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An urban walk past the intersection of Thoreau and De Certeau
Imagine a time, not all that long ago, when these streets of Los Angeles did not exist. This area was once an arid, hilly desert with little water or precipitation, dominated by cacti and waxy-leaved succulents; a region where only those specifically adapted to the harsh conditions could survive. We have transformed this into a semi-tropical faux paradise for millions of residents, a seemingly endless expanse of the city consisting mostly of concrete, metal, and glass. While walking the streets of Los Angeles, it appears superficially that very little of what we call ‘nature’ exists within the city, and that which does exist is often ignored or taken for granted. We are so preoccupied with our daily routines and social obligations, by technology and consumerism, that we are easily blinded to the nature that exists around and within us. But if we redirect our focus to look past or between this, we can see that nature does exist all around us, even in the city. Henry David Thoreau once speculated that “while almost all men feel an attraction drawing them to society, few are attracted strongly to Nature . . . how little appreciation of the beauty of the landscape there is among us” (Thoreau, 658). And while the vast majority of Americans resides in urban areas, we can still find the subtle beauty Thoreau is referring to, and use it as a mirror to see the untamed wild that exists within us. We cannot escape the grasp of civilization, but by observing how nature endures our blows we can still be inspired.
An intimate relationship with nature was hardly a challenge for Thoreau while living in Concord, Massachusetts in the 1850s, a town with just over 2,000 inhabitants (“Concord, MA,” 2012). Such was the setting for his essay “Walking,” which was published in 1862 shortly after his death (Walking (Thoreau), 2012). For Thoreau, walking was not merely for the sake of exercise, nor was it simply to occupy his time; walking was an art form that few could appreciate. And it was walking away from the town in the wilderness, immersed in the wonder of nature that he felt alive; he wrote, “Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest” (Thoreau, 645). Thoreau felt man’s spirit nursed the life from the untamed wilderness which would nourish and inspire, spawning new ideas and expansion of the soul.
Walking was Thoreau’s way to sustain his connection to the wild nature of man-kind which was increasingly smothered by civilization. He believed most men could not appreciate the wealth that wilderness had to offer, and that other animals have a better appreciation than we do. Instead of experiencing the refreshing vigor of the wild, most men would rather adhere to the road more travelled or confine themselves in their residence or business all day every day, thus fulfilling their perceived obligation to society. As the societies grew and towns were erected, Thoreau did not see this as a cultural refinement, but as deformation that cheapened the landscape. And as we exhausted the soil in our cultivated towns and cities, so too, would we exhaust the men that tilled the fields and lived in those cities, and further, exhaust their ideas.
For Thoreau, it was only possible to see these deleterious effects of a civilized society by physically removing himself from it, and by keeping a close proximity to nature; he proposed that the subdued man has subdued ideas, and those who are tame are also dull. But the importance of perspective did not only apply to his view of destructive human empire. Thoreau insightfully noticed that nature could be further appreciated when viewed from a different vantage point. Near the end of his essay, Thoreau provides his account of a time he scaled a white-pine tree on the top of a hill. He says, “I discovered new mountains in the horizon which I had never seen before, --so much more of the earth and the heavens” (Thoreau, 661). It was only by ascending up the tree that Thoreau was able to survey the entire land more completely, but he even noticed the minute details on the top-most branches that mother nature did not omit, details that could only be seen from a different vantage point. He adds, “We see only the flowers that are under our feet in the meadows” (Thoreau, 661). Most importantly, however, was his acknowledgement of how our environment changes relative to our perspective, how different nature and culture appear when seen from a different position. And the importance lies not in the act of observation, but in observing the environment in the present moment that changes not only when we walk, but always. Thoreau humbly observed that “the world with which we are so commonly acquainted leaves no trace, and it will have no anniversary”(Thoreau, 659), as everything always changes, including ourselves, and the present moment is changed into nothing but a memory.
For Thoreau, his walks through the woods, away from refined society and culture, were his opportunity to reflect on the ambitions of mankind to enervate the wilderness and replace it with agriculture. What foresight Thoreau had when he wrote:
“The best part of the land is not private property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative freedom. But possibly the day will come. . . when fences shall be multiplied, and man traps and other engines invented to confine men to the publicroad; and walking over the surface of God’s earth, shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman’s grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities then before the evil days come” (Thoreau, 636-7).
Thoreau did not live long enough to see these ‘evil’ days. But come they did, driven by the hunger for money, land, and power, and fueled by technology and capitalism. Towns quickly became cities, the prairies all turned to farms. Dirt roads turned to freeways and horses to cars. With the nation fully expanded from coast to coast and all wilderness charted and mapped, the only place left for us to go was up. Roughly one hundred years after Thoreau’s death, the ground breaking began on what one day would become the iconic symbol of western development; the tallest building complex in the world, towering over the largest city in America. Standing atop one of the monstrous 110-story buildings of the WorldTradeCenter was the perfect vantage point for Michel de Certeau to observe New York City, providing insight for his essay “Walking in the City.” From high above the surrounding land, where Thoreau could once see the new horizons of nature’s creations from the top of the white-pine, now de Certeau could see nothing but the vast expanse of a man-made city in all directions, or as he described it “a wave of verticals. . .the most immoderate of human texts” (Certeau, 91-2). The panorama of the city appears like a synthetic, metal tsunami; an extravagant and unrestrained extension of human construction.
De Certeau suggests that only from above can one examine the layout of the city, or the concept on which it was constructed, just as the nature of civilization can be better interpreted when seen from without. De Certeau wrote that “The 1370 foot high tower that serves as a prow for Manhattan continues to construct the fiction that creates readers, makes the complexity of the city readable, and immobilizes its opaque mobility in a transparent text” (Certeau, 92). In other words, from this height the viewer is essentially removed from the alienating construction that is the city and the society that built it. The spectator is able to observe, or in a sense ‘read’ the city streets in their grid-like patterns that dictate the ebb and flow of commuters and traffic that de Certeau can only describe as nervous. The city, as observed from this removed perspective, is changed from subject to object—when in the city it moves around and with the individual, but when the spectator is removed the city is suspended and observable, rather like switching from actor in a play to member of the audience.
Before our massive cities were built, before we leveled the land to create the modern steel horizon, the concept city existed; the functionality was a means to centralize all of the once scattered components, including groups, associations, and individuals into a single, cohesive administration, and consideration of the city as a proper noun provided the physical foundation for spatially connecting once isolated entities. Ironically, as de Certeau points out, this administration produced contrary effects. The amount of resources, and effort, and time, and money devoted to making New York’s network of city circuits denser than its predecessor has done nothing more than create what de Certeau would call a language of excessive expenditure and production, which produces loss and weakens the system from within.
Nonetheless, the skyscrapers do serve the city, but as the most unnatural panopticon, the god’s eye view for monitoring all movement below. The panoptic view transfers power from the individual thus empowering the administration, and the higher the view, the further the control can reach. However, de Certeau argues that “The language of power is in itself ‘urbanizing,’ but the city is left prey to contradictory movements that counterbalance and combine themselves outside the reach of panoptic power” (Certeau, 95). Rather, while the city is organizing, the administrative power is disrupted by the disorderly movement within the city.
The enormous buildings of the World Trade Center, an encompassing symbol for all of western society, were viewed by some as the manifestation of our grandiose delusions. As such, the monumental buildings became a target for arguments against our supremacy; what took more than five years and $900 million to complete was destroyed in a single day in September, 2001, and along with it nearly 3,000 lives (“World Trade Center, 2012). All at once the city spectator was brought from the top floor back down to reality on the street level in what de Certeau described 30 years earlier as “an Icarian fall” (Certeau, 92).
Once back on land, the city grid that de Certeau saw from high above is no longer legible, and the solitary pedestrian becomes lost in the masses. The duty is now placed on the walker to elucidate the design of the city, to somehow make sense out of the foreign and indistinguishable concrete environment. The walker in nature has no obligation to the environment, for the forest defines itself and fulfils its purpose simply by existing. The walker in the city, on the other hand, defines the city, gives it meaning, and changes it by walking through it. For example, the design of the city is altered by taking short-cuts that perhaps were not originally intended in the concept. It is the perspective of the viewer that defines the object of observation, and as we move, whether through a forest or through a city, our perspectives and environments change simultaneously. Further, our presence changes the environment, just like the shadows we cast and how they change relative to our position under the light source, whether sunlight, moonlight, or artificial streetlight.
Although we alter the city by walking through it, this is not a one way street, so to speak. De Certeau proposes that aside from the city altering the natural landscape, it has altered us by the language we use—we can use only words and personal stories to define our surroundings (like the intersection of Jefferson and Flower is understood only through words of location, or the words that describe the buildings at that location). The act of observation bestows meaning on the object observed, and we interpret these observations with our learned words that provide the definition.
“Spatial practices in fact secretly structure the determining conditions of social life” (Certeau, 96), implying how the city has changed our everyday practices. And we, as urban Americans have come to believe that we are all individuals separate from our surroundings; that our own self-interest is not contingent upon one another, and our only bond to nature is our dominion over it. We are no longer connected to her the way that was possible during Thoreau’s lifetime, there are no more wide open spaces, and every piece of our land is charted and mapped from a birds eye view.
As the frontier closed the push west intensified, and in a short 100 years Los Angeles grew from just over 100,000 inhabitants to a staggering 3.7 million at the turn of the century (“Los Angeles,” 2012). Our efforts in establishing a modern city like Los Angeles equate to the efforts of dominating and transforming this naturally desert landscape: we must clear areas of vegetation to construct buildings and lay streets; we must alter the natural flow of rivers to ensure reliable water sources for the people and agriculture; we displace the habitats of the local flora and fauna to make room for ourselves. We are able to plan exactly which species of palm tree will grow where, which colors of flowers will bloom when. While this may be aesthetically pleasing, we nonetheless manipulate the natural vegetation and force the environment to adapt to our constructions.
In our present day Los Angeles, there is nowhere to walk that is wild. Most that do walk, as Thoreau suspected, are doing so merely as a means to an end, and are often unaware of their surroundings, distracted by their iPhones, and exhausted from the demands of our consumerist society. But if we choose to walk purposefully, and consciously, one can see the efforts of nature to push back against this. The untended grass, away from the planned lawns or street medians, tries endlessly to survive; although under a layer of concrete or pavement, even the tiniest crack in the sidewalk is opportunity enough for a seed of grass to sprout. We often forget while walking in the city that there is actually Earth underneath us, underneath the layers upon layers of concrete and asphalt.
The trees make their own efforts to maintain their sense of identity, refusing to conform; the roots of the massive Jacaranda trees forcing their way upward from under our imposed streets and sidewalks. The trees effortlessly break the massive slabs of concrete until they are mangled and jagged, as their roots demand space for the trees to grow. The sidewalk rises and falls abruptly under the walkers’ feet, illustrating the trees’ triumph over our effort to establish a smooth, easy path, just like the wild nature that persists in the human heart that civilization tries so hard to extinguish.
As de Certeau implies, we do not have to walk the path planned out for us as according to the map. We do not have to blindly follow all of those that unconsciously walk ahead of us. And we need not let the manicured landscape and concrete walls tame us or dull our ideas. Thoreau believes “that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright” (Thoreau, 637). Now that we must search through the built world to find this, we must also search within ourselves; we can be in society but not defined by it, and our ideas need not conform. And if we observe ourselves as we are observing, and notice how observation changes with perspective, we may be inspired to freely walk through the city and admire our surroundings as a mirror of ourselves.
References
Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984.
“Concord, Massachusetts.” Wikipedia, 2012.
“Los Angeles.” Wikipedia, 2012.
“Manifest Destiny.” New World Encyclopedia, 2008.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and Other Writings. New York: Modern Library, 2000.
“Walking (Thoreau).” Wikipedia, 2012.
“World Trade Center.” Wikipedia, 2012.