Compact urban development with large open spaces slows bird declines

"We show that urban growth of any type reduces bird distributions overall, but compact development substantially slows these reductions at the city scale."

Sushinsky et al evaluated the changes in bird populations between sprawling cities and dense, compact cities. They found that while all urban growth reduces overall bird density but that compact cities have slower declines. In their 2012 Global Change Biology journal article that "Our results suggest that cities built to minimize per capita ecological impact are characterized by high residential density, with large interstitial green spaces and small backyards, and that there are important trade‐offs between maintaining city‐wide species diversity and people's access to biodiversity in their own backyard."

Sushinsky, J. R, Rhodes, J. R., Possingham, H. P., Gill, T. K. and Fuller, R. A. (2013) How should we grow cities to minimize their biodiversity impacts? Global Change Biology 19, 401–410.