Welcome to Urban Ecology

Traditionally ecologists have ignored cities, viewing them as ecologically uninteresting, and favoring more pristine sites as places to study the interaction of organism and environment. This viewpoint has been challenged from at least two perspectives in recent years. Firstly, cities are faced with environmental challenges which cannot be addressed without an ecological understanding. Secondly, conservation strategies which formerly have focused exclusively on reserves in wilderness locations are now being developed in urban areas. This is because cities are often located where biodiversity if high, and opportunities to conserve species in urban areas may be essential supplements to conserving global biodiversity.

In this course we examine the importation of ecology ideas into our understanding of cities and into the ways in which cities can become more habitable – cleaner, healthier and more biodiverse. We will pay some attention to the ways in which ecology as a discipline can be broadened by its encounter with the discipline that have habitually paid attention to the city – urban sociology, anthropology, economics, demography, architecture and planners.

Though the class is reading intensive, much of our work will be project oriented. These projects are designed to increase your ability to design, interpret, and write about ecological data.