc_title
Hi $receivername|$receiveremail,
$sendername|$senderemail wrote these comments for you:
$message
$sendername|$senderemail would like for you to view the following digital edition.
Please click on the page below to be directed to the digital edition:
$thumbnail$pagenum
$link$pagenum
Your form submission was a success. You will be contacted by Washington Gas with follow-up information regarding your request.
This process might take longer please wait
