The Big Picture

We urban dwellers are all too acutely aware of those lifeless stretches of land that surround us: former landfills, industrial or transportation sites, coal mines, dumping grounds of all sorts...more than an eyesore, these sites are ecological disasters, threatening the physical and mental health of residents.

For over a decade, a Rutgers professor has been literally sowing the seeds of revival and bringing degraded land sites back to life, reaping the fruits of an ecological science experiment conducted in New Jersey in 1994.