Urban Regions : Ecology and Planning Beyond the City

Social patterns 69

Figure 3.2Fishing for local resources in a polluted channel by an adjoining

low-income neighborhood. Guatemala. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth and Bryant

Harrell.

first zipped along an attractive estuarine channel behind a barrier beach lined
with ten-story hotels facing away to the sea. Behind each hotel, our view was
highlighted by a large blackish 1.5 m-diameter concrete pipe ending right at the
edge of our channel. Flushing a toilet in any hotel room efficiently sent black-
waterrushing down and out. The aroma was strong, the estuary over-enriched.
Soon we stopped on a nearby degraded mudflat, collected mangrove ‘‘seeds,”
and stuck them in the mud a meter apart. This was at least a symbolic contri-
bution to the ecologist’s impressive mangrove restoration project funded by the
hotels. That introduction widened my thinking about urban pipe systems and
waterbodies, a useful lesson when later working on a plan for an urban region
(Forman 2004a).
More informative were the discoveries when slowly motoring among the man-
groveislets. The place was filled with shantytown houses of discarded wood,
plastic, tin, and anything else found in or near the river. Down the middle of
wider channels were rows of crooked wooden poles and tree trunks holding a
maze of drooping electric wires, which we were careful to avoid. The immigrant
residents had created their own electric infrastructure. Occasionally we passed
asmall, flat wooden boat with facing seats for four people which was poled
or paddled past us. This was the ‘‘water bus,” the immigrants’ own transport