ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the evolution of urban ecology through eight events or stages in its history. The events are: the emergence of urban natural history, the impact of World War II on urban ecology, industrial dereliction and the emergence of urban ecology as a distinct discipline, and growth of global environmental concern. The events also include: urban ecology in integrated thinking about cities, rapid growth of urban nature conservation in the 1980s, the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, the urban ecology boom of the 1990s. The interplay of ecological, economic, social, and political factors is well illustrated by urban food production. Urban allotment gardens as a source of vegetables and fruits were an important issue during the greater part of the twentieth century across Europe. The three paradigms ‘in’, ‘of’, and ‘for’ are seen as progressively more complex in the range of topics involved, from traditional ecological studies to multi-dimensional issues of urban sustainability.
