"Walk Where You're Not Supposed to Walk": A Conversation with Christoper Brown

By Brendan Byrne

Christopher Brown's new book A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places (Timber Press, September 2024) argues that the fantasy of untrammeled nature that so many of us hold dear is just that, a fantasy. National Parks, as beautiful as they may be, are managed space. If we want to experience the wild, Brown suggests, we need to open our eyes to the inroads it has made in the city around us. Post-industrial capitalism commodifies real estate, but in doing so it creates "edgelands", parts of the city which have been taken over by wild flora and fauna. We pass by these edgelands every day without giving them so much as a second glance. Brown is the poet laureate of second glances.

While he lives in Austin, TX on a rewilded plot of a former oil pipeline, there are lessons from his book, and life, that can be applied to our own upstate urban environments. I spoke with Brown over Zoom about some simple steps you can take to see the wild right in front of your eyes.  

1) "You're looking for the negative space of the city," Brown said. "The areas that active human presence is not, at the current moment, manifested. Think about the kinds of places that are really hard to develop for human use and occupation." One surprising example Brown offered is rivers. US Constitutional law dictates that navigable waterways, including their floodplains, are part of the commons. (You might not be surprised, based on this answer, to hear that Brown is a practicing lawyer.) As a result, rivers are great places to start your quest for the urban wild, especially if you're looking for a family-friendly jaunt and/or concerned about the dangers and legality of trespassing. While some cities have tamed their rivers, forcing them underground or into concrete channels, most rivers, especially in less developed, industrial, or lower-income residential areas, offer a wealth of wilderness. As Brown said, "You can't privatize a river."  

2) "Think like an animal." Not everyone can be a tracker like the recently deceased Tom Brown Jr., author of The Tracker (1978), but keep an eye out for animal tracks. "You'll see them everywhere once you start looking," Brown says. Animals don't respect human laws, much less concepts like private property. The paths they draw through the city can open up entirely new ways of navigating and seeing.  

 3) "Look for pockets of urban woods, especially in places that haven't really been developed or managed as official parks." Brown's favorite example of this is old industrial land that has been bought for future parkland, so it hasn't been domesticated yet. Such areas are not open to the public officially, yet remain public land. Other government-owned lands, such as abandoned mental asylums, often draw thrill-seeking urban explorers "before they're gentrified into new urbanist wonderlands." Then there are the areas in transition, industrial parks deemed too valuable for industry and slated for redevelopment which, as a result, have been temporarily vacated. Finally there are "involuntary parks", i.e. brownfields, areas corrupted by toxic and chemical damage.* As Brown admits, exploring areas in this last category can be a bit "gnarly."  

4) Above all, "Try to get lost on purpose," Brown says, "Walk where you're not supposed to walk."  

*Editors’ note: Depending on the nature of the contaminants, certain brownfields may best be explored visually, from a safe distance. Determining whether vacant land is “public” is also advised before entering.

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