Tag Archives: book

New Book by Harini Nagendra on Bengaluru, India

Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present, and Future
by Harini Nagendra, Azim Premji University

“Nature in the City” describes changes in nature in the landscape of Bengaluru using a deep historical dive from the 6th century CE to now, looking at trends in the way people perceive nature, charting a trend towards simplification of biodiversity and ecosystem services over time, and looking at pockets of resilience where multifunctional nature still thrives in the midst of urban chaos.

Available now in the UK and on September 7 in the United States.

New Book on Urban Landscape Ecology

Urban Landscape Ecology: Science, policy and practice
Edited by Robert A. Francis, James D.A. Millington, and Michael A. Chadwick

This book brings together examples of research at the cutting edge of urban landscape ecology across multiple contexts that investigate the state, maintenance and restoration of healthy and functional natural environments across urban and peri-urban landscapes. An explicit focus is on urban landscapes in contrast to other books which have considered urban ecosystems and ecology without specific focus on spatial connections. It integrates research and perspectives from across academia, public and private practitioners of urban conservation, planning and design. It provides a much needed summary of current thinking on how urban landscapes can provide the foundation of sustained economic growth, prospering communities and personal well-being.

Click here to learn more

New Book: Untamed Urbanisms

Edited by Adriana Allen, Andrea Lampis & Mark Swilling

One of the major challenges of urban development has been reconciling the way cities develop with the mounting evidence of resource depletion and the negative environmental impacts of predominantly urban-based modes of production and consumption. This book aims to re-politicize the relationship between urban development, sustainability and justice, and to explore the tensions emerging under real circumstances, as well as their potential for transformative change.

For some, cities are the root of all that is unsustainable, while for others cities provide unique opportunities for sustainability-oriented innovations that address equity and ecological challenges. This book is rooted in the latter category, but recognizes that if cities continue to evolve along current trajectories they will be where the large bulk of the most unsustainable and inequitable human activities are concentrated. By drawing on a range of case studies from both the global South and global North, this book is unique in its aim to develop an integrated social-ecological perspective on the challenge of sustainable urban development.

Through the interdisciplinary and original research of a new generation of urban researchers across the global South and North, this book addresses old debates in new ways and raises new questions about sustainable urban development. It will be of interest to researchers, city managers and a wide range of policy actors in government, civil society and the private sector.

An electronic version of this book is available via Open Access. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. Click here to order a hard copy.