Let Vines Cover Our Buildings

When I was little, my parents used to buy me sets of Legos. They came with instructions for assembly, and after multiple hours of meticulously searching through piles of blocks, I would be left with the final product. Maybe it was BB-8 or the Millennium Falcon; maybe it was Hagrid’s hut or the Great Hall in Hogwarts. Either way, I had taken a tiny piece of some fictional world and transplanted it in Lego form into my bedroom. There was something awe-inspiring about that feat.

But no matter how dutifully I followed the instructions, no matter how brilliantly designed the Lego model was, I was always left with a nagging itch in the back of my mind. When I looked at the illustration shown on the box in which the Legos were contained, I noticed how the Lego construction seemed to flow seamlessly with the background. BB-8 made perfect sense rolling through a desert at Rey’s side. On the other hand, it made no sense sitting motionless on my pink-and-red carpet. I couldn’t help but feel frustrated by the incongruence between my creations and their surroundings. As a result, I tirelessly strove to conceal everything around the Legos. I built Lego paths between different Lego buildings, and my Lego people never stepped off of them. When my parents bought me a huge gray Lego baseplate, I happily used it as the foundation for my Lego cities. I attached it to the smaller green baseplates I had left over from some other box of Legos, and my Lego world slowly expanded.

It is only now that I am temporarily past my Lego-playing years that I can see how strange that obsession was. I was so set on having a fully immersive Lego world, and for what reason? My carpet was just as manufactured as the Legos. They were no different; neither one was any more real than the other.

I think this goes back to a fundamental part of human psychology, one that influences every part of the world around us. There is some conceited part of human nature that urges us to leave our mark on the world and replace it with our own artificial creations.

Just look at cities. Every inch of the ground is covered by some trace of humanity. The buildings that rise on either side of the street are all white walls and sharp corners, nothing natural in sight. The streets themselves are artificial as well; the ground is smothered by thick layers of asphalt and concrete. Even the parks are make-believe: humans spread the dirt, plant the grass, trim the trees, and construct pathways cutting across the landscape. Every aspect of a city is designed, examined, and controlled by humans, except possibly the weather. And if humans could control that, they would do it in the blink of an eye. No more unpredictable downpours or whiteouts; no more freezing cold or burning hot. Everything would be tepid and tame.

Our compulsive need to uproot and replace nature seems to stem from fear. We are afraid of the unapologetic wildness of nature; we shrink from its unpredictability. But we are doomed to fail. However triumphant or dominant our artificial creations may seem upon their construction, they will crumble in time, leaving only the natural land on which they were assembled. It seems pathetic to work so hard for an achievement that will never endure.

I love cities. I love the idea of millions of people crossing paths and sharing their cultures every day. But I take issue with our perception of cities. I take issue with the idea that urban and natural are opposites. What I want more than anything is for humanity to realize that the two are not at odds. When all is said and done, nature will reclaim even our most unnatural cities. Maybe we need to embrace that inevitable fact and allow our cities to live in harmony with their fate. 

Imagine the progression of technology alongside the environment, the two perpetually in balance, neither one overpowering the other. There’s something inherently beautiful about it. There are obvious environmental and public health reasons for incorporating nature into urban settings, but perhaps the aesthetic ones are also important.

On a global scale, it’s easy enough to say that there are utilitarian reasons for protecting nature from human degradation. The consequences of pollution are severe; both air and water pollution can contribute to a variety of diseases in all major organ systems. Similarly, burning fossil fuels has an enormous impact on human lives. The rising sea level threatens existing coastal communities, worsens flooding, and exacerbates the risk of extreme weather. At the same time, climate change is making droughts, heatwaves, and wildfires more common. All of these phenomena have severe implications for humanity, so there is a human-centric argument for protecting nature.

But there’s another argument to be made, one that often goes overlooked. Nature has inherent value. It’s where everything comes from and where everything returns. Throughout history, human religion, art, and thought has been inspired by the grandeur of nature. Even if destroying nature had no impact on humans, should we feel that we have the right to deforest and pollute freely? Various countries have made moves towards recognizing nature’s intrinsic value. Ecuador’s constitution was amended in 2008 to grant nature the same rights as people. 

Within cities, the same principle applies. Even when nature may not have obvious practical use for humans, it still deserves to exist. Just like I sought to cover my carpet in Legos, modern-day architects obscure nature with asphalt, but we should try to aim for something in between. Let vines cover buildings and trees grow where they want to. Let’s give up some control.