Where Dragonflies Return: Towards an Ento-Metropolis

Abstract

The Hine’s Emerald Dragonfly, a key ecological indicator of groundwater-based ecosystems, faces extinction in the United States. Its most genetically diverse remaining habitat - the Des Plaines River watershed in Illinois – is experiencing significant groundwater depletion and encroachment through urbanization, thereby threatening the species’ survival. This proposal reimagines single-minded infrastructure easements as shared commons for people and wildlife, and operates at three layers: point, repurposing groundwater wells into dragonfly habitats; line, transforming transmission corridors into flight pathways; and field, integrating these elements into a systemic urban framework for long-term coexistence. Over time, the return of the dragonfly would mark the site’s transformation into a new kind of public space, offering a cultural identity shaped by confronting insect agency. Each summer, swarms of dragonflies would become a celebrated spectacle, signaling restored balance between human infrastructure and the natural world. By centering more-than-human perspectives, this vision challenges conventional infrastructure design, advocating for landscapes as adaptive commons—spaces of ecological reciprocity rather than extraction and control.