Responses: Framing Ecology as an Urban Concern Has Merit

Abstract

Margrit Hugentobler advocates a version of urban sustainable development which rests on an appeal to nature or “natural harmony.” To do this, we have to have conceptions both of nature and of human society. These conceptions will determine, among other things, the extent to which human societies are to be regarded as part of the natural world. Then we have to have ethical or moral premises to argue that human societies and habitations should imitate or emulate nature. These moral premises are assumed rather than validated in Margrit Hugentobler's critique.