Cities and Natural Process is a book for all concerned with the future of our cities, their design and sustainability, and our quality of life within them. Michael Hough describes how economic and technological values have squeezed any real sense of nature out of the modern city, the ways in which this has led to a divisive separation of countryside and city, wasted much of the city's resources, and shaped an urban aesthetic which is sharply at odds with both natural and social processes. Against this is set an alternative history of ecological values informing proven approaches to urban design which work with nature in the city.
Biography
Michael Hough is a landscape architect and senior partner in the Toronto firm of Hough, Stanbar, Nayor and Dance. He is also Professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, Canada.
'This is a book of ideas and imagination which should stimulate anyone concerned about the future of urban life ... excellent material to stimulate tutorial discussion.' - Times Higher Education Supplement
'A classic in our own time ... its message is sorely needed; its painstaking and authoritative guidance will be of inestimable value.' - Landscape Architecture
' ... a concise, comprehensive and readable volume ... that applies not only to landscape architecture but to all professionals involved in city planning and conservation ... an excellent textbook.' - Landscape Architecture
'A landmark in the environmental literature ... for the first time an author has attempted in one concise, comprehensive volume, to treat as an ecosystem a major part of the modern landscape which has generally been regarded as outside the range of natural process: the city.' - Land Use Policy
