STUDENT REFLECTIONS The anthropogenic impacts of cities range from local to regional and global scales on the biosphere, despite cities’ relatively small area on the planet’s surface. Furthermore, the urban population is continuously growing. Despite their negative impacts, cities are viable centers of human habitation and progress with the potential to generate human well-being and create positive externalities. In this sense, they should be considered for reversing the trend of carbon dioxide emissions, climate change, sea level rise, shallow groundwater, poverty, social inequities, among other environmental and social problems. Cities are the center for political decision and action. Indeed, Dr. Orr argues for ecological design as a political act towards protecting the environment in the long-term. It is necessary to better understand the systems, natural and human, in order to overcome the major crisis we are facing—whether it is political, environmental, or social. Dr. Braham claims that ecological principles, as self-organization and balanced resource flow and exchange, should provide the necessary integration between the human built environment and its urban systems to
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the natural cycles. Dr. Hill evidences that an unstable environmental period is imminent and that design oriented towards ecological aspects brings innovation to adapt, to rescue territories and assets, humankind and ecosystems. A sound ecology may not be achieved without considering urbanization as the key driver for ecological change. Therefore, cities need to be reconnected to the biosphere with a new and bold praxis for ecological balance, social justice, and civility. The social-ecological urban perspective should be made visible, as cities impact vast areas of functioning ecosystems for consumption and waste assimilation beyond their borders. The social and ecological systems are intrinsically interconnected and design can enhance and balance its relationship to transform and protect the future.
— Clarissa Ferreira Albrecht da Silveira, PhD Student in Architecture, and Paula Neder de Araujo Brito, Master of Science Student in Landscape Architecture