There are cars in the streets, but they're not moving: Long abandoned, they snooze at intersections, while odd little plants push up through the pavement around them. But in this solemn landscape, three years after a virus has wiped out most of the global population and turned others into bloodthirsty vampire zombies, there are no chicks to magnetize - nature has taken its course, but that course is out of the question. In the opening sequence of "I Am Legend," Will Smith, as the last person alive in 2012 New York, navigates the deserted streets in a chick-magnet sports car.
In her 2001 book "Wild Nights," a study of the way the creatures of the natural world find ways to assert themselves into the urban landscape, Anne Matthews writes, "More and more scholars now suggest that even a megacity is part of a larger land-use story, in which cities are as vulnerable to nature and fortune as any other life-form some endure, some thrive, some shrink." And sure enough, coyotes now trek from God knows where to take up residence in Central Park battle-scarred pigeons, missing eyes, toes and even parts of wings, roam the streets with a survivor's cockiness certain weeds and even trees can, and will, grow anywhere and we all know what they say about cockroaches and nuclear war. But even when we think we've built the most sophisticated fortresses against it - office buildings that require three forms of ID for entry apartment complexes with astute doormen who will let no raccoon pass unannounced - nature always finds a way to come charging back. Those of us who live in big cities, who never see bears rummaging through our garbage or find wildcat prints in the snow, often think we're protected from nature.
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