In the early 1900s author Ellen Burns Sherman is said to have penned what would become the rationale for biophilic cities more than 100 years later: “The more civilized man becomes, the more he needs and craves a great background of forest wildness, to which he may return like a contrite prodigal from the husks of an artificial life.”
We’ll forgive Sherman for her use of masculine pronouns, written at a time when cities weren’t as numerous as they are today. But we thank her for expressing humans’ innate need for nature, harkening back to our origins as hunters and gatherers.
