Portland's Forest Park is one of the largest urban parks in the world and the only city wilderness park in the United States. The park is home to hundreds of native plants and animals and offers more than eighty miles of trails-all within minutes of downtown Portland. This updated and expanded edition of One City's Wilderness provides directions to twenty-nine hikes of varying length, difficulty, and scenery, covering every trail within the 5,100-acre park. Marcy Houle shares the history of Forest Park, introduces the people who fought to preserve it, and explores the role stewards play today. She encourages people of all ages to take an "All Trails Challenge"-learning about the unique nature of the park by exploring every trail. Includes Full color trail maps for 29 hikes Fold-out color map of the entire park and its watersheds More than 80 color photographs of native plants and birds Park history, geology, watersheds, vegetation, and wildlife
In this brilliant, gracefully written, and important new book, former Secretary of the Interior and Governor of Arizona Bruce Babbitt brings fresh thought--and fresh air--to questions of how we can build a future we want to live in. We've all experienced America's changing natural landscape as the integrity of our forests, seacoasts, and river valleys succumbs to strip malls, new roads, and subdivisions. Too often, we assume that when land is developed it is forever lost to the natural world--or hope that a patchwork of local conservation strategies can somehow hold up against further large-scale development. In Cities in the Wilderness, Bruce Babbitt makes the case for why we need a national vision of land use. We may have a space program, he points out, but here at home we don't have an open-space policy that can balance the needs for human settlement and community with those for preservation of the natural world upon which life depends. Yet such a balance, the author demonstrates, is as remarkably achievable as it is necessary. This is no call for developing a new federal bureaucracy; Babbitt shows instead how much can be--and has been--done by making thoughtful and beneficial use of laws and institutions already in place. A hallmark of the book is the author's ability to match imaginative vision with practical understanding. Babbitt draws on his extensive experience to take us behind the scenes negotiating the Florida Everglades restoration project, the largest ever authorized by Congress. In California, we discover how the Endangered Species Act, still one of the most effective laws governing land use, has been employed to restore regional habitat. In the Midwest, we see how new World Trade Organization regulations might be used to help restore Iowa's farmlands and rivers. As a key architect of many environmental success stories, Babbitt reveals how broad restoration projects have thrived through federal- state partnership and how their principles can be extended to other parts of the country. Whether writing of land use as reflected in the Gettysburg battlefield, the movie Chinatown, or in presidential political strategy, Babbitt gives us fresh insight. In this inspiring and informative book, Babbitt sets his lens to panoramic--and offers a vision of land use as grand as the country's natural heritage.
Surrounded by old-growth forests, volcanic peaks, and water in nearly all its forms--from the ocean to alpine lakes, glaciers to waterfalls--the Portland area is a short jaunt from boundless adventure opportunities, many of which can be taken in just one night. This book covers the best one- (and a few two-) night hikes within three hours of the city--perfect for hikers seeking a wilderness experience without the commitment of a lengthy backpacking trek. Trips take readers to the lush Olympic Mountains, eerie Mount St. Helens, the thundering Columbia River, and the quirky spires of Three Fingered Jack.
Today more than half of all Americans make their homes in cities, and the ease of modern transportation causes the lives of many more to be affected by town conditions. Our national history has been that of transition from a predominantly rural and agricultural way of living to one in which the city plays a major role. Both materially and psychologically urban factors govern much of American life. Their origins are therefore of more than passing interest Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
The City and the Wilderness recounts the journeys and microhistories of Indo-Persian travelers across the Indian Ocean and their encounters with the Burmese Kingdom and its littoral at the turn of the nineteenth century. As Mughal sovereignty waned under British colonial rule, Indo-Persian travelers and intermediaries linked to the East India Company explored and surveyed the Burmese Empire, inscribing it as a forest landscape and Buddhist kingdom at the crossroads of South and Southeast Asia. Based on colonial Persian travel books and narratives in which Indo-Persian knowledge and perceptions of the wondrous edges of the Indian Ocean merged with Orientalist pursuits, The City and the Wilderness uncovers fading histories of inter-Asian crossings and exchanges at the ends of the Mughal world.
