Urban Wildness as Another Civilization

Abstract

Ever since humans used branches and polished stones as weapons and tools, and made containers with clay, they had begun to get civilized apart from the wildness. With fossil energy and mechanical technology, cities, farmlands, and gardens have been constantly displacing the nature, and the wildness is disappearing. Human beings lost their instinct of wildness, lonely and dispirited. Nowadays, it is time to call for the return toward wildness. Urban wildness exists both in wildscapes and the human-intervention-free natural process or wild creatures. It is key to sustaining a healthy urban ecosystem as it can work with the laws of nature and the internal deep order as a natural ecosystem. Inspired by the aesthetics of urban wildness, humans explore the unknown world by their instinct. For me, the Fengshui forest and courtyard pond in my childhood and the relics in Yuan-ming Yuan were all unforgettable wildness. Today’s ecological civilization enters a new era that embraces wildness, and defending urban wildness is the only way for humans to move toward a higher level of civilization.