Green Towns and Cities - Theme Cities: Solutions for Urban Problems - page 144

also need to be addressed if the city is to improve its environmental credentials. By
developing these individual polices within the broader strategic framework a more
comprehensive approach to improving Baltimore's appearance and sustainability
has been created.

4﻽9 Towards Biophilic Cities

The various ideas discussed in previous sections are being implemented in a rather
piecemeal manner in most cities. But the 'green agenda' is being consolidated and
extended by the development of a new adjectival addition to the range of prefixes
to urban places, namely biophilic cities. The term is derived from E.O. Wilson's
( 1993 ) popularization of the concept of biophilia, which deals with the extent to
which humans have become hard-wired to connect to nature and other forms of life
over our evolutionary history, and need this contact to ensure their health, let alone
the maintenance of other species. Beatley ( 2011 ) adopted this concept into the title
of his latest topic, 'Biophilic Cities: Integrating Nature into Urban Design and Plan-
ning'. Based in the University of Virginia in Charlottesville (Virginia), his ideas
have led to the development of another network of cities around the world seeking
to share and promote the biophilic ideas, with the earliest adopters in Singapore,
Wellington, San Francisco, Portland, Phoenix, Perth, Oslo, Vitoria, Wellington, Bir-
mingham and Phoenix (BC 2013 ).
There can be little doubt that the concept is still an open one, subject to on-going
development in which the goal is to increase the role of nature at various scales,
in buildings, workplaces, areas and in urban places. The commitment to the core
development goal of an abundant and rich bio-diversity in settlements led Beatley
to outline a list of basic principles to achieve this aim. These have been re-arranged
in Fig. 4.2 to create a summary diagram in the form of a cyclical wheel of biophilic
leadership, or bio-leads. Its focus is on summarizing the development of biological
or green issues in urban places and identifying their utility, not simply on renovating
an environment, but creating such features as ecological knowledge and experi-
ences within the area as well as future stewardship to maintain the improvements.
Yet it is worth emphasizing that there are still few guidelines for ensuring that the
addition of these ideas does not negatively impact on other species or upon vulner-
able people in inner cities who may be in danger of being ignored or displaced by
green revitalization projects.
More fundamental association with nature, not only in terms of functional ben-
efits, but with what Beatley ( 2011 ) views as the deeper concept of integrating na-
ture into everyday living, comes from recognizing how this adds to health, reduces
stress, helps recovery from illness, and enhances cognitive skills, thereby helping
to create more healthy cities (Chap. 13), not just more ecological ones. In many
ways these ideas overlap with the Eco-Cities concept (Register 2006 ) described
in Chap. 5 , although this new approach may be more biologically based and less
focused on design to achieve their ends. It is a pity that their many common aims do