The City is an Ecosystem maps an interdisciplinary, community-engaged response to the great ecological crises of our time―climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequality―which pose particular challenges for cities, where more than half the world’s population currently live.
Across more than twenty chapters, the three parts of the book cover historical and scientific perspectives on the city as an ecosystem; human rights to the city in relation to urban sustainability; and the city as a sustainability classroom at all educational levels inside and outside formal classroom spaces. It argues that such efforts must be interdisciplinary and widespread to ensure an informed public and educated new generation are equipped to face an uncertain future, particularly relevant in the post-COVID-19 world.
Gathering multiple interdisciplinary and community-engaged perspectives on these environmental crises, with contemporary and historical case study discussions, this timely volume cuts across the humanities and social and health sciences, and will be of interest to policymakers, urban ecologists, activists, built environment professionals, educators, and advanced students concerned with the future of our cities.
Author(s): Deborah Mutnick, Margaret Cuonzo, Carole Griffiths, Timothy Leslie
Series: Advances in Urban Sustainability
Publisher: Routledge/Earthscan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 293
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Figures
About the Contributors
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
Part I The City as Ecosystem
2 Ecology and Technological Enframement: Cities, Networks, and the COVID-19 Pandemic
3 Social Determinants of Health as a Framework for Addressing Urban Climate Adaptation
4 Climate Change Policy: Lessons From Classical Rome
5 Greenspace in Small Cities: Opportunities for Sustainability Education
6 The Birds and Bees of Urban Biodiversity: Patterns, Problems, and a Path Forward
7 Action Research in a Tokyo Suburb: Building Community Ties Through Collaborative Landscaping Projects
8 Community Design for Inclusive Engagement: The Old Stone House and Washington Park, Brooklyn
Part II The Right to the City
9 The Right to the City and the Rights of the City
10 Making Our Own History: Urban Sustainability in a World in Crisis
11 Reconceptualizing the City in the Age of the Anthropocene
12 Industrial Gentrification and the Geography of Sacrifice and Gain
13 Futurity and Equity in Local Climate Action
14 Social Justice and Brooklyn Development: 500 Years of Struggle
15 Participatory Action Research in Rio de Janeiro’s Sustainable Favela Network: From Self-Sufficiency and International Collaboration to Participatory Regenerative Infrastructures
Part III The City as Classroom
16 Teaching About Sustainable Living in Urban Settings: Global Citizenship and Overcoming the Arcadian Myth
17 An Environmental Justice Lens on Indianapolis’s Urban Ecosystem: Collaborative Community Curation
18 Urban Rewilding Through a Modified Placemaking Lens: A Teaching and Learning Journey
19 Using the Prepositional Framework for Urban Environmental Education: Teaching and Learning About Ecology in, of, for, and with Cities
20 Manitoba Hydro’s Mega-Dams and the Ethical Teaching of Ceramics and Sustainability
21 Resilience for Sustainability Everywhere: Critical Literacy for Students and Everyone Else
22 Afterword: Transdisciplinary Urban Ecosystem Research, Education, and Stewardship
Index
