Welcome to Urban Ecology
Urban Ecology is dedicated to developing harmony with urban planning and nature.
This site highlights all that Urban Ecology has accomplished over the years. We hope these archives inspire you to continue the pursuit of harmony between urban planning and the natural world around us.

Urban Ecology is published to provide information and encourage dialogue on issues related to the urban environment, city and regional planning, and metropolitan affairs.
Urban Ecology gives voice to an ecological urbanism. It encourages readers engaged in urban design, governance, and activism to incorporate ecological sensitivity into their work and to understand the links between the built and natural environments and the many-layered concerns and needs of the people who live in urban settings around the world.
Success Stories!
Below are just a few of our success stories. You can find more details of some of these success stories under our Community Design Consulting section.
Urban Promise Academy Campus Improvement Plan
East Bay Greenway
The East Bay Greenway Concept Plan details a bicycle and pedestrian pathway that extends from Oakland to Hayward underneath the elevated BART tracks. This twelve mile long greenway runs through some of the poorest neighborhoods in the East Bay, neighborhoods without...
read moreRoosevelt Schoolyard Redesign
Green Business Certification
Summary The San Francisco Green Business Team includes Urban Ecology, the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SF.DPH), San Francisco Department of the Environment (SFE), and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SF.PUC). This team provides free...
read moreThe Living Classroom
San Francisco, California Urban Ecology is partnering with Literacy for Environmental Justice (LEJ) to provide a participatory design process involving four LEJ youth Community Geographers. Urban Ecology will introduce the youth to the concepts involved in site...
read more16th Street BART Plazas
Community Design Consulting Services
Some of our past projects.
Weeks Neighborhood Plan
The Clinton Park Plan
16th Street BART Community Design Plan
The 16th Street BART Community Design Plan is the result of a nine-month community planning process organized to address neighborhood concerns about the 16th Street BART station area in San Francisco. The Community Design Plan provides both general guidelines and...
read more24 th Street BART Plazas Community Design Plan
Visitacion Valley Community Vision
Mission Corridor Plan Commercial Revitalization
Past Articles from Our Journal
You can visit our contact page to submit your own article! Find all our past journal articles here.
Green Building Materials
by Darrel Deboer Through the 1980’s, if one claimed to be an "environmentally-oriented" designer, people’s first reaction was to look up on the roof for the solar panels. The environmental impacts, toxicity, and origin of building materials were rarely questioned....
read moreTexas’ Colonias: Squatter Settlements Become Affordable Housing
by Rachel Peterson Texas has witnessed an unusual pattern of development along its 2,000 mile border with Mexico. Colonias are unincorporated, "informal" rural subdivisions that usually lack water, wastewater service, and paved roads. There are an estimated 1,436 such...
read moreCooling Our Cities
Lisa Gartland Scientific data show temperatures in cities all over the world, from Baltimore and Phoenix to Shanghai and Tokyo, are steadily increasing by one half to one degree Fahrenheit every ten years, and the primary cause isn't global warming. Cities -- urban...
read moreRemember the Alamo and the World’s Tallest Man, Too
The Urban Ecology Journal Back Issues
Note: With this issue, we return to a seasonal designation. The first issue of each year will be called Spring, followed by Summer, Fall, and Winter. Visit our contact form to submit articles! Back Issues 2000 Spring -- Designing for Transit and Community Tales from...
read moreGang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Crusade
Sustainable Development Around the World
Waterfront Park in Venice A 1,400-acre urban park is taking shape on the site of a landfill on the lagoon facing Venice, Italy. Parco San Guiliano will contain 13 activity centers featuring boating clubs, marinas, museums, an aquarium, a marine biology research...
read moreDivided We Stand: A Biography of New York’s World Trade Center
Venice Confronts Population Loss, Environmental Problems
The Habitat II Conference: Moving Slowly Toward Sustainable Cities
by Stephen Wheeler During the first two weeks of June 1996 more than 12,000 urban planners, government officials and activists converged on Istanbul for the United Nation's Conference on Human Settlements, also known as Habitat II or the "City Summit." This...
read moreSigns of Hope: Bay Area Success Stories
Edited by Stephen Wheeler Although the Bay Area is moving away from sustainability in many ways -- in terms of automobile use, resource consumption, suburban sprawl, affordable housing and equity, for example -- it is making progress in other areas. Following...
read moreA Letter from the President
I thought I'd take this opportunity to report to you from the front lines of sustainable development. Since September 1996 I've been working with Van der Ryn Architects and the Ecological Design Institute, where we get many opportunities to plan and design using the...
read moreContact
Thank you for visit UrbanEcology.org! We encourage any and all suggestions, inquiries, and communications via our contact form. Thank you for supporting us.