Biophilic Cities and Healthy Societies

Biophilia holds that as a species humans are innately drawn to nature and to living things. Mounting research confirms the many positive health benefits of contact with nature, and the need for daily (and hourly) contact with the natural environment in order to live happy, healthy, meaningful lives. A new vision of Biophilic Cities is put forward here: cities that are nature-abundant, that seek to protect and grow nature, and that foster deep connections with the natural world. This article describes the emergence of this global movement, the new and creative ways that cities are restoring, growing and connecting with nature, and the current status and trajectory of a new global Biophilic Cities Network, launched in 2013. There remain open questions, and significant challenges, to advancing the Biophilic Cities vision, but it also presents unusual opportunities to create healthier, livable cities and societies

The Half-Earth City

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. Cities provide both a known challenge, but also lesser understood opportunities. Uncontrolled urban expansion and expanding ecological footprints are a primary driver of habitat loss and species decline. To the extent that these trends can be slowed or even reversed, cities can work to limit damaging impacts beyond the borders of cities. With their global economic influence, it is critical for cities to assume a leadership role in the stewardship of global biodiversity by participating in city-to-city diplomacy and supporting global commitments. Cities can contribute significantly to the half-earth vision by pursuing a more sustainable path of consumption, while also committing to a resolve to conserve irreplaceable biodiversity at the global scale. As growing science and the vision of the biophilic city suggests, cities can also provide for flourishing biodiversity within the borders of the city. Through the conservation of remnant habitat and the nurturing of unique human-influenced habitats found only in cities, new spaces and connections through and across the urban landscape can be forged. A central tenant of the biophilic cities’ vision is the acknowledgment that despite the many challenges presented by increasing urbanization, cities are laboratories for continued experimentation and identification of innovative means to balance an improved quality of life with continued flourishing of human and nonhuman species alike. The benefits derived from the integration of nature across the cities are well documented and manyfold. These include: improved health and wellbeing; increased community resilience in the form of the equitable distribution of critical infrastructure such as tree canopies; multimodal transportation; environmental benefits of enhanced stream health, improved water quality, and reduced flood risk; and the promotion of biodiversity through preserved and enhanced ecosystems and habitats. Thus, biodiversity conservation in the form of abundant and accessible nature is part of a larger biophilic city vision that seeks to reverse the negative trends of urban areas and “create healthy, resilient cities and towns for both people and biodiversity.” Indeed, cities are already at the forefront of biodiversity conservation and the goal of half-earth. The City of Boulder, Colorado, augments its own conservation within the city by building a seamless connection to surrounding national park and federal wilderness areas, and through these collective efforts more than half of the land within surrounding Boulder County is protected. Perhaps even more impressive is the feat of Singapore, a partner city in the Biophilic Cities Network, which has protected more than half of the city through a combination of large-scale, connected reserves and smaller scale neighborhood parks. This Article examines the law, policy and practices available to cities to nurture the unique biodiversity possible within urban landscapes and to contribute to the larger global effort to regenerate lost migratory pathways and core conservation areas, thereby contributing to the biophilic city and half-earth visions and halting the decline of global biodiversity

Oregon's Senate Bill 100: One State's Innovative Approach to the Protection of Farmland

The State of Oregon instituted in 1973, under Senate Bill 100, one of the most innovative and comprehensive land management systems in this country. While often described as state planning, the Oregon program in fact represents a unique partnership between state and locality; one which allows local governments flexibility in solving local land use problems, while at the same time protecting significant elements of statewide planning concern. The central foci of the Oregon program are its nineteen statewide planning goals, ranging in subject from housing to transportation, to environmental quality. The goals carry the weight of law, and each local government must prepare its comprehensive plan and implementing ordinances so that they are in conformance with them. A seven-member laybody, the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) , was created to oversee the statewide planning process, with its chief responsibility being to review all plans and ordinances for goal conformance. The commission has substantial enforcement powers, and is legally able to prevent or nullify local land use actions it deems inconsistent with the goals. From its beginnings, the Oregon program has had as a major focus the protection of agricultural land. Two of the statewide goals, the Agricultural Lands and Urbanization Goals (goals 3 and 14), and related statutory provisions, form the nexus of the farmland protection program. The Agricultural Lands goal is one of the more specific of the nineteen goals, and requires localities to inventory agricultural land, and to include within Exclusive Farm Use (EFU) zones all such land "suitable" for agricultural production. The goal further defines suitable agricultural land as that of predominantly SCS soil classes I through IV in western Oregon, and SCS classes I through IV in eastern Oregon. The provision thus requires the protection not only of prime farmland, but all land generally suitable for agricultural production

Planning for Endangered Species: On the Possibilities of Sharing a Small Planet

Increasingly in the United States, the preservation of endangered species and biological diversity conflicts with the mounting pressures of urban growth and development. Here, Timothy Beatley presents several arguments on the importance of species protection. He discusses the case of the endangered fringe-toed lizard of the Coachella Valley, California to illustrate the practical problems of habitat conservation that arise from competing land-use interests. Beatley asserts that planners can play a vital role in directing strategies to protect crucial habitats

Biophilic Cities Are Sustainable, Resilient Cities

There is a growing recognition of the need for daily contact with nature, to live happy, productive, meaningful lives. Recent attention to biophilic design among architects and designers acknowledges this power of nature. However, in an increasingly urban planet, more attention needs to be aimed at the urban scales, at planning for and moving towards what the authors call “biophilic cities”. Biophilic cities are cities that provide close and daily contact with nature, nearby nature, but also seek to foster an awareness of and caring for this nature. Biophilic cities, it is argued here, are also sustainable and resilient cities. Achieving the conditions of a biophilic city will go far in helping to foster social and landscape resilience, in the face of climate change, natural disasters and economic uncertainty and various other shocks that cities will face in the future. The paper identifies key pathways by which biophilic urbanism enhances resilience, and while some are well-established relationships, others are more tentative and suggest future research and testing

Hazard Reduction Through Development Management in Hurricane-Prone Localities: State of the Art

The state of the art in using development management strategies to reduce hurricane hazards is explored through a 1984 survey of hurricane-prone localities in 19 states. Contrary to some of the hazard mitigation literature, results show not only a high priority for hazard mitigation but also a high reliance on development management approaches, as compared with building, strengthening, and environmental alteration

Native to nowhere : sustaining home and community in global age

IndeksBibliografi hlm. 357-375xiv, 392 hlm. : il. ; 23 cm

Green Urbanism Down Under: Learning from Sustainable Communities in Australia

Dalam buku ini, Timothy Beatley membahas tentang penghijauan kota yang dilakukan oleh sebuah komunitas di Australia dan kegiatan itu sangat mengisnpirasi untuk dapat menerapkan di Amerika. Di Australia dan banyak pelajaran yang warga AS bisa belajar dari program Australia. Australia mirip dengan Amerika Serikat dalam banyak hal, terutama dalam jejak energinya. Sebagai contoh, emisi gas rumah kaca per kapita Australia adalah kedua hanya untuk orang-orang dari Amerika Serikat. Persentase serupa penduduknya tinggal di kota (85 persen di Australia vs 80 persen di Amerika Serikat). Dan itu masalah yang berkaitan yaitu polusi udara dan air, ketergantungan nasional pada mobil, dan konsumsi bahan bakar fosil yang tinggi. Namun, setelah melakukan perjalanan di seluruh Australia, Beatley menemukan bahwa ada respon kreatif masalah ini. Dan bahwa mereka menawarkan contoh instruktif untuk Amerika Serikat. penghijauan kota adalah solusinya