Not What Nature Can Do for the City but What the City Can Do for Nature

Abstract

When we talk about climate change or resources like energy or water, we discuss new technologies and new designs that will help us continue with our lives, just with less detrimental impact. Design approaches start with a focus on people; environmental aspects are brought in later as acts of mitigation. Perhaps the agenda for the twenty-first century has to change from what nature can do for the city to what the city can do for nature. Here, we illustrate how the framework of complex adaptive systems and the concept of coupled urban-natural systems offer better ways of addressing current problems. From this perspective, we examine water scarcity and initiatives that not only reduce water con..