Ecology and Planning

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Abstract
Certain remarkable similarities can be found between the concerns of ecologists and planners. Like complex urban systems, ecological systems appear to be characterized by four distinctive properties. These include their functioning as interdependent systems, their dependence on a succession of historical events, their spatial linkages, and their non-linear structure. Both systems appear to have considerable internal resilience within a certain domain of stability. However, programs such as insecticide spraying or urban renewal, that disturb the complex balance of either system, can generate unexpected and undesirable results. Use of an ecological framework for planning suggests new principles based more on recognition of our ignorance than presumption of our knowledge about the systems in which we try to intervene.

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