ABSTRACT
Urbanization rates worldwide point to the inevitability that humans will henceforth be an urban species, or ‘Metro sapiens’, with the city as the predominant habitat for humans. This chapter aims to fill this gap, with an emphasis on their design using the concept of ecosystem services, which has gained acceptance in urban planning and landscape architecture in recent years. The urban ecosystem services concept is also gaining recognition and acceptance, notwithstanding that the conceptual underpinnings and definition of the term still require further clarification. The application of the urban ecosystem services concept underscores the point that design and the interplay between the natural, built, and social components of the neighborhood have a central role in determining the level of urban ecosystem services that can be produced by neighborhood greenspaces. A large number of ecosystem services have been described by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and others, not all of which are applicable or relevant to the city as a human-dominated environment.
