"The environmental future of the planet is going to depend primarily on the city and the way its citizens live."

Understanding urban planning by examining respect for the global natural environment. This is one of the focuses of the research carried out by Javier Zulategui, a former student of Biology at the Faculty of Sciences and PhD from the School of Architecture, who has defended his research on "The city: Forgetting and reencountering the natural. Towards a review of environmental concepts in urban planning".  

The starting point of this work is the contradiction between an environmentally conscious urban society and the progressive deterioration of the planet. In this sense, Dr. Zulategui proposes to define the city as an active part in the care of the Earth and invites the discipline of urban planning to renew some current structures and functions, in the search for a greater environmental commitment. "The city is the predominant habitat of human beings and the lifestyles it implies determine their relationship with nature throughout the Earth. The environmental future of the planet will depend mainly on the city and the way its citizens live," says Dr. Zulategui.

This research contributes to rethinking the role of the city in protecting the environment, the influence that the design of cities has on the human-nature relationship, and how urban planning is called upon to foster sustainable attitudes in citizens, beyond the urban sphere. "This perspective implies questioning everything from the way in which each individual decides how to spend his or her time, how he or she moves around, what paths he or she chooses or how much attention he or she pays to the environment around him or her, to the type of products he or she consumes or the criteria on the basis of which he or she decides where to live". 

Dr. Zulategui's work has consisted of a critical analysis of the history of modern urbanism and environmental sciences in parallel, as well as a review of the concepts of sustainability, ecology and landscape, and their practical incorporation into the design of cities. "Better incorporating these terms into urban theory and practice allows us to more adequately address this environmental challenge we face in the city."

For Javier Zulategui, the future of research must be aimed at understanding the city as the main framework for redefining the relationship between human beings and their urban, rural and natural environment. "Faced with an environmental scenario of uncertainty, the city must become one of the keys to redefining the relationship between human beings and nature, and for this it is necessary to seek another way of looking at the history of urbanism, aided by a more demanding understanding of environmental concepts."