Design and Future of Urban Biodiversity

The beginning of the 21st century can be characterized by tremendous growth of urban areas and the accompanied processes of globalization and unification of urban environments. Today the process of globalization is associated with the use of similar urban design and planning structures (downtowns, 'routine' modernism buildings), landscape architecture styles (global picturesque and gardenesque), and similar plant and construction materials. Urban biodiversity today can play an important role for ecological and cultural identity of cities around the world. Because of the origin of Western Civilization in Europe, the European understanding of urban biodiversity and the ways of reinforcing, reintroducing and designing nature in urban environments is different from the view in the Southern Hemisphere, where native biota have been lost or dramatically suppressed by the introduction of thousands of 'familiar', 'motherland' species from the Northern Hemisphere. This chapter will explore existing approaches (case studies) in dealing with design of urban biodiversity in different countries around the globe on different scales (large/landscape, intermediate/community and small/population). Programmes such as Low Impact Development, biotope mapping, approaches such as 'go native', 'plant signature', 'spontaneous vegetation', pictorial meadows, and xeriscaping will be discussed. Evaluations of their ecological, design and social potentials will also be made.