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.
Garfield Elementary Schoolyard Redesign
Commercial Center Revitalization
Oakland, California Challenge Once home to two movie theaters and a trolley line, Oakland’s 23rd Avenue today has boarded-up storefronts, traffic that speeds by too quickly, and vacant lots that invite criminal activity. Though community members are sometimes divided...
read moreClinton Park
Oakland, California Challenge The Eastlake neighborhood in Oakland, California, is one of the most diverse communities in that city. It is home to African Americans, Latinos, Southeast Asian immigrants, and Native Americans. Yet Eastlake’s main open space—Clinton...
read more24th Street BART Plazas
Manzanita Community / SEED Schoolyard Redesign
EastSide Community Cultural Center
Oakland, California Challenge A thriving population of homegrown neighborhood artists has emerged in Oakland’s San Antonio, encouraging community participation in the arts through after-school training programs, events for young adults, street banners and murals,...
read moreCommunity Design Consulting Services
Some of our past projects.
Introduction to our Community Design Consulting Program
Urban Ecology's Community Design Program is a cutting-edge example of how a sustainable vision embraces both social justice and environmental health in our cities. In collaboration with grassroots groups in low-income neighborhoods, Urban Ecology creates plans that...
read moreVisitacion Valley Neighborhood Center Plan
24 th Street BART Plazas Community Design Plan
The Clinton Park Plan
Weeks Neighborhood Plan
Visitacion Valley Community Vision
Past Articles from Our Journal
You can visit our contact page to submit your own article! Find all our past journal articles here.
Texas’ 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 moreVenice Confronts Population Loss, Environmental Problems
Voting for Our Cities – A Look Back at Gore
By James B. Goodno Not too long ago, cities figured prominently in national politics. As a result, presidential candidates offered urban programs as a matter of course, and public investment flowed into housing, community development, transportation, social...
read moreWilderness in South Central Los Angeles?
Randy Hester Despite its well-deserved bashing for being utterly car-dependent, water-irresponsible and unsustainable, Los Angeles has borne some valuable precedents for keeping and recreating nature in the city. The No Oil fight to save the Santa Monica Bay, the Los...
read moreSustainable 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 moreThe 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 moreCuritiba: A Visit to an Ecological City
by Tim Alley Brazil is a country of many big cities, and most of them have their share of urban problems -- poverty, overcrowding, sanitation. The city of Curitiba is an exception. In fact, Curitiba is known as "The Ecological Capital of Brazil." I went there...
read moreCommon Place: Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design
by Douglas Kelbaugh reviewed by Stephen Wheeler One the most important challenges facing urban ecologists currently is to develop a language of urban design that integrates different scales -- the building, site, neighborhood, city and region -- in ways that further...
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 moreRegional Polarization and Tax Sharing
by Myron Orfield The forces of polarization — the push of concentrated poverty and the pull of concentrated resources — operate throughout metropolitan regions. Because the dynamics are regional, only a regional approach can change them. There is little that...
read moreSaving Durban’s Medicinal Plants
Rebecca Koffman Every day at the Durban Station Market, street vendors do a booming trade selling plant muti (medicine) to the thousands of commuters who pour into the city-center. In this port city, in South Africa's Eastern Province of Kwazulu-Natal, over 700...
read moreRestoring the Bronx Coastline
Paul Mankiewicz Today's urban estuaries are lined with miles of linear bulkhead and seawall. But just a century ago, they had a highly varied coastline of beaches, marshes, rocky outcrops, bays, cliffs and creek mouths. Where could the immense amount of materials...
read moreContact
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Recommended Resources:
Inhabitat.com
https://www.nature.com/subjects/urban-ecology
EcoSystemGardening.com
http://urban.yale.edu
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