Can Nature Make A City More Ethical?

What does it mean for a city to be ethical? To explore this thought-provoking idea, we spoke with Tim Beatley, professor of sustainable communities at the University of Virginia and founder of the Biophilic Cities network. In a new book proposal, Tim argues that we need to move away from a view of cities as purely legal and political entities and expand our definition to include the city’s moral obligations. Do cities have a duty to measure their impact beyond local boundaries? Should a city government consider the lives and wellbeing of future citizens? What ethical obligations do cities have towards local wildlife? How does nature (and crucially, access to nature) play a role in all of this? We’ll attempt to answer all of these questions and more on today’s episode of Biophilic Solutions.

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Biophilic Solutions is brought to you by the Biophilic Institute and the Biophilic Leadership Summit. 

Show Notes

• Biophilic Cities for an Urban Century: why nature is essential for the success of cities, by Timothy Beatley, 2020.
• The Bird-Friendly City: Creating Safe Urban Habitats, by Timothy Beatley, 2020.
• The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription For Long-Term Thinking, by Roman Krznaric, 2020.
• The Charter for Compassion
• Cully Park in Portland, Oregon
• South Mountain Park in Phoenix, Arizona
• Mayor Stoney announces 5 new green spaces in Richmond’s southside (NBC12)

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Transcript

Monica (05s): Hey, Jennifer. 

Jennifer (07s): Hey Monica

Monica (09s): How are you? 

Jennifer (10s): Well, I'm great. I'm in your neck of the woods for a couple of weeks. We get to hang out in real life of the first time in a really long time.

Monica (15s): I know it's fabulous. Jennifer, tell us about our guest this week. 

Jennifer (19s): Okay. So we sat down with Tim Beatley, who is a Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning. 

Monica (28s): At The University of Virginia, that seems like a mouthful. 

Jennifer (30s): It is a mouthful all right. But his extensive body of work is centered around creative ways that cities can become more livable, equitable, and reduce our ecological footprint. In addition to his work at UVA, he is also the founder of Biophilic Cities Network, which is an amazing organization of partner cities from all over the world to build an understanding of how to incorporate nature into urban spaces.

Monica (51s): We won't list all of Tim's credential's and publications here, because that would literally take an entire episode, but we will link them in our show notes.

Jennifer (57s): Absolutely. And interestingly, the conversation we had with Tim is not about any of his published work per se. We got our hands on this incredible book proposal from Tim about a concept he calls ethical cities, which at its core is all about moving away from this view of cities as only municipal, political, legal entities and reframing them as having an actual ethical duty. 

Monica (1m 18s): This is focused on Tim's work of bringing nature into cities and the ethics around that specifically healthcare, racial and gender equity, as well as the qualities and standards for ethical leaders and how we hold those leaders accountable. 

Jennifer (1m 31s): And all of these topics are completely interconnected, of course.

Monica (1m 33s): Exactly, a hundred percent. And I really hope that that comes across in our conversation. So let's go on to our interview with Tim Beatley. 

Jennifer (1m 40s): Sounds great 

Jennifer (1m 48s): Tim. Hi. How are you? 

Tim (1m 49s): I'm fine. Thank you. How are you?

Jennifer (1m 50s): We are great. Thank you so much for joining us today. So excited. We're just, we've been talking about this for a week. So if you don't mind, would you mind sharing a little bit about yourself and what you do. 

Tim (2m 2s): Sure. So I teach here at the University of Virginia in the School of Architecture, actually in the department of Urban and Environmental Planning. That's my primary role, I’ve been here for more than 30 years, actually teaching undergrads and grads about planning. That's, that's the primary thing. I also do other things that I know we're going to talk about, like help to run a network of cities called Biophilic Cities. 

Monica (2m 32s): Yeah, tell us a little bit about biophilic cities. We had you on the Serenbe stories podcast and you shared quite a bit, but for this new audience, what is it? What is the network about? 

Tim (2m 41s): Yeah, so well, so the network started in around 2013. It really grew out of a research project. We had some funding from the Summit Foundation in Washington DC. We were looking at what were the really innovative things that cities were doing around the world to bring nature into their cities, to put nature at the center of their design and planning. And at the end of that project, we brought representatives from 10 cities to Charlottesville here in Virginia. 

And at the end of a four day meeting, this group just wanted to continue to meet and continue as a community. And so we sort of formally started the network then, and since then it's been growing. So, so it, it has Biophilia really at the core, and your folks who were listening to your podcast already know a lot about Biophilia, like this innate connection to nature that we want to need, and our argument is that if we're going to design cities, we're going to be increasingly an urbanized planet, we really have to put nature at the center of that design and planning. 

Nature can't just be something that you, you visit a couple of times a year on vacation. It has to be all around us where we're living and working. So we're up to about 25 cities now, officially in the network as partner cities. And I can talk more about what that means, but we also have several, we have three or 4,000 individual members of the network and several hundred organizations part of the network as well.

Jennifer (4m 21s): In what time frame has it grown from that small size, to the size it is now? 

Monica (4m 25s): Well, it's been since 2013. So what is that? Seven or eight years? And we we’re not the C40, we were not Quickly. We're, you know, we're a relatively small, very much a vision driven network. So these are people who are really embraced this idea of cities, of immersive nature. And so it is not a network for everyone. And, and, and so we've been happy with the slow percolation and in more recent years of sort of a little bit more accelerated traction that we've, we've been getting, but it's probably, you know, still going to be a small network even as we grow. 

Monica (5m 11s): So one of the things when we had you on Serenbe stories that kinda blew me away, and you just thought this was so funny, but I was like, at the end of our conversation, what I said, sort of like, you know, dropped this bomb, this topic of something called what, what was fascinating to me and it still is, is ethical cities. I didn't know what that was. And I had never heard that. And I'm just thrilled that we're having you back because that's what, what I want to dig into today is sort of like what is an ethical city? 

Tim (5m 49s): Right, yeah. Whatever I say today, I want to be clear. This is an emerging idea. And I mean, the first thing to wonder about is can a city be ethical? Is that something that even makes sense to talk about? At the level of a city of a municipality or a government? We think about people, individuals, being ethical. But so the first thing I would say is that a city it is possible and it may be a little provocative, but that's part of the goal here is to think about the ways that a city advances, particular values and policies and the ways that cities at a collective level, through policy decisions that city councils make, policies that are administered and enforced by staff, all those things have ethical implications. 

And so in that way, and the same way that we talk about it, a corporation being ethical or responsible, or a university for that matter of being ethical or responsible, we can also talk about, about a city. 

Monica (6m 57s): That's actually a really good point because to your point that, you know, obviously we think of people being ethical, but we do hold universities and institutions accountable. And so taking it to a city is a really compelling idea. 

Tim (7m 13s): Absolutely. 

Jennifer (7m 14s): And a big endeavor. It's like, 

Tim (7m 16s): Yeah, I mean, it's a big endeavor and we all have seen my outline of a book that I've been working on. And there are so many different aspects of what might be included in a discussion about the ethics of cities. And it's how we treat the environment and the things we do that affect other forms of life, How they co-occupy spaces with us in cities, it’s how we treat each other. It's how, it's all of the issues of a systemic racism and segregated land use policies that we're grappling with in American cities today are, are at the core ethical issues. The policing issues that are, you know, that we're grappling with right now, those are all deeply ethical issues, but it also has to do with how, you know, privacy and how we, how we manage public spaces. 

And in cities, how open and inclusive those cities are, how tolerant are they to diversity of lifestyle and perspective. So for the so many aspects to what might constitute an ethical city, you're absolutely right. 

Jennifer (8m 34s): And so is Biophilia an entryway to an ethical city, like is that a key component why you'd want to create an ethical city?

Tim (8m 42s): Yeah. I think it is. I, I, there are of course, a lot of really rich issues there for us to grapple with. I do think that my, my vision of a Biophilic city, a city that connects us to nature that cares about nature. Literally Biophilia, love of nature, is a point of entry for thinking about a whole bunch of things that have ethical implications. So I do believe I just said this, that, that we have a responsibility to think about the other forms of life we co occupied the world with. 

So many of them are sentient forms of life. So I've been writing a lot lately about this idea of a bird friendly city. And so we know, the way we build buildings and the emphasis on, on glass creates incredible danger for birds. And estimates suggest that upwards of a billion birds are killed in the U S alone. A billion birds, sensory creatures by buildings and many, many more harmed, injured by, by buildings and by glass specifically. 

So do, we, are we ethically bound are we duty bound to think about the way we design buildings, taking into account the incredible pain and suffering that birds feel? And I think, yes, we do. Absolutely we do. And, and counterbalanced against the relatively easy and clear and relatively cost-effective things that we could do and are beginning to do to minimize that pain and suffering. 

That's a, that's an ethical duty. And to me, it's part of vision of a Biophilic city. We want nature around us because it it's good for us. We are often sort of justifying trees and nature and birds and bird song because of all the benefits that they bring us. But there's also, we are also, we have to acknowledge the inherent moral worth intrinsic value that other forms of life like birds have. And we are duty bound to, to minimize the pain and suffering. 

So we've got cities in our network now, San Francisco, the first American city to mandate bird safe design. Yeah. And so we were quite proud of San Francisco. Other cities are following suit, actually Toronto is now in our network and they really were a pioneering city and the first city really of North America to adopt bird safe standards and that gradually ratcheted them up a city that cares a lot about birds. 

Monica (11m 32s): Right. Well, and, and in your book proposal, which you're, you're writing it, right. This isn't just a idea in your head, 

Tim (11m 40s): We're halfway through it. And it actually, I, for many, many years here at UVA, I've taught an environmental ethics course. And so it's, it's been a part of what I've done and what I’ve thought about and write about for, for many years, I could really, from the beginning of my career and I, and back in the nineties, mid nineties, I wrote a book called Ethical Land Use a Johns Hopkins press book that, that at the time was a lot about environment, but it wasn't so much about cities this, however many years later, that is all these ideas to continue to percolate. 

And, and so this is a book really, in some ways more comprehensive of that, all those ethical dimensions or most of those ethical dimensions. 

Monica (14m 31s): Well, and I think you bring up a good point that everything is so interconnected, you know, the city as a system, right. And beyond, you know, a city, you know, cities are permeable, right? It's not, there's not a bubble on it. And so what happens in a city affects regions and affects states and affects countries and beyond. And I think we've seen that this past year with not only the pandemic, but with, you know, what, with climate change, right. 

This isn't a city issue, it's a human issue. So I, I feel like this book, you know, when it comes out or is it, I think you had mentioned, do you have to deliver it this summer or so? So what’s the timing because I feel like the world needs this conversation now. 

Tim (15m 20s): Well, thank you for saying that. And I have a lot of, a lot more writing still, still to do, but, but yeah, hopefully it will be done this summer. Yeah. Your, your point is a good one and, and cities are not, they are just there connected to the world. And this is one of the points to that we make when we talk about ethical cities and, and in philosophy, there, there are kind of a couple of key ideas that I find really powerful. One of them is the notion of the moral, the moral imagination. The ability of us as human beings to put ourselves in someone else's circumstance and to imagine what it might be like, what it might be like to be a homeless person, for example, or not be able to feed your family and the circumstances leading to that place. 

Similarly, the ability to understand or appreciate, we might not be able to, to know exactly what or, or anything about what it's like to be a bird, but we do know suffering and pain and suffering. And so, so that's a big part of this. The second related idea is the concept of the moral community, which means who or what are the things that have got to be given moral consideration in our ethical choices and ethical decisions. 

And, and so we frequently talk about one dimension being biological, and that, that means expanding the moral community to include other forms of life. And I embrace upended biocentrism that says that everything, every living thing has an inherent moral world, and we need to take its interest into account. But another dimension is a geographical idea that we define in an ethical city, in part by its efforts to think beyond its borders. 

So we know as you suggest, cities are a big driver of greenhouse gas emissions, carbon emissions, and, and at the same time we can do many things to reduce those emissions that will address the, you know, the impacts are often, far away and it's flooding in Bangladesh or there are parts of the world that are especially vulnerable to know what we've done in patterns of emissions here in the global north, especially. So cities can be taking responsibility and can be quickly moving in the direction and reducing their carbon footprints and doing things that take into account that seek to take responsibility for and minimize the impacts beyond their borders. 

And that can be something, you know, smaller can be, you know, figuring out that you're doing, things that might minimize impact on an adjacent, you know, city. So it isn't, it doesn't have to be far away geographically, but that's, that's another way we think of an ethical city. The impacts of the choices, the decisions made within cities boundaries don't stop. They don't stop at the boundary. 

And by the way, the third, the third dimension is temporal. An ethical city is one that is thinking long-term and thinking, and a kind of deeper, deeper time and thinking about the impacts on the future generation and thinking about what it means to be a good ancestor. That's actually a new, new, new book Rama and Chris and Eric has a great book about what does that mean to be a good ancestor? 

Monica (19m 00s): What’s it called?

Tim (19m 02s): That's the title? I'll give you the full title, Good Ancestor, A Radical Prescription For Long Term Thinking, it’s a 2020 book and I’m just reviewing it. It’s just wonderful. And as an urban planner, one of the things he says as we haven't, we down have a very, we don’t  have very good ways of thinking about the future. Very good sort of patterns for thinking, or very good tools for thinking about the future. 

And, and this book is all about that. Anyway, one of the, one of the ideas, he talks about a legacy mindset and thinking, and, and this idea of each generation thinking about what it's going to leave for future generations and the idea of giving gifts and passing things along. This is not, there's really nothing in this book that's brand new, but he talks about it and pulls it together in a really impressive way. 

But, but that is another dimension, do people living in a hundred years or 500 years, are they part of our moral community? Do cities need to be thinking about that? And I would say, yes, they do. 

Jennifer (20m 27s): I have a question. Do you think because of COVID, these conversations are much more of a, you know people are much more aware of them? Or there's more, people want to have these conversations more than they would have pre COVID. 

Tim (20m 40s): Yeah, I don't know. Certainly during COVID we have appreciated, you know, the power of nature, that's something that's undeniable. And I'm often lately with this bird-friendly City book, that is kind of the newest book of mine. I've been doing a lot of, a lot of presentations to bird clubs, which is really cool, some of them are tiny, you know, may be, 15, 20 people. 

And I get all of this kind of anecdotal stories of how people are paying attention to things like birds, watching birds and putting up bird feeders, listening to,  in a way they didn't, maybe, before the pandemic. And I think there is an appreciation for nature and the power of nature, the constancy of nature, that, that for a lot of us, that has been a really important point of normalcy for us in a, in a crazy, otherwise crazy mixed up world right now. 

So I think there's a, there's a point of entree there in talking about how, what we want cities to be, what we want them to be like in the future, and the idea that they're more nature-ful and more Biophilic. I think that is gaining support because of the pandemic. And then, but more broadly the discussion about meaning and purpose and ethics. And I suspect you're right about that as well, because we've, we've lost, you know, more than a half a million lives in this pandemic. 

And a lot of people's lives have been turned upside down. And, you know, I think this for a lot of us, there is a kind of deeper soul searching, maybe that this has helped to stimulate and that maybe we will be looking for greater meaning and purpose and, and importance in what we do and how we live. 

Monica (22m 37s): I know you had written a few years back and I, and I kind of pulled this one thing out of an article that it brought to my attention something called the compassion charter. That's sort of a really powerful document that cities can sorta pledge to, to sort of be a compassionate city. And I know in this article, this is now two years on 2 million people in 70 cities, including like Tucson, Denver, Rotterdam, Cape Town had sort of signed on. 

And it was sort of an idea of like, how can we create policies, planning and environmental action that talks about compassion. And I thought that that sort of, you know, probably plays into this idea of an ethical city. And I'll just sort of add on to that in another word of like flourishing was also something, a word that you used. So talk a little bit about that. I just, I think it's, we don't usually think of ethical, maybe compassion, but flourishing is, you know, maybe sits in this health and wellness world and maybe your nature ties to it. 

But talk to me about that. Like, when you have an ethical city, the citizens can flourish. 

Tim (23m 53s): Right. I think that's right.. And that's actually one of the art side arguments made by this book about what it means to be good ancestors, that this is part, partly about seeking meaning in life. And when you think about what is really important to us, it is about passing along a planet that will be, that will allow for a deep, deep flourishing of all life, humans included. 

But yeah, the compassionate charter, I think, is really, really an interesting way of giving some visibility too, to that idea, the importance of empathy, compassion, you know, it's sort of taking empathy, acting on it and in a way, that’s how I’d describe that.

Monica (24m 58s): And, and the thing was sort of this idea of like, you know, you may not, we know we may not all look the same. We may live in different parts of town. We have different economic situations, but we're all interconnected for a common fate. And I thought that was really great too. Cause I think that goes back. I, I, you know, I'll go back on to the pandemic or climate and I almost would add, you know, you know, with so much divisiveness around, you know, politics, you know, we all, as humans have common life goals, we want safety. We want our kids to be well-educated. We want food on the table. You know, we want a job or role in the community with purpose. So I really like this idea of going back and like a softer, more compassionate way to think about the world and cities, which are so bustling and like hardscape, if you think, you know, I love that. 

Tim (25m 55s): Yeah, I did to, I think it's, and we don't talk about this enough we’re frequently talking about cities in, in terms of their GDP or the economic, cities are economic engines, how many jobs do they produce. And, you know, we focus on as we need to, on the mechanics of running cities and planning cities and zoning decisions, all of the things that we kind of grapple with in terms of city management and planning. 

We tend to forget that those, those, those larger values and, and yeah, flourishing is a big part of that. And, and compassion is a big part of that and, and compassion for the, again I would say I'm thinking about these, these different ways of thinking about our moral community that's compassion for, for other, other forms of life is a big part of that as well. 

Monica (27m 2s): Can we talk like concrete examples? Not to say no, cause I love this. And I think it's, I think it's something that just to put it out in the world and have somebody start thinking that this concept exists. And like, what does that mean? I think it’s phenomenal. Talk, let's talk a little bit about like concrete examples or ways that a city can be ethical and, you know, you talk about public spaces and the public realm a lot. And tell me a little bit about, tell us a little bit about that. 

Tim (27m 34s): Yeah. So I would say, you know, an ethical city is a just and inclusive city. I would say it's an open city, it's a city that is tolerant again of different ways of living, of diversity. It is a city that in urban design circles, as we talk a lot about the value, the importance of public spaces, right? The, and these are the places where if we're doing it right, they are the places where we come together. 

Whatever our differences are, never our backgrounds, our ethnicity, whatever we come together in those spaces. And that is how, how we began to see that diversity in, and connect and become a city, a kind of cohesive city, if you will. So there are a lot of things that have to do with how we plan those spaces. And so, one of our partners said just as an example, Portland, Oregon, in the biophilic cities network, we have a five or seven minute film about Kelly Park. 

This is a park in a diverse neighborhood and underserved neighborhood that didn't have a park and, and so wonderful model, actually, of how, instead of having a top-down parks department designing a park, we actually, the neighborhood is given that power and it becomes a space that they own and that they care about and that they are comfortable in. 

And, and that is a, a, a real problem in a lot of cities, or you have access to parks is a huge social equity problem. But even when you have a park nearby for a neighborhood of color, may not feel comfortable or safe in that space. So there are many things like the Kelly park example of many ways, we can do things differently and, and share the power and co-design spaces in, in a more and more ethical and inclusive kind of way. 

So that's a, that's one concrete example. You know, we are, of course in the midst of rethinking everything in spaces and including the racist monuments, right. That's a big thing. And it's been a real point of contention here in my own city of Charlottesville. And so, and, and the, and the people we name things for right, and, and the imagery that we find integrated into the spaces and public ground, all of those things have a bearing on how inclusive and safe and comfortable we all feel in those spaces. 

And, and so that's one set of concrete ways that we could make a city more, more ethical. But again, back to my example of bird safe design, I mean, there are whole bunch of things that, concrete steps that we can take to create cities that, that allow for coexistence and existence to me as a really important ethical concept. And that means birds, but it also means thinking about, you know, coyotes and other, other kinds of nature that, you know, may, may represent an element of danger even for residents, but how we navigate that and how we care and treat how we treat those other forms of life are really important and really parts of it. 

Really important parts of what, what constitutes an ethical city on the, on the temporal, the dimension, thinking about an ethical city is one that, that thinks about what it's passing along. We have many concrete examples of cities, some, some cities that are bad examples because they've done things that simply pass along problems, whether that's a toxic waste dump or a car, excessively car dependent transportation system, for example, but we have. 

And the other, on the other hand, we have a lot of really wonderful examples. There's no perfect city. Let's be clear about that. I can't give you a, a list of the ethical cities. But Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix is, is in our biophilic cities network. And as an example, in the twenties, 1920s, the city had the chance to purchase 14,000 acres that, that became the south mountain park. 

This is a desert park, essentially, you know, largely untouched landscape. In 1924 they, they spent a fair amount of money to buy this, what's now a beloved and incredibly large desert park desert reserve. That's the gift that yes, they enjoyed it. Residents enjoyed it. And it was actually quite, quite a ways away from the city when we did this, but, but today's residents are enjoying that, that, what is that a hundred years later? 

This is, this is, this is a gift that, that current residents are really benefiting from. And so I think that's part of it. It's part of the mindset, part of a way of a city sees every decision in terms of how it's going to affect many, many future residents who are not, not even born. Yeah. I mean, and how to incorporate that their voice into, into the decision making of the city is a really interesting and important question for us. 

Monica (33m 48s): One of the things that you'd also mentioned, or in, in the, in the book proposal is that, you know, we, or cities, you know, set out to, to do planning and maybe the long term, the long range planning is 20 years, 30 years. But what if we thought about 500 years out, which seems mind-boggling right. But I do think that that's, how do we stop the short term ism, if that's the word and, you know, think further out. One thing that I know that you've said before is that, you know, tree canopy, you know, if, and again, tree canopy, we love those neighborhoods with all of the tree lined streets, and obviously they'll have parks, but trees are not just beautiful and provide shade. There's a life expectancy differential with neighborhoods with greater trees. Yeah. Can you talk about that a little bit? I mean, that's, that's an ethical issue I think. 

Tim (34m 50s): It is. It absolutely is. And I said that I'm, you know, an ethical city is a just and inclusive city, a city that thinks about the fairness, uhh, and the distribution of benefits and, and also the costs of the goods in the bads. And those are distributed, those are ethical issues, but when it comes to nature, trees included, we like to say that, you know, nature is a birthright. 

It's not something that only one part of the city should get to enjoy. And as you say, that, that, that imbalance or that, that unfair distribution has pretty significant health implications. So in many cities, one of our cities, Richmond, Virginia, one of the cities in our network, you can line up, you can overlay the, the red lining 1930s redlining maps predict pretty much the present tree canopy cover. 

And so it is, you know, a sharp imbalance between the largely African-American neighborhoods that have a low, low tree canopy cover and the white leafy white affluent neighborhoods of the city. So there's a huge social inequity, social, you know, injustice there that has, you know, very clear health implications. And, and as you say, pretty severe, pretty sharp differences in life expectancy. 

And in some cities like Chicago, the difference is 20 years or more. I mean, it's incredible. Yeah. I mean, it's, so this, this is profoundly unjust. And, and so how can you have an ethical city that is tolerant of that, that injustice? So cities like Richmond to, to their credit and a wonderful mayor Levar Stony who has kind of made this a priority and he is investing in new parks and new nature in those underserved neighborhoods working in neighborhoods of color. 

So actually this past fall, he announced five new parks, which is sort of unheard of in a, in a city, an older cities. So we can and must address those inequities and those injustices. So the nature is, is, is certainly a really important thing to think about the benefits of, of nature and the, pleasures of nature ought to be enjoyed by everybody. 

Jennifer (37m 37s): Speaking of that, are you I mean, are you going to think about hiring like chief ethical officers in certain cities? Or like how would that be mapped out? 

Tim (35m 47s): Yeah, well, you know, that’s interesting. We do have, we’re in this era where there are a lot of new, new titles and new positions in cities which is kind of, kind of interesting. So there's a, you know, there's now a chief resilience officer, usually there's something out of the a hundred resilient cities and there are sustainability directors and, you know, 10, 15 years ago that didn't there, weren't titles like that. And now there, there is increasingly a chief inclusion, equity and inclusion officer. 

I know that that's a title that we're finding in many cities now, and that's really positive. That's really a good, a good thing. There are some cities that have hired ethicists. So that's really an interesting idea, right? That you might actually have in addition to having a parks director and a city manager, planning, that you have a city ethicist who is maybe sitting at the end of that, you know, city council chamber, who, you know, just as there's the city attorney, right that is consulted all the time. You know, when something, when a legal issue comes up, maybe, maybe they, they turn to the chief ethics officer or the city ethicist and say, why do you think, what are the ethical dimensions of this? And, and that, as I say, this is not a, that's not a new idea. And there are some cities that have hired ethicists. 

Monica (39m 23s): That’s a wonderful idea. So as we sort of wrap up our conversation, cause you know, Tim, I could talk to you forever tell us, you know, one of the things we like to sort of let people know, you know, what actions can they take themselves, whether they live like in a city, a town, a rural area, you know, to help advocate for an ethical city standard. Cause that's, I think one of the big things that as consumers, what we can do is, you know, educate and then advocate and put pressure on our neighborhoods and city council. And so tell us some examples or thoughts on that. 

Tim (39m 58s): Yeah. I think there, there are many things that you could do as an individual. And so I've, I've made a big point about making that an ethical city is, is a subsidy that emphasizes coexistence and, and thinks about birds and bird safety, for example. And so there are many, many things that you could do as an individual. I mentioned bird's-eye glass, for example, about 40 to 50% of the bird fatalities happen, actually in residential areas, you know, that single family home that you're living in now, there are actually things you could do and products actually paracords and relatively low cost off the shelf products that you could do to make your house more bird friendly. 

Monica (40m 44s): Maybe also cat, get rid of your cats. Sorry. I'm going to get in trouble with the cat people. 

Tim (40m 53s): Yeah. Because how do you balance a love of birds against our love of cats and have a lot of rainbow collars and their catios. And they're all kinds of things that you could do. A catio is a cat patio, which we have a little film about catios, so. 

Monica (41m 08s): Okay, great. Maybe we’ll have to put that on the website. 

Tim (41m 10s): I think there's things you could do at, at sort of the individual level, but of course, a lot of the things that I'm I've been talking about are, are things that could happen at, at the municipal level or the city level of a city council. 

And I think that we've got to be all of us more engaged in the political system and more engaged in the processes of making decisions. And I, I don't think that that bird safe, mandatory bird safe ordinance in San Francisco or the one that passed now in New York City happened, it didn't happen without a lot of advocacy and yes, it's New York Autobon and you know, groups, but it's also a lot of individuals expressing they're support and their, their desire to see that kind of change. 

And that's so, so, so true. So being, getting involved in local politics is a really good thing to do and supporting and putting forward candidates that think about ethics. And we haven't talked at all about the ethics connected to the processes by which we make decisions, but that's a really big part of what makes an ethical city, how those decisions are made, who gets to be involved in that process. 

What about the, the unfortunate power of money and campaign contributions and self-dealing and the role of development- developers and corporations who have, I think a little too much power over those decisions, how do we make sure that they are fair decisions? And those are all really important kind of ways of setting ethical rules if you will, for, for decisions and decision-making.

So there are those kinds of things that, that residents can be involved in. I think just talking, you know, having discussions about what it means to live in an ethical city. I mean that, to me, I'm you started by, by, by raising this question, what is it? That’s provocative. I don't hear, there's not too many people talking about ethics of the city. I think we need to, we need to kind of pull the curtain aside and, and start to explicitly question the ethics of a lot of the things we're doing in cities and apply a kind of lens an ethical lens to things that we haven't before and talk about them in that way. This is not just a decision that reaches some kind of reaches a, a legal standard or is cost-effective or whatever the usual standards are, but we should hold our decisions to a higher level and talk about them again through ethical way. 

Monica (44m 19s): I think that's fantastic. And since we can't audit your class, which, you know, I'm like, I'm advocating for, I want to come audit your class. The book will be the next best thing. So when, when, when are we hoping that we are able to get our hands on it? I have to finish it first. 

Jennifer (44m 32s): Okay. We’ll have you back for the book!

Tim (44m 34s): Okay that sounds good, I’d love to come back on. 

Monica (44m 38s): Well Tim this was amazing, thank you so much. We, again, we were just gonna keep bringing you back and talk and dig in further because there's so many aspects of this that we haven't even covered, but I do think we really connected to nature and the Biophilic lens. So thank you. Thank you so much for your time. 

Tim (44m 57s): Thanks, thanks for having me. 

Jennifer (44m 59s): Thank you for your knowledge, your wisdom and your time. Thanks. 

Jennifer (45m 04s): Okay. That was so great. If only we lived in this world of ethical and biophilic cities. 

Monica (45m 10s): I have to say I'm pretty optimistic just to have these thought leaders like Tim, putting these ideas out into the world, putting pen to paper, hopefully will generate energy and start the conversation on how we can make cities more ethical. I think it's something people are really craving right now. 

Jennifer (45m 25s): Monica, I love what you said during our conversation about how, when you have an ethical city, citizens can flourish. I mean, Tim said he can't give us a list of ethical cities, but it seems like there is this general sense that people and citizens are starting to really demand a society that's empathetic, healthy, safe, where we just recognize each other’s basic humanity. 

Monica (45m 49s): 2020 was a lightning rod of a year with the pandemic, the election racial reckoning protests against police brutality. I really hope we can take stock from all these experiences and channel it into a working way to build a society that is more ethical, more empathetic. I mean, it's not going to be easy, but it'll be really worth it.

Jennifer (46m 03s): So worth it. Was there anything that surprised you though?

Monica (46m 05s): Yes, some of the concepts were pretty new to me when he talks about nature and Biophilia. I don't think we always talk about animal life and what an ethical obligation we have to those animals also to provide more than an access to nature and green space. We have to cut emissions. We have to take living creatures into consideration. And I also really liked the idea of creating a 500 year plan into the future. It seems so radical, right? But it's so different from the kind of short-term city planning we're used to, but imagine what the world would be like if that was a common thing practice.

Jennifer (46m 42s): It's also fascinating. A lot to think about step one is becoming more engaged with what's going on in your local community, advocating, helping put forward the right leaders who really truly care about these issues 

Monica (46m 52s): And get an ethicist on the city's payroll. 

Jennifer (46m 54s): Wasn’t that so cool. Yeah. And yes, buy Tim’s book when it comes out. 

Monica (46m 57s): We'll let you know. Okay. Jennifer wound back in a few weeks with another Biophilic Solutions interview. Do you want to go meet for a drink? 

Jennifer (47m 01s): Absolutely. Let’s do it! Bye guys.