ABSTRACT
In the spring of 2002 the Huntington Library in Los Angeles held a conference the theme of which was “Los Angeles: nightmare or paradise?” The day of the conference dawned so blue, balmy, and glorious that there could hardly have been much uncertainty about the answer to this question, especially among the affluent urban scholars in attendance. By the middle of the meeting, however, the conversation had become less complacent and had turned to the question of “whose urban nature?” Discussion focused on how access to urban parks varied by race and class. Despite this outbreak of intersubjective sensitivity, only Lewis MacAdams—not an urban scholar, but rather a poet fighting to restore the Los Angeles River—had mustered up the courage to mention that maybe the four-leggeds, no-leggeds and wingeds needed space in the city too. The notion of the city as solely human habitat had, once again, trumped a more inclusive vision for the metropolis.
