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Findings & Recommendations | Methodology | Urban Wilds Analysis | Urban Wilds Council and Friends Groups |
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Maps |
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1990 Report |
1976 Report |
Glossary
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Urban Wilds 1990 Survey Report
To add some definition to the idea of Wilds, it may be useful to define them by what they are not. Urban Wilds are not parks. Parks provide greenery and open space in urban settings, but they are designed and sculpted. The Urban Wilds are natural landscapes. Either they are what nature has shaped through depositions, erosion, glaciation and other processes, or they are what nature has fashioned in taking back landscapes people had made for farming, for their estates, or in quarrying stone to raise the built city. Parks are designed by people for people, for people’s games and pastimes. Little that shapes a park happens by accident, whether the lay of the land or the species of trees. Urban Wilds are taken as we find them, because they are places where nature can shape us.
The Urban Wilds of Boston are like the city itself: too diverse for an all-encompassing physical description. They are natural landscapes- sometimes a few hundred square feet, sometimes dozens of acres. In them, one can see bits and pieces of Boston’s geological, topographical or economic history. Some Wilds are woods. Some are ponds. Some are meadows and swamps. Some are rocks, Some are valuable for what is in them, some because one can see so much from them, and some because one can see them. Many are part of open space networks that are vital to their neighborhoods.