Urban grasslands, defined as land areas within settled landscapes dominated by residential use and turfgrass vegetation, are an important ecosystem component. In the United States, turfgrass covers an area larger than the area of any other irrigated crop (Milesi et al. 2005). Urban grasslands and human management of these systems are important drivers of nutrient and energy movement at the landscape scale, yet a theoretical understanding of ecosystem processes governing the movement of nutrients in these important systems has not yet been developed. We suggest that a theoretical understanding of the similarities and differences between natural grasslands, urban grasslands, and forests in terms of productivity measurements such as NPP and NEP are a critical first step toward developing this integrated and process-level understanding of ecosystem function in urban grasslands. This workshop seeks to bring together experts on grassland productivity, forest productivity, and turfgrass systems to develop a common understanding of similarities and differences among methods for measuring productivity.