in endangered species “hotspot” regions that are also home to fast-growing urban areas) and by serving as refuge for wildlife (Goddard, Dougill and Benton 2010; Derby Lewis et al. 2019). Multispecies inclusion demands more “caring capacity” from city residents, businesses and institutions, and ways to “hear” and recognize multispecies voices. It also prompts cities to develop multispecies plans as part of their regular urban planning and policymaking process, as well as ways of explicitly considering the needs of plants, animals and biodiversity, alongside people (Apfelbeck et al. 2020; Xie and Bulkeley 2020).
Multispecies cities accept responsibility for restoring ecosystems (both near and far) damaged by their extraction and use of energy, materials and natural resources. They plan for added risks of potential zoonoses from urbanization and biodiversity loss and consider the implications of environmental degradation and climate change for biodiversity and the different species that are currently resident or expected to arrive as climate migrants (Steele, Mata and Fünfgeld 2015). Examples of pioneers of such a multispecies approach include Ecuador and Bolivia, whose constitutions enshrine the rights of nature, as well as Mexico City, whose constitution respects the rights of companion animals. While these provisions have yet to be fully implemented in practice, they are laudable first steps in a desirable direction. Smaller-scale but even more noteworthy examples are Curridabat, Costa Rica and Baseline, a new planned community in Colorado (United States). Curridabat’s innovative “Sweet City” urban plan highlights the critical role of pollinators, which are recognized as official citizens of the city alongside their plants and trees (Greenfield 2020; Kitchen 2020); Baseline’s private sector developer, working with entomologists and horticulturalists, has established a ‘pollinator district’ that links land use regulations to pollinator needs. Other cases that recognize pollinators’ value are Oslo, London, and Mexico City, which have placed “insect hotels” in different locations associated with landscape and green area design and management.
This dimension of the vision has three major areas for action:
a. Inclusive urban planning The first is inclusive urban planning, which entails infrastructure improvements to protect everyone and planned relocations of specific neighbourhoods, implemented via inclusive processes that empower and provide adequate resources to the most vulnerable people (Deakin 2012; Bush and Doyon 2019), in contrast to recent relocation examples that have harmed the poorest people (Ajibade and McBean 2014).
As a transitional measure, cities should create or update existing urban plans, since planning itself is often not undertaken or out of date. This leaves many decisions to be framed by the private sector and shaped by market and financialization dynamics (Shatkin 2008). Plans should include pre-planning analyses of climate vulnerability and urban biodiversity (including domestic, companion and feral animals and plants, particularly those with conservation and cultural value). They should comprise as well inclusive
80 GEO for Cities
planning and urban design processes, informed by data and resident science programmes that gather situated knowledge, guided by equity planning principles and environmental justice goals that draw on users (including women and children, and the elderly). An inclusive planning process design recognizes that social learning is two-way and becomes embedded in permanent “double loop” learning processes (Grönholm 2020). For example, people living in poverty in informal settlements or refugee camps may need to learn about planning to be effective participants and may need legal support to hold government authorities and developers to account. However, both planning practitioners and more affluent residents can learn from residents of informal settlements and other marginalized groups when it comes to reuse, repair, recycling, the efficient use of material resources and developing flexibility to adapt or serve precarious residential populations.
b Equitable distribution of climate investments The second area is equitable climate investment plans that follow climate finance guidelines (Carty, Kowalzig and Zagema 2020; Patel et al. 2020) and prioritize physical and social infrastructure to protect low-income neighbourhoods, including informal settlements. Retrofitting infrastructure – the majority of infrastructure spending in the United States (Kane and Tomer 2019) – to emphasize climate resilience could also ensure equitable distribution through revising the distribution of infrastructure benefits and using investment to correct long-standing injustices. For example, infrastructure plans to address the lack of access to adequate drinking water and sanitation services can reduce water pollution and waterborne diseases while respecting the diverse neighbourhood social fabric and enforcing human rights to water, sanitation and a healthy environment.
Equitable social infrastructure distribution efforts may include risk alert programmes, outreach, service delivery, and emergency rescue and support programmes for the elderly and people with disabilities, health or mobility challenges. At the same time, anti-displacement programmes restrict unfettered land markets that can catalyse gentrification and the displacement of poor people (especially residents of informal settlements). This phenomenon may occur as insurance pricing begins to account for risk more accurately, making riskier neighbourhoods like low-lying areas, which are typically occupied by poor people, unaffordable, or as physical infrastructure improvements are made reduce the risk of neighbourhoods. This is particularly important with the addition of green infrastructure that is meant to protect against extreme events such as flooding. Studies of cities in the Global South indicate that the distribution of urban green cover may favour peripheral lower-income communities in some geographic locations (Spescha 2020). Other research reveals higher-income neighbourhoods have a propensity to be closer to green space (Fernández-Álvarez 2017), while some cities display a more mixed pattern (Ruiz-Luna 2019). In the Global North, green cover is often correlated with socioeconomic status (Schwarz et al. 2015), except in depopulating cities where low-income neighbourhoods are associated
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