ABSTRACT
When Jane Jacobs typed the foreword to her Modern Library Edition of The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1993) she wrote, “[…] I realized I was engaged in studying the ecology of cities.” Her self-reflection and observation was prescient. Since then, thinkers in the emerging field of urban ecology have assembled a body of knowledge poised to transform the way we think about and practice the arts and sciences of city building. This perspective shift is transforming the pedagogy of urban planning and design. Governance and policy in several of the world’s cities and regions has led to substantive change, such as in Freiburg, Germany, where local government’s commitment to reducing their reliance on fossil and nuclear fuels has made the city a world leader in renewable energy. While there are warehouses filled (and empty) with reasons to believe there are dark days ahead, this chapter will illustrate how an act of restorative urbanism at the University of Utah foreshadows broad acceptance for the new planning paradigm of urban ecology. The case study is a clear example that we are in the midst of what Johanna Macy (2007) calls “the great turning.” This shift, as Macy believes, “from the industrial growth society to a life-sustaining civilization,” is central to our new way of thinking about planning processes, pedagogy and city building – or city ecology.
