Remaking Boston : an environmental history of the city and its surroundings / edited by Anthony N. Penna and Conrad Edick Wright.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Penna, Anthony N., editor.

Wright, Conrad Edick, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Environmental policy--Massachusetts--Boston Region--History.

Environmental policy.

Environmental degradation--Massachusetts--Boston Region--History.

Environmental degradation.

Nature--Effect of human beings on--Massachusetts--Boston Region--History.

Nature.

Boston Region (Mass.)--Environmental conditions--History.

Boston Region (Mass.).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (344 pages) : illustrations, maps

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2009]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Since its settlement in 1630, Boston, its harbor, and outlying regions have witnessed a monumental transformation at the hands of humans and by nature. Remaking Boston chronicles many of the events that altered the physical landscape of Boston, while also offering multidisciplinary perspectives on the environmental history of one of America's oldest and largest metropolitan areas.Situated on an isthmus, and blessed with a natural deepwater harbor and ocean access, Boston became an important early trade hub with Europe and the world. As its population and economy grew, developers extended the city's shoreline into the surrounding tidal mudflats to create more useable land. Further expansion of the city was achieved through the annexation of surrounding communities, and the burgeoning population and economy spread to outlying areas. The interconnection of city and suburb opened the floodgates to increased commerce, services and workforces, while also leaving a wake of roads, rails, bridges, buildings, deforestation, and pollution.Profiling this ever-changing environment, the contributors tackle a variety of topics, including: the glacial formation of the region; physical characteristics and composition of the land and harbor; dredging, sea walling, flattening, and landfill operations in the reshaping of the Shawmut Peninsula; the longstanding controversy over the link between landfills and shoaling in shipping channels; population movements between the city and suburbs and their environmental implications; interdependence of the city and its suburbs; preservation and reclamation of the Charles River; suburban deforestation and later reforestation as byproducts of changing land use; the planned outlay of parks and parkways; and historic climate changes and the human and biological adaptations to them.

Contents:

Introduction : Boston from peninsula to metropolis / Anthony N. Penna

The drowning of Boston Harbor and the development of the shoreline / Peter S. Rosen and Duncan M. FitzGerald

What lies beneath : science, nature, and the making of Boston Harbor / Michael Rawson

Remaking Boston Harbor : cleaning up after ourselves / Steven M. Rudnick

In search of the Shawmut Peninsula : using modern cartographic analysis to discover the "original" Boston shoreline / Stephen T. Mague

Remaking Boston, remaking Massachusetts / Brian Donahue

A city (only partly) on a hill : terrain and land use in pre-twentieth-century Boston / William B. Meyer

Reforestation in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, 1850-1910 / David Soll

How metropolitan parks shaped greater Boston, 1893-1945 / James C. O'Connell

Reclaiming the middle Charles River reservation / Daniel Driscoll and Karl Haglund

Boston's weather and climate histories / William B. Meyer

"Rain down righteousness" : interpretations of natural events in mid-eighteenth-century Boston / Lauri Bauer Coleman

Biological responses to climate change in Boston / Abraham J. Miller-Rushing and Richard B. Primack.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780822977681

0822977680

OCLC:

794702156