Returning to nature may be the best place to create

In recent years, the government has actively promoted local creation, hoping to reverse the loss of local population. But if the total population reduction is already a long-term necessity, perhaps the gradual evacuation of human beings and returning to nature is the best place to create.

The small town of Urbana, Illinois, where I used to live in the United States, is an agricultural city and the location of my alma mater, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Two hundred years ago, people began to settle and cultivate. Out of the city, the surrounding landscape is the endless cornfields.

There is a park in the town, Meadowbrook Park . It was originally a farm. The Champaign County government converted it into a park and restored a large part of it to pre-Campaign prairie in the Midwest. It has both history, nature, landscape and recreational value. Back then I lived nearby, less than a mile away. When you have nothing to do, go for a walk to see wild animals and enjoy the openness of the grassland.

It has been 21 years since I returned to Taiwan. In the past few years, I have watched the local creation of the government (I have participated in the review and interview since the year when the university’s social responsibility practice plan was piloted), and I often feel that most of it is done for doing, without creating any value. A case that cannot last forever. So two or three years ago, I stopped participating.

Then I remembered the familiar Meadowbrook Park. Isn’t this the best place to create? Restore the land to its natural appearance before the ancestors reclaimed it, but also provide the necessary service facilities of a modern park (such as children’s playgrounds, trails, gazebos, drinking fountains, toilets, etc.). When citizens come to the park for recreation, they also walk into the field of history and nature.

Taiwan has always regarded “promoting youth to return to their hometowns” as a solution to local creation, but it is actually a bit wrong. The return of young people to their hometowns is the result of local creation, not the cause. Only when a place becomes more livable and sustainable will it have a chance to reverse population loss, and young people (or people of all ages) will think of moving in.

With the aging of the society and the active aging of the middle-aged and elderly, only places can be created. The core of local creation should also be middle-aged and senior citizens. “Youth drives local creativity” is a bit of an upside-down, and it doesn’t really work.

Another myth is that “youth are creative” or “old people are wise”. I look forward to what will be disturbed by the return of young people, or what will be changed by the co-creation of Qingyin. In fact, the world has already entered the era of disconnection between age and ability. It’s getting harder and harder for you to predict your age. It is possible to cooperate and change only when we can directly see the ability and not be affected by age stereotypes.

In the end, local creation still needs to be done by the local people themselves. If the local people do not have ambitions for livability and sustainability, it is useless for foreign teams (whether they are young people or not) to do a bunch of curatorial activities. People and things that have no sustainability and haven’t really changed the place are just fake works.

Especially after the three-year health crisis, the focus of local creation has become clearer: solid and tough health promotion. In the past, the design flips of those fancy fists and embroidered legs will be retired. The spread of the epidemic due to globalization has also made the world re-emphasize sustainability. After the epidemic, it is impossible for us to return to the past world without restraint. Only a more local, healthy and sustainable world can be rebuilt.

Crises are also opportunities. If the three-year epidemic can truly make sustainability a universal value, we will have the opportunity to break away from the old framework and rethink the balance between man and nature. Perhaps the best place to create is not to use new technology to continue to cultivate a field, but to return to nature.

further reading

• Livable, Sustainable, Place Creation
• Epidemic prevention is downgraded, start learning to coexist with the new crown