Ribbons of Green: The Rio Grande and the Making of Modern Albuquerque

About this event

This is a casual monthly book club in which we discuss a book we've read on a southwest history topic. In December, we'll discuss Ribbons of Green: The Rio Grande and the Making of Modern Albuquerque by John Fleck and Robert P. Berrens.

Description: The first combined social and ecological look at how institutions in New Mexico intentionally built the Rio Grande Valley through the heart of Albuquerque to create “natural” corridors of green spaces in a modern American city.

Dry one year, overflowing the next, the Rio Grande has sustained its arid valley for millennia. In Ribbons of Green , John Fleck and Robert P. Berrens seek to understand twenty-first-century Albuquerque’s relationship with the Rio Grande by exploring the social and ecological interactions that describe how this high-desert city developed astride a capricious river. In every phase of the Duke City’s history, living with the Rio Grande posed problems that required collective action by its stakeholders to irrigate, build river crossings, drain the valley’s floor, and protect residents from flooding.

These collective decisions ultimately changed the course of the river, resulting in intentionally designed “ribbons of green” that dominate today’s cityscape. The Rio Grande in turn altered the collective psyche of Albuquerque. For many residents, the city’s bosque is their only interaction with nature, but these green corridors are very much a human creation. Ribbons of Green explores how Albuquerque built its environment to create a valley floor that its residents have come to adore and how, in a climate-altered world, we might keep it.

This is a new release by a local author! The library has several copies, and it actually appears to be in stock in most bookstores across town right now, including Books on the Bosque, Bookworks, Page 1, Organic Books, and the Barnes & Noble.

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No food or drink is allowed in the room. Please no pets that aren't service animals. I'll get fined for any cleanup. Feel free to attend if you didn't finish the book!

From Southwest History Book Club