Exploring Biophilic Cities
The theory and practice of planning and designing biophilic cities from global leaders and practitioners
Tree cut down in Charlottesville, VA. Image by Tim Beatley.
A New Tree Ethic: What If Trees Really Mattered?
By Tim Beatley
Published at July 2023 at The Nature of Cities
Several weeks ago, I was startled when taking a typical morning walk to find that a large and majestic white oak tree had been cut down and lay in the front of a neighbor’s yard. It was a shocking and sad sight, a tree I had admired almost daily, reduced to a pile of sawed-up and lifeless segments on the ground. Several days later I happened upon the neighbor who was standing in front of his home. While I did not know him personally, I mustered up the courage to ask why he had cut down the tree.
Planning With Nature at the Center
By Tim Beatley
Published October 2022 at planning.org
Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson once observed that the human species "has grown up with nature." It is not surprising that nature seems to cast such a magical spell on us: it taps into our deepest feelings of home and, as the concept of biophilia suggests, it is encoded within our genes.
The research confirms that we are smarter, happier, less stressed, even more generous, when we have nature around us. More than two years of a global pandemic have provided ample evidence of our need for nature, as more people sought the essential refuge of outdoor nature, whether a park, a forest, or a backyard garden. Time away from the office has meant more time to see, listen, and connect to the natural world around us.
View of Chicago's City Hall's Green Roof. Image by Center for Neighborhood Technology.
THE HALF-EARTH CITY
By Tim Beatley and JD Brown
Published June 2021 in William & Mary Environment Law & Policy Review
At the intersection of the biophilic city and the global commitment to halt biodiversity declines lies the half-earth city.
E.O. Wilson inspired the global effort to conserve and restore half the Earth, to sustain remaining biodiversity, necessarily focused on areas where the human footprint is small and the conversion of land to anthropogenic land use is less pronounced. However, given the increasing urbanization of the globe, cities must also play a central role in the conservation of global biodiversity. Holistic ecoregional planning must account for the impact of cities and work to ensure that urban areas are built in harmony with a world where nature receives half.
LESSONS FROM THE PANDEMIC: EQUITABLE URBAN NATURE
By JD Brown & Meredith Hoos
As part of an ongoing series, we will examine what the pandemic has taught us about nature in cities. Today, we begin, in the first of a two-part post, with the priority to create more equitable nature in cities. Part 1 will examine the history and evidence of inequity and how the pandemic has only exacerbated these inequities. Part 2 will follow with an introduction to projects and programs arising in response to the pandemic that reach for a more equitable future for nature in cities.
SAN FRANCISCO STREET PARKS: A CASE STUDY ON NATURE AND PUBLIC HEALTH
By Lucia Shuff-Heck
A common challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly in the United States, has been meeting the need and demand for access to nature in cities. Parks that were once accessible are now too crowded, while families that were already struggling to find access to nature now face additional obstacles in terms of closures and high demand for limited space. Throughout the pandemic, rates of anxiety and depression have increased substantially and communities have sought solace in the outdoors. As studies have shown, short periods of time spent in nature, or even greened areas, can help to alleviate stress and anxiety and promote mental wellness. This makes equitable access all the more critical.
Now more than ever, it is imperative that urban nature is accessible for everyone. Nature can mitigate against the social isolation resulting from the pandemic. Limited park access, or even park closures instituted against a CDC recommendation, can lessen the ability of nature to aid residents in the time of the crisis. The overlapping impacts of restricted access to nature and the pandemic are compounded for communities of color, as Black neighborhoods have much more limited access to green space. These racial disparities are mirrored in the demographic data for coronavirus, as Black patients are more likely to experience increased susceptibility to the virus, as well as being at higher risk for complications. In this way, the pandemic has illuminated an oft-overlooked element of public health, as well as highlighting inequity in the distribution of the essential services that nature provides.
SHRINKING FOREST CANOPIES AND URBAN HEAT ISLANDS
By Lucia Shuff-Heck
In the latest issue of the Biophilic Cities Journal, Vol. 3 No. 2, Taking Stock: The First Step to Creating Healthier Cities With Trees provided an overview of tools to assist cities in improving tree canopy, targeting areas of the city that need it most. The article by David Novak, a senior scientist and i-Tree Team Leader with the USDA Forest Service, outlines some of the characteristics of tree canopies in cities, including the problems they are facing.
As urban populations grow, and cities expand, tree populations continue to decline. An important aspect of forest management is data collection, something the USDA hopes to encourage with tools such as I-Tree, an analytical tool that provides information on urban forests by quantifying the structure and value of local forests. Through I-Tree, cities can accurately assess tree canopies by parcel and identify threats to the health of trees and forests.
Forest management tools like I-Tree also have the potential to help cities identify insufficient tree canopy in underserved neighborhoods. Unequal distribution of nature across cities is part of a larger trend, in the United States and across the globe, that threatens cities and their residents. One of the detrimental effects of inadequate green space is the urban heat island effect, a challenge that only grows more severe as climate change stokes increasingly higher temperatures in hot summer months.
Miami Shoreline
Published in the UVA Darden Global Water Blog (May 1, 2020)
Shorebird City
By Tim Beatley
In early March, just a handful of days before the Covid-19 crisis would paralyze American society, I flew to Miami to address an international meeting of the horticultural industry. Looking out the window on the approach to the Miami airport, all the profound alterations to the natural world in that part of the country were vividly on display. The coastal landscape here, like many parts of the United States and the world, is highly altered—there is the tangle of roads, there are parking lots and sprawl, and the shore and water edges are hardscaped and human-engineered. There is water and lots of shoreline edges but limited natural habitat: not a very hospitable setting for birds or any other form of non-human life, it seemed. On that arrival, I found myself thinking of how dangerous this modern Miami cityscape has become for birds.
The global picture for seabirds and shorebirds is fairly consistent with my visual impressions that day. Shorebirds and seabirds (these are not hard-and-fast categories, and there is lots of overlap between them) are not doing well. An analysis of data from monitored seabird populations from 1950 to 2010 found a nearly 70% decline over that period, likely due to a variety of threats including overfishing, habitat loss, and climate change.
The Healthy, Biophilic City
By Tim Beatley & JD Brown
We are living in an era that will witness the most significant urban growth in human history, with an expected 2.4 billion more people living in cities by the year 2050. Conservation in the ‘urban century’ acknowledges the need for access to abundant nature in cities as an essential aspect of individual health and wellbeing. Recognizing the opportunity to connect a growing urban majority with nature as an element of daily life, Biophilic Cities is an organisation that facilitates an international network of cities striving to build a flourishing connection to nature.
The biophilic movement embraces the understanding that humans have an innate connection to the natural world. Scientific studies demonstrate that access to nature is a significant antidote to long-term chronic stress experienced by many urbanites. It also enhances cognitive performance and mood, and focuses humans on the larger world resulting in greater generosity and cooperation. In the context of the challenge of climate change, biophilic interventions contribute to mental, social and emotional health in addition to providing components of resilience.
Atlanta Beltline. Image: Tim Beatley