Humans create urban landscapes to provide a pleasing place of refuge that is driven by a deep sense of need for security and creation of a unique point of interaction with nature. Plant distribution and species composition in urban landscapes is an interactive function of preceived self interest and resource availability to service that preceived self interest. People overplant landscapes to gain instant gratification, this creates green waste. People are more likely to participate in green waste recycling when it is more expensive not to participate. People compost out of preceived self interest.
Monetary empowerment increases homeowner influence on landscape form.
After residents have lived in a hot, arid environment they will increasingly prefer a cool, shaded green oasis landscape. Preceived self interests are not thoroughly informed and so are not always in the best interest of the ecosystem. Mycorrhizal fungal ecology is outside the sphere of an human self interest. Therefore, mycorrhizal fungi are more susceptible to adverse human affects than those parts of the landscape that are visible. Mycorrhizal fungal community dynamics in urban landscapes are driven largely by human actions.