Readings

The readings below represent the required readings for each week. Please see Further Reading for a list of additional readings.

SES # TOPICS READINGS
1 Ideas of Nature and City Design and Development

Buy at Amazon Williams, Raymond. "Ideas of Nature." In Problems in Materialism and Culture. Verso, 1985, pp. 67–85. ISBN: 9780860917298.

Buy at Amazon Spirn, Anne Whiston. "Ecological Urbanism." In Resilience in Ecology and Urban Design: Linking Theory and Practice for Sustainable Cities. Edited by M. L. Cadenasso Pickett, and Brian McGrath. Springer, 2013. ISBN: 9789400753433. [Preview with Google Books]

[Further Reading]

2 Urban Nature and City Design: Practice, Theory, and Tradition I

Buy at Amazon Spirn, Anne Whiston. The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design. Basic Books, 1984. ISBN: 9780465026999.

[Further Reading]

3 Urban Nature and City Design: "The Power of Example"

Buy at Amazon Flyvbjerg, Bent. "The Power of Example." In Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How it Can Succeed Again. Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780521775687.

In addition, select one of the following two sets of readings:

Buy at Amazon Hise, Greg, and William Deverell. Eden By Design: The 1930 Olmsted-Bartholomew Plan for the Los Angeles Region. University of California, 2000. ISBN: 9780520224155. [Preview with Google Books]

Or

This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.Philadelphia: Philadelphia Water Department. (PDF - 4.49MB) Long-term Combined Sewer Overflow Program: Program Summary.

Madden, Sarah. Choosing Green Over Gray: Philadelphia's Innovative Stormwater Infrastructure Plan. MIT MCP Thesis, 2010.

[Further Reading]

4 Urban Nature and City Design: Practice, Theory, and Tradition II

Buy at Amazon Spirn, Anne Whiston. "Restoring Mill Creek: Landscape Literacy, Environmental History, and City Planning and Design." In Nature's Entrepot: Philadelphia's Urban Sphere and Its Environmental Thresholds. Edited by Brian Black, and Michael Chiarappa. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780822944171.

———. The Mill Creek Project.

———. The West Philadelphia Landscape Plan: A Framework for Action. The West Philadelphia Landscape Plan, 1991.

West Philadelphia Landscape Project website.

[Further Reading]

5 Introduction to Library Resources and Image Copyright Issues No Readings
6 Earth and Water Select one of the two sets of readings below.

Buy at Amazon Robinson, G. D., and A. M. Spieker. Nature to be Commanded...Earth-Science Maps Applied to Land and Water Management Occasional Paper 950. USGS, 1978.

Buy at Amazon McPhee, John. "Los Angeles against the Mountains." In The Control of Nature. Farrar Straus Giroux, 1989. ISBN: 9780374128906.

Or

Buy at Amazon Dunne, Thomas, and Luna Leopold. Water in Environmental Planning. W. H. Freeman & Company Limited, 1978. ISBN: 9780716700791.

Tree People ("Rainwater as a Resource." in particular).

[Further Reading]

7 Air and the Urban Biome Select one of the two sets of readings below.

Arnfield, A. John. "Two Decades of Urban Climate Research: A Review of Turbulence, Exchanges of Energy and Water, and the Urban Heat Island." International Journal of Climatology 23, no. 1 (2003): 1–26.

Spirn, Anne Whiston. This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader."Better Air Quality at Street Level: Strategies for Urban Design." (PDF - 3.06MB) 1986.

Or

Pickett, S. T. A., and M. L. Cadenasso. "Linking Ecological and Built Components of Urban Mosaics: An Open Cycle of Ecological Design." Journal of Ecology 96, no. 1 (2008): 8–12.

Felson, Alexander, and Steward Pickett. "Designed Experiments: New Approaches to Studying Urban Ecosystems." Frontiers in Ecology and Environment 3, no. 10 (2005): 549–56.

Pickett, S. T. A., M. L. Cadenasso, et al. "Resilient Cities: Meaning, Models and Metaphor for Integrating the Ecological, Socio-economic, and Planning Realms." Landscape and Urban Planning 69, no. 4 (2004): 369–84.

Casey Trees website

[Further Reading]

8 Presentations and Discussion  
9 Presentations and Discussion (cont.)  
10 Web Authoring Workshop  
11 Presentations and Discussion  
12 Presentations and Discussion (cont.)  
13 Reflections: Lessons for Cities

Buy at Amazon Schön, Donald. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books, 1983.

[Further Reading]