REVIEWS

Escape In
— Steven Shuttle

Public Health, Urban Wilderness, and Tommy Thompson Park

How can we escape from it all? The Coronavirus pandemic with its unequal impacts on communities is making us keenly aware of our critical need for equitable and affordable communities and their determinants on support networks for health and wellbeing. With the majority of Canadians living in cities, this ongoing public health crisis is inescapably an urban problem. In normal times, urban wilderness may be seen as parks or outdoor public landscapes in cities where nature appears to be in control, uncultivated, unbuilt, and seemingly separate from urban development.[1] Visiting these landscapes such as open meadows, lush wetlands, winding ravines, or close-knit forests can provide reviving and therapeutic experiences. Today, our increased need to escape is part of everything from quarantine cabin fever or the stresses of frontline work making urban wilderness and makes the possibility to get away from it all even more attractive. However, urban wilderness can allow for escape within rather than from the city. 

Reviving escapes from urban life can be found in urban wilderness landscapes such as Tommy Thompson Park, which emerges from the shores of Lake Ontario and Toronto’s grid. This is a unique instance of park planning and design created by ecological succession on a human-made landform of waste from the city. As a whole, urban wilderness is neither a placebo or a panacea, as it can encourage positive impacts to supporting health and wellbeing in tangible ways. The Coronavirus pandemic is showing us how urban wilderness is a necessary consideration for public health. The restorative capacity of Tommy Thompson and other public landscapes illustrate their potential contribution towards improving support networks and determinants of health and wellbeing within the city.

There is a rising need to reassess the role that urban wilderness can play in promoting resilient public health, even pre-pandemic. In 2019, Health Canada estimated that air pollution is the cause of 6,700 deaths in Ontario, and 14,600 premature annual deaths in Canada.[2] The sharp refocusing towards public health and urban space as critical issues in everyday life arcs back to the beginnings of modern urban planning delineated in Dr. James Snow’s 1854 mapping investigation of cholera outbreaks linking pathogens, public space, and polluted water in London.[3] Making the connection between pollution reduction, public health, and urban wilderness goes back to Frederick Law Olmsted, who intuitively advocated in 1881 for parks and greenspaces as “the lungs of the city”.[4] More recently, in 2015 Toronto Public Health identified evidence that experiencing urban wilderness can reduce the overall impacts of rising inactivity, stress, and pollution.[5] Today’s planners and landscape architects continue this by planning and designing a fraction of the city to be parks. For instance, under Ontario’s Planning Act, every new development must allocate between 2 to 5% of total land to be developed for use as public park space.[6] This policy abstracts the landscape and does not consider important aspects of parks planning and design such as the needs of local community, local ecology, or overall sense of place. As it stands, this policy treats parks as an amenity rather than as landscapes of environmental and cultural significance. 

As a cultural concept, wilderness can have different meanings but is generally viewed as the places where the natural environment is dominant and the city recedes or disappears. In the typical Western view, wilderness is often imagined as one of the last uninfected places at risk of being overtaken by humans, who are considered a disease.[7] More broadly, this view positions human and nature as opposites, which blocks the possibility of seeing nature being inclusive of humans. Additionally, this view of wilderness is generally incompatible with approaching urban and human-centered challenges such as creating more equitable communities or mitigating a public health crisis. Another set of competing views is that wilderness either needs to be conquered and developed or is worth saving and should be stewarded.[8] To many people, the existence of wilderness ‘somewhere out there’ helps counteract our perception of humanity’s increasingly problematic environmental footprint and also serves the belief that nature is available as a potential escape from urban life. 

Urban wilderness is a landscape within a city where nature exerts control, non-human species are prioritized, and natural systems are visible. Urban wilderness faces an identity crisis because often “it’s too small, too plain, or too crowded to be authentically wild” in contrast to wilderness found in the Canadian National Parks or the North.[9] While one person may find these landscapes scary and messy, another may find them ecologically significant, restorative, and in-balance. Despite differing perceptions, these parks can allow for the experiencing of the wilderness of, rather than just in, the city.

In Tommy Thompson, there are no uniform lawns, fountains, or mulched beds with ornamental plantings. Instead there are meadows of native plants, beaches of concrete slabs and rebar, all permeated by naturalized landforms. The park is named after Tommy Thompson, a Metro Toronto parks commissioner who encouraged everyone to “Please Walk on the Grass” and engage with landscapes.[10] The park is formed using 23 million cubic meters of the remnants of buildings and 6.4 million cubic meters of dredged material, all dumped as lake fill between 1959 to 1999.[11] This was turned from potential economic to ecological use through the development of a park masterplan by landscape architects Land Inc. for the Toronto Region Conservation Area in 1992.[12] Found throughout the 219 hectares of diverse microclimates are islands, shorelines, dunes, marshes, and meadows. These serve as a key lakeshore habitat for 290 species of birds and allow natural succession of vegetation communities. 

An initial dose of rejuvenation from wilderness is delivered upon entering Tommy Thompson with the noticeably cooler temperature and soothing greens. Over 100,000 visitors per year pass through the gates seeking out this urban wilderness.[13] This is the threshold of a 5-kilometer journey to the farthest point in the urban wild that offers opportunities to be psychologically free, either in solitude or amongst relaxed packs of people. There are no curbs or lights along the main asphalt pathway, only signs encouraging “Brake for Snakes” amongst fuzzy edges of grasses and shrubs. Numerous twisting side trails to the shoreline punctuate this path. These are cut into from a variety of disintegrating aggregates including asphalt chunks, gravel, or red brick. Off the beaten track, meadows of mixed grasses and perennials with patches of trees can be explored for their wild qualities not found in the typical greenspace. The landscape is a series of intimate and expansive spaces, made from years of natural succession and pollution sequestration in the microclimates. Upon reaching the water’s edge, the city’s remnants lie in the breakwaters with tangles of rusted rebar, shattered concrete slabs, and even streetcar tracks populating a beach made from ruins. Overall, this is a taste of an urban wilderness escape within rather than away from the city. 

Visits into urban wilderness show the potential benefits offered to public health in the bigger picture. The picturesque or aesthetic quality of urban wilderness offers an additional benefit to public health over other parks. This is not a new idea, as it was practiced by Olmsted among others across the second half of the nineteenth century in the belief that the “charm of natural scenery is an influence of the highest curative value”.[14] Contemporary evidence suggests urban wilderness, similar to other parks, may offer improved health and wellbeing through increased physical activity and social cohesion, reduced stress and exposure to environmental stressors.[15] An added value of urban wilderness is opportunities for improved mental health after immersion in nature.[16] Additionally, urban wilderness has a greater capacity for limiting respiratory illnesses through its capacity to absorb human-made air pollution and to limit heat island effects.[17] This capacity comes from the ecological functions within the naturalized form of the picturesque, which include exchanging oxygen, managing water, and providing shade. More importantly, regardless of whether or not people visit, these spinoff benefits are provided to the surrounding communities. Urban wilderness and the picturesque are worth revisiting and reconfiguring as a tool to deal with challenges of pandemics, parks planning and design. While these benefits may seem small, they can add up to impact the support networks of our cumulative everyday health and wellbeing. 

Whether it is the normalcy of everyday life, the next pandemic, climate change events, or their overlapping amplified aftershocks, wilderness will seem an enticing escape. With public health’s renewed attention to the importance of equitable and accessible public space, we can take actions to improve the needs for everyday life. If we are interested in walking on the wild side, urban wilderness has possibilities for positive benefits to public health and support networks in the city. If the lack of existing urban wilderness is a barrier, Tommy Thompson Park shows how wilderness can literally and conceptually be constructed from the city’s ruins to allow nature to succeed and benefit human health. In the future, we might not need to feel trapped in the city’s baseline pollution, exponential pathogens, if we know we are able to escape within its urban wilderness. 

Visiting Information

Open weekday evenings 16:00 to 21:00, weekends and holidays 5:30 a.m. to 21:00, 1 Leslie Street, Toronto. tommythompsonpark.ca

References

[1] Vera Vicenzotti and Ludwig Trepl. “City as Wilderness: The Wilderness Metaphor from Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl to Contemporary Urban Designers.” Landscape research 34, no. 4 (August 1, 2009): 379–396.

[2] Health Canada. Health impacts of air pollution in Canada: estimates of morbidity and premature mortality outcomes, 2019 report. (Ottawa, ON: Health Canada, June 2019), 15, http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2019/sc-hc/H144-51-2019-eng.pdf. 

[3] James Snow, “Dr. Snow's Report” in the Report on the Cholera Outbreak in the Parish of St. James, Westminster, during the Autumn of 1854. (July 1855), 97-120.

[4] Giovanna Borasi and Mirko Zardini, eds., Imperfect Health: The Medicalization of Architecture (Montreal, QC: Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2012), 8. 

[5] Toronto Public Health. Green City: Why nature matters to health – An Evidence Review. (Toronto, ON: Toronto Public Health, 2015), 20, https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2015/hl/bgrd/backgroundfile-83421.pdf.

[6] Government of Ontario. Planning Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. P.13 s. 42 (1). https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90p13#BK80.

[7] Cronon, William. "The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature." Environmental History 1, no. 1 (1996): 8. Accessed September 2, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3985059.

[8] Lev Bratishenko and Mirko Zardini, eds., It’s all happening so fast: A counter-history to the modern Canadian environment. (Montreal, QC: Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2016), 46. 

[9] Bratishenko and Zardini, It’s all happening so fast, 22. 

[10] Shawn Micallef, Stroll: Psychogeographical Walking Tours of Toronto. (Toronto ON: Coach House Books, 2010), 294.

[11] Metropolitan Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. Tommy Thompson Park : master plan and environmental assessment, (Toronto ON; Metropolitan Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, 1992), 19, https://tommythompsonpark.ca/about/. 

[12] Walter Kehm. Accidental wilderness: The origins and ecology of Toronto’s Tommy Thompson Park. (Toronto :ON, University of Toronto Press, 2020). 

[13] “About” Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. https://tommythompsonpark.ca/about/.

[14] Frederick Law Olmsted. Mount Royal: Montreal. (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1881), 23. 

[15] EcoHealth. A Conceptual Framework to Understand the Business for EcoHealth in Ontario. (Toronto, ON: EcoHealth, 2020, 21), https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c3cebfd45776eee4408f72d/t/5ecb445972e6a72aac117171/1590379619631/FO_8.5x11_EH_REPORT_FA_4WEB+%281%29.pdf.

[16] Elizabeth Lev et al., “Relatively Wild Urban Parks Can Promote Human Resilience and Flourishing: A Case Study of Discovery Park, Seattle, Washington.” Frontiers in Sustainable Cities 2 (January 29, 2020).

[17] EcoHealth, A Conceptual Framework, 23.

Bibliography

Borasi, Giovanna and Mirko Zardini, eds., Imperfect Health: The Medicalization of Architecture. Montreal, QC: Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2012.

Bratishenko, Lev and Mirko Zardini, eds., It’s all happening so fast: A counter-history to the modern Canadian environment. Montreal, QC: Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2016. 

Cronon, William. "The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature." Environmental History 1, no. 1 (1996): 7-28. Accessed September 2, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3985059.

EcoHealth. A Conceptual Framework to Understand the Business for EcoHealth in Ontario. Toronto, ON: EcoHealth, 2020, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c3cebfd45776eee4408f72d/t/5ecb445972e6a72aac117171/1590379619631/FO_8.5x11_EH_REPORT_FA_4WEB+%281%29.pdf. 

Government of Ontario. (2020). Planning Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. P.13 s. 42 (1). https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90p13#BK80.

Health Canada. Health impacts of air pollution in Canada: estimates of morbidity and premature mortality outcomes, 2019 report. Ottawa, ON: Health Canada. June 2019. http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2019/sc-hc/H144-51-2019-eng.pdf. 

Lev, Elizabeth, Peter H Kahn, Hanzi Chen, and Garrett Esperum. “Relatively Wild Urban Parks Can Promote Human Resilience and Flourishing: A Case Study of Discovery Park, Seattle, Washington.” Frontiers in Sustainable Cities 2 (January 29, 2020).

Kehm, Walter. Accidental wilderness: The origins and ecology of Toronto’s Tommy Thompson Park. (Toronto :ON, University of Toronto Press, 2020).

Metropolitan Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. Tommy Thompson Park : master plan and environmental assessment. Toronto ON; Metropolitan Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, 1992. https://tommythompsonpark.ca/about/.

Micallef, Shawn. Stroll: Psychogeographical Walking Tours of Toronto. Toronto ON: Coach House Books, 2010.

Olmsted, Frederick Law. Mount Royal: Montreal. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1881.

Snow, John. “Dr. Snow's Report” in the Report on the Cholera Outbreak in the Parish of St. James, Westminster, during the Autumn of 1854. (July 1855), 97-120. Retrieved from http://kora.matrix.msu.edu/files/21/120/15-78-55-22-1855-07-CICReport.pdf. 

Toronto Public Health. Green City: Why nature matters to health – An Evidence Review. Toronto, ON: Toronto Public Health. 2015. https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2015/hl/bgrd/backgroundfile-83421.pdf. 

Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. “About.” https://tommythompsonpark.ca/about/.

Vicenzotti, Vera, Ludwig Trepl. “City as Wilderness: The Wilderness Metaphor from Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl to Contemporary Urban Designers.” Landscape research 34, no. 4 (August 1, 2009): 379–396.

Steven Shuttle is a Master of Landscape Architecture student at the University of Guelph and interested in the intersections of planning and design with city-building, support networks, and stewardship. He lives in Edmonton and participated in the WriteON 2020 workshop series. 

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