ABSTRACT
This chapter examines urban ecology and urban sustainability by looking at the ecology of cities, their use of energy, their spatial heterogeneity, and how they structure the behavior of the inhabitants. It begins by taking a quick look at how cities have changed through history. One way to proceed in the study of urban ecology is to examine salient aspects of land use that offer potential for investigating human-ecological interactions, for example, type and density of land use, land-use succession, scale, location, and pattern of development. Ecologists are beginning to see that cities have an ecology and that issues such as biodiversity, energy, and material cycles are just as relevant to the ecology of cities as they are for natural systems. The relationship of the physical environment and cities has been of interest from the beginning of social theory. Water could become a limiting factor to future urban growth. This demand for urban water use conflicts with water-intensive agricultural uses.
