One of Smithsonian Magazine's Favorite Books of 2022
With wildlife thriving in cities, we have the opportunity to create
vibrant urban ecosystems that serve both people and animals.
The Accidental Ecosystem tells the story of how cities across the
United States went from having little wildlife to filling, dramatically
and unexpectedly, with wild creatures. Today, many of these cities have
more large and charismatic wild animals living in them than at any time
in at least the past 150 years. Why have so many cities--the most
artificial and human-dominated of all Earth's ecosystems--grown rich
with wildlife, even as wildlife has declined in most of the rest of the
world? And what does this paradox mean for people, wildlife, and nature
on our increasingly urban planet?
The Accidental Ecosystem is the first book to explain this phenomenon
from a deep historical perspective, and its focus includes a broad range
of species and cities. Cities covered include New York City, Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Austin, Miami, Chicago, Seattle, San
Diego, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Digging into the natural
history of cities and unpacking our conception of what it means to be
wild, this book provides fascinating context for why animals are
thriving more in cities than outside of them. Author Peter S. Alagona
argues that the proliferation of animals in cities is largely the
unintended result of human decisions that were made for reasons having
little to do with the wild creatures themselves. Considering what it
means to live in diverse, multispecies communities and exploring how
human and non-human members of communities might thrive together,
Alagona goes beyond the tension between those who embrace the surge in
urban wildlife and those who think of animals as invasive or as public
safety hazards. The Accidental Ecosystem calls on readers to reimagine
interspecies coexistence in shared habitats, as well as policies that
are based on just, humane, and sustainable approaches.
