Urban Ecology and Intervention in the 21st Century Americas

Urban Ecology and Intervention in the 21st Century Americas PDF

Author: Allison M. Schifani

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-12-28

Total Pages: 149

ISBN-13: 100029076X

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This book takes a hemispheric approach to contemporary urban intervention, examining urban ecologies, communication technologies, and cultural practices in the twenty-first century. It argues that governmental and social regimes of control and forms of political resistance converge in speculation on disaster and that this convergence has formed a vision of urban environments in the Americas in which forms of play and imaginations of catastrophe intersect in the vertical field. Schifani explores a diverse range of resistant urban interventions, imagining the city as on the verge of or enmeshed in catastrophe. She also presents a model of ecocriticism that addresses aesthetic practices and forms of play in the urban environment. Tracing the historical roots of such tactics as well as mapping their hopes for the future will help the reader to locate the impacts of climate change not only on the physical space of the city, but also on the epistemological and aesthetic strategies that cities can help to engender. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Urban Studies, Media Studies, American Studies, Global Studies, and the broad and interdisciplinary field of Environmental Humanities.

The Baltimore School of Urban Ecology

The Baltimore School of Urban Ecology PDF

Author: J. Morgan Grove

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2015-01-01

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0300101139

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The first “urban century” in history has arrived: a majority of the world's population now resides in cities and their surrounding suburbs. Urban expansion marches on, and the planning and design of future cities requires attention to such diverse issues as human migration, public health, economic restructuring, water supply, climate and sea-level change, and much more. This important book draws on two decades of pioneering social and ecological studies in Baltimore to propose a new way to think about cities and their social, political, and ecological complexity. Readers will gain fresh perspectives on how to study, build, and manage cities in innovative and sustainable ways.

Science for the Sustainable City

Science for the Sustainable City PDF

Author: Steward T. A. Pickett

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2019-01-01

Total Pages: 478

ISBN-13: 0300238320

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A presentation of key findings and insights from over two decades of research, education, and community engagement in the acclaimed Baltimore Ecosystem Study. In a world of over seven billion people-who mostly reside in cities and their suburbs and exurbs-the Baltimore Ecosystem Study is recognized as a pioneering program for modern urban social-ecological science, critical to the emerging theory of urban ecology. After two decades of research, education, and community engagement in this complex system, there are insights to share, generalizations to examine, and gaps to highlight. This timely volume synthesizes the key empirical findings, melds the perspectives of different disciplines, and celebrates the accomplishments of interacting with diverse communities and institutions in improving the understanding of Baltimore's ecology. These widely applicable insights from Baltimore contribute to our understanding the ecology of other cities, provide a comparison for the global process of urbanization, and inform establishment of urban ecological research elsewhere. Comprehensive, interdisciplinary, and highly original, it gives voice to the wide array of specialists who have contributed to this living urban laboratory.

Urban Ecologies

Urban Ecologies PDF

Author: Christopher Schliephake

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2014-12-11

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 073919576X

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The term “urban ecology” has become a buzzword in various disciplines, including the social and natural sciences as well as urban planning and architecture. The environmental humanities have been slow to adapt to current theoretical debates, often excluding human-built environments from their respective frameworks. This book closes this gap both in theory and in practice, bringing together “urban ecology” with ecocritical and cultural ecological approaches by conceptualizing the city as an integral part of the environment and as a space in which ecological problems manifest concretely. Arguing that culture has to be seen as an active component and integral factor within urban ecologies, it makes use of a metaphorical use of the term, perceiving cities as spatial phenomena that do not only have manifold and complex material interrelations with their respective (natural) environments, but that are intrinsically connected to the ideas, imaginations, and interpretations that make up the cultural symbolic and discursive side of our urban lives and that are stored and constantly renegotiated in their cultural and artistic representations. The city is, within this framework, both seen as an ecosystemically organized space as well as a cultural artifact. Thus, the urban ecology outlined in this study takes its main impetus from an analysis of examples taken from contemporary culture that deal with urban life and the complex interrelations between urban communities and their (natural and built) environments.

The Nature of Cities

The Nature of Cities PDF

Author: Jennifer S. Light

Publisher:

Published: 2009-05-15

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13:

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Honorable Mention, 2009 Lewis Mumford Prize, Society for City and Regional Planning History In the early twentieth century, America was transformed from a predominantly agricultural nation to one whose population resided mostly in cities. Yet rural areas continued to hold favored status in the country’s political life. For prominent figures in the social sciences, city planning, and real estate who were anxious about the future of cities, this obsession with the agrarian past inspired a new campaign for urban reform. They called for ongoing programs of natural resource management to be extended to maintain and improve cities. Jennifer S. Light finds a new understanding of the history of urban renewal in the United States in the rise and fall of the American conservation movement. The professionals Light examines came to view America’s urban landscapes as ecological communities requiring scientific management on par with forests and farms. The Nature of Cities brings together environmental and urban history to reveal how, over four decades, this ecological vision shaped the development of cities around the nation.

Urbanization and Sustainability

Urbanization and Sustainability PDF

Author: Christopher G Boone

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-24

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 9400756666

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Case studies explore the Million Trees initiative in Los Angeles; the relationship of cap-and-trade policy, public health, greenhouse gas emissions and environmental justice in Southern California; Urbanization, vulnerability and environmental justice in the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba and São Paulo, and in Antofagasta, Greater Concepción and Valparaiso in Chile; Sociospatial patterns of vulnerability in the American southwest; and Urban flood control and land use planning in Greater Taipei, Taiwan ROC.

Advances in Urban Ecology

Advances in Urban Ecology PDF

Author: marina Alberti

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2007-12-20

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 0387755101

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This groundbreaking work is an attempt at providing a conceptual framework to synthesize urban and ecological dynamics into a common framework. The greatest challenge for urban ecologists in the next few decades is to understand the role humans play in urban ecosystems. The development of an integrated urban ecological approach is crucial to advance ecological research and to help planners and managers solve complex urban environmental issues. This book is a major step forward.

Urban Ecology

Urban Ecology PDF

Author: Kimberly Etingoff

Publisher: Apple Academic Press

Published: 2015-08-04

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781771882811

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With increasing global urbanization, the environments and ecologies of cities are often perceived to suffer. While pollution and destruction of green space and species may occur, cities also remain part of natural systems. Cities provide natural processes necessary for survival for humans and other living organisms in urban areas. Urban ecology elucidates some of these processes and sheds light on their importance to healthy, fulfilling urban livelihoods. Urban Ecology: Strategies for Green Infrastructure and Land Use provides background on issues relating to urban ecology and urban natural processes. The first section covers the types, values, and recognition of ecosystem services provided by natural processes in urban areas. The second section details the importance and potential of green spaces in urban areas. The third section focuses on biodiversity traits of cities, and the ways in which urbanization affects biodiversity indicators. Finally, the fourth section covers some of the tools and approaches available for urban planners and designers concerned with improving or maintaining urban environments and the services they provide. This easily accessible reference volume offers a comprehensive guide to this rapidly growing field. Case studies and up-to-date research provide urban planners with new options for creating cities that will meet the demands of the twenty-first century. Also appropriate for graduate students who are preparing for careers related to urban planning, this compendium captures and integrates the current work being done in this vitally important field.

Architectures of Hiding

Architectures of Hiding PDF

Author: Rana Abughannam

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-01-31

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1003834116

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Architecture manifests as a space of concealment and unconcealment, lethe and alêtheia, enclosure and disclosure, where its making and agency are both hidden and revealed. With an urgency to amplify narratives that are overlooked, silenced and unacknowledged in and by architectural spaces, histories and theories, this book contends the need for a critical study of hiding in the context of architectural processes. It urges the understanding of inherent opportunities, power structures and covert strategies, whether socio-cultural, geo-political, environmental or economic, as they are related to their hidescapes – the constructed landscapes of our built environments participating in the architectures of hiding. Looking at and beyond the intentions and agency that architects possess, architectural spaces lend themselves as apparatuses for various forms of hiding and un(hiding). The examples explored in this book and the creative works presented in the interviews enclosed in the interludes of this publication cover a broad range of geographic and cultural contexts, discursively disclosing hidden aspects of architectural meaning. The book investigates the imaginative intrigue of concealing and revealing in design processes, along with moral responsibilities and ethical dilemmas inherent in crafting concealment through the making and reception of architecture.