#AcademicRunPlaylist - 2/4/25

Author

Ben Waber
February 04, 2025

A frozen lake covered with snow on a clear day. There's a small island with some trees on it in the middle of the lake, which is around a kilometer in diameter. The banks are covered with snow-dusted forest, while the bare branches of a tree reach over the near shore.

Today was fairly packed (pic is from earlier in the week), but in the breaks between calls I was still able to fit in a talk and a book for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an important panel on class inequality in the UK at the LSE with Aditya Chakrabortty, Clare MacGillivray, Mike Savage, Zarah Sultana, and Faiza Shaheen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAAEjkX9Phk

Last was "The Accidental Ecosystem" by Peter Alagona. The role of nature, and wildlife in particular, in urban planning is something I never really considered, but Alagona brings this topic to the fore with fascinating insight. This book reviews historical developments in American urban planning that paved the way for many of the modern parks and associated wildlife that has come to inhabit them, and also the historical connection between many of the more common species and city development over the centuries. The sections on how city-dwelling animals are evolving on new trajectories were particularly interesting. If you're looking to understand more about the non-human living aspect of cities, this is your book https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520386310/the-accidental-ecosystem