Regenerating Essential Goods and Services in Urban Landscapes: Sustainability Through Ecological Design

How do we provide for and nurture millions of people without destroying the planet in the process?

Author Doug Kent, an environmental specialist, believes a vital element in the solution is recognizing that urban landscapes are an essential partner in everyone’s wellbeing. He argues that urban landscapes can and must work harder.

Urban landscapes can provide part of our energy needs, help cool our buildings and public spaces, help us make the most of our precious water. They can also help combat air pollution and reduce the likelihood of allergies and asthma. They can provide landscape materials and even contribute to our timber supply. Doug also advocates turning landscapes into a food source, and/or a perfumery, pharmacy, soap shop, or craft store.

Doug has over 12 years of research in this book. He has spent years doing literature reviews, and many more years concocting, consuming, crafting, distilling, propagating, retting, sawing, sowing, and weaving its many recommendations. He has also travelled the length and width of California many times to interview the people and businesses already doing this incredible work.

Regenerating Essential Goods and Services is not a manifesto. It is a user’s manual. You are the creative and energetic force that will ultimately drive sustainability and regeneration. Let’s go.

Doug Kent is an author, activist, and educator in ecological land management. He has been exploring the dynamics and ecology of human sustainability for decades. He started gardening in 1979, began pursuing environmental remedies in 1988, became a landscape designer/contractor in 1995, embraced urban regeneration in 2003, and started teaching land management in 2005.

Doug is the author of eight environmental land management books, including Firescaping: Protecting your home with a fire-resistant landscape (Wilderness Press 2019, 2nd Ed.); Foraging Southern California: 118 nutritious, tasty and abundant foods (Adventure Publication); California Friendly: A Maintenance Guide for Landscapers, Gardeners and Land Managers (MUNI 2017); Ocean Friendly Gardens: A how-to gardening guide to help restore a healthy coast and ocean (Surfrider Foundation 2009); and A New Era of Gardening: A book on gardening for oxygen and a healthier atmosphere (Garden Shed Productions 2001). He has also written articles for some the state’s largest newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Register, Marin Independent Journal, and Press Democrat.

More than anything, Doug loves to teach. He has been teaching land management for over 16 years. Currently, he teaches at Center for Regenerative Studies at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, UCLA Extension Horticulture, and USC Landscape Architecture and Urbanism. He has also taught sustainable landscaping classes for California’s largest water and power providers, conservation agencies, and environmental non-profits since 2009.

His work can be viewed at www.anfractus.com and he can be reached at newair@mindspring.com.