Urban Biodiversity and the Housing Crisis
Walking along the Colorado River behind the old factories on the east side of Austin, Texas, you might forget that you are in one of the fastest-growing cities in America. The riparian corridor below downtown is a rare zone of urban biodiversity.
Herons and egrets fish the spillway. Owls, coyotes, hawks, deer and even ringtail cats thrive in the surrounding woods, within earshot of the tollway and the airport flight path. As Texas’ long hot summers cool into fall, the ospreys begin to arrive, and come winter there are bald eagles.
A Sense of Anticipatory Loss
It’s reassuring to witness so much wild nature inside a major city. But it also fills you with a sense of anticipatory loss, if you know how threatened it is by development pressure — from the nearby pecan groves being cleared out to make room for new apartments and offices to the massive Tesla gigafactory recently built downriver.
The Connection Between Housing and Habitat
On a shrinking planet, habitat has become increasingly scarce for us and our nonhuman neighbors. In the U.S., affordable housing has escalated from a local problem to a major national one, as median prices have increased by nearly 50% since 2020, rising twice as fast as wages, and homelessness has reached record levels.
Political leaders are talking about opening public lands for new housing. Less airtime is given to the stark tally of the biodiversity crisis: The World Wildlife Fund recently estimated that the wildlife population of the planet has plummeted 73% since 1970. The connections between these two crises are rarely examined.
The Linkage Between Our Own Development and Our Devouring of the World
Increasing the supply of human housing does not always deplete wildlife habitat. Indeed, the concentration of the human population in urban areas is an important strategy to combat habitat loss. But the linkage between our own development and our devouring of the world is inescapable.
Myopia and the Trade-Offs between Our Lives and Nonhuman Life
Our capacity for myopia when it comes to the trade-offs between our lives and nonhuman life is profound. It’s embedded in language, in the way we refer to undeveloped lands as “empty,” “vacant” or even “waste.” It’s also baked into our legal and economic systems, which have few tools to value nature except as something humans own or consume.
Signs of Change
There are signs we are developing new ways to recognize and address this dangerous imbalance. The emerging field of ecosystem services looks at the contributions of wild nature to human welfare through an economic prism, showing how, for example, the loss of predators, such as wolves, and scavengers, such as vultures, can be directly tied to a corresponding loss of human life and property those animals would have prevented by depleting the population of deer and cattle that might otherwise meet their deaths in automobile accidents or spread disease from their uneaten carcasses.
Conclusion
By coupling the development with enhanced standards for its ecological impact, we can address the housing and biodiversity crises at the same time, providing habitat for all. And by experiencing the richness of life in more biodiverse environments ourselves, you can bet we would learn to be better stewards of our planetary future — and happier ones.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the state of urban biodiversity in Austin, Texas?
A: The riparian corridor below downtown Austin is a rare zone of urban biodiversity, home to various species such as herons, egrets, owls, coyotes, hawks, deer, and ringtail cats.
Q: What is the connection between housing and habitat?
A: On a shrinking planet, habitat has become increasingly scarce for us and our nonhuman neighbors. The concentration of the human population in urban areas is an important strategy to combat habitat loss, but the linkage between our own development and our devouring of the world is inescapable.
Q: What is the biodiversity crisis?
A: The World Wildlife Fund recently estimated that the wildlife population of the planet has plummeted 73% since 1970.
Q: What can be done to address the housing and biodiversity crises?
A: By coupling the development with enhanced standards for its ecological impact, we can address the housing and biodiversity crises at the same time, providing habitat for all.
