Ecology
Study Reveals Los Angeles a Hotspot for Insect Diversity
A study reveals that L.A. is a surprising hotspot for insect and spider biodiversity, with diversity driven more by proximity to mountains and stable temperatures than by land value.
New Exhibit Highlights the Urgent Need to Protect Joshua Trees
The Lancaster Museum exhibit “Desert Forest: Life with Joshua Trees” aims to raise awareness of the ecological importance of Joshua trees and the threats they face from climate change in the Mojave Desert.
Sustainable Urban Design: A New Tool and Approach on The Talking Headways Podcast
Discover how the Sustainable Urban Design Framework helps planners create livable, sustainable communities. Nico Larco from the University of Oregon explores a new tool and book in the latest “Talking Headways” podcast.
Celebrating California's Biodiversity
This year marks the fifth annual California Biodiversity Day, established in 2018 to celebrate and encourage actions to protect the state’s exceptional biodiversity.
The Environmental Consequences of the Arizona Border Wall
A segment of the planned U.S.-Mexico border wall would cut across the San Pedro River and threaten the area’s wildlife and plants.
Homeland Security Waives More Than 30 Laws to Expedite Border Wall
In the drive to begin construction in New Mexico, the Trump Administration has bypassed dozens of federal environmental regulations.
What Will It Take to Green Puerto Rico Again?
Not only did Hurricane Maria destroy most of Puerto Rico's man-made infrastructure, it also defoliated the island's vast tropical forests, upsetting the forest ecology—in the short term.
Bay Area's First Climate Adaptation Project Could Be a North Bay Highway
State Route 37 is a vital highway connecting four North Bay counties plagued by two unrelated problems: chronic flooding during high tides and traffic congestion. Fixing the problem will set a precedent for Bay Area climate adaptation.
Trump's Border Wall Would Bring 'Ecological Disaster'
Vox offers a feature length article, with lots of visual references, that tells the story of the ecological risks inherent with any plan to build a wall along the border between the United States and Mexico.
Jamaica Bay: Wilderness in the City
Created so people could "experience nature in the midst of crowds," New York's Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge embodies the characteristics of all modern national parks: abundant, welcoming, and threatened.
Soaking-Up New York's Filthy Water With a Sponge Park
A 2,100 square foot park on the banks of New York City's Gowanus Canal is part of a plan to catch pollutants from storm off from draining into the already polluted waterway.
Los Angeles: A Tale of Two Ecologies
The late architecture critic Reyner Banham and social historian Mike Davis had opposing viewpoints regarding Los Angeles' ecology, but in many ways their disparate takes complemented each other, writes urban planner Jonathan P. Bell.
How to Marginalize the Automobile
In a column for Fast Forward Weekly, Steven Snell explores the complexities in lessening the domestication of the automobile and its perceived necessity in our day-to-day lives.
Destabilizing Urban Planning
How can the contemporary concepts in ecology studies—adaptability, resiliency, and flexibility—advance urban planning practices?
What Desert Living Can Teach Designers About Building in Urban L.A.
A visit to Cal-Earth in Hesperia leads aspiring environmental designer Daniel Ebuehi to examine how some aspects of desert living could translate to an urban environment.
Why We Should Plan According to Ecosystem, Rather Than Artificial Boundaries
The often arbitrary boundaries drawn up to define territory limits how most planners determine the extents of their projects. Neil Chambers argues why we, and the planet, would be better served if we planned according to natural characteristics.
Recolonizing the Lower Ninth Ward
Nathaniel Rich reports on a different kind of urban regeneration that has taken place in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward where the "cartoonish pace of vegetation growth" conceals an ecology of wild animals, tires, and occasionally humans.
What is Green Urbanism?
The term Green Urbanism keeps showing up unexpectedly in newspaper articles, conference session titles, blog posts, and casual conversation. While there is an innate, intuitive sense of the meaning, green urbanism may also seem as elusive as it is evocative. Having given this topic a fair amount of thought over the past several years, I, and my colleague and collaborator Ted Bardacke, arrived at the following working definition: green urbanism: the practice of creating communities mutually beneficial to humans and the environment
Dongtan Eco-City: A Model of Sustainability?
Dongtan Eco City was planned for completion for the Shanghai World Expo in 2010. By that time, 5,000 people should be living there. However, the planned housing, water taxis, sewage‐recycling plant and energy park all failed to materialize.
The Smell of the City
Among the installations at the Ecological Urbanism exhibit at Harvard's Graduate School of Design is a collection of smells from 200 Mexico City neighborhoods.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research
