Green Cities with Helena Van Vliet with BioPhilly
Green and Gritty is a new podcast exploring all aspects of gardening in a city. In this episode, host and Master Gardener, Meredith Nutting is joined by Helena van Vliet, from BioPhilly to explore why we need to make our cities more green and how to create green spaces on every surface.
To find out more about Helena van Vliet's work visit the BioPhilly website: https://www.biophilly.org/about
Green and Gritty is a podcast about truly urban gardening and sustainable living. Like and subscribe to hear a new episode each week. To submit a listener question send a voice file or email to grittyandgreen@coolgoonproductions.com with Gritty and Green HELP! in the subject line.
Episode Transcription
NAT SOUND: Garden – birds, bees, crickets, rain
MEREDITH: THIS IS THE SOUND OF MY GARDEN.
NAT SOUND: Garden – nature sounds mixed with ice cream truck, airplanes, talking, construction, car alarm, SEPTA, EAGLES fight song, etc.
MEREDITH: SO IS THIS. MY .001 ACRE OF A GARDEN IS LOCATED IN THE CITY OF MURALS, THE HOME OF THE SUPER BOWL 52 CHAMPIONS AND INHABITED BY 1.6 MILLION PEOPLE MAKING IT THE 6TH LARGEST CITY IN AMERICA. I’M TALKING, OF COURSE, ABOUT PHILADELPHIA.
NAT SOUNDS: nature
MEREDITH: SELF PROCLAIMED AS “AMERICA’S GARDEN CAPITAL” THE CITY HAS 30 PUBLIC GARDENS WITHIN 30 MILES. AND DON’T GET ME WRONG THEY ARE BEAUITFUL – LONGWOOD GARDENS, AMBLER ARBORETUM, THE PHILADELPHIA ZOO – THEY ARE ALL GREAT PLACES TO VISIT WHEN YOU NEED A DOSE OF GREENERY.
BUT WHAT I’M INTERESTED IN IS THE SPACES BETWEEN THOSE GARDENS. THE POSTAGE STAMP BACKYARDS, THE INDOOR JUNGLES, THE ROOF DECKS AND THE STOOPS. ALL THOSE NOOKS AND CRANNIES IN THE CONCRETE THAT PEOPLE HAVE LOVEINGLY TURNED INTO GARDENS.
Gritty and Green Theme Song
MEREDITH: I’M MEREDITH NUTTING AND THIS IS GRITTY AND GREEN – A PODCAST ABOUT TRULY URBAN GARDENING. EACH EPISODE WE’LL EXPLORE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN PEOPLE AND PLANTS, WE’LL LEARN A BIT ABOUT SCIENCE AND A LOT ABOUT HOW TO GROW SUCCESSFUL URBAN GARDENS. THIS EPISODE I’M JOINED BY HELENA VAN VLEIT TO TALK ABOUT BIOPHILIC CITIES. SO LET’S GET GROWING.
LIVING IN A CITY THAT’S MOSTLY PAVEMENT AND BUILDINGS, NATURE FEELS REMOVED. YOU GO OUT INTO NATURE. NOT JUST OUTSIDE BUT OUT OF THE CITY OR AT LEAST OUT OF YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD TO A PUBLIC GREEN SPACE. THIS SEPARATION OF URBAN AND WILD SPACES MIRRORS A SOCIETY THAT SEPARATES HUMANS FROM NATURE. AND THAT’S A PROBLEM. BECAUSE FROM THERE IT’S NOT A BIG LEAP TO GO TO HUMANS ARE SEPARATE FROM NATURE TO HUMANS ARE AGAINST NATURE. WE HAVE OUR SPACES. AND NATURE HAS ITS. CITIES ARE FOR PEOPLE AND NATURE BELONGS OUT THERE – AWAY FROM OUR HOMES, SCHOOLS, ROADS, WORKPLACES. IT’S TO BE KEPT IN DESIGNATED PLACES AND VISITED WHEN WE FEEL LIKE IT. BUT WHAT IF WE WELCOMED BACK NATURE INTO OUR CITIES.
I'm Helena Van Vliet. I'm an architect by training, I'm originally from Germany. I've been here for a very long time. I'm the president of Biophilia, which we founded in 2015, I think.
MEREDITH: HELENA HAS A MASTERS IN ARCHITECTURE FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA WHERE SHE CURRENTLY TEACHES AS WELL AS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY.. SHE IS ALSO A BIOPHILIC ARCHITECT AND DESIGN CONSULTANT.
Biophilia is a term that goes back to the psychologist Erich Fromm. He was German um maybe in the 50s and 60s around that time. And it has two components. Bio and philia right? Philia is one of the Greek words for love. The Greeks have many different words for love I think four or five. And philia is the one that relates to a loving kinship. It’s a friendship kinship situation. And bio of course is nature. So biophilia refers to our kinship relationship with nature. Our kinship friendship. So that means it involves reciprocity like any friendship, it's a give and take. It's not just a take, it's also a give.
MEREDITH: ERICH FROMM COINED THE TERM IN HIS 1973 BOOK THE ANATOMY OF HUMAN DESTRUCTIVENESS. HE DEFINED IT AS “THE PASSIONATE LOVE OF LIFE AND ALL THAT IS ALIVE” AND THEN THE TERM WAS POPULARIZED IN THE 1980S WITH AMERICAN BIOLOGIST AND NATURALIST E.O. WILSON WITH HIS BOOK “BIOPHILIA”
Nat Sound: Bird song
And he said, Look, here's the research. We have this innate affinity to other biological organisms, such as birds and butterflies and so forth, because their presence in our lives supports our own survival and flourishing. There's a direct connection.
You know, we for instance, we know that the presence of birdsong in a neighborhood is also a public health benefit because it lowers our heart rate, it lowers our blood pressure because we know we meaning our body knows that when the birds are singing, things are probably okay. When the birds stop singing, there is a problem somewhere, you know. So this all happens under the hood, you know, under the hood of our consciousness a lot of times. But it affects our physiology very profoundly,
MEREDITH: THIS CONCEPT HAS SPURRED A MOVEMENT OF CONNECTING ADVOCATES AND ORGNIZATIONS LIKE BIOPHILLY, all IN the HOPES OF CREATING BIOPHILIC CITIES THROUGH ARCHITECTURE, PLANNING, DESIGN AND POLICY.
I’m a steering committee member of Biophilic Cities International, which was started in 2012 by Tim Beatley at the University of Virginia. And we have about 30 cities in our network now internationally. It's about the connection between nature in cities, you know, and public health. There's a lot of research on the fact that children who grow up, urban environments where nature is present on a daily basis, have a compromised microbiome, gut microbiome from day one of their lives. So in my opinion this sis the ultimate inequity situation. So your immune system is compromised from day one of your life.
MEREDITH: THERE HAVE BEEN LOTS OF STUDIES EXMANING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN HUMAN HEALTH AND NATURE. THEY’VE FOUND LINKS BETWEEN NATURE AND IMPOROVED CONGNITIVE FUCTION, IMPROVED CREATIVITY AND PROBLEM-SOLVING ABILITIES, DECREASED BLOOD PRESSURE, IMPROVED MENTAL HEALTH, REDUCED CORTISOL LEVELS AND MUSCLE TENSION, LOWER HEART RATE, LOWER HEART DISEASE, BETTER SLEEP, LOWER RISKS OF DEPRESSION, IMPROVED CONCENTRATION, REDUCED MENTAL DISORDERS, DECREASED RISK OF CHRONIC DISEASES, THE LIST GOES ON. BUT BIOPHILIC CITIES AREN’T JUST GOOD FOR OUR MINDS AND BODIES, THEY’RE GOOD FOR THE PLANET.
The other problem is courtesy of climate emergency, we're facing extreme heat conditions especially and most dire in cities and cities like Philadelphia that are full of brick and concrete, you know, those are heat absorbing materials that store the heat and then give it off at night. So night cooling is no longer happening in the hot summer months, which are extending. And so that that then makes people turn on their air conditioning, which generates more heat, because every time you turn that on, you're blasting hot air out into the city. So it’s the vicious cycle.
MEREDITH: THIS PHENOMENON IS CALLED A HEAT ISLAND. COMPARED TO TEMPERATURES IN SUBURBAN OR RURAL ENVIRONMENTS WHERE THERE ARE MORE GREEN SPACES, DAYTIME TEMPERATURES IN THE CITY CAN BE UP TO 7 DEGREES HIGHER AND NIGHTTIME TEMPERATURES CAN BE UP TO 5 DEGREES HIGHER. AND YOU CAN SEE THIS PHENOMENON ON A MICRO SCALE WHEN IT SNOWS. OFTEN TIMES GARDENS, PARKS OR EVEN JUST TREE PITS ARE COVERED IN SNOW WHILE UNSALTED SIDEWALKS HOLDING THE SUN’S HEAT, ARE NOT.
CENSUS DATA SHOWS THAT WHEN YOU LOOK AT DIFFERENT NEIGHBORHOODS IN A CITY THIS HEAT ISLAND AFFECT IS EVEN HIGHER IN LOWER INCOME NEIGHBORHOODS AND DISPROPORTIONATLY AFFECTS BLACK AND BROWN PEOPLE. SO, THE AFFECTS OF REDLINING IN THE 1930S ARE STILL HARMING COMMUNITIES TODAY. MANY OF THE STRATEGIES TO MITIGATE THE HEAT ISLAND AFFECT INCLUDE – YOU GUESS IT - BIOPHILIC PRACTICES.
We have organisms out there that can cause cities naturally, and they're called plants and trees, you know, and they also absorb carbon and they, you know, absorb dust and they absorb noise and all this sort of things. They also moisturize the air with negative ions, which we know reduces viral spread, reduces depression and anxiety. So there are so many health benefits to including nature in cities. The list is very, very long and I think most people are not quite aware. But once they become aware of these connections, you know, I have never met a person who was not in favor of, you know, mitigating public health or supporting public health in that way.
The ultimate the ultimate goal would be to completely vegetate the city. So that means that every available horizontal service on the ground and on rooftops as well would be completely vegetated with native plants, you know, that support that generate food for somebody people, and also, of course, pollinators and native birds. And then in my opinion, we can't really solve the problems that we face in cities in terms of extreme heat, noise, pollution, air pollution without also vegetative or the facades of buildings. And there are a lot of systems that are available to do that so that we can change the air quality in some of these urban canyons, which are quite narrow relative to the height of the buildings. And the air flow is not happening there. It's stagnant air. So the pollution stays there. And we need to you know, we need to mitigate all that. And we don't have enough surface on the ground to do that with plants.
So we need to use rooftops, we need to use the vertical surfaces. And there are a lot of buildings like that already in place that have been built. And they're always incredibly popular.
MEREDITH: IN PHILADELPHIA YOU CAN SEE AN EXAMPLE OF HOW GREEN ROOFS CAN BE USED – IN FACT, NOT ONLY CAN YOU SEE IT BUT YOU CAN GET A BEER AND ENJOY LIVE MUSIC ON IT. CIRA GARDENS IS A 30 THOUSAND SQUARE FOOT GREEN SPACE SITTING 11 STORIES UP ON TOP OF A PARKING GARAGE. IT HAS A BLUE GREEN ROOF DESIGN THAT BOTH WATER’S THE LANDSCAPING AND TREATS THE WATER BEFORE RELEASING IT INTO THE SEWAR SYSTEM. BUT THOSE AREN’T THE ONLY BENEFITS OF PROJECTS LIKE THESE.
And what they also do these kind of buildings is they generate community among residents because you are now having that, you know, upfront and close in front of your window on your balcony experience of birds and butterflies. And we know that it alleviates a sense of loneliness and isolation, which is what a lot of the populations experience. So we have these innate affinities and we have overvalued this kind of misguided notion of efficiency. Like how many thousands of people can I stuffed into a concrete box?
You know, that was that was the outdated notion of efficiency when we now know that if these people are all depressed and anxious, well, this is clearly not an efficient place. You know, this is not an efficient office building where nobody wants to come to work or isn't productive or, you know, loves their job. They're not going to be very creative and productive people.
MEREDITH: WE KNOW THAT MORE NATURE IN OUR CITIES IS GOOD FOR US. AND WE KNOW THAT WE CAN DESIGN BETTER IN THE FUTURE. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CITY THAT ALREADY EXISTS?
what what we're looking for in an urban environment is not have these isolated islands of nature, but to create a contiguous was network. You know so everybody's yard so it'll all add up together. The research indicates that it's quality over quantity in terms of nature in cities, so really making an effort even in small spaces to plant native things, to plan for food, for not just humans, but, you know, birds and therefore poor pollinators, because birds rely on on insects for food and just bring back that whole that whole food chain and have create these little urban oasis, this biodiverse oasis that can be quite small but very, very vibrant in that way.
MEREDITH: PENNSYLVANIA IS HOME TO 437 BEE SPECIES, 156 DIFFERENT SPECIES OF BUTTERFLY, OVER 300 BIRD SPECIES – AND THAT DOESN’T INCLUDE ALL THOSE BIRDS PASSING THROUGH ON MIGRATION UP AND DOWN THE ATLANTIC FLYWAY. ONE OF THE BEST THINGS WE CAN DO TO SUPPORT THESE BIRDS AND INSECTS IS TO GROW NATIVE PLANTS. IT PROVIDES FOOD FOR ADULTS AND THEIR YOUNG AS WELL AS PLACES TO NEST AND HIBERNATE. AND IT DOESN’T TAKE HUGE AREAS.
it's wonderful to have these large parks and they're very important, but we could do a lot more than that. You know, if everyone turns the yard into this little mini habitat space, we add them all together. We really have a lot of square footage, a lot of acreage, you know, after a while.
You know it’s like we have separation anxiety from nature because it’s our own animal nature that we’re split off from in many ways. We kind of marched along with this idea that the mind is more important than the body which is not real. Cognitive neuroscience has informed us that this is completely false.
What we know to be true anyway is actually our mind exists or operates courtesy of our bodies. So there’s a connecting between our distancing from nature and this separation anxiety. Reconnecting with nature means reconnecting with our own nature. And that brings us back home, if you will.
MEREDITH: THAT WAS HELENA VAN VLIET WITH BIOPHILLY. IF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BIOPHILLY’S WORK THEY HAVE AN ANNUAL CONFERENCE IN MAY. YOU CAN FIND OUT MORE INFORMATION ON THEIR WEBSITE BIOPHILLY.ORG.
I HOPE YOU FOUND SOME PURPOSE AND INSPIRATION ABOUT WHY CREATING GREEN SPACES IN OUR CITY IS NOT ONLY GOOD FOR YOU AND THE ENVIRONMENT BUT FOR YOUR NEIGHBORS. THE PLANTS YOU GROW ARE AT LEAST PARTIALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR IMPROVING THE HEALTH OF FOLKS PASSING BY. AND YOU SHOULD FEEL PROUD OF THAT.
PUBLIC GARDENING IS TRULY A SERVICE TO YOUR COMMUNITY.
SO, ON THIS SEASON OF GRITTY AND GREEN WE’LL BE DIVING INTO HOW TO START YOUR GARDEN FROM SEEDS, WHY WE NEED STREET TREES, HOW AN ORGANIZATION IS SAVING COMMUNITY GARDENS, THE THERAPY OF KEEPING BEES, THE IMPORTANCE OF COMPOST, AND ANSWERING LISTENER QUESTIONS FROM YOU.
NOW, LET’S ALL DO SOMETHING FOR OUR HEALTH AND WELL BEING – HOP OUTSIDE AND LISTEN TO THE BIRDS SINGING OUTSIDE. OR IF YOU CAN’T DO THAT – CLOSE YOUR EYES. I’VE GOT YOU COVERED.
Nat Sound: Bird Song Starts
[whispered]
GRITTY AND GREEN WAS PRODUCED BY COOL GOON PRODUCTIONS. IT WAS WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY MEREDITH NUTTING. THEME MUSIC BY KAZUYA.
Nat Sound: Bird Song Continues