Themester

Must cities be disconnected from nature? Or can our cities be greener places, more alive with trees, birds, and other wildlife? Can such greener cities actually be more functional cities, which deliver essential services like food and clean water and air with less pollution and overall higher quality of life? Around the world, biodiverse green spaces are increasingly recognized as “green infrastructure” capable of providing lower cost, more resilient, and often healthier services to humans than can the corresponding energy intensive “gray infrastructure” of the built environment. Drawing from ecological science and the arts and humanities, this course takes an interdisciplinary, place-based approach to understanding biological diversity and its relationship to flourishing human societies, and to reconnecting humans and nature.