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Setting Down Roots/ Small and Large Places

-- By JackSherrick - 15 Apr 2021

Start talking about physical spaces than move to mental spaces

Types of Space

The Value of Space

How The Land Got Here

Tens of thousands of years ago, vast glaciers inched their way across the land that would later come to be called Illinois. When the glaciers began to melt and recede to icier climes at the end of the last ice age, they left behind a 100-feet layer of rich sediment and revealed an alien terrain. The landscape had been completely flattened, extending miles in every direction to the horizon, "hardly presenting a bush to relieve the eye." The glaciers' parting gift of top soil was perfect for Big Blue Stem, Compass Plants, black-eyed Susans, and the countless other prairie grasses that clung to the earth with such adamant ferocity that the landscape of Illinois has been all but impervious to the powers of erosion that threaten to alter its topography. People embraced the alien landscape and learned how to live among its grassy residents. Indigenous tribes would conduct prairie burns that scorched the earth with a heat so intense that forests were unable to establish a foothold in the region. However, prairie roots run deep and the grass stems would burst forth from the ground reinvigorated after each burn. Now, the prairie is all but gone, eradicated in an instant and replaced with fields of corn and soybeans. Illinois' glacial inheritance is being squandered on corn syrup and ethanol by the American Prodigal Son.

How I Got Here

I grew up in the "Prairie State" and did my best to help the area live up to its nickname. My family is involved with prairie conservation and maintains an island of native prairie amidst the sea of feed corn abutting it from all sides. I followed the prairie to Carleton College, which boasts an 800 acre arboretum teeming with native and nonnative grasses.

When I moved to New York, I left the Midwest and its flat open spaces behind. I was disoriented by the looming buildings that seemed to stretch vertically into infinity yet blocked out the horizon. I felt closed in. Most of the activity done in the prairie is occurring beneath your feet in the congested webs of roots pulling nutrients from the soil and pumping them up to the gently swaying stems above. But based on my months in New York, everything seems to be happening everywhere. I learned to find refuge amongst the various parks that mottle the concrete landscape and how to appreciate the cacophony (or symphony, don't want to get too sappy/carried away) of humanity that I myself was contributing to. I started to develop roots that anchored me to the alien landscape I had moved to.

The Why

Initially, I thought my background with conservation would lead me towards environmental law. I thought my "why" would be preserving America's quickly disappearing natural landscapes. However, I instead felt myself more pulled towards housing law. Moving from the Midwest to New York has made me realize that I had been taking the space I inhabit for granted. Everyone inhabits a space. I have respect for the drifters and nomads that don't associate "home" with

This include the physical contours of our body which

One's property is not one's absolutely, my right to do what I wish with what I have should not be so unrestrained that if severely impairs your right to do what you wish with what you have.

Illinois' nickname, The Prairie State, is a testament to the immense destructive power of these glaciers that spent millennia flattening the area with their weight and the

Wendell Berry writes about the danger of disregarding the small spaces that allow us to enjoy the large places. He writes in his essay Contempt for Small Spaces, "The health of the oceans depends on the health of rivers; the health of rivers depends on the health of small streams; the health of small streams depends on the health of their watersheds. The health of the water is exactly the same as the health of the land." In the same way, my health in law school depends on my health in New York which depends on my health in Morningside Heights which depends on my health in my apartment, which depends on my health in my room, I space which I can call almost exclusively my own. If people do not have security in their small spaces, the chain is broken and harm reverberates from one space to the next to the next.

I want to be a champion for the small spaces. I want people to be secure and know that their small spaces are protected from the forces that would seek to rob them of their autonomy over spaces. One of the greatest gifts of ownership, is not the power to keep people out, but the power to let people in. To open up your small space to allow others to enjoy the intimacies of the home. No man is an island, and neither should their homes be.

Space as Inspiration

Space as Security

Digital Spaces

American Dream

Having your own space is a core tenet baked into every iteration of the American Dream.

Tenant Rights

I want to secure space for others. Give them their own

Space as a Rivalrous Resource

Space for You

Space for Me

Space for Us

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