Human habitation along the Great Lakes is having a considerable impact on the watersheds that have otherwise had a supply of relatively fresh, unpolluted water prior to the onset of the twentieth century, when industry and large agricultures dominantly developed in the region. Lake Erie, in particular, has continuously suffered a harmful plight while the other Great Lakes have not as severely experienced comparative environmental distress. For the past fifty years, there have been social, political, and environmental efforts made to prevent and alleviate Lake Erie from facing the troubling reality of toxic state, or as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifies, impaired waters.¹ Cleanup efforts focus on the infection of the toxic algae itself, rather than confronting the sources of the environmental offending polluters; a recipe of agricultural runoff, storm water runoff, and biological waste, creating an overloading of nutrients into the fresh water, a condition known as “eutrophication.” When faced with reports from the EPA regarding the state of impairment of Lake Erie, local city and state officials have tempered the severity of the water condition in fears that the label would cloud Ohio tourism.

The Great Lakes have many filter-feeding organisms that provide a natural cleansing of the fresh water. However, the eutrophication in Lake Erie has repelled these organisms, allowing further proliferation of toxic algae blooms. These hostile algae conditions are directly related to the amount of phosphorous introduced in the water supply. Throughout the Great Lakes, and particularly in Lake Erie, there are numerous supply derivations of contaminants, including various isolated sets of pipelines emptying wastewater into the lakes, as well as runoff from farming and urban infrastructure. Most of the phosphorous pollution, however, is caused by the large amounts of runoff. The over spilling of urban and agricultural environments, such as flooded manure fields and storm sewer backup, discharges into rivers and streams during rainfall, collecting toxins and pollutants from a variety of surfaces before pervading the water basins and larger watershed. In 2011, the Great Lakes saw an increase of rainfall from previous years in the spring, resulting in one of the highest toxic algae outbreaks in history. Only two years later, the Ohio EPA and the City of Toledo issued a “Do Not Drink Advisory” to nearly 500,000 users of the City of Toledo water.

“There are twenty-five public water systems serving a combined population of over 2.6 million that use Lake Erie as their source of water. Ten in the Western Basin, thirteen in the Central Basin,” the Ohio EPA reported of the dangerous impacts of algae bloom to the Lake Erie Public Water Systems. Yet, per the Follow the Manure Report published by the Environmentally Concerned Citizens of South Central Michigan, a 501(c)(3) organization, 691 gallons [3.141,35 L] of manure from 12 million animals is deposited into human-made, agricultural “lagoons,” which directly drain contaminated water into Lake Erie, the same water system responsible for providing fresh drinking water to millions of citizens.

While there have been moves made to prevent heavy rainfall from further carrying contaminated lagoon water to Lake Erie and its connecting tributaries, these efforts only continue to support the very roots of the problem - agriculture practices, urban infrastructural deficiencies - that continually position human habitation against the natural environment.
It is necessary to explore the possibilities of discontinuing the propagation of conflict at the origin of the problem, thus investigating human habitation under new terms. Often, the solution to urban resiliency in the Great Lakes region has been one that is more responsive than adaptive or alternative. For example, in the case of toxic algae, scientists and policy makers are seeking out methods to control pollution rather than to stop pollution, creating a major disconnect that impedes the evolution of ecologically-based human habitation while allowing the existing mainstream, socially, and economically accepted ways of life to continue, despite the ongoing and pending environmental damages.

Protecting and preserving social behaviors, as they exist, is a risky intrigue. On one hand, if environmental efforts can mitigate runoff from entering the Great Lakes, then by logic, the lake water will not be contaminated by toxic algae or experience eutrophication. On the other hand, toxic runoff and contamination from biological waste will still be an environmental issue somewhere else, causing new, unforeseen coastal ecological harm. Like the infamous arcade game “Whac-A-Mole,” solving an issue by redirecting the problem will only cause another crisis to arise at another point in time. These shortsighted strategies also have the capability to cause unexpected social outcomes, such as displacement, negative health consequences, and environmental injustice towards people impacted unfairly.

The underlying issue, the root of the problem, is not the toxic algae invading Lake Erie. It is the urban disconnection from ecological living. Due to increase in economy, transportation, and global marketplaces, it is possible to have every comfort and survival need met with ease. The emotional and mental relationship between humans and environment has been diminished, as it is no longer necessary to live directly off the land for survival. Imagine a river flowing into a home, a current that brings with it fresh water, and as it flows out from the home, it carries detergents, household chemicals, and biological waste. How would life operate under those circumstances? Without having to mentally consider or visually experience the course of water and its extensive journey into the urban infrastructure through various channels, and then back out into the natural environment, people are relieved from the hardship of knowing or caring. The same thought extends to procuring food in the grocery store, a comfort that does not require people to witness agricultural processes, or more importantly, agricultural waste, transportation of food, packaging processes, or even climate conditions. Every part of the environment that has been involved in a food being harvested, processed, transported, manufactured and packaged is removed from the conventional stream of consciousness.

The existing urban framework surrounding coastal bodies in the Great Lakes region is made up of agriculture, dense urban cities, and urban sprawl. This last element is reminiscent of the traditional new urbanist transect, a lineage from natural land to dense urbanism, zone 1 to zone 6, with continuous suburban zones in-between. The intentional separation of urbanism from the natural environment in the Great Lakes region is further isolated by property management, zoning regulations, building codes, and regional planning. These conglomerate, umbrella policy mandates encourage agriculture and industry to be situated closest to, if not within, the countryside and water basins, causing severe environmental damage throughout the Great Lakes region. Ironically, it is these very same political regulators that are currently trying to reroute agricultural runoff from entering Lake Erie; thus, providing short-term resolutions to a long-term problem. The contemporary urban-to-natural system does not foster a sense of responsibility or stewardship to the great majority of the population, including policy-makers themselves. When people relate to the natural environment, there is a deeper understanding of the survival struggles that occur along coastal bodies of water. The very natural resources that allow urban life to exist are slowly being damaged by disconnected urban policy and planning.

The Great Lakes are a popular tourist attraction, and those who leave the larger cities to retreat to the Great Lakes coast almost always experience a broadened awareness of the environmental problems. These issues, like eutrophication and toxic algae blooms, are removed from the daily experience of urban life. Fertilizer runoff from the manicured lawns in the suburbs, human biological waste, the impervious hardscapes of streets, agricultural erosion and pollution, as well as industrial waste are suppliers of hazardous toxins to the Great Lakes. These use groups have created contentious relationships between themselves and the natural environment in terms of urban health, in addition to environmental despair. Through the perpetual polluting of the Great Lakes, these groups are not only disconnecting from each other and the environment, but they are also further segregating themselves from those seeking recreation within the watershed. These entities are creating natural warfare against each other for the use of natural resources, with the Great Lakes being the greatest casualty. Imagine a young family visiting one of the many public and free Great Lakes to go swimming and spend time in nature, who instead comes upon a toxic algae bloom so thick, it covers as much of the lake as they can see and is completely stagnant. This family is another casualty, unable to enjoy the same right to fresh water as many before them. The trickle-down effect of toxic runoff is not only an environmental injustice, but there also exists a social trickle-down effect that puts unintended populations at significant disadvantage as well. While factory farms and other large organizations in the West Lake Erie Basin continue to pollute the water, social and environmental injustice has become a way of life for vast populations of residents in the region.

Just as all civilizations have evolved, parasitic living can also evolve. Since the Great Lakes, specifically Lake Erie, have undergone so much pollution from a sundry of urban-environmental disconnects, pollution abetment or toxic mitigation are no longer viable solutions. Human existence finds itself at the forefront of the Anthropocene, and the toxic algae blooms in the Great Lakes fresh water basin are strong environmental indicators of the negative impact humans have had on the earth. Human habitation has influenced atmospheric, biospheric, geologic, hydrologic and an assortment of other natural ecologies and/or systems.
Rainfall does not only help to shape the landscape, but it is necessary for land-based life and delivers nutrients to the ocean. However, after the influences of agriculture, urbanism, and industry, it now collects toxins that result in the surplus of phosphorous and other nutrients in the Great Lakes, causing complex detrimental biological and ecological impacts.

Humans and human habitation must evolve to meet the demands of the environmental needs of the Anthropocene for resilient survival. There are ways that life can sustain, and flourish, that do not further harm the environment, but in fact, thrive from the earth’s urban-induced virus and subsequent fever. Freshwater Urbanism tackles the negative environmental effects in the Great Lakes region caused by destructive contemporary urbanism, using these adverse consequences to generate healthier earth habitation. What exactly is “healthy earth habitation?” (Have we even seen it?)

Healthy earth habitation is a mutually beneficial relationship. Many argue that rerouting toxic wastewater from the fresh water to ground water is a sign of environmental activism, particularly government and policy officials, who benefit from the root causes of the pollution.
Solutions like these still position an opposing relationship between humans and the environment. Without altering urban lifestyles and principles, such as discontinuing urban-based behaviors that are causing environmental illness, there will be a continued discord between the environment and insatiable human appetite. It is necessary to prioritize the natural environment over the proclivities of human habitation.
Healthy earth habitation occurs when humans directly support ecological and environmental functions of the natural world without sacrificing health and wellbeing. This creates a mutually beneficial existence. Freshwater Urbanism is a method of achieving a mutually beneficial relationship between the natural environment and urbanism, supporting healthy earth habitation. In the case of Lake Erie and the Great Lakes, it is vital to preserve the natural resource of fresh water as this is critical for life. Therefore, any type of human existence along fresh water coasts has the special responsibility to regard itself as Freshwater Urbanism, intentional societies dedicated to preserving this critical natural resource. The overall water body of the Great Lakes itself is an important spatial environment that is infected, its illness being indicative of the separation between urbanism and the natural environment. To preserve this resource, lessening the divide between urbanism and nature is needed, bringing people into close proximity with nature and requiring intimate ecological relationships not yet realized.

These parameters were utilized to provide baseline design conditions to be met for the optimum health, hygiene, and wellness of the following proposed water-borne micro-city design basis as a new urban paradigm for Freshwater Urbanism.

The water-borne micro-city is mobile and can provide nomadic, renewable energy generation throughout the Great Lakes. As the farming of non-toxic algae becomes more prevalent, especially throughout the Midwest, it is critical to investigate the possibility of harvesting toxic algae as a fuel for energy needs of human habitation. Based on report findings that state one pound [0,45 kg] of algae can be converted into 9,400 BTU,³ the micro-city of 20,000 people will require 851 lb. [386 kg] of algae to power the basic energy needs each day. Lake Erie is estimated to have 400 metric tons [882K lb.] of bioavailable phosphorous in the form of toxic algae, which could power a micro-city for 1,946 days, or nearly five years. In 2003 through 2017 alone, the severity of toxic blooms has increased by approximately 1,000% and studies project sustained levels of toxic algae through 2030 and beyond. This energy resource is becoming more abundant, yet more environmentally damaging by the year. The ability for humankind to flourish from the negative environmental consequences from years of contamination is a characteristic of Anthropocene-based evolution, and in doing so, the flourishing of humans is symbiotic with the natural world for succinct healthy earth habitation. Harvesting toxic algae can improve environmental conditions, while providing more energy than necessary for sustainable living. Thus, excess energy generation can be stored or classified as an agricultural resource, with a higher yield to payback than most agricultural crops that come from established factory farms in the Great Lakes region.

There is much discussion and progress regarding onshore wind energy generation. However, measured winds are strongest offshore. The micro-city can harness these strong offshore winds through turbines that, because of the absence of physical obstructions, can have longer wing spans to generate more energy. The turbine infrastructure can also double as light towers, alarms, or additional urban framework. The integration of wind turbines into the everyday life for inhabitants on the micro-city places people in direct connection with the source of energy, and the unique typology of the micro-city allows for strategic adaptation of new infrastructural approaches that prioritize environmental concerns to preserve healthy earth habitation. In conventional planning, large wind turbines are mostly located in isolated, rural areas segregated from human habitation. The generation of wind energy and the physical turbines can also provide power and strength to act as a propellant, like a sail on a boat. One offshore-designed turbine with wingspans of 150 m [492 ft.] can generate enough power to sustain 5,000 free-standing homes,⁵ while taking up an insignificant amount of area in the micro-city. 

The second strategy supporting water-borne micro-cities as a new ecological typology for healthy earth habitation involves one’s relationship with water. The direct experience with the Great Lakes reinforces emotional connectedness, increasing awareness of the watershed that is the life-giving powerhouse for the micro-city. The state of the water indisputably affects resident life by directly showcasing the ominous condition of the Great Lakes during the onset of the Anthropocene. 

In contrast, a person living in suburban Ohio who maintains a beautiful front lawn by fertilizing and watering it regularly may never realize the extent of the environmental harm caused by introducing phosphorous-rich fertilizer into the water system. While the lawn flourishes, the fertilizer trickles-down and is discharged into the Great Lakes, where the homeowner will likely never encounter the thick, toxic algae scum created from the fertilizer runoff. When beautiful, manicured lawns are the standard of one’s interaction with nature, and the local city ordinances reinforce yard requirements, building setbacks, and suburban zoning strategies, there is a severe discord with the natural environment. The negative implications of these socially, politically, and economically accepted lifestyles, thus, contribute greatly to the impaired state of the Great Lakes and foster estranged relationships between human habitation and the watershed. Imagine if this front yard was fresh water in the Great Lakes, and these lifestyle practices promoted the health of the water. For the micro-city, 

fresh water is the front yard. 

As the typology for this new class of Freshwater Urbanism is idealized through these strategies, morphological forms begin to naturally adapt organic systems and processes. The elements of biomimicry are subtle and may seem more technologically innovative than organic. Despite that, the mechanical implications in the architecture of this micro-city are meant to benefit the survival of human life and natural life, and is therefore reminiscent of natural evolution. Technicalities aside, the predominant aspect to the micro-city is its relationship with water; a remedy to alienated, contemporary urbanism. By placing human life on top of sensitive natural resources for survival, people are forced to witness natural systems daily, live lower-impact, more thoughtful lives, while also feeling a sense of ownership over the Great Lakes, because after all, the fresh water does become the front yard for the micro-city. 

With the elimination of substantial infrastructure, less energy is utilized to process resources. The micro-city generates energy from algae, solar radiation, and wind. The energy can then be directly converted and distributed on-site, because the micro-city has localized placement to these resources. These infrastructures - wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, and algae harvesting - are coupled with other urban needs, such as light towers and shelters - providing more direct energy fulfillment to specific needs. The localized, coupled course of generating energy is a 1:1 production, as no energy is lost in the direct transferring and conversion process. Residents will be integrated within the ecology of energy generation, which will provide energy education, specialized life experiences, and a broadened awareness of the dire need for a mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship between natural and artificial environments. The energy generation processes on the micro-city are non-harming to residents, allowing humans to exist nearby and occupy shared space with these industrial programs. Disparately, conventional energy generation causes such significant air pollution, CO₂ emissions, as well as soil and water contamination, that industry must be zoned at a far distance from residences.

As the water-borne micro-city is fully surrounded by and dependent on fresh lake water, it is essential to redesign the process of wastewater and waste disposal from the existing conventional methods in urbanism, which have led to the toxic algae bloom infestation. Existing waste removal strategies involve polluting natural systems, creating a parasitic relationship between human habitation and natural ecosystems. Being a symbiotic form of Health Earth Habitation that supports the responsibility of caring for the Great Lakes and embracing Freshwater Urbanism, the micro-city can positively contribute to natural environments. By plugging into an urban morphology that is closer to natural systems through biomimicry and careful consideration of resources, it is possible to filter biological waste and convert it into a biogas through fermentation or anaerobic digestion. With the use of steam turbines, the biogas can provide heating and other energies to the micro-city.