Abstract
In a 2016 review article, American urban ecologist Steward Pickett and his coauthor colleagues note that before “the ecology of the city” was identified as a second paradigm of urban ecological science in the late 1990s, there had been “venerable and important precedents”. In this communication, the author substantiates their remark with a revelation of such a precedent set by American ecological scholar-practitioner and educator Ian L. McHarg in the 1960s.
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Notes
These two pieces became required readings in his Ecology of the city class (CP 610) at the University of Pennsylvania, USA (McHarg 1963, p. 5).
According to British urban planning scholars Michael Batty (author of the 2013 book The new science of cities) and Stephen Marshall, “[t]he idea that a town or city is not a fixed architectural product, but something organic, growing or ‘evolving’ in relation to its environment, is arguably the most fundamental contribution bestowed by (the Scottish urban planner—the author) Patrick Geddes on planning (through his 1915 landmark book Cities in evolution—the author). This idea generated the need for a different kind of theory—beyond architecture and engineering—both for our understanding and direct intervention in the planning of cities…” (Batty and Marshall 2017, p. 4). In this regard, McHarg’s 1962 conception of “the ecology of the city”, which was further developed and included in the two chapters in Design with nature (McHarg 1969, pp. 175–195), is a manifestation of his idea for, and endeavor to build, such “a different kind of theory” about cities.
The term “ecology of cities” appeared in a guest editorial in the first volume of Urban Ecosystems (Pickett et al. Pickett et al. 1997, p. 183); the term “ecology of urban ecological systems” appeared in Grimm et al. (2000, p. 573). It is through these two scholarly publications, according to Pickett and his coauthor colleagues, that “the paradigm of the ecology of the city” (Pickett et al. 2016, p. 5) was formally identified (Ibid., p. 3). Elsewhere, Pickett and his colleagues provide a concise comparison between this paradigm and that of the ecology in the city (Pickett et al. 2013, pp. 21–22).
In relation to this belated awareness, McHarg noted in 1969 the reluctance of ecologists to study cities. “[T]o bring together the information plant and animal ecologists have developed and apply it to the problems of the city … is an extremely difficult venture, because ecologists seek the wildest environments—those least affected by man …” (McHarg 1969, p. 188). Unfortunately, 50 years later, “cities (still—the author) have not been a focal area of work for most ecologists. For example, of the 1195 articles published in ESA’s (ESA stands for Ecological Society of America—the author) journals in 2018, only 28 articles (2.3%) contained the word ‘urban’ in their abstracts.” (Zhou et al. 2019, p. 135).
References
Batty M, Marshall S (2017) Thinking organic, acting civic: the paradox of planning for cities in evolution. Landsc Urban Plan 166:4–14
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McHarg IL (1963) Ecology of the city. University of Pennsylvania course syllabus, Spring 1963. The Architectural Archives, School of Design, the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA (This is a 17-page PDF, courtesy of the Architectural Archives, School of Design, the University of Pennsylvania; page numbered by the author; the PDF is available upon request from the author wxiang@uncc.edu)
McHarg IL (1966) The ecology of the city: a plea for environmental consciousness of the city’s physiological and psychological impacts. In: Whiffen M (ed) The architect and the city; papers from the AIA-ACSA Teacher Seminar, Cranbrook Academy of Art, June 11–22, 1962. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 53–65
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Fritz Steiner and Bill Whitaker (the University of Pennsylvania, USA) for providing McHarg’s 1963 class syllabus “Ecology of the city” (McHarg 1963). The writing of this communication is inspired in part by the comments Fritz Steiner and Bill Cohen (Temple University, USA) made on another paper of mine, of which the content in this communication is a part. The research and writing activities pertaining to this article are supported in part by China National R & D Program entitled “Building strong ecological security patterns through elevating green infrastructure’s level of ecosystem services” (No. 2017YFC0505705).
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Xiang, WN. Ian McHarg and “the ecology of the city”. Socio Ecol Pract Res 1, 163–164 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42532-019-00012-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42532-019-00012-8