a Healthy Future" describing it as a city where human beings live in harmony with nature and therefore greatly reducing their ecological footprint. Urban Ecology began publishing articles focused on similar complex urban issues that elevated the movement further with the creation of their magazine, 'Urban Ecology' in 1987. For two decades, they also publish two newsletters, 'The Sustainable Activist' and 'The Urban Ecologist' to pursue their vision. In the 1990s, there we two important events that began the initiative for eco-city developments. The first event involved the publication of the Brundtland Report. The Brundtland Report presented the idea of sustainable development. The second event occurred in 1992 at the United Nations Earth Summit. The members at the summit created a plan to apply sustainable development to our cities. The Eco-city's that were developed during this time period incorporated the concept of sustainable development. However, a majority of the developments were created to provide a vision of an eco-city. Eco-cities have now become a popular way to create sustainable new urban development. International Ecocity Conference Series aka Ecocity World Summit Urban Ecology further advanced the movement when they hosted the first International Ecocity Conference in Berkeley, California in 1990. The conference focused on urban sustainability problems and encouraged over 800 participants from 13 countries to submit proposals on best practices to reform cities for a better urban ecological balance. Following this, in 1992, Richard Register founded the non-profit organization Ecocity Builders, to advance a set of goals outlined in the conference. Since its conception, the organization has been the convener of the International Ecocity Conference Series, now knowns as Ecocity World . The IECS has been the longest standing international conference series consisting of biennial Ecocity World Summits (EWS) and has been held in Adelaide, Australia (1992); Yoff, Senegal (1996); Curitiba, Brazil (2000); Shenzhen, China (2002); Bangalore, India (2006); San Francisco, United States (2008); Istanbul, Turkey (2009); Montreal, Canada (2011); Nantes, France (2013); Abu Dhabi, UAE (2015), Melbourne, Australia (2017); Vancouver, Canada (2019); and Rotterdam, the Netherlands (2022). Other leading figures include architect Paul F Downton and authors Timothy Beatley and Steffen Lehmann, who have written extensively on the subject. Current trends Criteria An ideal eco-city has frequently been described as one that fulfills the following requirements: Operates on a self-contained economy that obtains resources locally Is entirely carbon-neutral by promoting techniques like the use and production of renewable energy