Concrete Jungle: A Pop Media Investigation of Death and Survival in Urban Ecosystems

Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of

cats

And ten thousand peoploids split into small

tribes

Coveting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers

Like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts

of Love-Me Avenue....

David Bowie, "Future Legend"

Review Over the course of more than ten thousand years, human history has changed our environment, but the change is not always apparent. Is nature better preserved in Manhattan, where I live now; suburban Los Angeles, where I spent much of my youth; or on the periphery of some Vermont hamlet that is home to toothpaste and ice cream makers? Most would pick Vermont. Concrete Jungle's editors Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman -- internationally renowned New York artists whose work deals with issues of the representation of nature -- argue otherwise. Humans are part of nature, not a separate entity, and thus Yosemite and the Bowery are equally natural.

A book of interviews and essays, photographs, and illustrations, Concrete Jungle is often funny, sometimes shocking. Historical, contemporary, and futurist, it explores the margins and mainstream of society. So diverse are the contributors artists, scientists, hobbyists, game-control officers) that describing them or their spectra of expertise would take most of this review. But the editors have reined in this disparate collection and loosely organized it under eight headings: "Wild in the City," "Alien Invaders," "Cats and Dogs," "Rats," "Hosting "Others," "Trash," "Road Kill," and "Zoos, Museums and Other Fictions." After two careful readings, I have gained a whole new way of looking at the "natural world."

If you are interested in tree hugging or a description of how pristine places are being ruined and exploited, you won't find much of it here. Instead, the contributors examine basic questions about our role in the natural world, primarily from the perspective of urbanites. Collectively, they deconstruct the mythic view of nature as the equivalent of beauty and reveal a nature that all of us -- bushman and beatnik -- are part of.

This nature is not depicted in contemporary photographs and documentaries or packaged in gift shops as specialty products of the "nature industry." Unpleasant, distasteful, and sometimes repulsive, the natural world, with its human connection, is vividly portrayed in Concrete Jungle. Alive, we are hosts to hundreds of different parasites, including those that may invade our field of vision or result from too many sushi lunches. When we die, a fate no different from that of our cave man ancestors awaits us: in short order, flies with ultrasensitive scent glands find our bodies, proclaiming that a meal and a home for their young is to be had. Curiously, the succession of creatures feeding on our decomposing bodies is so exact Oust like the succession of plants in a forest after clear-cutting) that it can be used as a forensic tool.

Is urban existence good for wildlife? Yes and no. Associated with the rise of civilization is the extinction of lots of species of plants and animals. But civilization has been a windfall for others: rats, for example, are more populous now than ever before in their history and far outnumber people. In constructing our homes and sustaining ourselves, we both destroy habitats and create them. In this new landscape, our pets easily adapt to life beyond our front door. Feral felines quickly show what deadly hunters they are, while Rover and fellow strays form structured packs like those of their wolf ancestors. Highways create opportunities for scavenging unlucky animals mowed down by speeding cars (for the adventurous, a few roadkill recipes are included). The chapters dealing with cockroaches and rats -- presented by accomplished exterminators, rat fanciers, and sewermen -- give graphic insights into what lurks beneath the sidewalks and behind our apartment walls. Even "wild" animals such as armadillos and raccoons have adapted to this urban landscape, operating in a set of ecological relationships that is just as complex as those of the so-called pristine rain forests.

Before we evolved, intercontinental movements of plants and animals resulted from chance occurrences or the slow rearrangement of landmasses. New opportunities for all sorts of species to stow away on our intercontinental meanderings has created a diaspora, allowing species from all over the globe to coexist. Other colonizing species have become established through escape or folly, as in the case of the European starling, released into Central Park in 1890 by William Schiefflin, who hoped to populate North America with every bird species mentioned in the works of Shakespeare.

The question "What is natural?" is best examined in insightful chapters grouped under the heading "Alien Invaders." Here contributors look critically at the social directives underpinning the craze for the reestablishment and protection of native plants and animals. There is some excellent and thought-provoking stuff here, drawing equally from history, sociology, and natural history. Did it ever occur to anyone that deriding plant or animal species as nonnative -- "garbage species" -- is precariously close to claims made against immigrant, ethnic, or religious groups of our own species? As pointed out in Concrete Jungle the "rhetoric of the pest and that of racism is intertwined."