#92: Chicago's Wild Mile and Other Urban Nature Innovations, with Doug Voigt (SOM)

[00:00:00] Hey, Ross here. Just a quick note before we start the episode. I want to let you know about a chance to meet me and other like-minded urbanists at the Green Urbanist Online Measup on 3 October at 6pm UK Time.

[00:00:15] This will be an informal chat over video call for listeners of the podcast so I can get to know you a little bit better and you can ask questions or share your ideas with me.

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[00:00:29] There's never been a more important moment to work together in solving these most pressing issues and challenges facing our cities.

[00:00:38] And as designers really advocate for holistic solutions that address planetary health.

[00:00:54] Welcome to the Green Urbanist podcast for Urbanist Fighting Climate Change. I'm Ross.

[00:01:08] Hello everyone, great to be back with another episode. This episode is a conversation with Doug Voigt.

[00:01:14] My name's Doug Voigt. I'm a partner at SOM and I work with a group of really creative designers and planners that are focused on the design of cities.

[00:01:27] In this episode we focus initially on the wild-mile project in Chicago which is a project that has reclaimed part of the Chicago River, which is highly engineered and sort of reimagine it as an ecological and a community asset.

[00:01:43] And including really interesting innovations such as floating vegetation patches and sort of trying to bring back some of the natural habitat to what is a very unnatural sort of water course at this point.

[00:01:55] But also enhancing access and priding facilities for the local community and really helping the city sort of turn back towards the river and celebrated and make use of it once again.

[00:02:06] That branches out, the conversation then branches out talking about some other projects that Doug has led.

[00:02:13] That wild-mile project inspired them and gave them some innovations that they were then able to scale up to projects in the Pearl River Delta, which looked at building flood resilience on a huge scale by having these sort of almost floating mangrove type installations.

[00:02:36] And yeah we talk about a couple of other projects but also just generally around the ways really positive ways that we can re-wild and renaturalize cities.

[00:02:47] Of course, for biodiversity and for our own benefit but also as a way of solving lots of the challenges of the 21st century around building resilience to climate change as well as all those other benefits.

[00:02:59] So for me it was a very uplifting episode, very inspiring and Doug speaks so well on all these topics.

[00:03:08] You can have a look at SOM.com to see more of their projects. There's a link to the wild-mile page in the description so you can go and look to recognize visuals of that.

[00:03:19] Maybe we want to have a look while you're listening to this.

[00:03:23] So yeah huge thanks to Doug and the team at SOM for helping to pull this together.

[00:03:29] Really hope you find it useful and inspiring.

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[00:04:17] So that's it for now enjoy the conversation.

[00:04:24] What initially sparked you coming on the podcast was your wild mild project in Chicago, so let's start there and if you can tell me just a bit about the story of what that project is and how it got started.

[00:04:34] Great question.

[00:04:35] Great point to begin.

[00:04:37] You know the river has always been a part of the city and it's DNA from the native and wild lands that existed before the city was settled.

[00:04:48] To the industrial role most of the shoreline played in its emergence as an economic center to today.

[00:04:57] Where the city is placed great emphasis on reclaiming the river as a civic and community asset.

[00:05:05] And in many ways this is achieved through increasing access, creating new opportunities for recreation.

[00:05:12] And together these are a big step towards a new model of stewardship of this important resource that we all share.

[00:05:21] The ideas for the wild mild began many, many years ago back when with the city the firm was involved in drafting the Chicago River Master Plan for the entire central main branch as well as the north and south extension.

[00:05:41] And we have the importance of the river.

[00:05:45] And within that plan there was clear recommendations around restoring the shoreline to its original state, naturalizing the shoreline as many would say.

[00:06:00] But also providing continuous access.

[00:06:03] And there were strategies around all of the reaches exploring ways to work with open lands as well as privately held land.

[00:06:16] And sort of exploring ways to connect these sites together and connect communities back to the river.

[00:06:22] Then about 10 years later in 2000 to 2008 the city released its updated Chicago Central Area Plan which focused not only on the loop in the city center, but the corridors extending out into the communities.

[00:06:43] And one of these corridors was the north branch of the Chicago River.

[00:06:49] And so there was greater specificity and investigation on how to extend not only those public connections along the waterfront, but also embraced this idea of additional open space in communities that needed it most.

[00:07:08] And so there were some very early renderings and ideas on how that might be achieved along the north branch.

[00:07:16] And one of those areas was the eastern side of what we call Goose Island.

[00:07:22] It was not part of the original waterway itself.

[00:07:27] It was channelized back in 1850 I believe.

[00:07:32] And as such it's required the need to be open as an applicable channel.

[00:07:42] And so one of the perhaps largest opportunities but also challenges was to find new partnerships both with the community, but also the agencies that oversee these channelized.

[00:07:58] And so there were some other things that we could do to discover new models to introduce nature back into the city and along the Chicago River.

[00:08:11] And so out of that came a number of projects.

[00:08:16] Beginning with the more focused master plan of the main branch of the Chicago River, which the first several sections opened I believe in 2016, these six rooms that you see photos of amazing public activity and programming and sort of the

[00:08:39] celebration of the rivers as really a part of Chicago's soul.

[00:08:45] And then most recently we worked with quite a large group of individuals and experts on a master plan for that section of the north branch of the river from Chicago Avenue up to North Avenue.

[00:09:05] And through that process which also involved community engagement.

[00:09:11] Working with many different stakeholders as well as experts from the Shed Aquarium, Northwestern University.

[00:09:22] Other scientists and ecologists that brought insight and expertise beyond our own practice.

[00:09:30] Through those sessions, this idea of the wild mile came forward.

[00:09:37] And our documented in a master plan that was completed around 2018.

[00:09:45] And then work began on how to design this first section.

[00:09:51] We knew it would be phased all along.

[00:09:55] There was an idea behind how to make the most of that first phase, which is only 400 feet.

[00:10:03] How to connect it to the existing fabric of the city.

[00:10:07] How to create an expansive landscape and wild habitat down at the shoreline.

[00:10:15] But also to extend access in that first phase, so people could experience what that's like at the water level.

[00:10:24] And that first phase opened during the pandemic in 2021.

[00:10:32] And we're excited to share that this summer, construction of the second phase, another 400 feet was installed and will open in the next couple of weeks.

[00:10:48] So maybe you can tell me a bit more about the actual design of it.

[00:10:53] Like what's it what people expect if they went to visit there?

[00:10:56] Well, sort of activities are happening there. And then we might circle back around and yeah, have some other questions as well.

[00:11:03] Great. The city is really putting water innovation front and center.

[00:11:10] This is one project of many that the city is deploying all around Chicago.

[00:11:20] When you visit the wild mild today, you'll see a number of floating wetlands, these rafts that more or less on the surface provide extensive habitat and wildlife.

[00:11:40] When you're walking through this first section, you are on these wooden walkways that really remove you from the city.

[00:11:53] It immerses you in this environment that is quite special and being in that close proximity to landscape and nature in a way that's quite wild.

[00:12:06] Unmanic, what perhaps is most exciting though is when you visit the site with others that oversee its operations, the scientists behind the work that are continuing to do research and track evidence of how this is contributed to the knowledge of the health of the river but the expansion of species within this part of the city.

[00:12:35] They'll share with you what's happening below the water line and this amazing root structure that extends down not only does that remove pollutants from the river that still remain.

[00:12:50] But it provides safe habitat and refuge for fish. It helps to improve oxygenation of the river.

[00:12:59] Again, there's many things you don't see but perhaps as if not more important as an outcome of projects like this and the benefit of when we say, re-wilding and what that might mean for cities.

[00:13:16] That's really fascinating and that was a real question I had around what are the sort of ecological benefits you're finding because I'm guessing the baseline ecology was pretty low as a canal, you know, sort of industrial canal.

[00:13:31] I found it very interesting to think about the idea that it's becoming quite a novel sort of habitat isn't it with these floating islands.

[00:13:40] It's sort of not what you would find in nature but it's still sort of creating the conditions for species to flourish there and that's really exciting.

[00:13:51] What perhaps is interesting with that is that it began as a very small idea.

[00:13:59] In fact, the first prototypes by our partners in this initiative urban rivers and the team at urban rivers experimented with milk crates and planted soil and tomato plants.

[00:14:16] And very basic ideas of prototyping and testing different landscapes and also engineering ideas on how to create this floating wetland.

[00:14:35] When you're out there today, you don't notice that there's over 200 of these rafts connected together because as a modular system about one meter by three meters.

[00:14:49] It's endlessly flexible and adaptable to other conditions.

[00:14:56] But again, when you're out there as it's all grown in, you don't take notice to that.

[00:15:01] You take notice to the vertical growth of the trees and the prairie and wetland landscapes that have all grown in.

[00:15:12] And I mentioned that because we do receive inquiries quite often from other cities on what have we learned and perhaps more importantly, how can this be applied to a unique condition in their community.

[00:15:33] And even here in Chicago there's now a second site that's being explored down on the south branch that we call bubbly creek, very highly polluted portion of the river and industrial sites that are going through that type of transformation you would hope to see within urban areas.

[00:15:54] And thinking through how best to strategize a post industrial future along the shoreline, what are the connections?

[00:16:07] Not only community connections, two of more public, Lee accessible waterway.

[00:16:15] But also, and perhaps as important are the ecological connections.

[00:16:21] As we all know these natural systems were severed when industry came in or more traditional engineering solutions were deployed, they really disconnected that relationship between the land and the river.

[00:16:37] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I did my master's screen in urban design about 10 years ago in Leeds in Northern England and there was sort of the running joke in the course that there is a river that runs through Leeds but you could live there and never find it because it's just hidden away is the classic industrial thing of just old buildings lining is they all face away from it and there's very few access points.

[00:16:59] And I think that seems quite a common thing of industrial cities.

[00:17:01] One of the things that we often forget is, of course, projects like the wild mile is about rewilding.

[00:17:12] It's about nature and biodiversity.

[00:17:16] But it's also a cultural thing and as you are just describing it's about our relationship with our surroundings and our connection to a place.

[00:17:26] Yeah, that's one of the things we find, yeah, that's one of the things we find fascinating with projects like this is how can they bring ideas to solve more than just a single problem and have a greater benefit to communities.

[00:17:43] In many ways, I guess another way, just thinking about loud.

[00:17:47] The projects like these and there's many examples around the world where these investments are also maybe seen as resilience hubs.

[00:17:57] And this idea of what is the essential infrastructure for communities beyond the ability to bring additional recreation and nature into communities.

[00:18:10] There's an educational component tied to the wild mile.

[00:18:14] There's a expansive programming that happens throughout the year, both out on the site but also with the schools in this round in community.

[00:18:27] And I think this is something we could do a lot more within design is strengthening connection to these important assets or essential infrastructures for communities.

[00:18:43] Yeah, it's something I want to ask you as well as around you said this thing of using projects as a way of building community and solving multiple problems.

[00:18:53] Do you find these sort of nature-based projects are particularly good at doing that?

[00:18:58] Yes, every project has the potential to be good at doing that.

[00:19:04] I think as designers where we're always optimists that we will find something, an idea that is quite transformative and beneficial.

[00:19:15] But in terms of green infrastructure, it oftentimes is right in front of you.

[00:19:21] And it's about rediscovering these connections that were formed by nature many, many years ago and opening a linkage that unleashes a sea of opportunity.

[00:19:36] There was an opportunity when we worked with the city of Detroit on its riverfront.

[00:19:45] And these connections that extended two miles into the city from the riverfront.

[00:19:53] And there is one in particular that a single block that was private land and fenced off waiting to be sold or developed.

[00:20:04] Prohibited that connection, that by trail, that green way from extending out but more importantly, connecting that community that wasn't on the river to the river.

[00:20:19] And so through a very simple set of ideas for this one block, we were able to find a new partnership between the land owner, the city and the community which as one of the first phase projects to come out of that plan had tremendous impact.

[00:20:44] Because now it brought communities that were too miles away to the river, in many ways, riverfront communities through this green way.

[00:20:55] Without relatively significant cost.

[00:20:59] I think that's another interesting point is the ability to look at plantains to look at rewilding, to look at improving access are all relatively basic ideas in maintaining and operating a city.

[00:21:23] And if we have the ability through more holistic thinking around our cities, exploring ideas not only at multiple scales but showing the benefit between relationship across those scales.

[00:21:39] We may more quickly identify these early winds that can have an outsized and positive impact on residents and cities.

[00:21:54] I think coming back to the sort of delivery of the project, which I find it fascinating.

[00:22:01] It sounds like from what you're saying, the wild mile was part of a wider city plan that the Chicago city was developing.

[00:22:10] Was it part of a wider regeneration of the area or was it just funded as a good thing to do in a sense without the sort of property development with it?

[00:22:20] Interesting question, because as you know, there's many initiatives happening oftentimes simultaneously.

[00:22:30] And I think here we were fortunate that the city had also initiated a plan to rezone the north branch of the river and their framework plan that addressed in a very open format, a shift in land use,

[00:22:48] that was beneficial to the ongoing work of this section of the river that we were focused on in terms of environmental restoration and public open space.

[00:23:03] And so I think they were beneficial and supportive of one another even though one could say they're both demonstration projects and initiatives.

[00:23:14] One to look at the larger systematic shifts in land use and transportation to then the more micro ideas around public space and public access to the river.

[00:23:31] Yeah, and there's other examples. Oh, I'm sorry.

[00:23:36] No, go ahead please.

[00:23:37] There are other examples along the river of extending bikeways and public access.

[00:23:45] What's interesting with the wild mile, it that it very simply achieves, I'd like to say all of those.

[00:23:51] As opposed to just extending access or just renatualizing the shoreline, there's a very intentional effort to demonstrate how those can all come together.

[00:24:02] And then even within the first 400 feet, be expanded upon so that we create these loops from the city to the shoreline back out to the city.

[00:24:14] And the hope is that this continues to expand over time and through the design of each of these many reaches 400 foot increments.

[00:24:29] We can also see unique opportunities for programming different types of recreation, different types of landscapes to really experience the diversity of not only the communities but you know what we see in nature.

[00:24:46] Yeah, how we interact with it.

[00:24:47] Yeah, great. That's that's super interesting context to have. I mean, I think having worked in the UK really only just in the UK for the most part.

[00:24:56] I do find interesting to see how these things happen in the state. You have a different sort of planning system.

[00:25:02] And I think you know, in the UK we're often very generally very reliant on developers coming forward and sort of funding these sort of public projects alongside development.

[00:25:13] And often local authorities or cities don't have the money to just go ahead and make these things happen.

[00:25:21] In a sort of proactive, you know, facilitated way. So yeah, that's that's super interesting and I'm quite jealous.

[00:25:26] An interesting footnote is when the team at urban rivers was prototyping those first modules.

[00:25:36] They also had a Kickstarter campaign to raise funding to further that initial research.

[00:25:48] And it wasn't until later that through a community and city grant was the more formal plan for the wild mile put forward.

[00:26:00] And I mentioned that because I think this idea of partnerships can come together when there's a strong idea and there's a compelling argument of what the benefit of this sort of investment can make in communities.

[00:26:18] Yeah, totally. And I love it. It's a community maybe a project that was kickstarted by the community.

[00:26:23] I think that says that says a lot. I suppose about how it ended up being a very community focused and project. Yeah, I think but I want to sort of talk a little bit more about how this has influenced some of your other work.

[00:26:38] And some of your other thinking on other projects. I think to sort of cap this off. I find interesting to think about the term wild and rewilding is a term that is used a lot now.

[00:26:50] It's become quite I think a trendy term in a sense but it's also quite divisive.

[00:26:55] And I think this is a good project whether it sort of fits people's definitions of wild or rewilding what it does show is that these sort of projects are not about excluding people but are about bringing people and nature together in what is a very urban form of nature, but when the still really positive.

[00:27:14] So yeah, I think that's been my sort of perspective on this.

[00:27:18] It's a really important point. In many ways rewilding is not only about restoring or in some ways preserving the remnants of nature that still exist, you know, in finding avenues for them to expand and to be more resilient.

[00:27:36] But it is along those lines it's about growing and strengthening habitat for all forms of life.

[00:27:42] And that includes communities and as a practice that works in cities around the world, there never has been a more important moment to work together in solving these most pressing problems.

[00:28:00] And at the same time understand how each can maybe start to holistically address things that are critical to planetary health.

[00:28:14] And a great example of what we learned in the 400 feet of the wild mile, we applied halfway around the world in the pro River Delta. The greater bay, as it's often referred, one of the fastest urbanizing parts anywhere on the planet.

[00:28:38] And how through that rapid urbanization of what was primarily Delta lands, the engineered solutions provided safety and resiliency to those communities engineered levies all of them and down the coastline.

[00:28:58] But as a result, they also severed the connections to the waterfront that were essential to the settlement not only of this part of the world.

[00:29:12] But also the natural systems that required that connectivity in terms of the health of the river and the habitat and species that were not along the shoreline but would make their way.

[00:29:29] And it's that broader understanding of an ecosystem and how we look at systems in cities.

[00:29:38] And as we were working on this one project, we felt it would be worth exploring an alternate way to retrofit these engineered levies.

[00:29:51] And of course, at a much larger scale as you can imagine, we put forward a concept of a living levie which extended from the existing engineered concrete and steel solution.

[00:30:06] It extended out into the river 100 meters or more.

[00:30:14] And through sculpted landscapes, small sort of eddies, we created what in many ways was what the mangroves had did generations before.

[00:30:25] The existing mangrove that were along the coastline.

[00:30:30] And that they were very effective at reducing the force from storm surge.

[00:30:38] They themselves, through their lattice-like structure both above and under the waterline created habitat for species.

[00:30:46] And in many ways, we found that through this living levie we could re-establish that interface.

[00:30:53] We could expand just as with the wild mile all of those aspirations for a healthier river.

[00:31:00] And that's just one example of how very small idea can inform a much larger opportunity through design, through engineering, through interdisciplinary,

[00:31:14] research and inquiry.

[00:31:17] It represented to us something very important in thinking about cities.

[00:31:25] And that is the opportunity to re-engineer what had been considered best practices.

[00:31:32] And find ways to consider the next generation of investments that could even be more impactful.

[00:31:40] I think that is one of the questions that urbanists have to tackle.

[00:31:46] As many countries around the world are starting to reach their population peaks and come down, they're having declining populations in Europe.

[00:31:53] Also, city, you mentioned Detroit earlier, a classic example of a shrinking city.

[00:31:57] And this idea of if we have maybe we're not urbanizing so quickly and we have infrastructure that is now defunct or is out of coming to the end of its life.

[00:32:08] Or simply not consider it best practice anymore.

[00:32:12] You know, that's a new challenge isn't it then starting with a blank page in a sense.

[00:32:19] How do you retrofit that for the challenges of the 21st?

[00:32:22] It's a great experiment.

[00:32:27] But one that has to be explored collectively and across multiple disciplines, because there are connected to so many things within our cities.

[00:32:38] And at the same time, they need to address so many different things of our cities, especially as funding for these sorts of civic projects is limited currently.

[00:32:51] And it is interesting as we're talking reflecting on your earlier comment of sort of a community initiated project like the wild mile.

[00:33:04] To maybe there's many examples of where the civic will of the through the mayor and the leadership of the city to other civic leaders.

[00:33:18] And we've been talking about great advancements from the park systems.

[00:33:22] You look at Millennium Park here in Chicago.

[00:33:24] You look at improvements that are happening throughout other cities like New York or Singapore.

[00:33:30] They're impressive.

[00:33:32] On the legacy they've had in shaping the form, the livability and quality of life in those cities.

[00:33:38] And one that we've been fortunate to recently been involved with here in Chicago is the creation of Northern Ireland, which 20 years ago was a municipal airport called Makes Field.

[00:33:58] This is out on the lake.

[00:34:02] Just next to the museum campus where we have the Shed Aquarium, the Adler Planetarium and the Field Museum.

[00:34:09] A while back there was an initiative during the night to close the airfield.

[00:34:18] And the streets and sanitation crews. This is my recollection.

[00:34:23] But giant exes, they dug large exes through the runway single runway.

[00:34:29] But as a result, the city moved on as difficult and controversial as that was.

[00:34:38] The city moved on from that land on the waterfront as an airport, which had to many economic benefit to now create in a nature reserve.

[00:34:50] And studio gang did the first master plan for Northern Ireland, a beautiful plan that showed a naturalization of this former airfield, which was landfill.

[00:35:06] It wasn't naturally formed out there.

[00:35:08] And sort of through that addressed a really important aspect of cities is as they grow and develop.

[00:35:21] What is their impact to the even larger ecosystem?

[00:35:25] When we look at migratory paths of birds, flows of waterways given currents in the movement of sediment, et cetera.

[00:35:35] And this part of Chicago was actually, and is still actually on a major migratory bird path from Mexico and Latin America up to Canada.

[00:35:49] And creating that habitat on the coastline, a place for refuge for birds, was essential to the continued health and propagation of birds within this part of the city.

[00:36:07] And more recently, our involvement was through a larger consortium that was brought together to re-invision the museum campus and to take those early ideas for Northern Ireland and expand them throughout the campus.

[00:36:26] As institutions focused on science and nature could this be a demonstration of the ethos that they all shared.

[00:36:36] And as opposed to manicured lawns, could it provide other examples of rewilding on almost a global stage given the significance of these institutions,

[00:36:48] and the land they shared together, and the stewardship they all felt, and the city feels is important as a major urban center on the Great Lakes.

[00:37:03] The largest freshwater reserve anywhere outside of glaciers in the world.

[00:37:11] So these things are all connected. And I think that's an important point for all of us, at least for us to remember.

[00:37:20] It's not a huge aspect, I think. The, I guess we're more used to thinking about cities localized impacts.

[00:37:27] It's quite easy to see when you, you know, take down a forest and put in a suburban, it's the urban estate. It's quite clear what local impact you're having.

[00:37:37] It's less clear and it's less tangible for people to think about the, the why geriacological impacts that you're having forms of urbanization.

[00:37:45] Or even just the way we manage our landscapes. There's a great story from the NEP rewilding site in south of England.

[00:37:55] There's a book called Wilding by Isabella Tree. And she talks about the fact that there's birds species like the nice and gale

[00:38:03] and the turtle dove which have had sort of 90% numbers decline in the last 50 years.

[00:38:11] And it's been somewhat of a mystery of thinking about why have they had such a dramatic decline.

[00:38:15] And when they started rewilding this area farmland in south of England, and they started having this sort of very messy thorny landscape coming back,

[00:38:26] which was quite different to everything around. They found these species coming back because they were finding the habitat that had been lost

[00:38:33] over the decades because we had just been constantly cleaning up all of our landscapes, taking out the thorny scrub, taking out the understory

[00:38:40] and just making everything in our eyes, knees and clean and sort of what it's supposed to look like a sort of manicured nature.

[00:38:49] And so the theory is really that actually letting go and allowing these rewilding process to happen even within cities.

[00:38:57] You get really really surprising results and these migrating birds and these species that are really declining, you know, can bounce back

[00:39:05] really without a concerted effort to do so but just really letting nature run its course.

[00:39:10] I think it's a really great example of a perspective that these things also take time.

[00:39:19] Yeah, yeah. And an environment where the immediate result of investment is often the primary focus.

[00:39:33] Yeah.

[00:39:33] Sometimes you're planting the seeds for a longer journey.

[00:39:37] And just from my own experience, this collective act of city building really requires not only determination but perseverance

[00:39:47] and perspective that these are, these are if thought through holistically, they're establishing frameworks for continued evolution and adaptation

[00:40:01] as things always change. Cities are always changing. Nature is always evolving.

[00:40:08] But to remember the importance of connectivity and the integrity of systems,

[00:40:16] which again, it has its overlaps with engineering and other areas of science is taking a systematic approach at the relationships between these at multiple scales.

[00:40:29] Might open opportunities for designers to have even bigger impact, positive contribution to cities.

[00:40:42] Yeah, totally. That's really well said.

[00:40:46] I'm quite interested to just circle back around here, your Pearl River Delta project, looking at the sort of engineered mangrove floating island things.

[00:40:57] Well, firstly, just wondering where that project has got to, maybe it's still in the planning stage and I'm very interested to know how you,

[00:41:11] in reality.

[00:41:12] Well, just for all of us, it's such a different scale. It's home to 65 plus million people.

[00:41:25] Just set expectations and you know, it's a major manufacturing and urban regional hub of the planning.

[00:41:37] It's one of the great bays, like Tokyo and New York and San Francisco.

[00:41:43] There have been some prototypes explored in portions of the river.

[00:41:51] There are some larger plans that we are currently involved with, again, are continuing to explore how to implement these ideas.

[00:42:01] Yeah. There aren't large stretches of the river that have demonstrated this yet, but there continues to be not only great interest, but priority placed on green infrastructure throughout the region.

[00:42:19] And I think we will start to see evidence of that as the focus on quality of life, these rapidly urbanizing areas is viewed on the same level as economic.

[00:42:34] And so improving the quality of the built environment, restoring the connections that provide resiliency to the health of our natural environment go hand in hand.

[00:42:46] And I think there's a reckoning recommendation through all of this that is the way forward.

[00:42:53] It's not a question of either or, but that they both need to coexist and demonstrate value that they bring to these cities.

[00:43:05] It is interesting though, as you mentioned, working at this scale, about seven years ago, the firm was involved in assembling a strategic plan for a national wetland park along the Yellow River in northern China, the Mother River.

[00:43:29] And just a couple of years ago, we celebrated the opening of the park's first phase, which was quite significant in its own right.

[00:43:38] And so, you know, these projects, they're ambitious in scale and their positive impact, but they also take time.

[00:43:47] And I think we will continue to need to keep an eye on these projects and see how their realization does restore these important natural and recreational amenities in cities and then what can be replicated and learned from that.

[00:44:07] Yeah, that's great. I actually just came back from a two week trip in China and one of the things that I was super impressed about was the quality of the landscape design but in lots of places I went to.

[00:44:21] There is some you know, absolutely world class parks, riverfronts, wetlands, all sorts of stuff that you know really should be celebrated.

[00:44:30] Well, they're critical to the daily life of anyone who lives in those cities.

[00:44:39] Yeah, I was also just in China, I'm sure we passed each other.

[00:44:44] And was going for a run along the Shojo Creek, which was recently restored this leasing to the Wong-Pu River and the Bund.

[00:44:55] Very intimate, but amazing in terms of the quality of the experience.

[00:45:04] And this happened just over the last three to five years.

[00:45:09] Yeah, dramatic transformation and then you begin to see refurbishment of all their industrial buildings with new uses.

[00:45:19] You see new residential development and mixed use development coming along this what was really a piece of green infrastructure.

[00:45:29] And interestingly, a reinvestment in the core of the city.

[00:45:35] Perhaps one of the oldest parts of the city, which is very different than providing housing solutions that continue to extend outward and push towards the periphery of our cities.

[00:45:48] Which is also many times at the expense of large pieces of open land.

[00:45:53] And so I think we all recognize the importance to think through the different alternatives, the multiple futures that are result of what seemed to be just very isolated design decisions.