Monica (1s): Hi Jennifer.

Jennifer (3s): Hey Monica.

Monica (4s): Jennifer, tell us about our guest today.

Jennifer (7s): Ok, well today we’re speaking with Nina Marie Lister, Professor and Graduate Director of Urban and Regional Planning at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada where she founded and directs the ecological design lab. She holds a Margolese National Design for Living Prize for her work in ecology and design and she was awarded honorary membership in the American Society of landscape architects. Lister is a co-editor of the ecosystem approach, projective ecologies, and is the author of more than 100 scholarly and professional publications. Her work connects people to nature in cities through green infrastructure design for climate resiliency, biodiversity and human well-being. 

Monica (42s): Our conversation today was inspired by Nina Marie’s presentation at the biophilic leadership summit where she discussed these bylaws throughout North America, specifically Canada, that actually discouraged flourishing biodiverse habitats on private property in favor of something many of us are so used to that we don’t even think about it, which is the manicured lawn. 

Jennifer (1m 2s): Yes, Nina Marie is such a fantastic guest and in our conversation we’ll get into everything from why we have lawns in the first place, how to break down the norms we’re used to in our everyday lives to foster biodiversity, and why biodiversity is the new sustainability. 

Jennifer (1m 20s): Nina Marie. We are so happy you're here with us today. Thank you so much for saying yes to our podcast.

Nina Marie (1m 28s): Well thanks for asking me. I'm excited to be here too.

Monica (1m 30s): We were blown away by your biophilic leadership summit talk and felt like we needed to share that with more people like right away. And we need to just share you with more people.

Nina Marie (1m 43s): Thank you.

Jennifer (1m 43s): We know that you are very well respected in the space and what you shared at the biophilic leadership summit was so incredible. Monica, I know about you, but can you tell us a little bit more and our listeners more about your background?

Nina Marie (1m 54s): Sure. This is one of those crazy backgrounds that while you're making it, you can't believe it's ever useful. I was trained first as a scientist. an ecologist in my undergraduate and early graduate work. And I wondered why a lot of science didn't get put into practice by practitioners, policymakers, designers. And so I decided to pursue work in planning. I became a professional planner and I ended up working in this strange and magical space in between the disciplines, which some people would call falling between the cracks.

But that's actually where the light gets in. That's where interesting things happen. So I've been really fortunate to work with landscape architects, engineers, artists, architects, and to bring ecology and a kind of literacy you might say. An understanding of how we connect to nature and you guys are very familiar with that as well.

So that's, I think what we're here to talk about, and I’m now working as an ecological designer. As a land-based practitioner, we can come back to that, maybe in our conversations most of all, more than anything else I collaborate with a lot of different people to make interesting things happen.

Monica (3m): Well, we love that. Well, since this is the biophilic solutions podcast, we tend to ask everybody, where that term came into your life, so has it always been a part because you studied ecology? Was that something that was just sort of embedded or did you stumble upon it at some point in your career and, what does it mean to you?

Nina Marie (3m 22s): It is a really good question. Some people still think the term biophilia is technical. Look into the history of words and it definitely means to be connected that really defines both my practice and who I am as a person. And I would also say my own ethic of being strongly connected to the land that sustains us and in even as an ecologist early on, I was familiar with EO Wilson's work and of course, that term was made very popular in one of his popular books, meaning to say it wasn't just a scientific term, it was actually a book in, 1984 that many of you will recognize for me, the term also defined a way of practicing ecology that it wasn't just something we stand back and observe, but actually it's the complex system in which we are embedded. So you might say that we're embedded practitioners as well as observers, and we're not just along for the ride. So it’s a big part of practice for me.

Jennifer (4m 11s): I love that you also speak, I've read about a lot of your work and I've been seeing some of your videos and you talk a lot about resilience in nature, and that resilience isn't about like bouncing back to normal. And especially during COVID times, what is that normal? And was it normal to begin with for us? And nature really kind of teaches us. About bouncing back, but bouncing into a new or transformative kind of space. And I see that you're really doing that, the conversations, but also how do we look at these living ecosystems around us to bounce into or bounce forward into, to have a better relationship with the natural world around us? So, I really love that you're having these conversations and you're doing the work, especially in your own yard. So maybe you can even touch on what's happening in your own yard that's sparked a very big conversation.

Nina Marie (4m 58s): Well, I get asked that question a lot, which for me is a great irony. I always imagined that my home and my family's property was just something we did in the off hours of our daily work. And it has become my life.

First of all, thank you for talking about resilience. My friend Christina Hill wants to find, resilience as the new sustainability. It was this new term that, suddenly appeared and sort of supplanted sustainability for a lot of us. And you're absolutely right. That it is a way to think about ourselves as adaptive that the living systems in which we are embedded are actually the best model for both sustainability for thinking about future generations and about resilience or we adopt change, how are we flexible and how can we move into states with a positive sense of adaptation? In other words, my yard for me is very much a kind of experiment in progress about how does that adaptation work and how can we think about changing conditions and providing the most robust set of opportunities for when conditions change when we get that storm event or when we get more rain than we expected, or when there's a hot, dry summer that we didn't expect.

So building the resilience in our own yard starts with a diversity of plant life and diversity of habitats. And my art is about, I think what you’re asking about though is maybe how others see that yard. And I live in a neighborhood that has an awful lot of lawns. It doesn't have very much diversity, actually. In fact, it's very much diversity in people either. So I think that I broke the rules when I cut my lawn to be a little promiscuous.

Jennifer (6m 42s): I've never heard that about a lawn before, but I love it.

Nina Marie (6m 44s): We've often referred to biological diversity in systems. And when I say we, I mean, anybody who studies them understands that diversity is the key to their resilience, their ability to adapt to surprising events or sudden, and sometimes catastrophic.

We need diversity and we need it in our human societies as well. A cultural diversity is a, I think, a helpful mirror. So I live in a neighborhood that has one size of front yard and that's mostly mowed lawns and our family lives on a slope on beautiful corner lot. We're very fortunate to enjoy a corner lot.

And that means there's more yard. And it also means that, it didn't make a lot of sense to us that in the limited time we have to garden and to be in nature in our city. Why would we mow it down and more importantly, push a gas powered bar up a hill.

So we grow a very diverse, native yard that looks a little bit like a meadow underneath a fruit orchard. If you can imagine what that looks like, your listeners might note that that would be native fruit trees, which in our area are mostly apples, but also pears and some cultivated apricots.

They were there when we got there and there was a lawn kind of clipped in one part of the yard that suffers from an awful lot of erosion. It's a steep slope, upwards of 20% in some cases. So we looked to nature to provide an easier way to manage the space, but also a more creative way to create something that would be appealing, we thought. We noticed that school kids like to pass by and sit on the logs we had placed under the trees. We noticed that a lot of people stopped to let their pets relieve themselves at the end of the slope. So that made growing conditions a little tougher. And we also noticed that people stopped a lot to appreciate the fruit.

Sometimes they pick the fruit, which was fine with us, cause there's a lot of it. And most of all, it provided a cool shady spot in the hottest days of summer, and it provided interest in the winter time. I live in Toronto, I'm coming to you from a winter city of sorts. And so the different diversity of plant life provided visual interest.

There's an awful lot of songbirds, an awful lot of mammals, rabbits, raccoons, foxes. We had a coyote this summer come and hang out, which probably made us less popular than ever.

But that's a long story. To you really tell you that our yard looks different. It's biodiverse. It's rich. It's also sounds beautiful. And our neighbors didn't think so, someone called the bylaw enforcement officer who came to tell us that we had to mow our grass. And as a planner, you can imagine my surprise to say, I thought we had a bylaw that supported biodiversity because I've worked a lot in the public sector. And our city has very progressive policies around pollinators, around shade, keeping urban heat island down around biodiversity and even the creation of habitat for wildlife and public land, not on private property. Ah, that's interesting. Where's the distinction that private yard owners are effectively being not only discouraged, but prevented from doing the very thing that our city asks our citizens to do on public land.

And this is, as it turns out is common throughout North America. We're not unusual in that regard. 

Monica (9m 58s): Yeah, no, definitely where I grew up I'm in Atlanta, but I grew up in Southern California outside of Los Angeles. And it was just like beautiful suburban neighborhood, but like lawn city, and if you didn't have that clipped, and if you didn't have it manicured, you were in big trouble, like even your Parkway and your trees.

And so I want to hear. The story of how, that arc of getting that it's not really a ticket, but getting in trouble. and then what you did, but before, I'm wondering if you could tell us, why do we have lawns?

Nina Marie (10m 32s): Well, that is a podcast all by itself. There's a lot to say about that, but let's try and be really succinct to say that it's the norm in a settler colonial culture like North America, Canada, and the United States share that history. We have a kind of tendency to want to have a landscape of leisure that suggests that we have arrived when one achieves the suburban dream or the independence of the home, the idea that a lawn represents a state of leisure wealth achievement, think of all the hilarious lawn care commercials you've seen over the guys competing for the greenest shortest clipped lawn, weed-free lawn, some of them are amusing.

But underneath that humor is actually something very serious that that lawn, as it was introduced to North America is actually pasture grasses from Europe that didn't blend well with native North American wildlife, for example. And in fact it was a tradition of bringing plant life from away to help the colonists feel comfortable and also aspire to wealth. If you think about the earliest introduction of the lawns in the United States, that's Thomas Jefferson's gift if you will, the beautiful lawns were landscapes of leisure, but on whose back did they rest were created by labor and oftentimes by slave labor, they were also in my country in Canada, they also displaced indigenous plants. Native plants that had medicinal spiritual healing properties. So the moment is an insidious invader of its own, and it requires enormous inputs to maintain. And I wouldn't want to suggest that the lawn is unwelcome as a concept. There are plenty of places in our spaces where we can all appreciate the common lawn or places of collective celebration of mourning, of grieving of protest. So the lawn is a very important symbol for gathering people together. On the one hand that's public space and on private space, we might want to think about other ways to reintroduce and reconnect with the natural diversity of the places that sustain us.

So the lawn has a mixed history. I'd also say if I may, there’s a kind of very pejorative judgment around the lawn as well. It represents what is controlled, what is maintained, what is appealing. And it suggests culturally and socially a kind of collective norm than if you disobey or you digress, you do something differently from the lawn, you are somehow signaling that you're outside the norm. Think about it culturally, the front yard was a place where we show conformity, we show control order and cleanliness, and that usually means getting rid of the diversity. I think of it as a curly haired person, all three of us, I don’t conform to straight, ordered. And we also know there's sometimes some judgment historically with that. When there are loose curls, there might be loose morals, just the lawn. Right, we don’t know what kind of promiscuity is happening. There's a kind of social judgment that over the years is associated.

Monica (13m 48s): That is fascinating, fascinating, and so fun. Now is it true. Like, I feel like one of my kids told me that the lawn was originally, I don't know if it came out of France or England, but the queen or royalty had it. And they had all of these servants that literally clipped it by hand before there was the lawn mower, so it was this status symbol because the people in charge had it and so if you own one that means that you had money to your point. And then obviously the lawnmower comes along and like, quote, anybody can have a lawn if you will, and here we are in North America with them everywhere, but I love the idea, that it's a sense of control and order and cleanliness.

And I totally agree with you, I started in California, as people were starting to pull up their lawns to do drought tolerant landscapes, right. That became a little more wild, Whether that was olive trees or succulents or various rocks, but it was, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on at that house?

Nina Marie (14m 42s): Yeah. Exactly, you broke the rules, you broke the mold. And it's very helpful to think of all the adjectives we use to describe yards that are not lawns. We call them wild, unkempt, disorganized, overgrown, excessive. All of these words are also used to describe non-conforming social behavior.

And so there's a very powerful analogy to think about there. I'm not suggesting that most people who have a front yard, that's a lawn really think about that. But I am saying that it's a powerful convention of having a lawn that has become a convention. And I would say we now talk a lot about ways to break that convention because we know it’s better for the ecology, but it's more helpful for us to have habitats that sustain other species as well. It helps our connection to nature is something that this podcast knows all about. Right? And at the same time, the desire for this clipped little square, even in the smallest of private yards has the unintended impact or consequence of eradicating the various species that we need to be held for politics, stormwater infiltration for even a mental health and wellness. This has become so clear during the pandemic, the time in our gardens, time to sustain and cultivate diversity is directly connected to our health.

Monica (16m 5s): Oh, I got, I love that. And at Serenbe, we weren't able to be in person for the summit this year, but in Serenbe, we sort of say there are no lawns, but we really discourage them. So there's a few people, we don't say you can't have one, but we very much educate and so you very rarely will see one. And we were inspired, or really Steve Nygren, by a gentleman called Brian Ganey, who in North America was really well-known for a book called the well-placed weed, which I love. And then I think also thinking about weeds, it's like, what is a weed, is it really a weed?

Nina Marie (18m 28s): Well, it goes hand in hand with what I've been talking about, and you're asking about the conformity and moral righteousness of the lawn. A weed is of course just a plant that is unwanted in the wrong place, or it's a plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered depending on–

Monica (18m 41s): There we go, I like that.

Nina Marie (18m 43s): My good friend and colleague Peter Del Tredici has written a lot about books that used to be called weeds, guides to weeds. He's written a guide to the wild urban plants of the north. So he recognizes that these are opportunistic plants that given the right conditions will proliferate. And they certainly have their place at times, but of course it's like trash to treasure. One person's junk is another person's treasure. One person's unwanted plant is someone's weed or someone's beautiful plant, depending on who you ask, it is really important to understand where those legals come from.

And in which landscapes we encourage, which plants certainly we want to support native biodiversity, but in some places we might want a little bit more cosmopolitan ecology or promiscuous plants because we need them to help cultivate lands that are denuded or, perhaps derelict. So I want to be careful that we're not excluding people’s right to their gardens with plant life.

Monica (19m 39s): Yeah. We always talk about just, if you can learn and you have knowledge, now you have the opportunity to be more thoughtful in your choices and not wanting to say you can't do this thing, but reconsider it possibly. Or if you do, let's do something that doesn't take all these inputs, if you are going to do a lawn, then figure out how to do it in a more sustainable way. But I do love the idea of the public sphere because so many gathering places are great lawns and they really are wonderful gathering spaces.

Nina Marie (20m 9s): Maybe we should adopt the principle that our medical colleagues do, which is to do no harm. This is a bylaw principle, do no harm. We try to support bylaws that, I think, show that whatever we're doing in our gardens and our yards does not harm the local ecology and it doesn't harm people. And it's not a terribly difficult principle to adhere to. It's really not about weeds or about the lawn or about which plants, but rather, that whatever we plant there should not be harmful.

Jennifer (20m 41s): I love that idea. And I have to tell you this number because you'll probably enjoy this the most. I live in New York City and then during the beginning of the pandemic, my backyard is Central Park and I spent every day in Central Park. And for the first time in my life, I witnessed the fact that there was no more mowing the lawns.

No one was keeping up with the growth of wildlife really, in Central Park. And it was delightful to see real native Meadows kind of sprouting up all over Central Park. And I was just like jumping for joy saying, look at this, it's not mowed. It looks wonderful. There's always like new species of plants and weeds growing everywhere.

And it was just, I was ecstatic about everyone else I was with was like, what are you talking about? It's just a weed. I'm like, no, this is great. It looks wonderful. And it was funny. Cause I remember the very first time seeing it mowed for the first time I said, oh, I really liked. And I enjoyed the beauty of the wildness of it in the middle of New York city. So it was an interesting time to see.

Nina Marie (21m 40s): Well, it's also interesting because it's a funeral, that we are reminded that landscapes change and that we can encourage growth and then we can change our minds and try something different. So there's also that quality to them that they don't need to be considered this static picture of what is possible, but rather that there are many possible stages of these conditions. We could have a meadow for a certain amount of time and then allow it to succeed into a small shrubland, for example, these are all possibilities.

Jennifer (22m 7s): You taught me something by something I had heard you said, which I didn't think about even though I loved nature and I'm studying as much as I can. I'm trying to learn as much as I can all the time, which I so enjoy. I love that you talk about landscapes are not separate then in a city, they are a part of the city. So how do we move through these patches? not just people, but animals, plants, birds, species are all a part of these. It's like ecology of a space in place and they're not separate of them. So I just love the idea that I'm in this concrete jungle, this little park, right there is not separate from me. It's a part of these corridors, as you said, from place to place, which I thought was really beautiful.

Nina Marie (22m 45s): Yeah, I think that's part of us talking about biophilia. It's part of a tangible recognition that we are connected to the natural world. It sustains us and you're part of it. We're not separate even in the idea that there are these myriad creatures sometimes hidden in plain sight, moving around us under us, sometimes. This is to me, a very important concept to think about because it's analogous to how we treat each other as human beings.

That we recognize that a diversity of human beings are important to make a community. And that we're more resilient when we are inclusive of that diversity and that same principle holds true for our ecology. Our gardens are a good place to test those ideas that we ask important questions like who belongs, rather than deciding what's not welcome and what we need out and get rid of. So it's a useful way to think about it.

Monica (22m 35s): Yeah. I think learning from nature and taking notes from them and how do we incorporate that into sort of our cultural life from their cultural life? I do want to take us back though, to, once you were told no, no, no. It doesn't look right. This is not gonna happen. So this is just you. This is your yard. It's at your personal property and you think this is beautiful and it is beautiful and it's totally bio-diverse. They say you can't do it. You have to conform to this thing. What happens next?

Nina Marie (23m 59s): Well, I did, I think, what any person who has a platform would do.And I tweeted. I used social media, I did what my kids do and what my students do. And first I thought, how is it possible that as the director of a graduate program that teaches professional planning who by he way planners wrote by-laws and municipal codes, how would I not know this? And the truth is. I did know it.

I thought we had solved this problem because I was very aware of people who challenge this very same bylaw in the late 1990s. And what I didn't realize that the city in like happens in many cities. When you revise a bylaw, they really throw out the old one, they just add something to it. And what they added was a special clause that recognized based on a court decision, everyone has the right. This is I'm speaking about Toronto. Everyone has the right to express their environmental values on their private property and in their yard. This was decision by the Ontario superior court, which recognized, I guess in general language, we'd say the constitutionality of one's right to express their values in their private parts.

Well, that's what I was doing. The city offers something called a natural garden exemption, which meant that individuals like me could apply to the city, register their home address and explain that they had something called a natural garden, which was poorly defined. And what I argued is, because I'm a professor and the director of a planning program, I thought, this is my obligation. I actually have to do this and I really need to help everyday people understand how a bylaw that sounds this complicated could possibly work. And I said, no, I don't want that exemption. I think that's ridiculous because there are so many people who are trying to follow the city’s own lead by in their own landscape,and they’re trying to plant for native diversity, trying to plant a rich selection of habitats.

And they're trying to do the right thing to support a more climate resilient and biodiverse yard. Why should they have to apply for an exemption? And when I refused it, this became a matter of public debate. And when I tweeted this very same sentiment. We essentially got picked up by various news outlets and the rest, as they say is print history.

The short answer is we had the mayor come to tea in the garden with an environmental lawyer. David Donnelly, supported by lots of different colleagues who've been doing this work for a very long time and we effectively got the bylaw changed.

Monica (26m 30s): That's amazing. Now, the neighbors, were they pro were they con, did they talk to you about it? What has happened? Have other, you know, yards in your neighborhood, looking similar to yours now, have you started a trend? What’s going on?

Nina Marie (26m 41s): Well, great question. What I got was love notes. I’m sure I got hate mail too, but I didn't pay attention to that. I got lovely letters, not for me, but for the garden, we got people dropping handwritten notes into our mailbox. We got, People writing emails, just saying what a beautiful yard we're so inspired. We didn't know you could do this. And more importantly, we didn't know you couldn't do it. And then I would say, of course, there are always people who are unhappy with something that looks different. And as I said, I happened to be in a neighborhood of mostly single detached family homes that are, it's not a suburb, actually it's in the central part of the city to the Midtown west. And it was surprising to me actually that there weren't more yards, but here's the point when you look around, there are actually many, many yards. I photographed literally hundreds of them that have a rich diversity of plant life. The difference between their yard and mine was that neighbors didn't complain.

Mine looks a little more wild. It looks a little shaggier. It has bright colors. It has a lot of leaves. Cause I leave my leaves. I don't believe in leaf blowers or, destroying the soil biodiversity or, and maybe some of my critics were right. Maybe I was just a little bit garden lazy, but that's not truthfully, that's not, I want it to be efficient and effective with how we manage the yard.

Monica (27m 58s): I think garden lazy could be a hashtag. And I think people need to send you their garden. Lazy, beautiful, we should aspire to garden lazy. 

Nina Marie (28m 14s): So, I like to work hard when it comes to projects like this, but private yard just like yours, this is there for your relaxation, then your mental health and wellbeing. And I worked pretty hard in the garden, but mostly to support all those other species, not, mowing anything. Right.

Monica (28m 31s): Yep. So what are you doing in your work-life right now? So you're teaching, how has this translated into, work with your students or work you're doing on policy?

Nina Marie (28m 38s): Really great question to ask. Thank you. Because so much of my work is really about training the next generation of planners and designers, but most of all, it's actually an active research practice. We are a studio based program, which means that we're experiential learning we learn with and in our communities.And so. Principally graduate students right now. And they work with me in my research lab, which is the ecological design lab. And their projects are very much inclusive of this way of thinking. They're all related to biophilia broadly, but most specifically, they are about making landscape connections tangible in cities for humans and for wildlife.

And a lot of them are doing research on bylaws. In fact, we have a studio project right now together with the biophilic cities network that is looking at the partner cities and their municipal codes to find out where are the barriers and opportunities to support biodiversity in the biophilic cities?

And what can we learn from each other? Which of course, as you know, is a big part of the point.

Jennifer (29m 51s): That’s incredible.

Nina Marie (29m 40s): Where can you share those results? Really looking forward to learning from other cities, we've covered an awful lot of cities have plants that are required to be lower than eight inches. Can you believe it?

Jennifer (29m 54s): Lower than eight inches. How is that even like a law? I don’t even understand.

Nina Marie (29m 59s): There's this strange and weird part of the municipal code that we're hoping to bust open and, put some light in there, put some, more wild growth into the code.

Jennifer (30m 08s): Speaking to that and your studies and doing this with the biophilic cities, are you learning more, seeing more gateways into how we then build cities for climate change, across the board? What is your thought about that?

Nina Marie (30m 21s): That's the long-term goal for sure. This particular project is starting in a quite narrow scope. We're looking literally at the municipal codes in these 14 cities together with our partners, that biophilic cities network. And what we're doing from that is looking at how can cities support, not only in public spaces, but in private yards and gardens, including rights of ways, privately on public spaces, those transitional spaces between the private realm and the public, what can cities do in a very tangible and grounded way? Literally to support biodiversity with an eye, not only to supporting a wide range of native species, but because within climate change, we know that we need a resilient matrix of species as conditions change. So we have to have species that can adapt to drought, drought and deluge sometimes in the same season, across North America, particularly for food resilience. In some cases we're looking at reasons of environmental and social justice to allow people to grow food in their gardens, fruit on their roof, tarps, these ideas extend from the front door you might say into the backyards and the public realm broadly.

And we're hoping that this will provide a real toolkit for municipalities, particularly municipal leaders in planning and design to showcase how these tools can support a more climate resilient urban fabric. And of course the benefits of that include looking at our mental health and wellness and the relationship that we have through plant life and wildlife, to our own health and wellness.

Monica (31m 50s): One of the things that I noticed for the ecological design lab, is we've talked a little bit about the land and resilience. But I just want to throw out for our listeners. The lab also works with green and blue infrastructure. I think we know what that is, and I can make a guess and I, you know, I know enough, but we use tell us a little bit about what the difference is between the two and one or two examples of how those can be resilient opportunities, because we know so much of our infrastructure is aging across the country whether that's bridges or sewers or storm water.

[00:29:08] Nina Marie: Exactly. We usually think of infrastructure as human designed, civil engineered, concrete and steel. We think of green infrastructure as roads, bridges, pipelines, and sewers, as you suggested, and we think municipally, and I think most people who vote will also think, well, we have to spend money on that infrastructure. We have to invest in it because as you say, it's crumbling across North America. Most of our infrastructure is post-second world war. It is reaching it’s natural lifespan. And what we're realizing is that investment may be better placed in living infrastructure, infrastructure, which is alive and carries with it the benefits of nature ecosystem services, and maybe more technical terms or what I think of as nature based solutions, solutions to climate change that are rooted in. In the natural and living world and all of its benefits, not in the systems that actually created, the problems in the first place.

So that's not to say that we don't invest in gray infrastructure, but that in tandem with that investment, we also see a valuable economic investment in what is alive. So green roofs, living walls, for example, we might consider purpose-built, human designed, green infrastructure that has a component that is.

So a green roof or a living wall, a bioswale, for example, those are all good examples of green infrastructure. That's the way we define it. Others might talk about forests as green infrastructure. That's a different category, but for our purposes, we're talking about human designed urban infrastructure.

When we say blue infrastructure, it's a way of defining it from the green that means it's principle performance. If you will, is to convey slow hold and so-called. So some people might say a bioswale is both and blue. We also think about daylighting creeks or the re-naturalization of shorelines, meaning that, where we have areas that are a hard resistant dock wall, we might puncture that and allow a wetland to flourish as if soaking, holding, slowing and absorbing kind of restructure that just performs a different set of functions and it moves us from a, resistant infrastructure to a more resilient infrastructure. Imagine resistance is putting up a wall or a concrete berm or, a revetment in a channel.

This is something that, and allowing life to get in. So allowing the plant material, the root masses and the functions of those vegetation qualities to help with absorption plasticity in some cases, and more adaptability in the face of climate change. 

Monica (34m 53s): We have, a couple of gabion I think I'm saying that correctly, bridges at Serenbe, which I guess would be more green infrastructure possibly. Would that– cause the bridges themselves? Are these sort of living bridges, steel cages are stacked on top of each other for the listener– most people don't know they're there. You really have to walk down on the trails and look back on the bridge because if you're on it, you just think, that's a bridge, but being able to have the wildlife pulled up close to it because it's gabion, and it's not this, I guess this steel structure, is magical to me because it sits within nature rather than encroaching upon it.

Nina Marie (35m 31s): I think you’re raising something that is really important, Monica, that really goes to how we see and understand our relationship with nature. If we can make these functions visible to people, if we make them legible more than just visible, but we actually help people to understand and read what these infrastructures are, and what they do, we create a kind of common understanding of them. My friend Jane Wolf writes a lot about the ideas of making legible and understanding what landscapes do. And I think she's right on, because if we can understand, if we can see and understand, we can value them, what the value must, we understand it.

And so it's a really important part of the biophilic cities work, I think. To make these infrastructures legible and frankly, beautiful. We invest in things and we care for them when they're beautiful. And when we share that understanding with people about why these structures are necessary and also, all the benefits they perform for us, that is a beautiful thing.

Jennifer (36m 28s): It really is. It's just as beautiful for our brains. You just said that wellbeing the spaces once we recognize it, understand it, that's when the, stewardship comes into saying, really believe in this. This is beautiful. Why would I want it any other way? And how do I protect it and make it better for myself, for my community, loved ones. So you're absolutely right. I love that.

Monica (36m 50s): Where can people look? Cause we've talked about bylaws and policies. If my neighborhood, I can do this in my neighborhood, where would I go to find the code and then how could I start that dialogue with, I guess maybe my city council is that who I go to, how do I make that change?

Nina Marie (37m 10s): Wow. That's a series of technical steps that I think a lot of people would find daunting. And that's actually part of the reason I wanted to take on this Beilock challenge was to really allow people to bypass the need for permission to do something that is in keeping with all of the principles of biodiversity and climate change. So my advice to most citizens is leave your leaves, have a beautiful yard that has many different spaces in it. And champion that, it's rare that people would be called out in this moment for doing what I did. It's a bit unusual actually. And what we're really trying to do with this story is to show people that what we need is to make this movement together. If you have a lot of people taking a different alternative to the, just the lawn, I mean, have a bit of lawn. If you'd like it, that's fine, but there's a lot of other opportunities. There are neighborhood organizations, all the time organizations that do urban agriculture organizations that trade seeds once a year, your native plant exchange. For example, we know that even if people don't have a yard and many people don't, they live in condos or apartment buildings, there are opportunities usually to steward the land at the base of the apartment building or the tower. Get involved with your condo board. Talk to the apartment owner about what you might do to diversify. If it's a lawn or provide even food for people, oftentimes in our community schools, our community centers, these are places we can put our hands into the ground together to grow something that's productive.

And the best way we can do it is to lead by doing. Yeah, other than, some people feel it's perhaps easier to share information at a local citizens group, or to get involved with a community based organization that even if it's a business improvement district, for example, a lot of BIA’s or business improvement associations will take over planting street for beautification. That's a way to talk about, well, what do we want to have in those planters? Maybe we need something more than just the standard annual plants, but perhaps we want plants that are food-based or that are pollinators specific. So lots of things that I think are easy to do on a small scale, but collectively use many hands and they add up,

Monica (39m 15s): I love it. Yeah. Where can we find you on Twitter? What's your handle so we can follow you? 

Nina Marie (39m 24s): Pretty easy, it's my name. Nina Marie Lister. And most of all, please come to the ecological design lab. Yeah. And see the work of my students. They are just an incredibly inspiring group of young people who, despite climate anxiety and all of the fears and concerns that we share with uncertainty, they are doing things and they're really supportive. They're engaged in their communities. And there's lots of great examples about how you can get involved in your community as well. 

Monica (39m 49s): It’s wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Nina Marie, we can't wait to like actually meet you in person. 

Nina Marie (39m 54s): Yeah, I missed going to Serenbe this year. I’ve never been so

Jennifer (40m): Marie, you would love it so much. When I first went to Serenbe three years ago, I was just in awe and that's why I love everything about Serenbe, because it really is a transformative place. So I think you will absolutely love it.

Nina Marie (40m 15s): Yeah. And thanks for helping me pronounce it correctly.

Monica (40m 27s): Of course, everybody gets it wrong.

Nina Marie (40m 18s): I’m looking forward to seeing you in person at some point. And I thank you very much for inviting me to speak to your engaged listeners today.

Monica (40m 24s): What a joy. Thank you so much. Nina Marie.

Jennifer (40m 30s): Wow, ok I love that so much.

Monica (40m 32s): I know, who knew a conversation about city codes could be so fascinating. 

Jennifer (40m 38s): Yes, it’s so interesting to me that the lawn really comes out of this very euro-centric conception of leisure and looking out in these manicured pastoral landscapes.

Monica (40m 46s): Right and that’s so different from so much of the biodiversity in North America. 

Jennifer (40m 51s): Yes, but it’s so pervasive that I don't think it's something that most people even think about, even if they are the person who’s interested in the environment and biodiversity. 

Monica (41m 1s): But she was really quick to point out that the lawn does have a place in society and public spaces. A large public lawn is actually really useful in providing a gathering place for people. But do each of us really need a massive lawn of our own when we could actually do something that has a greater overall impact?

Jennifer (41m 16s): Well and on that end, the response to her own garden yard in Toronto was overwhelmingly positive. 

Monica (41m 22s): Right, which shouldn’t surprise us because we all know that a flourishing wild natural environment has massive positive impacts inhuman health.

Jennifer (41m 29s): It’s all a huge circle. 

Monica (41m 34s): That’s right Jennifer, and we’ll talk to you later with another fabulous guest in a few weeks. 

Jennifer (41m 39s): Sounds great.

Monica (41m 40s): Bye.