All residents should have “rights to the city” (Lefebvre 1968), including (a) rights to public data and information, participation in decision-making, and justice in the distribution of public services (for example, principle 10 of the Rio Declaration); (b) the right to participate in shaping urban resilience plans, strategies and projects (Friend and Moench 2015); and, more broadly, (c) the additional right to help shape urban space and community life. These rights can also be creatively extended beyond human residents to encompass the countless other species that live in cities, either because they have always lived among people or because they are increasingly pushed into urbanized areas as climate and environmental change impact their habitats and homes ranges (Urbanik and Johnston eds. 2017).


This dimension seeks to shake up conventional ways of thinking and catalyse new ideas, taking into account the fact that humanity’s future is so closely bound up with that of animals and wildlands that support biodiversity. It proposes a more inclusive vision based on the concept of the multispecies city (Wolch 1998; Houston et al. 2017; Parris et al. 2018; Kirbis 2020; Shingne 2020; Oke et al. 2021). Such an approach encompasses the idea of a city that respects nature and protects and restores the diversity of both animals and plants. However, it goes further by recognizing the importance of sentient animals, requiring moral consideration in discussions of inclusion. It also involves choices on urban form, land use and property, since these may lead to habitat fragmentation and can impact urban greening strategies and other multispecies urbanism interventions (Cooke Landau-Ward and Rickards 2019). Plants and animals are harmed by human-focused urban systems and lifestyles. Yet they are critical to a healthy trophic structure, nutrient cycling, soil health and other essential ecosystem services for people, including the happiness and joy of seeing wild nature in the city.


For some, this will constitute a challenging thought experiment, since some non-human species can be disease vectors that threaten human health (for example, mosquitos infected with malaria or the zika virus).6 This has led to scientific recommendations to close wet markets, reduce the illegal hunting and trapping of wildlife and focus on their conservation rather than their persecution (Turcios-Casco and Gatti 2020). Humans can also pose health threats to animals (for example, roadkill). Yet multispecies cities are unavoidable, and the proposals of this dimension are essential for planning a nature- positive, multispecies city.


Start by considering a city whose human residents enjoy equitable access to basic needs and livelihoods that can support individuals and families, regardless of social or spatial differences. Such cities ensure enough nutrition, housing, education, health care and life chances for all residents and their children, protecting them (as well as


6 In the case of COVID-19, one of the plausible hypotheses for the origin of the virus is that bats infected with coronavirus infected pangolins that are hunted by humans and sold in wet markets for human consumption. Yet, there are four main hypotheses for how COVID-19 emerged: (1) zoonotic direct transmission; (2) introduction through intermediate hosts followed by zoonotic transmission; (3) emergence through the cold/food chain; and (4) a leak from a laboratory (WHO 2021).


flora, fauna and other forms of life) from disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards and harm. Such cities also seek to ensure fair access to the natural resources needed to support human and non-human everyday life. These resources include clean air, water, soils, ecosystem services provided by native plants, local and regional habitats, urban parks and forests, and the freedom to safely experience and explore the natural world. Many of these resources are not distributed equitably (Baró et al. 2021).


This dimension also presents a city with inclusive urban governance, taxation and spending programmes where all residents use their freedom and rights to engage and organize for institutional change to improve their lives and change policies or practices they perceive as unjust. Inclusive governance and public finance may mean redrawing administrative and jurisdictional boundaries, creating multijurisdictional cooperative agreements and empowering regional governance bodies to set and enforce targets. Such an approach could help to overcome fragmented metropolitan regions, characterized by stark divisions between rich and poor municipalities, which lack effective regional oversight or coordination to counterbalance local control. This fragmentation also limits possibilities for regional resource sharing and redistribution. Changes at higher levels of government may be required to minimize counterproductive inter-metropolitan competition, legitimize and empower local authorities, and ensure that these entities have financial and regulatory capacities. Regional institutions themselves should be inclusive and transparent, helping build social learning networks, explicit empowerment strategies and multilevel collaboration (Gómez-Álvarez et al. 2017).


Imagine inclusive cities that recognize that people living in poverty are typically at higher risk than people with higher levels of income and wealth because factors such as where they live in the city and their housing status (lack of affordability, precarity, informality) and less affluent or powerful social networks and institutional access. Low- income populations are less able to recover, improve their conditions and reduce their vulnerability to climate change (Satterthwaite et al. 2020). This recognition paves the way for intersectional climate mitigation and adaptation plans that explicitly prioritize the protection of the most vulnerable groups of residents (including people who live in slums, women, the elderly, children and people with disabilities). Policies should also include social provisions at the national level, ensuring aspects such as affordable housing, income transfers and urban infrastructure remediation, all designed to address the causes of vulnerability.


Lastly, picture a city that recognizes and values its multispecies character, the non-human world of the wild, companion and farmed, including many species that provide crucial ecosystem services for people and non-human nature; a city where “those who control and plan cities [...] consider the more-than-human” (Parris et al. 2018), acknowledging the intrinsic value of nature and the respect it demands. A multispecies perspective allows cities to play a major role in protecting planetary biodiversity (especially


Cities that Work for People and Planet 79


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