{"id":27538,"date":"2025-11-05T14:41:59","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T20:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/interventions\/to-the-edge-wild-landscape-of-the-urban-periphery\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T14:41:59","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T20:41:59","slug":"to-the-edge-wild-landscape-of-the-urban-periphery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/history-and-culture\/to-the-edge-wild-landscape-of-the-urban-periphery\/","title":{"rendered":"To the Edge. (Wild) Landscape of the Urban Periphery"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the article <\/span>\u201cPull Over to the Edge. (Wild) Landscape of the Urban Periphery\u201d<\/b>, by Pamela L\u00f3pez, the author reflects on the city\u2019s edges as territories of vertigo, where the wild and the civilized intertwine, revealing the boundaries, frontiers, and forgotten landscapes that still persist in the periphery.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Standing at the edge of something brings vertigo. On a social level, it also feels like a leap of faith into the unknown \u2014into the invisible truths of everyday life shared by many people, plant communities, animal groups, climates, and their interactions\u2014 all of which we call landscape. Are our landscapes feeling vertigo too? There are more and more edges, limits, borders. Local news reports new lines that \u201cdivide\u201d territories, whether due to geopolitical reasons or physical changes such as subsidence or flooding.<\/span><\/p>\n

Are our landscapes feeling vertigo too? There are more and more edges, limits, borders.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Edges are created \u2014sometimes intentionally, sometimes as a consequence\u2014, which contrasts with what Alexander von Humboldt taught us in the 19th century. Through his diagrams of strata, his writings on \u201cclimatic changes,\u201d and his tireless texts and drawings, he urged us to see the invisible, to recognize the gradients behind transformation, and to establish connections, not boundaries.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Bogot\u00e1 desde el cerro \/ Bogot\u00e1 from the hill
Fotograf\u00eda \/ Photography: Geraldine Montenegro Valero<\/p><\/div>\n

Nothing is fleeting, least of all boundaries. Historically, the edges of cities were defensive walls or transitional zones between the \u201cwild\u201d and the \u201ccivilized.\u201d I propose to see it in reverse: in contemporary grounds, the wild may be the relentless urban sprawl, while the civilized is merely a relic of the past.<\/span><\/p>\n

To be wild has been a symbol of otherness, of voracity, of strangeness \u2014of what refuses to obey rules. Even plants that grow spontaneously in urban contexts are labeled \u201cwild vegetation\u201d and must be removed, because they don\u2019t fit the manicured garden.<\/span><\/p>\n

The word \u201cwild,\u201d from the Latin silvaticus (from silva = forest), reminds us that once \u201cto be wild\u201d simply meant being part of the ecosystem. In today\u2019s context of urban expansion, to be wild means to remain part of a complex natural system, not as something alien or untamed.<\/span><\/p>\n

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La calma y la tormenta \/ The calm and the storm
Fotograf\u00eda \/ Photography: Camilo Fabian Rojas Zapata<\/p><\/div>\n

From this premise, being wild requires us to acknowledge what we are doing to create gradients and promote ecological patches within this ever-expanding cloud of concrete. Some sectors cannot absorb it all, yet the wild landscape leaves behind relics of the ecosystems that once were reservoirs of biodiversity.<\/span><\/p>\n

We call those relics vacant lots, fields, wastelands. We treat them as otherness, turning them into dumps or \u201cno man\u2019s lands,\u201d forgetting to recognize what they once were before we \u201ccivilized\u201d them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Naturaleza urbana \/ Urban nature
Fotograf\u00eda \/ Photography: Ryller Chrystian de Andrade Ver\u00edssimo<\/p><\/div>\n

A clear example is the hydrological system of canals and waterways in Xochimilco, Tl\u00e1huac, and Iztapalapa \u2014the so-called \u201cConurbated Zone\u201d\u2014, which is nothing more than two urban centers merging into one.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those who view Mexico City from afar read its urban landscape without nostalgia or hierarchy: without romanticizing the center or excluding the east, without elevating the west or overlooking the south. The Megalopolis is a daily act \u2014thousands of people cross hills, lakes, and volcanoes, spending hours of their lives on that journey. As Gustavo Cerati wrote: \u201cIn weaving attempts, rage weighs more than cement.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In this wave of change, designing with the city requires biocultural strategies to restore its lacustrine vocation. In the rainy season, it means allowing the water to return; in the dry season, it will be another story. As a landscape architect, I applaud it; as a citizen, I demand it; as a Latin American woman, I celebrate it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Fronteras urbanas: Los m\u00e1rgenes habitados de Cali, Colombia \/ Urban Frontiers: The Inhabited Margins of Cali, Colombia
Fotograf\u00eda \/ Photography: Andrea Carolina Cortes Ochoa<\/p><\/div>\n

We can begin erasing boundaries, stop pushing everything to the edges. If a catastrophe arises there, it may not be visible at first, but its effects can be read in water, fire, food, and migrations \u2014human and non-human. As they used to say in Mexico City\u2019s old traffic slang: \u201cPull over to the edge.\u201d Today I suggest we truly do so \u2014to weave at the borders and keep the system\u2019s fabric from unraveling.<\/span><\/p>\n

Landscape is expression. I wonder if, within its spatiality, also lies the resistance to falling off the edge \u2014to the periphery of a city.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the article \u201cPull Over to the Edge. (Wild) Landscape of the Urban Periphery\u201d, by Pamela L\u00f3pez, the author reflects on the city\u2019s edges as territories of vertigo, where the wild and the civilized intertwine, revealing the boundaries, frontiers, and forgotten landscapes that still persist in the periphery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":27542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-culture"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}