Green Cities: Ecologically Sound Approaches to Urban Space

Pleasance Crawford, a Canadian landscape and garden history researcher
and writer, is the editor of Landscape Architectural Review.

An anthology edited by David Gordon for the Pollution Probe Foundation,
this book appears to have grown out of presentations at a “Greening
the City” conference held in Toronto in February 1987. It presents the
theories and experiences of people who—as professionals, citizen
activists, or both—have become experts in applying ecological
principles to urban areas.

Among the Canadian contributors are Michael Hough, a Toronto landscape
architect; the late Robert Dorney, an ecologist; and Jacklyn Courval of
the Toronto group Friends of the Spit. Included also are contributions
and case studies from the United States, Mexico, England, the
Netherlands, India, China, and Japan. There are excellent reference
lists for further reading and action.

The traditional urban plantings of exotic grasses, flowers, shrubs, and
trees are not enough. To be life-supporting—and possibly also less
costly to maintain—sizable areas in our cities must again become
natural: ecologically complex and ultimately self-sustaining. As an
informative guide toward these objectives, this book should be readily
available to ordinary citizens, parks and planning staffs, and
politicians.