Overview

How does nature work in our human-created city, suburb, and exurb/peri-urb? Indeed how is ecology - including its urban water, soil, air, plant, and animal foundations - spatially entwined with this great human enterprise? And how can we improve urban areas for both nature and people? Urban Ecology: Science of Cities explores the entire urban area: from streets, lawns, and parks to riversides, sewer systems, and industrial sites. The book presents models, patterns, and examples from hundreds of cities worldwide. Numerous illustrations enrich the presentation. Cities are analyzed, not as ecologically bad or good, but as places with concentrated rather than dispersed people. Urban ecology principles, traditionally adapted from natural-area ecology, now increasingly emerge from the distinctive features of cities. Spatial patterns and flows, linking organisms, built structures, and the physical environment highlight a treasure chest of useful principles. This pioneering interdisciplinary book opens up frontiers of insight, as a valuable source and text for undergraduates, graduates, researchers, professionals, and others with a thirst for solutions to growing urban problems.

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9781139030472

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Reviews

'Both extensive in scope and synthetic in approach, this book opens the door wide for designers and planners to employ urban ecology both inventively and credibly. Illuminated by many insightful analytical diagrams, it can be the basis for designing with nature across urban scales: from site to region. I want all my students in the Metropolitan Design Dynamics studio to study it and bring it as a key reference into their professional practice. Urban Ecology is a signal achievement that makes Richard Forman's profoundly synthetic understanding of urban ecology accessible to designers and planners. The book's extraordinarily inclusive reach into the literature of many urban disciplines, its typological approach, and its many analytical diagrams will speak to designers and inspire analysts. It should become a standard reference for those who participate in urban ecological design or planning.' Joan Iverson Nassauer, University of Michigan 'Richard Forman has had the unique education, university environment and international experience to write the first comprehensive urban ecology textbook that will guide the new urban revolution. This innovative book provides the foundation and inspiration for creating healthy, livable, sustainable and resilient cities and towns in the future.' Mark J. McDonnell, from the Foreword 'In landscape ecology, Richard Forman is well-known for his competence to periodically overview the advancing body of knowledge. He has a sharp eye for new developments and in combination with his pictorial way of analysing the diversity of landscapes and their ecological functioning, his books became landmarks in the field of landscape ecology. With Urban Ecology: Science of Cities, [he] has now captured the urban landscape as a spatial system where humans interact with nature to create a place to live and work. Through the eyes of a landscape architect, we are treated to a comprehensive description of how urban landscape patterns have grown out of this interaction. Unlike other urban ecology books, this is not a book about ecological mechanisms, nor is it about planning urban landscapes. Instead, [he] lets us see the urban environment as a continuously changing living landscape for humans and other organisms.' Paul Opdam, Alterra Wageningen UR

'All the judges on this year's postgraduate Biology Book of the Year panel had this book high on their list of favourites. Its extensive scope and interdisciplinary approach puts it into the same class as last year's winning postgraduate text ... Richard Forman ... has produced an authoritative, comprehensive and extensive reference work that will be a valuable resource for urban designers and planners, ecologists and analysts.' Sue Howarth, Judge, 2014 Society of Biology Book Awards 'Both extensive in scope and synthetic in approach, this book opens the door wide for designers and planners to employ urban ecology both inventively and credibly. Illuminated by many insightful analytical diagrams, it can be the basis for designing with nature across urban scales: from site to region. I want all my students in the Metropolitan Design Dynamics studio to study it and bring it as a key reference into their professional practice. Urban Ecology is a signal achievement that makes Richard Forman's profoundly synthetic understanding of urban ecology accessible to designers and planners. The book's extraordinarily inclusive reach into the literature of many urban disciplines, its typological approach, and its many analytical diagrams will speak to designers and inspire analysts. It should become a standard reference for those who participate in urban ecological design or planning.' Joan Iverson Nassauer, University of Michigan 'In landscape ecology, Richard Forman is well-known for his competence to periodically overview the advancing body of knowledge. He has a sharp eye for new developments and in combination with his pictorial way of analysing the diversity of landscapes and their ecological functioning, his books became landmarks in the field of landscape ecology. With Urban Ecology: Science of Cities, [he] has now captured the urban landscape as a spatial system where humans interact with nature to create a place to live and work. Through the eyes of a landscape architect, we are treated to a comprehensive description of how urban landscape patterns have grown out of this interaction. Unlike other urban ecology books, this is not a book about ecological mechanisms, nor is it about planning urban landscapes. Instead, [he] lets us see the urban environment as a continuously changing living landscape for humans and other organisms.' Paul Opdam, Alterra Wageningen UR 'Richard Forman has had the unique education, university environment and international experience to write the first comprehensive urban ecology textbook that will guide the new urban revolution. This innovative book provides the foundation and inspiration for creating healthy, livable, sustainable and resilient cities and towns in the future.' Mark J. McDonnell, from the Foreword

Author Information

Richard T. T. Forman is the PAES Professor of Landscape Ecology at Harvard University, where he teaches ecological courses in the Graduate School of Design and in Harvard College. His research and writing include landscape ecology, road ecology, urban ecology, land-use planning and conservation, the netway system, and linking science with spatial pattern to mesh nature and people on the land. His previous title, Urban Regions: Ecology and Planning Beyond the City, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2008.

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