In the ancient world, many civilizations thrived for hundreds of years and had cities with large populations (Smith, 2007). These cities existed before the development of contemporary formal urban planning practices (which started around the industrial era, when they emerged for the betterment of urban cities by improving the quality of life of the working class) (Filion et al., 2015).
The Ecozoic transition, a term coined by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme, is defined as a transition from “an anthropocentric to a biocentric norm of progress. If there is to be any true progress, then the entire life community must progress. Any progress of the human at the expense of the larger life community must ultimately lead to a diminishment of the human life itself” (Berry, 1988).