Adopting a modern ecological view of the metropolitan landscape: the case of a greenspace system for the New York City region

Concern about environmental quality and the long-term livability of urban areas is now a driving paradigm for planning professionals. Although a modern ecological framework exists, inappropriate or outdated concepts continue to be used in the context of land-use decision making. These classical concepts emphasize a static view of the landscape and focus on short term planing of single sites. The modern framework emphasizes a dynamic view of a biologically rich urban environment with a focus on interactions among multiple sites across temporal scales. We summarize this framework by presenting five key ecological principles—content, context, dynamics, heterogeneity and hierarchy—and use the New York City Metropolitan Area as a case study to illustrate how these principles might be applied to achieve specific planning goals. We additionally use the case study as reference in providing some guidelines to more effectively incorporate the modern ecological framework in future planning.