Serenbe Stories

What Is A Biophilic City? with Dr. Tim Beatley

October 19, 2020 Serenbe / Tim Beatley Season 4 Episode 3
Serenbe Stories
What Is A Biophilic City? with Dr. Tim Beatley
Show Notes Transcript

Today's episode features Dr. Tim Beatley, who is the Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, where he has taught for the last twenty-five years.

Much of Tim's work focuses on the subject of sustainable communities, and creative strategies by which cities and towns can fundamentally reduce their ecological footprints, while at the same time becoming more livable and equitable places.

Tim Beatley believes that sustainable and resilient cities represent our best hope for addressing today’s environmental challenges, but as he says in this episode, "we have to move quickly."  Join us as we talk with Tim about what makes a Biophilic City, the importance of sustainability and resilience in city planning and design, and our ethical obligation to create a better future.

Mentioned In The Episode

Biophilic Cities

Tim Beatley

Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities

Robin C. Moore

Natural Learning Initiative 

Bill Browning

Terrapin Bright Green 

SXSW Eco

Amanda Sturgeon 

The Biophilic Institute

Biophilic Cities

Biophilic Leadership Summit

Living Building Challenge 

Dianna Budds, Curbed 

Ethical Land Use: Principles of Policy and Planning

1918 Influenza Pandemic

Singapore - The City in Nature

Ryan Gainey’s The Well-Placed Weed

Environmental Resilience Institute 

Zealandia 

Nina Marie Lister’s natural garden in Toronto, Canada

Nygren Placemaking

The Nature of Cities 

Dr. Stephen R. Kellert 

The SHIFT Awards 

Richard Louv

Children & Nature Network

“Why not put green roofs on buses?” - Fast Company 

Monica Olsen (1s):
Hey guys, it's Monica here. I wanted to tell you about a new podcast that I've started with my very good friend, Jennifer Walsh called biophilic solutions. Our last season of ceremony stories, building a biophilic movement was so popular that we decided to dedicate an entire podcast to it every other week. Jennifer and I will sit down with leaders in the growing field of biophilia. We'll talk about local and global solutions to help nurture their living social and economic systems that we all need to sustain future generations more often than not. Nature has the answers. You can find biophilic solutions on apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, subscribe and follow us today. So you don't miss an episode.

Monica Olsen (41s):
All right, now let's get back to serenbe stories. serenbe is a place where the innate connections humans have with nature and all living things is celebrated through work and play. And we're here to tell the stories of those who have been inspired by this biophilic way of life in our community and across the country. This is serenbe stories.

Monica Olsen (1m 23s):
Today's episode features Dr. Tim Bailey, who is the Teresa Heinz professor of sustainable communities in the department of urban and environmental planning at the school of architecture at the university of Virginia, where he is taught for over 25 years, much of Tim's work focuses on the subject of sustainable communities and creative strategies by which cities and towns can fundamentally reduce the ecological footprints while at the same time becoming more livable and equitable places. Tim believes that sustainable and resilient cities, what he calls biophilic cities represent our best hope for addressing today's environmental challenges. But as he says, in this episode, we have to move quickly.

Monica Olsen (2m 6s):
Join us today. As we talk with Tim about what makes a biophilic city, the importance of sustainability and resilience in city planning and design and our ethical obligation to create a better future. But first serenbe stories is brought to you by the, inn at serenbe. The Inn is nestled in the rolling countryside of biophilic therapy, where guests can walk on the 15 miles of trails through preserved forest land, the wildflower meadow, and the animal village. You can relax by the pool hot tub or in rocking chairs on the wraparound porch, play on the croquet lawn swings and in-ground trampolines connect with nature and each other all while staying in luxurious rooms on the, in ground or within the community of therapy book your stay today at serenbeinn. com.

Monica Olsen (2m 48s):
Welcome back to serenbe stories. Today. We have UVA professor, Dr. Tim Beatley. Who's a green urbanist and the founder of the global biophilic cities network. And as always, we have Steve Nygren with us. Welcome. 

Steve Nygren(3m 3s):
Thank You. Hi, Tim. Glad to have you with us. I see.

 Tim Beatley (3m 6s):
Hi Monica. Great. How is everybody doing today? 

Monica Olsen (3m 12s):
Good, good, Tim. It's so exciting to have you on because you are going to be able to further the conversation around biophilia on a whole nother level as an educator. I'm somebody who has published numerous books. And when I looked up your Wikipedia, I didn't realize that you had coined the term green, urbanism

Tim Beatley (3m 40s):
Hmm That I, that I don't know that I really have, but they say I have, I don't know. 

Monica Olsen:
You're not going to take that. 

Tim Beatley:
Well, I could, but I'm not responsible for that Wikipedia page. I'm not quite sure how that those things happen, but, but somebody thinks that I was the first one to sort of use that phrasing or that, that term, well, one of the things

Monica Olsen (4m 3s):
Yeah, claim it. All right. So with that said, one of the first things I always ask everybody is sort of how you came into our world of Serenbe. And I don't know if you remember the first time that you and I met, but tell us, tell us how you found out about Serenbe. Yeah.

Tim Beatley (4m 21s):
So I'm, I'm not sure how, how I heard about it and Steve in the first place, but I do remember Steve running into you in Raleigh.

Steve Nygren(4m 32s):
That's right. That's the first time I remember

Tim Beatley (4m 35s):
Through the program that Robin Moore has a natural learning center and the work that he did and he had an annual conference. I don't know whether he still does this and you, you and I were both speakers. We might've even been back to back. 

Steve Nygren:
We were.

Tim Beatley:
Okay. You have a better memory about this, but I, I remember hearing, hearing you being very impressed and, and getting more detail about the best Serenbe. I, I knew about it before that, but, but that was, I think our first connection. And then I can remember interacting by email and having some correspondence over several years after that.  And it was sometime before it actually got to visit. And that's, I think where you, you come into the picture, Monica, I

Steve Nygren (5m 21s):
Know Tim, I was, I was so impressed, you know, bill brown, they had first introduced me to the biophillic thing. And, and then, and then when I sat through your lecture and this how I remember so well, because you were right before me and I, and, and, and, you know, you're always kind of half listening to some of these things, so you've already heard it before, but you were presenting all new things and I was just totally captivated with what you were saying, and it's heavy, you know? And then all of a sudden you stopped. And, and then all of a sudden I was on. And so that's how I remember the sequence. So yeah. And then I kept to invite you to Serenbe, and come see us, come see you politely said, okay, but man, the minute Monica and Quinn invited you, we, I think you were here within a month.

Steve Nygren (6m 7s):
So they finally issued the invitation that caught your attention.

Tim Beatley (6m 13s):
I don't know it was a serendipitous and I can't remember now even why, why I was coming to Atlanta, but it just, the timing was just right. And I had run into you all in Austin at the south by Southwest conference there. And, and it just, one thing led to another, you all invited me to, to, to, to come. And I was coming to Atlanta shortly thereafter. And so the timing was perfect and it was so wonderful to see it, to see the reality of it after having heard about it and read about it and having been admiring of it from afar.

Tim Beatley (6m 53s):
So it was great to see it and to get to know it over the last several years.


Steve Nygren:
Now, it seems so natural. I mean, we all fit together. Everything we're talking about, it's just such a natural relationship. 

Tim Beatley (7m 4s):
It really is. Yeah, absolutely. 

Monica Olsen (7m 7s):
Yeah I think Quinn, and I think you were speaking with Amanda sturgeon, it's south by Southwest and Quinn and I, oh, this guy. Oh, he is that we stand for, he has to come to serenbe and, and then you, yeah, you were on a layover, I think in pop down. I swear.

Tim Beatley(7m 25s):
Okay. I do have a better memory than I have. It

Monica Olsen(7m 28s):
Was like a 45 minute tour Quinn. And I like, you know, threw you on a golf cart and gave you the tour.

Tim Beatley (7m 37s):
That's right. It was quick, but very intense and very effective for me. I got a, I got a very heavy dose of serenbe in a compact amount of time, but I think I was running off to catch a plane.

Monica Olsen (7m 50s):
And I looked back and we met you in 2016. And then we all sort of came together and came up with the idea to do a biophilic leadership summit, which we all stood up two years later in 2018, which is pretty exciting.

Tim Beatley (8m 9s):
Yeah. And we've continued at the, the pandemic has gotten a little bit in the way this last year, but it's, it's become almost a sort of an institution in a way, in a short period of time. And so it's become an event on people's calendars and something they look forward to and we look forward to, to it. And so it feels, it feels like something that's been around for a while for a long time, longer than it really has been used since you've, as you say, but thinking about the dates

 (8m 40s):
That people can come together that have been talking about this for some time, there really hasn't been an annual form where you can look forward to seeing those same people for the same discussion further.

2 (8m 52s):
And there really hasn't been any place like this. I mean, there are big meetings like Greenbuild and you know, the living building meetings that Amanda put on and, and those certainly have a lot of biophilic conversations connected with them, but I think we've created something that's quite unusual and the mix of people is quite unusual and quite, quite productive. So,

0 (9m 19s):
Yeah, and we, we really hope that, that this podcast helps expand people's understanding and bring a more mainstream audience, because I think the content is something that everybody can understand, but they maybe don't know corporated into their lives. And that's a huge reason why we want to talk to you today. Tell us a little bit about your background and you have a number of degrees. I mean, I've known you for years now, but I got to actually look up your bio and I know I've got, maybe I have other things that you coined that we don't hear. You don't know.

2 (10m 1s):
It's pretty boring, pretty boring stuff, but no, no, no. I

0 (10m 4s):
Actually like want to come and take a class from you. In fact, here's a, here's a, an aside is we had a wonderful woman, Diana Budds who's a curved writer come to Sarah and B and I swear we had much more cred with her because she had taken one of her classes.

2 (10m 21s):
Yeah, well that, you know, that's an interesting topic because I feel sometimes that I, you know, you, you, you teach classes and I teach a couple of large ones in introduction to planning course that a lot of kids take at UVA it's required in the school of architecture, but it's a lot of students from the, from the college of arts and sciences and other parts of campus end up taking it and you teach these kids and they go off and do wonderful things. And you, sometimes you hear back, but you don't really have a very good sense of how you, how you've affected the world or how you, how you've changed.

2 (11m 3s):
People's, you know, trajectories. And so it's really, it's really great to hear from, from students. And I have a, you know, a handful of students that I can point to that have, that have created, you know, done some really remarkable things and, and created organizations and nonprofits and are working in, you know, in impressive ways. And I'll take just a tiny little bit of credit for that. So anyway, that's a great story. And that's nice to hear, I do run into students almost everywhere that I go former students and

0 (11m 35s):
Gets amazing. And you have been at UVA for a number of years, and I know that you run or right. You're in the department of urban and environmental planning, but how did you get into it? Like, was this something as a kid that you were interested in? Tell me, tell me how you got here.

2 (11m 53s):
Yeah, sure. And it's a, it's a longer story than probably I can tell, but in the time that we have, and that you've probably, you know, the level of detail that you probably don't want to hear, or your listeners don't want to hear, but, but yeah, it does start with childhood for me. And I, I grew up in the city of Alexandria in Northern Virginia. And it, at that time, we, we lived in a house that my father had had, had built on a hill on the Western end of the city when they moved there. It was Fairfax county and later annexed by the city. But when, by the time I arrived on the scene, it was very much embedded in a, in a city, in an urban context, but it was surrounded by trees and it was a very walkable environment.

2 (12m 43s):
And I spent a lot of time exploring the west end of, of the city of Alexandria. And, and I also grew up in the midst of a lot of politics and, and urban planning. I didn't really, at the time know that, that the, you know, the profession of urban planning existed, but, but my father actually was the mayor of the city of Alexandria for about 15 years. Wow. And yeah, so I grew up as, as the mayor's kid, in fact, I'm dubious honor or dubious distinction, but I got to watch him in action and politics was not a bad thing or a bad word. It was a very positive thing in my mind.

2 (13m 25s):
And so, and, and all the issues that were, he was passionate about were really issues of about planning. So it was all about conserving old town, Alexandria making it, making that city profoundly more walkable. He was a big proponent of public transit. So he had a lot to do with getting Metro, the Metro stations and planning around Metro there in the city. He created a bus system that, that exists to this day. And at the time was called, was known as the Beasley bus. Yeah. It's a feeder system to the Metro and, but it's, it's, it's, Alexandria's owned bus system really.

2 (14m 6s):
So there were in, in a waste energy plant and renewable energy. And just about everything that I later became interested in. And you mentioned green, urban OCM, and that's the kind of terminology that captures all of that. Really the idea of creating green, sustainable biophilic cities. And he was doing all of that and I didn't fully understand it, but when I, when I got to college and as an undergraduate, like a lot of undergraduates kind of grappling with what to, you know, what to study, what to major in. And I found the school of architecture and I found urban and environmental planning. So I actually went through the degree program that I now teach in.

2 (14m 52s):
And so anyway, it's a longer story. I had a, I had a, a strong, early interest in the environment and loved animals and birds. And as I said, I did a lot of exploring. I had a, an aunt who was the same as botanist actually. And she had an, a conservationist and a real, really an activist. And I spent a lot of time with her and, and she had had an impact on my, on my thinking and life as well. So, so I think like a lot of us, lots of different people and different impacts and different things that, you know, kind of influence our, our paths or pathways.

2 (15m 34s):
Well,

0 (15m 34s):
And you did steady poly PSI at UNC, which I think is interesting. How did that inform you?

2 (15m 42s):
Yeah, that's again, I think I, again, growing up in a very, very political household and political context and politics again, was not a, was not a bad thing. It was, I understood it to be a really positive thing. It was about improving people's lives and, and solving problems and aspiring to, you know, grander visions of what places and cities could be. So it was sort of natural. And I carry with me this interest in political theory and politics and, and, and Norman, a theory. And I mentioned that I, earlier that I teach a class on the ethics of cities.

2 (16m 25s):
And so that's a lot of what I did when I, I did a certain parallel master's in political science in grad school at UNC. My, my primary course of study was a PhD in city and regional planning, but I, I very much was interested in the ways we make decisions about, about space and environment, allocation of resources, but yet we, we don't uncover or highlight the implicit value assumptions there. So anytime we make a decision, a zoning decision or decision about investing and, and a road rather than transit or whatever it is, it is an ethical choice that we were making.

2 (17m 11s):
And so that was my particular interest in, in, in studying political science at that, that point in my life. But it all, you know, it all connects, I think,

0 (17m 22s):
Well, and one of you've written and authored, and co-authored a number of books on like resiliency and sustainability and cities that I w I, one of the ones that I noted and it's called ethical land use. And I don't know if that's sort of a, you know, you know, book that you would read in school, but I did see one, a hundred essential books in planning. Is that something that like I could read? I mean, clearly I could read it something that a general consumer with joy.

2 (17m 58s):
Yes, it is. I would hope so. And in fact that I wasn't really expecting to talk about this today with you. It's great. I didn't, but that, that book is 1994. So what does that mean coming up on 20 years? Yeah, but the it's a direct outgrowth actually, of, of this interest in ethics and this interest in that I started and, and, and grad school and this, and this observation really that we were looking at land use decisions, you know, through a very narrow lens that we were, you know, either deciding what we, we should or could do based on what was legal based on counting, how many people showed up at a, at a public meeting that was something, again, that circle of circles back to my father and, and listening to him, talking to him and, and his philosophy of governance, which, which was to engage everybody and to listen to everybody for as long as they wanted to talk to you.

2 (19m 8s):
And he's notorious actually for, for having the longest city council meetings ever, because he never said no. And anyone who showed up got to talk for basic. I don't think I'm exaggerating a little bit, but it was also about thinking about this larger public interest and that we needed to make decisions. And the city like Alexandria about its waterfront, for example, the decisions there you had to take, take the longer view and think about people who were not around the table and who might not even be living at the moment. You have to really think about a deeper future and a larger public interest.

2 (19m 49s):
And, and those are really, you know, bigger, more complex ethical decisions with lots of different values and different points of view and different. And it, wasn't just about the sort of narrow metrics that we use or marrow narrow criteria that we were using to make land use decisions. So, so that book was an effort to expand our frame and to begin to understand that everything that we do, every decision we make about how to use land involves this much larger discussion. And, and, and it's, I take up, I take a biocentric position and in the book that argues that our moral community kind of some fancy philosophy philosophical terms, but our moral community extends into the future.

2 (20m 45s):
It certainly must include generations, but it also must include other forms of life. And every everything, every living thing has inherent worth. That's something in the book and others have argued for this as well. So in a way that, that sets the stage for the work that we're doing with biophilic cities now, because a lot of what, of how we define what a biophilic city is, is in, in terms of a sort of a multi-species biologically inclusive city. And so for me, I, I find myself going back to the, kind of the foundational ethics to, to, to help define and support the vision of biophilic cities.

2 (21m 36s):
No,

0 (21m 37s):
I think it's a beautiful way to consider, and I liked that idea of sort of this moral framework that really the thinking about how the planning and making sure that we're thoughtful about the biodiversity in all of the urban spaces in the conservation of everybody's habitat. Right. All living things, and then the outcomes, right. That the outcomes, you know, obviously we could talk about specific ones and I do want to get into the work that you're doing there, but like really it's about having the outcome of a more resilient place for everybody.

0 (22m 17s):
Yeah,

2 (22m 18s):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And, and resilience is a term that really, you know, for, at least in the frame frame of my, my career, as a fan in planning is, you know, lab the last 10 years, it wasn't really something a term we used much, but in, in this era of wildfires and, you know, coastal rising, coastal hazards and climate change resilience resonates in a way, it maybe didn't a couple of decades ago

1 (22m 52s):
Measure. And, you know, in, in these 20 years, the progress, you know, I'm sure it's never as much. And, and, and what's happening right now. Is this getting more attention? Yeah,

2 (23m 5s):
It's, it's, it's hard to know exactly. I mean, we, we like to think our, our vision of biophilic cities, certainly biophilic design has gained a lot of traction and certainly in the architectural world is growing unimportance and, and companies recognize, you know, the importance of, of incorporating Boshell features into their office space, for example, in a way that didn't exist in the past. So I feel like we've made a lot of progress and on the urban front, and we can certainly talk about examples of cities in our, in our network. We feel like this idea, this alternative vision for urbanization, for cities, for futures, the future of cities is, is gaining in interaction around the world.

2 (23m 55s):
And it's not always using the word biophilic there, you know, in Europe nature-based solutions is a lot of the terminology that they're using, you know, green infrastructure. Certainly there are lots of parallel language and, and a kind of shared importance given to, to nature. So that said, Steve, I mean, I I'm, I'm encouraged by that, by those trends, but on the other hand, it's daunting what we're facing, right? So we look globally and we're all watching the fires in the west and we're tracking hurricanes and we're look, you know, we're seeing the pandemic where, and, and this latest report on, on progress or lack of progress and, and meeting biodiversity conservation goals.

2 (24m 55s):
I, you know, I have to be discouraged and I'm frequently the one in the room who is the optimist. And, and there is a really important role for, for hope. We have to be hopeful and we have to be optimistic, but we also have to move quickly and biotech, global biodiversity loss, deforestation, and loss of habitat, partly due to expansion of cities, I should say, in climate change are really daunting. And so we just need to accelerate everything we're doing. And we don't, you know, we have a limited timeframe to, to really, really, you know, change the way we, we live on this planet.

2 (25m 42s):
So I'm, I'm encouraged. And I think the, the, there is a, this global movement around biophilic design and biophilic cities, biophilic, urban ism. That's really great. And it just, we just need to push it along even faster.

1 (25m 57s):
Well, and I, you know, there've been so many great voices and it's certainly moving the needle, but, you know, I, I find all the, all of the intellectual thought that moves it, it, we really have to go to the masses, both in their buying power and in their, the political people they're electing. And when it fails, we've all had trouble getting the word out to the masses. And if anything, it's, there was hope when we saw blue skies and some of the places that hadn't seen VU for forever when kind of the world shut down. That's right. Yeah. And so I saw, hopefully in, in people think, oh, maybe, maybe this isn't decades long, or maybe it's not a loss thing.

1 (26m 41s):
And that was what's happening on any Gary one is really, and hopefully they're grumpy enough to say something about it because it's, we've seen sort of an extreme emotions here in three months from, from hope to despair. I don't know. And, and as people are seeing the city's 10, do you think that as the leadership in these cities track people back, they might really have a serious green movement within the cities to bring people back?

2 (27m 8s):
Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's, it's certainly happening. And as you say, the pandemic certainly had the positive of height heightening our awareness of, of the nature of the importance of nature around us. And several months ago actually did I did a podcast in which somebody asked me about they were, they were based in New York city and they were asking me, you have the, have the, are there more birds now than there used to be? Which I thought was kind of funny and no birds, birds are, you know, 40% of bird species globally are in decline. There aren't, you know, birds are in trouble.

2 (27m 50s):
What's happening is that you're in New York and it's quieter and you're listening. And you're, you know, you're, you're paying attention to those birds. And you're hearing those birds in a way. And it happened to be peak, peak migration period, and got millions of birds moving through New York. But that, that was the experience in lots of places where, you know, nature became that, that solve that, that bomb, that, that, that saving grace in this stressful time. And to be able to, to actually realize that your, your life may seem is quite profoundly different, but, but things are going on.

2 (28m 33s):
Migration is still happening. This is sort of normal, you know, normalcy there that was reassuring to, to, to a lot of us. So, so I'm, I'm actually optimistic. And we, we can talk this to some of the work that we're trying to do around how cities have responded to the pandemic. We think this is an opportunity to accelerate the biophilic elements and biophilic planning investments in nature in cities. And we're already, already seeing it. You know, the cities like San Francisco, one of our partner cities where they've created a whole network of slow streets, and many of those streets, you know, taking some space away from cars and car traffic and giving it over to, to people strolling, but also, you know, pre-planting, and, and listening to birds and nature, they're, they're not going back to some of those streets will be reopened, but some of them won't.

2 (29m 34s):
And so the pandemic has created a chance, an opportunity for many cities to, to move forward and to accelerate that, that investment in nature.

1 (29m 47s):
Yeah. And some cities that even I had an opportunity a couple of weeks ago, pick out a back to Longmont, Colorado, where I grew up in the downtown with just a typical dead kind of feeling. And I don't think they had many cafes and they've closed a lane of traffic on each side, and all the restaurants have put their tables in that lane of traffic. And it's totally transitioned the town. And like you say, they're not going to go back there. They, the public and the business people aren't going to let it go back.

2 (30m 20s):
Absolutely. And I think that that'll be interesting to see because we're, we've rediscovered the outside world, right. We, because of the, the dangers of being inside, we're, we're working hard to see how we can do everything outside. You know, we're trying to teach classes outside schools aren't necessarily able to do this. They don't even have operable windows sometimes to bring fresh air into in inside. But the idea of having eating outside and having school outside and, you know, during the 1918 influenza, they held court outside, you know, there, they did a lot of things outside.

2 (31m 1s):
And so I think we're gonna, this is th these are, these are experiences that we will carry with us. And, and also I think, I think that's all positive. Yeah. I don't think Longmont may not be going back. And a lot of cities are, are, are, are not going to be able to take back those spaces that they've, that they've given over the population will won't let them do that. So the whole politics of space as has changed, I think in a very positive way. One, one interesting story, you know, our, our whole perception of nature may be different.

2 (31m 42s):
Now, Singapore is one of our, and I know Monica, you want to get into some of the cities. Singapore is one of our partners, cities in the biophilic cities network from the very beginning. And they they've been very effective of course, at controlling COVID. And, and it's a very interesting story because they have invested in nature. You know, they, it's a very green city, city state, and we don't know for sure whether that has helped that population to, to be more resistant or more resilient to the spread of that virus. But we know that's a city of 5.6 million and they've experienced 26 deaths from COVID.

2 (32m 26s):
I mean, it's just amazing what you've been able to do compared to the experience we've had here in the U S now, how much of that is because of nature, it's hard to say, but it's a healthcare system. And if, you know, have a very effective contact tracing or lots of things that they've done well, but what's interesting is they did have a flare up and they had to go into a two month lockdown. And what happened during that period was that they, the city could not city and country couldn't maintain the green spaces in the usual way that they did.

2 (33m 6s):
So you had a great deal of sort of wildness and merging and, and people observed more butterflies and more birds and more, more nature in a kind of wild form of nature. And so they have been, they've been having a discussion, a kind of debate there about, you know, maybe this is good. We really want this more wild nature and in our city. And so the pandemic opened that, that created that sort of natural experiment to show what was possible. And in fact, now the one thing the city is doing is changing their motto.

2 (33m 50s):
They were the garden city for many years, and then they started calling themselves a city and the garden city and a garden, which is, and then, and then biophilic city and the garden, and the latest version is city in nature. So they, they are shifting away from this idea of seeing themselves as a highly tended garden, to something more akin to a wild ecosystem and wild their form of nature in which the city is situated. That's a really interesting vision. And, and again, you know, tie ties directly to the experience of the pandemic.

2 (34m 32s):
Yeah,

0 (34m 33s):
No, I think that's really cool. I mean, I know having grown up in a suburb of Los Angeles that was very well-manicured and groom with lots of lawns. I was taken by when Steve having moved here and Steve introduced me to the work of Ryan Gainey and his concept of the well-placed weed. And I just thought that that's a wonderful way to think about, you know,

1 (35m 1s):
Craving, authentic everything in their life. And I think our manicured landscapes just are not authentic and, and like, people have been a little bit allergic to it, but we've become so used to it that when he a more natural landscape, it's, it's just incredible. So on the Singapore story, are you, are they, and you going to do some great documentation, Hey, claim, screen claim, all these. I mean, it's all pieces of it, but yeah, I have a megaphone about these good examples. Right,

2 (35m 34s):
Right. We, we should, and this is for us kind of more anecdotal it's. This is from, from talking to our, our colleagues and collaborators there, but we are one of the things that we, you mentioned Monica in the beginning of the week, we've had a small grant from the resilience Institute here at UVA to, to co to do this sort of nature and pandemic study, or at least to start it, we really need longer larger funding to do the real study. But the fact that we have now a network of 23 cities around the world means that we have, and, and many more cities actually, they're kind of in our orbit that are participating in some way in the network may not be official partner cities.

2 (36m 22s):
Yet we have the ability to collect stories, to compare and contrast experiences to the sea, you know, to tell, tell stories like this Singapore story again, it's, you know, not, it's less of a, a scientific conclusion than more kind of an anecdote anecdote of, of what, you know, a description of a conversation taking place right now. But, but I do think that pandemic that there is this almost universal opening of, of possibility for new things to happen. I mean, the, the kind of experience with Los Angeles will be different obviously than Singapore, but, but it's happening.

2 (37m 5s):
And, and, and, and just about every city, it seems like

1 (37m 11s):
Somehow to move the needle, we, we seem as a population to need proof. When I think about the improvements we've had, it's basically because the corporate America, and I guess around the world have seen the th the dollar savings if they have, if they do a better job with energy reduction compared to demand. And so it's about the bottom line. It hasn't been necessarily about saving planet earth and, and, and I would think this is going to, you know, how do we measure that the difference in health and there's been studies and we do a little bit, but boy, you're touching something that everyone's interested in riding to the death rate in cities.

1 (37m 53s):
And how does it vary depending on how they're addressing some of them, it really moves the needle. Yeah,

2 (38m 2s):
Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and again, and we, we, what we're doing now is again, collecting stories and not, not really the kind of methodical kind of peer, peer reviewed hard science data, kind of, we hope that we'll get, get to that point as well. But, but, you know, again, Singapore has a life expectancy, right? That's considerably higher than, than ours here in the U S we, you know, we're, we're shockingly far down the list. And that's another story to another thing to talk about at some point.

2 (38m 45s):
So there are lots of things that they do well, but I think the pulling out parsing out the, the, the really important part of that health story that connects to major that that's really essential. And, you know, there, there are a lot of reasons, again, back to the ethics, why we need to reimagine our cities as ecosystems, and as you know, through an image of biophilic cities or a vision about cities, other forms of life are, you know, have inherent worth. And, and they're not just there for us, but nevertheless, the health argument is, is a very important, very strong one and does carry the day for a lot of, a lot of decision-makers and certainly a lot of mayors and, and, and, you know, folks in politicians and others.

2 (39m 43s):
So, yeah, I was gonna say

0 (39m 45s):
That it's, it's personal, right? It's like, have you moved the needle? And I think Steve makes a great point. People want metrics, they want measurement, you know, money talks. But I think it's personal to me. If you can tell me that something that we can do, whether that's an urban planning or, you know, a city council decision or where I put my house or do an out and have lawns, and that's going to affect my family and the health outcomes of my family now you've made it personal and there's going to be a much higher likelihood that I'm going to make a change in my behavior based on that. Yeah,

2 (40m 23s):
Yeah. Yeah. Def definitely part, part, partly this is, we've got to figure out metrics that are just as compelling as the dollar value of the dollar. Can, you know, I, there's certainly lots of examples of biophilic projects like the park Royal hotel in Singapore, where they've, you know, been able to, to charge much higher room rates, the company, very happy with all of the parks and green roofs and all the kind of vertical greening elements, but, but there is a larger public interest here that we have to think about and the metrics maybe were, were frequently in the biophilic cities movement proposing alternative metrics.

2 (41m 13s):
And so for example, judging the success or the progress of a city based on things like experiencing Birdsong, and actually we have one city Wellington, New Zealand and the capital New Zealand that, that actually has a, a story of a wonderful wild park in the middle of that city, where they're, where they're creating space for native birds to come back. And partly the tag line is bringing native bird song back to Wellington. So that's not usually how we judge the progress. Certainly not how a developer, maybe judges the success of a project except in Sarah, the right state, but birds off, you know, that's a metric and th and, and the same could be said for your experience of LA in Los Angeles.

2 (42m 5s):
So, you know, the, the presence of native of flora, you know, we're doing so many things to, to discourage in some cases to make it illegal, to plant native species of, of, of flowers and plants and things that we, you know, weeds that weed, that word weed is not one I liked so much, but, you know, it's sort of a pejorative term. And if something's a weed it's bad, but yeah, but we, we have, we have a, there's an interesting story from our soon to be, we hope partners, city, Toronto, Nina Marie Lister, who's, who's been a colleague and a professor at Ryerson.

2 (42m 52s):
She teaches planning there. And she and her husband, her family planted a completely native plant garden where, where there was a lawn around her home. And I think about a month ago, the city basically told her, you know, cited her that this, this is a violation of their, their ordinance requiring you to mow your lawn and keep it, you know, short and, and all, all of these milkweeds and, and other native plants were, you know, kind of didn't didn't fit the, the, the vision or the, you know, what the neighbors, especially, you know, it's often people around you, don't like what they see in your, in your, in your lawn.

2 (43m 45s):
So that's, you know, that's got to change. And so we've got to change our, our, our perspective on, again, back to the story of Singapore and the wildness, you know, beginning to understand that along, along with those milkweeds come, you know, Monarch, butterflies and pollinators of all kinds of birds.

1 (44m 8s):
Well, that's what we're eating real edge extension.

2 (44m 11s):
Yeah. Education would be, would be key. And I think back to your point, Steve, that this, this biophilic movement, can't just be about a bunch of experts, right. It can't just be thought leaders and they can't, it can't just be sort of, you know, professionals. It can't just be architects and landscape architects. It, it has to, it has to filter down to, to everybody it's gotta be, you know, kind of, and, and I'm actually finding that the word biophilic 10 years ago, I used to get odd looks when I would use that word. And now I almost never, you know, it seems to penetrate it a little bit into the end of the car.

2 (44m 56s):
Common parlance of

1 (44m 58s):
It really is. And I think the general public is becoming more aware of, of, of the word, but in the concepts. And certainly this time, you know, we're getting more calls than we ever have from developers and folks wanting to come understand Sarah and be, or get help through our, our consulting team of Niagara and placemaking, but we've had three developers now who called in, in the last few months and just their city council person. Who's told them to call us that if they could do something more like Sarah, maybe they could see giving them approval for what they want to do. So here, here is where the public is really recognizing a difference.

1 (45m 41s):
And they're going to push the developers. I don't think the developers are necessarily going to do it until they see that this is what the market or the city councils are going to domain. Right. And that comes back to all of us getting his word out a lot

2 (45m 55s):
More. Yeah. Well getting the word out. And I think what you're doing there is, is to sh is to show in a very visceral way, you know, here, here's what it could look like. And here's what it could feel like and how your life, what your life would be like if you had nature all around you and you can walk out your door and, and, and, you know, have that outside experience, not in a car, but in hearing bird song. And I think it's so important that, that there is the model there, and you're obviously having a huge impact.

1 (46m 36s):
You just need to see it and understand it before. Yeah.

2 (46m 39s):
They tend to see it. Yep, yep. Yep. Absolutely. And that's actually one of the things that we, you know, we've noticed that we do a lot of slide shows about what cities are doing, and we show a lot of examples. You know, it's not the same thing as visiting, and nobody's able to do a lot of visiting sites right now, but to actually see what is possible and to get a little bit of a sense that yeah, you know, it is possible to imagine a rooftop meadow or, and our partners, city Perth in Western Australia, the conversion of a sterile chlorinated water feature into a thriving by bio-diverse native wetland in the middle of the city, you know, it's, you, it's hard to describe it.

2 (47m 37s):
In words, it's a little easier in, in, in photographs, it's even easier with a film, which is one of the things that we've been doing is a lot of short documentary films. So we actually now have a short film about this, the making of this wetland. Yeah. And even better if you can, if you can see it firsthand. And, and, and the tour of Seren D as you know, is, is the best thing.

0 (48m 2s):
Yeah. I mean, we would agree with that obviously. Well, and I know you talk about documentary films. I knew you had done one that had been picked up by PBS at one point, which I think was the nature of cities, but you're doing some short ones as well. So I would love to get those links from you so we can share those with episode page, but just to sort of clarify with the biophilic cities, like when you create, just because I don't think we really touched on, like, when you created it, you know, and then just briefly, like, how did that happen? How long ago you have 22 cities, have you seen the growth lately with the pandemic?

0 (48m 47s):
Or, you know, how do people become a partner city? Like how can we get people involved? Sure.

2 (48m 54s):
Yeah. So, so there, we have a webpage biophilic cities.org that has a lot of information on it. So we have 23 cities that are, that have joined as partner cities, and that requires them to do certain things. There's a protocol for joining on, on the webpage. If there are listeners in cities that, you know, you'd like to nominate, one of the requirements is that a city has to adopt a, a resolution or a proclamation stating their intent to join the network and to aspire, to becoming a biophilic city. They have to choose a certain number of metrics to gauge progress over time.

2 (49m 35s):
And there's a narrative requirement. How, how biophilic are you now? What are your aspirations for the future? But it's also important to say that the network is more than a partner cities. We have several thousand individual members who have gone online and signed that biophilic pledge, and they become members that way. We have several hundred organizations that are, that are members. So it's, it's a lot bigger than just the 23 cities, but, but the short story for how it all started is that I have to go back. I have to give a lot of credit to Steve Keller who way back, and I don't know, 2008 or 2009, got a lot of us together at a big conference and led to a book called biophilic design.

2 (50m 28s):
And the, he was kind enough to invite me. And one of the impressions I had from that conference was that the folk Mo most of the focus, partly because there were a lot of architects and landscape architects there, but a lot of the focus was on, on biophilic design of, at the building scale, which is really important. But it seemed to me that the, that it was really important to think about the different scales and not just the building, but it's the spaces between the building and beyond the building and how the buildings connect and it's the neighborhood and, and the city, and even, even, you know, wider, larger, you know, the region or the bioregion, and it's all those different places where nature can, can happen.

2 (51m 19s):
So, so then we started talking about biophilic, not biophilic design. It is a kind of design of course, but mostly design generally means generally refers to kind of building scale things, or it has. So we said, well, why not? We start talking about biophilic cities or biophilic urbanisms. And so Keller pushed us a little bit on that and led to, I think, 2010, I did a little book called biophilic cities. And at that point it was more of meant to be provocative and to kind of get us all, maybe starting to think about this, we've done a lot of other writing since then.

2 (52m 6s):
And actually that film happened about the same time, the nature of cities, which was a lot of stories about what cities were doing around the U S and Europe to incorporate nature. So, so yeah, that's kind of how it, how it started, and I'm not sure I've answered all your, all the parts of that question, Monica, but, but there's a lot of information about the cities in the network, actually on the webpage. And there actually is a film page, which has links to, to most of these short documentary films. So we, we find that we we'd like to have at least one short film for each of our partner cities.

2 (52m 50s):
We haven't quite been able to do that yet, but, but Edmonton, Canada, for example, there's a, a short five minute film, this beautiful, beautiful battle. How is, how is the city biophilic? You know, what, what are the wonderful things going on? The stories of people and organizations and things the city's doing their winter strategy, for example, to get, to get residents outside during the winter cold winter months, each of our cities, they're, they're doing parallel things, but they're, you know, the settings are different than nature is different.

2 (53m 30s):
What is going on in Phoenix is obviously different than what's going on in Edmonton or Singapore. So they have collectively, they have so many things to share so many positive stories and insights and guidance, and that's the, you know, the, the virtue of a network that cities can learn from each other. Right.

0 (53m 54s):
I think that, that's the big thing that we're trying to do too, with the Institute, as well as just these conversations is bring people in, you know, none of us can do it alone. We can all make a difference, but how do we bring everybody together to really create a collaborative or a network to really figure out, you know, better pathways for, by a feeling? Well, I feel like we've covered so much. Is there anything that I'm missing? I know I should, I I'm remiss if I didn't congratulate you on the award that you guys just got the shift award, which I had never heard of, but I feel like we should know about, can you, can you mention that? Yeah.

2 (54m 33s):
And we're very pleased to have that award and, and, and, you know, we're just learning about this organization as well. It is a, a group based in, they have an annual conference this year, it's actually coming up next month and going to be virtual. So they are in a sense of kind of network as well. And they connect to rich Luke and the, you know, children and nature network. And, and they've been very focused on the health benefits of outdoor nature.

2 (55m 14s):
And so th they do many things. I'm sure that the, the, the conferences, the main thing that we've been aware of. So we're, we're appreciative of sort of being highlighted or being, having a little bit of a light show, shown Shalon on us, shown on us, or put on us as a result of this award. But, but yeah, we're, it's, it's, it's an award really for the network and the wonderful work that all of our partners are doing well,

0 (55m 47s):
It's, well-deserved that I really want to take your ethics class now. I know there's only 20. I think it's a seminar, right. You have to go back to

2 (55m 58s):
Yeah. And I've with all the technology problems I've been having, I've been, it was telling you about earlier. I'm not sure that it would be a pleasant experience this time around, so you might want to wait and take it when we shouldn't do it next spring or something. So, yeah. So I, I'm, I'm very, very happy though that you, I wasn't expecting to talk about or reflect on my childhood and my parents and my impact of my, you know, growing up in Alexandria and all this, you know, so I'm, I'm, I'm in a happier place at the end of this conversation.

1 (56m 37s):
Is your father still alive?

2 (56m 39s):
No, he he's. He passed away. And my mom as well, you mentioned

1 (56m 44s):
Your, of what you're doing. Was he aware of and what kind of conversations did you all have? Yeah,

2 (56m 51s):
He was, he was very aware he's he's been gone. Well, how long has it been he about 15 years now. So he saw it. Yeah. He saw several books. And actually I did it, you mentioned green, urban ism, Monica. And there, there was a book is a book called green urban Newsome. That was from 1999 or 2000. And he, you know, the, the, the pride of apparent, right. He, he bought about 20 copies of it and was, was handing it out to people. And so, you know, he, he did see, and I, I think he, he appreciated the power of his example and the way that his life impacted mine and, and, and, and my mom as well, sort of the unsung partner in that political partnership rises.

2 (57m 49s):
She, she, she did a lot of the campaigning and a lot of the work, and she was as engaged in the city and they maybe didn't get the same attention or visibility that he did as the mayor. But I think they both saw, you know, got to see how, how I kind of followed in their footsteps. And, and, but it, but it is something that I actually have a, a bit of a memoir kind of book that I've been working on, and it is therapeutic and, and, and, you know, delivers an aspect of happiness during a pandemic to be able to reflect back on the wonderful people, you know, that have, that have shaped our lives.

2 (58m 39s):
And my parents certainly fall into that category. So you've helped me. You've you've lightened my day or lightened my load or something. I dunno, you may be happy, happier by asking me questions about that time in my life.

1 (58m 54s):
Do you think you'll run for public office at some point? No.

2 (58m 58s):
You know, that's interesting. I used to get that question a lot and it, it is hard. Right. And it's difficult particularly right. In these divisive times. And I watched that side of it also. And the last thing my dad did was he actually ran for Congress and, and didn't, didn't make it, but it, it is tough. And he, he won most of his elections at the, at the city level, but he didn't win them all. And, and they're, you know, a lot of you, you are the focus of, of a lot of anger and a lot of, you know, when people are unhappy about something and I would, I would be the one who would answer the phone at one in the morning, you know, with some disgruntled person wanting, you know, wanting to know what, why something was the way it was or wanting, you know, that they have to do something about something, you know, and he wasn't there because he was at the council meeting, you know, that didn't end until two in the morning, but, but so I, I, a hard, I am, I am highly appreciative of people who contribute that way, because it is so energy intensive and it takes hold of so much of your life.

2 (1h 0m 23s):
It is a real sacrifice. And I don't think we really appreciate that. And just even serving on the local planning commission and the level of work required is, is, you know, extensive. And it's, it's a, it's a major life, you know, it's a major infringement on your life. So, so we, we, we are a democracy that depends on, on that kind of citizenship. Right? And, and, and my father mayor, this is a city of 120,000. It's not a small, not a large city, but not a small city either. And the mayor and city council were, were considered to be part-time jobs.

2 (1h 1m 7s):
So these are, we're asking a lot. And so this all roundabout way of saying that maybe I'm too selfish because it is, it is a, you know, a major sacrifice to, to, to run for public office. And I, I admire and respect the people who do it and who do it mostly for the right reasons.

1 (1h 1m 27s):
I guess one of the, one of the big problems we have is, is the media and everyone else has made us so difficult for people, number one, to run, and then it's a thankless job once they're in, because you can never please. No, there's probably one of the biggest things to Moxie as a whole, but we need to wrestle with

2 (1h 1m 49s):
Yeah, it is definitely. So I, I don't, I don't think it's in my future though. Steve, thank you.

1 (1h 1m 57s):
No, now, you know, people that never saw, you never know, well, it's not me, if you say, ah, it's too tough.

2 (1h 2m 8s):
Yeah. And I th the, the problem is, you know, you're kind of, I'm, I'm at a certain age where I realize I'm running out of time and probably, you know, there's time, but I, there are also lots of things we, we want to need to do to, to advance this network and this vision of biophilic cities. And I have a bunch of books, including Monica, the city, the, the ethical city is the book I'm working on. One of the books that I'm working on. Right. Which kind of is the update updating of that ethical land juice. So it's a much more expansive, it's not just about land and environment. It's about all those other choices, decisions, policies that we, you know, policymaking that we engage in at the city level use of force, transportation, you know, all the things that, all those choices we make about what we invest in.

2 (1h 3m 4s):
And so, yeah. So anyway, well,

0 (1h 3m 11s):
I watch out, I'll come after you we'll have to do a podcast on, I think that'd be a really good podcast

2 (1h 3m 20s):
Again, or a series of podcasts on that, because one of the things that we discover is that, that, that, I think, again, that a lot of even politicians who grapple with these issues don't necessarily see them as ethical or as ethical quandaries. You know, I, I think we do need to have a conversation that involves a kind of pulling apart and uncovering the biases. We carry with us, the ethical assumptions we're, you know, we're making, and that, that often doesn't happen. So I'll come back for the next podcast.

0 (1h 4m 1s):
I don't want to call it company, but I think the, I thought thoughtful conversations are so important. Well, Tim, thank you so, so much. I mean, it's been an absolute joy to hear more about your background and your story. Clearly, we are all a product of our environment and I mean that as a double entendre, and, you know, I want everybody to reach out to you and try and get involved with biophilic cities, whether you're a city or a person or a company. And I think we need to bring back the bike, the Beekley bus, Steve, let's get a beat on. Yeah. Okay.

2 (1h 4m 39s):
Happy to do that. It can be a biophilic boss, like these buses in Spain, where they have, you know, green roofs on the top, and it should be solar powered or electric, at least with a solar power stores. Yeah. We can, we can re re reimagine that,

0 (1h 4m 57s):
Love it coming out of this, that let's, let's see if we can make them happen or beaten by or something else. Biophilic bicycle. Yeah. Thank you so, so much. I mean, I could sit here and talk to you

1 (1h 5m 16s):
For hours. You're a such an important voice and all the, you you've done the books and you've been one of the voices out there when there weren't very many voices. And I know there are more and more, but you've got so many important messages. So, so

2 (1h 5m 30s):
Thank you for saying that I backpack to see if you have been a guiding light for us as well,

1 (1h 5m 39s):
Where you're the voice and we're, we're applying it in real time right here. So, so to get

2 (1h 5m 48s):
Partnership. Absolutely. Okay. Very good. Look forward to seeing you both in person. Very much so myopic leadership's on it. Yes. Okay. Take good care.

0 (1h 6m 7s):
Talk to you soon. Bye-bye thank you for listening to Sam stories. New episodes are available on Mondays. Please rate and review the podcast and visit our website to learn more about upcoming guests, episodes and everything by ophelia@sarahbstories.com.