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While there is growing awareness that cities affect almost every ecosystem on earth, significantly contribute to the loss of biodiversity, and are increasingly vulnerable to environmental change, a global analysis of the environmental impacts of urbanization has been lacking. While previous studies have examined particular cities or a particular facet of the urban environment, few attempts have been made to assess the prospects for supporting ecosystem services on an urbanized planet. On the one hand, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), the world’s largest assessment of ecosystems, covered almost every ecosystem in the world but made few references to urban areas. On the other, the World Development Report, the world’s largest assessment of urbanization published by the World Bank annually, makes few references to ecosystems. It is this knowledge gap we attempt to bridge by this book and the …