Author: Andy

John F. Kennedy is remembered for his “Ask Not” speech, but nearly 60 years earlier, John Charles Olmsted made a similar declaration about people and their communities:

“It is constantly becoming more generally and more clearly realized that every inhabitant of a city owes to it, in return for benefits and advantages derived from it, certain duties not specifically compulsory according to law. Among such duties is that of aiding in every possible way to make the city more beautiful and more agreeable to live in and work in and more attractive to strangers.”

– Report of the Park Board, Portland, OR 1903

In order to obtain financial aid, I had to find a 1 credit class. With no colloquium, I chose a field trip class on open spaces in Portland. One evening lecture and a day in the field? Sounds nice.

The lecture provided a decent background on the Olmsted vision for Portland, and our century long progress towards it. The field trip included visits to several parks in the area mostly focusing on “natural” parks like Marquam nature park, Johnson Creek Nature Park, Beggar’s Tick natural area, and a section along the Columbia Slough. The sites varied from archetypical midwest lamplight lawns with winding paths and large deciduous trees to tangled messes of native and invasive plants. Some were created over a century ago and some were gifted, traded, or reclaimed. The variety of opportunities is immense, though one of the classmates was only interested in the sites that offered opportunities for fishing.

John Charles Olmsted, adopted son of Frederic Law Olmsted (Central Park) came to Portland in 1903 and developed a park master plan for the city. Although much of it was shelved, sections like Forest Park have an immense legacy for the city. Over a century later, Portland is trying to recreate a circular trail Olmsted had envisioned, connecting the city by greenway between open spaces. It appears that the city is close to realizing this goal, due largely in part to a tireless band of dreamers and the support of the citizens. A 40 mile loop of nearly connected trails is in places and more are planned that would bring the count to 160 miles.

I think this summer is going to have to include a bike circumnavigation of Portland.

The last volume of Annals of the Association of American Geographers included a fascinating article titled “Exploring Complexity in a Human-Environment System: An Agent-Based Spatial model for Multidisciplinary and Multiscale Integration.” The research synthesized the work of an army of previous work in areas of GIS modeling, computer science, population dynamics and resource management. All told, the model was used to predict the destruction of habitat in a small province in China that is known for its biodiversity and as important Giant Panda habitat. You see, people living in the area harvest forest for their own use, which reduces habitat. So by looking at the wood fuel needs of people based on reproductive rates, in/out migration, access to electricity, and so forth, they were able to run this monstrous model to predict how certain behaviors would effect habitat loss.

While reading the article, I remembered a similar model being used for a seemingly less academic research project. But you never know when you’ll need to simulate a zombie infestation.