Urban Design Ecologies Reader gives architects and urban planners critical tools to understand urban design today. Featuring essays by leaders in the field, the book combines an historical perspective with forward-looking material on the global challenges of rapid urbanization and climate change. It highlights the recent thinking in urban development, covering key concepts such as the architecture of the city, metropolitan architecture (or big architecture), the nature of sprawl, the mega city (or the informal city), and the meta city, created by digital technologies and ecological thinking.