4Natural systems and greenspaces
Ask a child with paints to make a large picture of a city look ecological. Splotches
of greenery will be added around the buildings, perhaps with some birds in
spots. Similarly, have the child make a remote natural valley look lived in, and
some charming awkward houses will be drawn in the picture, along with people
and a street. Of course no one pretends that real ecology is represented in the
first image, or serious design and planning in the second image. Rather this is
art, which sometimes even appears on huge highway billboards or the sides of
trucks as green marketing.
After introducing regions, land planning, and socioeconomic dimensions in
previous chapters, we are now ready to focus on natural systems, especially
ecology. This challenging central topic for understanding and planning urban
regions is introduced along with greenspaces, where natural systems have the
potential of thriving long term.
Five major topics, which progressively build on each other, are presented: (1)
ecosystem, community, and population ecology; (2) freshwater and marine coast
ecology; (3) earth and soil; (4) microclimate and air pollutants; (5) greenspaces.
Important themes and overlaps among the topics will become evident. The first
four, even the fifth, are key foundations and motifs throughout the book.
Natural systems are effectively a scientific way of saying nature (Chapter1).
Rather than presenting the science of natural systems in their separate disci-
plines of soil science, hydrology, meteorology/atmospheric science, ecology, etc.,
thesalient principles are nicely integrated through the lens of ecology.
Only major ecological principles of particular value in urban regions are
introduced. In most cases an example illustrating the importance of a princi-
ple to society is given. No hot-off-the-press hypotheses appear. Rather, we focus
on widely known much-tested principles and concepts that can be used with
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