Devastation and renewal : an environmental history of Pittsburgh and its region
Devastation and renewal : an environmental history of Pittsburgh and its region
复制标题
破坏与更新：匹兹堡及其地区的环境历史
DOI：
10.2307/3985784
复制
发表时间：
2004
影响因子：
0.7
通讯作者：
J. Tarr
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
J. Tarr
每座城市都有自己的环境故事，也许没有匹兹堡的故事那么戏剧化。这座城市建立在一个拥有巨大资源的河谷里--三条强大的水道、丰富的森林和丰富的煤层--这座城市经历了一个世纪的开采和工业化，使自然环境退化和模糊到了可怕的程度。匹兹堡后来被称为“烟雾之城”，或者，正如詹姆斯·帕顿在1866年所说的那样，“揭开盖子的地狱”。然后是第二次世界大战后几年的文艺复兴，当时这座城市的公共和私人精英在技术进步的推动下，聚集在一起，改善空气，更新建筑环境。同样戏剧性的是20世纪80年代匹兹堡的大规模去工业化，当时钢铁行业的崩溃摧毁了烟囱，留下了大片棕地和河边的足迹。今天，匹兹堡面临着前所未有的机会来扭转其历史上环境退化的局面。在《破坏与重建》一书中，研究城市环境的学者提出的问题使这个故事变得更加复杂和丰富。通过深入的档案研究，他们不仅问匹兹堡的环境发生了什么，而且问为什么。是什么力量--经济、政治和文化--在起作用？在探索匹兹堡令人不安的污染历史时，他们不仅考虑了烟雾弥漫的天空，还考虑了有毒的河流和小溪、被地雷击中的山丘和伤痕累累的土地。谁从中获利，谁为这种“进步”买单？匹兹堡人生活的环境是如何形成的，以及未来如何管理它？在一篇颇具挑衅性的总结文章中，塞缪尔·P·海斯探讨了匹兹堡的“环境文化”，即解读城市故事并致力于创造变化的态度和制度。将匹兹堡与其他城市和地区进行比较，他揭露了匹兹堡在环境方面的成就被夸大了，并挑战社区为未来取得真正的进步。对城市环境历史、破坏和更新这一新兴领域的里程碑式的贡献，对所有研究城市、文化和自然界的学生来说都将是重要的。
Every city has an environmental story, perhaps none so dramatic as Pittsburgh's. Founded in a river valley blessed with enormous resources - three strong waterways, abundant forests, rich seams of coal - the city experienced a century of exploitation and industrialization that degraded and obscured the natural environment to a horrific degree. Pittsburgh came to be known as "the Smoky City," or, as James Parton famously declared in 1866, "hell with the lid taken off." Then came the storied Renaissance in the years following World War II, when the city's public and private elites, abetted by technological advances, came together to improve the air and renew the built environment. Equally dramatic was the sweeping deindustrialization of Pittsburgh in the 1980s, when the collapse of the steel industry brought down the smokestacks, leaving vast tracks of brownfields and riverfront. Today Pittsburgh faces unprecedented opportunities to reverse the environmental degradation of its history. In Devastation and Renewal, scholars of the urban environment pose questions that both complicate and enrich this story. Working from deep archival research, they ask not only what happened to Pittsburgh's environment, but why. What forces - economic, political, and cultural - were at work? In exploring the disturbing history of pollution in Pittsburgh, they consider not only the sooty skies, but also the poisoned rivers and creeks, the mined hills, and scarred land. Who profited and who paid for such "progress"? How did the environment Pittsburghers live in come to be, and how it can be managed for the future? In a provocative concluding essay, Samuel P. Hays explores Pittsburgh's "environmental culture," the attitudes and institutions that interpret a city's story and work to create change. Comparing Pittsburgh to other cities and regions, he exposes exaggerations of Pittsburgh's environmental achievement and challenges the community to make real progress for the future. A landmark contribution to the emerging field of urban environmental history, Devastation and Renewal will be important to all students of cities, of cultures, and of the natural world.