Frederick Law Olmsted Lecture: Anne Whiston Spirn, “Restoring Nature, Rebuilding Community”

What would it mean for a city to be ecologically robust and socially just? What would such a place be like? Through what means might such a vision be accomplished? And how might change be created and sustained? These are not questions to be explored in the abstract. They call for action research, for testing ideas in practice, and engaging with real people in actual places to make discoveries from which principles can be drawn.

For the past four decades, Anne Whiston Spirn’s research and teaching have demonstrated how to combine concerns for environment, poverty, race, social equity, and educational reform, and how university resources can be leveraged to address environmental and social challenges that confound society. These initiatives have resulted in projects and programs in partnership with community residents, and contributed to a revolution in water-quality management, represented by Philadelphia’s landmark, billion-dollar “green” infrastructure project.