Edens Lost & Found: How Ordinary Citizens Are Restoring Our Great American Cities

With Edens Lost & Found, award-winning filmmakers Harry Wiland and Dale Bell herald an exciting sea change in the relationship between ordinary citizens, environmental groups, and government. From across America they gather evidence of a new spirit of cooperation among neighbors, planners, architects and builders, city officials, and government agencies. Indeed, as urban issues have become undeniably urgent problems that demand answers, people from disparate backgrounds and political leanings are joining forces to recast life in American cities.

As citizens take action where government has failed, they are finding support, encouragement, and help from their neighbors. Conversely, as progressive-minded government agencies and organizations explore nontraditional solutions, an energized community rallies to the cause. Neither exclusively top-down, nor grassroots, we are in the midst of an unprecedented movement that unites efforts from every quarter in a common cause.

Focusing on Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Seattle—four cities that face vastly different challenges—Edens Lost & Found highlights the remarkable power of hope, pride, ingenuity, and chutzpah that characterize this era of collaboration.

Bioengineering concepts—now increasingly understood by many to offer the most effective, cost-efficient solutions—are playing a central role. Working with—rather than in opposition to—nature is leading to such innovations as rooftop and urban gardens, restored parks, transformed vacant lots, the re-greening of city streets, and eco-friendly watershed management. Edens Lost & Found shows how working to reshape the land also transforms the relationships people have to one another.

Individual productions by filmmakers Harry Wiland and Dale Bell have received an Academy Award, five Emmys, one Peabody, two Christophers, and two Cine Golden Eagles, among other awards. Their collaborative award-winning project on caregiving, "And Thou Shalt Honor," was broadcast by PBS in 2002 to wide acclaim. Their "Edens Lost & Found" PBS Series won North American Environmental Educators' First Prize in 2007. They are both Ashoka Lifetime Fellows and Purpose Prize Fellows. Together they have authored Edens Lost & Found: How Ordinary Citizens Are Restoring Our Great American Cities, and Going to Green: A Standards-Based Environmental Education Curriculum for Schools, Colleges, and Communities.

Joseph D'Agnese is the co-author of The Newman's Own Organics Guide to a Good Life. A regular contributor to Discover, his work has been anthologized in The Best American Science Writing, and he has written for The New York Times,Wired, and Saveur, among other publications.