This is an invited presentation that I gave for the Faculty of Science at the National University of Singapore on the occasion of an outreach event organised for junior college students. It gives an overview of how urbanisation is not only a major factor in the ongoing loss of biodiversity, but also a trend that has the potential to offer some innovative solutions to that loss. Most of the content is pretty general and applicable to urban centres worldwide, but many of the examples are specific to Southeast Asia and Singapore.