New Lincoln Institute Book

Nature and Cities: The Ecological Imperative in Urban Design and Planning

Edited by Frederick R. Steiner, George F. Thompson, and Armando Carbonell

“The beautiful photographs and lush design of Nature and Cities mask a radical and revolutionary set of ideas from some of the world’s most insightful and intelligent landscape architects and urbanists. Brilliantly curated and edited, these essays offer fresh ideas about how to integrate our understanding of the human condition and the health, vitality, and sustainability of the planet.”
—DARREN WALKER, Ford Foundation, President

“This important and beautiful book signals an exciting maturation of the linkage between ecological science and the theory and practice of urban design. The essayists, who represent both long-standing pioneers and new leaders in landscape architecture and planning, suture the urban and natural together, based on sound understanding of urban ecology. The integration is illustrated with innovative designs and plans that document the power and ethical need for the ecological turn in metropolitan design.”
—STEWARD T. A. PICKETT, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Distinguished Senior Scientist

Contents

George F. Thompson, Frederick R. Steiner, and Armando Carbonell
The Landscape Today and the Challenges Ahead

James Corner
The Ecological Imagination: Life in the City and the Public Realm

Richard Weller
The City Is Not an Egg: Western Urbanization in Relation to Changing Conceptions of Nature

Anne Whiston Spirn
The Granite Garden: Where Do We Stand Today?

Charles Waldheim
The Landscape Architect as Urbanist of Our Age

Kongjian Yu
Creating Deep Forms in Urban Nature: The Peasant’s Approach to Urban Design

Elizabeth K. Meyer
Sustaining Beauty: The Performance of Appearance Design

Jose Alminaña and Carol Franklin
Creative Fitting: Toward Designing the City as Nature

Forster Ndubisi
Adaption and Regeneration: A Pathway to New Urban Places

Danilo Palazzo
The Role of Utopia in Ecological Planning and Design

Susannah Drake
WPA 2.0: Beauty, Economics, Politics, and the Creation of Twenty-First Century Public Infrastructure

Timothy Beatley
New Directions in Urban Nature: The Power and Promise of Biophilic Cities and Blue Urbanism

Kate Orff
Gardening the Bay: Participatory Frameworks for Ecological and Economic Change

Nina-Marie E. Lister
Resilience Beyond Rhetoric in Urban Design

Chris Reed
Projective Ecologies in Urban Design and Planning

Kristina Hill
Form Follows Flows: Systems, Design, and the Aesthetic Experience of Ecological Change

Laurie Olin
Water, Nature in Cities, and the Art of Landscape Design

Frederick R. Steiner, George F. Thompson, and Armando Carbonell
Afterword: Prospects for Urban Ecological Design and Planning