摘要：There is an ecology that is particular to the urban (Breuste etal. 2008). Urban ecological systems are deeply situated in thefunctioning of society, and as such have unique drivers andselection pressures (Collins et al. 2000, Yli-Pelkonen andNiemela 2005, Sochat et al. 2006). What has emerged in recentwork is a complex of in- and of- city ecologies which striveto address sustainability at multiple scales, often in the contextof joint anthropogenic and conservation agendas (Grimm etal. 2008). In the City of Cape Town there are multiple demandson urban land use to meet development and conservationneeds. The consequences of an unjust history are still verymuch evident in the City of Cape Town today wheredevelopment discrepancies are acute and the demand for shortterm delivery high (Turok and Watson 2001). The City is alsohost to exceptional, and geographically restricted,biodiversity, on a scale that gives it international conservationattention (Myers et al. 2000). Like other cities around theworld, Cape Town has seen phenomenal population growthin the last century, growing from just over 630,000 in 1951,to 3.7 million today (Quick 1995, City of Cape Town 2010).This developing City, situated in the south, with its myriad ofsocial and environmental issues, playing out at various scales,makes Cape Town both a relevant and exciting place to furtherthe field of urban ecology
关键词：African Centre for Cities; Cape Town; CityLab; social urban ecology; urban ecology
