Biophilic Institutions and Governance: Biophilic Urbanism Initiatives (BUI) Fostering Green Urban Features in Emerging and Developing Cities

One of the goals promoted by the ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,’ is tomake cities more inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable, while responding to thechallenges that cities face today, including the increase of urban temperature becauseof climate change effects, and the deficit of urban green spaces. Green urbanismseeks to achieve more sustainable cities in terms of the creation of more sustainableplaces, communities, and lifestyles, besides its compactness, energy - efficiency,zero emissions, and waste production. The approach arises as a solution to addresssome of these challenges through seven features expressed in emerging archetypalcities, being the ‘Biophilic City’ one of them. Biophilic cities are the materializationof the biophilic urbanism approach, which pursues the integration of nature in citiesby means of planning and design, to achieve more livable cities in terms of the wellbeing and health of their inhabitants, in addition to resilient urban environments. Thisresearch first compiled initiatives performed under the biophilic urbanism, definedhere as Biophilic Urbanism Initiatives (BUI), were the main differences in itsimplementation can be traced back to income differences between countries.Secondly, opportunities,as well as challenges for greening emerging and developingcities are depicted based on one of the five categories of indicators associated withbiophilic cities, ‘Biophilic institutions and governance.’ The indicators includedaims to describe the extent to which local governments are involved in encouraginggreen features and biophilic design. Finally, this research draws contributionsalready implemented by a group of Latin American cities located in Argentina,Chile, Colombia, and Perú. One of our main finding is that these initiatives have notyet been broadly implemented in emerging and developing countries, compared withthose with advanced economies, such as the United States, Germany, and Singapore,among others.