Small Ribbons of Wild in the City

In the far northwest corner of Portland lies one of the largest urban parks in the United States—Forest Park. Years ago, I was fortunate enough to live right on the edge of this tree-covered paradise. Out the back door of our apartment, a trail led straight into the park, where countless other trails branched and twisted through the forest. Out the front door, city streets bustled with shops and trendy restaurants.

While I was fortunate to live in that perfectly placed apartment with access to urbanity and the wild, Forest Park is accessible to several neighborhoods of urban character. It’s even accessible from downtown Portland, but it takes a little more effort, requiring you to thread your way through concrete and traffic for a mile or so.

From downtown, it becomes apparent how stark the contrast is between the city’s concrete landscape and the forested sanctuary on its edge. One can easily imagine the soft dirt trails of the park extending into downtown—offering not only a more forgiving surface for runners and walkers, but small oases in contrast to the hard-surfaced urbanity. Those paths could meander and wind, weaving back and forth through whatever space we could make available for them. Ferns, trees, and other native plants could buffer the trails from concrete, and further pull the wilds into the city core.

My mind naturally wants to push the idea further, to create larger intrusions of nature into the city. And those may or may not be feasible, but certainly, and especially for a city like Portland, the vision of trails and nature growing into the city seems tantalizingly possible.