The Flowery Future of Connecticut -- the Storrs Case Study

This project plans to forecast the future of the 10,000 urban settings across the globe -- as though they have survived climate change and social discord and gone on to flourish anew. Today, we highlight the future of Storrs, CT.

In Storrs, where the academic rhythm of University of Connecticut shapes daily life, the landscape already hints at what it could become: a living laboratory of green abundance. Inspired by the visionary urban rewilding ideas, Storrs could transform itself into a super-green, vegetated, floral super city—an ecomimetic community that models itself on the quiet intelligence of forests, wetlands, and meadows. Instead of treating nature as ornament or afterthought, the town could weave ecological function into every sidewalk, rooftop, and courtyard, allowing plants to guide infrastructure toward resilience and beauty.

Imagine the streets lined not just with decorative trees but with deliberate ecological partners such as eastern white pine, red maple, swamp milkweed, and lowbush blueberry. Eastern white pine would rise as a gentle evergreen sentinel, filtering air year-round and anchoring carbon in its towering form. Red maple would blaze in autumn, turning entire corridors into rivers of crimson while stabilizing soil and shading buildings in summer to reduce cooling demands. In lower-lying areas, especially near stormwater channels and parking lots, swamp milkweed would thrive, drawing monarch butterflies and other pollinators while soaking up excess runoff. Along pathways and community gardens, lowbush blueberry would spread in edible carpets, supporting birds, small mammals, and students who pause to gather a handful of fruit between classes. Together these four plants would form a layered, interlocking system that manages water more efficiently than pipes alone ever could.

Water, once hurried away through gray drains, would instead be slowed, filtered, and celebrated. Rain gardens filled with swamp milkweed and red maple saplings would catch downpours that increasingly mark New England’s climate, allowing roots to sponge and cleanse the flow before it reaches local streams. Rooftops, retrofitted with shallow soils and lowbush blueberry, would reduce heat islands and insulate buildings, lowering energy use in dormitories and lecture halls. Eastern white pine groves planted strategically along prevailing wind corridors would buffer winter gusts, cutting heating demands while storing carbon in durable wood. This vegetated infrastructure would operate quietly and continuously, reducing pollution not through loud technological spectacle but through the patient metabolism of living systems.

Biodiversity would follow. Monarchs would return to the milkweed, songbirds would nest in pines and maples, and soil microbes would flourish beneath the undisturbed leaf litter. Students at the University of Connecticut would not need to travel far for tertiary eco-education; the campus itself would become a field site, where ecology, engineering, and art converge in daily observation. Classes could monitor pollinator counts, measure stormwater retention, and calculate energy savings from shaded façades. Cultural identity would deepen as seasonal change—blueberry blossoms in spring, maple fire in autumn—becomes a shared civic experience. A slight patriotic feeling might emerge, not from flags alone but from pride in a distinctly Connecticut landscape that honors regional species and demonstrates leadership in climate stewardship.

Over time, Storrs would resemble less a conventional town and more a forested commons threaded with paths, classrooms, homes, and cafés. Buildings would appear to rise from groves rather than displace them, and infrastructure would emulate the nutrient cycles of nearby woodlands. In the spirit of ecomimicry, human design would imitate the efficiency and generosity of ecosystems, turning waste into resource and runoff into renewal. The transformation would not be instantaneous, but with each planted pine, each patch of milkweed, and each cluster of blueberries, the town would move closer to becoming an ecomimetic city—one that learns from nature not sentimentally, but structurally, and in doing so becomes greener, more resilient, and more alive.