Category: Urban Environmental Science

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Unintended outcome? Required solar panels on new houses limits future urban forest

At today’s meeting of the California Energy Commission, an update to the California Building Energy Efficiency Standards was passed that would require solar panels on the roof of all new residential construction.  In the abstract, I am a strong supporter of distributed solar generation, especially as a means to reduce impacts to wildlands from extensive … Continue reading Unintended outcome? Required solar panels on new houses limits future urban forest

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Healthy Urbanism in Polluted Cities

  Colleagues at USC Environmental Health Centers are putting together a 1-day conference titled Parks, Pollution, and Obesity. I’ve been awarded a USC Architecture Graduate Research Scholar grant to work with this group to bridge between the public health researchers and landscape architects and urbanists. The premise is as follows. Awareness among landscape architects, urban … Continue reading Healthy Urbanism in Polluted Cities

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Cryptic Biodiversity Abounds in Los Angeles

Cities are often perceived as biodiversity wastelands. Adding to that perception is the common result of research surveys of urban biodiversity, which often report limited and declining numbers of species (1). Concealed by that preconception, however, is the extraordinary undiscovered biodiversity that still exists, even in the most urban of environments. Much of this biodiversity … Continue reading Cryptic Biodiversity Abounds in Los Angeles