Biophilic City

    Growing up, I always felt connected to nature in one way or another. When I lived in San Diego as a little girl I developed a strong connection to the ocean and the many benefits of sharing space with it. Now, as a Utahn, I cannot imagine life without all the natural spaces the mountains provide. One thing that I think Utahns can pride themselves on is this connection to nature, and even though Salt Lake City is not biophilic by some standards, you can bet for sure that everyone around has a love for nature (in one way or another) in their hearts. I find that Utahns are also always looking for ways to incorporate the natural Utah environment into their daily lives, whether through their gardens or through the architectural design of their buildings. As we learn more about being efficient and environmentally friendly here in Salt Lake City, more and more people recognize the potential for beauty and life in the natural desert climate without imposing what we think our needs are on it.

     In his film,The Nature of Cities, Timothy Beatley shows green urbanism at its very best, presenting communities that are successfully incorporating the natural environment into their towns and neighborhoods and even their very homes. The greatest takeaway from this movie for me is the impact that these practices seem to have on the people who get to enjoy them. It almost seems like incorporating nature into the daily lives of the people brings them back a hundred years to a time when we gave ourselves more freedom to explore, and not just go from designated place to designated place. Often I find myself going from home to school to gym to home and nowhere else living in our city. I forget that there are other places that are open to me like parks and trails, although perhaps not as many accessible public outdoor spaces as there should be. I feel like most space that I see in my daily life is private and/or unwelcoming. In these biophilic places that Beatley presents in his movie, people aren’t scared to walk around, run around, bike around because they have natural public spaces that belong to the community, whether it is right in the middle of the neighborhood, or weaving between city buildings. Parking in front of buildings? Nah, walkways and gardens instead.  

     We as human being yearn to connect with other living systems. That is what the Biophilia Hypothesis by Edward O. Wilson says. Perhaps the tenseness and isolation found in so many urban spaces today is caused by our lack of connection with other living systems and can be relieved by the reintroduction of plant and animal habitat into our spaces. I think that opening the spaces we have claimed for ourselves up for nature to come back and take a place in our lives could do nothing but good. It is a selfish idea to think that the spaces where we live should only support human life, and it is also an unfortunate one, for it disconnects us from the earth.