Many people who live in suburban areas complain about deer, exclaiming that their gardens are being destroyed, that the deer are jumping their fences, etc. What if people considered the ecosystem that existed before the suburbs arrived? While it is true that society cannot revert back to the raw natural state, it is also true that encroachment has meant that people are willing to destroy parts of the ecosystem for the sake of property value.
Living in the city is supposed to be beneficial for the natural environment because of the concentration of people which allowed for resources to be efficiently utilized. Outside the urban areas, farmlands grew the food sources and people were able to survive without growing their own crops on their own property. Enter segregation and the housing market boom, and suddenly, there is insufficient agricultural property and what is left requires too much capital to acquire.
However, it was not just the food supply that was affected when the population began to sprawl. Natural predators were hunted almost to the point of extinction so that new property owners did not have to deal with the preexisting ecosystem. Consequently, the prey of said predators enjoyed population explosions that disrupted plant populations and became hazards for the people living near them.
Neighborhoods that are neither urban nor rural come with interactions with wildlife that may or may not be beneficial to the human population. For example, at one point rattlesnakes were learning how not to shake their rattles because they enjoyed farm animals who knew to fear the rattle. Changing behaviors and characteristics of animals are just as threatening as the adaptation of illnesses to certain medications: without proper preparation, the human population may be unable to thrive in the changing ecosystem.
Obviously, suburbs are not about to be bulldozed to the ground to actualize a more natural existence because people who live in those communities have the right to continue living their. Nonetheless, humanity should examine what kind of environment should be continuing to develop and make appropriate choices. After all, historic natural disasters are not limited to changes in the weather.
