King of the Concrete Jungle

By Ari D'Arconte

A trash can falls over in the dusk. You look out your bedroom window, and there he is, illuminated by the faint glow of street lamps. The king of the concrete jungle. Sitting there, victoriously coveting your abandoned foodstuffs, his dark mask symbolizes his mischievous and elusive nature. Of course, I am speaking of the all-mighty raccoon, one of many species that has not only evaded human-caused habitat loss but thrived in the establishment of human ecosystems.

As you look down at him, his beady eyes stare back at you. What does he see? All around the raccoon is a world utterly dominated by humanity. Over the past two hundred years we have reshaped the landscape and constructed environments catered only to the uses of humans. Yet the ever-adaptive raccoon survives not only on the fringes of human civilization but also in the heart of the modern cities.

The natural world before human conquest was filled with life and energy of all shapes and sizes. Rivers bent, leaves fell, and animals scurried across the underbrush as they had for millennia. Occasionally, a beaver would build a majestic dam, causing the rivers to be held back and ponds to form, but otherwise, the trees, soil, and water were the masters of environmental construction. There was no singular engineer of the land forcing all the other species to adapt to or die trying. Humanity has superimposed an absurd manifestation of order onto a natural world built on chaotic destruction and rebirth.

In the face of large-scale habitat destruction, many species have become critically endangered or extinct, leading scientists to characterize the Industrial Revolution and the period of human expansion as a whole as Earth’s sixth mass extinction event. Yet the raccoon faces this absurd reality head-on. What is it about the raccoon specifically that makes it so successful in cities? As omnivores, they can eat just about anything, making their diet less reliant on the survival of any one species. Raccoons also have opposable thumbs, meaning that they can get into trash cans and access food in locations that are otherwise inaccessible to most other animals. Being nocturnal creatures, raccoons are able to avoid humans during the daytime. Only when humankind returns to their concrete boxes for rest does the raccoon venture out into a world devoid of color.

You escape from your thoughts and return to your concrete box, looking out the window at the raccoon. What is the expression on his face as he eats your garbage? Is he depressed? Sad? Infuriated? Happy? Maybe all and a million more, but what I see is an expression of contentment. Content with the reality he is faced with. Content with his forest being one of cement rather than bark, rigid against the calm breeze. Silent from the rustle of leaves yet screaming with the honks of horns and screeches of car breaks. Dark from the night, yet obnoxiously bright with artificial light. Devoid of the smells of pines and fruits only to be replaced with the smell of smog and industry.

Even still he is content and accepting of this reality. A natural world, no, but one that nonetheless provides sufficient opportunities for the raccoon to fulfill its basic necessities. While he is content, can’t we be ashamed of the horrors we have created? Modern cities in their current form are incapable of coexisting with the majority of wildlife. The raccoon is an absurd anomaly amidst a world that humanity has designed to crush nature. Yet in the bleakness of cities, I see an opportunity for change.

Envision a world where cities are truly havens of the natural world as well as humanity. Green bridges connect patches of forests isolated from one another by highways. Cars and wind turbines that kill thousands of animals a year are nonexistent. Sound and light aren’t dominated by humanity to the point where many species cannot function. We have brought order to a world far better suited to chaos, so let us return to the majesty of uniqueness; away from the rows of identical single-family houses and skyscrapers of thousands of desolate cubicles.

We must not forget that humanity is not separate from the natural world, regardless of our outsized ability to destroy or protect it. We do not have to be the harbingers of extinction when we could be the caretakers of environmental diversity. May the raccoon looking up at you in your bedroom window stand as a symbol of what could be—a human kingdom that incorporates nature and banishes our concrete order. H

Art by James Marino