This post is a follow-up to a post [LINK] about an essay by the environmental history professor William Cronon, which in turn was about the ultimately delusional, dishonest, or hypocritical (the particular adjective depending on one's viewpoint) way that many Americans & Europeans since the 19th century have viewed the ideas of "wilderness" and of being close to said "wilderness". That essay, recommended to me by a friend, strongly resonated with me because of my own ambivalence, developed over the course of the 3 years that I physically lived in California with my opinions strongly shaped by my lifelong disability and events that happened to me related to that (particularly being hit by a car [LINK]), about the ways that people in the western half of the contiguous US value "wilderness" or natural parks that don't make a lot of sense to me or don't seem coherent to me based on how most natural parks in the US as designed today exclude people with disabilities in many different ways. Because I have written notes about these and other events & thoughts in my life consistently for the last several years, I think it makes the most sense to first structure this post chronologically to lay out the development of my ambivalent mindset toward the extent to which other people have a particular positive view of "wilderness" that they highly value and then summarize these points more coherently in another section. I should warn that the chronological narration is quite repetitive in writing only because similar ideas occurred to me in marginally different from different stimuli at many different points in my life. In any case, I think that presenting the chronological narration is the most honest way to present my mindset, because "showing my work" makes it much less likely to mislead anyone (including me, as my specific memories naturally become more hazy over time) into assuming that I have felt or thought a certain way for longer than I actually have. Follow the jump to see more.
Chronology
2021 December 3: Setting up a negative mindset about living in California with a disability
I am using this date as a proxy for discussing things that happened from 2020 through most of 2022 and to establish that my outlook on living in California later in 2022 was probably negatively affected by negative events in my life during that time period, the most negative being how I was hit by a car on this date. In 2020, I was dealing with the stresses of the recent covid pandemic, in which I couldn't see familiar faces outside of my household, everyone in my social circles was dealing with the same stresses (so at some point, commiserating with them by telephone or video call stopped bringing much mental relief), not having other things to do or places to go outside of the house meant that reading the news, reading other things, and engaging in self-reflection ultimately became mentally tiresome, I worried that the pandemic may drag on for a long time and therefore prevent me from leaving the house or seeing anyone else for a long time (given my vulnerability to complications from respiratory infections), I worried that my hard-earned ability to live independently as a person with a disability would be more stunted the longer the pandemic dragged on, and I lost a close family member to covid & couldn't be with other relatives in person to grieve [LINK]. Moreover, in early 2021, seeing the invasion of the US Capitol made me fear for the future of the liberal democracy that had sustained my rights as an American with a disability and made me realize how my use of social media, which by that point had not really been positively contributing to my life anyway, was instead contributing to political polarization & toxicity in the US, at which point I cut out almost all social media platforms from my personal Internet usage and deleted my data & accounts on those platforms [LINK].
The rest of 2021 seemed to get better in some ways, as getting vaccinated for covid gave me a significant measure of confidence in being able to go outside of the house & meet with people in person again. Additionally, although I was a little nervous about moving to California (as I had never lived outside of the Mid-Atlantic or Northeast in the US), I was excited about the prospect of living independently again, though I initially got help from my family to settle in there. However, mostly because the pandemic continued and partly because many of my colleagues at UC Davis whom I would see most reliably were at different stages of life than me (with the most relevant point being that many of them were married and had young children who took up most of their time outside of work), my ability to make friends & do social activities outside of work was significantly curtailed there. Additionally, my geographically closest relatives were in the San Francisco Bay area, which is far enough from Davis to make frequent meetings in person infeasible. The latter points continued to be issues through my time living in California.
After I was hit by a car near the end of 2021 despite having done everything right when crossing the street, I depended on family to help me physically as well as around the house for what ended up becoming the remainder of my time in California (nearly 2.5 years). They stayed for that reason, and I am incredibly grateful for their help, but from 2021 through 2024, I also came to feel a little bit badly about how a new place that was supposed to be where I could continue to grow independently and could claim as "my own" as an adult (independently of the places of my childhood) instead essentially became a place where I lost a significant amount of my independence in living & traveling as a person with a disability. Additionally, I was certainly more conscious of the danger and, to some degree especially in the first year after being hit (and somewhat less so afterwards), more fearful when crossing roads as a pedestrian, especially in Davis, and I became more conscious about the ways that road designs in Davis fell far short of even the arguably flawed road designs that I was used to in the major urban centers of the Northeast, let alone how good road designs could be for all pedestrians. Even in 2019 (when I visited Davis before taking the job at UC Davis [LINK]), I was consciously aware of how public transit services would be much more limited essentially everywhere in California than in the major urban centers of the Mid-Atlantic & Northeast with which I was familiar, but I didn't become as conscious of the pedestrian environments & their flaws until I visited & moved to Davis; that awareness certainly jumped after being hit, but even before that, I experienced many more near-miss incidents than anywhere I had lived before despite taking the utmost care when crossing any road.
For this reason and also because I hadn't been able to make friends in Davis during the first several months of living there, while I continued to live in Davis after I was hit, even after I had physically recovered sufficiently that I could in principle have gone out more frequently (at which point the covid pandemic was also largely no longer affecting social gatherings in person), I went out very infrequently and almost exclusively for special events hosted by my employer at that time. I largely felt stuck in my apartment and came to see it as a work site as opposed to a true home, with the joys that I did experience in my life between 2021-2024 not being associated in my mind with that place. These cumulative stresses certainly reinforced my bitter outlook about living & traveling independently in California with a disability.
2022 September 25: Beginning to question the "inherent" tranquility of natural parks
Around this date, I listened to a podcast episode in which the comedian Pete Holmes interviewed the actor Jason Alexander [LINK from YouTube]. The episode was long and touched upon many topics, but I will only focus on one point in particular, namely, Jason Alexander's description of huge natural spaces like the Grand Canyon being "inherently" tranquil; even this was motivated by Jason Alexander's belief in things like electromagnetic interference from typical electronic devices with human physiology (suggesting a need to get into wilderness away from modern society), which is not scientifically supported, but I will not discuss that point further.
At that time, I noted that the structure of human society & modern infrastructure ensure that those huge natural spaces do not seriously endanger humans now as they did many millennia ago. I also noted that while I don't dispute that many people who have grown up in urbanized settings do find such natural spaces to be genuinely relaxing (without consciously thinking about such infrastructure), I imagine that the reverse (of people who grew up in harsh wilderness environments finding modern safe & sedentary urban environments to be more relaxing) could be true too. Right now, I don't know if I always believed those things, and if that podcast episode had been released between 2014-2019 & I had listened to it then, I don't know whether I would have thought about these issues or articulated these thoughts in the same way. All I know is that I came to this mindset by this point in my life given my prior experiences. Additionally, I might now push back slightly on the idea that people who grew up in harsh wilderness environments would necessarily find modern safe & sedentary urban environments to be more relaxing, as I recognize that there are many more sensory & social stimuli in urbanized environments some aspects and many fewer in others compared to what might have been the norm in nomadic non-urbanized societies.
As far as I know, this was the first time that I had explicitly noted to myself any feelings of ambivalence or skepticism toward popular American conceptions of "wilderness". It is possible that I had written notes to myself about these things before, but in a cursory look going back to 2020, I couldn't find anything like that, and in any case, I find it unlikely that I had written such notes before moving to California because without having lived in California surrounded by people who express such a love for hiking in the "wilderness", I wouldn't have felt such exclusion so keenly and I therefore wouldn't have much reason to think about these things.
2022 October 9: Lessening tolerance for compromises to my comfort during tourism
Around this date, my family & I discussed possibilities for tourism together a few months later in India. I had many reasons for rejecting the possibility of sightseeing (instead of just spending time with relatives), and among them was that based on my uncomfortable experiences doing sightseeing in India in 2010, my greater standards for myself with age as a person with a disability (in terms of not wanting to put myself as often in positions of dependence on other individuals), and my greater physical pain since being hit, I was less willing to compromise my own comfort for the sake of tourism with others. I noted to myself too that this would likely mean that I would not, going forward, want to make some of the trips that I wanted to make independently to Asia in 2020 (but could not then because of the covid pandemic). Additionally, I noted to myself that although I wanted to continue traveling between the major urban centers of the Northeast & Mid-Atlantic regularly, I no longer had a wanderlust with respect to where I wanted to live, and I was willing to settle permanently in the DC area so that I and my family could have peace of mind.
At that time, these notes to myself did not refer to my feelings about being in wilderness. It is tempting now to say that this may have been the start of my lessening tolerance for discomfort when traveling to, from, or within major natural parks in the US too and therefore my growing ambivalence toward such natural parks, but I cannot make that claim with a high degree of confidence.
2022 November 27: A vacation giving a nice change of scenery mixed with ambivalence about nature in California
Around this date, I went with part of my family on a vacation for 3 nights to the coast of northern California (fairly far from San Francisco). We were lucky that the weather was cooperative; usually, it is quite cool and rainy there by that time of year, but because of the longstanding drought that ended only a few weeks later, the weather was quite mild, sunny, and dry.
At that time, I noted to myself that I enjoyed the vacation because I felt so stuck & isolated in Davis that it was a nice change of pace and because I could find enough things that were accessible to me & plan our trip around them without worrying so much about other people in a larger group wanting to do other things that I would not have been able to do. I recognized that some of the things that we did were quite comfortable while other things were uncomfortable, but I justified feeling a little better about it by knowing that it was my decision to choose this vacation destination & these activities and to not push myself beyond my comfort levels in terms of fatigue or pain. Simultaneously, I recognized that this didn't change my overall ambivalence about living in California or the difficulty in making friends there, as I was able to articulate even then that I was being left out of a lot of social groups that spend their free time together hiking in the various landscapes of California.
At that time, I also noted to myself that there was a part of me that felt unnerved by the natural environment of California, including cold water in & rocky cliffs along the Pacific Ocean, sparse tree cover in the Central Valley, dry summers, and much cooler nights through most of the year, as these things were very different from their counterparts in the Mid-Atlantic & Northeast with which I was much more familiar. I then noted that by that point, I had become used to the different weather and had become more OK with feeling a little more cold at the beach. Additionally, the drive from Davis to the vacation destination was nice because the thick forests in the California Coast Ranges reminded me of the thickly forested rolling hills of the Mid-Atlantic & Northeast (outside of the major urban cores).
2023 February 16: Disgust at home prices increasing in areas in California destroyed by specific wildfires (compared to before those specific wildfires)
Around this date, I read an article in the Washington Post [LINK] about how wildfires in California had reduced the housing stock and had thus pushed prices higher as demand had not abated. Even before that time, although I might not have articulated this explicitly in writing to myself, I found it strange (especially before moving to California) that people would speak so highly of California's climate given its propensity for wildfires and I had learned about how suburban/exurban sprawl as well as development of rural vacation homes with the expectation of being served by fire departments (no matter how far away) was leading to more instances of homes being in the path of wildfires where previously those areas were uninhabited by humans. I had that in mind when reading that article, so I felt even more disgusted that people would overvalue the benefits of California to the point of deluding themselves about wildfires that have already gone through a given area. I was also disgusted by activists pushing for rebuilding for the sake of poor residents to return without being homeless & sleeping on the streets, because while I was sympathetic to the goal of ensuring that displaced residents are not homeless, I felt it was indulging in the delusion of being able to return without inviting the risk of wildfire again instead of financially supporting such people to move elsewhere.
Right now, looking back upon this, I have slightly softened my stance. In particular, I recognize the deep bonds that many people have as individuals and as social networks with specific places and how permanently moving away because of natural disasters is for most people a last resort (after all other options for staying are exhausted), with many people probably having higher tolerances than me for staying in such a place. Still, though, it is shocking to me even now (looking back) that demand would be so high as to push prices up because people who do choose to leave would negatively affect the supply side while barely affecting the demand side of the housing market.
2023 April 21: Beginning to see central urban areas in California as neglected
Around this date, I visited a relative & a friend, each of whom lived at that time in a different part of the Greater Los Angeles area. Whether near their respective homes, in transit between their homes, or in transit to or from other destinations in the area, I was struck by how run-down different parts of the city were and how hostile the built environment was to pedestrians due to narrow sidewalks in bad condition, excessively wide roads that must be crossed quickly with cars traveling at high speeds, and a lack of shade or other amenities for pedestrians. The latter point contributes to low public transit ridership & its skew toward the very poorest residents in the Greater Los Angeles area (especially compared to other major metropolitan areas in the US) who would use it as a last resort, as I noted then that public transit frequencies, coverage areas, and network connectivity there are actually decent. At that time, I noted to myself the similarity in road design for pedestrians to Davis, the San Francisco Bay area outside of San Francisco, and other parts of California that I could remember seeing then, and although I didn't explicitly note to myself how my most recent visit to San Francisco in 2014 in which I saw many homeless people on the streets may have contributed to my perception of San Francisco as being among the cities in California that seemed to me to be a little run-down, I am sure that these conscious thoughts & subconscious memories combined to seed the beginning of my sense that the amenities & designs of most central urban areas in California are neglected compared to other parts of the US (especially the Mid-Atlantic & Northeast).
2023 June 19: A vacation giving another nice change of scenery except for one part that looked cheap
Around this date, I traveled with my family to the Mountain West & Plains states, seeing some of the state & national parks there. I noted to myself then that I enjoyed that trip because we mostly stuck to accessible trails that worked for me and my planning to just go on accessible trails (with enough present in those parks) gave me a sense of agency. That said, as I noted to myself & told others at that time, Mount Rushmore National Memorial, which was among the places that I visited during this vacation, offended my sensibilities not only because of the bloody history of genocide against Native Americans in that area but also because I felt like the carvings looked cheap & small especially in comparison to the grandeur & beauty of nearby natural rock formations that were most similar to how that mountain looked before the carving started.
2023 August 17: A vacation reminding me of a well-functioning urban core
Around this date, I visited New Jersey & New York City, the latter for the first time since before the covid pandemic. I specifically noted to myself beforehand that I hoped to use the latter trip to remind myself of how easy it was for me to get around independently in New York City, due to the extensive public transit & good built environment for pedestrians, compared to most cities in California, and afterwards, I felt that I had succeeded in this regard (and that my good memories were not merely from false nostalgia).
2023 December 8: A soaking and a near-miss on the road
Around this date, two things happened to me that solidified my dislike for living in the circumstances that I had at that time in California and therefore for living in California more broadly; coincidentally, both of those things happened on the same day as I happened to be outside of my home (which had become a somewhat rare occasion for me in Davis) for an event for my job. First, it happened to rain that day, and because precipitation in most of California comes almost exclusively in the winter half of the year, it is usually quite cold; while I had come to intellectually accept this fact and the fact that California needs rain in the winter to mitigate the dry summer, personally getting soaked with cold rain reinforced my sense of displeasure about the climate of California given the contrast to warm rain in the summer in the Mid-Atlantic & Northeast. Second, despite doing everything right, I was almost again hit by a vehicle when crossing the road, this one driven by someone who blew past a red light. This incident, which was one among many near-miss incidents that I experienced in Davis as a visitor & resident (even discounting actually being hit) in all of which I did everything right, led to the cumulative effect (from all of those previous incidents too) of instantly causing any residual & marginally growing goodwill that I had toward Davis to evaporate and instead reinforcing my overwhelming desire to leave California and my frustration with the unsafe design of roads for pedestrians in contrast to the major urban centers of the Mid-Atlantic & Northeast. Regarding the latter point, I noted to myself at that time the similarity of road designs in Davis to those in other parts of California, showing that my frustration was not limited to Davis and that I would be unlikely to get relief in other parts of California (except maybe for San Francisco within its city limits).
Afterwards, later in the same day of those incidents, I was able to commiserate with colleagues at UC Davis about those incidents. In particular, I articulated to some of them my opinion, which I may have said to others before but had not noted in writing to myself until that point (as far as I can tell), that Davis, even more than most towns & cities in California, seems to me to be beset by a collective delusion that because it has some infrastructure for bicyclists that is better than what is present in most of the US, such infrastructure must inherently be amazing for bicyclists & pedestrians alike and its residents have an inherent quality of goodness that leads to empathy for bicyclists & pedestrians, despite evidence (even beyond the anecdotal examples of my experiences) of the many flaws of road designs in Davis for pedestrians and even for bicyclists. I pointed out that this collective sense among residents of Davis that they can do no wrong in the context of active transportation modes leads to even more rigidity in opposing changes to road designs and to the housing stock, as they believe that they already have the ideal compromise for drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians alike. This makes it even harder to push such needed changes. This rigidity might not be directly relevant to residents' views of "wilderness", but I think the mindsets are related, and it is more directly relevant to notions of urban neglect in California & other parts of the US that have natural beauty as a significant attraction for residents & visitors alike.
2024 January 13: After a conference, reflecting on individual unfortunate circumstances versus systemic problems
Around this date, I attended the TRB 2024 Annual Meeting in DC [LINK]. This led me to reflect upon how I felt during that conference and contextualize that with respect to my feelings about other places that I have lived & other conference experiences. I noted to myself how I felt much more comfortable interacting with others, including my own colleagues from UC Davis, when in DC than in Davis because of how much easier it is for me to get around independently & safely in DC than in Davis.
Most notably to this post, I reflected on how California & many countries in Europe have similar ranges of climates, similar welfare states, similarly relaxed attitudes toward lateness, and similar attitudes toward people with disabilities forcing them to depend upon individual family members or friends or upon trap-like government welfare (in the sense that making a little financial progress with financial help can sharply take away that financial help, setting a person with a disability back even farther) instead of creating truly inclusive systems that let people with disabilities live & get around with independence (from specific individuals) & dignity. Based on what I had read up until that point as well as my personal experiences visiting Luxembourg & Portugal in 2019 [LINK], I saw that in many countries in Europe, people with physical disabilities were forced into positions of dependence because of how many buildings have stairs without ramps or lifts, how many walkpaths are designed in ways that are terrible for people who use wheelchairs or other assistive mobility devices even if they are nominally in "good condition", and the pervasive cultural/societal expectation that people with disabilities would not travel outside of the home much at all and would be even less likely to do so without a caregiver. I clearly noted by that point that the situation in California is different, in that the indignities for people with disabilities are more because of car-oriented land use patterns & the inaccessibility for people with disabilities of many automobile designs for private ownership, but these were nonetheless indignities of forced dependence. I further noted that because I have deeply bought into American cultural ideals of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", I felt most comfortable in the major urban centers of the Mid-Atlantic & Northeast, where I felt that I could pursue these ideals to the fullest extent, than anywhere in California, thus casting these issues through a political/cultural lens too.
I noted too that the more salient factors that turned me off from living in California was the sequence of negative events in my life between 2020-2022, most of which had implications for my ability to live & travel independently and many but not all of which had to with issues in California, as I have detailed in previous subsections of this post. I made that note to show that my particular circumstances leading to my dislike of & frustration toward California can be intellectually consistent with my acceptance that most people [without disabilities] can genuinely enjoy living there for the mild weather through the year (along the coast), outdoor spaces associated with their own homes, and attractive places to drive & hike.
With this caveat in mind, I felt at that time that I still could have recovered from even the full sequence of negative events in my life that occurred before I moved to California if there were places that I could live that would let me get around safely & independently, especially given the promises of pleasant weather, friendly people, and natural beauty. However, after having seen how pervasive NIMBY attitudes in California have led to significant difficulties for me to find housing accessible to people with disabilities, have promoted car-oriented land use patterns that fundamentally compromise the quality of public transit, and have led to significant resistance toward changes to road design that would improve safety for pedestrians (together encompassing an attitude of "pulling up the ladder behind oneself"), how wet & foggy winters are documented to lead to more road collisions especially in the Central Valley (where Davis is) [LINK], and how there is very little recreation outside of the home apart from hiking (which is almost never accessible to people with disabilities), I came to feel at that time that many people with disabilities, including me, have been systemically betrayed by the promises of a good life, independence, and dignity in California.
I didn't note the following at that time, but I see more clearly now that the indignities facing people with disabilities in major urban centers in Europe stems from a direct ignorance of the needs of people with disabilities as opposed to broader car-oriented land use patterns & neglect of urban density or amenities. Thus, I recognize now that these latter points, where they arise later in my thinking, are mostly relevant to the US and cannot fully be generalized beyond the US.
2024 February 10: Reflecting on human intervention in nature at different points of time in America and being unable to travel at all many areas of natural beauty in the US
Around this date, apropos of nothing specific, I happened to wonder why the Mount Rushmore National Monument, as an example of human intervention in nature, offended my sensibilities if I could accept human intervention by indigenous societies having created the Amazon rainforest & California wildflower fields (and I included links about the latter two examples in the previous post in this series). I concluded that beyond illustrating the hypocrisy of the US government in claiming to be for democracy & human rights in principle but in practice violating treaties with & committing genocide against Native American tribes, the carvings of Mount Rushmore National Monument went against the environmental ethos of that time, exemplified by Teddy Roosevelt (whose likeness is among the carvings, which is ironic given this specific point of hypocrisy), of saving wilderness from all human encroachment.
Additionally, around this date, my family & I finalized plans to see the total solar eclipse in Texas on 2024 April 8, as we figured that this would give us the best chance of seeing it without inclement weather and with the area of maximum totality passing near multiple large metropolitan areas. We thought of extending that planned vacation to include traveling around Sedona in Arizona to see the beautiful landscapes there, but I soon saw that essentially all of the attractions involve hiking, which I cannot do due to my physical disability, or watching natural beauty from inside a car, which I cannot do effectively due to my short stature relative to most car windows. At that time, this realization of inaccessibility deepened my bitterness about the western half of the contiguous US & the use of its natural beauty as an attraction for people. In particular, although I didn't explicitly write about it at that time, I was disappointed at how little there was for me to enjoy there even compared to other parts of that half of the US (specifically comparing to my experience along the coast of northern California approximately 15 months earlier).
2024 April 10: Reflecting on natural phenomena that are versus are not accessible to people with disabilities
Just before this date, I traveled with my family to a suburb of Dallas in Texas to see the total solar eclipse. We were lucky to have seen the eclipse for almost the maximum possible duration for that location and across all locations for that eclipse. Additionally, it was my first time seeing a total solar eclipse, and that experience took my breath away in the moment and remained clearly in my mind for many weeks afterwards.
At that time, I noted that it was nice to visit Texas as a way of checking a box off a list in terms of states to visit, as I did not anticipate going to Texas again due to the major urban centers being designed in ways that are hostile to pedestrians with disabilities, due to not having relatives or friends in those places, and due to a lack of other urban attractions there. I also noted that while I had previously worried that my bitterness about my time in California & my sense of exclusion from experiencing wonder at natural beauty would negatively affect my ability to enjoy this experience, that did not come to pass, and I figured that it was because unlike many aspects of natural beauty that are not accessible to people with physical disabilities, this one was accessible in that way.
2024 April 23: Seeing the geographic diversity of California one last time as a resident
For a few days before this date, I traveled with my family by car from Davis for a vacation to Santa Barbara, Ojai, and Lancaster. Along the way from the car and in parts (especially in Santa Barbara, Ojai, and Lancaster) outside of a car, I got to see the numerous coastlines, mountains & valleys near the coast as well as farther inland, and the High Desert of California, with vegetation significantly varying among those places too.
At that time, I noted to myself my greater appreciation for the geographic & climactic diversity of California, even while I still felt most at home (in terms of topography, climate, and vegetation) in the eastern half of the contiguous US, especially knowing that California is not entirely dominated by sad-looking brown shrubs. I noted my ambivalence about how anyone's enjoyment of so much of California is restricted by the need to drive or get a ride (regardless of hiking ability), as I wished then (and still wish now) that more towns & cities in California were safer to travel within & between on foot & using public transit, but I also recognized that this restriction is present in most of the US outside of the major urbanized corridor of the Northeast as well as the Chicago metropolitan area.
At that time, I noted to myself that in principle, I could separate my appreciation for such natural beauty from problems with transportation. I could further envision a future in which towns & cities in California are redeveloped with road designs that are safer for pedestrians and even with more dense mixed-use buildings, though the latter is not strictly needed for the former. I felt like if that could happen, then I would feel much more comfortable living & getting around in California and be happy there even though the natural environment is so different from what I am used to and even though I would be far from many existing friends (because being able to get around independently would make it easier for me to make friends).
I also noted to myself that most of California's population growth occurred after the growth in the automobile market, such that its urban development & road designs were much more car-oriented, so I wondered if that could explain a mindset among residents of California that the pleasant weather (especially along the coast, where most of the population lives, and I have found that people who live there easily forget how harsh the weather can be elsewhere in California) and the fact that most people [without disabilities] can get around reasonably easily without private vehicles together reduce societal motivation to make the short-term sacrifices (which I personally see in a broader sense as minor inconveniences) needed for everyone to experience the benefits of safe transit-oriented development compared to the major urban centers of the Mid-Atlantic & Northeast as well as the Chicago metropolitan area, as the latter urban centers & metropolitan areas are much older & have much harsher climates that seem to have fostered cultures of transit-oriented development as acts of collective problem-solving. (That said, I recognized at that time too that if those areas had developed after the advent of automobiles, there is no guarantee against them having as much car-oriented development as California ultimately did.) I connected that lack of motivation to a sense among liberal residents in California of their own inherent goodness in a political context and to other societal failures in California to solve problems of their own making, including delusionally choosing to live in fire-prone areas and demanding that roads & public services (including emergency services) be extended to those areas as well as building inadequate drainage infrastructure into roads despite wintertime precipitation in California having been observed for a long time. Thus, I recognized that if California residents' collective attitudes toward transportation were so connected to their attitudes about "wilderness", about the climate of California, and about political issues, then my appreciation of the natural beauty of California would be limited by my bitterness of the seeming intractability of trying to improve transportation for people with disabilities there. For that reason, I felt satisfied for having seen most of the major geographic & climactic regions of California.
2024 April 28: Spending time in downtown Sacramento and finding it to be boring
On this date, which was a Sunday (i.e., a weekend) I spent several hours with my family walking around downtown Sacramento. At that time, I noted to myself surprise & disappointment at how few restaurants, other local businesses, and other attractions were present there compared even to San Francisco (let alone the major urban centers of the Mid-Atlantic & Northeast) and how many of those things were closed on a weekend. I felt that it was a boring & sleepy city and that popular conceptions of the Sacramento metropolitan area (among people outside of it) as subsidiary to the San Francisco Bay area had a lot more truth than I was willing to admit before that time. At that time, I did appreciate that there were several blocks of downtown Sacramento that were walkable & reasonably safe from vehicular traffic, but I felt like I would be fine with having been to Sacramento only a few times in my life because I didn't see much attracting me to it.
At that time, I also more broadly noted that the notion that good weather in California saps motivation to do better urban planning may be related to the fact that most public spaces (including schools, highway rest areas, restaurants, and shopping malls) in most parts of California have significant outdoor spaces instead of indoor hallways, so I wondered if these two factors together can explain the lack of attractive indoor urban amenities in many parts of California compared to the major urban centers of the Mid-Atlantic & Northeast as well as the Chicago metropolitan area. That said, I also noted that the presence of good weather & natural beauty in many parts of southern Europe has not precluded the development of walkable neighborhoods, good public transit, and attractive urban amenities (even if those are not indoors), and if anything, it is ironic that car-oriented land use patterns mean that most people in California must travel stuck inside of a private vehicle instead of being able to enjoy relatively pleasant weather as pedestrians.
2024 May 10: Feeling excluded from a trip to see a national park
On this date, my family staying with me in Davis made a trip without me to see Redwood National Park. I chose to not go because I was too busy wrapping up my job at UC Davis (as I would move out of Davis 2 weeks later), but even if I had the time to go, I could not help but feel a bit disappointed that there was no way for me to get there if I wanted to use my power wheelchair, and even if I used my manual wheelchair, there would be no accessible trails and I would be excluded from many beautiful views along the way from inside of a car due to my short stature. In a sense, that bitterness arising from one last instance (as a California resident) of exclusion from natural beauty in California felt like a fitting end to my time as a California resident.
2024 May 14: Finally articulating to others my skepticism of popular conceptions of "wilderness"
Around this date, I had a long video call with a friend (different from the one who introduced me to the essay by William Cronon, and this was a few months before I read that essay). While our conversation touched upon many different topics, we spent a lot of time discussing our respective views regarding natural spaces. This started from this friend articulating a preference for being able to work remotely from many different places & at different times of day, allowing this friend, who highly values such things, to be able to spontaneously take breaks by spending time outdoors. This friend in turn freely accepted my point that I, due to my disability, almost never get the same level of spontaneity in my life, as difficulties with travel force me to plan many things to a significant depth of detail relatively far in advance, and gave another example (which I may have heard before but had forgotten by that time) of how oak trees in the South in the US, which may look majestic to many white Americans, may trigger more black Americans as painful reminders of racist lynching.
When this friend mentioned volunteering for a local organization that helps children "find themselves" in nature, I offhandedly mentioned that I have never "found myself" in nature and could never see myself doing so in the future. This friend expressed genuine curiosity about why I would say that, so the ensuing discussion formed the bulk of our conversation. I explained the indignities & feelings of exclusion that I experience with natural parks as a person using a wheelchair, how inaccessibility to people with disabilities in natural parks is a deliberate design decision that in my view is dishonestly couched behind the excuse of wanting to preserve the wilderness in an "untouched" state (ignoring many facilities & paths in natural parks for visitors without disabilities), and the ways that indigenous peoples in America (as a single continent) having practiced light-touch intervention in their ecosystems to create things (like California wildflowers & the Amazon rainforest) that people in the US & Europe since the 20th century had considered to be untouched wilderness should dispel notions of "untouched wilderness", though I acknowledged to this friend that the problems that I have personally experienced in natural parks as someone with a disability may have predisposed me toward such skeptical attitudes about "wilderness". I explained that I don't hate natural spaces and I can genuinely appreciate them when they are in places where I can live & get around independently or have facilities to get to & within them independently, but my attitude toward nature is otherwise extremely utilitarian, as I don't go out of my way to seek out natural spaces, and I have never felt any deep transcendental joy or peace from being in such spaces (likely because I can never fully detach from the realities of the transportation challenges that face me as a person with a disability in the process of getting to or being within those spaces).
When this friend asked me where I would go for peace & joy, I said that I would go to any city where I can get around safely & independently, and I specifically identified DC, New York City, Boston, and their respective neighboring dense suburbs. I explained my view that cities are places where humans, observing them as animals from afar, come together & cooperate to meet the needs of as many people there as possible, though I emphasized that I don't have a pollyannaish or "kumbaya" view of the notions of "cooperation" or "coming together". I explained that I feel more dignity in those cities by being able to use most of those cities' urban amenities & facilities like anyone else without a disability, and I can thus blend into crowds & tune them out more easily, so I don't need to be in natural spaces to find temporary tranquility. I also pointed out that having spent significant time in the formative years of my adulthood in DC, New York City, and Boston, I am intimately familiar & happy with the social norms of physically moving through spaces & interacting with people in those specific metropolitan areas without drawing unwanted attention.
When this friend asked me whether I would choose to live in New York City or Boston in the hypothetical scenario that I didn't know anyone in or near those cities, we agreed that the much greater ease for me to live & travel independently in those cities would make it mentally much easier for me to make friends too, so I would indeed plausibly choose to live in those cities even in such a scenario. I also realized at that time that the answer would hold even if I had grown up in California, because even though the very different climate of the Northeast & distance from relatives or friends would make those cities feel more alienating to me, I would still be able to live & get around independently more easily in those cities than anywhere in California.
This was the first time that I had, in conversation with someone else, clearly thought through & articulated my skepticism of popular American conceptions of "wilderness". Since then, I have become more comfortable discussing this topic with other friends & relatives too.
2024 May 22: Further understanding why I have never fantasized living on a beach
Around this date, which was relatively soon before my move out of California [LINK], one of my relatives asked me what, if anything, I would miss in California. In the process of explaining to that relative why I would not miss the suburban sprawl or natural beauty of most of California, I noted to myself that that these ideas that I was able to articulate to this relative as well as my friend in the previous subsection could also partly explain why I have never fantasized living on a beach.
Before that time, I thought that I would want a variety of scenery and that if I lived on a beach, hedonic adaptation would prevent me from appreciating it forever as the scenery would at some point no longer seem novel & would recede into my mental background. I felt too that after a while, the scenery of a beach would seem desolate instead of inviting, with vast expanses of sand & water lacking greenery. Additionally, I noted to myself that most beaches along the West Coast of the US north of Los Angeles as well as most beaches along the East Coast of the US north of Myrtle Beach would be too cold for me to enjoy in the winter.
At that time, I further recognized that I had probably subconsciously internalized the fact that most beach towns & their beaches are very hard for me to get around independently using my power wheelchair, reinforcing the sense that I would only enjoy occasional trips to beaches. Additionally, I noted the contrast between East Coast beaches that in the summer seem to be more meant for lounging, which is something that I too can enjoy doing as an occasional break, and West Coast beaches that are more meant for hiking or jogging (especially to stay warm given how cold the air above the cold ocean water can be throughout the year), which reinforces my feelings of exclusion from West Coast beaches.
Right now, looking back, I might actually soften my stance about hedonic adaptation. In particular, for the last few months of living in Maryland, I have felt joy about it almost every day without feeling bored of it. I don't know how much longer this feeling will last, but I do feel that I can better understand how some other people may feel similarly consistently high levels of joy every day from living on a beach, even if that isn't the case for me.
2024 June 4: The ups and downs of natural beauty and urban amenities in Montreal and northern New England
Before this date, I had moved back to Maryland from California, my family & I traveled with relatives to Montreal, and I traveled to Boston as well as to New Hampshire. In the latter two trips, in the car with my family, then on buses traveling without other companions in my party, and as a visiting pedestrian in New Hampshire, I felt invigorated by the view of rolling green hills with thick forests in northern New York, northern New England, and Quebec. I noted to myself that because I grew up in similar environments in the Mid-Atlantic, I have deeply internalized such environments as "nature", so other landscapes in other parts of the US (including much of California) may feel too alien for me to appreciate their natural beauty as deeply as other people do (beyond the problems that I have already identified with being in those natural parks).
That said, I had much bigger problems with getting around independently in Montreal. At that time, I noted to myself the similarities of Montreal to European cities (in contrast to cities in the US) in terms of having a lot of dense mixed-use development with good walkability & public transit but with most buildings not being accessible to people with physical disabilities. Thus, my problems with Montreal are more like my problems with most cities in Europe, stemming from explicit neglect of the needs of people with disabilities in well-developed urban centers, as opposed to my problems with most cities in the US, stemming from car-oriented land use patterns and a lack of safe walkable spaces with decent urban amenities. When I discussed this with my family at that time, I realized that I had mentally checked out of that part of the larger trip because of my discouragement about getting around independently in Montreal, and I felt inclined against independently making a future trip to Montreal or anywhere else in Canada for that reason; instead, I was mentally looking forward to going to Boston, where I knew that it would be easy for me to get around, and to New Hampshire, which would be a newer experience for me.
In Boston & Cambridge, I noted, with joy, how much better the road designs were for pedestrians & bicyclists than I had seen anywhere else in California (including Davis), though I was also disappointed to see that some sidewalks that I had noticed were broken when I visited several years earlier were still not fixed. While the events that brought me to those places were joyful, I arguably felt even more joy just from being in Boston & Cambridge as a visitor who could get around independently just as easily & safely as any other visitor or resident there without a disability; that is something which I had felt every time that I visited Boston after finishing college in MIT, and that feeling persisted this time too even as my emotional connections to my time in college have dissipated to a significant degree with the passage of time (meaning that one cannot claim that my fondness for Boston & Cambridge is purely due to my nostalgia or other fondness for that time).
Going to rural New Hampshire was joyful for me in large part because of the friends with whom I got to spend significant one-on-one time there, and this also let me see the transportation systems there in a more positive way. In particular, at that time, I noted to myself that a lot of commercial buildings where I visited were not accessible to people who use wheelchairs, which was a bit of a turn-off for me, and I would almost certainly never delude myself into believing that I would want to live there long-term given the sparsity of public transit & the need for private vehicle use even for basic day-to-day activities. Additionally, I noted to myself that some of the sidewalks were in bad condition. However, as a visitor, I felt joy in the presence of the rolling green hills, the good weather at that time, and the generally walkable built environment (in the sense of sidewalks being present almost everywhere and roads being generally narrow & safe to cross, especially given the low volumes of vehicular traffic). I felt even better about New England as a whole knowing that I could enjoy some of the rural areas as much as the urban areas, and I noted to myself the contrast between my visits the previous year to Los Angeles, where I got joy from the people that I spent time with there but decidedly not from the unsafe built environment there even though Los Angeles is a much bigger city and has many urban amenities (that rural New Hampshire does not) that I would usually value (because, as I have mentioned earlier in this post, the value of those urban amenities for me was significantly undercut by how unsafe it is to be a pedestrian using a wheelchair there). Although I would never live in rural New Hampshire full-time, I was surprised at that time to feel confident in visiting again, given that before that trip, I figured that I would probably not visit again because of the difficulties that I would usually encounter with respect to getting around independently in rural areas.
2024 June 16: Reflecting on how others can "find themselves" in natural spaces
Around this date, apropos of nothing specific, I reflected on how although I believe strongly in the idea that disability can happen to anyone in any way at any time & for any duration, such that I have hoped that relatives & friends would not only understand why I have the attitudes toward various things (like "wilderness") that I do but may also come to adopt my attitudes with the passage of time given the correlation of disability with age, I recognized that many people never experience significant disabilities of their own in their lifetimes and many other people experience significant disabilities only near the ends of their respective lives after lifetimes full of experiences formed without having directly experienced disability, so the way that they prioritize & think about things, including time spent in natural spaces, may be quite different from me. Moreover, I recognized that even though I could enjoy the natural beauty of rural New Hampshire more because it was easier (than in many parts of California) for me to get around independently there as a visitor, that trip did not lead to me "finding myself" in nature and did not fundamentally change my utilitarian attitude toward my individual relationship with nature.
2024 June 26: The ups and downs of natural beauty in the South
In the week before this date, I traveled with my family to various places in the South, notably including Myrtle Beach as well as Great Smoky Mountains National Park. At that time, I particularly appreciated about the former the warm weather (including warmer nights), warmer water, and the place being conducive to lounging, as those were the things that I enjoyed as a child on occasional trips to beaches along the East Coast of the US and had missed from beaches in California. I appreciated about the later the thickly forested hills of the Appalachian Mountains and the views from higher elevations, but I recognized at that time that getting around even as a visitor (let alone as a resident) in my wheelchair would be harder for me in Asheville than even rural New Hampshire due to the much steeper hills, worse pedestrian infrastructure, and more sparse public transit connecting to other bigger cities in the region. Additionally, in some of the state & national parks there, I encountered problems with rough terrain in my wheelchair and with some elevated walkways (which were purely artificial, as opposed to natural paths along hills or mountains that might have deliberately been lightly developed as dirt) having railings that were too high for me to get good views & floor materials that were too bumpy for me to enjoy in my wheelchair; these were deliberate design decisions that could have been done differently for the enjoyment of more people. For these reasons, I felt at that time that my enjoyment of the natural beauty in those natural parks near Asheville was more muted than my enjoyment of the natural beauty of northern New England.
2024 July 7: Weather dependence of appreciating natural beauty in Shenandoah National Park
In the few days before this date, I traveled with my family & other relatives to Shenandoah National Park. I noted at that time the beauty of the Appalachian Mountains there, but I also felt more excluded partly because of the lack of trails accessible to people who use wheelchairs and partly because the extreme heat & humidity made me quite fatigued. Such heat & humidity are typical of that area and will only become more extreme over time due to climate change, so I could not discount this as a one-off issue.
2024 August 6: Trying to make my thoughts more coherent regarding the prevailing attitudes of people in the western half of the contiguous US toward "wilderness"
Around this date, apropos of nothing specific, I wondered whether I could make my thoughts more coherent regarding the prevailing attitudes of people in the western half of the contiguous US, especially people living along the West Coast, toward "wilderness". The following (within this subsection) was my attempt at doing so.
I felt that in California & the Northwest, whose cultures encourage beliefs among individuals that they love nature & attract newcomers who similarly believe that they love nature, many people do indeed sincerely believe that they love nature and that they do what they can to support nature, and this focus on natural spaces instead of urban planning may explain why their predecessors in the 20th century allowed urban amenities & urban planning in the major metropolitan areas, which grew mostly after the advent of car-oriented development patterns, to languish in favor of pushing those car-oriented development patterns as "good enough" for their needs. I also felt that those residents, for innocuous (not malicious) reasons, don't understand the ways that their development patterns & habits actually hurt natural spaces and the ways that the things that they think would hurt those natural spaces would not (in my view) do so. In particular, because they do not know how many examples of "wilderness" actually resulted from light-touch human intervention over many generations, they do not realize that adding disability access to natural parks would not be an "affront" to natural beauty or that doing so is only a small logical extension of creating dirt paths for hikers without disabilities to use in the first place. Because those residents love their suburban homes that are in or close to less developed areas of natural beauty, as those settings clearly contrast with the genuine concerns of urban cores (including crowded conditions, perceived lack of clean air, perceived greater distance from natural beauty, and issues with homelessness & visible signs of drug use especially in the major urban cores of California, Oregon, and Washington) that those residents are trying to avoid, those residents do not know why suburban encroachment into natural spaces is bad for both humans & non-human ecosystems; in particular, they do not know why walkable dense mixed-use development patterns would be better for humans to avoid new diseases from such encroachment, non-human ecosystems from the avoidance of such encroachment, and humans to more sustainably use public transit to go between urban centers & natural parks (let alone how this would benefit non-drivers, including many people with disabilities). Finally, because those residents have rather rigid negative views about urban cores & positive views of a specific model of access to natural beauty that involves driving a lot & hiking on dirt paths that they are capable of doing, there isn't much broad momentum for improving disability access in those urban cores & natural parks.
I recognized one big issue, namely that in the western half of the contiguous US, given the existing prevalence of car-oriented land use patterns, private vehicles do genuinely give their owners the freedom to travel at any time of their own choosing, and road networks are much more extensive than public transit networks, so people who want to live closer to areas of natural beauty would be more attracted to car use than to public transit use. I recognized another issue entangled with that of private vehicle use & car-oriented land use patterns, namely that in the western half of the contiguous US (west of the major tracts of cropland in the Midwest, South, and eastern halves of the Plains states), there is a more libertarian mentality (evident in Montana even now and in California until the 1990s), glossing over heavy federal investments of different kinds into those areas especially in the 20th century, that I felt is connected with the myth of the American frontier, leading to a individual desires (subconsciously coming from a collective cultural source) to own land, be self-reliant, and be free of interference from others. However, I felt that while such self-reliance was actually done & doable in the 19th century when the US government was stealing land from indigenous tribes, as urban cores (within the purview of the US) were small & had minimal public infrastructure, it is no longer possible for people who live in suburban areas of California & the Northwest to believably (as individuals) or sustainably (as groups) pretend to be self-reliant there when their comfort there is strongly correlated with the economic fortunes of those major metropolitan areas that need urban infrastructure, continued demand, and more housing in order to continue economically thriving. In that note to myself, I separated California & the Northwest from rural areas in the Plains states & Mountain West which, as I saw in my trip the previous year, are in many cases genuinely poor & lacking in publicly managed infrastructure, so many people there do genuinely have to be more self-reliant.
I further noted to myself that the Mid-Atlantic & Northeast don't have significantly better disability access to or within their respective natural parks than California or the Northwest do just because the major metropolitan areas of the former regions have better disability access (in terms of walkability & ease of getting around independently) than their counterparts in the latter regions. Instead, I imagined that if a hypothetical region in the US were to have a major metropolitan area and a major natural park in which disability access to & within the latter is of good quality, then it must be relatively easy for people with disabilities to get around independently safely & comfortably in the former too.
I later read an article in the Washington Post [LINK] about how time outdoors is critical for maintaining children's physical & mental health, which led me to think more carefully about some of these thoughts that I had noted to myself around this date. In particular, I noted that I do not have animus against nature despite many experiences with natural spaces leaving me with feelings of exclusion or frustration. More explicitly, I recognized that these frustrations have led me to feel comfortable around lush greenery in my day-to-day surroundings but against feeling transcendental calmness or overwhelming joy from being in natural parks, which is why I don't usually seek out such spaces on my own, so I would need to remember that many people do genuinely feel calmer or more joyful in such spaces and seek them out for those reasons. With these caveats in mind, my bigger concern was that partially from ignorance of the way that natural parks result from human choices and of how disability can affect anyone in any way at any time & for any duration, many people who live in California or the Northwest due to their professed love of nature neglect disability access in cities (due to their distaste for cities) and to & within natural parks (due to assuming that all visitors to those natural parks would drive to & from there and hike within there), leading to people with physical disabilities languishing in underdeveloped urbanized areas & remaining excluded from natural parks, with the latter in turn reinforcing exclusion in those states from many positive social interactions & friendship opportunities with people without disabilities. Despite the frustration, I couldn't feel too angry about such collective attitudes knowing that they are not consciously malicious. Additionally, although I recognized that many people currently without disabilities will not directly experience disability ever or until closer to the ends of their respective lives and it therefore seems reasonable in practice to absolve them of the expectation to think about disability issues as if those issues would directly affect them, I recognized that this concession is too accepting of the idea that one's quality of life must worsen upon acquiring a disability. By contrast, if the commonality of disability & the capability of people to adapt to acquired disabilities are emphasized in positive ways, then the seeming inevitability of people acquiring disabilities can be framed neutrally instead of negatively. Ultimately, I hoped that natural parks in the US will in the future have easy ways for people with disabilities to get to & within them and that opportunities for children to interact with nature are equally accessible to children with disabilities too, even if I personally cannot feel overwhelming joy or transcendental calmness from being in natural spaces.
2024 August 18: Encountering élitism and ableism in an op-ed about hiking in California
Around this date, I read an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times (which I unfortunately cannot find now, as several of them came out around the same time and all of them are behind paywalls), in response to a recent death by a climber in Yosemite National Park due to failures in the equipment, arguing that such failures should warn away inexperienced climbers. I was heartened to see comments decrying such needlessly élitist & ableist attitudes. Moreover, given the other infrastructure in place for climbers there, this was perhaps the most explicit example of élitism & ableism in California in the context of enjoyment of natural beauty that I had seen until that point, without the façade of the goal of "leaving nature untouched".
2024 September 29: Flipping the meaning of the phrase "the journey is the destination"
Around this date, in the process of writing the previous post in this series (i.e., after having read the essay by William Cronon), I thought more about what I would write for this post too. In particular, I noted to myself by ways of clarification & emphasis that the problems that I experience getting to & within most natural parks independently with comfort & dignity are fixable within the US as long as Americans are collectively willing to drop the pretense that natural parks that are easy to drive to & have comfortable amenities for hikers are in any meaningful way representative of "wilderness untouched by humans". The persistence of these problems & of this attitude has tended to significantly dampen most of the enthusiasm that I would otherwise have for seeing things in those natural parks that inspire awe, peace, or joy in most other visitors to those places. Thus, visiting those places becomes a mere matter of checking boxes off a list for intellectual satisfaction than for true joy. This led me to realize that I had turned the phrase "the journey is the destination" on its head, because whereas many people without disabilities who live in relatively comfortable settings in urbanized areas savor the challenges of getting to natural parks on badly-marked or badly-maintained roads or within them as hikers and are rewarded for their efforts with beautiful views of nature at the end, the persistent challenges that I would experience getting to & within natural parks independently & with dignity being reflective of the persistent challenges that I would experience getting around with independence & dignity within urbanized areas in many places near major natural parks (especially in California) mean that getting to & within natural parks does not really offer much relief from those day-to-day indignities and that the beautiful natural views that may come at the end, by embodying in my mind these problems that could be fixed but are not, do not ultimately offer as much solace to me. I emphasized to myself that I am happy for people who genuinely experience awe, joy, or peace when hiking or otherwise spending time in natural spaces, and that my bitterness is about the collective delusion about "natural parks as wilderness" and its implications for people with disabilities, other people who cannot drive, other marginalized groups, and the state of urban communities.
2024 October 1: Learning of the destruction of Chimney Rock State Park in North Carolina
Around this date, I was saddened to learn of the destruction by Hurricane Helene of Chimney Rock State Park in North Carolina, as a few months earlier, when my family & I went with relatives to Asheville, we visited that natural park. At the same time, I distinguished between the actual natural features, which are largely untouched (although I imagine that many trees have been swept away), from the human-built infrastructure for tourists, which was likely significantly damaged. I did not know at that time, and I still do not know now, exactly what parts of that natural park have been damaged or destroyed, but at that time, I noted to myself the hope that if & when it is rebuilt, it has lower railings, smoother surfaces on the elevated walkway, and other improvements for the sake of visitors with disabilities (and the existence of an elevator built within the mountain makes clear that the people who built or maintained that park were completely ignorant of the needs of visitors with physical disabilities).
Summary
Circumstances that many others may have experienced too
Many people in the US and around the world lost loved ones to covid during the recent pandemic. Many people with disabilities in the US experienced far more extreme worries during the recent pandemic related to their disabilities compared to my concerns about whether I would be able to live independently again, particularly whether they could get necessary medical care for other conditions at the same time or whether they would get any medical care at all if they were infected with covid [LINK] (or if they would be deemed "unworthy" relative to people without disabilities [LINK]).
Every year, around 40,000 people in the US die from road collisions, and hundreds of thousands of others experience significant injuries from road collisions. In many cases, injuries can have lifelong effects that, without compensating social or medical support, can limit a road collision survivor's day-to-day activities.
The physical problems with getting to & within national parks as well as many urbanized areas, especially in the western half of the contiguous US, affect many people with physical disabilities, far beyond just me. Many of these are problems with infrastructure design that can be fixed by creating & implementing dimensions & other specifications that work better for many people with physical disabilities, and in the absence of such fixes, it should not be hard to imagine how people with disabilities (beyond just me) trying to plan vacations to these places but repeatedly coming across these problems could be discouraged from planning future travel to these places. Additionally, many people with physical disabilities do depend on specific family members, relatives, or friends for help with day-to-day activities, including travel as well as personal care outside of the home.
Circumstances more specific to me
The specific ordering of events (the pandemic occurring, me worrying about not being able to live independently again because of the danger associated with the pandemic, me being unable to make friends after moving to Davis because of continuing safety concerns associated with the pandemic, me being hit by a car and taking many months to recover, and that experience adding to prior concerns & shaping later concerns about road safety in California that discouraged me from going out much) discussed in this post, along with my background of having grown up & spent the formative years of my adulthood in the Mid-Atlantic & Northeast (with implications for my views of familiar natural ecosystems as well as of urban amenities), was probably unique to me. Additionally, I am lucky to have family members who are able & willing to drive me to various natural parks, so this in conjunction with my willingness to spend time with family in this way is the only reason that I can experience the indignities of rough terrain & inaccessible facilities in my manual wheelchair in the first place; if I only had a power wheelchair and could only travel wherever I could take that power wheelchair, then I would experience exclusion from those natural parks but not indignity & frustration from experiences while going to or inside of those places. Moreover, significantly short stature among adults is rare, so while I might not be the only person too short in stature to effectively see scenery from inside of a moving car, I don't think there are that many other people with disabilities who would have the same problem for that reason. Also, there have certainly been instances where I had negative experiences in certain natural parks due to specific weather problems or other issues that day (that probably wouldn't have occurred on most other days), and although I have done my best to separate those occurrences from broader issues, I cannot guarantee that those incidents haven't subconsciously affected my perception of those natural parks to at least a small degree. Finally, with the combination of all of these experiences along with age, my tolerance for such indignities when getting to or within natural parks has decreased over time.
My thoughts about disability, wilderness, and urban spaces that may be more specific to myself
With the particular sequence of events in my life and the progressive development of my thoughts about those events, I have felt that I am most at home in the centers of major metropolitan areas that have dense mixed-use development with safe walkable streets & good public transit, as those are the places where I can live & get around independently with comfort, safety, and dignity, and with those features in place, I feel most free to fully express myself, do what I want, and realize the American constitutional ideal of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Closely connected to this is the joy that I get from knowing that I am in the same situation as other residents & visitors using those streets & public transit services instead of being treated as a second-class citizen in a car-oriented area. In the US, this has meant DC, New York City, Boston, and their neighboring dense suburbs; I imagine that Chicago could be part of this list too, but I have not visited it yet. As a visitor, I value many of these things too even if there are not enough urban amenities or nearby essential business to attract me to live in those places, which is why I felt better visiting rural New Hampshire than I did visiting the Greater Los Angeles area.
Because of the contrast between these urban cores versus more suburban areas and natural parks, I have never consciously sought out natural parks, as I have never felt deeply at peace or overjoyed for being in such areas. As I have experienced more things in the last few years, especially joy from moving back to Maryland and being in more familiar surroundings & with familiar people, I have become more accepting of the notion that many people genuinely do feel such peace & joy in natural parks. I have no animus toward nature or toward such people feeling such genuine peace or joy from being in nature. However, I still retain a very utilitarian personal relationship with nature; I can appreciate it where I live, and it can give the comfort of familiar surroundings, but traveling farther away for it usually does not give me much pleasure beyond the intellectual satisfaction of checking a box off of a list. This is why I have never "found myself" by being in natural spaces, why I don't see that ever happening to me in the future, and why I don't fantasize about being in a place of natural beauty that many other people fantasize about & is isolated from urban areas, whether a beach, a forested mountain, or a lake shore. (On a somewhat related note, I also have never done an "escape room" puzzle and don't intend to do so because I have been in too many situations in my own life, as someone with a disability who would not have been in such situations in the absence of that disability, where I was trapped and had to try very hard over an excessively long period to get out of that problematic situation. An example would be the problems that I experienced upon returning from the APS 2018 March Meeting, which I summarized in reflection in 2020 [LINK]. Thus, I don't think I would find such contrived situations to be fun, relaxing, or a form of mental escapism for me.)
My thoughts about disability, wilderness, and urban spaces that may be more generalizable
Bearing in mind these caveats about my own background, experiences, state of mind, and personal attitudes purely within the context of my own life toward being in natural spaces, I think there are points in this post that are more generalizable with respect to attitudes toward "wilderness" popular among many residents of the western half of the contiguous US, especially California and the Northwest. These have of course been shaped by my own background and experiences, but I suspect that readers who have some aspects of their own background or experiences that overlap with mine may find points of agreement.
From this post & the previous post, it should be clear that I agree with points in William Cronon's essay (and did so even before becoming aware of the existence of William Cronon or that essay) about how current popular perceptions in the US of "wilderness" as tranquil belie the reality of wilderness before the 19th century. I also agree with points in his essay about the effects of the myth of the American frontier and the more libertarian-leaning mentality prevalent in many parts of the western half of the contiguous US on the hypocritical or delusional attitudes that many people in that part of the US have toward "wilderness", believing themselves to be in "wilderness" when in natural parks while discounting the infrastructure needed for them to comfortably get to & within those natural parks, or believing themselves to be in "wilderness" when buying homes far from denser urbanized areas but still demanding modern societal infrastructure including roads, telephone connections, and emergency services (even in areas known to be prone to wildfires). However, I would go farther than this and bring in other observations to explain the observation of people with disabilities being excluded from many natural spaces as well as from many urban spaces in the western half of the contiguous US.
From what I have observed, many people [without disabilities] in that half of the US genuinely love being in natural spaces, but the way that they believe natural parks to truly be "untouched wilderness" and that they only focus on their own hiking abilities or those of others without disabilities while ignoring the extent to which infrastructure makes those spaces comfortable for them to get to & within (as well as how so many areas of supposed "wilderness" have been significantly shaped by light-touch human intervention over many generations) makes such people recoil at proposals to make it easier for people with disabilities, many of whom do not drive and some of whom cannot ride in most conventional private vehicles, to easily get to & within those spaces. Because of this mindset of "preserving natural beauty", prevalent from the late 19th century onward in the US, that resists improvements to natural spaces that are too visibly artificial, such people would likely not support improvements for the benefit of people with disabilities and may even see opposing such improvements as the right thing to do (without necessarily being aware of how the lack of such improvements hurts people with disabilities and, again, without being aware of how much those people are themselves dependent on less visible infrastructure to & within those natural parks).
Moreover, such people in my observation tend to be less interested in urban activities or having nicer urban amenities, instead living in suburban homes and going out recreationally essentially only to other people's houses for socialization or to natural parks for hiking. At this point, many decades after the initial development of the large & mid-sized metropolitan areas of the western half of the contiguous US, it is hard to know exactly which way the arrow of causality points, but in any case, there is clearly a correlation between such pro-nature & anti-urban attitudes and the way that such metropolitan areas seem more neglected with respect to urban amenities, urban attractions, walkability, and conduciveness to public transit compared to the major metropolitan areas of the Mid-Atlantic & Northeast. In particular, car-oriented land use patterns & road designs make it much harder for most people with disabilities to get around independently within urbanized areas, for public transit services to operate efficiently within urbanized areas, and for public transit services to efficiently take people to & from natural parks. (This issue in the US is different from how in Europe as well as some parts of Canada, urban centers have ample amenities, good walkability, and good public transit for people without disabilities, but are built in ways that exclude many people with disabilities.) These places have transportation systems that in principle work for the majority of residents but not for a significant minority of residents, who instead have to experience the indignities of being forced to depend on specific individuals in their lives for help, instead of transportation systems that are truly inclusive of everyone and can let them live their lives without undue dependence on specific people in their lives.
In most places in the western half of the contiguous US, I see this as simple inertia, with people without disabilities becoming comfortable enough with systems that work well enough for them and being resistant to changes that could have unknown effects (that they assume could be negative); I don't see a dimension of self-righteousness in this issue, in contrast to the issue of "preserving natural beauty" (in the perverse ways described above). However, in California & the Northwest, there are a few additional facets of delusion or hypocrisy at play. One facet is the issue of NIMBY attitudes that make it very hard to make existing urbanized areas denser. Such difficulties are amplified for people with disabilities looking for accessible housing that is within a reasonable travel time to essential destinations. Additionally, I have observed in Davis, where NIMBY attitudes are strong enough to essentially preserve the housing stock unchanged since the 1990s, that people who express such NIMBY attitudes simultaneously hypocritically complain about recent increases in vehicular traffic levels (arising from people who must drive from nearby towns because they cannot afford to live in Davis with the existing housing stock, there is not enough new housing in Davis for such commuters, and public transit options are extremely sparse). Another facet is how the myth of pleasant weather throughout all of these states belies the realities of houses being built with transportation infrastructure in remote fire-prone areas that are hard to service when wildfires do happen and of frequent fog in the winter (especially in the Central Valley of California) leading to frequent severe road collisions. Yet another facet is self-righteousness among politically liberal residents (given that California, Oregon, and Washington are dominated by liberal politicians in their respective state governments) who might not want to admit, regardless of this issue not fitting neatly into "liberal" versus "conservative" labels, that their state could be doing a lot more to make urban centers & natural parks much more inclusive to all people. Finally, more specifically in Davis, I have observed a sense of self-righteousness among residents regarding the infrastructure in Davis supposedly being great for bicyclists, such that those residents ignore the very real problems with road designs for pedestrians & bicyclists and refuse to consider changes that could improve road safety for pedestrians & bicyclists; this sense of self-righteousness may be related in some way to the sense of self-righteousness about "preserving natural beauty".
Concluding remarks
Once again, I don't have animus against nature or against people who experience genuine joy or peace from hiking or otherwise spending time in natural spaces. I can have some appreciation for natural spaces near where I live, much more so if I can live & get around independently in such places, and I can greatly appreciate natural phenomena (like eclipses & auroras) that do not require travel to places whose designs typically exclude people with disabilities. I also understand that it is unrealistic to expect most people without disabilities to seriously think about their potential future selves with disabilities, although I push back against the notion that the acquisition of disability later in life would necessarily lead to a significant & irrecoverable drop in quality of life as that sells short the capability of individuals to positively adapt to new circumstances.
The point of this post was to explain my thinking, based on my anecdotal observations & readings, about the way that collectively ignorant views of natural parks or exurban homes (with modern infrastructure connections) as "wilderness", of the historical harshness of actual wilderness toward humans, of the different extents & ways in which humans have historically intervened in their natural environments, and of the extent to which people with disabilities need to be included as visitors to natural parks, collective inertia against changes to car-oriented land use patterns & road designs, collective neglect of urban amenities among those who value "wilderness" much more than urban spaces, collective unearned self-righteousness about "preserving natural beauty" reinforcing resistance to change, collective unearned self-righteousness about liberal political beliefs that bleed into beliefs about "wilderness" or about the status quo of transportation systems, and collective unearned self-righteousness in certain locations about certain aspects of transportation systems can combine to produce incomplete natural parks & neglected urban areas that exclude people with disabilities & strip them of their dignity. My observations of these collective hypocrisies & delusions in conjunction with my own life experiences have led me to be skeptical of popular American conceptions (especially in the western half of the contiguous US) of "wilderness" and to personally not feel a strong connection to such natural spaces especially in contrast to well-functioning urban spaces (currently in the Mid-Atlantic & Northeast).
