Epilogue
One by one they stopped and gasped at the sight that
lay beneath them. Millions of stars seemed to have
fallen from the sky to land on the Earth far below. It was
the lights of the city! Giant buildings crowded into the
evening air. Rumblers roared along paved roads. As far
as the eye could see the city spread itself over the land.
Where were the trees? he birds? he lowers? … he
healing tree, the creek, it’s all gone.
Garry Fleming, Bollygum, 1995
here are many themes in nature’s symphony, each
with its own pace and rhythm. We are forced to choose
among these, which we have barely begun to hear and
understand.
Daniel B. Botkin, Discordant Harmonies, 1990
Following our journey through the rich patterns,
delights and surprises in urban ecology, let us relect,
even speculate, a bit. I have chosen a handful of themes
to explore that seem to be of particular interest and
importance now and for the future. Let us consider
urban ecology and the (1) distributions of aggregated
people; (2) greenspaces and park system; (3) habitat
heterogeneity and biodiversity; (4) tight urban water
system; (5) ecological lows and urban networks; (6)
urban change; and (7) societal goals and applications
of urban ecology. In relecting on these big subjects, my
goal is to crack them open enough to catalyze further
and useful pondering for scholars and for society.
But irst, consider a moment what the preceding
text represents. Most likely we have just experienced
the irst comprehensive scientiic portrayal of the ecol-
ogy of urban areas. We penetrated beyond the familiar
human and socioeconomic dimensions describing a
city in order to portray equally fundamental ecologi-
cal patterns and processes, essential to understanding
and changing urban areas. Nature in powerful natural
systems permeates every spot, every population cen-
ter. he ecological lows and changes across an urban
mosaic provide a compelling view of how cities are
structured and how they work. his perspective is
essential in wise improvements for our future.
372
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Distributions of aggregated people
Suppose everyone lived in villages connected by roads
and surrounded by nature. hat means connected vil-
lages and fragmented nature. Instead, in this simple
spatial model, put people in one city, two towns, and
a few villages in one portion of the land. hat would
mean connected nature (e.g., for stream/river systems,
groundwater, biodiversity, wildlife movement) and
connected population centers (including city with
specialized museum, orchestra, industrial center, rail
hub, diverse jobs, diverse housing). But people need
to eat, so let us add farmland surrounding the popula-
tion centers to the model. Now the land has connected
nature at some distance from people, connected farm-
land close to people, and connected population centers
including the resources of towns and city. hat is good
for both nature and people. More variables of course
can be added to this simple spatial model to create still
better patterns.
Now peer into the city or urban mosaic and con-
sider the typical “home range” of people, that is, the
area commonly covered in daily movements. A large
home range means that a person’s residence, job, shops,
school, park, entertainment place, and so forth are far
apart. A small average home range invests less energy
into transportation/movement and more into a per-
son’s neighborhood. Mixed use describes the place.
Safe appealing walkways, usually with tree lines, per-
meate neighborhoods, and parks readily walkable from
everyone’s residence are densely spread throughout the
urban area.
Outward urbanization (ultimately limited by
decreasing population growth) in some areas occurs as
concentrated development adjoining the existing built
metro-area. However, in many regions much urban
spread is low-density-development sprawl. his dis-
persed development may be as large house plots con-
taining large personal spaces, or may be concentrated
small plots adjoining dispersed villages and towns.
he long-term human problems and widespread eco-
logical problems with dispersed development are well

documented. But, assuming that both private spaces
and ready access to parks are important, what is the
optimum way to urbanize? Concentrate people, but
with private spaces and walkable greenspaces that
sustain vibrant natural systems across the area. hat
should be doable.
he entire urban region as a distinct functional
unit highlights the interdependence between a city,
actually a metro area, and the ring-around-the-city
(see Chapter 2). he fundamental form of an urban
region points to how it works, almost irrespective
of city size and geography or culture. Urbanization
expanded from a nucleus, usually surrounded by
farmland and outer natural land. Radial transporta-
tion corridors with nodes of development subdivide
the urban-region ring into sections. In-and-out city-
and-ring lows predominate, from people and goods
to air, water, and species. Yet multiple built nodes and
asymmetries in the urban region create networks that
dominate urban ecology lows and highlight how the
region works.
At a still-broader scale, “megalopolis ecology”
remains a frontier perhaps as well known as bedrock-
surface ecology in central Greenland. As essentially
the largest urban-ecology object, the megalopolis ties
together nearby major cities with associated coalescing
development and remnant agricultural and natural
land. A megalopolis, such as Boston-to-Washington,
Big Dutch Cities Area, Western UK Midlands,
Yokohama-to-Tokyo, and Pearl River Delta (China), is
almost too big to see. Excesses such as impervious sur-
face, heat, air pollution, water pollution, wastewater,
and solid waste are conspicuous. Scarcities, including
clean-water supply, recreational greenspace, areas to
treat wastes, wetlands, and urban agriculture, increase
in importance. But the basic megalopolis patterns of
habitat arrangement, species sources, and barriers to
and routes of wildlife movement remain little studied.
Major human resources are distributed “multi-nod-
ally,” and concentrated human movement is multi-
directional rather than radial. What is the best pattern
for treating and dealing with the massive wastes pro-
duced daily? Habitat areas are extensively fragmented,
degraded, and shrinking, so how does the emerald
network of large connected green areas, and even
transit-oriented-development-with-nature (TODN),
it? Perhaps most important is the pattern of big ten-
tacles from the megalopolis permeating the outer agri-
cultural and natural lands of the “greater megalopolis
region.”
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Epilogue
Greenspaces and park system
For most of urban history, urban greenspaces were
mainly for intensive local food production. Later many
became parks, oten with ornamental plantings, fertil-
ized/pesticided/mowed lawn, piped-away stormwater,
and extensive walkways plus park buildings. Yet in
many cities, greenspaces near potential jobs are prime
locations for squatter informal settlements. Small lit-
tle-used or overlooked spaces, as well as large spaces
with severe environmental conditions and hazards, are
both suitable for squatter residents. All three uses of
greenspaces (intensive food production, lawn/orna-
mental/walkway, and squatter settlement) serve urban
residents. Although some species diversity is present,
each case represents an extreme along gradients of
degradation of urban-greenspace nature. In the urban
greenspaces and park systems designed by society, we
typically assume the presence of at least some semi-
natural conditions. Virtually all greenspaces can be
designed and maintained to limit the severe-degrada-
tion uses and sustain some semi-natural conditions.
Could a collection of urban parks be transformed
into an integrated park system providing several key
functions for the entire urban area? Parks would have to
be functionally connected, and success would depend
on beneits from an integrated system reaching the
whole metro area. For example, a spatial arrangement
of greenspaces could cool the summer air across the
entire city (see Chapter 12). Furthermore, park designs,
both internal and arranged according to sun, wind
and stormwater-low directions, could limit looding
across the urban area. An integrated park system could
play additional roles for society, including reducing or
increasing air lows, reducing particulate and other air
pollutants, treating stormwater pollutants, and enhan-
cing wildlife movement.
For a greenspace system to provide rich biodiversity
across the built metro area requires a continual “species
rain” from the surroundings (see Chapter 12). Most
urban greenspaces are small, ecologically degraded,
isolated, dominated by generalist including non-native
species, and unlikely to sustain many native specialist-
species. he incoming organisms from agricultural
and natural lands may not survive long nor reproduce
in the new tough milieu, but the endless species rain
helps maintain the presence of species (and reduces
local extinction) in urban greenspaces.
For instance, assume that species spread outward
from a semi-natural area a distance proportional
to size of the semi-natural area. We can then readily
373
 Epilogue
recognize conigurations or arrangements of function-
ally connected greenspaces in the metro area. Together
these conigurations highlight the portion of a metro
area where rich biodiversity is sustained by species
rain from surrounding lands. By strategically adding
greenspaces to the system, the entire metro area can be
sustained with relatively rich biodiversity.
his biodiversity solution suggests that we must
turn outward, focusing on the large natural areas near
a metro area. he outward big picture is combined with
the major green corridors of the region, the arrange-
ment of greenspaces in and around the urban area, and
even bits of green providing functional connectivity
between parks. In short, more species will arrive, sur-
vive, and thrive in our urban greenspaces, and more
will enrich our urban built spaces.
Habitat heterogeneity and biodiversity
Cities or metro areas contain an extraordinary number
of diferent microhabitat types, from tiny lower gar-
dens to rail yards, low-income residential sites, semi-
natural greenspaces, dumps, and urban water bodies
(see Chapter 8). he contrast in species present among
habitat types is also striking. In places, the small habi-
tats are packed together, as in many house plots, indus-
trial sites, institutional areas, and medium-size parks.
Viewing habitats at diferent spatial scales provides
further insight, as for example the set of microhabitats
within a house plot contrasted with, and added to, the
set in other house plots along a street or in a neighbor-
hood. In short, although locations such as parking lots
and ball ields have few habitats, the metro area as a
whole boasts extremely high habitat heterogeneity.
Biodiversity normally strongly correlates with
habitat heterogeneity. hree urban features add to the
story. First, a richness of native, spontaneous non-na-
tive, and planted horticultural/ornamental species is
highly intermixed across the metro area. Second, spe-
cies respond diferently along environmental gradients
such as air temperature and soil moisture, and the city
provides a huge number of environmental gradients
(with countless interactions), such as of heavy metals,
traic noise, chemical sprays, trampling, looding, gar-
bage accumulation, and light at night. hird, diverse
network types channel species throughout the urban
area, such as cockroaches in storm drains connected
to building basements, night mammals along streets,
pathogenic bacteria in piped water, and rats through
empty little-used or ot-forgotten pipe systems. Again,
although conspicuous spots are species-poor, the
374
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cumulative efect of high habitat heterogeneity, a large
species pool, numerous environmental gradients,
diverse network channels for movement, and both
habitat and species packing means a cumulative high
biodiversity for the metro area.
At the ine scale, a remarkable percentage of the
British Isles lora and fauna was recorded in a single
0.1-ha (1/4-acre) house plot (see Chapter 8): 11% for
vascular plants; 44% harvest spiders (daddy longlegs);
38% ladybirds (ladybugs); 36% hoverlies; 34% butter-
lies; 33% lacewings (and allies); and so on. At the
broad scale of a metro area [Warsaw with 1.7 million
people in 517 km2 (201 mi2)], the numbers of species
recorded (see Chapter 9) are 3800 terrestrial inver-
tebrates; 320 vertebrates; 40 mammals; 274 birds; 5
reptiles; 11 amphibians; and 30 ish. Comparing these
numbers with same-size spaces in nearby agricultural
and natural lands, and indeed with the little-known
species richness of tropical cities, would be quite
interesting.
A iner view of small patterns and processes that
escape maps and GIS images is needed to understand
urban habitats and biodiversity. Instead of only exam-
ining roads, parks, shopping centers, industrial areas,
and so forth, look at key “hot spots” for species (e.g.,
an old mother tree, or rare wet spot), major species’
“needs” (food patches, shrub-cover patches, house-
plot backlines), and lows of water and wildlife. But
also, look sharply at the “invisibles,” such as nutrient
lows, tree-top organisms, and underground inter-
actions, in addition to familiar visible features (see
Chapter 1). Use the human eye, or even move as if
using the “eye” of an animal or plant (moving seed).
We might then understand habitats and biodiversity
of the city.
Tight urban water system
he urban water system is basically a heterogeneous
set of “low-throughs” and receiving bodies, which
sharply contrasts with that in agricultural land, and
especially natural land. Pipe networks for water sup-
ply, stormwater, sewage wastewater, septic wastewater,
and stream water, plus groundwater low, all basically
funnel water and pollutants to local water bodies (see
Chapter 6). Precipitation provides stormwater and also
a water-supply source, either protected and clean, or
unprotected and polluted. he stormwater running
over impervious and other surfaces picks up pollut-
ants. Meanwhile the water supply picks up and carries
household, commercial, industrial and pipe pollutants,

as well as human wastewater. Plants pump some water
upward in evapo-transpiration, but stormwater is
mainly piped to local water bodies. he household
water with pollutants and wastewater is commonly
piped to sewage wastewater facilities and septic systems
that partially clean the water before it drains into water
bodies. hese mainly separate lows are large, and local
water bodies such as streams, river, and estuary receive
a heavy dose of both water and pollutants.
Some routes can be beneicially shortened, such as
stormwater pipes. Some water can be recycled, as in
iltered grey-water from tubs and basins used to lush
toilets. Some wastewater and its contents can be used
to grow food in aquaculture. However, most short-
term tightening of the overall water system decreases
interconnections between diferent low types. hus,
reduce: stormwater leaks into the wastewater pipe
system; stormwater low through contaminated soil
to water bodies; wastewater-pipe leaks into soil and
groundwater; sewage lows (CSOs) into stormwater
and water bodies during heavy-rain events; and the
abundance of malfunctioning septic systems channel-
ing little-treated wastewater toward water body. A tight
water system enhances all habitats involved, and saves
money. Reduce water use, reduce runof. Increase inil-
tration into clean soil, increase evapo-transpiration.
But what can be done with the urban-provided
pollutants? Increase stormwater treatment, increase
septic-system efectiveness, and increase sewage waste-
water treatment eiciency. Stormwater is largely treated
(cleaned) by iniltration through uncontaminated soil,
for instance, via constructed ponds, wetlands, basins,
and bioilters. Sewage wastewater can be treated by a
sewage treatment facility (especially tertiary), a pond-
and-wetland facility, and theoretically in an aquacul-
ture pond. When functioning well, septic wastewater
is cleaned by bacteria and the soil. Still, ater cleaning,
where have all the pollutants gone?
Some pollutants accumulate in and contamin-
ate the soil, while most pour into local water bodies.
Streams, rivers and ponds experience both loods and
low-water levels. Aquatic ecosystems and ish in the
water bodies depend primarily on aquatic habitat het-
erogeneity, water quality, and sustained suitable water
lows and levels. To maintain these key conditions,
tighten the urban water system and treat/clean the
water contents. Local water bodies are the assays of the
urban system. Make the stream, river, lake, pond and/
or estuary both suitable for native ish and appealing to
urban residents.
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Epilogue
Ecological lows and urban networks
Traditional ecosystem ecology highlights plant prod-
uctivity and food-chain energy low, plus mineral-nutri-
ent or biogeochemical cycling. In natural ecosystems,
chemicals either cycle within or low through the sys-
tem. hus, nitrogen may cycle from live foliage to dead
leaf litter to roots and back to live foliage, or it may low
through an ecosystem, entering in wind and leaving in
stream-low. In natural ecosystems, wind, water, and
animals are major transport vectors. Frequently key
available nutrients and most human-produced chemi-
cals are limited in amount, while other natural chemi-
cals are exceedingly diverse and mostly present in tiny
amounts.
Urban areas seem fundamentally diferent. Plant
productivity is small. he lows of heat energy rather
than food-chain energy are primary. Chemical low-
throughs predominate. Little internal cycling occurs.
Mineral nutrients are usually abundant or in excess,
and typically in a rather high-pH environment. Natural
chemicals mainly produced by the plants seem to be
little studied, and some (e.g., PAHs) may play import-
ant ecological roles. Human-produced chemicals are
extremely diverse and abundant (see Chapters 4 and
5), and most originate in the urban system. he lows of
human-produced chemicals, involving plants, animals
and microbes (and people) in urban areas, should be
both interesting and important.
Perhaps equally important and more distinctive
is the central role of mostly human-built-and-main-
tained networks in the urban ecosystem. Railways,
powerlines, streets, water-supply pipes, stormwater
pipes, sewage wastewater pipes, septic-system pipes
are familiar, as are semi-natural streams, ground-
water, river, wildlife movement routes, and ecological
networks (see Chapter 12). hese diverse networks
are pervasive, difer markedly in form, connect to
large and small nodes, and oten interconnect. Other
networks are present including truncated food webs,
industrial interdependence, and cracks in surfaces (see
Chapters 9 to 11). he prime footprints model, spider-
like, links key ot-distant resource and waste areas with
a metro area (see Chapter 2). In efect, ecological lows
in urban areas are centrally driven by people, wind,
and water along networks, mainly somewhat rectilin-
ear in form.
he hierarchical street, road and highway network
with vehicle traic is most conspicuous and argu-
ably most ecologically detrimental. hus, the netway
system with pods, designed primarily to recover and
375
 Epilogue
reconnect the land and nature in non-urban areas,
seems to be a particularly promising change for urban
transportation (see Chapter 11). Flexible designs per-
mit alternate-street use, silent bus/van pods, or added
bicycle routes, as well as underground use in suburbs.
With increased transport eiciency and safety, no fossil
fuel use, no greenhouse gas emissions, increased area
for market gardening, and increased recreational trail
networks close to the city, netways promise many bene-
its for both humans and nature. Cities with traic-free
streets or zones know that the urban space provided is
a boon for people in neighborhoods, convenient local
shopping, and more plantings, with associated air,
wildlife, and aesthetic beneits.
he urban-waste lows of stormwater, sewage
wastewater, and solid waste are especially prominent,
and involve water, microbes, mammals, birds, inverte-
brates, algae, ish, organic matter, and diverse chemi-
cals. he spread of microbes in public health oten
involves rats, mosquitoes, people, wind, and/or water.
Anthropogenic networks are maintained by people;
breakdowns occur. Envision a major accident on a ring
road, water-main-pipe break, clogged sewage pipe,
damaged bridge on a commuter rail line, and urban
river pollution blocking migratory ish. Flows are inter-
rupted and oten diverted to a diferent route; indeed
network forms change over time. On the other hand,
a “string of pearls” path connecting tiny greenspaces
and lined with trees has some stability (see Chapter 2),
because active users prevent its blockage by informal
squatters, lower gardens, or urban agriculture. Every
piece counts in a simple connected system. In a com-
plex system, loops and redundancy provide stability.
In addition, network lines or linkages may function
as barriers as well as conduits, well-illustrated by strip
(ribbon) development blocking wildlife movement.
Furthermore, the functional ecological network
of lows across the land, and especially the emerald
network of connected large green areas, is central to
ecological lows in urban areas (see Chapters 2 and
3). Despite the “multi-colored spaghetti” of diverse
network lines with massive never-ending lows (and
breakdowns), the emerald network seems powerful
enough to sustain the lows of biodiversity throughout
an urban area.
Urban change
Cities come and go: sometimes appearing, spreading,
densifying; sometimes decaying, dying, disappearing.
Petra, Angkor Wat, Machu Pichu, and Tikal sank under
376
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the sands or rainforests of time. More visible near home
are the vacant lots, buildings, and parks that appear and
disappear. Since each piece of the urban mosaic plays
an ecological role, evaluating and mapping the relative
stability of pieces would be informative.
Wars and, in today’s world, bombing are targeted to
cities. Widespread destruction occurred, for instance,
in Tehran (1220), Washington (1814), Atlanta (USA)
(1864), Dresden (Germany) (1945), Hiroshima
(1945), Manchester (UK) (1996), and Bagdad (2003).
In World War II, Berlin’s large central Tiergarten Park
had virtually all trees removed for fuel, urban agri-
culture, and military activities. In Tokyo and Seoul,
swaths of buildings were transformed into open cor-
ridors serving as ire breaks and military zones with
anti-aircrat guns. In view of such destructive forces,
rather than simply rebuilding in the previous foot-
print, an adaptable urban design should be able to
noticeably and sustainably enhance the ecological
conditions of a city.
Nine other “disasters” or big sudden disturbances
are particularly serious in urban areas where people
and their structures are concentrated: wildire (e.g.,
Canberra, 2003; San Diego, California, 2003 and 2007);
volcanic eruption (Pompeii, AD 79; Pereira, Colombia,
1985); earthquake (Caracas, 1812; San Francisco,
1906; Kobe, Japan, 1995); tsunami (Alexandria,
Egypt, AD 365; Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 2004); lood
(Dhaka, Bangladesh, 1998; New Orleans, USA,
2005); hurricane (cyclone/typhoon) (Hong Kong,
1937; Phillipines, 2013); industrial-pollutant release
(Bhopal, India, 1984); nuclear-power-plant radiation
release (Chernobyl/Prypyat, 1986); disease outbreak
(European and Asian cities, 14th century). Just as for
war and bombing, urban nature could beneit greatly
by implementing a creative urban design for disaster
adaptability.
Slow degrading processes, most ecological, also
undermine the urban concentration of human struc-
tures. Termites chewing, wood decaying, metal rusting,
buildings settling, vibrations cracking, groundwater
dropping, heat building, salt dissolving, reservoir ill-
ing with sediment, and many more processes gradually
degrade the urban area. he massive people-movement
from Central and Western China to the East Coast
over a few decades has transformed – both improved
and degraded – population centers across much of the
nation. Slow change may be relatively constant but is
likely to include noticeable changes in rate, includ-
ing lulls and spurts. hese gradual almost-eternal

processes mean that when budgets and maintenance/
repair activities are down, ecological change acceler-
ates and more species survive and thrive.
Spatial pattern ofers a handle to ecologists for
understanding urban change. Spatial processes, includ-
ing fragmentation, connection, shrinkage, expansion,
disappearance, and appearance, operate not only in
exurban/peri-urban areas, but at iner scales within
the metro area (see Chapter 3). Five models of outward
urbanization, such as concentric rings, transportation
corridors, and dispersed patches (sprawl), highlight
both how we spread and what the ecologically best
and worst ways are to urbanize. A more-detailed ana-
lysis of alternative ways to expand from a metro-area
border highlights the apparent ecologically optimum
trajectory. But the approach also provides a changing
template to pinpoint at any stage the best and worst
locations for the next park, shopping center, or other
land-use change. Adding socioeconomic dimensions
to these spatial optimization models could highlight a
compelling future for the urban billions just ahead.
Stability of a metro area, or portion thereof, may be
increased in lots of ways, including strong hierarchy;
negative feedbacks; increasing the size (harder to dis-
rupt); maintaining gradual edges (so that responses
to disturbance are not all-or-nothing); and loops as
optional routes in a network. Providing adaptability,
in the sense of a lexible capacity to become somewhat
modiied in response to disturbances, seems to be a
more important goal than stability. An urban mosaic
with adaptable changing pieces should provide an eco-
logically richer trajectory than could a stable system.
Although termites are chewing, bombs going of,
and other disturbances brewing, currently global cli-
mate change stays in the headlines. Expectations for
urban areas difer by region and city, but include higher
air temperatures (especially in the surroundings); sea
level rise; estuarine encroachment; more precipitation
(or less); more extreme-weather events; more and/
or higher stream/river looding; more and/or longer
stream/river low lows; and threats to clean-water sup-
ply. An array of changes would provide climate change
adaptability and ecological beneit, such as recover
wetlands in low areas; increase vegetation cover; min-
imize rebuilding ater extreme-weather events; accel-
erate transit-oriented-development-with-nature away
from the coast or river; shorten stormwater-pipe sys-
tems; recover and protect vegetation around clean-
water supplies; reduce the home-range areas of urban
people; establish a protected emerald network; protect
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Epilogue
suitable habitat for species expected in the future; cre-
ate and maintain high habitat diversity; replace busy-
traic roads with netways; reduce impervious surface
cover; reestablish coastal wetlands; increase sot edges
between natural and built areas; make residential
development compact; increase plant cover (includ-
ing with green walls and roofs); ind new solutions
for sewage wastewater; and plan for environmental
surprises. Most are common sense for the reader, as
well as the informed public. Most also make sense for
dealing with big disturbances or disasters in general.
Why wait?
Pondering societal goals and urban ecology applications
Urban ecology is “a study of …,” with the objective
of understanding. Applying the theories, principles,
models, concepts, examples, evidence, and ideas to
solving problems may be creatively accomplished by a
range of professions and disciplines. Major portions of
the knowledge are useful to engineering, urban plan-
ning/design, public health, landscape architecture,
water resources, bio/nature conservation, sociology,
and economics. With solidiication of urban ecology,
its knowledge is useful for government in planning,
construction, maintenance, and repair. he future is
not just what lies ahead; it is something that nature and
we create.
An ecologist might highlight goals, such as maxi-
mizing native-species biodiversity, or maintaining
a relatively natural ecosystem, or establishing small
tight water-and-material/chemical lows, throughout
the urban area. On the other hand, an urban ecologist
probably would not emphasize or recommend maxi-
mizing biodiversity, or maintaining only native spe-
cies, or focusing on rare species protection. In an urban
area, success is highly unlikely in all of the cases.
In contrast, using environmental knowledge, a
public health oicial might be more interested in
increasing bat populations to control mosquitoes, a
water resource manager in how best to treat stormwa-
ter to sustain ish populations, an engineer in how best
to establish and arrange habitats to reduce looding,
and a landscape architect in how best to arrange which
plants to cool air and attract birds. An urban planner/
designer has a rich set of ecological principles to use,
focused on water, transportation, residential areas, and
so forth (see Chapter 2). An additional set of speciic
spatial patterns, the good, bad, and interesting, can be
creatively combined for diferent situations and difer-
ent cities (see Appendix A).
377
 Epilogue
Providing ecosystem or nature’s services for urban
residents might be a promising overall objective. Urban
habitats such as street trees, cultivation, and wetlands
provide a variety of services, including air iltration,
microclimate regulation, and stormwater drainage.
Although the services provided are a small portion of
the total services required, the general habitat types
involved seem to improve residents’ quality of life.
Yet the measure of success in addressing ecologically
dependent goals remains a challenge. A “natural” eco-
system basically does not exist in an urban area and is
not a promising goal for a large urban area. We could
attempt to achieve some “degree of naturalness,” but
that is an odd and awkward goal for a largely built area
with highly distinctive characteristics. At the other end
of the spectrum, the objective could be some measure
of human satisfaction, such as quality of life, delight,
discovery, surprise, biophilic beneit, or educational,
aesthetic, inspirational, health, or political value. A
conundrum awaits solution.
Everyone can list societal actions that beneit nature,
such as driving less, using less water, growing vegetables,
using public transport, and making compact housing
developments. Most people can also pinpoint useful goals
that directly use urban ecology. Broad-scale goals might
include having a city live in balance with resources of its
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urban region. Or in balance with its present ecological
footprint, or even shrinking the footprint. Longer-term
goals might be to build structures mimicking nature’s
time-tested structures, and have them work as nature’s
processes do. An umbrella goal might integrate several
sub-goals, such as widespread tree cover or semi-natural
vegetation cooling the air, reducing looding, cleaning
stormwater, and being sources for species dispersing
more widely. he usefulness of urban ecology to schol-
arship and to society will be determined by the perspec-
tives of potential users, and the rate at which ecology
becomes important to the life of people in the onrushing
urban enterprise on Earth.
As the preceding chapters reveal, I am passionate
about understanding the urban mosaic, where I have
lived for decades in many states and nations. he pages
emphasize that broad perspective and context matter.
Cities remain surrounded by extensive farmland and
natural land, two places where I have done consider-
able research and also feel at home. I am an ecologist
who scientiically, if not almost in toto, grew up in
nature. I still go to the most remote places. Now that
urban ecology has begun to gel, I ponder an ecology of
land and city. Do landscape ecology, road ecology, and
urban ecology dovetail enough to spark synergies for
scholarship and society?