Welcome to Urban Ecology

Roosevelt Schoolyard Redesign read more

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...

Noe Valley Streetscape

Current Projects, Success Stories

San Francisco , California Background The Noe Valley Community Benefits District on 24th Street in Noe Valley is a busy commercial street running for six city blocks in the heart of San Francisco. It is filled with popular coffee shops, restaurants, bookstores, and...

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...

16th Street BART Plazas

16th Street BART Plazas read more

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,...

Community Design Consulting Services

Some of our past projects.

Visitacion Valley Community Vision

Visitacion Valley Community Vision read more

24 th Street BART Plazas Community Design Plan

24 th Street BART Plazas Community Design Plan read more

Visitacion Valley Neighborhood Center Plan

Visitacion Valley Neighborhood Center Plan read more

Mission Corridor Plan Commercial Revitalization

Mission Corridor Plan Commercial Revitalization read more

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...

Telegraph-Northgate Neighborhood Plan

Just north of downtown Oakland, the Telegraph-Northgate neighborhood displays familiar signs of disinvestment: the major retail corridors are lined with vacant storefronts; the older houses are crumbling; and the parks are filled with graffiti and shards of glass. But...

Past Articles from Our Journal

You can visit our contact page to submit your own article! Find all our past journal articles here.

Divided We Stand: A Biography of New York’s World Trade Center

Divided We Stand: A Biography of New York's World Trade Center read more

Sustainable Development Around the World

Clean Fuel Vehicles in Cairo To combat its dangerously high air pollution, Cairo is looking to convert its taxis, buses, and minibuses to compressed natural gas, which produces 86 percent less carbon monoxide and 83 percent fewer hydrocarbons than gasoline. Five...

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...

Tunnels for Munich?

by Ron Widenhoeft In Munich, one of Germany’s most attractive cities, political controversy rages over whether the Middle Ring Road needs three new tunnels. By putting heavily burdened segments of the highway underground, advocates promise to enhance safety on the...

Regional 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...

Signs 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...

Fighting Urban Poverty Around the World

Fighting Urban Poverty Around the World read more

Creating the Blueprint: A Participatory Process

by Wood Turner Urban Ecology's Blueprint for a Sustainable Bay Area spells out the organization's vision of how the San Francisco Bay Area can become a better place to live for all its residents. It is the result of a thoughtful and tireless process intended to...

Sustainable Development in the United States

Investment Firm Backs New Urbanism Columbus Realty Trust, one of the nation's leading real estate investment firms, is backing "new urbanist"-style housing development. Stating that "Columbus is a proponent of 'New Urbanism'," the firm is seeking to invest in...

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...

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...

Including the Excluded: Supportive Housing