“Why Does Baltimore Look Like It Does?”

I had the pleasure of contributing to a field trip of visiting landscape architecture students and their professor recently.  Getting out in the neighborhoods and habitats in Baltimore is always fun and rewarding.  Plus the reaction…

Where did Urban Ecology Come From? Zev Naveh and the Total Human Ecosystem

Encountering Zev Naveh - A force of nature One answer to the question of where urban ecology came from has to point to Zev Naveh.  When I first heard Zev Naveh (1919-2011) a professor at Israel's Technion, talking about the "total human…

Urban Ecology Takes a Long Time

We are extraordinarily fortunate in Baltimore to have long-term support for our urban social-ecological research and engagement.  BES is funded in 6 year increments, subject to review and approval by the National Science Foundation's rigorous…

A New School of Urban Ecology: Contributions from Baltimore

Modern American urban ecology can be said to have come to fruition to a large extent in Baltimore.  Of course there are other cities where parallel, reinforcing, or complementary research and engagement activities are taking place, and…

Shifting Urban Realities and Nature Beyond Parks

Traditionally, cities have been thought of as distinct from nature.  In fact, they have often been considered to be the antithesis of nature.  Ecological science in the past seemed to agree with these assumptions, and ignored cities…

October is BES Annual Meeting Season

In America we seem to follow a regular rhythm of holidays signaled by changing displays to encourage seasonally linked consumption.   So as Halloween decorations begin to appear in stores, and on front stoops, it can only mean that BES…