David Leadbeater takes a particularly strong position towards these issues, stating that Sudbury is in a state of chronic crisis deeper and longer term than the usual boom- bust resource town formula. What is at risk by perpetuating the image of regreening is a future of more provocative and radical possibilities. Aesthetics are bound up in a battle over the image of society – what is permissible to show, to say and to do in the current social order. A critique of land reclamation methods and the pervasive nature ideologies that drive them would require establishing value in ‘damaged’ sites as a necessary part of an authentic context. Neil Smith ( In the Nature of Cities ) states that however perversely, societies make the natural environment in which they live. ‘Nature is manifestly not dead but is incessantly reproduced—in ways we may detest or we may love’. 6 What might a spatial strategy not fixated on definitions of health look like? Constrained by the narrative of the Garden of Eden, society is discouraged from thinking outside or against the basic doctrines which govern its ideology. For example, in barren and semi-barren areas significant metal content in the soil inhibits plant regrowth. Highly acidic soil contributes to the absorption of metal particulates by plant life, stunting root growth and ultimately killing all metal-intolerant plant species. In Sudbury’s regreening program, crushed limestone neutralises soil acidity, rendering the metal content insoluble, allowing plants to grow “as if the soil was normal”. 7 Where a lack of plant life was once a useful index of contamination, regreening renders this ongoing toxicity invisible. The ‘appearance’ of a convincingly healed landscape suspends criticism that may otherwise generate action. As a counter-result, covering up signs of damage can lead to distrust of scientifically-determined ‘acceptable’ risk. The 2001 Sudbury Soils Study , the largest risk- assessment study ever conducted in Canada, estimated whether people working, living or visiting Sudbury were exposed to concentrations of chemicals with the potential for adverse health effects. 8 Although the results released in 2008 concluded that elevated heavy metal content in the soil was within an acceptable range, an informal poll showed that 68 percent of respondents in the community were not assured by the study. 9 Risk isn’t always an objective phenomenon; there is almost always an aspect of risk that cannot be reduced to formal identification. A denuded landscape has value as an index of toxicity: where risk is visibly manifest people may be granted a degree of control and responsibility over the risk and their fear of it. Hide this risk, and control is abrogated. For now, synonymous with popular perceptions of health, green is morally upheld while rock, stone and slag heap become morally ambiguous, if not inadmissible. top: The Four Corners, July 2013. View of the Regent and Paris Street intersection from the parking lot of Southridge Mall’ below: Children’s playground, Corsi Hill, Sept. 2013.. New development sites at the top of flattened hills. Great heaps of construction debris and blasted rock form an informal playscape foregrounded by a generic swing set and plasticised nature-scape.
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Leanna Lalonde
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