Urban Nature: The Ecology of Cities

Over half of the world's population now lives in urban areas, and this proportion is only expected to grow in the coming decades. Cities are incredibly heterogeneous both within and among urban centers due to variation in both historical and contemporary policies. In this course we will explore how the historical and ongoing structures of urban areas affect the human and non-human occupants of cities through the lens of urban ecology, a growing discipline which explicitly links the physical and social sciences. To develop our understanding of this topic, we will use a combination of field trips, discussions with practitioners whose work touches on aspects of urban ecology, and discussion of primary scientific literature and media materials.