Paul H. Gobster
Research Social Scientist
USDA Forest Service
North Central Research Station-Chicago

How do urban residents perceive the natural environment of the city and region in which they live? What aspects of urban ecosystems encourage people’s use for recreation and related values? How can we design and manage urban ecosystems to build better ties between people and nature? These are some of the fundamental questions that we have been grappling with since our Forest Service Research Work Unit first began work in Chicago twenty years ago.

Since that time we have asked these questions in many different ways and contexts, and have arrived at a core set of dimensions we feel are critical in understanding how people perceive and relate to urban ecosystems. We have also worked with planners and managers to help translate these concepts into strategies for improving urban ecosystems and for involving stakeholders in improvement efforts. This work is illustrated in an effort in which we have been involved for the Chicago River corridor.

From Lake Forest to Lake Calumet, the 150-mile Chicago River corridor transects a spectrum of physical environments and human experiences across metropolitan Chicago. Planners from the National Park Service and Friends of the Chicago River envisioned the river as the thread that could sew together this diversity of people and places into a tapestry to achieve recreational and related goals. To do this, however, key information was needed about how the corridors’ diverse stakeholders experienced and interacted with the river.

As part of the ChicagoRivers partnership, we worked with an inter-disciplinary team to design and implement a series of studies to answer questions about stakeholders’ perceptions, uses, and values. We chose a suite of methods that would effectively include the voices of key groups identified by the partnership: focus groups with nearby residents, on-site surveys with recreationists, and in-depth interviews with those who influence river recreation opportunities. We also collaborated in five other studies to include additional groups and issues of particular social relevance. Ranging from brief chats to 2-hour-long interviews, this combined effort resulted in contact with more than 5,000 stakeholders.

Results from these diverse studies converged on a core set of dimensions held in common across stakeholders and localities. These dimensions are framed as questions in the panels below, and are illustrated through drawings and quotations by corridor residents taken from the focus group study. The photographs are of community-based projects that grew out of the ChicagoRivers effort, and illustrate how study dimensions have been incorporated as project goals. This work is detailed in the publications People and the River and What’s Working on Working Rivers, available from the authors or on the Internet at http://www.ncfes.umn.edu/epubs/chicagoriver/people/about.html.

Water quality was by far the top issue that concerned Chicago River stakeholders. From floating debris to toxic sediments, people mentioned many indicators of water quality, and these indicators varied significantly for different reaches of the river. Most indicators, however, related to the idea of cleanliness, or on a broader level of abstraction to the concept of ecosystem health. Some people were not aware of the substantial improvements in water quality that had been made in recent years; others seemed to carry unrealistic expectations about how clean the water could be. The majority, however, felt that even if the river was polluted, as long as it didn’t smell too badly, it could offer many benefits and opportunities for use.

The desire for a cleaner, healthier environment has spurred several grassroots ecological restoration initiatives along the Chicago River corridor. Pictured here, local volunteers help to re-establish wetland and wet prairie ecosystems to improve water quality and reduce stormwater runoff at Prairie Wolf Slough in the upper part of the watershed. Courtesy Friends of the Chicago River.

Naturalness is a key dimension that people relate to in any ecosystem, no matter how urban it is. In the Chicago River focus group study, one of the highest percentages of comments that people mentioned about the characteristics of the river referred to the natural environment. Most comments pertained to vegetation or wildlife, which most felt added to their experience of the river. In wilder sections of the corridor, people looked at the natural environment as a rare, special feature, and one that should be protected and restored. In the most urbanized sections of the river, people mentioned landscaped areas of trees, grass, flowers, and other greenery as valued natural features.

Nature restoration was a primary objective in many of the projects that have grown out of the ChicagoRivers effort. Here at Canal Origins Park just south of downtown Chicago, volunteers work to restore the naturalness of the shore bank through re-grading and planting native vegetation. This project demonstrates techniques for riverbank restoration which do not require rip-rap or steel sheet pile, currently the dominant shore type along much of the river in its urban reaches. Courtesy National Park Service.

People’s immediate response to environments is often aesthetic in nature, and how the environment looks can color people’s perceptions of how it is managed, for beauty and other ecosystem values. Of the range of benefits people felt the river provided, those mentioned most often were aesthetic in nature: the beauty and scenery afforded by river views, the peace and solitude of being down by the river’s edge, and the presence of the river as a contrasting element within the urban fabric.

At Gomper’s park on Chicago’s Northwest Side, a frequently flooded ball field adjacent to the North Branch of the Chicago River was restored by local residents as a two-acre wetland. Besides serving a range of environmental and educational goals, the project has become a focal point of natural beauty for the community, who has celebrated it through a music workshop and this mural project, done by a local high school. Courtesy Friends of the Chicago River.

Safety is an important dimension in the perception of urban environments and one that is sometimes at odds with enhancing the natural beauty and diversity of urban ecosystems. In the Chicago River study, people’s concerns were about both physical safety, e.g., children falling into the river, health concerns about direct physical contact with polluted water; as well as about personal safety, e.g., the river as a hang-out for gangs, a place for drinking and drug use, and a habitat for the homeless. Rather than "de-vegetate" natural areas to eliminate hiding places, a more proactive strategy in increasing personal safety is to "re-people" the area.

This strategy has worked effectively at the Beaubein Woods Forest Preserve on Chicago’s South Side, where a pond adjacent to the Calumet River was restored to improve riparian and fish habitat. Fishin’ Buddies!, a youth mentoring group in the local African American community, played a key role in the restoration effort, and today has transformed the pond into a popular place to fish and picnic. Courtesy of Bob Long.

Access is an increasingly important topic with regard to the human dimensions of urban ecosystems. We not only lack nearby nature experiences in our central cities, but sprawl is also reducing nature access in suburban and fringe areas. Access emerged as a key dimension in the Chicago River study, and did so in various forms. Most frequently, people wanted better physical access to the river through public open space, boat and canoe launches, and riverfront trails. But sometimes all that was called for was better visual access; like the drawing and quote here, views to the river are often blocked by fences and weedy growth. Another key aspect of access is that of equity or equal access. In a companion study, Charles Nilon found that lower income, minority areas in the corridor were most lacking in both quality and quantity of access.

Friends of the Chicago River’s U-Can program trains urban youth in canoeing and other skills so that they can serve as guides and docents in local river adventures. U-Can is one of several new initiatives being implemented by organizations and municipalities to increase physical and visual access to the river. Courtesy Friends of the Chicago River.

Human use and development are facts of life for most urban ecosystems. The key is to encourage appropriate use and development so that both the ecosystems and the experiences for which they are valued can be sustained. This idea of fittingness or congruity in development was expressed by people across the range of Chicago River settings. In the wilder sections of the corridor, people urged that new recreational development be low key and respect the natural qualities of the environment that others were trying to protect. In some of the central city neighborhoods this idea of fittingness related more to the cultural context than the natural one, where people were concerned that development showed sensitivity to the preferences of the racial or ethnic groups that lived there. And in downtown Chicago, people’s desire for nature was no less of a priority than it was in less populated areas, but again people felt that the natural environment should be integrated with sensitivity to the urban context in which it is located.

This river development project, in Chicago’s Northcenter neighborhood, aimed for harmonizing recreational use with the quiet neighborhood setting. Local neighbors built a nature trail and informal seating areas along the bank to facilitate nature appreciation and exploration for children who lived nearby. Courtesy of Pete Leki.

This poster describes six dimensions by which people perceive and relate to urban ecosystems. How can we use this information to build stronger, more mutually beneficial relationships between people and nature? Efforts of ChicagoRivers reveal a process that might be useful elsewhere.

Awareness and Knowledge of the urban ecosystem is the first component in this process. For the Chicago River this proved a difficult first step, for people’s awareness and knowledge of river and river improvement activities tended to be very localized, sometimes incorrect, and inhibited by complex environment, social, and political constraints. To the extent that the public can be informed about urban ecosystem improvement activities through media, off-site exposure at schools and other institutions of learning, and on-site information such as signs and facility tours, we can begin to improve this awareness and knowledge component.

Use and Experience are the essential counterparts to information for establishing an appreciation and concern for urban ecosystems. For the Chicago River, the explosion in built and proposed land and water trails are bringing many more people into direct contact with the resource; these opportunities can provide important educational experiences to people in addition to recreational ones. Guided tours, such as through the U-Can program described above, are an important vehicle for bringing new users into contact with urban ecosystems.

Public Participation in restoring nature is an increasingly popular and successful way to accomplish urban ecosystem improvement efforts. Many of the community-based activities growing out of the ChicagoRivers effort have had restoration as a goal: river cleanup, ecological restoration of vegetative communities, and water quality monitoring to name a few. Direct interaction with the environment offers participants not only a unique recreational experience; many who become involved in restoration find it provides them with profound aesthetic, symbolic, and spiritual benefits.