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.