Speaker 1: On this episode of Parts Pervilion, we introduce a new
Speaker 1: vocab word for you, biophilia. Yes it's a word, and
Speaker 1: yes we'll explain what that means. Paudy and welcome once
Speaker 1: again to Hearts Pavilion, the podcast from Bloomberg Environment. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, David Schultz. If you live in a big city,
Speaker 1: you might be familiar with this feeling. You're walking down
Speaker 1: the street one day and all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: notice everything around you was built by someone at some point.
Speaker 1: Nothing around here can be described as quote unquote natural.
Speaker 1: The grass, the trees, the flowers, maybe even the animals
Speaker 1: that were all placed there by humans. It kind of
Speaker 1: makes you long for an area of pristine, untouched nature.
Speaker 1: Sure you could drive an hour or two and go
Speaker 1: to a national park, but who has time for that.
Speaker 1: That's where biophilia comes in. There's a movement within the
Speaker 1: urban planning world to create pockets of little natural areas
Speaker 1: within cities, and not only has environmental benefits, but apparently
Speaker 1: it can be good for your health. Who knew? Bloomberg Environments.
Speaker 1: Adam Allington recently did a story on one biophilic landscape,
Speaker 1: in particular Washington, DC's Kingman Island. The city recently decided
Speaker 1: to make this island basically a nature refuge right in
Speaker 1: the middle of the city. I wanted to find out
Speaker 1: more about this, so I dragged Adam down there to
Speaker 1: explain to me what exactly this is. Adam, thank you
Speaker 1: for joining me. Here. We are on Kingman Island. We're
Speaker 1: in the middle of the Anacostia River in DC, and
Speaker 1: we're in kind of a nature preserve. There's just not
Speaker 1: really much going on here except for grass and trees
Speaker 1: and sort of a lot of mud. What's so special
Speaker 1: about this place? Well, Kingman is a bit of an
Speaker 1: oddity in terms of Washington d C. It's in a river,
Speaker 1: the Anacostia, which you know, a lot of people unless
Speaker 1: you live here, you think of DC, you probably think
Speaker 1: of the Potomac River, which is much bigger. The Anacostia
Speaker 1: is a smaller tidal river on the east side of
Speaker 1: the district. And Kingman Island was actually built by the
Speaker 1: Army Corps of Engineers in nineteen sixteen as part of
Speaker 1: a dredging project. And this was all of the dredge
Speaker 1: and the silt and everything that they built up over time.
Speaker 1: So this is a man made island. This is a
Speaker 1: man made island. Everything you see on this island today
Speaker 1: was just dropped here by flying birds and seeds and
Speaker 1: grew naturally. So it wasn't part of any real development project,
Speaker 1: per se. So and we should mention, you know, we're
Speaker 1: in the middle of the Anacostia River. The river cuts
Speaker 1: right through the city, so we are even though we're
Speaker 1: on a nature preserve, and there's you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of very lush and verdant. I guess it would be
Speaker 1: if we're a different time of year. You know, we're
Speaker 1: in the middle of the city. You might overhear a
Speaker 1: helicopter overhead, or there's actually a subway station that goes
Speaker 1: right next here. So this is a nature preserve right
Speaker 1: in the middle of the city. And I gotta say,
Speaker 1: having lived here for a long time, you know, I
Speaker 1: know that DC real estate market is kind of insane.
Speaker 1: It's pretty overheated, real estate costs are very high. How
Speaker 1: were they able to take this plot of land right
Speaker 1: in the middle of the city, I imagine is pretty
Speaker 1: valuable and just do absolutely nothing with it. That's a
Speaker 1: good question. There have been plans proposed for Kingman over
Speaker 1: the years, At one point there was talk of putting
Speaker 1: an amusement park out here. At another point that we're
Speaker 1: going to turn it into parking for Robert F. Kennedy
Speaker 1: Stadium just across the River's where the Washington football team
Speaker 1: used to play, we should say, exactly. And so, for
Speaker 1: one reason or another, none of those projects came to fruition.
Speaker 1: It's also in a part of town that is, you know,
Speaker 1: while it is right in the district itself, it's not
Speaker 1: you know, where most people in the district go. So
Speaker 1: it's a bit out of the way, and they just
Speaker 1: never really got it together to develop this island. And
Speaker 1: because of that, now they have forty six acres of
Speaker 1: nature that they can really use in a different way
Speaker 1: than they would have maybe in decades past. Oh but
Speaker 1: here comes the subway. There it goes. So you wrote
Speaker 1: a really fascinating story where you said that the DC
Speaker 1: local government wanted to create this place in the name
Speaker 1: of biophilia. First off, what exactly is that bio That's
Speaker 1: a word that I'm not really familiar with. What is biophilia.
Speaker 1: Biophilia is a term that was kind of coined in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties. It literally means you know Latin for
Speaker 1: love of life. It's this idea that humans are hardwired
Speaker 1: to need connection to nature and that the more nature
Speaker 1: you can inject into their daily lives, the happier they'll be.
Speaker 1: And that means you know, not just like say going
Speaker 1: to a state park every other month on the weekend.
Speaker 1: It means nature in your office, nature on your way
Speaker 1: to work, nature in your home, nature in the inner city. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Actually like building nature into buildings using natural building products,
Speaker 1: natural light, gardens, you know those all of those things
Speaker 1: are part of this sort of new trend in development
Speaker 1: where you can actually attach an economic value to nature.
Speaker 1: So it's not just having a city that's really urbanized
Speaker 1: and then you know a park on the outskirts are
Speaker 1: out side of a city where people go. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: you know, mixing the two and creating no barriers between
Speaker 1: the urban environment and the so called natural environment. But
Speaker 1: you mentioned that this is you know, can create some
Speaker 1: economic benefits. Can you really put a dollar amount on this?
Speaker 1: People have tried. I mean, there are there's been studies
Speaker 1: of hotels in the Philippines that have you know, Philippines
Speaker 1: are really into biophilia and you know, forest bathing in
Speaker 1: Japan is this trend where for a forest bathing, forest bathing,
Speaker 1: Google it. It's a thing. There's this network of cities
Speaker 1: called the biophilic Cities network, of which DC is a part,
Speaker 1: where people really have these plans to develop their cities
Speaker 1: as living, breathing ecosystems for the people who live there,
Speaker 1: but also for animals and habitat. Kingman is this opportunity
Speaker 1: to preserve habitat for animals, but also to kind of
Speaker 1: form this catalyst for development of the whole east side
Speaker 1: of the district. So it's kind of a win win,
Speaker 1: I guess for the ecosystem and also for the people
Speaker 1: who live in the city. They get the benefit of
Speaker 1: this natural area where they can go and sort of
Speaker 1: reconnect with nature. I guess yeah. I mean it's not
Speaker 1: often you have forty six acres right smack deb in
Speaker 1: the middle of a city to do something with. And
Speaker 1: I think it's part of a new new way of
Speaker 1: thinking that Okay, we're not just going to let the
Speaker 1: developers take this, We're going to preserve it as a
Speaker 1: natural habitat, and that in itself will be the development
Speaker 1: draw that will bring people to this island and connect
Speaker 1: the neighborhoods and provide this place where people will want
Speaker 1: to be closer to Kingmen. They'll want to put their
Speaker 1: businesses over here. Home values will increase at some point, hopefully,
Speaker 1: and that nature is the is the defining asset here
Speaker 1: to draw on. Well, you mentioned, you know, home values increasing.
Speaker 1: Since we're in DC, we have to sort of bring
Speaker 1: up the G word gentrification. This is something that per
Speaker 1: meates almost every discussion of sort of you know, local
Speaker 1: land use and how we use public spaces in DC.
Speaker 1: If we create you know, places like this like Kingman
Speaker 1: Island that are sort of biophilic and where people like
Speaker 1: to go, and they do end up raising home prices,
Speaker 1: how do we know that the benefits of that will
Speaker 1: just sort of accrue all to sort of rich people
Speaker 1: and sort of landowners who already live here, and that
Speaker 1: it'll make it'll price out people who are low income
Speaker 1: residents who are renting. That's a great question, and I
Speaker 1: think it's something that a lot of people are talking about.
Speaker 1: You do run the risk in some areas, in some
Speaker 1: cases of creating something that can get away from you
Speaker 1: a little bit. And I look at the High Line
Speaker 1: project in New York City. They you know, converted from
Speaker 1: an old elevated railway and now it gets something, you know,
Speaker 1: like five million visitors a year, and the properties around
Speaker 1: the high line I can attest are just astronomically expensive,
Speaker 1: exactly that, and it's changed the whole character of the
Speaker 1: neighborhood and people that are you know, have been pressed
Speaker 1: out of it. And so that's a concern in the
Speaker 1: case of Kingmen here, you know, it's an island in
Speaker 1: the middle of a river, and the plans for Kingmen
Speaker 1: from the city are you know, relatively modest. Four and
Speaker 1: a half million dollars for improvements to the paths and
Speaker 1: you know, adding some outdoor classrooms and things like bathrooms.
Speaker 1: This isn't going to be like a big riverfront development
Speaker 1: project that's going to you know, completely alter the character
Speaker 1: of this area. It's just going to be this island
Speaker 1: in the middle of the river that people will hopefully
Speaker 1: discover and start coming to more. Yeah. That was actually
Speaker 1: one of the things that really caught my eye about
Speaker 1: your story was that it seemed like, unlike with other
Speaker 1: ideas for creating parks in the middle of an urban area,
Speaker 1: there won't really be a lot of amenities here, like
Speaker 1: there won't be a dog park or tennis courts or
Speaker 1: anything like that. This is just going to be what
Speaker 1: it is now. Like you know, there might be some
Speaker 1: you know, bathrooms and stuff, but other than that, like
Speaker 1: this is it. So it seems like that's what really
Speaker 1: distinguishes this from other kind of urban green spaces across
Speaker 1: the country. Right, And it's also right in the middle
Speaker 1: of the river, and the Anacostia River is a big
Speaker 1: flyway migration path for for migrating birds. The southern part
Speaker 1: of the island is going to be preserved as a
Speaker 1: critical Nature area, so you won't be able to bring say,
Speaker 1: your dogs down there, your pets. It's just going to
Speaker 1: be for these kind of endangered species that they're trying
Speaker 1: to bring back, bald eagles, river otters, beavers, things like
Speaker 1: that that you often don't associate with life in the
Speaker 1: big city. But Kingmen Is is really critical as cities
Speaker 1: try to stitch together ecosystems that can benefit humans but
Speaker 1: also animals too. White bald eagles in the nation's capital.
Speaker 1: That would be something to see if that actually does
Speaker 1: end up happening. Yeah, definitely, you know you can. You can.
Speaker 1: The tweets right themselves you know all right, Well, that
Speaker 1: was Adam Allington here on Kingman Island in the Anacostia River.
Speaker 1: For more of his reporting onious various subjects, go to
Speaker 1: our website at BNA News dot BNA dot com. This
Speaker 1: week's episode of Parts Rebellion was produced by my myself
Speaker 1: with hell from Jessica Coombs and Rachel Daegel. The music
Speaker 1: for Parts Pavilion is a message by Jizarre. It was
Speaker 1: used as a Creative Commons license. You can find out
Speaker 1: more at betterwith music dot com. Thanks for being here, Adam,
Speaker 1: Thank you. That's the Orange Line. That's my train right there.
Speaker 1: That's the train you take. That is