Urban Jungle: The History and Future of Nature in the City

“Urban Jungle” is a book about things we usually see as mutually exclusive: nature and cities. They aren’t as separate as we may think, it tells us. In fact, cities teem today with plant life, insects and wildlife. And for the sake of cities, the book argues argues, we need them to teem even more.

Ben Wilson is a British historian who has written six previous books, including a well-regarded history of cities.

The big ideas for Urban Atlanta:

1. Living infrastructure (plants, insects, birds and wildlife) are as important to the livability and success of cities as built infrastructure. 
2. There are far more places in cities that can be made green with plantings or blue with water than we think. And sometimes, as we’ve seen in parks like the Historic Old Fourth Ward Park in Atlanta, blue and green can be combined in innovative ways.
3. We need not just more green spaces in cities but more natural places that are lightly managed. This has benefits for birds and wildlife, but wilder places are also better at dealing with the long droughts and massive rainfalls we will see with climate change.
4. We need to care more for urban streams and free as many of them as possible from culverts and sewers. “Daylighted” streams are one way we can cool cities, deal with stormwater runoff and take pressure off our built environment.