Nature

In the traditional view, nature and digital technology clash. But for many people, tech can offer ways to better engage with parks.

March 29, 2016 - KCET

Ecologists offer scientific lessons in how to better build cities for humans and wildlife.

January 19, 2016 - Steven Snell

The City of Calgary aims to restore 20 percent of its open space to increase biodiversity. Complex nature is—and needs to be seen as—foundational to our day-to-day lives, both for our well being, and the health of nature itself.

December 10, 2015 - Steven Snell

A city has always been understood and defined as a pattern of human settlement. This op-ed suggests that a city needs to be a product of its environment, rather than the environment simply being a product of it.

November 8, 2015 - Steven Snell

I wrote an urbanist Christmas wish list last week for Fast Forward Weekly. I figured I'd elaborate on one of my wishes for weedy nature and public art: disturbance oriented art.

December 14, 2014 - Steven Snell

NPR's Cities Project is crowdsourcing Instagram photos of nature creeping back into urban spaces.

September 26, 2014 - NPR Cities Project

There is already good evidence that exposure to green landscapes is good for people. The next frontier of research in the health impacts of designed environments is to be able to quantify connections between design decisions and life expectancy.

June 11, 2014 - ASLA The Dirt

Researcher Chris Ives suggests that rather than relying solely on economic gains to justify urban nature and biodiversity, community values may be more effective in gaining public support.

May 11, 2014 - Sustainable Cities Collective

For years, science has been catching up to the intuitive wisdom that spending time in, or adjacent to, nature has physical and mental health benefits. The ASLA has collected a trove of this research in one easy to navigate website.

September 11, 2013 - ASLA

Using two paradigms addressing synergies of nature and the city, Chuck Wolfe contrasts gradually merging animal and human habitats in the United States with calculated greening of city spaces overseas.

February 18, 2013 - The Atlantic Cities

Announced this week by All Things Considered hosts Melissa Block and Robert Siegel, National Public Radio is launching a new series called the NPR Cities Project and they're asking listeners for their input.

June 21, 2012 - NPR

As climate change accelerates coastal erosion across the continent, officials everywhere look to San Francisco to see how it will stem the tide, Felicity Barringer reports.

March 28, 2012 - New York Times

The Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator will begin construction this winter of an artificial glacier to cool the city next summer and provide melt water for drinking and irrigation.

November 21, 2011 - The Atlantic

Richard Louv says we're drowning in a "sea of circuitry" and in desperate need to reconnect with greenery and nature in our living spaces to sooth our souls.

October 15, 2011 - Citiwire.net

In this post from NRDC Swithcboard, Kaid Benfield argues that environmentalists need to care about cities, as urban areas can't be separated form "nature".

August 12, 2011 - NRDC Switchboard

The Yerba Buena District Street Life Plan starts off its 10-year life to improve public space by placing six mobile gardens in parts of the district that have more concrete and asphalt than vegetation, reports John King for San Francisco Chronicle.

August 3, 2011 - San Francisco Chronicle

This piece from Places delves into the history of the campsite, their use of space, and their role in modern culture.

June 2, 2011 - Places

Andy Lipkis, the founder and president of TreePeople, an organization in Los Angeles that brings natural concepts into the "urban forest", details his 40 years of work proving the feasibility of projects such as the Elmer Avenue Project.

December 3, 2010 - The Planning Report

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

October 1, 2010 - Walker Wells

This piece from Utne Reader looks at Ecuador's recent extension of inalienable rights to nature and why other countries should follow this lead.

May 13, 2009 - Utne Reader