Urban Regions
Ecology and Planning Beyond the City

This book is bulging with promising land patterns for students, planners, conservationists and policy makers.

Richard T. T. Forman (Author)

9780521670760, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 12 June 2008

478 pages, 61 b/w illus. 44 colour illus. 43 maps 5 tables
24.7 x 17.3 x 2.2 cm, 0.95 kg

'Undoubtedly, the readers will be able to broaden and deepen their knowledge about the critical issues related to urban regions … a must-have addition not only for theorists but for practitioners, since the intellectual contents of this book could be very informative, practical and even more innovative when combined with their creativity.' Urban Studies Journal

With land planning, socioeconomics and natural systems as foundations, this book combines urban planning and ecological science in examining urban regions. Writing for graduate students, academic researchers, planners, conservationists and policy makers, and with the use of informative urban-region color maps, Richard Forman analyzes 38 urban regions from 32 nations, including London, Chicago, Ottawa, Brasilia, Cairo, Seoul, Bangkok, Canberra, and a major case study of the Greater Barcelona region. Alternative patterns of urbanization spread (including sprawl) are evaluated from the perspective of nature and people, stating land-use principles extracted from landscape ecology, transportation and hydrology. Good, bad and interesting spatial patterns for creating sustainable land mosaics are pinpointed, and urban regions are considered in broader contexts, from climate change to biodiversity loss, disasters and sense of place.

1. Regions and land mosaics
2. Planning land
3. Economic dimensions and social patterns
4. Natural systems and greenspaces
5. Thirty-eight urban regions
6. Nature, food, and water
7. Built systems, built areas, and whole regions
8. Urbanization models and options
9. Basic principles for molding land mosaics
10. The Barcelona region's land mosaic
11. Gathering the pieces
12. Big pictures.

Subject Areas: Urban & municipal planning [RPC], Conservation of the environment [RNK], The environment [RN]