The U.S. spends trillions of dollars on health care each year yet we are some of the sickest people on earth. In 2011, the WHO ranked the U.S. health care system 47th in overall performance. We have 15.7 million people with diabetes. High blood pressure attacks 1 in 4. Nearly 40 million Americans have arthritis. 8.4 million Americans have a history of cancer. Some 20 million have asthma. We have enacted the AMA and FDA's remedy for health for generations and it has not proven to be successful. The green movement that is now permeating our consciousness is propelling us to a life without toxic chemicals and drugs. The shape of medicine is coming full circle; from the shaman of ancient times, to the dawn of science's cutting edge technology, and now back to a natural base. Health comes from fresh air, clean water, whole food, and a nervous system that can coordinate and regulate all body functions. Nature is the master of life, not the laboratory.

Case studies from cities on five continents demonstrate the advantages of thinking comparatively about urban environments. The global discourse around urban ecology tends to homogenize and universalize, relying on such terms as “smart cities,” “eco-cities,” and “resilience,” and proposing a “science of cities” based largely on information from the Global North. Grounding Urban Natures makes the case for the importance of place and time in understanding urban environments. Rather than imposing a unified framework on the ecology of cities, the contributors use a variety of approaches across a range of of locales and timespans to examine how urban natures are part of—and are shaped by—cities and urbanization. Grounding Urban Natures offers case studies from cities on five continents that demonstrate the advantages of thinking comparatively about urban environments. The contributors consider the diversity of urban natures, analyzing urban ecologies that range from the coastal delta of New Orleans to real estate practices of the urban poor in Lagos. They examine the effect of popular movements on the meanings of urban nature in cities including San Francisco, Delhi, and Berlin. Finally, they explore abstract urban planning models and their global mobility, examining real-world applications in such cities as Cape Town, Baltimore, and the Chinese “eco-city” Yixing. Contributors Martín Ávila, Amita Baviskar, Jia-Ching Chen, Henrik Ernstson, James Evans, Lisa M. Hoffman, Jens Lachmund, Joshua Lewis, Lindsay Sawyer, Sverker Sörlin, Anne Whiston Spirn, Lance van Sittert, Richard A. Walker

A guide to trade names, brand names, product names, coined names, model names, and design names, with addresses of their manufacturers, importers, marketers, or distributors.

Deals with the topics of logistics management.