One of the areas that I felt drawn to as a comparison to Pittsburgh quality of life was the ease of access to green spaces and the common incorporation of the environment in an urban setting. For major cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Pittsburgh, it can be difficult to maintain a level of balance between preserving nature and paving way for progress and construction. One distinct difference between the Dutch cities I have visited and Pittsburgh is their unwillingness to abandon all hopes of a presence of nature even when construction is needed. For example, we have visited many businesses, homes and large buildings that have included rooftop gardens, both for personal and commercial use. The concept of a rooftop garden, especially with the materials used in the ones we have studied, does a wonderful job at not only regulating the excessive use of heating and cooling between the seasons, but also at capturing rainwater to create an almost self-reliant gardening system.

Another element I noticed was how the natural waterways and green spaces were not cleared out or demolished to make way for construction, but rather the developed infrastructure was made to build around the pre-existing natural spots to create an ease of interaction. Bridges were not simply built over waterways with no regard to their health or maintenance, but rather the Dutch welcomed the presence of many waterways and incorporated them into their lifestyle. From using boats as a mode of transportation to living on the canals in houseboats, the Dutch embraced their waterways as a fact of life and not as something to build around and ignore. In the same vein, we learned about many different programs to keep the waterways clean and level so that they remain healthy for years to come, such as trash collection initiatives and targeting flows of water so that the water level can direct trash towards a single point for pickup and does not flow too high and flood the surrounding areas. The amount of attention and intention paid to the waterways of Holland surprised and impressed me, as I have never heard of such interactive initiatives in the Pittsburgh area. The only time I have ever heard discussion about the rivers of Pittsburgh, it has been as a fun thing to look at, not as something to incorporate into your lifestyle or actually care about its maintenance. 

One more element of nature that I appreciated was incorporated into Dutch life was that nature was not restricted to clean-cut parks and walksways. It was everywhere in the city, be it on buildings, along roads, between houses or on houses. I recognized that I was definitely in a city setting, but I did not feel so far from nature as I often do when in Pittsburgh. Pitt does have many wonderful parks to choose from, namely Schenley Park, but it always feels like you can elect to go there and then leave it to return to the city as if it exists in a bubble. Although there is little to do about it now since most of Pittsburgh is already developed, it is an important factor to keep in mind going forward when considering where and what to build in an urban setting.